Peace Like a River

  It was hard talk to decipher. What was supposed to happen to you if you were present at a tragedy? Was there some sort of damage? I wasn’t sure. The fact is, beyond the occasional scary dream, my chief response to the shootings was a self-centered misery that Davy’d had to go away. I just missed my brother.

  They talked awhile longer, in fact a long while, but most of it went by me. Swede could crouch forever, but my knees weren’t made for it. I started thinking about catchers, Earl Battey and so forth, guys who squatted that way nine innings a day. Also the cold was creeping in under those blankets, and when I tuned my ears back to the adults they were talking about wheat. The one detail I missed, which Swede told me about the next day, was that Davy had a toothache. He’d eaten his kielbasa all right but was careful about drinking the cold milk Birdie poured him; it pained a molar right down to the root. Birdie had suggested he stay long enough to see a dentist, an idea he politely turned aside. Then Birdie, her heart emboldened, pressed him to give up outlawry and return home and offer himself up for justice. In such public repentance, she said, lay his best chance for what might yet become a fruitful life. And this, Swede said, brought a great smile to Davy’s face, and in that smile the Shultzes saw the truth, that turning himself in would be the very last thing Davy would do in his life, however long it lasted. After relating this, Swede said, Birdie had sounded upset and gone to bed, so I suppose wheat came up soon thereafter.

  I woke next morning smelling change. No metaphors here; something was different to my actual nose. The air felt heavy, the quilts too, as blankets feel on camp-out mornings. Rising I dressed by a closet light, shutting the door mostly to keep the brightness off Swede, who was a tough one to sneak out on, not to mention unforgiving afterward. I’ve always liked the feeling of being the first one awake in the morning; it makes you daring somehow. I went down to the kitchen and poked around carefully—didn’t turn on any lights for fear of rousting August or Dad. Lifting the coffeepot off the stove I found it half full. There were matches on the wall and I smouched one—to use a word Swede herself smouched off Mr. Twain—scratched it, and lit the gas. It made a lovely blue light in the dark kitchen; in no time the pot was ticking away, and I felt self-sufficient and borderline sneaky. Then August scuffed into the kitchen in his nightshirt. He had an electric candle in his hand, one of those which comes on by itself when you pick it up in the night.

  “Feel better this morning, Rube? You coughed some in your sleep.”

  “Yes sir. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  “Making coffee?”

  “Just heating it—is that all right?”

  He opened a cupboard and reached down a box of sugar lumps. I opened another and set out two cups.

  “Saucers,” August said. I got them also. He moved to the table, a strangely discordant sight in that nightshirt of his. He walked always at a slight tilt—he had poor balance, particularly in the dark, since being struck on the ear by a draft horse he’d been shoeing years before. The horse, Mike, hadn’t meant harm but had swung his head round at the very moment August dropped a hoof and stood up. Mike was a Percheron of heroic dimension—his head probably weighed 120 pounds. August recovered quickly, he was no weakling himself, but it is a fact that he tipped over easily thereafter.

  He said, “You smell that, this morning?”

  He meant the change I mentioned earlier. “I don’t know what it is,” I admitted. What it smelled like to me was a shovelful of earth. A wet day in spring.

  “It’s fog,” August said.

  He put out the electric candle, and we sat there in the dark smelling the air. August was right. I recognized the smell once he’d identified it.

  “It’s a thing about fog,” he continued. “Doesn’t matter when it comes, it smells like April. Birdie was born April twenty-second,” he confided. “Every time it fogs like this, I tell her, Happy birthday, love.”

  On receipt of this intimate remark I suddenly understood what had been given me. Never before had I been with Dad’s best and oldest friend, the beloved August Shultz, without Dad present. Nor had I been old enough to appreciate it—why, it hadn’t been long since August referred to me as “my little man.” Now here we sat together, in his dark kitchen, the house asleep, talking about foggy mornings.

  “Coffee hot?”

  It was. August lifted the candle so I could see to pour. He showed me to tip a little coffee from cup to saucer and swirl it around to cool. We baptized a few sugar lumps. Abruptly August stood. “I’m getting dressed. Let’s take a ride.”

  The fog lay rich and steamy over the barnyard. It was warm as manure; you could weigh it in a cupped hand. And it really did smell like April, though I noticed it also smelled like a wet dog; the two are not dissimilar. In the weeks previous we’d grown used to nights of 20 and 30 degrees below zero, so August’s yard that morning was a decent shock. He’d switched on the yard light; it showed fog draped all over everything, hanging over the snow.

  “Why, it’s twenty-four above,” August observed; he’d tacked a thermometer to the corral. He slid the barn door open. “Good morning, Laurie. Morning, old Brit.”

  Laurie and Brit, his paint mare and gelding, answered him out of the dark, stomping and chuffing. Though professing not to be the rider of the family—it’s true Birdie looked more at home horseback—August loved Laurie and Brit. I have a photo of him standing between the two of them, a hand under each of their chins, little cap tilting aboard his big bald scalp. It’s a good picture. Brit appears a little uninvolved, but Laurie has a look in her eye.

