by John Irving
"I don't know about that unfortunate dog, but I think you like to be stranded, Mr. Writer," Lupita said. Clearly the weather wasn't on her mind; that wasn't why she'd called.
Sometimes, Lupita became convinced that people were watching the house on Cluny Drive; occasionally, they were. Shy fans, a few every year--mildly obsessed readers, just hoping to get a look at the author. Or lowlifes from the media, maybe--hoping to see what? (Another double shooting, perhaps.)
Some sleazy Canadian magazine had published a map of where Toronto's celebrities lived; Danny's house on Cluny Drive had been included. Not often, but once a month or so, an autograph-seeker came to the door; Lupita shooed them away, as if they were beggars. "He gets paid to write books--not sign them!" the cleaning woman would say.
Some half-wit in the media had actually written about Lupita: "The reclusive writer's live-in girlfriend appears to be a stout, Hispanic-looking person--an older woman with an extremely protective disposition." Lupita hadn't been amused; both the stout and the older grievously troubled her. (As for Lupita's disposition, she was more protective than ever.)
"There's someone looking for you, Senor Writer," Lupita now told him on his cell phone. "I wouldn't go so far as to call her a stalker--not yet--but she is determined to find you, I can tell you that."
"How determined?" Danny asked.
"I wouldn't let her in!" Lupita exclaimed. "And I didn't tell her where you were, of course."
"Of course," Danny repeated. "What did she want?"
"She wouldn't say--she's very haughty. She looks right through you--if looks could kill, as they say!--and she boldly hinted that she knew where you were. She was fishing for more information, I think, but I wouldn't take the bait," Lupita said, proudly.
"Boldly hinted how?" Danny asked.
"She was unnaturally informed," Lupita said. "She asked if you were up on that island you'd once lived on with the screenwriter! I said, ' What island?' Well, you should have seen how she looked at me then!"
"As if she knew you were lying?" Danny asked.
"Yes!" Lupita cried. "Maybe she's a witch!"
But every Danny Angel fan knew that he'd lived with Charlotte Turner, and that they'd gone to Georgian Bay in the summer; it had even been written somewhere that the allegedly reclusive writer was spending his winters on a remote island in Lake Huron. (Well, it was "remote" in the winter, anyway.) For a Danny Angel reader, this was basically an intelligent guess; it hardly meant that the woman looking for the writer had witchlike powers.
"What did this woman look like, Lupita?" Danny asked; he was tempted to ask the Mexican cleaning woman if she'd spotted a broom, or if the unnaturally informed woman had been attended by the smell of smoke or the crackling sound of a fire.
"She was really scary-looking!" Lupita declared. "Big shoulders--like a man! She was hulking!"
"Hulking," Danny repeated, reminding himself of his dad. (He was the cook's son, clearly--repetition was in his genes.)
"She looked like she lived in a gym," Lupita explained. "You wouldn't want to mess with her, believe me."
The word bodybuilder was on the writer's lips, but he didn't say it. Lupita's combined impressions suddenly caused Danny to conjure the spirit of Lady Sky, for hadn't Amy looked like she lived in a gym? Hadn't Lady Sky been capable of looking right through you? (If looks could kill, indeed!) And hadn't Amy been a hulking presence? Somehow the haughty word didn't suit Lady Sky, but the writer understood that this may have been Lupita's misinterpretation.
"Did she have any tattoos?" Danny asked.
"Mr. Writer, it's February!" Lupita cried. "I made her stay outside, in the cold. She looked like an Arctic explorer!"
"Could you see what color her hair was?" Danny asked. (Amy had been a strawberry blonde, he remembered; he'd never forgotten her.)
"She was wearing a parka--with a hood!" Lupita declared. "I couldn't even see what color her eyebrows were!"
"But she was big," Danny insisted. "Not just broad-shouldered, but tall--right?"
"She would tower over you!" Lupita exclaimed. "She's a giantess!"
There was no point in asking if Lupita had noticed a parachute somewhere. Danny was trying to think of what else he could ask. Lady Sky had at first seemed older than the writer, but later he'd reconsidered; maybe she was closer to his own age than he'd thought. "How old a woman was she, Lupita?" Danny asked. "Would you guess that she was my age--or a little older, maybe?"
