For What He Could Become Page 17

  Carl pulled up at the store and flung open the car door. The kids scattered while Carl put the mailbag inside the store, got back in and without closing the door took off towards Herb Chulpach’s cabin, stopping by the front door.

  Verda was there standing slightly bowlegged against the door jam with her arms across her chest and her right hip canted out. She wasn’t smiling. Bill looked at her through the windshield and their eyes locked. Twenty-six years had intervened since they had seen each other. What would he want to tell her? Looking at her he didn’t know if he felt joyful or sad.

  Carl had grabbed Bill’s duffel and was greeting Verda in the doorway before Bill slid from the seat and walked toward the cabin.

  “Hello,” she said without moving.

  “Hello Verda.”

  It had all been arranged and Bill stepped inside.

  What does a person say at a time like this? He hadn’t been exposed to village life for a long time. Street life, he knew.

  Before he could think of it, Verda said, “You look nice Bill. Thank you for coming.”

  Bill nodded. “Carl said I should come.” He saw Herb half reclined in a bed against the wall. It was dark in that corner and Herb wasn’t moving. Bill went over to him.

  “Hello Herb.”

  Bill had never seen Herb when his head wasn’t tilted back, his chin up, and his eyes half closed looking down over his nose and cheeks. Looking down on him in the bed he looked frail.

  Herb tried to lift his head to get his eyes to look straight at Bill but gave up. He uttered some small sounds with his mouth, coughed some, wet his lips and tried again.

  “Bill….”

  Bill kneeled down beside the bed. “How are you Herb?”

  Herb’s lips moved slowly, always the loose tongue and lips, his teeth long in the gums and brown from coffee. His lips opened.

  “It is good for these old eyes to see you again Bill Williams.” He stared at Bill. “You will stay?”

  Bill nodded, not knowing if he meant to stay tonight or a week or forever. It didn’t mean that much to him. He had come home for awhile. He had always left before but this was a different time and who could say if he would stay or for how long.

  Herb nodded and Bill stood up. Verda and Carl were standing together looking at him.

  “Well… what?” Bill said.

  Neither of them said anything and Verda moved off to the kitchen area and turned her back on the two of them. He could see her figure from behind and she was still a lean, good-looking woman, he thought. Long black hair, slim shoulders, and a very small waist. He hadn’t thought about a woman for years. Whiskey tended to turn him away from the thought of women and anyhow the women he knew in Anchorage were street people like himself and while he was probably as drunk as any of them he didn’t sleep with any of them. He hadn’t thought about sex for a long time. Maybe the thought had a place to be nurtured and grown. At least the sight of Verda gave him a tingling feeling across his chest and shoulders. He straightened up and stood taller.

  “I have to go check the fish wheel. You want to come?” Carl said.

  Verda turned. “It’s almost supper time, Bill. Could you do that tomorrow if you want and we can eat now that Herb’s awake?”

  “I’ll stay here. I’m tired and hungry and this looks like a good place to cure both.”

  Carl turned to go. “I’ll see you later tonight or in the morning.”

  Verda busied herself in the kitchen that consisted of a small gas range, a sink with a bucket under it to catch the water she used, and open shelves on the wall for a pantry.

  She was propping Herb up with pillows and struggling with his weight when Bill eased in beside her and put his arm behind Herb’s back and pushed him forward so she could get the pillows behind his back. They were very close and Bill could smell the clean healthy smell of her, the scent of her hair, and the warmth of her skin. He couldn’t deny himself the pleasure of staying there just as long as he could and wondered if he had missed this in his life more than he could possibly know. Verda straightened up and bumped into him. Their eyes met and both stopped. Herb saw it. Neither acknowledged the moment and the whole thing took less time than was needed for a camera shutter to close.

  Herb could feed himself, which made Bill feel that he wasn’t as bad off as he at first appeared. Come to think of it, Herb had always been slow and deliberate. After Bill’s encounter with the bear, Herb and Charlie had taken the better part of thirty minutes to evaluate the circumstances and make their pronouncements.

  This was his first native meal in a long time. After three years of army food it had taken him six months to get used to the smell and taste of the Salvation Army food.

  Bill and Verda ate in silence.

  He put the pieces together in the quiet. Charlie was dead. The burial was tomorrow and everyone would be there. Now Herb was sinking lower every day and nobody seemed to know what was wrong with him but his decline was visible. Now I’m here. She doesn’t know what to make of it, and frankly, neither do I.

  After dinner, Herb muttered, “Get a chair,”

  Bill did and as he was about to sit down Herb pointed to a small glass jar on a shelf behind him. “Get that,” he said.

  It was a small heavy jar. Bill tried to hand it to Herb.

  “No…you,” Herb said.

  Bill unscrewed the lid and looked at the small dark colored flakes, moved them around with his finger, smelled them.

  “Gold,” Herb said.

  “Gold?”

  Herb nodded. He wagged a finger at the jar. “I found it about fifteen years ago, just after you left.”

  It didn’t look like gold. It was heavy though.

  “Do you mean you found this jar,” Bill said, “or you found where the gold is and put it in this jar?”

