Night Navigation Page 24

  "I hope you're planning on telling your story at a Speaker's meeting that day," Rozmer says.

  He would rather walk over a bed of hot coals. "I'm thinking about it."

  Rozmer sniffs, sniffs. Wiggles his nose in the direction of the house. "You smell that?" Rozmer rises and goes toward the open window. "Pie. Blueberry pie. Don't you think we'd better give Tess a hello before we go?"

  Charlie laughs. Without further encouragement, Rozmer heads for the front. Blueberries and sugar. Tess, at the stove. How sweet it is. Oh, Tess, hon-you-babe, as his dad used to say.

  "Blueberries. I picked them up on the hill this morning," she tells them. "Crust needs two more minutes. Have a seat."

  Three blips on the machine. He knows what they are already. His mom: Don't forget to take the car for inspection. Jacobs about his appointment tomorrow. Gum torture reminder. Smell of promise—feeling so good, he may be up for all three, go for gold stars right across the deportment chart. Tess sets a plate in front of each of them, hands them forks. Rozmer licks his lips.

  Relapse Inquiry adjourned.

  Mark slows for the turn on. He drives the three evenings a week he works. Even this far away he's always able to check out the Dawes farm up on the ridge: who's there, who isn't. Figure how much ventriloquy he's going to have to do. He usually gets high before he goes. Drift through the chores this way. Hoop's herd, black-and-white movement, already starting toward the gate. Cows may be dumb, but they've got the routine memorized. Chew, chew, no mood-zonkers for them. Only the hired man's truck is by the barn. Budd, who's got to be at least eighty, and as close to mute as they come. No other vehicles in the drive. "Where are the Daweses?"

  Tess shifts the pie in her lap and leans forward to check things out too. There's a whiff of cow manure from her hair. Dreadlocks and barn work not compatible. "Hoop and Betty are judging 4-H at the Onango Fair. Just me, you, and Budd. They said we're doing such a good job, they can leave us on our own. Who knows—Angel's about to freshen. You might have to help me birth a calf."

  "Count me out," he says. "You've already got me scraping yuck into the gutters against my will. Maternity assistant I am not."

  "Oh, she's such an old hand mama, probably she won't need any assistance."

  He heads up Dawes Road. Road named after them means Hoop's family's been shoveling shit, getting up to milk in the dark, seven days a week, four or five generations. He pulls to the left to avoid a washout. Road's all gullies and drop-offs, going to be a bitch in the winter. Not his problem. Surely he'll be long gone by then.

  "Park by Budd's truck. We'll most likely be done before they get back."

  Not going to have to do one "Howdy." Not one "Yeah, it sure is wet for August."

  At the far end of the barn, Budd is already loading the wagon with grain. He nods in their direction. About all they're going to get out of Budd. Tess is always trying to jolly him into some dialogue, but Budd never falls for it. Budd broke his leg bad some years back. He can load, but he can no longer push the cart. Mark's first job after they get the cows in is to grain them, dump the feed into the mangers. Twenty-pound scoops. Better than lifting weights. Tess and Budd do all the milking: teat dip, stripping each quarter to get the milk going, putting on the cups. Plus doing the fall back when a cow slams out with a hoof. The entire trip. Amazing really. Maybe when he gets a little more seasoned, he'll give it a try. He pulls his coveralls from the hook, dons his rubber barn boots. Even wears a cap. Trick is to take as little barn muck home with you as possible.

  Tess trots across the road. He follows. She's loving this whole venture, she keeps telling him, practically dances with the cows. Mark trudges up the road to set out a couple of orange cones just around the blind curve while Tess opens the big gate. Almost no traffic on this road, and they've got a cow crossing sign, but still it's a worry that some idiot may come tearing around the corner. Below he hears Tess calling the few cows who are still lingering up on the hill. "Boss. Boss." A bunch have already started to amble across by the time he gets there. Cows: who can believe their architecture, that so much loose weight can hang off of all that scaffolding? That they've got these huge bags bumping back and forth between their legs every move they make doesn't seem to faze them. Defies physics that any form that top-heavy can continue to move without toppling. Getgo and Mooney are now dawdling off to the side. He heads them back into the main stream by a shoo, shoo with his hands. The Dawes cows aren't just milk machines. Most of them have names, get treated like ladies. No prods, no kicks to their rears. A small herd—only about eighty milkers. If you treat them nice, Hoop says, they let their milk down faster. Cows don't like the unexpected.

