Etta and Otto and Russell and James (9 page)

8

A
photographer from Kenora, who worked taking photos for a local but not unremarkable newspaper, was taking his daughter, his only child, for a light-aircraft flying lesson in the flattest, longest place he knew, when, a hundred or so meters away, he saw Etta, all dust and sun, all eighty-three years old, hair winding out behind her, with a coyote trotting at her side, its head only just above the grass-line. Well, he said, look at that. And, because he was always ready for something like this, he pulled his camera up from where it hung, almost always, around his neck, and took a picture.

When the photographer, whose daughter was proving to be a better pilot than any other her age, perhaps than any other ever, gave the photo of Etta to his editor, the editor said, What’s the story?

And, although the photographer said he didn’t know the story, the editor still liked the picture and agreed to publish it in the weekend paper’s Out & About section and gave the photographer fifty dollars, which the photographer spent almost immediately on a small but good-quality camera for his daughter to use in the air, while flying. Which is why, two days later, she came home from her lessons, still in her helmet, and said,

I took some pictures. Mostly of the coyote-woman. She’s still out there, still walking east. I don’t think she’s even stopped. I don’t think she’s going to stop.

Which is how the photographer got the story. And, soon enough, how everybody got it.

A
nd so, one day, not too long into the rocks and trees of Ontario, a man and a woman, both in office-type suits, one burgundy and one navy, stepped out from behind a tree Etta was approaching. Pardon us, Miss, said the man. Have you got a couple minutes to spare? We would love to talk to you. The woman nodded and smiled and held a microphone out in front of her casually, like a cup of tea.

I don’t really have very many minutes, said Etta. I am eighty-three years old.

The man took a pen from one pocket and a notepad from another and began scribbling.

But, continued Etta, I suppose you could walk with us for a bit, if you can keep up.

James said nothing.

A
nd you’ve been walking for how long? said the woman. They were scrambling over some low rocks; she had rolled the bottoms of her burgundy suit pants up so as not to get caught and was now managing to keep her balance by holding one arm out to her side, to counterbalance the other, out toward Etta with the microphone.

Since before the spinach, said Etta.

The man was a little ways behind them, as he kept having to stop to scribble. But, Etta, he called up to them, why? And then louder, in
case she hadn’t heard,
Why?

Etta thought, stepped around a root, turned, and said over her shoulder, I don’t remember.

You don’t remember? said the woman, low, too low for the man to hear.

Sometimes I remember, sometimes I don’t. It’s nothing personal. Right now I just don’t.

Can we stay with you until you do?

T
hey made camp between some birch trees. The man couldn’t decide whether to have his suit jacket under him, as a bed, or over him, as a cover.

There are flies, said Etta. I’d go with over. There was a lake nearby, as there almost always was these days. They could hear its twilight birds.

Etta, what
do
you remember? asked the woman. They were laid down now, looking up through the branches.

I have a sister, said Etta. Alma.

Back from catching, killing, and eating a small brown mouse, James curled up into the soft indent of Etta’s waist on the far side from the reporters. Still silent.

T
hat night Etta dreamt of water. And boats and boys and men and boys, breathing in the water, spitting out the water, and everything loud and so much color, but darkened and getting darker and this is no place for a woman you better get down get right down, down, deeper, deeper, deeper.

I
n the morning, over a berry breakfast, Etta said, Water. That’s why. I’m trying to get to the water.

Before they left, the woman whispered to Etta, while the man was looking away, scribbling, I wish I could come with you.

You can, said Etta.

I can’t, said the woman.

They were picked up by a half-car-half-truck with giant wheels that pulled up through the trees. You can, said Etta.

Maybe, said the woman, across the rolled-down window of the passenger seat.

R
ussell was looking for Etta’s boots. For the treads, in the dirt. It hadn’t rained since he’d started, so the tracks should have been there, somewhere. He looked for a folded-down parting in the foliage, and for the treads. He knew them, he’d seen them hundreds of times, thousands of times. And he’d followed them before too. Twice.

Once was fifty-five years ago, almost. That year of mud, maybe the last, maybe the only. It wasn’t raining, but it had felt like it might. That was rare enough. He had followed them across his flax to the yard behind his Quonset, where he kept his collection of big metal. Mostly broke-down things, though some of them would still go, if he was patient enough. At first he thought she was an animal. A dog or coyote, the way she was bent down, low, crouched. Her arms were around her stomach, clenched. She was rocking, slowly, subtly, back and forth. Her head was pointing down, at the mud; she didn’t see Russell.

