Mink River: A Novel Page 13

  But Daniel is sound asleep now, the sea lion curled asleep in his lap, and the man who sells boxes grins, and quietly stands and slips a blanket off his own bed and wraps Daniel in it, and sits back down with his box of photographs, some of which make him grin and some of which make him wince and some of which make him hold them up to the light for a long time.

  31.

  Next day No Horses carves and chisels and whittles and slices and hammers and chips and snicks and shaves and slices the wooden man all the day and half the night and by that time there’s hardly any wooden man left at all, he’s mostly a pile of oak chips as high as her knees, and next day after that she starts all over again with a piece of spruce about as big as a goddamn car, as Owen mutters darkly after hauling and hefting the thing into the studio panting and sweating and cursing, and she works furiously all day and half the night making a new man, stopping only to run over to the doctor’s house to see Daniel every few hours, and she doesn’t stop to eat at all though Owen comes twice by with sandwiches and coffee. He leaves the sandwiches and thermos by her door. He doesn’t knock. She doesn’t eat the sandwiches or drink the coffee and Cedar quietly takes them away.

  She reduces the spruce man to a pile of chips also, which makes her scream in frustration, so Owen and Cedar haul in a piece of cedar the size of a goddamn boat, and she reduces that to chips in less than a day this time, and she says nearly weeping that spruce and cedar are no good, she needs alder, and now Owen is both angry and worried, so he hauls in a piece of alder so big that he has to recruit not only Cedar but Worried Man and Declan and Nicholas, the younger men straining so hard that the veins in their necks bulge bizarrely and you can hear the cartilage in their knees and shoulders pop and the older men directing traffic feel sincere regret that they can no longer help with such crushing weight and they worry seriously about the weight-bearing capacity of the old oak floor.

  Jesus, couldn’t your woman be a weaver or something? says Declan.

  Just pull.

  They finally heave the goddamn log onto the work table, which groans and moans and they stand around for a moment getting their breathing back in order. Worried Man looks for the spot on the floor where he thought he was never going to actually get his breath back ever again. Declan chaffs Owen again about his uncontrollable wife. Nicholas grins at the chaff but doesn’t say anything. Owen smiles too but his eyes wander outside to the hills where No Horses is walking furiously to calm the rattling and swerving of her brains. Something is wrong and he knows it and she knows he knows and he knows she knows he knows but they haven’t said anything about it. She’s worked furiously before, she’s worked all day and all night for days and nights on end, but that was the crazy energy of joy, and this is wild and reckless and helpless, as if her knife is a weapon, not a key to finding something inside the wood that wants to be born, something that never was and never would be but for her brilliant fingers.

  Thanks, lads, says Owen.

  If she reduces this one to dust she’s on her own, says Worried Man.

  Has she ever thought of working in miniatures? says Declan.

  There are a lot of wood chips here, says Nicholas politely.

  Back to work, fellas, says Cedar, who heads back to his office, and off go the other four men to the four holy directions: Owen west to his shop, Nicholas east to his father, Declan south to no father, Worried Man north for his evening walk.

  32.

  Owen back in his shop hears a knock on the window and he stops working and opens the door and there’s Grace O Donnell smiling.

  Hey Grace.

  Sorry to interrupt your work.

  No no. Come in, come in.

  Thought I’d stop by.

  Always a pleasure.

  You’re sure?

  Sure now. Coffee?

  Sure. Thanks.

  No fishing today, eh?

  No.

  I’m very sorry about your dad.

  Thanks.

  Funeral tomorrow?

  Yeh. You’ll be there?

  Sure I will. We will. Well, not Dan. Me and Nora. Well, maybe Nora.

  Actually that’s why I’m here. Partly.

  For Nora?

  Ah, no. Can you say a prayer in Irish? At the funeral?

  Ah sure. Which prayer?

  Any one you like. My dad was very proud of his heritage and it seems right to have the old tongue in the air over him at the end. Peadar and Niall suggested it and Declan and I think it’d be grand.

  I’ll do that. You want it brief?

  Well … yes.

  Okay then. I’ll prepare something.

  Thanks so much. We’re very grateful.

  Does anyone in your family speak Irish?

  No. Not a word. So we’d be very thankful.

  Ta failte romhat. You’re welcome.

  Is this my Gaelic lesson now?

  Ah, jeez, I was going to teach you a bit, wasn’t I? I’m sorry. I’ve been hornswoggled lately. Don’t know up from down.

  This isn’t a good time, is it? I’ll go.

  No no. Fine time. Let’s do a bit. Always good to slip the old tongue in a new ear.

  Grace grins and Owen flushes to the roots of his hair as black as the inside of a dog.

