The Cage Keeper and Other Stories

by Andre Dubus III

  The tent was rolled tight and strapped high into the aluminum frame. His sleeping bag was tied at the bottom, beneath the pack, but inside was Rory’s big mistake: the food. He should have listened to Mick and Marie and gotten the light freeze-dried stuff, but he hadn’t. He went out and bought two family-sized cans of beans and franks, a loaf of Wonder Bread, a jar of mustard, some peanut butter, a box of oatmeal, a brick of american cheese, ten Almond Joy bars, a jar of instant coffee, a bottle of A-1 sauce, three wrapped frozen steaks, and one aluminum cooking pot. Then, early this morning, after driving down to the Merrimack Police Station to piss in a jar for the desk sergeant, he went back to the Welches and filled his double-sized flask with half a fifth of Jack Daniel’s. He knew the JD was a Monday morning risk, that traces of it would stay in his blood, but so what? he’d thought. What can they do now they haven’t already done? He’d dropped the flask into the pack along with two sixteen-ounce Coors, then he drove to his old trailer and picked up the kids.

  This pack, shit. Every time Rory stepped downward the tent nudged the back of his head and he felt like he was going to fall on his face. When the trail rose and he had to climb, the bottom rung of the frame pushed into his butt and he would have to bend forward to ease it up. Seven miles. He felt pretty dumb about that. Mick had told him it was a fin and not too steep. He was right about the second part. The trail wasn’t climbing or falling really. It seemed to be going along the spine of a ridge. Whenever there was a break in the trees they could see a shallow valley to their left, and a deeper, wider one to the right. It was padded green with Canada hemlocks and an occasional birch. After the first half hour of walking, the trail became smooth slabs of granite and April slipped and fell forward on her hands and knees. Rory noticed her shoes. She wasn’t wearing shit-kicker boots with deep treads like her brother. She had pink sneakers on her feet with smooth green soles. He caught up to her and started to squat down but she picked up the bag of marshmallows, smiled at him, and was walking again before he could straighten up under his pack. She followed Vinnie who disappeared as the trail dipped and went into a thicket of white cedars.

  Rory was breathing hard and the pack’s straps were digging into his shoulder muscles. Fucking Alene. She can’t tell the little girl she’s got to wear her boots? Jesus. His eyes began to burn. He pulled his bandana from his leather jacket pocket and wiped his forehead. The jacket was too much. When they stopped for a break, he was going to take it off and tie it into the pack somehow. He followed the trail into the trees. It went to the right and climbed again. The air was cooler here and the sun came through in patches. There were granite chunks in the hill that Rory used as steps all the way to the top. He expected to see the kids then but he didn’t. The path dropped again and was very rocky. He started down and grabbed the trees beside the trail to balance himself. He was stepping down and over the rocks very quickly and when the ground leveled and the thicket became a clearing, he was walking as fast as he could under the pack’s weight. Then he saw them. Down off the trail to the right, they were both standing on a flat rock looking out at Crawford Notch.

  “Hey.” He was breathing so hard he didn’t know if he’d just said something or not. He started to lean over to rest his hands on his knees but the pack was too heavy. He straightened, slipped it off his shoulders, and set it down in the middle of the trail. A wind was blowing south from the ridge across the valley. It dried the sweat on his face and blew easily through his beard. He thought how the kids should be wearing their sweaters. He started for the rock but stopped at the edge of the trail. When would he see them like this again? They were both standing perfectly still. Vinnie stood close to the edge while April stayed back a few feet. Rory didn’t know if they were staring out at the earth or the sky. The earth was something. The Crotch, Mick’d called it. More beautiful than any woman’s you ever been in. But it was more than that, Rory thought as he gazed past April and Vinnie at Crawford Notch, where the ridge across the valley and the ridge they were on come together. Land joining land. From a plane it must look like a big green horseshoe. And where the ridges meet, the valley looked to be at its deepest point. That’s where the camp was supposed to be, nestled in a basin of paper birches.

  April pointed to the sky above the Notch. There was a towering wall of white clouds that dissipated and curved over the top like a wave. Rory opened the pack, took out three candy bars, and walked down to the flat rock.