  "Mark, I don't see Angel. I'm afraid she might have calved up in the pasture. You call the rest of the cows, keep moving them along. I'm going to go look."

  "You better get the cows in. They'll go all over the place if I do it. Chaos for sure. Give Budd a call. I'll find Angel."

  "But what if she won't come along for you? What if she's already gone into labor?"

  Mark is halfway up the hill. He calls back over his shoulder, "Angel knows me. I'll come get you if she doesn't follow right along, if it's something I can't handle." Should have brought a pipe, he and Angel could have had a couple of hits. At first he doesn't see her. Then there she is close to the fence. She's got her head turned, sniffing at her rear. "Angel. What's up?" He moves slowly toward her. Something's out of kilter and he doesn't want to end up chasing her halfway around the pasture. He looks down the hill toward the barn. No sign of Tess, but he can hear the sound of music coming from the radio. A crow caws a warning that he's invaded their territory.

  Angel doesn't move off. Just gives him one wet-eyed look, then returns to smelling her bottom. He steps closer. Jesus and no wonder: something that looks like a broken balloon poking out, fluid and blood running down. Giving birth—no question. He cups his hands and yells, "Tess." The name bounces back at him. No one appears at the barn door. He calls again, even louder this time. Still no sign of anyone. Suddenly Angel lies down with a big whomp.

  "Okay, Mama, but you're on your own 'cause I haven't got a clue. Not a clue."

  Angel turns on her side. Something poking out: hooves, feet first. Is that the way this goes? Mark moves back. "I'm telling you again, you get in trouble, you are on your own."

  Angel's sides heave up and down. A couple of big grunts. Pushing, pushing. A head. Then one, two, the shoulders. Whoosh, a big mess of wet and the whole calf slides out. Once again he turns and yells down the hill. "Calf. Calf."

  Angel lumbers up. "No, Angel, I suggest you keep doing this lying down. Seems definitely the best way to go." But Angel pays him absolutely no mind. Big sack of stuff hanging from her rear. The afterbirth probably. Meanwhile Angel is licking, licking the calf, licking away all the gunk. The calf is shaking its head now, still a big mess of dark wet. Now it's slapping its ears back and forth. Up with its head, kicking its feet a little. Well, baby's alive, looking all there. He hoists himself up on the fence. Just going to bear witness to the world while Charlie's off telling his story. Can't believe Tess has gone and forgotten about them. Or maybe she figures he can deal.

  He lights a cigarette. Looks out across the valley. Creeks high, twisting, brown and shining, the sun going low now. From here he can see Sawyer's Bridge where he and Aaron and Dad used to put the canoe in. Had to portage three or four places before they got to their land: big trees down and blocking the way. He always scooted around it, clinging to the bank while Aaron and Dad pulled the canoe over the blockage. Aaron, the daredevil. Who knows, maybe it was an accident. That's what the death certificate says. Went walking in the dark up on the ridge above the creek, buzzed and delusional, and he fell in. "Death still a mystery," the paper said. A mystery. An accident: give anything to believe that.

  The calf is all clean now. Looking around. Fluffy, a curly ball with legs. Silent, no waaa, waaa. He slides down off the fence, but stays back. "You done good, Angel." The calf squi
rms, rocks, heaves like it's trying to rise up. "Oh, I can't think that's a good idea." Angel gives the calf an encouraging butt and up the calf comes. Then bang, back down, all four hooves splay out. "Tess," he calls again with everything he's got. And finally, finally Tess appears and starts toward them up the hill. Tess, running now, awkward in her barn boots.

  One more heave and the calf is up, somehow makes it to Angel's big bag, latches on. Angel all the while licking, going nudge, nudge. No more than a half hour old and this calf is already up and going. Got it all over humans for sure.

