She parceled out the bounty, folding up two of her melds and tossing a set of cards over to Edgar.
“Partner, may I go out?” she said.
“Look at that. Your own wife did that.”
“It did seem unnecessary, didn’t it?” his father said, but he was grinning.
His mother looked back and forth between them. “All’s fair in love and canasta,” she said.
Claude counted his cards.
“You were holding two hundred twenty points?” his father said.
“Yep.”
“Doesn’t seem like it paid off, does it?”
“You just play your old farmer way and I’ll be in charge of showing some style.”
“A fine proposition if you weren’t my partner.”
“I’ll make it up to you, brother. Haven’t I always?”
To this his father said nothing. He counted out cards from his melds to offset Claude’s loss, then picked up the pad of paper and noted the results. The phone buzzed again. Claude shook his head and shoveled the cards together and began to shuffle.
EDGAR TOOK ALMONDINE with him to the kennel. At four months old, his pups were clumsy, happy beasts with overlong legs and narrow chests. Their ears flopped over except when they looked intently at something. It had taken Edgar almost two weeks to select names from the dictionary, sampling and rejecting possibilities, sleeping with them held in his mind, and still, the morning after deciding, he’d woken filled with regrets. Now it was as though the pups had been born with names already cast and all he’d done was thrash about until they were revealed.
baboo, babu, n. A Hindu title of respect paid to gentlemen, equivalent to master, sir.—babu. Babu-English. The broken English of Bengal.
essay, v.t. [Fr. Essayer. ASSAY.] To exert one’s power or facilities on; to make an effort to perform; to try; to attempt; to endeavor to do; to make experiment of.—n. An effort made for the performance of anything; a trial, attempt, or endeavor; a test or experiment; a literary composition intended to prove some particular point or illustrate a particular subject, not having the importance of a regular treatise; a short disquisition on a subject of taste, philosophy, or common life.
finch, n. [A. Sax. finc = G. Dan. And Sw. fink, finke, Gr. spiza.] A large family (Fringillidae) of small song-birds, including the bunting, sparrow, and goldfinch, having a small conical beak adapted to cracking seeds.
pout, v.i. [From W. pwtiaw, to push, or from dial Fr. pout, potte, Pr. pot, the lip.] To thrust out the lips, as in sullenness, contempt, or displeasure; hence, to look sullen; to swell out, as the lips; to be prominent.
opal, n. [L. opalus, Gr. opallios, an opal; comp. Skr. upala, a precious stone.] A precious stone of various colors and varieties, the finest characterized by its iridescent reflection of light, and formerly believed to possess magical virtues.
tinder, n. [A. Sax. tynder, tender, from tyndan, tendan, to kindle (Dan. taende, G. züden) = Sw. and L. G. tunder, Icel. Tundr, D. tonder, G. zunder, tinder.] An inflammable substance generally composed of partially burned linen, used for kindling fire from a spark struck with a steel and flint.
umbra, n. [L., a shadow.] The total shadow of the earth or moon in an eclipse, or the dark cone projected from a planet or satellite on the side opposite to the sun, as contrasted with the penumbra; the dark, central portion of a sunspot surrounded by a brighter, annular portion.
After deciding, he’d turned to each entry in The New Webster Encyclopedic Dictionary of the English Language and penciled the dog’s number, litter number, and birth date in the margin:
D 1114
L 171
6/3/72
The margins were small and filled with annotations, and he had to write carefully, sideways when the word appeared in the middle of the three columns of definitions. After he’d finished, he’d returned the dictionary to its place on the filing cabinets next to the master litter book.
Baboo was the largest of the litter. He could set his front paws on Edgar’s shoulders and lick his face with ease. Essay, the wild one, and the leader, liked to play tricks. Tinder flung himself on any sibling he found asleep, growling them into a wrestling match; only Opal could back him into a corner. Pout was thoughtful, sober, and cautious, Finch, a study in earnest impulsiveness. Umbra, black from head to toe, was a watcher, a retreater to corners. They were all ferociously undisciplined and forgetful, but good-natured, too, and sweet to look at. And—for short periods, at least—they reveled in the training.
