For What He Could Become Page 20

  He brought his hands up looking at them, turning them over on both sides like a doctor might do. They were so swollen he couldn’t see the blood vessels. His fingers would not form a fist. He held them in front of him, fascinated by the large unmoving clubs at the end of his arms.

  The shivering started in his arms and shoulders, then moved to his stomach. Knowing his legs could cramp, he stood up and followed a trail across the hillside, hurrying to build up body heat. It was dumb not to have prepared a camp last night, to lie out there in the cold. The heat was slow to come and he threw his arms around his body, swinging them up and down. He was close to the top of the hill. Climbing would generate body heat faster, so he cut a sharper angle and walked to the top.

  There in the distance was a picturesque village with a river passing by, flowing south. The layout of the village looked familiar. Wait a minute. He could identify the houses and the store and the airstrip. A gasp seized his throat. Tears collected in his eyes and he fell to his knees. He was home.

  For the first time since he’d left Anchorage and Major Russell, he prayed. Sobs interrupted the praying, but he continued with his head bowed, resting on his swollen hands.

  “God, I thank you for getting me through this…” He looked out again at the village. “I’m so confused and I don’t know what to do—about anything. Please help me. Guide me in my life like you did on this walk.” His sobs diminished but he stayed in the bowed position for a few more moments. “Amen.”

  With great effort he turned one leg under him and worked this way and that until he could sit. He started crying again. His head hung on his chest, the tears dripping from his cheeks to his clothes and dribbling on his folded hands until his eyes were empty. At last he wiped his nose on his sleeve and looked again at the village; his thoughts a jumble in the fatigue of the past six days. With the village in sight, his goal was within reach but there was no other to take its place.

  He had never seen the village from this vantage point, always before going through the valley to avoid the hills that blocked the village from sight. It looked lovely from where he sat. Everybody from the village should have to come up here and look down at it so they could see how it looked and how it was laid out. He estimated the distance at five miles. He could be there before the end of the day. He didn’t want to limp into town but he had to start now, as he was tightening up and pretty soon the pain would be too much to avoid limping. He pushed up with his left arm, got on his hands and knees and waited for the pain to subside. When he was stable he started off the hill, the village in front of him.

  He wondered how close he would have to get before they recognized him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “Get up.” Carl shook his feet. “I need some ballast in the sled.”

  Bill turned over. “I can’t walk.”

  “You don’t need to. Just get to the sled. You can ride in the basket.”

  “No thanks. I think I’ll stay here.”

  “No, you won’t. You’ve been back three days—that’s long enough.” He pulled on Bill’s toes. “Come on, get up. Verda has some coffee made. I’ll bring the sled over closer so you won’t have to hobble so far.”

  After Carl left, Verda poured Bill a cup of coffee and set it on the box by the bed that served as a catcher of all things. It had interlocking coffee stains on the surface and held a collection of socks, shorts, dishcloths, and rags. Bill found his socks. He couldn’t bend his legs enough to pull them on, so he put the first one over his toes, then bent down and eased the sock over the blisters and onto his foot. His pants hung over the end of the bed.

  “Verda. Would you hand me my pants?”

  She lifted the pants off the bed frame and threw them in his lap.

  What’s got into her?

  He was testing the heat of the coffee when Carl stuck his head in the door.

  “I was hoping we would do this today,” he said.

  Bill drank half of the coffee and set the cup down. He glanced at Verda as he left; she had her back to him.

  “I forgot how fast dogs can run,” Bill said when he came back in. He threw his hat and coat on the bed. “Carl has a good team, I think.”

  “Is that all you think?” Verda said.

  He looked at her. “What do you mean? Are you—”

  “I think that’s an understandable question.”

  Bill sat on the edge of the bed and looked between his feet. “I think lots of things. I—”

  “Like what?” she said.

  Bill licked his lips and looked at the window. “When I was walking back I did a lot of thinking.”

  She waited. He didn’t offer.

  “Like what?”

  “A lot of my thoughts are personal, Verda.”

  “Did you think about the gold?”

  Bill nodded.

  “Did you think about whether you would make it or not?”

  “Sure I did.”

  “Did you think about us?”

  Bill’s head snapped up. “What do you mean about us?”

  “Well, you’ve been living here since you came back, do you ever think we might be together?” She was standing with her back against the stove, holding a little black wag of hair under her nose.

  Bill smiled, looking at her. It warmed him to see her do that again.

  “What’s so amusing?” she said.

  “We used to tease you about that—your Hitler mustache trick.”

  She dropped the hair. The stew boiled over and she lifted it off the fire, the pungent smell filling the cabin.

  “Open the door,” she said as she stirred the contents down.

  Bill opened the door. He looked up and down the street. Was this worth staying for? The rest of his life here?

  “Hell’s bells, Verda—that’s a lot of thinking to—”

  She slammed the lid on the stew and spun around. “Bill Williams, you didn’t think very long about walking to Venetie and you didn’t think about writing for three years or letting us know if you were dead or alive or telling us where you were in Anchorage. Carl had to make a half-dozen phone calls to find you.”

  For a few seconds Bill had the DI in front of his face, and he shook his head to clear the image.

