The Night Watchman(64)

“I see that,” said Joe. “My brother’s off in Fargo and says he likes it.”

“I’m not a big one for cities,” said Barnes. “I wouldn’t mind living out here.”

Joe looked serious. “We’ll have to find you a girlfriend.”

Barnes waved his hand, not cheerfully. “Don’t bother. I got that covered.”

More than covered, thought Barnes, as Joe rose to meet his friend. Barnes watched. Square as a brick house Joe was, but leaning a fraction to the left, visible when he sat down in another booth with his friend. Barnes watched Joe’s back for a few more minutes, noted that his left shoulder was definitely lower than the right. Good to know.



“Wobble’s lopsided,” Barnes said to Wood Mountain. “I don’t know what it means, but it could be something to study.”

Barnes had broken down and bought a speed bag with his own money. Wood Mountain was making it go.

“He walked kind of like this, sat kind of like that,” said Barnes, replicating the left-leaning walk, the droop of shoulder. “Could be he got injured. Or maybe there’s a weak spot in his training, something’s off. We got to keep that in mind.”

“Okay,” said Wood Mountain. “Or maybe he was just a little off that day. Or maybe he’s putting the fake on you.”

“The fake? Could that be true?” Barnes was struck by the possibility.

“I dunno. But it makes sense somebody might try that.”

“Like us,” said Barnes. “Let me think.”

“Nobody’s stopping you,” said Wood Mountain.

“I got it,” said Barnes. “You’re gonna wear a fake plaster cast on your right hand up your wrist. Just for a couple weeks. Take it off to train, but no other time. Nobody sees you without it. I’ll get Jarvis to make it—he’s good at theater props.”

“Seems kind of underhanded,” said Wood Mountain.

“Ha-ha!”

“Ha-ha what? Oh, underhanded! That’s a good one!”

For the next half hour they came back to the joke again and again, finding more hilarity in it each time. They agreed it was a real shame they couldn’t tell the joke around to people.

“It would become a classic,” said Wood Mountain, a bit wistful. He hardly ever got off a good one.

“You winning will be a classic. So let’s keep our mouths shut,” said Barnes.





Thwack




Wood Mountain had begun to worry. The sound she made chopping wood last time had actually aroused him. Just a little. The clean split, the sureness of it, the certainty, the sound of her ax meeting the wood. Each of her strokes was accurate and powerful. There was just something to it he could not describe. Something it did to him. A shiver inside. A flipping fluttering. A warm drench of sensation that he’d hidden by suddenly sitting down in the chair and leaning up close to the table, with the baby, who regarded him with a gummy smile. Who the hell could resist? Zhaanat turned from her little stove and set a camp bowl on the table. She’d made him oatmeal, no raisins, no sugar, nothing. It had to be they were scraping bottom that week. It was Thursday.

Zhaanat saw him staring at the oatmeal.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “Our girl gets paid tomorrow.”

She took the baby and began to feed him drops of oatmeal pablum on the edge of a spoon. The baby seemed to think it was a sumptuous treat, so Wood Mountain also ate the oatmeal, slowly, as the chopping went on. Thwack. Thwack. Goddamn. Cracks in his chest. Softness floating out. Thwack. Thwack. How could she do this to him? He flashed on her as the waterjack. He wanted to punch himself.

*

Barnes had got his uncle to come give Wood Mountain his wisdom. He was there the next day, a skinny fellow, excitable, with hair just like Barnes, sticking out over his ears on every side like a busted bale of hay. He also wasn’t called the Music for nothing. There was actual music involved in his training regimen. He had brought an electric turntable and he played records, the latest ones, at the highest volume, fast and furious, to inspire jump-roping, cross-skipping, double-jumping. He worked the rhythm of Wood Mountain’s combinations with speeded-up versions of “El Negro Zumbón” and of “Crazy Man, Crazy” by Bill Haley and His Comets. The songs he used stuck in Wood Mountain’s brain and they were all he could hear. They colored his world. His fists began to move with their own life.





The Tonsils




Since the Homecoming weekend and what Valentine and Doris referred to as “the chirps,” which had something to do with a bush dance, riding in the backseat had become even more annoying for Patrice. It was as if they were talking in a secret language up there, referring to certain incidents with nonsense words. But who cared. What did they know? The two seemed so young that she envied them, and so ignorant that she despised them. Scorn burned behind her tongue as she sat there in the backseat gazing out the window, a serene look pasted on her face. There was more than enough to occupy her thoughts. At home Gwiiwizens was coming out of his new-baby slumbers. Along with his charming, gurgly laugh, he was beginning to use his stare. He had an unnerving stare. Not soft, like other babies, but hard. When his eyes fixed on Patrice they drilled right into her soul. It was like he had something to tell her. Had Vera left a message with him? A location? A demand? Would he remember to tell her when he learned to speak? Her heart beat faster. By then it would be too late. So far there was no word from anyone Thomas contacted down in the Cities, and no word from the one who might know. Bernadette had to know. If Patrice went back down there, if she waited outside Bernadette’s house, if she cornered Bernadette, could she find out what had become of her sister?