  Ah, the old language, I mean, the old Gaelic, it’s so near dead, the poor thing, any new speaker of it at all is new life in the old horse. You never know where a language will go when it finds new soil.

  Okay then.

  Ah. Well. Ah. This coffee, let’s say. It’s te.

  Tea?

  Te—hot.

  Te.

  Fuar is cold.

  Fuar.

  Seomra te, this room is hot.

  This room is very hot, Owen. Do you always work like this?

  Sa, yes. I don’t know why. Nora, now, she likes a cold work room.

  O?

  She does. God knows why. Says she can think better when the air is crisp. The woman’s mad as a mink. God knows how she stands it. Her fingers are like ice when she comes home. She slips them under my shirt sometimes and it’s shocking cold.

  I love heat, says Grace. I guess I spend so much time outside in the cold that I can’t get enough heat.

  Me too. I love heat. Hot rooms, hot weather. Maybe it’s all those centuries of cold mud in our blood. My favorite month’s August when the sun bears down like a burning stone. I love it. That’s the one time I work outside. I set up a table out there in the heat.

  Te.

  That’s good, Grace. You have the right touch there. Well, hey, listen, I’d best get back to work. I’m awful behind. Sorry.

  No, no. Thanks for the lesson.

  Sure.

  And thanks for tomorrow.

  Sure. I’ll do my best.

  Hope Daniel heals quick.

  Thanks. I’ll tell him you were thinking after him.

  Could, can I get another lesson sometime? If it’s not too much trouble. I know you’re busy. Just say no if it’s too much trouble.

  No, no. Anytime. Just pop by.

  Thanks. Well—goodbye.

  Slan, that’s goodbye.

  Slan, Owen.

  Slan, Grace.

  Off she goes and back goes Owen to his bench and he tries to bring his mind down on his work like a burning stone but his mind rattles and swerves from his wife to Grace to his son to Grace to his wife to Grace to old Hugh O Donnell ah jeez the old bastard what am I going to say over that cruel old bird with never a good word for anyone and his hand as hard as his head and me saying a prayer there’s a laugh I haven’t said a prayer in earnest for a thousand years I bet since I was a boy younger than Danno and kneeling on that hill praying desperate that the old man and the mother would find some shred of joy between them and not crack apart into two islands cold as the tits of the queen of the sea leaving me alone between ’em alone floating alone.

  33.

  Owen could fiddle a bit and sometimes for no reason he’d pull the fiddle down from the shelf and fool
around with it. He knew a few reels and jigs and hornpipes and airs but none so well that he could ever play them twice the same way. They were just drifting loose there in the fiddle when he asked for them with his awkward bow. There were seven of them and each had a flavor he named in Gaelic. There was a lean elegant bright reel that he called seilistrom, the tall yellow iris that grew near fresh water, and there was a twisting turning confusing jig he called dris, the blackberry bush, and there was an air that sailed up so sweetly at the end that he called it fuiseog stairiceach, the skylark; and whenever he played that one he would find his mind in the rocky muddy mossy lanes of his boyhood, startled as larks leapt whirring into the sulking sky.

  The fourth one was Daniel’s favorite, a sinuous cheerful playful reel they called the otter, dobhran, and the fifth was a clever elusive jig he called madra rua, the red fox, which always reminded him of his mother, and sixth was a mischievous riff that No Horses called the thief’s theme, or snag breac, the magpie; and finally the seventh song was an elegant mad tune that came up every time he touched bow to string. He called it riasc, the heron, and he thought of it privately as Billy’s waltz, in honor of his father-in-law. It was a sort of measured dance tune, a duet almost, two mirrored motifs braided and pulled apart and braided again in ever-new forms, and something in it spoke to Owen of a father’s layered and confused love for his daughter, of the way a man might cherish his new babe and swaddle her in his hands and cup her to his chest as she mewled and moaned, and then teach her to speak and sing, and savor the headlong mystery of her girl years, and then war with her as a woman, and be confused and affronted, and delighted and amazed, and exhausted and angry, and patient and impatient, and watch her win a man, and birth her own child, and walk away from her father down her own road, for good or ill; and so there was in the tune both woe and wonder, and Owen never tired of playing it. More than the other six songs it was a changeful thing, each rendition different from the last, in ways he did not understand, and did not try to; but simply sat, his eyes closed, his legs asprawl, letting the bow wander gently into the song, thinking of the lanky clarity and grace of herons, thinking of Billy, smiling.

  34.

  No Horses finds herself up in the hills by her mom and dad’s house and almost against her will she looks through the kitchen window and there’s Maple Head making bread and No Horses leans on the windowsill.

  Mom.

  Come in, love.

  I’m mid-walk. Just saying hi.

  Take a loaf with you.

  I’ll bring it over to Daniel.

  How is my little boy?