  “Verda, I—”

  “Don’t you ‘Verda’ me. You’ve been wasting your life without thinking about it. Now you’re telling me it takes a lot of thinking to decide if you want to live here or not. Isn’t that what you’re telling me?”

  She was right. He had nothing to say. He picked up his hat and coat and walked out the door.

  “That’s right!” she yelled after him. “That’s what you do when you can’t talk about it. Walk away!” He heard a cup shatter against the door. He kept walking.

  As he neared the store, Ted Sheeley came out with a new shovel over his shoulder.

  “They’ve got more of these in there. I could get you one and you could help me on the new digs. There’s gold there for sure. How long you been back?”

  “I came back for Charlie’s funeral, then I took a trip. Actually I was looking for gold too.”

  “You was?”

  Bill nodded.

  “You find any?”

  “Nope.”

  “See what I mean? It ain’t out there.” He pointed to his feet. “It’s right here—I know it is. I’m so close I can smell it. What do you say I get another shovel and we go digging together?”

  “Not only no, but hell no,” Bill said.

  “No need to bite a man’s head off. I was just asking.”

  “I’m kind of tired of people telling me what I’m gonna do with my life.”

  Ted walked away.

  At least that guy knows what he’s doing and how every day works for him. Wonder where he gets the money to keep going?

  He walked toward the dog yard behind Carl’s house, thinking he might see Ilene there. The sled was there but some of the dogs were gone and so was Carl.

  “Hi, Bill. Coffee?” Ilene asked.r />
  “Where’s Carl?”

  She handed him the coffee. “Took the younger dogs on a training run with the car.”

  “Car?” Bill said.

  “He rigged up an old car with no engine—he has the dogs pull it for heavy exercise. Works real good until the snow comes.” She put one foot up on the fence rail. “What’s Verda doing?”

  “Yelling at me.”

  “Really?”

  Bill nodded and sipped the coffee. This was the first time he’d been alone with Ilene and he wanted to touch her, just a little, somewhere. They were standing close by the fence and he let his shoulder inch over until it was touching hers. She didn’t move. He glanced at her as he took another sip, but she was looking at the dogs.

  “Are you going to tell me why she’s yelling at you?”

  “Well…she wants me to think real fast, and I need time. I need to mull things over. Every time I do something without thinking, I get in trouble.”

  She looked at him. “Verda want you to stay there?”

  “I really don’t know if she does or doesn’t. I came in after enjoying a ride on the sled, and she lit into me.”

  Ilene took a sip of her coffee. “Did we almost get together before you left, Bill?”

  Her directness startled him. “I’m not sure—I was just a kid.”

  “I liked you a lot. The day you said goodbye and we were standing out front of our house I thought I’d cry. And you just took off down the trail for Venetie like you were going to walk to the store. I cried every night for a week, and I waited and waited and waited for a letter from you. Nothing ever.”

  “You know I wrote you three letters and asked you to wait for me.” He looked at her started face. “Carl burned them.”

  “Carl what?”

  He nodded.

  “He had no right to do that—what gave him….”

  “Ilene—he was crazy about you. He’s told me so. That’s why he did it.”

  “I could have loved you. We could have had kids, a house, a good life together. I didn’t know….”

  “I know now. But I didn’t know then. With no letters from you….”

  “Bill—I could have loved you as much as I love Carl.”

  “Well—that time is past isn’t it?” He shrugged. “I’m sorry.”

  “That’s the first time I’ve ever heard you say you were sorry. You’re getting soft, Bill Williams.”

  “My feet aren’t. These blisters are getting hard as cardboard.”

  She nudged against him with her shoulder, gently pushing him off-balance. He spilled some of his coffee.

  “Hey…”

  “Hey yourself. Drink the rest of it and give me the cup.”

  “I’m afraid to give you Chulpach women a cup any more, Verda’s thrown two of them today. One at me.”

  “She must have had a good reason. You want to give me one?”

  “One what?”

  “Reason?”

  “Oh, no. Think I’ll stop with just the two.”

  “Coward,” she said.

  He smiled. “Never was called that.”

  “No—you aren’t a coward. You’re many things, but not a coward.” She looked up and saw the dog team coming back to the yard. “Here comes Carl. He must have worked them pretty hard, their tails are down.” She took the cups and headed back into the house.

  Carl was all smiles. “Damn, these dogs did fine today. And they’re the young ones, too. They’re gonna be a great team next year. Help me unhitch them.”

  He pulled a rope from the car and tied it to a post. Then he took the wheel dog, led him into the yard, and hooked the doghouse chain to his collar. The dog instantly rolled on his back with all the other dogs yapping. Bill could never understand why the dogs needed to talk so much when they’d only been separated a few hours.

  They unhitched the dogs and pushed the car behind the shed.

  “That’s pretty good, having the dogs pull an old car,” Bill said. “It won’t fit on the trails, though, will it?”

  “Not many of them, but enough to train these guys,” and he motioned at the younger dogs. “Want to try it?”

  “Not today.”

  “Tomorrow. You run the pups tomorrow. You’ll like it.”

