Lonny slowed the truck to a stop, reached over, and opened the cab door. Dunderhead, panting, pink
tongue lolling, a string of drool whipped over and around his long black nose, gave him a happy look of recognition and began to scramble up into the cab. Lonny had to help him by grabbing the scruff of his neck and giving him an extra boost.
As Lonny closed the door, Dunder licked his face. Then he settled down just like any other passenger going for a ride, eyes facing out the front window.
“Where have you been, Dunder?” said Lonny, pulling back onto the road. “Have you been out chasing tail again?” He put his arm around the dog, who continued to pant and drip drool on the seat.
“Guess I'd better drive you on home then.”
Robert's farm was a ten-minute drive in the opposite direction of the LaFrenière homestead. The dog had actually been heading home, but who knows what else might grab his attention and veer him off on a new adventure before he got there.
He remembered back to the year Robert got Dunder, bringing the puppy over in that old blue Snugli that had been used for his little cousin, Daryl Junior. He drove into their yard on his bike, that puppy bouncing against his chest.
Lonny's mom pulled Dunder out of the Snugli and held him and arched her neck back at Pop and said, “We should have one of these.”
“I'll get you a dozen, if you like,” Pop told her, smiling.
That was the summer she died. They never got a dog. But Dunder had somehow always felt like his own.
“So here's the deal, buddy,” Lonny said to the dog's
silky ear. “I've got a mess going on in my life. You believe in spirits? I sure as hell do. Something's after me, you know that? Well, you're a dog. Do dogs ever have a guilty conscience? Do you sleep well at night, boy?”
Dunder stumbled around in three circles on the seat and finally lay down with his head on Lonny's leg.
“I've got some memories,” said Lonny, stroking him, “that won't leave me alone. Chase me around in circles. I'm going to tell you something, buddy, that I've never told another living soul. The day that Robert and I dug up the mound, that very night, Mom came into my room. And she sat on the edge of my bed. And she looked at me for a while. Anyway, I'm lying there staring up at the ceiling, not knowing what to do. I felt so terrible. And then Mom says, like she's just guessed or maybe she's known it all day, âDon't ever tell your pop what you did. It would kill him. That land and that sacred mound mean the world to him. Better he just simply doesn't know. Did you clean it up?'
“I look into her eyes and I tell her yes, and honest to God, Dunder, I don't think I've ever seen such a look from her, a look for me, for her son. I'll never, ever forget that look.”
The yard light at Robert's farm shone out in the rose and blue nightfall shadows. Robert came out of the house to greet them.
“Found him on the road,” said Lonny.
“Didn't have to bring him around, but thanks anyway,” said Robert, opening the passenger's door.
“I was on my way somewhere,” said Lonny as Dunder hopped down and rushed toward the house, wagging his tail.
“Come on in for a while anyway. Uncle Daryl's friend Joe Dakotah just stopped by. He's into all kinds of old-time Indian stuff. Uncle Daryl was at a sweat lodge he runs. Last weekend. He's cleaned up his act, Lon, he really has.”
He said all this while kicking at the ground with his shoe. Robert's uncle had spent time in jail for growing a crop that wasn't exactly legal, right in the middle of his sunflower field. Everybody in the valley knew about Daryl Lang. They started calling Daryl's field the Drugstore. And when he'd finished serving time, he'd come back, smiling his big piano-keyboard smile. That was over two years ago. Except for the drinking, he had mostly behaved himself ever since. But people had a long memory for things like that.
And Robert really loved Daryl, but no matter how much he tried to convince himself that his uncle had actually reformed, everybody knows how easy it is to fall back into old ways. And Daryl was one of those people who always sat at the edge of the law, even in his good times.
“So come on in,” said Robert, urging Lonny with a nod toward the house. “Come on and meet this guy.”
Lonny hesitated. “I promised somebody something.”
“Can't it wait? I really think you should meet Joe. I really think you'd get a lot out of it.”
Robert seldom talked this way, so urgent and pleading. So what'll it hurt? thought Lonny. It's already late, and she's probably given up on me by now anyway.
