Starfish_ A Novel - James Crowley [57]
“Yes, sir. I understand,” Corn Poe said, looking both satisfied with the answer and relieved that he had asked the question that had been on his mind.
“I suggest ya put that outta your head. It’s in the past,” Mr. Hawkins said, lying back into his saddle. “Now, you get some sleep.”
Lionel lay back on the buffalo robe. His legs were tired, and his head still hurt. He tried to put it out of his mind, but he couldn’t help but think about Mr. Hawkins killing the men, and wondered if he felt bad about what had happened. He remembered that Beatrice had told their grandfather that she hadn’t felt bad when she drove the sheep shears into Jenkins’s hand, but Lionel wondered if this was different. Lionel knew that Sergeant Jenkins had deserved it, but those men, the men that Mr. Hawkins was talking about, weren’t stabbed in the hand, they were dead. But they were dead because they killed Mr. Hawkins’s wife, Junebug’s mother. Lionel closed his eyes, hoping that tomorrow would be a better day for all of them.
Soon, Lionel fell into a deep sleep and dreamed once again of the Frozen Man. He stood in a grove of quaking aspen with the Frozen Man, staring out across the grass sea. He saw Beatrice and his grandfather on their raft, sailing east away from the shore, away from him. He also saw a small ship, and on this ship he saw Mr. Hawkins, Junebug, and all their horses. Lionel turned away from the lake toward the woods. Corn Poe was riding through the trees on Ulysses. Lionel looked back to the Frozen Man and noticed for the first time that the Frozen Man, not Lionel, was wearing the string of bear claws around his frosted neck.
Lionel sat up with a start, clutching at his neck for the bear claws. They weren’t there. He looked around in the darkness. It was raining, and Lionel wasn’t in a grove of aspen with the Frozen Man. He was wrapped in the buffalo robe in the mountains above the lodge in the meadow. Mr. Hawkins was crouched, tying the last corner of a tarp over Lionel’s head. The rain thundered on the tarp, but now they were all dry, or as dry as could be expected.
“Go back to sleep there, Lionel,” Mr. Hawkins whispered. “It’s all right, just a little rain.”
Lionel watched Mr. Hawkins’s silhouette as he settled back down against his saddle. “Just a little rain.”
Lionel felt around the buffalo robe to see if the claws had come off while he was sleeping. They weren’t there. Had someone taken them? He looked around suspiciously. who would take them? Then he thought about all that had happened that day and remembered that the last time he had seen the bear claws had been when he went swimming down by the stream. He had left them. He had left the string of bear claws by the stream in the meadow.
Not knowing what to do, he considered waking Beatrice and telling her, to see what she thought, but he could hear her heavy breathing and knew that it was rare that he was awake at a time when she wasn’t. He had often wondered if she ever slept.
For a moment he lay listening to the rain splatter on the tarp. He had to go back. He had to go back to get the bear claws.
Chapter Thirty-Two
RUNNING IN THE RAIN • A TALKING WOLVERINE • THE PIRATE’S TREE • THE COLLIDING MULE • MR. HAWKINS
LIONEL WAITED until everyone’s breathing turned heavy, and then, when it did, continued to wait, wanting to make certain that he did not wake any of them, especially Mr. Hawkins.
Finally, Lionel folded back the buffalo robe and crawled out from under the tarp and into the rainy, black night. Hunched low, he sprinted from their encampment back to the trail that their caravan cut in their escape from the meadow.
He ran as best he could back down the spiraling path. Small rivers poured down the center of the game trail, and twice Lionel fell as he made his way to the valley below. He ran until he could run no farther, then assured himself that there was still plenty of night and that he would be back with the bear claws before morning and that none