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The Good People Up North


From Best of River Walk Journal 2007

By T.M. Spooner

It was nearly seven when Edward Rainey sluggishly pulled himself and his sixty something body with its mild aches and amusing creaks from the warm sheets. As he passed into the hallway, he took a moment at the upstairs window where the pale winter light greeted his already wan complexion, adding to his cadaverous January look. He appraised the wooden building out back where he housed the rabbits, and in the distance the piled, ashen clouds fell away making room for what would be a cloudless winter day.
Near the cottage the garbage cans were upright and in their appointed places. Last week, Edward had been awakened about four in the morning when an angry flock of crows cawed frantically from behind the cottage. Startled, he rose to discover a black bear had come near the place and toppled the cans. Edward sprang from the cottage, shooing wildly and scaring off the intruder, while the crows swooned for the booty. The warning, he felt, (the rabbits had been undisturbed) had earned them the scattered feast and in a tender act of justice he allowed them to pick at the trash. From the kitchen window he had watched as they plucked and gorged on banana peels, potato skins, coffee grounds, and discarded fat from the previous night’s pot roast.
There was no such early arousal this morning and so he had slept until nearly seven. Petrine, Edward’s wife, who had awakened earlier, already had the coffee going. Making his way down the narrow staircase and guiding himself along the thick banister, built by his own hands, he paused against the mediocrity and predictability of thirty some years of marriage, sixty something years of rising, of long winters, late springs, and brief summers.
Without looking up Petrine doled out her thin-lipped “good morning, Edward.”
“Morning,” Edward replied in his pronounced drawl, so much so that Petrine swore he hadn’t been born but rather slow cooked.
“Coffee’s ready,” Petrine said without expression, a trait Edward attributed to her second-generation Scandinavian heritage.
After pouring a cup of strong coffee, (Petrine took it that way and Edward had grown to accept it) he sat across from her at the kitchen table. Petrine looked away in thought or distraction.
“We’re having such a mild winter,” she commented, gazing through the bay window at two squirrels feeding at the bird feeder. A corn-speckled block of suet, beyond their reach, hung nearby. “January and barely more than a dusting of snow.”
“The snowmobilers have been terribly disappointed,” Edward said. “The cottages have been empty. Bob Shawl says business is way down this year on account of the mild winter.”
“Knowing Bob, he’s likely not making much of a fuss. He’s probably drinking up the excess supply,” Petrine quipped. It was true that Bob, the proprietor of the Swedish Tavern, had a reputation for drink and was usually happy by noon and slurring drunk by four.
Edward earned his living as caretaker for several cottages in the area, owned by people from St. Paul or Duluth, who came up for weekends and for a few weeks during the summer. These were real getaway places nestled in Bayfield County, deep in the heart of Wisconsin’s North Woods. It was a far cry from the city and suburban, mall riddled byways and provided a place where a family could swim and fish in the summer and snowmobile and cross-country ski during more normal winters. Edward and Petrine were two of an ever-decreasing breed of year-rounders. They had both grown up in the area, near Hayward, and had long past given up on journeying elsewhere. Their life was here and whatever dreams they had once had, like having children or running a bed and breakfast over in Door County, had all but vanished.
“What is it?” Petrine asked, noticing Edward reacting to something she hadn’t heard.
“A car in the drive.”
“I didn’t hear anything. Your senses are as keen as an old hound dog’s.”
Edward went into the front room where through the window he could see Bob Shawl’s white pickup rolling stiffly up the gravel drive. The truck was no longer white, dirtied by the season and stiff from the cold.
“Who is it?” Petrine asked, coming up from behind.
“Bob Shawl.”
“Well, speak of the devil.”
Bob left the truck running while he made his way to the cottage. By the time he reached the front door the tips of his ears and nose were as red as summer tomatoes.
“Morning, Edward,” he said, smoke trailing his words.
“Morning, Bob. What brings you so early?”
“I was on my way down to the tavern. Have to clean up before opening. I noticed something strange at the Conrad’s cottage.”
“Strange how?” Edward asked.
“A broken window on the east side of the house. Looks like nearly the whole pane was blasted out. Figured you’d want to know so you could check it out, aye, Edward?”
The Conrad place was just up the hill from Edward’s cottage. A nice piece of property overlooking the lake.  
“Conrad’s place,” Edward muttered.
“Yep. I figured they weren’t up here since no car was in the drive and no fresh tracks.”
“No, they haven’t been up since September.”
“I figured as much. Maybe some drunk kids come through. Just thought I’d let you know, Edward.” Bob noticed Petrine behind Edward and nodded an acknowledgment. “Petrine.”
“Hello, Bob.”
“Thanks for stopping by, Bob. These days you can’t be too careful.”
“Sure enough,” Bob said, before hustling back to the truck.
From a hook near the door Edward grabbed a barn coat lined with a hooded gray sweatshirt. Gloves filled with smooth lambskin were stored in the pockets and he slipped his warm hands in.
