The Night Watchman(23)

Patrice did not open her eyes. Maybe if he’d not swiped at her arm, if he’d asked in a polite way, or apologized for supposedly waking her, she would have changed seats. But instead she decided to sink herself into a cold and closed state from which she would not be roused. He jostled her arm again.

“Hey,” he said more loudly. “I said my wife will change seats.”

Patrice frowned as if a dream was being fractured, then turned her shoulder on him and ground her hips more deeply into the padding. The conductor came down the aisle. He had already punched her ticket so he didn’t wake her. As the conductor took the straw-haired man’s ticket, the arm jostler said, “I would like my wife to sit with me. She’ll change seats with this woman.”

“Miss,” said the conductor. “Oh, miss.”

“I’ll trade,” said a man somewhere, quietly.

Patrice had willed herself into a stubborn torpor.

The first man rose.

“Yeah. You two belong together,” he said.

Another man took his place in the seat. Patrice was drifting strangely down some cold walls. Exhausted, she dropped into a short fit of sleep. Before she opened her eyes, she felt someone watching her. When she sat up and looked around, she saw it was Wood Mountain.

“Hi, Pixie.”

She forgot to tell him to call her Patrice because she was so glad to see someone from home. The train ride had only lasted an hour so far, but already she was homesick. She was ready for the adventure to be over.

“Where are you going?” she asked him.

“Fargo. I’ve got a fight. Maybe.”

His hair was newly cut, oiled, and swirled down over his forehead.

“You were good the other night. You should have won.”

“Oh, you were there?”

He knew very well that she had been there with his cousin. He had wanted to win even more on their account. He’d felt their eyes on him.

“Yes, that timekeeper cheated. And you were good,” she said again.

“That’s what Barnes says.”

Patrice nodded. Barnes.

“He’s always talking you up. You like him?”

“No.”

“How come? What’s wrong with him?”

“There’s nothing wrong with him.”

“So . . .”

“Should I like him just because there’s nothing wrong with him?”

“I guess no.”

They sat there, awkward. The conductor announced the next stop, not long enough to get a real lunch. Patrice had packed some food, to save money. She brought out her yellow pail and removed the lid. It was packed with Zhaanat’s pemmican—deer meat, sweet juneberries, musky Pembina berries, sugared tallow, all these ingredients dried and pounded to a fluff. Wood Mountain took a small handful. Patrice took a pinch.

“Fills you up good,” said Wood Mountain.

“I’m counting on that,” said Patrice. “I’m going to the Cities to find my sister.”

“I heard. What about your job?”

“Valentine gave me her days.”

“That was decent.”

His remark didn’t seem to lead anywhere, only requiring agreement, and they sat again in silence until the train stopped.

“Let’s get out and stretch our legs,” said Wood Mountain.

“I don’t want to lose my seat,” said Patrice.

“If that guy tries to take it again, I’ll fight him.”

“Then I’m staying. No fights on my account.”

Wood Mountain got out at the stop and jogged up and down the station platform. Patrice put her coat on his seat so that nobody would sit down, but still, when the train was boarding again a wiry little woman stopped by the seat, nodded, and asked, “Whose coat?”

“His,” said Patrice, nodding at Wood Mountain, who stood in the aisle. The woman frowned at the incongruity of the blue swing coat, and the sturdy Indian, but moved on. Wood Mountain sat down. He was still catching his breath. His hair had flopped down on one side. He combed and pressed it back into place.

“Wind sprints,” he said.

“What are those?”

“Short bursts of speed.”

“That makes sense. You have to fight in short bursts.”

He was surprised that she understood right away. She asked him about his training regimen. He told her that he had a hill he sprinted up about a hundred times every day. He told her about the cans he’d filled with sand and welded shut. About the rope skipping and the speed bag he’d hung on a branch. He tried not to mention Barnes because there was something about her not liking him. A feeling. He wasn’t one for giving names to things. Or finding their basis. His feelings were like weather. He just suffered or enjoyed them. And now she was taking a little jackknife from her pocketbook and cutting a tiny shred from a thumb-shaped piece of bark. She folded up the pocketknife and popped the shred in her mouth. She opened her hand: there was another shaving, fragrant.

“Have some.”

He held the piece of bark on one side of his jaw, then the other, letting the mellow tang of spice fill his mouth.

“What is this stuff?”

She shook her head. “It’s, I don’t know, miswanagek.”

“What’s it good for?”