  He’s awake a lot more now, though he gets awful tired awful fast.

  His body is still in shock, I think.

  He’s so … peaceful.

  Pause.

  He’ll be fine, Nora, says Maple Head gently.

  O mom, to see his legs all locked in plaster like that. …

  It’s alright, love. It’s alright. Come sit for a minute. Here now. Sit right here. It’s alright. Here you go. Here you are. When you were little we sat like this. I bet we spent a thousand hours like this rocking and rocking. We haven’t sat like this for a long time, have we? It’s alright. Here now. He’ll be fine. Your love will heal him. You and Owen. You’re exhausted, Nora. It’s alright. Here’s a shawl. Here now. Okay. You work so hard, love. You carry so much. There’s only so much you can bear. Here now. I’ll tell you a story. We used to sit like this for hours telling stories. Remember when you were little and you had those nightmares and we would tell stories to fend them off? And then you told me stories whenever I was sick. I’ll tell you about Asin. Did I ever tell you about Asin? She is the wild woman of the woods. It’s an old story of the People. My mom used to tell me about Asin. Asin couldn’t bear being married or having children or having friends. She always wanted to run wild. She ran wild through the woods. If you saw her running you had to run to water as fast as you could and drink or her restlessness would come into you like a thirst that could never be quenched. She was happy and unhappy. She had wild long hair and she was very tall and she ran like the wind. When you saw dunegrass rippling in a line she was running through it. When the wind changed direction suddenly that was Asin. She was never satisfied or content and so she ran and ran and ran. She would grab men who were fishing alone and make love to them and then throw them down on the ground and run away weeping. She would grab children who wandered too far alone in the woods but she would return them to the same spot after three days and run away again. She would listen to women talking by the fire or working in the village or gathering berries but if they invited her to join them she ran away. You could hear her crying sometimes when the sun went down. She wanted something but she never knew what it was so she had nothing. She was as free as anyone ever could be and so she was trapped. When I was young I wanted to be Asin. Many times I wanted to be Asin and just run free. Run away. Sometimes I still want to be Asin. So do you, Nora. I know. It’s okay. It’s alright. My sweet love. Poor Asin. Sometimes I think that to be Asin would be the saddest thing in the world. Poor thing. Poor Nora. It’s alright. I’m here. Alright.

  35.

  Cedar in his office is in despair over money. He has his budget books sprawled all over his desk and his head in his hands. The Department of Public Works has no money. He has no money. Worried Man has no money. No one has any money. Who has any money? He takes his pencil and makes notes on people and money.

  Maple Head is a teacher and so makes a small salary and she and Worried Man get a little money from the government, but Maple Head must by law retire at the end of the school year, which looms in two weeks and after that she might or might not be rehired on a part-time one-year contract renewable only by the whim of the county school board, such decisions traditionally made about three days before the start of the new school year in September, which means a long worried summer for that astounding woman with the brown and silver hair and brown and green eyes flashing.

  Cedar and Worried Man officially are employees of the county and so draw small salaries but the salaries are tied to the county budget, which is tied to the state budget, which is slashed annually by the contentious legislature, and the salaries, which are tiny to begin with, are also reduced by an arrangement with the county by which both men chose full medical benefits over full salaries, which decision is mandatory for all county employees over the age of fifty-five.

  No Horses, for all the glowing reviews of her work in the city newspapers and gallery shows and glossy photographs of her sculptures in art magazines and interviews with her on alternative and progressive radio stations and the public television documentaries of her work and college students who come to worship at her feet and talk about the poetry of the grain and the soul of the tree emerging as if from a chrysalis, has sold three works in two years for cold cash and has exchanged statues recently for an eye examination, four cords of seasoned firewood, and a case of pinot noir from a vineyard on the dry side of the Coast Range.

  Owen gets by with the shop but he too does far more work in exchange for services and goods than he does for cash so between he and Nora they have barely enough money to cover the bills and as he says seemingly lightly but actually not very lightly at all, which worries his wife, we’ll never be sick a day in our lives my love simply because we can’t afford to be. The first bill from the hospital in the city where Daniel had his knees bolted and sewn and stapled and screwed and stitched back together arrived yesterday and Owen was so horrified that he hid it from Nora not that she’s been home to find it anyway.

  The doctor who you would think would be the wealthiest man in town gets by mostly on payments, always late, from large and recalcitrant insurance carriers, and by spending one day a week in the city as a consulting general practice man. He has many times thought and dreamed and yearned for an administrative assistant in his office to deal with claim forms and phone messages and equipment purchases and warranties and prescription forms and referrals and appointments
and malpractice insurance and deductions and professional memberships and patient records and a wall for photographs of all the children he has ever worked with, on, or over, but he can’t afford to hire anyone at the moment.