Heroes of the Frontier (28 page)

There were a hundred uncomplicated hours in every day and they didn't see a soul for weeks. Was it weeks? They no longer had a grasp of the calendar. During the day all was quiet but for the occasional scream of a bird, like a lunatic neighbor; at night, the air was alive with frogs and crickets and coyotes. Paul and Ana slept deeply and Josie hovered over them, like a cold night cloud over rows of hills warmed all day in the sun.

They were growing in beautiful ways, becoming independent, and forgetting all material concerns, were awake to the light and the land, caring more about the movement of the river than any buyable object or piece of school gossip. She was proud of them, of their purifying souls, the way they asked nothing of her now, they slept through the night, and relished the performing of chores, liked to wash their clothes—and they were immeasurably better now than they were in Ohio. They were stronger, smarter, more moral, ethical, logical, considerate, and brave. And this was, Josie realized, what she wanted most of all from her children: she wanted them to be brave. She knew they would be kind. Paul was born that way and he would make sure Ana was kind, but to be brave! Ana was inherently courageous, but Paul was learning this. He was no longer afraid of the dark, would plunge into any woods with or without a light. One day, on her way back from the woods, she caught the two of them on the hillside near the cabin, both barefoot, gently shushing through the shallow leaves with their bows, watching something invisible to her. She turned, scanned the forest, and finally saw it, a ten-point buck, walking through the birches, his back straight and proud. Her children were mirroring it on the other side of the hill, unheard by the deer. They had turned into something else entirely.

All along she had been looking for courage and purity in the people of Alaska. She had not thought that she could simply—not simply, no, but still—create such people.

But the food ran out one staple at a time. First they were out of milk, then juice, and were drinking only water, first from the bubbler then from the waterfall. They went through the vegetables, then the apples, and finally the potatoes. They lived on nuts, crackers and water for two days before a trip into town was unavoidable.

“We'll go tomorrow,” Josie said.

“I don't want to go anywhere,” Ana said.

The thought of driving the Chateau again, and exposing herself to the road, to the prospect of meeting anyone who might still be pursuing her family, filled her with a crippling dread. To reduce the risk she went out to the garage with a screwdriver, planning to remove the license plates. She was halfway there when she heard Paul calling.

“A map!” he yelled as he flew down the path to her, Follow running behind.

“Is this where we are?” Paul asked. He had it spread out on the ground between them. It was a dense thing, showing every foot of elevation, a maze of green lines, numbers and jagged paths, but they found the mine on it, and finally they arrived at the exact location of the cabin. “We're here,” he said.

“Okay,” Josie said.

“There's a town over here,” Paul noted, pointing to a small grid that looked to be just over a ridge, only a few miles away as the crow flies. There seemed to be a trail that went over the ridge, bringing them to the town via a frontage road. They would appear from the trail like hikers, and then disappear again like hikers, and even if anyone took note of the three of them, remembering Ana's orange tumbleweed hair, they would be able to say only that they came out of the woods, or returned to the woods.

“And look,” Paul said, pointing to a wide thread of blue. “A river, I think.”

“The Yukon,” Josie said. They were at the Yukon River, or within walking distance, and all this time they'd had no idea.

“Will we bring Follow?” Paul asked.

They discussed leaving her alone in the cabin, which seemed unwise—she'd tear the place up. They could lock her in the bathroom, but that would be cruel.

“I think we have to,” Josie said, putting their fiery faces to bed.

Josie sat outside, listening to the lunatic night, her bullet-hole guitar on her lap. She didn't want to go to town. She had begun to think they could stay in the woods indefinitely. For the time being, she missed no one and nothing. She tried to conjure a decent chord and failed. She tried to pick a string, any string, to make a pleasing sound, and got nowhere. She put the guitar down, went inside, and found Follow, standing on the futon, as if waiting for her company. She lifted the dog, who weighed no more than a carrot, brought her outside and petted her until her black fur calmed and she returned to sleep. This was about the time the ringing had come before, so Josie's back was tense. The cabin door squeaked.

“Mom?” It was Ana.

“You can't be awake,” Josie said.

“But I am,” Ana said.

Ana came to Josie's chair and leaned against it. She was wearing her conspiratorial face, the one she wore when she called Josie by her first name. She traced circles on Josie's arm, her mouth moving, as if practicing something she needed to say.

