Starfish_ A Novel - James Crowley [31]
Lionel did not know what to do, so he held his ground. Although he was scared, he told himself that he had nothing to fear. He had never harmed the Frozen Man in any way, unless the man was upset that he’d taken the bear claws. Lionel took a step back, but then he noticed that the man held out his arm, and that in his hand was the bear claw necklace, as though he was offering it to Lionel.
Lionel felt bad for the man and thought about giving him his jacket, or that he should make a fire to help warm him, but his gestures were interrupted by the thunderous approach of a horse’s hooves. Lionel turned to find Sergeant Jenkins riding wildly toward them.
Sergeant Jenkins rode fast on a horse as black as midnight. Lionel did not know why, but in his dream he stepped in front of the Frozen Man to try to protect him. what was he, a little boy, going to do?
That was when Lionel woke up, and now he was walking with Grandpa across the meadow wet with early-morning dew. The image of Jenkins’s scar-snarled face and the lonely icy pale look of the Frozen Man sent a chill up Lionel’s spine.
“You cold?” Grandpa asked.
“No, just thinking about my dream.”
“They’re powerful, ya know. Dreams. You should pay attention to them like ya pay attention to all that’s around you. The trees, the mountain, the birds, this stream, like I said, it’s all talking to you.”
They walked up to the water’s edge, and Grandpa sat on a boulder. Lionel looked upstream. The water came down heavy with snowmelt from above them. It crashed, cascading in a spiral of waterfalls over giant boulders of granite.
Lionel sat on a small rock next to Grandpa and started to cry. He didn’t know why he was crying but could no longer control it. Grandpa didn’t say anything. He just put his arm around the boy, and they sat surrounded by darkness until the first hint of morning crept into the eastern sky.
“Grandpa?” Lionel asked. “I think I have something I want to show you. I didn’t show it to no one, not even Beatrice.”
“That’s up to you, Lionel.”
Lionel took the bear claws from the pocket of his coat and held them out, as the Frozen Man seemed to have held them out to Lionel.
“This belonged to the Frozen Man back at the school that Beatrice told you about.”
Lionel’s grandfather took the heavy necklace and ran the thick bear claws through his fingers. He turned each claw over, studying the meticulous beading. He twisted the smooth buffalo leather that connected them and felt the shiny claw tips, as if he were testing their readiness.
“Ulysses took me to him back at the school. When I found him he was holding these out…that’s how it looked to me. I took them right before the soldiers got there. They took everything else.”
“This is special, Lionel, and I think it is better that you have it instead of them government men.” As Grandpa handed back the necklace, he looked over to the stable where Ulysses stood with his mule. “Maybe the man tried to give it to the horse, and the horse wanted you to have it or to hold it for him?”
Lionel thought about it. That was possible. He and Ulysses had been friends since the first day they’d met. Lionel’s mind was racing again.
“But, Grandpa, I still don’t understand—where did the Frozen Man go?”
“To be honest with you, Lionel, I don’t know. And despite what they all say, no one knows.”
“They don’t?”
“No, they sure don’t. How could they?” Grandpa said as he pulled out his pipe and tobacco pouch.
He stood and pulled some of the stringy leaves and raised them toward the rising sun, then let the tobacco drift from his fingers, carried away by the slight breeze that rose from the stream. He turned and offered his tobacco to the south, west, and north, like Beatrice had back at the school. He then sat down on the rock, loaded his pipe, and smoked.
“I’m sorry you had to