  Part III

  OCTOBER

  If I'd been thinking right, I would have recognized your voice, but I wasn't on account of the dark days of winter…

  —AARON MERRICK,

  blue notebook, April 1995

  24 : Interior Construction

  DEL HOLDS THE DIAGRAM for installing a one-way door at the ready even though it's unlikely Richard will need her assistance. Once he's done here, he'll finish building the bat house, using the full set of plans she downloaded from batcontrol.com, the tricky part being the routing of the grooves for the quarter-inch interior baffles—the "roosting chambers"—a row of partitions three hundred bats can cling to, and the whole house about the size of … well, a double bread box. Like her, Richard's done a complete reversal on these little winged mamas.

  "You've got something else you have to do, go on," Richard tells her as he places the tall ladder solidly below the vent. "Good time to do your last mow."

  "I want to watch," she says. She doesn't tell him the real reason for not mowing. She's trying to keep things quiet. After days of insomnia, Mark's breathing in the loft sounds like sleep. Still in bed at noon: No wonder he's depressed, Richard's silent shrug would say.

  Halfheartedly she begins to pull away weeds that are growing against the board and battens so the wood won't rot, but what she's really doing is following Richard's body as he climbs. She likes to watch the flow of his hips, the hard muscles of his calves against the backs of his jeans as up he goes. No hesitation, no awkward adjustments that would be her style on such a venture.

  "Mow, so I can get your mower ready for winter before you leave for Owl Lake."

  Owl Lake: a month of uninterrupted work on the memory series. The joy of that. But can she really leave when Mark's so down, so clearly not taking care of business? At least Tess will be around to keep an eye on things, though between school and milking not around much. Such a shame Mark quit helping with the barn chores.

  "Mow, because by the time you get back in November, we could have a foot of snow."

  The sound of the phone. Even through the stone wall. Her stomach contracts. Always the barometer of her anxiety level. The phone stops on the second ring. Mark must have picked up, a total break of pattern. Unless he's waiting for a call. And what call could he be waiting for? Not from Rozmer or Charlie or Ben Jacobs: Mark never picks up for them these days. She can't help collecting the clues even when she doesn't want to know. And another thing, she's pretty sure Mark's off his meds, been off them for a long time. Through the glass she watches for any sign of movement in the loft. But all is still. She's glad he's moved all his stuff back to the loft at least, that his drums are again in the living room, especially now that he's so depressed.

  Richard's replaced the screening on all the vents but this one. He had to do that before setting up this one-way door, so that the few mother bats or adolescents who haven't migrated—they're down to eleven her last count—can go out to feed tonight, but then when they return at first light, they won't be able to find their way back in. The instructions say that bats go by smell rather than vision. They'll smell their entrance and land on the mesh by their hole and then they'll stay focused there rather than moving to the opening at the bottom of the wire to gain entry.

  With his weight leaned into the ladder, Richard crimps the edges of the screening. Then he carefully staples the top of the mesh so it rounds out a few inches above the hole in the vent.

  Richard looks so healthy, so vigorous, the maples and poplars, a brilliant red and yellow, forming the rest of the picture, that she simply can never believe that anything sinister can be traveling toward his lymph nodes, setting up shop in his bones. Three more months until his next PSA check. Mostly that date seldom blinks red on her periphery. Richard doesn't refer to it either.

  Staple, staple, staple, down each side of the mesh Richard shapes an open mound. Tomorrow morning those bats are going to get a big surprise. Richard descends. He rolls the jagged wire scraps and sets them aside. "Couple of days I'll come back down and replace this last screen."

  "Can we be sure they're all out by then?"

  No answer. Richard doesn't answer certain kinds of questions. "Get the bat house up before I leave for Colorado. That way it'll be weathered, smell less suspicious when they come back in the spring."

  Richard is off to hunt elk. She's off to a place where she'll be very hard to reach by phone. She folds the diagram and pushes it down in her pocket. Maybe she'll work the bats into the memory series: these mothers, waiting for the right moment to let go.

  "If you can come up with some guano," Richard says, "you're supposed to make a slurry and drip it on the house. Got to be their guano."

  "You're kidding." Then she does see movement inside. Mark is by the refrigerator.

  "How about a beer?" Richard says as he heads for the side door.