THE BARN ROOF HAD LONG been completed and another litter whelped and named. As part of his work as the medicine man of the kennel (as Trudy started calling him), Claude took the newest litters of pups under his care. Edgar’s father used the extra time to place yearlings and plan litters, spending days on the telephone and writing letters and poring over records. But no sooner did this arrangement seem comfortable than arguments between his father and Claude began to erupt.
“I’m not some fucking stray you lured in,” Claude said, during one particularly acrimonious exchange over his casual adherence to the pups’ schedules.
“Of course not,” Edgar’s father replied. “You know me. I’d shoot you if you were.”
When things were easiest between them, it was his mother’s doing: she mocked their arguments, laughingly, or interposed herself and flirted; when a discussion threatened to slide from fervent to angry, she’d lay a hand on Edgar’s father’s wrist and he’d look at her, startled, as if he had just remembered something. Then, days of amicable banter, visits from Doctor Papineau, evenings watching television. But Edgar knew the moment he walked in the door when there had been another incident. He’d find his father at the kitchen table, shoulders hunched, glowering at his paperwork. If one of them walked into a room, the other found a reason to leave, and Edgar’s mother would sigh in exasperation. And yet, two mornings later, they would be talking again at breakfast and that would be that.
One morning, his father announced that they’d better collect firewood before they got a snow that stuck. This was work they did each fall, cutting the aspen and birch cordwood they’d stacked in the spring alongside the old logging road that cut though their woods.
Can I drive? Edgar asked.
He meant Alice, their old orange Allis-Chalmers C tractor, with its curved fenders and half-moon drawbar. In place of a bucket seat, Alice had a flat padded bench upon which two could ride, though the passenger had to put his arm around the driver and hold one of the uprights. Over the years, Edgar had graduated from running the throttle to steering with his father’s hand resting on the wheel, to shifting, and lately, to clutching and braking.
He met his father behind the barn and they walked to Alice together. Edgar settled himself behind the wheel and his father took the crank to the front and slotted it into the hole beneath the radiator grill and hauled the crank over. There was a muffled pop from inside the engine and a belch of sooty smoke escaped the stack, but afterward the engine sat inert. He tried again. Then he walked to the milk house and returned with a can of starter fluid in his hand and he tipped up a hinged plate inside Alice’s carburetor and emptied a long spray into its gullet. He walked to the front of the tractor again. He touched the bill of his cap and rubbed his hands together and hauled the crank over. There was a gunshot sound and the handle bucked wildly backward. “Ho!” he said. “We’ve got her attention now. Give it another notch.” Edgar nodded and ratcheted up the throttle lever. This time Alice gave out a roar and from her stack poured a black cloud of exhaust.
The day was warm. A gray cloud ceiling stretched from horizon to horizon and the light coming through cast no shadows on the ground. Edgar backed the tractor up to the ancient iron-wheeled wagon parked at the edge of the south field. His father swung the yoke into place and dropped the hitch pin through and slid onto the seat beside him. They chugged around to the front of the barn, where Claude set the chainsaw and gasoline in the wagon and stepped onto the yoke.
“Haw!” he s
houted, and they set off. At the bottom of the slope behind the barn his father reached over and goosed the throttle lever three notches. Edgar gulped and gripped the steering wheel and they shot past the woodchucks in the rock pile, all standing in a line, hands prayerful against fat bellies. His father tipped his hat to each animal in turn, shouting, “Ma’am. Ma’am. Ladies.” Then Claude snagged a passing clod of dirt and pitched it overhand, sending the matrons scampering into the rocky crevices.
They crossed the field. Two tremendous birches marked the entrance to the logging road at the edge of the woods. Their leaves blanketed the ground brown and yellow, and their white trunks were decorated with speckled curls of paper. Edgar throttled back, ready to turn the driving over to his father, but his father motioned Edgar ahead. Claude hung out from behind the seat and looked up the trail. When he saw what was coming, he hopped off the yoke and walked alongside. Edgar notched the throttle down and guided Alice through the pools of frost-brown fern cascading over the path. He jackknifed the wagon trying to back it up to the first eight-foot cordwood stack. Then he killed the engine trying to straighten it out.