Dunder was waiting by the door, furiously wagging his tail, and nosed on through the second Robert started to open it. He dashed over to his water dish and drank thirstily, slopping water up over the sides.
Sitting around the kitchen table were Robert's dad and mom and Uncle Daryl and his live-in girlfriend, Louise, and this strange-looking Indian guy, about sixty years old, with a pockmarked face and hair as long as Lonny's all tied back with a black band.
The guy was so Native, so in-your-face, like he was announcing the fact. And it made Lonny feel uncomfortable.
Then the stranger raised his eyes, and for the second time since that morning, since Earl McKay's daughter had stepped out of her car and looked through his soul with her chokecherry-colored eyes, Lonny felt as if his whole life had just been handed over for inspection. Only this guy made him feel like he was a fly on a map, pierced with a pin.
Just a moment was all it took, and then he went on talking as if Lonny hadn't even entered the room. The guy in some strange way was holding court with Robert's family; they were hanging on to his every word with rapt and respectful attention.
Robert's mom stuck out her arm to Lonny, still not taking her eyes off their guest. She was always warm in a matter-of-fact kind of way. He walked over to her, and she pulled out a chair for him to join them.
The guy was talking about how there was a fire in each of us. About how it was sacred. It should never be fanned with alcohol, or it would burn out of control. He didn't look at Robert's uncle Daryl when he said this, but it was a remark that must really have hit home.
Daryl, however, looked soberly down at his hands, then smiled and lifted one hand to stroke Louise's back. Hé seemed calm. Calmer, in fact, than Lonny could ever remember seeing him.
“Thanks, Joe,” Daryl said softly after a moment's silence. “Thanks for stopping by.”
“Not a problem.” The guy got up and pulled a set of car keys out of his pocket. They were on a metal ring with a buffalo head boldly etched in relief on the silver tag.
Lonny closed his eyes, and beads of perspiration began to break out on his forehead.
“We're holding a doctoring sweat this Sunday afternoon. Two o'clock,” said Joe Dakotah.
“I'll be there, Joe,” Lonny heard Daryl say, and those words spun out and hit him right in the center of his heart.
“Surprised, him showing up here just like that,” Robert's dad said to Daryl after Joe Dakotah got into his car and drove off. He added, with a soft chuckle, “Didn't know he made house calls.”
They sit side by side in a hot, dark womblike place. Stones as red-hot as lava have been brought in and set down in a pit at the center. A graceful woman in a red nightgown places a small piece of cedar on one stone. It leaves a black pattern, a fossil on fire.
Old Raven Man ladles water over the rocks. They hiss and sing. Heat blisters up.
“Hold your towel over your face,” instructs Grandpa.
She does and still smells fire and cedar and another, more acrid smell. Old Raven Man begins to chant and pray. In the scorching darkness she hears something, like little comets, whizzing around and around over their heads. And then something feathery graces her skin, brushing across her bare feet, her arms, her forehead.
Two headlights shone like moons, bouncing across the bedroom wall, flashing across her eyes, waking her up. She had fallen asleep on the hard bed. She had
had many vivid, exhausting dreams. In one, she had chased after her father. She ran through the woods, reaching to touch arms and legs that disappeared into tree limbs, shoulders into mounds of moss, a curved back into the gnarled hardness of stone.
A light knock at the screen door pulled her from this deep place. Slipped her groggily through the mists of sleep and off the bed. She stumbled on bare feet and got to the kitchen.
Beyond the screen a small cobwebby porch light attracted white flying things. Beyond that, the boy, Lonny, waited for her to let him inside.
She snapped on the kitchen light, blinking in its cruel brightness, then opened the door.
He looked at her, and his eyes widened. Then he pushed past. He carried a large blue plastic jug. He set it on the table, then just stood there looking at her.
“Your drinking water,” he said finally.
“Oh,” she said.
His hair was shiny. He smelled of a light aftershave or cologne that made her think of lilies on water. She wondered what other girls thought of him. Probably they acted like idiots. They likely fell all over themselves. Well, she wasn't going to. What did he mean by coming around so late? He had the kind of sleek, silky spell that made you want to look at your feet. She stared at him hard. She lifted her head and stared at him with her most ferocious concentration.
