The Night Watchman(47)
After they were settled on the moving train, Wood Mountain unwrapped the newspaper package. A stack of pancakes and bacon. He folded one of the pancakes around some bacon, and handed the roll to Patrice. She held the pancake in one hand and kept the baby cradled on her arm. He’d just sucked down a bottle of milk. There was a tiny line between his brows, where his worry for the future resided. She stroked the line with her finger and tried to smooth it away. But the groove seemed permanent.
“Reach up in my bag,” she told Wood Mountain. “Take out the baby blanket.”
He wolfed the rest of the pancake, stood, pulled a cascade of white mesh from above. He handed it down to her. The blanket was large and stretchy. It fit around the baby twice. The fancy stitches made it look like she and Wood Mountain knew what they were doing with a baby. It made the baby look theirs, which made them look like a couple. Nobody tried to take their seats away. People settled themselves far from the potentially explosive bundle. Patrice wanted to say that she wasn’t the mother and Wood Mountain wasn’t the father and all of this wasn’t what it looked like. But she only said, “Would you fold up that newspaper? Later, I want to read it.”
You could hardly stand up and announce that she wasn’t sure she even liked Wood Mountain, or would like him back if he happened to like her. She wanted to say that she was a working woman with a perfectly good job, that she was returning to that job because she was so good at it. There wasn’t any reason to say these things. There wasn’t a reason to think. She eased herself back, holding the baby, and tried not to take stock of what had happened in the Cities. But her mind kept churning. Were all of the things that happened real? The dog collar? The dog’s words? Her poisoned ox suit? Jack’s eyes of ancient gold? Bernadette with chopsticks in her hair? Who would believe?
“I’ll take care of you until she comes home,” said Patrice to the baby.
Wood Mountain was staring at her.
“What?” she said.
“Nothing.” He looked away. It wasn’t his place to argue, and he still couldn’t figure out what those words meant, the ones from behind the kitchen door. Good or bad? He didn’t want to tell Pixie until he knew.
The baby came with six diapers. A tiny pair of pale blue rubber pants elasticized at the waist and legs. Two glass bottles and four rubber nipples. Two cotton shirts with side ties. A warm gray suit that covered him head to toe. He’d been wrapped in table drape glassily embroidered with domes and turrets. There was another bottle of milk that was supposed to last the length of the train ride. The baby had sucked down the first bottle quickly and Patrice thought they’d have to run out for more in Fargo. But he slept and slept. He didn’t seem to want to cause them trouble, said Wood Mountain, touching the whirlwind of hair at the baby’s crown. Patrice propped up her arm, dropped the seat back a fraction, and held the baby across her chest. He clung to her like a warm cocklebur and put her straight to sleep. Later, he woke in a fit. His roaring squall unnerved her, and Wood Mountain stumbled into the aisle as she bore the baby to the train’s bathroom. After he was changed and fed, she rocked the baby endlessly in the swaying corridor between the cars. When he fell quiet, at last, she realized her neck was damp with tears. Her own tears. Her mother would, of course, take care of the baby. Wouldn’t she? Patrice couldn’t do it all. She couldn’t do any of it.
She walked quietly down the aisle and slid past Wood Mountain into her seat, transferring the baby into his arms. Was almost disappointed when he accepted eagerly and gathered the baby to his heart like a natural.
“What are you going to name him?” he asked Patrice.
“Name him? Why? He has a name. Vera named him.”
Wood Mountain thought the baby was staring at him like he knew something.
“This baby likes me,” he said.
“Oh, you think so?”
Patrice looked at him sharply, but it wasn’t a way to get at her. Wood Mountain and the baby had locked eyes in fascination. They ignored her. She turned to the window although it was dark now and the glass held only a tired ghost.
Wild Rooster
The sky opened as they drove down to Fargo, passed through Larimore, heading for the meeting that would register their opposition to the Termination Bill. The road stayed wet. As night fell the tar froze slick. Thomas slowed and Louis roared past in the two-tone DeSoto. Four people were stuffed into the backseat. Juggie waved from the passenger window.
“Wish them two would get married up,” said Moses. “Isn’t regular.”
“What do you mean?” asked Thomas, trying to hide his surprise.
“Ay, you. Altar Boy,” laughed Moses.
From the backseat, his wife, Mary, said, “You, think you know so much!”
“Well, you’re the one taught me everything I know,” said Moses, in a fake meek voice.
“Let Juggie be Juggie,” said Joyce Asiginak, who sat in the middle.
Eddy Mink sat behind the passenger seat. Yes, Eddy Mink. Sober, Eddy was brilliant and a shrewd talker, which was the reason Thomas drank with him in the old days. He’d be good on questions as Thomas had him studying up. The trick would be to keep him sober. Joyce and Mary were on that.
“I have nothing to say on the subject,” said Eddy. “Getting married don’t make no sense to me. It’s priest-man talk.”