Nightwoods - Charles Frazier [111]
DOLORES AND FRANK sidle wary around the hole. Sally side-passes off in the woods, a dark shape far back in the hemlock shade. Exactly matching their movement, but at a farther circumference.
Not wanting to spook them, Luce doesn’t run to the kids. That old wisdom Stubblefield taught her. Don’t chase it, and it will come back. She waits by the fire. Kneels down and puts her hands out to the warmth. Pushing back hurt mama feelings, like what they were running away from was her and she ought to feel upset about it. They got scared and took off into the woods. Nothing but natural. Pretty much what she would have done. Had done.
Dolores and Frank ease their way around the circle and stand near the fire. No hugs. Certainly no tears. Sally stops at the edge of trees, bobbing her head. Impatient.
Luce, trying to sound like everything is fine, says, Go get your pony and let’s head on home.
Luce doesn’t try to lead Sally. She follows close behind, the razor closed in her palm with her thumb on the hook to flick it open fast. Listening deep into the woods and looking for any movement. When the trail becomes wide enough, she walks alongside Sally. Tells the children, I was so worried. It must have been … She starts to say terrifying but settles on a different word. Cold, she says.
Dolores talks about the swapping of the hat, the lighting of the great dead balsam. And Frank tries to say something about dawn and the ice in the trees. His arms rise, and he flutters his hands. Luce can translate only a few fragments, but it’s like some of her important music. You can’t make out most of the words, but the message is clear.
She says, Next time, you have to take me with you.
——
BARE WOODS STRETCH ENDLESS, the night sky cold and deep with stars. The Dipper slides down toward the treetops and everything coming up after it is nothing but random. The stars have shapes that mean something if you know the code, but Big Dipper is it for Bud.
Out here, the deadly shit seeking your blood and meat is not confined to snakes and bears and weather. Other forces resent your presence too. Ghosts of long-gone wolves and buffalo and Indians and pioneers, dead in the service of implacable history. If you stop and camp early, while it’s still daylight—claim your space, plant your flag, build your fire—you push them back into the past. But alone in the dark, the minute you sit your ass down they circle close around. Lie on the ground, and the cold seeps up as they try to equalize your temperature with theirs. Get quiet, and you hear the voices. A few words in English, but mostly other languages. The ones that came before the Indians. Words the long-gone animals thought to one another. Words flowing against you. Wishing you ill. Yet, somehow, all gentle as an outbreath. Mumbles and sighs.
And their vehicles of communication? Creek water over rocks, wind flowing through bare trees and across dead leaves. And that’s exactly what the old speakers want you to be. Dead in the ground, exactly like them.
At some point, stars wheeling through the tree limbs and the voices humming around him, Bud makes up a short story. Maybe, some future day when he has a minute, he’ll write it up. Send it to one of his magazines. Won’t take up much space.
Fellow takes a walk in the beautiful mountains. Pick any season you want, with its many details. Colors, for example. The world is full of colors, even in winter.
Fellow trips on a small rock. Falls forward. Busts his head open on a larger rock. And then what happens? Think ripe cantaloupe. All that tangled mess spilling out into the daylight.
Boom. The whole world goes away, never to return. Black peace. Happy ending.
At least, if you think about it in the context of all the common ways to check out. All that screaming final shit in hospitals. Deluded people in white clothes watching