He took a step back, behind the cover of a rusted thresher’s cylinder. If she was here, he reasoned, it was because she didn’t want to be seen. This place, in the shadows of gently stagnant machines, was where the foxes came to give birth, where the cats came to die. Sheltered. Private. But Etta didn’t look right. Not normal, not okay. She might need him. He deliberated. Then, without moving, without deciding, he said, Etta, I am here, behind the thresher. I can come around to you, or go back home, or just stay here, just here. Whatever you want.

There was a long silence, and then, without looking up, Etta reached one hand out toward him. Open. He walked over, knelt down in the mud, and took it. She said nothing and he said nothing, just let his hand be pulled away from him and back and away and back as Etta rocked. Her eyes were squeezed shut. After a minute, barely a minute, she let go and said, Okay. I think I’ll be okay now, Russell. You should go home.

Her voice had too much air and not enough sound.

You’re sure?

I’m sure.

Okay, said Russell. He stood up. The knees of his jeans were wet and heavy with mud. He turned around, away from her.

And, Russell, she said, thank you. For now and for then and for always. You’re so quiet, so gentle, so patient. So, so, so. The sibilance of her words barely there, o, o, o.

Russell followed the treads back to where they’d passed his front door. Otto had been home for a few years now, he reminded himself. He didn’t need to worry about Etta so much, now. Still, a few hours later he went back to the place behind the Quonset just to be sure she wasn’t still there, and to see if, maybe, she’d left anything behind. The grass was wetly matted down where she’d been, and the mud kicked around a bit, but that was all.

That night, after sunset but before bed, Russell went for a walk. He knew the route by heart and by feet and could look up at the star-full sky more than down at where he was going. He walked until he got to Otto’s truck, parked up along the southeast corner of Otto and Etta’s house. The truck was unlocked. It was always unlocked. Russell opened the door furthest from the house and slipped in and across to the driver’s seat. The truck’s interior was still and hot and smelled of the rough white soap that Otto and Russell had both used since they were kids on the Vogel farm, scrubbing up hands and fingernails before lunch. Warm-yellow light from a kitchen window shone through and bounced back off the truck’s side, making Russell invisible and illuminating the inside of the house like a silent movie. He made up his own soundtrack, imagined the sounds, silence, words:

Otto is sitting at the table, reading a newspaper. Quiet. Then he gets up, his chair scraping across the floor a little as he does, opens
a drawer, gets a pencil, and sits back down. He continues reading, every now and then drawing slow, careful circles around words. The pencil scratching lightly. After twenty-seven minutes, Etta comes in, walking with her body held, careful, like a heavily pregnant woman, except thin, empty. Does Otto notice this? She puts the kettle on, leans against the counter. Otto turns so his good ear faces her. Does Etta notice this?

I’m sorry
, says Otto.

Etta looks up, away from the kettle. Otto taps his finger against the newspaper.

I’m sorry, I’m so sorry
, he says.
You should have stayed with Russell. This would not have happened with Russell.

Etta walks across to him, looks over his shoulder at his hand on the paper.

Maybe
, she says. She sits in the chair next to him, next to the good ear.
But it’s too late now, isn’t it.

They sit in silence, both looking down, at the table, the paper, for four minutes. Then Otto picks up his pencil again and draws a circle.

Etta
, he says.
Do you think this happened because you still love him?

Maybe,
says Etta. She points at the circle.
Maybe.

The kettle lets out a short, small whistle. Etta looks around to it and Otto follows her gaze. Then it’s silent again and they both look back down at their hands, the paper.

That was a long time ago. But Etta always bought the same boots.

Now, however, Russell couldn’t find their tracks. He crossed all the way up across the swatch of land that she’d almost certainly have to have crossed, between two lakes, along the same corridor as Cordelia and Monty’s café, eyes to the ground, checking carefully, and then back again. There were many other tracks, some human, farmers or hikers probably, and some animal, mice, deer, dogs, coyotes, but
no Etta. No Etta as he knew her, at least. It had taken him two days. He’d eaten most of his peanuts. He walked back to his truck. He could track and trace, yes, but Russell knew that he couldn’t keep up with Etta walking. He couldn’t keep up with anyone. He swung his legs into the cab, bad then good, and set off east again, on small and smaller roads, as the trees became dense. He would stop for supplies and, hopefully, clues, at the next bit of civilization. He thought he should be sad, or at least frustrated, but Russell wasn’t. He was in Ontario. The windows were rolled down to the new air, and he breathed it through his mouth, like a dog, alive and moving.

