The Night Watchman(80)

How had Bernie made the money? Bad ways, for sure. Bernie was living with a shady, violent man who perhaps gave her money. For some reason. Maybe love. But did a shady, violent man give a woman that much money out of love? Patrice had no idea. She’d made a pile there as a waterjack, so maybe there were other things Bernie did to make a pile. Sex things Patrice hadn’t known were even jobs, the way she hadn’t known swimming in a tank dressed as a blue ox was a job. Or maybe, she thought, the sort of drugs that Jack had obviously taken. They had to be worth money, like liquor was worth money. Her thoughts veered. Maybe Bernie had something to do with the collars and the chains and the menace of that boarded-up house. Maybe Bernie had something to do with where Vera went, and maybe the money that bought the car had something to do with where Vera went. The things that Betty had tried to tell her about were true, and maybe had to do with where Vera went. Also the things that Wood Mountain had tried to tell her on the train and later about the boats so big she couldn’t imagine them were also the things Betty Pye had talked about, and had to do with where Vera went.

These were possibilities that she knew other people knew, and had always known. They were things that she, Patrice, tried to keep from thinking about. But now with full weight they crashed upon her and she gave a sharp cry, there in the backseat. She thought Valentine would turn around, but no, she was engrossed in a passionate conversation about doily making and embroidering pillowcases for a hope chest being so boring and irritating that she couldn’t do it anymore. The nuns had taught her. But no more! She wouldn’t do it! Not for anything. No to the hope chest. She’d get married without a hope chest. Doris agreed with vehemence. Valentine tossed her head and looked angrily out the window. She was silent. Her face was reflected in the glass and from the backseat Patrice could see how Valentine’s eyes shifted from side to side, glittering with sadness. Valentine had never embroidered for a hope chest. She had embroidered for nuns during the years she spent as a little girl in boarding school, poking her fingers and trying to get the designs right. Her mother had nearly died of tuberculosis and Valentine had nearly died of loneliness during those years.

*

Patrice put on her long underwear, padded overalls, two layers of wool socks, her father’s overboots, and took a coil of wire from its nail beside the door. It was her day off, but she wasn’t going to walk or hitch a ride to town. More snow had fallen during the windless night and now it lay suspended in the trees, outlining each branch and twig. There was a magical hush. It was the sort of day Patrice liked for snaring rabbits.

Zhaanat had made her daughter a pair of snowshoes out of bent ash and sinew. Wearing them, Patrice could go anywhere, suspended like the snow in white cold. Down along the frozen slough she tied reeds together over rabbit trails, securing her snares. She was carrying a large cloth bag looped around her waist, and as she crossed the slough she pulled fluffed-out cattails off their woody stems and filled the bag. She set snares in the underbrush leading up to Vera’s cabin. The cedar trees that Zhaanat had planted in damp spots were almost black in the cold, asleep. Their medicine was gentle this time of year. At last she climbed through a tangle of raspberry and birch to the clearing where the cabin stood. There it was, a tiny pole-and-mud box hung with snow. It still had its doors and narrow windows, the glass miraculously still intact. She could see, it was true, a few popple trees growing out of the roof. These were laden with snow and added to the air of enchantment. It was so quiet there. So dear. Oh, Vera. How could she have imagined taking Wood Mountain up here for crude love, no matter how curious she was?

Am I just curious, or am I like Betty? Is there something wrong with being like Betty? I’m no better, she thought. A swooning, dripping, hungry sensation came over her. No, I’m no better than any other woman. But the thought didn’t help her longing, so confused with shame. Instead she thought of how cold, how dark it would be inside the cabin, even if you made a fire. Probably a skunk was living there. Patrice turned and traced her way back, not along the same trail. She wanted the slow drifting-down remains of snow to cover her scent around the snares. She took a more difficult way home, traveling beside a ravine where the snow was heaped up and the footing uncertain. Halfway home, she stepped out upon a patch of snow that collapsed into a depression lined with leaves.

It happened so suddenly that after she fell she sat in the leaves for a while, bewildered, but comfortable, and with no wish to move. She took her snowshoes off. Above, on top of the ravine, she heard small birds murmuring—the plump gray ones who scratched up the snow for food and traveled in flocks. Her snowy plunge had only briefly disturbed them. She turned her head. Behind her, a narrow aperture through leaf-clogged roots, and behind that, a profound and friendly darkness. It looked cozy, the bed of leaves, the curves of dry bare roots. This could be my love nest, she thought; if a man liked it here, I might like him.

But yes. The place looked alive, the bank of the ravine, the leaf cave. Felt alive. From its mouth she caught the unmistakable fug of bear, but it was a quiet kind of odor, seeping up from under the dense oak leaves. She thought she should be afraid, but she wasn’t. She knew the bear was sleeping hard. Now she was sorry she hadn’t carried the rifle along. This was the best way, the only way, really, to kill a bear with the old contrary gun her family owned. Still, she’d have fallen with the rifle slung over her shoulder. She was lucky enough to have landed unhurt in her snowshoes. She shifted around to make herself comfortable. Outside, the snow drifted down the layers of air, flake by flake. Watching the snow glide down put Patrice into a trance, and now she could sense the slow inflation and release of the bear’s lungs, which made her even sleepier. Perhaps the leaves were warmed by the bear’s bulk and slow heave of breath. Patrice rolled herself into a ball and closed her eyes. It was time for her weekend nap, anyway, and how often did a modern working woman get to sleep with a live bear?