The Night Watchman(81)

She woke in the cave of leaves with a tingling sense that something good had happened and might happen. Then she remembered that she’d been sleeping only feet away from a bear. She put her snowshoes back on and left quietly, walking at first, then loping lightly, knees high so her snowshoes would clear the snow, all along the bottom of the ravine. The cold air flooding her throat was a source of power. Sleep was a fuel, too, making her springy and buoyant. She was so much stronger than she’d thought. And fearless. As she went downhill she was nearly flying across the snow.



“The old man, he’s close,” said Zhaanat when Patrice came in the door.

“How do you know?”

“I found a track this morning. I smelled him out there. Signs.”

“And his luck’s due to run out.”

There was a certain timing. After two or three months of wandering around, Paranteau would generally stagger and steam into the yard, raving.

“I’ll be the night watchman,” said Patrice, and went out to get the ax.

The night was clear but the wind had changed.

Patrice brought the ax inside and put it on the table. She had bought kerosene, and she could keep the lamp on all night. She got her book, some paper, and a pencil. Pokey curled up on his mattress. Zhaanat went to bed with the baby.



Halfway through the night, Patrice realized she hadn’t thought of Wood Mountain even once since she’d awakened in the leaf cave. Maybe she had even lost interest. The intense focus of those thoughts and plans seemed remote. Why would she waste her time figuring out men when she was a person who had slept with a bear? She was wide awake now because she’d napped that afternoon. She kept the strength she’d gained in the minutes she’d slept. Bigger ideas were called for. Why should anything be impossible?

In the deepest hour of the night, Patrice loaded the stove and put on her boots and her coat against the cold jabbing into the house. The wood crackled, burning hot. Then the split logs fell into coals. Everything ceased. She listened hard. Nothing, nothing, nothing. But she could feel the calm breathing of the night. She put on her mother’s mitts, took the ax, stepped out the door. Outside, there was resounding silence. The black sky was a poem beyond meaning. This World is not Conclusion. A Species stands beyond— Invisible, as Music—/ But positive, as Sound.





Snares




“Wouldn’t Doris and Valentine like to see me out here setting snares?” said Patrice to her little brother the next day. “There, see the place where the rabbit jumped? Set it right above.”

“I know! Quit bossing me!”

Pokey looped the wire and fixed it to a branch that hung low over the spot.

“All my friends catch rabbits and hunt,” he said. “Your friends are useless.”

“They do have jobs. And they belong to the Homemakers Club. They sew and make gardens and raise chickens.”

“I wish we had chickens,” said Pokey. “I could put them in the little shed.”

“They’d freeze solid.”

“Maybe you should get it over with, Pixie.”

Pokey was the only one she let call her Pixie.

“Get what over with?”

“You know.”

Patrice was the person she’d been before her thoughts had turned all muddy. She felt superior to the person she was before she slept with the bear. She indulged Pokey with a smile.

“I suppose you mean Hay Stack?”

“He’s nice to me. But I know why. So not him.”

“Wood Mountain?”

“Wouldn’t be half bad.”

“So less than 50 percent awful.” Patrice shoved his shoulder lightly. “I’m aiming for something more like in the 90 percent good range.”

Pokey batted at her. “He does say you’re a smart one.”

“He does?”

“He says you’re probably too smart for him.”

“He’s probably right.”

Pokey looked skeptical, then dejected.

“Gego babaamendangen, nishimenh, don’t worry. Let’s check the snares I set yesterday up by the old place.”

Patrice had told her mother about the bear, but in Chippewa, which Pokey didn’t understand very well. She’d used the most complex words she could think of too, so that he wouldn’t figure out what she was talking about and get some idea about trying to shoot the bear himself. Zhaanat had listened to her with her eyes shining, the baby sleeping on her heart.

As they approached Vera’s cabin, they walked across the frozen slough, searching carefully along Patrice’s trapline. They found one large white snowshoe hare, frozen solid, and another smaller cottontail. They walked uphill, beating through brush, and then stepped into the presence of the cabin. The undisturbed calm of it made Patrice so lonely that she said no when Pokey wanted to look around inside.

“It’s Vera’s,” she said.

“I’ll just look in the window then.”

“No,” she said, but he walked up to the cabin anyway.

He stood at the window with his hands cupped around his eyes.

“Someone’s sleeping in there,” he said. “Curled up by the stove.”

“Come back,” said Patrice.