“What is it?” Josie asked.

“Mom, I know Dad's dead.” She produced an apologetic smile.

“What?” Josie said.

A flicker of doubt entered Ana's eyes. “He is, right?”

“No.” Josie threw her arm around Ana and pulled her close. “No, sweetie,” she said into Ana's thicket of hair, smelling of woodsmoke and sun and sweat.

Ana pulled away. “But then where is he?”

Josie put Follow gently down, lifted Ana into her lap and gathered her little legs in so she could wrap her arms around her daughter, hold every part of her. She considered how to answer Ana's question, how to hedge or say that her father was away, or they were away, or on vacation, or people grow apart, or make some half-promise to see him soon. But Josie knew it was time to call him. She felt a sudden tenderness toward Carl, because he had helped to create this child sitting in her lap, who had begun to think that if Jeremy was gone and dead, her father, who was gone, was dead, too. In the morning, in town, she would call Carl, and call Sunny, would tell everyone where she was and why, to let them know they would return.

IT WAS ABSURD TO
lock a house where they were squatting, but Josie did lock it, knowing that if they returned and saw any sign of new arrivals—for example the rightful occupants—they could probably make it to the Chateau without being detected. She debated whether or not to take the velvet sack with them, but because the cabin was their home now, she felt it was safer inside than with them. She hid it behind the household cleaners under the sink.

They took the trail up past the last of the mine's buildings, a shack now with but one wall standing, stepped over the low fence and continued. The path rose up the hill for a quarter-mile before it turned and wound around another low peak, one they hadn't been able to see from the cottage.

“This must be Franklin Hill,” Paul said, and Josie had the thrill of believing that this was possible: that they could set out in unknown territory, with a handmade map, and they would see actual landmarks that bore some topographical resemblance to the map in the cabin. They rounded the hill and passed through a huddle of pines and just like that, they could see the town below, very small, no more than a few hundred residents, most of the buildings standing by the bend in the river. The water was blue and brown, and traveled slowly but shimmered boldly in the midmorning sun. The rest of the walk, about a mile downhill, was giddy, the children galloping down the dusty path, with Follow ahead of them, then behind them, circling, everyone thinking they were doing something extraordinary.

Separating the trail from the town was a small RV park, a circle of vehicles surrounding a picnic area, white tables arranged in a half-moon. Josie stopped, looked at her kids, hoping they had the appearance of a family returning from a short hike in the hills. Ana was wearing simple sneakers and Paul was wearing his leather boots. Paul was carrying a school backpack and Ana was carrying a stick in the shape of a machine gun—she had assured Josie she would not fire it. They put Follow's rope leash on her collar, and emerged from the trail. The RV park was empty but for an older couple sitting on folding chairs, staring into the sun from the opposite side of the lot. When they arrived at the town's main street, they saw that it was not a regular day in town.

“Mom, is this a holiday?” Paul asked.

Josie had to think about it for a second. Was it Labor Day? No. Too late for that. But the streets had been blocked off for a parade. It was just ending, but Josie and Paul and Ana found a spot on the curbside and sat down just as a high-school band, small but loud, passed by, playing some seventies soul song Josie couldn't place and which was suffering greatly. The band was followed by a group of elderly women steering riding lawn mowers. Then a convertible carrying
JULIE ZLOZA, TREE FARMER, TEACHER
, who was running for state representative. Then a dozen or so kids on bikes, dressed like Revolutionary soldiers. A group from the local ASPCA, hoping to entice onlookers into adopting six or seven parading dogs, two of them missing legs. The local middle school had a float, where all the school's extracurricular activities seemed to be represented—twin girls in karate outfits, a tall boy in a basketball uniform, a small boy wearing a gold medal, likely some kind of academic decathlete? Walking behind the float was a lone boy in football gear. The final parade float carried a band, ten or twelve adults in close quarters, playing guitars and banjos and fiddles, all acoustic, sending an Americana sound into the air, to the general indifference of the dissipating crowd.

They followed the few hundred people in town to a park, where a sign gave notice that there would be a birthday party, starting in minutes, for Smokey the Bear.

“Who's invited?” Ana wanted to know.

“It's not that kind of party,” Paul said.

“Can I see the invitation?” Ana asked.