"Younger," Lupita answered, with conviction. "Not much younger, but definitely younger than you are."
"Oh," the writer said; he knew that his disappointment was audible. It made Danny feel desperate to have imagined that Amy might fall from the sky again. Miracles don't happen twice. Even Lady Sky had said that she was only an angel sometimes. Yet Lupita had used the determined word to describe the mysterious visitor; Lady Sky had certainly seemed determined. (And how little Joe had loved her!)
"Well, whoever she is," Danny said to Lupita on the phone, "she won't show up here today--not in this storm."
"She'll show up there one day, or she'll be back here--I just know it," Lupita warned him. "Do you believe in witches, Mr. Writer?"
"Do you believe in angels?" Danny asked her.
"This woman was too dangerous-looking to be an angel," Lupita told him.
"I'll keep an eye out for her," Danny said. "I'll tell Hero she's a bear."
"You would be safer meeting a bear, Senor Writer," Lupita told him.
As soon as their phone conversation ended, Danny found himself thinking that--fond of her as he was--Lupita was a superstitious old Mexican. Did Catholics believe in witches? the writer was wondering. (Danny didn't know what Catholics believed--not to mention what Lupita, in particular, believed.) He was exasperated to have been interrupted from his writing; furthermore, Lupita had neglected to say when she'd confronted the giantess in Toronto. This morning, maybe--or was it last week? Moments ago, he'd been on track, plotting the course of his first chapter. A pointless phone call had completely derailed him; now even the weather was a distraction.
The inuksuk was buried under the snow. ("Never a good sign," the writer could imagine Tireless saying.) And Danny couldn't bear to look at that wind-bent little pine. The crippled tree was too much his father's likeness today. The pine appeared near to perishing--cringing, snow-laden, in the storm.
If Danny looked southeast--in the direction of Pentecost Island, at the mouth of the Shawanaga River--there was a white void. There was absolutely nothing to see. There was no demarcation to indicate where the swirling white sky ended and the snow-covered bay began; there was no horizon. When he looked southwest, Burnt Island was invisible--gone, lost in the storm. Due east, Danny could make out only the tops of the tallest trees on the mainland, but not the mainland itself. Like the lost horizon, there was no trace of land in sight. In the narrowest part of the bay was an ice fisherman's shack; perhaps the snowstorm had swept the shack away, or the ice fisherman's shack had simply vanished from view (like everything else).
Danny thought that he'd better haul some extra pails of water to the main cabin from the lake while he could still see the lake. The new snow would have hidden the last hole he'd chopped in the ice; Danny and Hero would have to be careful not to fall through the thin ice covering that hole. There was no point in risking a trip to town today--Danny could thaw something from the freezer. He would take the day off from cutting wood, too.
Outside, the wind-borne snow stung Hero's wide-open, lidless eye; the dog kept pawing at his face. "Just four buckets, Hero--only two trips to the bay and back," Danny said to the bear hound. "We won't be outside for long." But the wind suddenly and totally dropped, just as Danny was hauling the second two buckets from the bay. Now the snow fell straight down in larger, softer flakes. The visibility was no better, but it was more comfortable to be out in the storm. "No wind, no pain, Hero--how about that?" Danny asked the Walker bluetick.
The dog's spirits had notably improved. Danny wa
tched Hero run after a red squirrel, and the writer hauled two more (a total of six) pails of water from the bay. Now he had more than enough water in the main cabin to ride out the storm--no matter how heavily the snow kept falling. And what did it matter how long the storm lasted? There were no roads to plow.
There was a lot of venison in the freezer. Two steaks looked like too much food, but maybe one wasn't quite enough--Danny decided to thaw two. He had plenty of peppers and onions, and some mushrooms; he could stir-fry them together, and make a small green salad. He made a marinade for the venison--yogurt and fresh-squeezed lemon juice with cumin, turmeric, and chili. (This was a marinade he remembered from Mao's.) Danny built up the fire in the woodstove in the main cabin; if he put the marinated venison near the woodstove, the steaks would thaw by dinnertime. It was only noon.