  “No…I found the gold. I panned it and put it in the jar.”

  “I didn’t know you knew anything about gold,” Bill said.

  “There’s lots you don’t know. Why couldn’t I know about gold?”

  “You never said much of anything.

  Herb worked that smile that looked like a crease in his face “You young kids, you think you knew everything anyway. What could I tell you and Carl?”

  “Charlie sure tried.”

  “Well…Charlie had to try. He was your uncle and he was bound to have to try when you had no father. I figured you would find out everything anyway. I did.” “You remember my bear hunt?”

  “Sure.”

  “And you and Uncle Charlie sitting on the bank laughing at me?”

  “Yes…and the bear on the other bank wondering whether to come in the water after you or not. See, you didn’t ask anybody how to hunt a bear, you just stalked off to go hunting.”

  “I had heard lots of hunting stories.”

  “Yes…heard stories. But stories and hunting are different. Anybody can tell a story, a true one or one they make up. You can’t hunt on stories. You need to walk in the trail of a hunter to know how to hunt.” Herb coughed. “Would you get me some water, please? I haven’t talked this much since you left.”

  Verda brought a glass of water. She lingered with her hand on Bill’s shoulder.

  “Did you know about this gold?” Bill asked her.

  “A little.”

  “What do you do with it?”

  “Oh,” Herb chuckled after he mopped the water off his chin, “I give it to Carl to take to town and sell when he sells his.”

  Bill straightened up. Carl has found some gold too?

  “And then what?” Bill asked.

  “Then what? Why…we buy food and gas and clothes with the money.” Herb’s speech was slowed down and his voice started to crack.

  Bill liked its weight. He liked Verda’s hand on his shoulder too. His stomach was full, he didn’t have to listen to a sermon after dinner, it was not so brightly lighted that it hurt his eyes, and a warm comfortable feeling enveloped him. “Where did you find it?”

  “This pla
ce where three rivers meet near a dome. You can get there in about three days with dogs. It is easier in the winter when you can take the dogs. In the summer you have to fly out and the cost is high.”

  His speech, just a few minutes ago animated and high pitched, had now slowed down and dwindled in volume.

  “Reach that sack there…” Herb pointed to the wall. “…Take out that paper.”

  The paper had drawings and lines and circles on it.

  “It is a map I made. I can’t see it in this light. In the morning I will explain it to you. You and Verda can have some of the gold there. You shouldn’t tell anyone. Carl knows about it but he doesn’t know where it is. He has his own anyway. There are others who think I have it cause they don’t know how this old one makes do with what he has.”

  Herb swallowed and closed his eyes, his breathing steady.

  “I am very tired. I haven’t talked this much since Charlie was alive. Just an old man running on now, but in the morning…in the morning…we will look at it again and I will tell you how to read the symbols. In the morning I am always stronger. I feel better when the light is new. Don’t you?”

  “I guess.”

  Herb nodded. His eyes partially closed and his breathing became labored.

  “Help me lay him down flat,” Verda said.

  Bill didn’t know where he was supposed to sleep. He watched Verda as she cleaned up the kitchen area. She was a fine woman who moved with grace.

  Wonder why she and Rusty didn’t have any kids?

  When she finished she stared at him, one hand holding her hair under her nose like an air filter. Then she let it drop.

  “You can sleep in that room. I’ll get the stuff out of there.”

  “I don’t have anything to put in there,” he said.

  “Well, at least Rusty’s stuff won’t be in your way.”

  “That won’t bother me, Verda.” It was only the second time he had used her name since he had been back. It sounded funny to him and he wondered why he had not thought to say it before. It was a nice sounding name.

  Verda didn’t really clean it out she just shifted things into one corner.

  Bill brought in his duffle and threw it on the floor. He removed his shoes and laid them out for quick access. Some things he had learned in the army were useful. In the morning, he would see what he could learn about Herb’s gold field.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The scream awakened Bill. It was difficult for him to determine where he was and what was happening. He pulled on his pants and shoes and parted the curtain. Verda was on her knees beside Herb’s bed. His mouth was open and his arm hung down..

  “Verda?”

  “He’s dead.”

  An anxiety punched through him.

  “He’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead….”

  Bill put his hands on her shoulders. He searched for something to say but he could think of nothing. Verda was giving off little spasms that he could feel through his hands. He began to rub her shoulders and back as she swayed on her knees, sobs coming now less frequently. She pulled Herb’s arm up and laid it on his chest and closed his jaw but it fell open again.

  “Get something to hold his jaw closed, I don’t like seeing him this way.”

  Bill found a washcloth in the kitchen, rolled it up and placed it between Herb’s chin and his chest forcing the jaw closed.

  His eyes are closed. I thought people’s eyes remained open when they died? They did in the war. But those were young men killed in a moment of life. Maybe it’s different when your life has run out and sneaks away from your body in the night.

  Verda stood and shook silently, tears running down her face. He moved toward her and it was then she turned into his arms and clung to him. She was the first woman he had held. She felt warm and soft and her crying did not bother him. He had always been put off by crying.