You do it, Edgar signed.
“Try again,” his father said. He walked to Alice’s front end and cranked it back to life. Edgar ground the shift level into reverse and sweated and listened as his father and uncle shouted instructions.
“Left. Go left and it’ll straighten out.”
“Not left, right.”
“His left, not mine.”
“Far enough. Whoa. Whoa there.”
“Okay, a little more. Stop. Little more. Stop. Good.”
Edgar flipped the toggle to kill the engine and hopped down. Claude reached into the wagon and pulled out the chainsaw and the red gasoline can. They began to work their way through the pile. The work was monotonous but pleasant. Edgar heaved a log out and Claude sawed off a fireplace-size chunk and Edgar heaved the log again. Sawdust sweetened the air. Edgar daydreamed and looked around and wondered if Schultz had ever cut wood in that part of the forest, and what part of the house or barn might be built from it. Whenever the cut wood piled up, Claude stood with the saw idling while Edgar and his father tossed the chunks into the wagon.
Halfway through the first pile, light rain began to fall, hardly more than a tickle on the back of their necks. When it didn’t let up, his father shouted to Claude. Claude glanced over, then returned to cutting while Edgar advanced the log. When he stopped again, the air was filled with a fine, cool mist cut by drops of condensation falling from the skyward branches.
“Let’s load and head back,” Edgar’s father said. He began to loft cut pieces into the wagon, making it rattle and boom. Edgar and Claude joined him, but when they had finished, Claude looked up through the treetops and wiped his face with his shirtsleeve.
“It’s letting up,” he said. “We don’t need to stop.”
And all at once, the lightheartedness that had made them joke and wave at the woodchucks vanished. His father’s jaw was set. When he spoke next, it was as though some argument had already taken place, with positions staked out and a deadlock reached, all in some sphere invisible to Edgar. “This wood is wet and slippery,” his father said. “So is that saw. We can come back tomorrow when it’s dry and we won’t have to worry about anybody getting hurt.”
For a moment the three of them gazed at the stacked cordwood, shiny with moisture. Claude shrugged. “Suit yourself,” he said and he braced the chainsaw against a log and yanked the rope starter. The engine sputtered for a moment and caught.
His father shouted something at Claude, who mouthed, “What?” and revved the chainsaw until it was impossible to hear his father’s reply. Then he shouted, “What?” again. When his father took the bait, Claude squeezed the throttle until the chainsaw howled in his hands. His father paled with anger. A grin spread across Claude’s face and he turned and dropped the chain bar into a log and a wake of wet wood chips sprayed onto the ground.
His father stalked over to Edgar and cupped his mouth by his ear.
“Get up on the tractor.”
Edgar clambered into the tractor seat and flipped the ignition switch up. His father cranked the starter, swung up onto the driver’s side of the seat, gunned the engine, and they bounced their way out of the woods, logs rattling and flying off the back of the wagon. At the house, they stacked the wood in the inside corner by the porch while the whine of the chainsaw pierced the drizzle, reduced by distance to an insect sound. When they finished, Edgar parked Alice beside the barn. Almondine greeted him at the door and chaperoned him up the stairs. He listened to his mother and father talk while he changed out of his wet clothes.
“So what if he wants to cut wood in the rain,” she said. “Let him.”
“And if he drives the chainsaw into his leg, what then? And if the saw rusts up over the winter from getting wet?”
“Gar, you’re right. But you can’t ride him like that. He’s a grown man.”
“That’s just it. He’s not a grown man. He’s got no more sense than he had twenty years ago! He gets things into his head, and whatever I say, he’ll do the opposite.”
“He’s a grown man,” his mother repeated. “You can’t make decisions for him. You couldn’t back then and you can’t now.”
Footsteps, and the click of the coffee pot lid. When Edgar and Almondine walked into the kitchen, Edgar’s mother was standing behind his father with her arms crossed around his neck. His father sipped his coffee and handed the cup up to his mother and looked out the window toward the woods.
“You didn’t see him down there, gunning the saw whenever I tried to explain to him. It was childish,” he said. “It was dangerous.”
