Navigating Early

by Clare Vanderpool

  I was just getting ready to dig in my heels. We were heading back. And if Early wouldn’t go, then I’d head back without him. I hoped he wouldn’t call my bluff, though, because I didn’t know how I would find my way.

  I squared my shoulders, turned to face Early, even held up my hand to tell him to stop. Then we heard the dogs.

  They were a fair distance behind us, but we heard them, barking and bellowing after whatever they were tracking. I couldn’t be positive they were after us, but even Early sensed the need to pick up our pace.

  We veered to the right, and the barking followed us.

  “Early, I think those dogs are following our scent.”

  “Why would they do that? We don’t have any food left except the jelly beans.”

  “Maybe they’re not looking for food. Maybe they’re looking for us.”

  “Maybe they’re looking for the bear.”

  “Could be,” I said. Early had made it clear that we were looking for the Great Appalachian Bear. Maybe MacScott wanted to make sure we didn’t find it before him. Still, I couldn’t help thinking there was more to it than that. The barking was getting louder.

  “Either way, don’t you think we’d better cross that river?”

  “There’s no bridge. We’ll get wet. I don’t want to get wet,” said Early.

  “But if we cross the river, the dogs will lose our scent. Then we can find the bear first.” I didn’t really care who found the bear first, and I didn’t know what Early planned to do if he did find it, but this seemed to be enough to get Early moving.

  “Okay, but where can we cross? The river is moving fast. It could be dangerous.”

  “Dangerous?” I repeated. “That’s a funny word coming from someone who didn’t think twice about heading off into the woods in search of a seven-hundred-pound bear. Come on, it looks like the river narrows a bit up here, and there are some logs jammed out toward those rocks in the middle. Maybe we can work our way across there.”

  I could tell Early didn’t want to give in. But the dogs were getting louder, their bellowing and high-pitched yelping competing with the roaring of the river.

  “Early,” I shouted, “we need to cross!”

  “Let’s find a bridge. I don’t want to get wet.”

  Just then, the dark clouds let loose, and what had been a fine mist turned into a downpour.

  “There,” I said, “you’re already wet. Now can we cross?”

  Early tried to blink the raindrops out of his eyes. “We can cross.”

  As I looked at the swiftly moving current and how it glossed over the wet logs jammed haphazardly against each other and a few large rocks, I realized that getting Early on board would be the easy part of crossing the river.

  I knew I should go first, since it was my idea, but my hand was itching to do rock-paper-scissors. Then Early saved me the embarrassment.

  “I’ll go first,” he said, and stepped out onto the closest log. For someone not very athletic, Early was surprisingly nimble and sure-footed. After a time watching him, I realized I shouldn’t have been surprised at all. He was very sure about most things—whether they were true or not. He was sure that the number pi held within it a great story. That, contrary to the theory of a renowned mathematician, the number pi and the story it told would never end. That his brother, who had been killed in the war, was still alive, and that a great bear would lead us to him. And that I was a person he wanted to be friends with.

  With that thought in mind, I again put one foot in front of the other and followed Early Auden.

  He was halfway across by the time I got started. The logs seemed firmly jammed one against the other, and I worked at keeping my eyes straight ahead. My feet kept slipping on the wet bark of the logs. I extended my arms to keep my balance, but my backpack shifted left and right, nearly pulling me into the rushing water.

  Early reached the boulder in the middle of the river, which seemed to be the reason for the tie-up of logs. He turned around and motioned to me to keep going before he continued on. I figured it was late in the logging season; otherwise, the entire width of the river would have been congested with logs. These must have been the last few stragglers that had gotten snagged against each other.

  My heart was racing as I neared the boulder marking the halfway point. I stepped onto the rock. I made it! Halfway, at least. Here I was, standing on a wet rock in the middle of a swiftly moving river. I can do this, I thought. Then I made a big mistake. I looked around—and saw that I was standing on a wet rock in the middle of a swiftly moving river. Suddenly I was back on Dinosaur Log, frozen with fear.