“I’m going up to have a look,” he said. “Probably just kids. Horseplay.”
“Don’t you want your breakfast first?”
“This won’t be a minute,” he said, as he buttoned the coat up close to his neck and pulled the earflaps down on his plaid hunting cap. Edward didn’t hunt but owned the hat and the orange vest for when he walked the woods during deer season. Just because he didn’t hunt was no reason to get splayed full of buckshot.  
“Just the same, watch yourself,” Petrine said before returning to the kitchen.
If Edward’s sanctuaries were the outdoors and the barn with the rabbits, hers was the kitchen. From her Swedish lineage she had inherited a natural desire for efficiency and order and her kitchen ran like a finely tuned production line. 
Edward went out into the empty January morning, nothing at all to hold the sun’s warmth. The day was bright and silvery and although snow had been scarce this winter, cold had not. The frozen earth was unforgiving and immediately a chill clawed through his body. He could drive up to Conrad’s but quickest just to cut through the congregation of trees, following the hardened path to the back of the place. The Conrads, Doug and Nancy, were fine people. They had two boys whose names Edward couldn’t recall, one in braces and the other not far behind. The couple had been coming up here for years, even before the boys were born.
Nothing unusual was in the air as Edward pushed up the incline toward the cottage. Smoke piped from his mouth and nostrils, the cold penetrating and working his lungs. His feet crunched the earth, only a thin layer of snow with grassy hairs piercing through. It was unusual for January. Normally this time of year he’d be trampling through two feet of it.
Edward slalomed between the final stretches of trees. At first glance nothing looked unusual and as he drew nearer the cottage, he could make out a brilliant reflection of sky and pines, like a painting, shimmering in the front window. Sadly, no matter how hard he strained and hoped, it was never a Cézanne, only a disappointing Kincaid.
At the front door, Edward paused, listening intently for anything unusual. There were only winter sounds, sharp, quiet air, high up creaks from tall, swaying timber, snaps as animals or wind cracked twigs, and faint echoes far off. Edward held no great affection for winter but up here there was no getting around it and was something you just accepted and didn’t squawk about. Edward preferred the spring, when the bunnies were born and things were new and green and hopeful.
By now Petrine would be on her second cup of coffee, he thought. The fleece robe he had given her for Christmas tied snugly around her waist and drawn high at the neck. One hand pressed close to her chest, beneath the robe, while the other remained free for the coffee. How well he knew her routine. How much he disliked it.
The key to the Conrad’s cottage, dangling with a jumble of others, was well marked with a strip of masking tape. As he opened the door he thought of Mr. and Mrs. Conrad and how disappointed they would be in him for allowing this to happen. They had hired him to keep up the place and to see that things like vandalism didn’t happen.
The cottage’s great room was cold. The furnace was running, struggling to keep up with the cold nosing through the broken glass. Nearby, in the dormant fireplace, a defeated pile of burnt wood and gray-black cinders filled the hearth. Across the room was the broken window. Edward started over, across the Navajo rug, near the rustic, but plush sofa. Mrs. Conrad, a serious student of the day’s decorating magazines, had decorated the room with impeccable details. She had accomplished the lodge-like motif that her husband requested, but also managed a warm and cozy feel. Behind the sofa, resting on the hardwood, was a large stone. Nearby was a little scuff and indentation from the impact. Edward picked up the complicit stone and eyed it.
“Nothing but kids,” he muttered under his breath.
The window’s upper pane was undisturbed so only the lower pane would require replacement. A jagged gap remained and Edward decided to remove the loose pieces of glass holding uneasily to the frame. For the time being he could tape up the gaping hole. Later he would go out for a new sheet of glass and replace it entirely this afternoon. Before starting the work, he took another glance around the room, thinking that Petrine could take a lesson from Mrs. Conrad. She knew all the right touches and accents.
As Edward began with the window the tiny shards came out easily. The small job was going well until he came across a larger, more stubborn piece of glass. It was well intact against the frame and the broken side jutted out like a slimming peninsula, finishing with an angry point. While struggling to release it he lost his grip and cut his wrist. It happened in an instant. He was surprised to see it had punctured one of those blue, prominent veins, ones that people who wished to end it all spliced hungrily into.
Immediately blood appeared on his wrist and on his hand where a small piece of stray glass had severed two of the long lifelines that meandered across the shallow valley of his palm. A drop or two hit the floor before Edward had wrapped his white handkerchief around the wounded hand. As he clenched his fist, he noticed the handkerchief absorbing blood, nearly the color of the paint he had used on the Whitcomb’s cottage two summers ago.  Funny to think of that, but that’s what came to mind - the Whitcomb’s cottage. 