Danny gave Hero some fresh water and fixed himself a little lunch. The snowstorm had freed him from his usual afternoon chores; with any luck, Danny might get back to work in the writing shack. He felt that his first chapter was waiting for him. There would only be the bear hound's farting to distract him.
"Under the logs," the writer said aloud to Hero, testing the phrase as a chapter title. It was a good title for an opening chapter, Danny thought. "Come on, Hero," he said to the dog, but they'd not left the main cabin when Danny's cell phone rang again--the third call of the day. Most days, in the writer's winter life on Charlotte's island, the phone didn't ring once.
"It's the bear, Hero!" Danny said to the dog. "What do you bet that the big she-bear is coming?" But the phone call was from Andy Grant.
"I thought I better check up on you," the builder said. "How are you and Hero surviving the storm?"
"Hero and I are surviving just fine--in fact, we're very cozy," Danny told him. "I'm thawing some of the deer you and I shot."
"Not planning on going shopping, are you?" Andy asked him.
"I'm not planning on going anywhere," Danny answered.
"That's good," Andy said. "You've got whiteout conditions at your place, have you?"
"Total whiteout," Danny told him. "I can't see Burnt Island--I can't even see the mainland."
"Not even from the back dock?" Andy asked him.
"I wouldn't know," Danny answered. "Hero and I are having a pretty lazy day. We haven't ventured as far as the back dock." There was a long pause--long enough to make Danny look at his cell-phone screen, to be sure they were still connected.
"You and Hero might want to go see what you can see off the back dock, Danny," Andy Grant told the writer. "If I were you, I would wait about ten or fifteen minutes--then go take a look."
"What am I looking for, Andy?" the writer asked.
"A visitor," the builder told him. "There's someone looking for you, Danny, and she seems real determined to find you."
"Real determined," Danny repeated.
SHE'D SHOWN UP at the nursing station in Pointe au Baril, asking for directions to Turner Island. The nurse had sent her to Andy. Everyone in town knew that Andy Grant was protective of the famous novelist's privacy.
The big, strong-looking woman didn't have her own airboat; she didn't have a snowmobile, either. She didn't even come with skis--just ski poles. Her backpack was huge, and strapped to it was a pair of snowshoes. If she'd had a car, it must have been a rental and she'd already gotten rid of it. Maybe she'd spent the night at Larry's Tavern, or in some motel near Parry Sound. There was no way she could have driven the entire distance from Toronto to Pointe au Baril Station--not that morning, not in that snowstorm. The snow had blanketed Georgian Bay, from Manitoulin Island to Honey Harbour, and--according to Andy--it was supposed to snow all that night, too.
"She said she knows you," Andy told the writer. "But if it turns out that she's just a crazy fan, or some psycho autograph-seeker, there's enough room in that backpack for all eight of your books--both the hardcover and the paperback editions. Then again, that backpack's big enough to hold a shotgun."
"She knows me how--she knew me when, and where?" Danny asked.
"All she said was, 'We go back a ways.' You're not expecting a visit from an angry ex-girlfriend--are you, Danny?"
"I'm not expecting anybody, Andy," the writer said.
"She's one powerful-looking lady, Danny," the builder said.
"How big is she?" Daniel Baciagalupo asked.
"We're talking giantess category," Andy told him. "Hands like paws--boots bigger than mine. You and I together could fit in her parka; there would probably be room for Hero, too."
"I suppose she looks like an Arctic explorer," the writer guessed.
"She's sure got the right clothes for this weather," Andy said. "The snowpants, the snowmobiler's gloves--and her parka has a big old hood."
"I don't suppose you saw the color of her hair," the writer said.
"Nope--not under that hood. I couldn't even be sure of the color of her eyes," Andy said.
"And what would you guess her age was?" Danny asked. "About my age, maybe--or a little older?"
"Nope," the builder said again. "She's way younger than you are, Danny. At least what I could see of her. She's really fit-looking."
"With all the clothes she had on, how could you tell she was fit?" the writer asked.
"She came into my office--just to look at my map of the bay," the builder told Danny. "While she was locating Turner Island on the map, I lifted her backpack--I just picked it up off the floor and set it down again. It's about a seventy-pound pack, Danny; that pack weighs as much as Hero, and she left here carrying it like a pillow."
