South of Superior - Ellen Airgood [28]
“Arbutus!” she called out once she had a fire snapping. “Come get your coffee.” She gave Madeline a severe look: not one word.
“Glad, it’s too hot for a fire,” Arbutus complained when she came in.
“Nonsense. Nothing like a fire for baking, I’m making bread today. Hiivaleipä, like Mother Used to make, if we’ve got the barley. You’ll like that.”
Arbutus sighed and pulled at the neckband of her blouse, fanning herself.
After breakfast, Madeline went to Emil’s to find out about getting more wood. “And stop by the fruit man on your way back, I want some apples,” Gladys said.
Emil’s place sat atop the hill that plunged into town, along a dirt road that seemed to lead into the depths of nowhere. When Madeline got out of the car, she stopped a moment to take in his million-dollar view, which she hadn’t bothered to do the other two times she’d been there. Tiny McAllaster sat nestled below; the forest and bogs stretched far in either direction; Lake Superior churned in all its stunning immensity to the north. Then Emil came around the corner and Madeline headed toward him.
Emil was built small and wiry—it was hard to guess his age but she thought seventy or even eighty—and he looked as tough as an old strap of leather. He wore a red and black plaid shirt buttoned Up to his chin, rubber boots tied Up tight to his knees, and despite the mildness of the day, a lumpy knitted cap. His expression was watchful, a little amused, and Madeline had the Uncomfortable sense that he was reading her mind. He carried a gun, the barrel easing toward the ground. A beagle trotted after him and came Up to her to have its ears rubbed. Emil lifted his chin in greeting.
“I’m Madeline Stone,” she began.
“You came with Paul Garceau to pick Up the kid. And you’re Joe Stone’s granddaughter, that right?”
“Ah—yes.”
Emil nodded. “Thought so. You look like your great-grandma.”
“So I’ve heard.” Madeline said this calmly—coolly, almost—but she felt a thrill of curiosity that she immediately stomped out, like a tiny grass fire that could be controlled if she was fast enough and vigilant.
“You drop that food off on my step awhile back?”
“Gladys sent it out for you, extra she made, she thought you might like it.”
“Meat loaf was a mite spicy, you ask me. I don’t like them red things in it.”
“Pimientos?”
“I don’t know, red things. They give it a funny flavor. I fed it to Sal, she ate it Up, she ain’t fussy. The cookies was tasty, though. I don’t suppose she sent any more?”
“No. Actually she needs a favor.”
“That so? Glad, she don’t ask for nothing easy.”
Madeline wondered if he meant Gladys didn’t easily ask for anything, or that she never asked for anything simple, thinking both were probably true. “She needs some wood.”
“She run out of what I brang her last fall already? That was more’n five face cords, I thought they was heating with fuel oil, just Using a little wood here and there.”
“It’s almost gone.”
Emil sighed. “Come on in,” he said, walked over to his trailer and Up the steps.
The trailer reeked of sour clothes and dirty dishes and Urine, spilt whiskey and wet dog and skinned raccoon—a pile of skins was draped on a chair just inside the door. There were boxes piled everywhere, overflowing with rags, oily smelling parts, magazines and papers, empty bottles, chain saws in various states of dismantlement.
Emil tipped the skins off the chair and waved her into it, then hiked another chair Up close and settled down, pushing Sal aside with a boot. He crossed his legs tidily, the right knee cocked over the left. He tapped his toe Up and down in the air, thoughtful and almost dainty. “Butte, she get cold easy now, that the problem?”
Madeline made a noncommittal sound and then challenged into truth by his look she said, “They’re out of propane.”
Emil scratched