  While she cried Bill held her close, his eyes opening and closing as they swayed locked together. Through her hair he saw the map lying on the floor. The map to the gold with all of its lines and symbols and how to get there that was to have been told to him today. It lay there a sheet of gibberish, like a lost needle in a haystack.

  He let go of Verda and picked up the map. She recognized what he had thought. “No—no.” She reached for it. Bill put it in the envelope on the wall.

  “We’ll look at it later,” he said.

  Verda looked up at him, her eyes red rimmed, the sides of her nose wet with tears. He opened his arms and held her again. They stood together until she became quiet, the soundlessness becoming oppressive.

  “We better find Carl and let him know,” Bill said.

  The gold map is a problem—I don’t know if I’ll ever figure it out? Would it be disrespectful to Herb if I looked at it tomorrow?

  Funeral timing in the village was another thing he didn’t know about. He knew that Charlie died last Friday and the funeral was today, the following Saturday. He would have to wait and see what happened. He had time. He hadn’t done anything meaningful for years and waiting had become easy for him.

  Carl walked right in, limping over to the bed where Herb lay and looked down at him. For a full minute he stood there then Verda came to him. He held her and looked at Bill over her shoulder. His eyes were moist.

  “A lot of death,” Carl said after a minute. “A lot of death.”

  He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and started for the door.

  “Bill, go over to the store and get a body bag. Tell them it is for Herb. Verda… get his clothes out and we can dress him for the funeral. I’ll go see Ernest and see if he has any caskets made up. Maybe we can get the preacher to do both burials today and we don’t have to do it again. The people will be very sad.”

  Verda and Bill stood in the room. It was as if all life had left the room and there would be none there again. Bill was the first to move. He started for the store and the body bag.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Three days after the funeral, Bill and Verda sat at the table with cups of coffee and the map stretched out. It wasn’t like any map Bill had used in the army, no directions or landmarks or rivers. Just some symbols and lines. He turned it a quarter-turn, then another, trying to figure out what might represent anything Herb had told Verda about the gold’s location, the three rivers and a dome.

  Then he had an idea. “Herb was right-handed, wasn’t he?”

  Verda nodded.

  “He probably drew this map with the notes on the right side of the lines and symbols, then. That might give us some clue. What do you suppose the lines mean?”

  Verda shrugged. “Could they be trails?”

  They looked at the map. Verda said, “Should we ask somebody, maybe?”

  “No,” Bill said. “We can’t trust anyone else to look at it.” Then he remembered the gold in the jar. He got it down, poured a little on the map, and looked at it.

  “Didn’t he say it took him three days with the dogs?”

  “I don’t remember,” Verda said.

  “I think he said three days in the winter. Think, Verda. How far do you reckon he could get in three days with those dogs, at his age?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe fifty to a hundred miles. Maybe.”

  “Did you ever see which way he took off? I mean, did he head over into the valley across the Chandalar or did he head up north?”

  “I don’t know, I never saw him leave from the village.” She started to cry, and held her arms across her chest, rocking back and forth like her father had done as long as Bill could remember.

  “We just have to figure this out.” He reached over and put his arm on her shoulder. “You and I could be rich. I’m younger and stronger than Herb and I could get more gold out of that place than he did.”

  He folded the paper and poured the gold back into the jar.

  “Bill…how much is that gold worth?”

  Bill shrugged, then hefted the jar again. “I’d say maybe five or six ounces. You have an
ything in a jar with the weight on it?”

  “No.”

  “What would they have at the store that you might need that would have the weight printed on it?”

  “Maybe some jam?”

  He dug in his pocket. “Take this to the store and buy something that says five to ten ounces on the label and we’ll see if the gold is heavier or lighter than that.”

  While she was gone Bill studied the map. Herb was not a genius, so this map of his had to be fairly simple. If he could just orient it to something he knew, something that stuck out. But what did he know of the country in a 50- to 100-mile radius from the village? Nothing having three rivers and a dome. Maybe he could get a pilot to fly him in circles out from the village. That would cost money. Damn. Some people in the village had to know where the three rivers came together. If he didn’t disclose why he needed the information, he might find someone to tell him. No—asking would be too risky. People were already suspicious about where Herb had gotten his money.

  Verda returned with a ten-ounce jar of jelly. Bill held the gold in one hand and the jelly in the other. The jelly was heavier, but not by much.

  “We have less than ten ounces,” Bill said. “We have to take off for the jar. Maybe five ounces.”

  “I thought about this,” she said. “They have a map on the wall—we can see if there is anything like what Herb said.”

  Wow…one minute she’s sobbing and the next minute she’s planning a frontal assault on a gold mine.

  At the store, they bought foods that would last, then walked over to the map looking for three rivers that met at a dome.

  The owner stuck his head over the counter and around the corner. “Help you find anything?”

  “No thanks, Irem,” Verda said.

  “Nobody ever looks at that old map,” he said. “Just keep it there to

  help hunters and hikers see where they are. Never seen a villager look at it.”

  His head disappeared around the corner, and Bill placed his finger on a place where three rivers came together. He looked down at Verda, who looked up at him grinning.