"She sounds like someone I met once," Danny said, "but her age is wrong. If she were the woman I'm thinking of, she couldn't be 'way younger' than I am--as you say."
"I could be wrong about that," Andy told him. "People age differently, Danny. Some folks seem to stay the same; others, if it's been a while, you wouldn't recognize them."
"Oh, it's been a while--if she's the one I'm thinking of," Danny said. "It's been almost forty years! It can't be her," the writer said; he sounded impatient with himself. Danny didn't dare to hope that it was Lady Sky. He realized that it had also been a while since he'd hoped for anything. (He had once hoped that nothing terrible would ever happen to his beloved Joe. He'd also hoped that his dad would long outlive the cowboy, and that Ketchum would die peacefully--in his sleep, with both his hands intact. Daniel Baciagalupo didn't have a good record with hope.)
"Danny, it's dumb to think you can even guess what someone's going to look like after forty years," Andy said. "Some people change more than others--that's all I'm saying. Look," the builder said, "why don't I come out there? I could probably catch up to her on my snowmobile. I could bring her the rest of the way, and if you don't like her--or she's not the person you're thinking of--I could bring her back to Pointe au Baril."
"No, Hero and I will be all right," Danny said. "I can always call you if I need help getting her to leave, or something."
"You and Hero better be on your way to the back dock," Andy told him. "She left here a while ago, and she's got a real long stride."
"Okay, we'll get going. Thanks, Andy," Danny told him.
"You sure I can't come out there, or do anything for you?" the builder asked.
"I've been looking for a first sentence to my first chapter," the writer answered. "You wouldn't have a first sentence for me, would you?"
"I can't help you with that," Andy Grant said. "Just call me if you have any trouble with that woman."
"There won't be any trouble," Danny told him.
"Danny? Take that old Remington with you, when you go to the back dock. It's just a good idea to have the gun with you--and make sure she sees it, okay?"
"Okay," the writer answered.
Hero was excited, as always, to take a walk with Ketchum's .30-06 Springfield carbine. "Don't get your hopes up, Hero," Danny told the dog. "The odds are she's not a bear."
The snow was knee-deep on the wide-open path to the writing shack, and not quite as deep on
the narrow path through the woods from Danny's workplace to the back dock.
When he passed his writing shack, the writer said aloud, "I'll be back, first chapter. I'll see you soon, first sentence."
Hero had run ahead. There was a grove of cedars, out of the wind, where a small herd of deer had bedded down for the night. Either Hero had spooked them, or the deer had moved on when the wind dropped. Hero was sniffing all around; there were probably deer turds under the snow. The snow in the cedar grove was flattened down where the deer had huddled together.
"They're gone, Hero--you missed them," Danny told the bear hound. "Those deer are on Barclay Island by now, or they're on the mainland." The dog was rolling in the snow where the herd had bedded down. "If you roll in any deer turds, Hero, I'll give you a bath--with shampoo and everything."
Hero hated baths; Danny didn't much like washing the uncooperative dog, either. In the Cluny Drive house, in Toronto, Lupita was the one who washed the dog. She seemed to enjoy scolding Hero while she did it. ("So, Senor Macho--how do you like having only one eyelid? But that's what you get for fighting, Mr. Macho--isn't it?")
There must have been three feet of snow on the roof of Granddaddy's cabin, to which neither the writer nor the dog gave more than a passing glance. If that cabin had been haunted before, it was more haunted now; neither Danny nor Hero would have welcomed an encounter with Ketchum's ghost. If the old logger were a ghost, Danny knew that the poacher's cabin was just the spot for him.
The snow had drifted thigh-high onto the back dock. Across the frozen bay, parts of the mainland were visible in the whiteout, but the far shore didn't emerge distinctly; the mainland was blurred. The clarity of the shoreline was fleeting. In the distance, fragments of the landscape momentarily appeared, only to disappear the next instant. There were no identifying landmarks that allowed Danny to see exactly where the snowmobile portage from Payne's Road came into contact with the bay, but from the vantage of the dock, the writer could make out the shape of the ice fisherman's shack. It had not been blown away by the storm, yet the shack was so indistinct in the steadily falling snow that Danny knew the snowshoer would be halfway across the reach of the bay before he could see her.