  “Come on, Jackie.” Early, almost to shore, turned around, urging me to follow.

  I looked behind me, wondering if it would be better to go back in the direction I’d come from, but the first of the hound dogs had already arrived and was yapping and snarling. The dog whined and panted, dipping his paws into the water, only to back up and start howling again. Even he knew better than to take on this powerful river.

  I turned to face Early and carefully stepped out onto the next log. It was slimy with moss, but I mustered another couple of steps. Then my foot slipped, getting wedged between two logs. I cried out in pain as the rough bark tore at the skin on my ankle. The logs shifted slightly, clamping my foot in a painful vise. I tugged and pulled but couldn’t budge.

  “I’m stuck!” I called out.

  Early began retracing his steps, heading back toward me. I used my free foot to stomp on one of the logs, and it moved. I was almost free. Just one more shove and—

  The logs gave way, freed from their jam. The world slid out from under me and I was swept away.

  The next minutes, or years—I’m not sure which—were a blur of icy water and logs, bumps and gashes, and short gasps of air. I tried to grab hold of a log, but every time I grasped at it, the log would bob and roll away as if this were some kind of game.

  The current was strong, and my body grew cold and weak. It was a game I wasn’t going to win. I tried to stretch out my body and float as best I could. Maybe I could get one more bit of air. A log was rushing straight at me. It struck me. I felt a sharp pain in my forehead.

  Then I saw something and knew I must be slipping into unconsciousness. At first I could see only its color and great size as it floated alongside me, just as in the story of Pi. Then I tried to take another breath, and as my lungs took in more water than air, I looked into its eyes.

  The deep, somber eyes of a big white whale.

  20

  I was sure I’d dreamed the whole thing. After all, there are no whales in freshwater rivers. Still, the memory of it was so clear. The whale’s skin was smooth, and the water rolled cleanly over its folds and creases. I felt its buoyancy as it floated along beside me, gently guiding me out of the rushing current. I could still see those eyes, dark and mysterious as the ocean.

  But gradually, the dream receded. Try as I might to hold on to it, to the feeling of being lifted and held and cared for, almost loved, I became aware of sounds and smells and a whopping headache that were not in my dream. Against my wishes, my eyelids fluttered open. I jerked awake as I stared into a pair of glassy, unseeing eyes that held me fixed in their gaze. My heart raced; then, as my vision cleared, I realized it was just a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles perched on a nightstand next to a large bed. A very large bed that made me feel very small.

  Goldilocks came to mind, but the ache in my head cut that story short. I’d have to tell Early—

  Where was Early? Had he fallen in the river too? What was this place? I bolted upright. My head pounded with the shift in position. I touched the throbbing lump on my temple and felt the stickiness of blood in my hair. I must have gotten a pretty good bump from a log or rock and passed out. And my ankle felt raw from being scraped against the rough bark.

  But somehow I’d gotten from the stream to this place—a room with wooden beams in the ceiling and logs for walls. I ran my hands over the patchwork quilt covering th
e bed. Pots clanked in the next room, and my mouth watered from the smell of simmering meat. I was drawn to it like, well, like a kid who hadn’t eaten in some time.

  Standing on the cold wooden floorboards, I was relieved to find that my foot didn’t seem to be broken. My ankle was a little tender, but I could walk on it. I shivered in my still-damp T-shirt and shorts, and not knowing who might be in the next room, I padded over to peek through the door. Peering out, I felt as if I were in some kind of exotic jungle, but hanging from above, instead of leaves and vines, there were animal furs and snowshoes; hooks, nets, and fishing lures; wooden bird decoys, mounted fish, and maps. A bearskin lay on the floor, its teeth bared, its eyes looking straight at me.

  I scanned the room for a glimpse of Early’s tartan red jacket, then noticed something out of the corner of my eye. As I turned my head to the right, I jumped back a bit at the gleaming knife stuck right in the wall, not two inches from my face. It was an eerie sight and could have been a good indication that some crazy woodsman lived there, but I couldn’t just stay put. I had to find Early. And there was simmering meat. But mostly I had to find Early.