  “Daddy look, isn’t the sky beautiful?”

  “Yeah, it is.”

  Vinnie glanced at Rory. His eyes were watery from the wind.

  “Spare some water?”

  Vinnie handed over the canteen. It held a quart of liquid and had a blue nylon cover with a long adjustable strap.

  “This new?”

  Vinnie nodded.

  “Dougie gave it to him. He bought us flashlights too.”

  Rory let that one sink in a second, then he concentrated on holding the canteen for April to drink from. He didn’t care how many toys “Dougie” had bought the kids; he wasn’t along on this trip. Out here, Doug Cohen did not exist.

  When April finished, Rory drank. Then he looked at Vinnie looking out at the valley. He reached into his jacket pocket for one of the candy bars. “Catch.”

  Rory tossed it just as Vinnie turned around. It glanced off the boy’s shoulder, hit the rock, then slid down it and off.

  “Oops.”

  “That’s pollution, you know.”

  “Sorry, man. My fault.” Rory gave April an Almond Joy then stood and held the third one out to Vinnie.

  “Don’t want it.”

  “Give you energy. We got a ways to go.”

  “You eat it, Daddy. It’s good.”

  Rory squatted next to April. She was sitting down cross-legged and one of her blond braids was resting on the sleeping bag at her back.

  “That too tight?”

  She shook her head as she chewed.

  “How long are we gonna stay here?”

  “Relax, buddy. We’re taking a short rest.”

  Vinnie put down his rolled sleeping bag and sat on it. Rory swallowed chocolate and coconut and watched the boy, wondered where things’d gone wrong with him. He was fine until they got to the mountains. He seemed to be okay when they stopped to eat even. Maybe it was the kid’s balls, he thought. Thirteen years old. Maybe his hormones are already starting the Yo-Yo Jitterbug, the Everything’s Fine–Everything Sucks Blues. Or maybe it was this weekend.

  “Dad. Do you think heaven looks like that cloud?”

  “I don’t know, sweets.”

  “Somebody knows.” Vinnie was looking down at his feet when he said it.

  “’Scuse me, Vin. What’d you say?”

  “Nothin’.”

  “No. You said something, now what was it?”

  Vinnie’s eyes were still wet. He looked like he was about to shout something, but then he glanced back down at his feet. “I said somebody knows, that’s all.”

  “Knows what?”

  “What heaven looks like.”

  “He means God, Dad.”

  “Yeah, God.” Vinnie got up and walked past them to the trail.

  Rory took a breath and let it out. He knew what Vinnie was talking about. April did too. But he wouldn’t talk about it now. Not like this. “Before you go off, you take your sister’s sweater out of that pack and give it to her.”

  “I’m not cold, Dad.”

  “You will be, hon. Trust me.”

  THE REST OF THE HIKE was downhill into the valley and the kids were taking it fast, but Rory went slow. He had tied his motorcycle jacket across the top of Vinnie’s pack and for a while he kept his eyes on that; watching his leather jerk and sway as Vinnie scurried down the trail seemed to help. It set the beat in his head. He didn’t think so much about how shaky hot and gorged with blood his thigh muscles felt, how they seemed to be working on their own now and that if the trail leveled or climbed again, his legs would keep walking even if h
e didn’t want them to. Then he couldn’t see Vinnie anymore. He was moving too fast. Now it was April he watched, her blond pigtails bobbing along. Her sleeping bag was still tied snug against her and she carried the bag of marshmallows in her left hand.

  This was a good hike. It felt to Rory like roofing does when you really get into the groove, when you’ve tacked all your plywood sheets into place on the rafters and it’s nailing time. The sun’s out but not too hot. There’s a bandana around your head for the sweat. You’re working alone, but in your right hand is your long-handled framing hammer, and hanging at your waist is an apron full of nails. You grab six or seven galvanized then start from the ridge and work down. At first you drive them in four swings, then three. When you’re cooking, it’s bap-bap, the nail’s buried in two. It’s not finish work, but still, you’re not leaving any hammer moons on the wood. And the fingers of your left hand are magic. They’re setting up the next nail while you’re still pounding the one before it, so you never stop, you never even pause. You finish nailing the eleventh sheet of plywood, straighten, drop your hammer into its belt hook, then take one breath, maybe two before you climb over the ridge and start the other side.