  August bridled the horses, working in the off light from the bulb outside, whacked out the blankets and smoothed them over their backs, and hoisted up the saddles. A horse is a dusty operation and I sneezed five or six times, but my wind seemed okay, and soon August had everything cinched and squared and Laurie was reaching her nose around to poke August in the face—horse language for gladness, he told me, because she couldn’t wait to get out and stretch in the warm fog.

  We led the horses out. August had Brit and was already setting foot in the stirrup. “Mount from the left,” he instructed, doing so himself. Laurie was younger and trickier than Brit, a fact that rattled me; standing under the yard light, the largeness of these animals had become plain. I had hold of Laurie’s bridle and she was stepping sideways, dragging me around.

  “Will she run?” Though I tried to ask this as if a running horse were my preference, August saw it for the chickeny question it was.

  “Let’s just walk ’em down the pasture. She’ll behave. Up and grab the horn, now, there you go.”

  We set off through the fog side by side. By now a deep blue had worked into the east and we rode down past the brooder house, the granary, the two fat corncribs, all these rising from blue fog at the last moment. Laurie champed and shook her head. She wanted to run, she was shivering with it, and abruptly I understood that I was scared of horses. My hands cramped on the reins. How had I not comprehended this before? Why, I could barely see the ground! Suppose Laurie stepped in a hole, she might roll over right on top of me! I’d read where cavalry soldiers had been killed, not by arrows or bullets but by their own faithful mounts who tripped at a bad time. Think about being crushed by a horse! And what if you lost your hold in a gallop, only to snag a foot in a stirrup? I’d seen that happen to fellows—sure, it was in the movies, but there was nothing fake about the dust they raised, flopping all over the place full speed ahead.

  August said, “A little restless, is she?”

  “Yes sir, I think so.”

  “Just say, ‘Easy. Easy, Laurie.’ She likes your voice, I can tell.”

  “Okay.” But a horse knows scared when it hears it. My tenuous reassurances sounded anything but easy; I had to heave against those reins just to stay to a walk.

  We were in the back pasture, which sloped down through spotty timber and became hummocky and ended on the bank of the George River, which we crunched down onto and headed upstream. Though noth
ing but ice it was good footing, for the river had frozen hard in the fall, then honeycombed and refrozen to a cindery crust. You could no more slip on this stuff than on sandpaper, and it made a satisfactory sound underhoof too. Since it was clear Laurie desired to gallop, August coerced Brit into the lead—you could tell old Brit rued leaving the barn, 24 degrees though it was. No doubt that cold fog was working on him, as it was on me. Fog inquires first at wrists and ankles. I began to wonder, as the light rose, just where we were headed, and how long till we turned back, but August ambled on while the banks of the George grew up knobby and weedy out of the fog. Though it seemed a long ride I don’t suppose we’d been gone half an hour when Brit turned and shouldered up a cut bank to the left, where the clay had slid down and made a gradient off the river. We came out onto a field which, from its tufted appearance, must’ve lain fallow some years. August stopped and I let Laurie step up beside him.

  “Sun’ll be coming up,” he said.

  “Yes sir. Burn off this fog.”

  “Yes, it’s lifting already.” And it was—across the field I could see dark buildings, an unlit house, a small barn.

  Laurie seemed to have settled, to my relief. She stood there by Brit, the two of them nodding and blowing and picking up their feet and setting them down.

  “Would you guess your dad is on the mend?” August asked, which made me look at him straight on.

  “Oh, he’s fine—he’s well,” I replied.

  “I never saw him so skinny before.”

  I nodded. August’s concern bothered me. Why, Dad hadn’t coughed in a week. Yes, he was skinny, but he’d never been thick like August. Anyone could see Dad was all right.

  “Did he go to a doctor?”

  “Dr. Nokes is a friend of ours, a real good doctor. He’s the one who delivered me,” I added, which credentialed Nokes as far as I was concerned.

  August sat aboard Brit, considering this. “Yup,” he said, “yup.” He turned and looked at the place before us, a place that declined as the sun came up. Now we could see a boarded window, now a front step atilt, now a talus pile at the base of the chimney. But smoke did rise from its sooty mouth, and in that swayback barn a cow was asking for breakfast, and as we watched a tremendous turkey came prancing around the house, a big black tom with something on his mind.

  “Do you know where we are, Rube?”

  I’d been wondering that. I didn’t know but felt like I should.

  “Your dad grew up there.” He pointed at the upstairs window, a tall narrow one with glass in it. “His room was in that attic. I used to ride over and spend a few days when the folks could spare me.”

  I sat quiet while we watched the place. I was ashamed not to have recognized it—I’d never seen its backside before, only its face as we drove past on the county road.

  August said, “It sure looked better when your family had it. Your grandpa was quite a gardener. That shelterbelt? He had sweet plums all along the south edge. Also raspberries—your dad and I would cut out the old canes and pile them up; they made a good fire.”

  The shelterbelt looked awfully sorry at present—of course, it was January. Just a strip of messy woods. But I could imagine a rich well-kept raspberry patch down there, and my grandpa, whom I remember only from photographs, stooped in his overalls doing the keeping.