He said at last, “Probably you should run the taps
for a while. In the kitchen. In the bathroom. The water will improve a little.”
“I did that already.” She looked at her watch. It was ten past midnight. She added pointedly, “About ten hours ago.”
“Ah, good,” he said sheepishly. He wore a black shirt over his faded jeans. And cowboy boots.
“So I guess that's it,” he said.
“Yes, it is,” she said, slipping her gaze to his hands. He had wonderful hands.
He turned to go. She stood at the door. He didn't make her feel too big. They were the same height. He was solidly built.
“It's quiet here,” she said, still pissed off, yet wanting him to stay. The screen door creaked slightly. She followed him out to the steps.
“I should get going.” He dug his hands into his pockets, hurried down the steps, turned around. “You'll be okay?”
“I'll be fine,” she said.
He stared at the ground. Then back at her. And for three seconds held her with his eyes. He rocked slightly, unsteadily, on his feet. Took a couple of steps backward. “I'll check back on you tomorrow,” he said, and then hurried to the truck.
Her arm sliding up the door frame, her head mournfully resting against her shoulder, she replied, to his back, “You don't have to do that. Check up on me. I don't need anything. Nothing at all.”
He closed the cab door and sat there looking at her
over the steering wheel. She didn't know why she felt like crying. The wind in the trees was lonely. A hollow sound in the moonlight. In the dark behind her father's cabin, the waves crept slowly over the rocks.
She went back inside. Turned off the kitchen light. Walked into the bedroom and stared at the shadowy bed. She swept the stone candleholder off the mattress and went back out to the kitchen.
In a green garbage bag with a plastic tie was her cotton tree quilt. She pulled it out, hugged it against her, inhaling the smells of home. She would sleep on the tacky lime-and-brown paisley sofa in the living room. How could she sleep all night on her dead father's bed? She pulled her tree quilt around her shoulders and looked past the kitchen window.
He was still out there. Sitting in the dark in his truck. She sat down on the kitchen chair, tried to quiet her mind. Listened for the truck to start. Stood up again. Shadowed one shoulder against the window. His head was leaned back on the seat. Was he sleeping? Was something wrong with him? Should she go out?
She trailed her quilt back to the kitchen chair, sat down, thought some more. She didn't know him. Maybe she should lock the doors. She got up, closed the kitchen door as unsuspiciously as possible, locked it. Stole into the living room, locked that door. Eased down on the couch. Sat there, thinking, her eyes closed.
She kept listening for the truck to start up again. It didn't. She wanted to turn on a light. But he'd notice. Wanted to light one of those candles wrapped in the
pink paper. There were matches in the cardboard box. She got up and lurched back to the kitchen. Tripped over one of her coolers. Fell hard on the floor. Banged both knees.
Now she was angry. It was her own damn cabin. So why did she have to creep around in it? And why didn't he just take the hell off home? But she didn't want to confront him. She didn't know a thing about him.
She edged back into the living room. Wrapped herself up, cocooned herself in, anchored herself down. Listened to the wind whirling around the house. Listened to the lake. Listened for things in the night. But all she heard was water and wind, and wind and water, and water and wind.
White stars twinkled in the sky, and white moths threw themselves against the pale bare light over her door. Near the silvery wind-ruffled lake, small frogs croaked and jumped, their gold-fire eyes lit by the moon.
Something powerful, like a finger pointing, had come and jabbed Lonny hard in the middle of his chest, nearly buckling his legs under him. He'd managed to hold his balance and had muttered, “I'll check back on you tomorrow,” then turned and quickly left.
Now back in the truck, it was all he could do, his shaking hands on the steering wheel, to keep from starting the engine, throwing it into reverse, and escaping. He could still feel that cold pressure on his skin. It was his mind playing tricks again. Had to be. He was just spooked, that's all. Out here, so exposed, in the darkness.
He took a deep breath for courage and held it, watching this big-boned, long-boned regal girl framed by her father's doorway. She didn't seem anything like
him, nothing like Earl. Good thing she'd never had the chance to meet him, to know what an old drunk her father was. Worse than Robert's uncle Daryl on a bad day, especially that last month of his life.