  Alene used to like all that, Rory was sure. When he’d built that bedroom addition for her uncle, she said she got juiced just watching Rory sweat and swing his hammer like it was a part of his body, his thoughts even. The last day of the job, when he had to finish painting the clapboard siding, she’d helped him. It was cool and cloudy and Rory had worried about rain. But she showed up at ten that morning with two coffees and three honey-dipped doughnuts. She had her blond hair tied up in a scarf. She wore paint-splattered work boots, jeans ripped at both knees, and a blue sleeveless workshirt that she’d tied off at the waist. Through the shirt holes beneath her armpits, Rory could see the pale outward curve of her breasts. He hooked his finger inside, pulled the shirt back, and kissed her nipple until she pushed him away laughing.

  They were done by three. She went in to wash up and leave her uncle a note, then they got on Rory’s Harley and cruised the wind to The Hideaway Lounge. There were only a couple customers at the bar, two sheetrockers Rory didn’t know. He ordered two cold Buds from skinny Pete then carried them back to the table between the jukebox and the dartboard. Alene’d punched in some songs already, slow ones they could hold each other to: Patsy Cline, Stevie Nicks, some old Springsteen. They were pressing close together and Bruce was singing “Jersey Girl” when Rory said it; he leaned back, lifted her chin with two fingers, and looked into her face. “Let’s just do it, Alene.”

  “Here, Rore? They’ll all watch us.”

  He shook his head once. “Your kids need a daddy. And Lord knows I sure’s shit need you.”

  She stopped smiling, and in the midafternoon dark of the barroom her eyes seemed to get more round. Her eyes began to well up. Then she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him, her tongue darting around inside his mouth like she was looking for what part of him to thank for all this.

  They didn’t finish their beers. They rode home just as it started to rain. When they got to Rory’s trailer, the rain was really whipping down but he didn’t cover his Harley. He unlocked the door for Alene and when he stepped in after her, she already had her workshirt off. She moved to him and pulled his T-shirt over his head and arms. They kissed, then pulled away from each other to untie and pull off their boots. When she unsnapped his jeans and he unzipped hers, they were both laughing. She stood naked in front of him, her hair dripping. She stopped smiling and her eyes got that round look again. She stepped closer and wrapped her arms around his neck. He put his hands beneath her butt and lifted her to him. The rain was coming down so hard on the tin roof of the trailer, it was all they could hear.

  The trail was rockier than ever, but Rory was walking fast enough to stay ten or fifteen feet behind April, twenty or thirty behind her brother. They were on flat ground now and were moving toward the foot of Crawford Notch. The air was cool, in the high fifties, Rory figured. He thought he should be wearing his jacket to keep from getting a chill. He thought about Vinnie not wearing his sweater, just an Iron Maiden T-shirt that he didn’t have tucked in. He wished again April had worn boots and heavy socks.

  Then they were in it, the thickest birch grove Rory’d ever seen. On both sides of the trail, as deep as he could see, were white trees. Some were still beginning to sprout buds but most were leafed out already. The trail was smooth here, and along its sides were wide green ferns. Up ahead, April stopped and waited for him. Rory dug his thumbs in between his shoulders and the pack’s straps and walked faster. When he was close to her, she was smiling, pointing into the birches.

  “I saw a movie in school? About a cave that elephants go to to die, or that their elephant friends drag them to? It looked just like that, Dad. Like a forest of bones.”

  “But it’s pretty, isn’t it?”

  April nodded. Back at the flat rock her cheeks had been flushed, but now they looked strangely pale. He put his palm to her forehead.

  “You’re too dry. You all right?”

  “I’m thirsty.”

  “Course you are. We’ve been walking hard.” Rory looked past her down the trail and called out to Vinnie. The boy’s voice came back through the trees.

  “I’m here! There’s a stream too!”