T
he phone rang. It took Otto four rings to find it, past all the letters and recipes. By the time he got to it, it was too late, the ringing had stopped. He pulled a chair from its place at the table and sat beside it, puzzling over who there was out there who had its number. Did Russell have it? He tried to remember if Russell had ever phoned. He knocked, he shouted, he left notes, but phoning? No, no. Otto was fairly sure he didn’t even have a phone. But Etta would know it, surely, her own phone number, of course she would. For most things she would write, had always written, but for an emergency she might try to phone. It must have been Etta. In an emergency. He stayed there, right there by the phone, for eleven minutes, watching it, thinking,

E
tta is out of food and money. She is thin, her clothes and her flesh both worn down to near-transparency. It has been three days since her last letter. Three days without eating. She has resorted to chewing grass and drinking dandelion milk, the skin around her lips turned green. Finally, on the outskirts of somewhere—Laclu?—she finds a phone box and digs down to her last quarter, dialing the only number she knows, and listening to it ring and ring and ring and ring and ring and ring and then cut off. No answer. No quarters left, she slumps into the corner of the booth, crumpled, already more ghost than not.

O
r,

E
tta is walking, striding east with ease, confidence, strong and alert, singing, in an Ontario forest. Just out of sight, off to her right, something else is moving east, along with her, around the trees, the sound of its movement hidden under Etta’s footfalls and song. They continue like this for hours, until the darkness between the trees blurs into one, and Etta stops for the night, laying a bed of clothes in the cavern of a balsam fir’s low branches. The cougar waits until she is asleep, regular breathing, then slips in beside her, always noiseless, and lays one heavy paw on her neck. Etta wakes before the claws have a chance to extend, pushing herself backward, away, into the tree’s base.

No!

The cougar springs forward, catching some fur in the low needles, back onto Etta’s chest.

Yes. You’ve had a good life, Etta. You’re old now. I need this. I need to survive too.
The claws tear an even quadruple track down her coat, there is blood.

Not yet, I’m almost there. Not yet. Etta kicks out, into the animal’s beautifully soft belly, a female, she realizes, a mother. She rolls left, toward her things, her bag, and beside it Otto’s rifle. The cougar catches a leg with its mouth, just below the knee, bites down. The pain bursts through Etta like caffeine, she can reach the gun, she swings it round, firing once, missing, draws back the bolt, automatic, like she’s done a thousand times in the yard, with cans or gophers, and fires again, and the cat makes a noise louder than it ever has, louder than it knew it could, hit, in the hip, and flinches back, away, sudden, to the edge of the branch-cave. Looks at Etta, blinks, blinks, confused, afraid, then disappears, away. There is blood all along Etta’s side; she doesn’t know whose it is. She falls unconscious.

When she wakes she is in the back of a moving vehicle. You’re
lucky, says someone, a face that’s mostly beard poked around from the driver’s seat. You are one lucky lady, lady. Lucky for that gun, and lucky it’s old enough to be loud enough for me to hear from my place; I got pretty thick walls. Etta’s leg is wrapped in plaid cotton. A shirt. Red and green and blue.

It takes them four hours to reach the nearest hospital, over dark, bumping forest roads. Etta tries to stand but the nurses won’t let her. They lay her on a stretcher and strap down her arms and legs. They ask, Is there anyone we can call?

O
r,

E
tta is passing through somewhere, a town, Thunder Bay, and the sun is setting, and she needs to hurry up to be out of town, back in the wild to sleep. The streets are emptying of people, little by little as the dark creeps down and the streetlamps twitch on. Etta tries to increase her pace, bigger strides, more steps, but it’s the end of the day and she’s been walking since sun-up, since six or so; she’s tired. She comes to a split in the road, opening up to a park. She can walk straight through it, the direct route, or keep to the road with the sidewalk, lamps, houses warmly lit, and go around, twice as far. She lifts a metal latch and pulls a gate open toward her, she’ll go through the park, be through in five minutes. She straightens up and grips her bag with both hands, as, from somewhere close, a siren sounds.

The adrenaline of the dark revives her legs, and Etta’s almost all the way across the park when she notices the small pack with smoke curling from their heads in tendrils like hair extensions. Young. Maybe fifteen or seventeen. Like the students she used to teach, like
Otto and Winnie and Russell. There are three boys and one girl, all with cigarettes except one boy, the shortest. They hear Etta before they see her, before she sees them; they’re ready. Casually, they open up to form a line, a fence with their bodies across the path. Hey, says one, a boy with a winter hat on, even though it’s not winter, What you got in your bag, lady?

Etta, still a teacher, always a teacher, raises an eyebrow. Well, she says, I don’t think—

You should show us, says the girl, interrupting, stepping closer.

I don’t think—says Etta again, calm, eyes forward, at the not-smoking boy, at his blue fleece hood up around his still pudgy face, that you should be, while reaching around, the rifle, is it too soon for the rifle? They’re just kids.