Edgar’s mother didn’t respond. She rubbed his father’s shoulders and said they needed some things from the store. By the time they returned, Claude had carried everything up from the woods, cleaned and oiled the saw, and lay asleep in his room.
A WEEK BEFORE THANKSGIVING, Claude took the truck into town. When he returned, late that night, even the cold gust of wind that followed him inside couldn’t disguise the smell of cigarette smoke and beer. He dumped a bag of groceries on the table and looked at Edgar’s father.
“Oh dear, His Eminence is much displeased.” He trudged drunkenly into the living room, then turned back. “Look on his works, ye mighty, and despair!” he cried in a booming voice, arms outswept, bowing until he nearly tipped over.
When the days were warm, Edgar stayed away from the house, scouring the woods with Almondine for puffball mushrooms and arrowheads. Looking as well for signs of Forte, who hadn’t appeared since late September. One day they would find his bones, he thought, sadly. They walked to the whale-rock and sat at the edge of the peninsula of woods and watched smoke curl out of the chimney. Almondine fell into a half-sleep. Brown leaves drifted down from the trees and her pelt twitched when they landed on her. After dinner, he snuck out to practice stays with Tinder, who wanted more than anything to jump up and run.
He bolted the barn doors from the inside and let the pups run loose up and down the kennel aisle while he sat on a straw bale. Baboo sat with him. Essay started looking for trouble at once. They rolled on their backs and paw-boxed at Almondine, who examined and dismissed them. He fetched half a dozen tennis balls from the workshop and threw them against the doors until the aisle was a mass of surging, raucous animals, and when they tired, he led them into the mow and read to them, signing under the yellow nova of the bulbs in the rafters.
EDGAR FIRST HEARD OF Starchild Colony that fall, and of Alexandra Honeywell, whose long, straight hair was indeed the color of honey. The television news carried the stories of the commune, located on the Canadian side of Lake Superior, near Thunder Bay. Reporters stood beside Alexandra Honeywell on the outskirts of a woody glade, a house framed out behind them, the autumn leaves brilliant yellow. Sometimes she answered the reporter’s question directly, and other times she looked into the television and exhorted people to come and help. “Th
is is a place for peace! Come to Starchild! We need people with skills; people who want to work! We don’t care if you are a student, a musician, or a soldier. Leave it behind! We need strong hands and brave hearts!”
Alexandra Honeywell was beautiful. Edgar knew this was why she showed up on television so often. If he was in his room and overheard a news teaser about Starchild, he’d come downstairs and sit in the living room and gaze at her while his parents exchanged glances. Claude let out a low whistle at the sight of her.
THANKSGIVING CAME AND PASSED. Edgar woke one night to a sound like a gunshot, though even as he threw off his blankets he understood it was the porch door slamming back against the house. Almondine scrambled up from her place by the door and together they looked out the window. The porch light was shining. The ground was thinly covered in snow and the wind blew hoary gray flakes across the glass. At the base of the porch steps, he saw his father and Claude. Their arms were crooked around each other’s necks like wrestlers, shadows cast black and elongate toward the field. Claude had hold of his father’s closed fist, as if trying to force it open, and they grunted and pushed wordlessly against each other, counterbalanced and shaking with effort as snow settled on their shoulders and hair.
The clench broke and they stepped apart, breath gray in the cold air. Edgar’s father raised a hand and pointed at Claude, but before he could speak, Claude charged, pulling them both to the ground. Edgar’s father’s glasses glittered in the air. He brought his hands down on Claude’s back and hard on the side of his head. Claude’s grip loosened. Edgar’s father climbed to his feet. Claude scrambled up after him but he slipped and fell heavily down, and before he could get up, Edgar’s father was there, foot drawn back. Claude curled his arms over his face convulsively and a shriek filled the yard.
For a time the two men were perfectly still, and the falling snow itself froze in the air. Then Edgar’s father drew a breath. He set his foot down. With a disdainful gesture, he tossed what he’d held into the snow. The keys to the truck. Then he turned and walked into the house, and the porch light flicked off.