  She'd just as soon not take Richard in until Mark retreats into the dark of the loft again. Plus the place stinks since Mark has reneged on his agreement not to smoke in the house. A thing she hasn't mentioned to Richard. Plus she does not have any beer, never keeps any alcohol around. Another thing Richard doesn't know. It's rare that he ever comes to the stone house.

  Mark has his back to them. He's busy pouring sugar in a mug. He does not turn or in any way acknowledge that they are there. Richard sits at the table and is likewise silent. This is often how it is when Mark stops by Richard's.

  "Hey," she says. "The screening's just about done, so the bats won't be able to get back in tomorrow morning." This, though Mark has no interest in the bats one way or the other. Mark sidesteps around her to get the half-and-half from the fridge. "Maybe you can help me come up with some bat droppings from the space above the light since you were so good with figuring that out." Beyond all this blather, she needs to warn Mark about the noise. "Richard's going to be doing some work out on the picnic table. Building a bat house. That way the bats will have a home when they come back next year."

  Mark heads for the loft-ladder. No contact. He leaves the half-and-half out, the empty coffeemaker on, the old filter full of grounds on the cutting board.

  She opens the refrigerator. "No beer," she says. "There's apple juice. Water."

  Richard rises. "Be good if you'd bring the tar paper up from the barn." And he's gone. In a minute there's the sound of the power saw.

  Heavy steps in the loft. Mark's legs coming down.

  "Mark," she says. He keeps right on going. She watches him get into the car, her car, watches him back at full speed down the drive, turn at the barn. Disappear. She could punch up the last call on caller ID, but she doesn't.

  Del manages to get the tall stepladder open directly below her ceiling light, jockeys it until it feels firmly planted into the braided rug. Mark should be helping with this, but no, she'll have to break her neck instead. Even before she gets halfway up she sees several dark blotches in the center of the frosted light fixture, shadowy specks the size of confetti. Spots she'd always assumed were dead bugs when she considered them from her bed. Chances are good it's guano. But certainly not a cupful as called for in the slurry recipe.

  Should she pour the slurry down so it drips over the roof and exterior or should she drizzle the walls of the roosting chambers? The instructions don't say and since she was only able to come up with half as many droppings as called for, she's got to be strategic with this little pitcher of guano goop. She turns the bat hou
se upside down on the edge of the picnic table.

  Luke emerges from beneath. He growls. Someone is coming, but nothing in sight yet. It's not Mark in her car or Luke would be wagging and surging forward with joy. A torpedo of a car appears over the ridge, approaches slowly. Luke holds his ground. Del sets the pitcher down and gets ready. The car pulls up to the walk. For a minute no one gets out. Then the door opens. A man. A gray beard, a thinning ponytail. A gaunt, gray man, lean like the guys who used to run the Ferris wheel. He advances a few steps. "Mark around," he says.

  Luke's tail begins to wag, the man extends his fingers for Luke to smell. Maybe Luke knows him and maybe he doesn't. "Wayne Smith." Smithy. "He was supposed to stop by my place."

  Smithy. One day a car comes up the road. And there it is. "Mark isn't here. Luke." She takes hold of Luke's collar and turns him toward the house. Once they're inside, she pushes the bolt hard into its socket. Smithy is still standing at the end of the walk. She goes to the side door, locks it, then places the phone on the counter.

  This not going to meetings, not keeping his appointments, going off in the car full speed: of course she suspected what this probably meant. But now she knows. If it's Smithy, this isn't about marijuana. And now she has to do something. She has to confront Mark. Smithy gets in the car, but instead of backing to the barn, he turns on the lawn and as he does he rolls his window down. He looks at the house. His look is full on, appraising. It seems to say, I'll be back.

  Money. That's what this is about: money. Mark owes Smithy money. A lot of money. It was that kind of look. She checks the numbers she's listed in the emergency page of the phone book. Smithy's car slows at the barn and stops. The brake lights glow in the dusk.

  She lifts the phone. Her hand is shaking. She dials Rozmer's number. By the fourth ring she knows Rozmer is not there. She can hang up, try him at Harbor House. Mark may be back any minute now. She does not want to be in the middle of this and have him walk in. The machine clicks on and she knows what's coming: Rozmer's Word for the Day. "An old master-at-arms had advice for sinking sailors: 'Be grateful you're not burning.'"