  I heard footsteps. Not small, padded steps like Early would make. Big, lumbering footsteps like a giant would make. That must have been what it was, in fact, as a huge shadow passed over the side wall, darkening everything in its path.

  Now I felt less like Goldilocks and more like that other boy named Jack after he’d climbed up the magic beanstalk. I waited for the deep voice of a giant to bellow Fe, fi, fo, fum.

  Then I heard Early, his voice clear and a little too loud, filling me with relief.

  “You got a lot of stuffed animals in here. Do you have any timber rattlesnakes?”

  “No,” the man answered.

  “Elephants?”

  “No.”

  “Do you think it’s true that elephants can’t jump?”

  I listened, wondering if the man had already had enough of Early’s questions.

  “I cannot say I have seen it for myself,” answered the man. “But if one had good reason to, he might figure out a way, no?” He spoke with an accent, and his words bobbed up and down like a whale skimming above and below the surface of the water. His voice was clear and full of feeling. What the feeling was, I couldn’t say. It reminded me of the church bells you’d hear from a distance back home and how sometimes those bells could call you to a funeral just as surely as a wedding. Sadness or joy—strange how those bells could toll for both.

  “Good reason like what?” Early asked.

  “If he wanted something that was just out of reach. If he wanted it, you think he jump for it?”

  I couldn’t be sure where the man was from—he said dat for that and tink for think—but whoever he was, he had a way with Early. I don’t know if the strange boy from Morton Hill had ever been asked what he thought.

  Early pondered the question. “If he wanted it bad enough.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Did you know that the largemouth bass isn’t large-mouthed or a bass? It’s a sunfish,” Early said.

  “You don’t say. I never hear such a thing in all my life.”

  My curiosity got the better of me. I ventured out of the back room, drawn to the warmth, the smells, the voices.

  There, by a great stone fireplace, sitting on a very sturdy wooden crate, sat the biggest, baldest bare-chested man I’d ever seen. He looked up and met me with the somber eyes I recognized from the river.

  “Land sakes, little man, you give us a scare,” the man said.

  “Yeah, Jackie,” Early piped in. “You shouldn’t have gone in the river like that. It’s dangerous. If Gunnar hadn’t been nearby, you’d have drowned. Plus, your clothes are still wet.” He gestured to my denims, shirt, and soggy backpack hanging near the fireplace. The man’s—Gunnar’s—much larger shirt hung drying on the other side.

  “It is true,” Gunnar said. “But today you do me a great favor.”

  “I do?” I said, wondering how his saving my life could have done him a favor.

  “Oh, yes. I catch many fish in my life, but the Lord, he say, ‘Follow me and become fishers of men.’ Today I go out and catch me one!” His shoulders shook with a rumble of laughter.

  I must have looked as dumbfounded as I was, because the great bald man stood, his head nearly brushing the ceiling and his width blocking almost the whole of the fireplace, and stretched out a massive hand to me, taking my small one in his. “Hello, young Mr. Jack. I am Gunnar Skoglund.”

  “Skoglund?” Early repeated the last name, apparently hearing it for the first time. “What kind of name is that?”

  I thought it was a strange name too, but I wouldn’t have pointed it out. Still, I waited for Mr. Skoglund’s explanation.

  “I come from Norway. A village near Oslo.”

  “Are you a Viking?” asked Early. “Or do you know any?”

  “I suppose every Norseman is a Viking. We are boat people. Voyagers. Seafarers. It is how I come to America. I work the docks in Portland. But that life is no longer for me,” he said, with a note of regret. “Come on over here, and let’s have a look at that cut.” I winced a little as he moved my hair to check the gash. “Oh, yes. It need a stitch or two. It could have been a far sight worse, I give you that.”

  He motioned for me to sit on a smaller crate. I did. Then Gunnar Skoglund moved around the cluttered cabin like a great bull but somehow managed to disturb nothing. He came back to the fireplace with a jug, probably of whiskey, and a needle and thread.