  The Wild Birch Camp was a small dirt clearing in the trees. There was an empty iron garbage barrel chained to the trunk of a skinny hackberry. In front of the clearing was a dry bed of small rocks, then a stream that flowed back in the direction from which they’d come. The water was flowing fast, foaming and spilling over granite boulders. It was loud and Rory was surprised he hadn’t heard it back on the trail. He watched Vinnie get down on his hands and knees and drink. On the other side was the steep rise of Crawford Notch. The sun was already behind it. A huge shadow fell over the camp.

  “It’s like a giant wall, isn’t it Daddy?”

  “Absolutely.” Rory squatted and slipped off the pack. When he stood, his upper body went light, but his neck and shoulders felt like they were being pinched by a steel clamp. He untied April’s sleeping bag from her back. He picked up the canteen and held it for her while she drank. There was no sweat on her forehead or upper lip. None. That worried him. He wasn’t sure what it was called when that happened, but he knew it wasn’t good. He put his belt on and strapped the Puma knife and sheath to his side. When April lowered the canteen, he fastened the top button of her sweater.

  “I’m hot.”

  “Here. Sit on your sleeping bag and rest. Me and your brother are gonna set up camp.”

  The hike seemed to have helped Vinnie. He was walking around with more energy than Rory’d seen in him all day. It was like April’s and a part of Rory’s had gone into the boy. And he was taking orders well. When Rory asked him to pick up the loose twigs and rocks where they were going to make camp, he had the space cleared before Rory’d even untied the tent. He unrolled the yellow canvas so the doorway would face the water and the Notch. They started from the bottom and worked to the top. Vinnie threaded each of the five base poles through the canvas loops in the tent’s roof. While he was doing that, Rory worked the upper pole sections through to meet the lower ones. He had Vinnie hold them together while he screwed them in tight. There was a special clip that held all five poles together at the top center of the tent, but Rory didn’t see it anywhere. He checked the small outer pockets of the pack, then he laid it on its side and gently shook out the food. One of the family-sized cans of beans and franks rolled onto the Wonder Bread loaf and stayed there. April nudged it off with her foot. Rory smelled steak sauce, lots of it. Then he saw its brown smear all over the box of oatmeal. There was some on the peanut butter jar, a dab on one of the Coors beers, but most of it was inside the pack. “Damn.”

  “What’s the matter, Dad?”

  “Nothin’, sweetie. The steak sauce spilled, that’s all.”

  “Oh.”

  The empty A-1
bottle rolled out last. At least it wasn’t broken. Rory turned the pack upside down and shook it. No clip.

  “My arm’s getting tired over here.” Vinnie was leaning over the tent, holding all five poles together with two hands.

  “Want some water, Dad?”

  Rory shook his head, then glanced back at the canteen’s long adjustable strap. It hung over April’s wrist and touched her knee. He took the canteen from her, flicked open his knife, and cut off the strap.

  “Hey, that’s brand-new.”

  “Sorry, Vin. I didn’t think.” Rory stepped to the edge of the tent and worked the strap through the eye of all five poles, then he cinched it in tight and tied it off with a bolin knot. “You gotta be flexible when you build things, buddy. I’ll buy you a new canteen.”

  “What, in a year? No thanks.”

  “It looks like a yellow igloo, you guys.”

  “Hey Vin, don’t eat yellow snow.”

  Vinnie didn’t smile. He grabbed his pack and sleeping bag and crawled into the tent.

  Rory picked his motorcycle jacket up off the rocks and put it on. He pulled a bandana from one of the pockets, then he squatted and began to wipe the A-1 sauce from the Skippy jar. “I guess we’ll have to put peanut butter on our steaks tonight.”

  April didn’t laugh. He glanced up at her. She wasn’t even smiling. She had her palms clasped between her legs and was looking out at the stream. Rory touched her forehead and cheek. He grabbed her sleeping bag and took her hand.

  “I want you to lie down awhile, okay?”

  Inside the tent, Vinnie had his sleeping bag rolled out against the north wall. He was lying on his back with his hands clasped behind his head, looking up at the canvas ceiling.