  The tom turkey was trotting through the yard with his head up and swiveling—looking for something to eat or scare.

  “Interesting old man,” August said, “your grandpa. Kept three or four beehives back of the plums. Arthritis in his hands, every week or so in the summer he’d go down to the hives and stir the bees up a little and poke his hands out. Take four or five stings. The poison loosened up his fingers.”

  “He’d get himself stung on purpose?”

  “Ask your dad about it.”

  I’ll admit, my knowledge of my grandparents is scattershot. Grandma was in her forties when she had Dad; Grandpa was in his fifties—late fifties. Which, since Dad married at twenty-five, made them old before my birth. A few details: Grandma was a praying woman who addressed the Lord in King James English. Grandpa preferred not to wear his teeth before photographers; they made him look horsey. It’s fair to say that without them he looked surprised and dismayed, but this was probably closer to the truth.

  August said, “You getting cold?”

  “No, I’m all right, it’s warming up.”

  “Look at that tom, what’s he up to?” The turkey was stalking, circling the house. He’d come around from the front, careful as a heron, neck horizontal to keep the profile down; then he’d turn the corner and accelerate along the back of the house. Turn another corner, we’d lose him again for a minute.

  Under my knees Laurie stamped and blew. I looked eastward and saw the rim of the sun. A good thing about North Dakota, it has buckets of horizon; the sun comes up and you know it is there. Also it was making heat—the sun was. I could feel it in my clothes, like March. Suddenly soaked with confidence I asked, “Mr. Shultz, how long do you think it’ll take us to find Davy?”

  Hope is like yeast, you know, rising under warmth.

  August reached down to pat Brit, who’d got so still he might’ve been standing dead. You had to admire the strength of that horse, August was no lightweight. “I’m sure you’ll find him.”

  “But how long?”

  “I don’t know—say, look there.”

  The back door of the place had opened and a little boy stood in it, bundled in coats.

  “That would be Gerald,” August informed me. “He’s five or six.”

  Gerald was holding something—a big saucepan. He stood in the door, a hand on the knob, head stuck out looking around. I’ve seen similar poise in rabbits.

  August said, “There’s a batch of kitties out in that barn—early for them, isn’t it? See, he’s got some oatmeal in that pan.”

  Still Gerald didn’t come out, though he did crane around like everything.

  The tom turkey now reappeared on tiptoe upside the house. There was a low window on that side and I swear to you the turkey ducked his head passing it. I heard a quiet wheeze and it was August, chuckling.

  At this time Gerald’s radar relaxed. Maybe his folks got after him for holding the door open so long, or maybe he just believed the coast was clear, for out he stepped and shut the door. Of course the turkey zipped round the corner like a guided missile, gurgling with wrath and triumph; Gerald dropped the pan and lunged for safety, squeaking through the door only because the tom was diverted by the oatmeal.

  Breathless I looked over at August, who was laughing with his whole body, then back at the house. The turkey danced three or four little victory circles before the door and settled in to peck at the cereal. You could watch Westerns your whole life and not see a more satisfying ambush. Then the door opened again and out slipped a little black-and-white collie. Given its size I still would’ve bet on the turk, but no doubt the two of them had some history, for the bird twisted itself to run and actually tripped two or three times getting away, which had to feel disgraceful, as the fall always does which cometh after pride. The collie didn’t even give chase. It stood by the door, looking at August and me. Gritty little fellow—he did step up and have at the oatmeal but kept looking at us the while.

  “Probably we ought to ride,” August said. “He’ll be after us next. Dog’s name is Rip,” he added, as though I might get a charge out of that.

  We let the horses trot the distance home—say, a trot is a jostly ride. You’ve seen an angry person beat his fist on a table? Imagine doing that with your tailbone for twenty minutes or so. Later Swede told me about leaning your weight up onto the stirrups and so easing the abuse on the other, but I didn’t know to do that, and to be honest I don’t think August was doing it either. He wasn’t a smooth rider but seemed to tilt and jounce as much as me. Anyhow I didn’t really mind getting knocked around some. Swede would be simmering over my sneaking off to ride. The least I could do was come back with a
sore tailbone.

  We got that breakfast, by the way, the one I’d been so anxious for—the toast and the hardboiled eggs and the jam. During it August winked across at me at least three times and Swede would hardly look at me; for his part, Dad took prodigious enjoyment from the fact we’d gone riding while the house was asleep, calling me Natty Bumppo as Davy had liked to do, grinning at August, even elbowing Swede out of her nettly gloom. Normally all this to-do would’ve thrilled me, un-Bumppolike as I was, but I got distracted watching Dad. August had this much right: Dad was skinny. Remember how shocked I was, seeing him barechested after his siege in bed? He’d lost all superfluous flesh, and I saw now it had stayed lost. Skinny didn’t say it. His very bones seemed loose-joined. And instead of being concerned about this, I’d simply gone and adjusted to it. Once he popped out of bed I just figured he was his old self, and if he looked a little more gristly than before, why, wasn’t gristle what a man wanted anyway?

  “We rode over to the farm,” I said, noting that August hadn’t offered this information.