It’s late, she says, what about your—

Or, I guess, we could just take a look for ourselves, the first boy again, the winter hat. He lunges forward, grabs, knocks Etta down. The girl follows her down, her face close enough for Etta to smell the beer, cheap. Etta, instinctual, closes her arms around her bag, its socks, crackers, chocolate, writing paper and pens, closes her eyes before the first blow, the girl’s smaller fist, into chest, between clavicles. A basketball shoe to her side, and another, and then everything, everywhere, kicking and hitting and harder and harder, her body is made of paper, tearing, and is that blood or spit on her face, and Etta releases her grip, covers her face with her hands, and the bag falls away, is grabbed up before it hits ground. And then they are gone. Crackers, chocolate, writing paper and pens. The rifle still on Etta’s back, digging in. She lifts her hands away, off her face. It hurts to breathe. Her ribs won’t rise and fall properly. There is a split in her lip that stings with each inhale. The little bits of starlight blur and dance. She turns her head away from them and her spine shoots
warnings, don’t move, don’t move, and there, still just right where he was before, is the boy in the blue fleece hood. He is crying.

Don’t cry, says Etta.

Sorry, says the boy. I know I shouldn’t.

Your friends are gone.

I know. I should go.

But he doesn’t go. He just stays there, just right where he was before.

I bet I could carry you, he says. I have a little brother, I can carry him.

Etta thinks about her back, the rifle. No, she says, you don’t need to do that.

I need to do something.

Do you have a phone?

Yes, from my mom, for emergencies.

Maybe we could use that?

Okay.

Thank you . . .

James.

James. Thank you, James.

O
r,

E
tta has forgotten. She stands in a field, somewhere, stopped. She sits down in the yellow. Spreads her fingers against the sun into her eyes. Russell and Winnie and Amos and the others will be done their chores soon and they’ll all meet and walk home together. She sits and waits and watches grasshoppers bound toward her and away. When
the sun starts to set she stretches out, puts her hands under her head. She falls asleep thinking,

Any minute now.

When the farmer, a woman, broad and strong and tan with always squinting eyes, finds her two days later, Etta is still like that, smiling, with her hands behind her head. What a beautiful way to go, thinks the farmer. She strokes bits of dust and seed from Etta’s hair. She reaches through the old woman’s tattered bag, arranging items neatly in piles beside the body, like a shrine, until she finds the bit of paper that says

Home:

and then a phone number.

T
he phone rang again. Otto jumped. Fumbled, grabbed at it.
Hello?
he said, Yes? Hello?

A moment of silence on the other end, the audible fuzz of distance, and then, Otto? Is that Otto? This is William, your nephew, Harriet’s son. Did you know Etta’s in the paper?

William. The accountant. Brandon, Manitoba. He was still talking,

She looks good; a little crazy, maybe, but good, as in, healthy. There’s a picture, in color. Want me to describe it? Here, I’ll describe it: She’s walking. She’s in a field of grass, it looks like wild grass, like, not a lawn, but tall grass, the kind that sometimes has stripes. And there are trees in the background, big firs or pines. Coniferous for sure. Her hair is longer than I remember. And straighter. It’s all out behind her in the wind . . .

And on and on, talking.

William, Otto interrupted, which paper is this?

Oh, um, here, it’s the
National
.
The Canadian National
. It says in the corner, down at the bottom of the article, that it first appeared in the
Kenora Chatter
, but now, this, this is the
National
.

And she’s alive and not hurt?

No, no, I mean yes. Yes, she’s alive, and, no, she doesn’t seem to be hurt. Here, it says,
Moments of fumbling confusion contrasted with moments of startling clarity
.
A striking presence,
it says. No mention of injury. She looks good, healthy. You know, I thought it was a bit odd, a while back I got letters here addressed to her—I sent them back to you, did you get them?—but it makes sense now, I guess, if she was passing through. Though I didn’t see her. I bet she was south of us. Walking . . . do you think it’s okay, her doing this walking? I mean, she looks healthy, so I suppose it’s fine, but, there are animals and things, right? And people, there are more people out that way, Ontario, Quebec. I could see about getting some time off work, maybe following in the van? Or get one of the kids to do it, Stephen needs a job . . . though Lydia’s the better driver . . .

No, said Otto, interrupting again. No thank you, William. She’s okay. There’s a plan. She’ll be okay.

Okay then. Okay. I’m sure you know best, Otto. . . . Hey, I wish Mom could see her, eh? She’d have loved to see that.

Yes, she would have.

Mom would have loved it.

You miss her?

Yes, oh yes.

Me, too.

O
nce off the phone, Otto got in his truck and drove to the Co-op. He bought eggs, milk, and the shop’s entire stack, twelve copies, of
The Canadian National.