A Northern Light(19)

I wondered at his harshness. And not for the first time. "Royal, what do you have against the Hubbards?" I asked. "They're just poor folks. They don't hurt anyone."

I got a snort for an answer. Royal didn't speak at all as we went up the hotel's long drive, past its freshly manured vegetable garden and its furrowed potato field. We passed the railroad station and crossed the tracks and then the highway—a narrow dirt road that ran between Old Forge and Inlet. That was Eagle Bay, every bit of it—a bay on Fourth Lake, a hotel sitting on it, a railroad station, a set of railroad tracks, and a dirt road. It wasn't a town. It wasn't even a village. It was at most a destination. Unless you happened to live there. Then it was home.

As Royal steered the team toward the Uncas Road, he suddenly turned to me and said, "You still playing that game?"

"What game?"

"That game of yours. You know, fooling with words and such."

"It's not fooling," I said defensively. He made my word of the day sound childish and silly.

"You really look up a new word every day?"

"Yes."

"What was it today?"

"Unman."

"What's it mean?"

"To break down the manly spirit. To deprive of courage or fortitude."

"Huh. Had that right on the tip of your tongue, didn't you? You sure are a notional girl."

"Notional." Royal talks like all the boys do around here. He says "ramming" when he means visiting and "chimley" for chimney. Mamma used to swat us for saying "chimley." She said it made us sound like hicks. Royal also says "don't" when he means do. "So don't I," he'd say to Lawton when Lawton said he wanted to go fishing. I tried, more than once, to explain to him that he really was saying "So do not I," which meant he was disagreeing with Lawton and didn't want to go fishing, but it never made any impression. At least he didn't say "chiney" for china or "popples" for poplar trees. That was something.

He nodded at the book in my lap. "What you got there?"

"A novel. The House of Mirth."

He shook his head. "Words and stories," he said, turning onto the Uncas Road. "I don't know what you see in them. Waste of time, if you ask me."

"I didn't ask you."

Royal didn't hear me or he didn't care if he did. He just kept right on talking. "A man's got to know how to read and write, of course, to get along in the world and all, but beyond that, words are just words. They're not very exciting. Not like fishing or hunting."

"How would you know, Royal? You don't read. Nothing's more exciting than a book."

The toothpick moved from the left side of his mouth to the right. "That so?" he said.

"Yes, that's so," I said. Finishing it. Or so I thought.

"Huh," he said. And then he snapped the reins. Hard. And barked, "Giddyap!" Loudly. I heard the horses snort as he gave them their head. The buckboard shuddered, then picked up speed.

I looked at the team, new and lively and unpredictable, and then at the Uncas Road, which was nothing but rocks and holes and corduroy. "Are we in a hurry, Royal?" I asked.

He looked at me. His face was serious, but his eyes sparked mischief. "This is the first time I've had them out. Don't really know what they'll do. Sure like to see what they're made of, though ... Hee-YAW!"

The horses lurched forward in their harnesses; their hooves pounded against the hardpan. Mrs. Wharton's novel slid off my lap and thudded to the floor, along with my new composition book. "Royal, stop!" I shouted, clutching the dash. The buckboard was bouncing and banging over the rutted road so hard I was sure one of us would fly out of it. But Royal didn't stop. Instead, he stood up on the seat, cracked the reins, and spurred the team on. "Slow down! Right now!" I screamed. But he couldn't hear me. He was too busy whooping and laughing.

"Stop, Royal! Please!" I begged. And then we hit a deep hole and I was thrown across the seat. I banged my head on the seat back and only kept myself from falling out by grabbing his leg. I saw colors flash by on the side of the road. The blue of Lou's coveralls, the yellow of Beth's dress. They can tell Pa, I thought wildly. After Royal kills us both, at least they can tell Pa how it happened.

We took a bend so hard, I felt the wheels on the right side come off the ground, then crash back down. I managed to right myself, one hand still clutching Royal, the other scrabbling at the dashboard. The wind tore my hair free of its knot and made my eyes tear. I looked behind us and saw a cloud of dust rising up from the road. After what seemed like forever, Royal finally slowed the team to a trot and then to a walk. He sat down. The horses pulled at the reins, snorting and shaking their heads, wanting more. He talked to them, shushing and clucking at them, calming them down.

"Hoo-wee!" he said to me. "Thought we was in the ditch for a second there." And then he touched me. He leaned across the seat and pressed his hand to my heart. Palm flat against my ribs. Thumb and fingers jammed up under my breast. In the split second before I slapped it away, I felt my heart beat hard against it.

"Tickers pounding fit to burst," he said, laughing. "Like to see a book do that."

I picked my things up off the buckboard's floor with shaking hands. There was a smudge on the cover of Mrs. Wharton's novel and the spine was dented. I wanted to answer Royal back with something clever and cutting. I wanted to defend my beloved books, to tell him there's a difference between excitement and terror, but I was too angry to speak. I tried to catch my breath, but every gulp of air brought the smell of him with it—warm skin, tilled earth, horses. I closed my eyes but only saw him standing on the buckboard seat, whooping. Tall and strong against the sky. Heedless. Fearless. Perfect and beautiful.