When they got to the park, at the foot of a small wooded hill, they found most of the residents of the town, some gathered around picnic tables, others lining up for the bouncy house, in the shape of a cresting wave, complete with a trio of inflated surfers.

Already there was a table set up with a large sad sheet cake saying only
SMOKEY
, and around the cake were various brochures about fire safety, urging celebrants to support local rangers. Ana and Paul were drawn to a fire truck, where a goateed firefighter was demonstrating the use of his ax. Next to him, a woman in khaki, with a high bouffant, was showing the assembled kids the workings of a high-pressure fire hose. Josie thought of the strange math of the firefighting business at the moment. These two were here celebrating Smokey's birthday, all patient and nonchalant, while elsewhere in the state a platoon of inmates were trudging off into the unknown.

There was a gasp, and all heads turned. Coming down the hill behind them were a pair of women in overalls, each of them holding the hand of a giant bear in blue jeans. It was Smokey. But this Smokey had aged, had lived a sedentary life. This Smokey was walking very slowly, and he wore his pants high around his stomach. He emerged from the woods resembling an elderly man who had been in the hospital for many months, and was for the first time walking in the light of day, more or less under his own power.

Smokey stepped carefully in front of the audience and waved a small, tentative wave. He was not the same bear they'd been seeing on the ubiquitous television spots about fire safety. That Smokey was an insurmountable brown monument. That Smokey had intermingled with Josie's thoughts while Jim was pressing himself into her, in the Chateau, a lifetime ago. This Smokey, standing in front of a birthday cake (no candles) and still being held steady by the two assistants, had no idea where he was.

Ana and Paul grew distracted by the inflated wave. Ana asked, and Josie consented, and Paul followed his sister, relinquishing the dog's rope leash. Josie and the dog meandered across the park, then, not wanting to be in the circle of parents watching their children climb up and slide down—Josie was not ready for conversation yet—she stopped under a small pine, and heard the faint sounds of live music, starting and stopping, sounding like the band from the parade.

She looked around her, and finally saw, in a wooded corner of the park, a circle of adults playing guitars and harmonicas and was that an oboe? It was the same band, but now expanded to nine or ten. Their arms were strumming furiously, their shoulders turning, and one man, the one facing her most directly, was sitting bow-legged, flapping his legs up and down like a frog to the rhythm. When he lifted his head, though, Josie ducked behind a tree, and for a while she stayed there, feeling ridiculous, given Follow was clearly visible, her leash giving her away if anyone cared to look.

“I see you,” a voice said.

Josie said nothing, did nothing.

“Behind the tree. We all see you and your pig-dog. Come over.”

Josie wanted to run. They didn't know her face yet. If she ran back, maybe she could return, later, not as the woman behind the tree, but as a regular person. She could bring the kids.

“Come on,” the voice said, and Josie emerged, bashful, walking over to the circle, seeing that most of the faces were looking up at her, all of them smiling with perfect openness.

“Come sit,” the first face said. This was the voice who found her, had spoken to her. He was bearded and thin, in the realm of forty, lithe and bright-eyed, wearing a plaid shirt and a baseball cap. He indicated a place near him but across from him.

“My kids are on the bouncy wave,” Josie said, nodding to the giant wave-balloon across the park. She sat between a blond woman holding some kind of harpsichord and the man with the oboe. The bearded man began to play again, and the sound was bigger than before. She was in the middle of the sound, the crashing chaos of it, the diagonal violence of the strumming, the jagged strokes of the violinist, and yet the music was joyous, rollicking. What was the song? It was folksy, but had some bossa nova in there, and when she thought she knew it, a man near her, easily seventy and with a wild tangle of grey hair and grey beard, the swirl of it like an aerial view of a hurricane, began singing.

In che mondo…

Viviamo, im-pre-ve-dibile…

Was that Italian? She did not expect Italian language to come from this man's mouth in this remote town, in this park near the Yukon. His eyes were closed. He could sing. What did it mean? Josie assumed it was something like “In this world/that we live in/incredible.” Then he sang the same verse, or some version of it, in English, and it was not quite what she expected.

In this world.

That we live in. Unpredictable. Unpredictable.

In this world of sorrow, there is justice, there is beauty…

A beautiful song, far too beautiful for this park on this afternoon, far too beautiful for her. The sun was directly above, performing its intoxication, and Josie was immediately caught up, and nodding her head, bouncing her feet.