  The brothers stood looking at the dogs. “It’s a good group,” Bill said. “But they’re kind of small.”

  “You want them smaller, faster, with good endurance, not like the old dogs Dad used on the trap line. These guys eat less, run faster, can take care of themselves in the cold, and they’ll run their hearts out for you.”

  “How far you run them with that car climbing their tails?” Bill said.

  “Oh, about two miles. We run up and down the airport a couple of times. Works good if Ted Sheeley hasn’t dug up any gold mines lately.”

  “I saw him this morning,” Bill said. “He was coming out of the store with a new shovel. Wanted me to help him dig again. He ever find anything around here?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “How’s he live and buy stuff?”

  Carl shook his head. “Beats me.”

  Bill took his foot off the rail and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Carl,” he said, “did you ever find any gold? You seem to be doing pretty well trapping. Maybe better than trapping pays.”

  “Never had any reason to look for gold,” Carl said. “Why do you ask?”

  “Just wondered. Herb had found some gold, and I thought if he could, you sure could.”

  “That where you went? Looking for Herb’s gold find?”

  Bill nodded. “I didn’t find it, though.”

  “He didn’t get much, and it wasn’t very good gold,” Carl said. “He was pretty secretive about it—guess I would be too, if I knew where some was.” He started toward the house. “I’ll come get you in the morning for a dog run.”

  Bill hobbled to Verda’s place. He didn’t know whether he should knock or just open the door. He hesitated at the front, then knocked lightly.

  “Yes?” she said.

  “Okay to come in?”

  “If you can walk you can come in.”

  He went over to the bed, keeping his eyes diverted from Verda, eased off his boots and looked at the socks. There were no stains, so he assumed the blisters were healing and not draining any more.

  “Have you eaten?” Verda asked.

  Bill shook his head.

  She took a bowl and dipped some stew in it. Then she tore off a chunk of bread, set it in the stew, and handed the bowl to him.

  He looked at her and realized he had no earthly idea what her mood was at this moment. No earthly idea how and why women reacted the way they did—or to what. He had not lived among them, didn’t know their ways. No wonder they confused him.

  “This is good, Verda,” he said between mouthfuls.

  She didn’t respond. Instead she sat looking out the window over the kitchen cabinets, her legs crossed. The noise of his eating was the only sound in the cabin.

  “What if we asked Carl to help find the gold?” she said suddenly.

  So that was it. She was mad about his not finding the gold. He stopped chewing.

  “I asked him this morning if he’d found any,” he said.

  “What’d he say?”

  “Said he didn’t have any reason to look for gold.”

  “And that doesn’t mean he didn’t find any!”

  “Well, so what if he did?”

  “If Herb did and Carl did, then you can too. Ted Sheeley’s living off something. He’s probably finding some. And you saw Herb’s gold.”

  Bill said, “Verda, I panned three rivers looking for gold. I’ve had it with gold hunting.”

  He hobbled over to the sink and put his bowl down. As he turned to go back to the bed, Verda glared at him and said, “You can wash up that dish.”

  No sooner had he washed the dish than she said, “You can dry it, too.”

  He dried it, and put it on the shelf.

  “Any
thing else?” he said.

  Her eyes twinkled like they always did when she smiled. “Oh, go lie down,” she said and pulled the end of her hair under her nose. For a moment they were fifteen and seventeen again and nothing had changed.

  Carl stopped the team outside the cabin. He had eight young dogs hooked up to the car frame.

  “Send the gold prospector out!” he shouted.

  Verda looked at Bill. “You told him that’s where you were?”

  “Since I didn’t find anything, I didn’t think it would hurt to tell him.”

  Verda didn’t say anything but she didn’t seem mad.

  Bill shook his head. There was a lot about women in general and this woman in particular that he needed to learn if he was going to include them in his life.

  He hobbled out to the car body. The dogs were ready to run.

  “You sit in here like the driver and steer,” Carl said.

  “You remember the commands?”

  Bill nodded.

  “Okay, take them out to the airport and run them at a lope down to the end once. Then stop and let them rest. Run faster on the return and stop before the river bank. When you come into town, go slow—the dust is bad for them. Here, I’ll turn them around for you.”

  Bill got in the seat, the only thing remaining on the inside of the old Volkswagen. Carl let loose of the lead dogs and the team took off on a sprint down the street past the store to the small hill leading to the airstrip. All the dogs but one had their tug lines tight. He whistled loud, gave a “Hey, hey!” and the slacking dog picked it up, tightened his line.

  At the edge of the airstrip, Bill yelled, “Get up, get up!”

  Their tongues swinging back and forth, the two lead dogs went into a strong lope. The wind whistled through the windshield opening, causing Bill to squint. The smell of the dogs, the sound of their feet hitting the ground, the cool air in his face—he could almost hear his dad telling him how to run the dogs. Near the end of the runway he applied the brakes and yelled, “Whoa, whoa!”

  When the car stopped the dogs looked around at the unfamiliar man in the seat. They were panting. So was he. Nothing had excited him so much for years. He had been mad, he had been sad, he had been drunk and disorderly and slovenly and tired and scared—but not excited. His breath was coming fast and he was smiling big.