  My fingernails dug into both sides of the wooden crate. Stitches, he’d said.

  “Don’t you worry,” said Gunnar. “I had stitches once before, on my knee, but the doctor, he give me an anesthetic that numbs the skin and I barely feel a thing.”

  Gunnar popped the cork out of the jug. Maybe he planned to get me so liquored up that I wouldn’t feel the pain. But instead of pouring me a jigger, he took a clean rag and soaked a corner in the liquid. Of course I knew what was coming next. He put that rag right on the gash on my forehead. It hurt like a son of a gun. I pressed my lips together and only yelped a little.

  All this was being done to a running stream of questions and commentary from Early.

  “What are you doing with that needle, Gunnar? Are you going to sew up Jackie’s head? I had a hole in my pants one time and I sewed them up, but then I couldn’t get them zipped anymore. Do you think if I brought you my pants, you could fix them?”

  Gunnar remained silent, leaving Early’s questions unanswered as he placed the needle in a pair of tongs and held it to the fire. The sight of it nearly made me pass out all over again. “Now then,” he said, “I do believe I need my glasses.”

  The glasses on the nightstand. “I’ll get them!” I jumped up and made a beeline.

  “While you are there, could you check the bookshelf? There is a medical journal that should have instruction for the proper conferment of stitches.”

  Was he kidding? I tried to gauge his tone, listening for a hint of a smile or smirk to let me know he was just pulling my leg. The glowing needle had burned its image in my mind, and I was in no hurry to see it again, so I scanned the bookshelves, looking for any type of medical guide. “Proper conferment of stitches?” Who talks like that?

  I studied the titles, and the answer came to me: people who read Plato’s dialogues. Philo of Alexandria. Dante’s Inferno. Aesop’s Fables.

  I recognized some of the titles from my mother’s book collection at home, and others I’d seen in the library at Morton Hill. Still, this display of books reminded me of something else. I took one off the shelf, then another, touching their embossed covers and smelling their pages. Robin Hood. I’d read that one. The Confessions of St. Augustine. I hadn’t read that one. Romeo and Juliet. That was a love story; I would never read that one.

  They were all hardbound volumes, old and worn but lining the shelves like trophies. That was it! Like the National Geographic said, you can tell a lot about pe
ople by what they enshrine. This was Gunnar’s shrine, and it reminded me of the trophy case at Morton Hill. These books, with their tales of valor, love, sacrifice, and mystery—these books were special and important.

  “Do you find it?” Gunnar called. “It is on the second shelf, right next to Frankenstein.”

  A shudder ran down my spine. There it was, the Alford Medical Manual, right next to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Frankie Daniels had been Frankenstein’s monster last Halloween. His mother had drawn a huge scar with ragged stitches across his forehead. Hopefully, the medical manual would provide better instructions for the “proper conferment of stitches” than the ones Frankenstein used.

  But it was the small rose-colored volume two books down from Frankenstein that caught my attention. It stuck out at an angle, just begging to be looked at. I pulled it from the shelf—The Journal of Poetry by Young Americans. Figures, I thought. What else is a pink book going to be?

  I’m not a fan of poetry unless it’s the kind that starts with There once was a man from Nantucket, so I gave it only a brief flipping through. There was an inscription on the inside cover. To Gunnar—Love, Emmaline. This was getting gushier by the minute. Then I noticed a paper peeking out from the pages. I knew it was snooping, but I opened the folded sheet. It was a handwritten letter dated June 5, 1938.

  Dear Emmaline,

  I have strength to move mountains but cannot move time from present to past. I wish I could speak the words you have read to me in the books. Words of love and regret and of things lost. But I wish even more that I could hear your gentle voice. Instead I have comforted myself in reading the books you would have read with me. Filling my mind and heart with the tales of adventurers, thoughts of great thinkers, and poems of the stars. You have given me a great gift, this love of words, and for that I am

  Gratefully yours,

  Gunnar

  “The needle, it gets hotter!” Gunnar called, startling me from the then and there and returning me to the here and now.