In che mondo…

Viviamo, im-pre-ve-dibile…

Josie glanced to her right, to see the man playing the oboe, and when he saw her watching him, his long fingers on that long black tube, he winked. Was there ever anything more phallic and less alluring than an oboe? Across the circle, a woman was playing the violin, though in this context it was probably a fiddle. Josie watched them all, their hands shooting up and down again. These were unnatural movements. Without sound the motions they made would look mad. These drastic gestures up and down, their chins and cheeks stuck to these wooden instruments, fingers touching strings in certain places at certain times.

And suddenly the song was over, and Josie felt spent. These people didn't know what they'd just done. What they were capable of. These goddamned musicians. They never knew their power. To those with no musical talent, to Josie, what they could do sitting in a park near an inflatable wave was both miraculous and unfair. They were sitting there, adjusting strings, smiling at her, murmuring about keys and about the weather, when Josie felt like she'd just heard something absolute in its power to justify her life. Her children justified her daily breaths, her use of planetary resources, and then this—her ability to hear a song like that, in a group like this. Those were the three primary justifications for her living. Surely she was forgetting other things. But what?

“We're just jamming,” the bearded man said.

Goddamn you, she wanted to say. It's more than that. It's so easy for you, so hard for the rest of us.

“You have any requests?” he asked. “I'm Cooper.”

Josie shook her head, now trying to shrink. She wanted just to listen, not to be part of this. She wanted to go back behind the tree to listen unseen.

“Anything,” she said. She grabbed at a patch of grass underneath her and pulled. Was this a crowd that would know
Carousel
? she wondered.
Kiss Me, Kate
?

“Name something. I bet we know it,” Cooper said. Now most of the faces were looking at her, actually wanting a request. Maybe they were bored with one another, these spoiled magicians.

“Okay,” Josie said, her voice sounding hoarse. There were songs Josie knew, and there were songs she knew they would know, and there were songs she knew they would want to play, so she went for the third category.

“ ‘This Land Is Your Land?' ” she said, shrugging, though knowing they would love this. There was some nodding and grinning. She had made a good choice, and they began to get themselves into position. The harpsichord began, and the rest of the players followed. They went through the whole song, all six verses, eight choruses, and they insisted Josie sing, too. The song seemed to last twenty minutes, an hour. She glanced at the bouncy house periodically, catching sight of Ana and Paul climbing the inflated steps, sliding down, starting over.

“You play anything?” the oboe man asked her.

She told him no, she had no aptitude at all.

“Ever try to learn?” he asked.

“So many times, Jesus Christ,” Josie said, and this was true. All the way through her teens and twenties she'd tried the piano, the guitar, the saxophone. She was equally inept at all of them.

And now she saw Paul standing at the bottom of the inflatable wave, looking around him, hand shielding his eyes, a scout watching for reinforcements.

“I have to go,” Josie said, and stood. There were a few murmurs of regret, and someone, maybe Cooper, told her to come back again, that they played every Saturday and Sunday at noon, that anyone was welcome, and while he was talking, Josie realized it must be Saturday that day, thus the parade, thus everyone off work, and that tomorrow they would be playing again, that she wanted to be there.

She walked back to the bouncy wave, and for a while watched her children sliding down, jumping off, climbing back on. This was not civilized, though. There were too many kids, and they were all bigger than Paul and Ana, and bodies were everywhere, tumbling over one another on the way down, feet and elbows narrowly missing faces and necks. “Careful,” she said, but her children were not listening. They were not afraid, they were capable of fending for themselves. Here Josie was watching resilience at the genetic level. She watched them climb the inflated steps, kids above them, feet stepping on their hands, and then watched them tumble down, their heads landing on the knees and stomachs of other children, and though Paul's and Ana's eyes were first round with shock and awareness that they could be aggrieved by their slight injury, they chose to roll off the wave, and climb back, again and again.

“Wait here,” she said to Paul. “I'll be right back.”

She turned around, walking back to the circle of musicians, but they were gone. She scanned the park, and finally found one of them, Cooper, walking toward the parking lot. She ran to him, making sure she could still see the wave that contained her children. He saw her approach, and a curious smile overtook his face.