The Night Watchman(108)

“She put her temptations before you,” said Elnath.

“It wasn’t that, no. I can’t say she meant to.”

“But she did,” said Elnath.

Vernon did not speak.

“What I want to know is whether you are quitting the sin.”

“Quit. Oh, I’m quit.”

“All right then.”

“So we call and they come get us?” said Vernon, after a few moments, stinging with shame, struggling with hope. “We are quits, you and me, also?”

“I think we should tough this out,” said Elnath.

His voice was hateful, thought Vernon.

“It’s too damn cold. I don’t see where it’s wrote that we should have to die.”

“I don’t see where it isn’t.”

Vernon opened and shut his mouth. They stood at attention, their shoulders stiff, arms locked across their chests. What they wanted to do was haul off and fight.



Later, they hitched a ride into town with Milda. She went to the grocery store. They found a way to visit LaBatte. Vernon recalled the reasons they were sent. How the Indians were teachable, meek, open in their hearts, how they were so gentle. Willing to please, like submissive children. But not LaBatte. He’d already backslid, wasn’t willing to get baptized, or even let them in the door, and as he was their only possibility and the cold was flaying them alive, they decided to start walking back to Milda’s car. Without warning Elnath changed direction. He said that he was going to the next town. Vernon knew it was death to follow him, but had no choice about it. The wind went through his overcoat like it was paper. His hands went numb. His face burned. He stumbled because his feet were blocks of wood. When Louis Pipestone stopped on the road and picked them up, when he told them he could drop them in Grand Forks, the tears of cold in their eyes turned to heat. There was a church member in Grand Forks who would take them in. They could ask Milda to send their few possessions. As they thawed out, blood returning in surges, they prayed to bear the intolerable fire of life, and knew they had been called to a greater joy.





The Owls




As Barnes dampened his pillow, Louis Pipestone was driving Juggie’s car down to the Cities in order to pick up the stragglers. That’s what he called them because he couldn’t rid himself of the guilt. Mile after mile, he fought it. Through Grand Forks, through Fargo, through Fergus Falls, and onward. He came through Royalton, St. Cloud, and still it was there. Louis knew that if he’d been with the crew in Washington, things would have been different. Thomas would not have collapsed like that. On the stopover in the Cities, Louis would have gone out to fetch the cigars. He was sure that somehow he would have saved Thomas. Only when he reached the city, and with great difficulty found the hospital, only when he’d been allowed into Thomas’s presence during visiting hours, did Louis feel some relief.

Thomas was still in the hospital bed. But he was sitting up and when he saw Louis, his face came to life with that big Thomas grin, the glint of tooth gold.

“Your horses must have got out again!”

“I’m down here to corral you,” said Louis.

“Patrice said you’re bringing me back in high style.”

“Rolling the red carpet all the way to Juggie’s automobile. Then you ride up front, in the seat of honor.”

“You could have brought my car.”

“Then Wade couldn’t hot-rod it all around the back roads, like he’s been doing.”

“More like Sharlo, she’s the driver.”

“Okay then, Sharlo. Picking up her girlfriends along with the big bag of flour I saw her wrestling into the trunk the other day.”

“That’s my girl.”

Millie and Patrice came into the room with the nurse who was filling out the discharge papers. Louis went back down to guard the car.



On the way home, as they were driving through snowed-over fields, incandescent in full sun, Thomas tried to tell Louis about what had happened in the train station when he and Moses went to buy cigars.

“I didn’t feel it when I hit the floor, but then I looked up and saw the owls. There was a flock of them, snowy owls, flying over me in a wave. I know LaBatte would say they wanted to kill me, but I know they had come to keep me safe.”

“That’s a pretty good story,” said Louis. “We should call you Owl Man now.”

“I wouldn’t mind it,” said Thomas. “But I’m just a lowly muskrat.”

“Speaking of LaBatte and owls, he was taking your night shifts?”

“He still is, far as I know.”

“What I heard is he quit because an owl kept trying to get in.”

“That’s my owl. He must live around there, keeps attacking himself in the window. Must think this other window owl is poaching in his territory.”

“Well, he sent LaBatte flying. Says he wouldn’t go back for anything.”

“Maybe it was Roderick, too.”

“Old Roderick? From school?”

“He comes around. Not in a bad way. But he puts the fear of god in LaBatte.”

“So that’s why he’s all holy. Juggie says LaBatte’s at Mass every single day now, always taking communion. He’s trying to get a job in maintenance, working on the church road and shoveling snow up there.”