He would have to finish up here later. He’d get home to tend to the cut and get the bleeding under control before he made more of a mess of the Conrad’s cottage. Good thing Bob stopped by this morning, Edward thought. The Conrad’s gas tank would be empty soon with the furnace working so hard. Outside the cold reached Edward’s aching wrist and the bleeding slowed as it thickened in the frigid air. In the sunlight the blood was brighter than in the cottage, as bright red as the seed membrane of a pomegranate.
Retracing his steps back to the house he glanced below at the frozen lake, now the color of a dirty nickel. An intermittent path of blood led from the Conrad’s, over the hill, all the way to the Rainey’s property. If there were more snow it would have been brilliant, almost dramatic, to see the bright red against the pure white snow. The contrast was still remarkable and made Edward think that little things seemed big sometimes, like an owl’s cry, autumn’s vermilion colors, heaps of snow, early spring crocus, or a spring rain. He grew weak as he neared the house. His empty stomach churned and his brow sweat. No longer did he feel the cold.
Edward clenched the wounded hand into a tightly balled fist. Pressure would stop the bleeding. He had learned that in a first aid class twenty years earlier, but he knew that was nothing special because everyone knew that. That part he remembered – apply pressure and lots of it. Keep it up. If that didn’t help apply a tourniquet, but that would cutoff blood flow to the entire hand. Edward was shaky now and faint. As soon as he opened the cottage door he called for Petrine. He couldn’t recall the last time he had called his wife for something other than banal reasons like the supper menu or more toilet paper.
“Petrine,” he called shakily.
She was still in the kitchen straightening up after breakfast. The unusual tone of his voice alarmed her. Hearing her name in a call of desire or need made her rush from the kitchen. 
“What is it, Edward? God, you’re pale. What’s happened?” Draining of routine, her face quickly filled with concern and worry. Looking at him closer than she had in years she realized he was older, weak, and genteel against the cottage’s heavy door.
“I’ve cut my wrist pretty badly. On the broken glass up at Conrad’s.”
“Oh, Edward,” she said, coming closer. “How bad?”
“Bad enough,” he said, presenting the injured wrist. Petrine looked on at the blood- soaked handkerchief and then to his face.
“How did it happen?”
“Just clumsy, I guess,” he answered in his self-deprecating style.
“You’re sweaty. Sit on the sofa.”
She took Edward’s arm and gently let her body against his, guiding him to the sofa. Edward felt her warmth feed through his body.
Inside the warmth of the home the bleeding resumed. Petrine brought a clean hand towel and threw out the soaked handkerchief. She placed a 911 call, realizing he would require more medical attention than she could provide.
“Stay calm,” she told herself as she wet a washcloth and then brought it to the sofa. “Stay calm.” Edward grew sleepy and she urged him to stay awake, placing the wet cloth across his forehead. “I’ve phoned the ambulance. They’ll be here soon. Stay awake until then. Keep me company.”
Edward nodded his head lazily, blinking his heavy eyelids. A tiny smile curled from one side of his mouth.
“That feels good,” he said groggily. “I’m so sleepy.”
“No, stay awake, Edward,” Petrine insisted. “Talk to me. Talk to me like you used to, like when we first met.”
Petrine was sitting next to Edward, her body against his side, holding firmly and applying pressure to the wrist beneath the bulky towel. It was filling quickly with blood. Edward’s eyes closed again.
“Keep me company, won’t you?” Petrine asked. “What happened up at Conrad’s?”
      “Just kids,” Edward whispered. “Just kids throwing rocks. The poor Conrads.”
“It’ll fix,” Petrine assured him. “Don’t worry about that, Edward.”
“The floor was scuffed and took a dent.”
“That’ll fix too.”  
“Too bad for Mrs. Conrad,” he said. “She’s fixed it up so nice. They’re good people.”
“Yes, they are. But you’ll fix it, Edward. After you get better. Remember all the things you fixed in our first house?” Edward smiled, now from both sides of his mouth.
“Why you could have built a new one with all that work. You made it so nice, Edward. Did I ever tell you that?” Edward didn’t answer. “I’m sorry if I didn’t. Real sorry, Edward.”
Edward could feel Petrine’s breath against his face as she leaned over to adjust the pillow beneath his head and inspect the washcloth.
“It needs dampening,” she said.
“No, stay here,” Edward said quickly, clutching her forearm with his healthy hand. He squeezed with the force of longing and memory. “Stay with me.”
The warmth of her body, the briny scent of her breath, and gentle touch was something he had missed. All at once, in one giant swoop, he realized he had forgotten Petrine’s softness. Edward didn’t know if it had gone away from her, escaped, or grown out of her. Or had it been forgotten for lack of use, like a second language not spoken, or like anything not tended to? And then Edward thought that it must have been there all along but he just hadn’t looked hard enough or asked for it. How foolish he had been.    
Again, he teetered toward unconsciousness, swaying in and out, Petrine’s face there and then gone in a confused and slippery state of wakefulness.
“Stay awake, Edward. Talk with me. They’ll be here any minute. Tell me again, like when we were young, how your dream was to be a sea captain. All seven seas you said and me waiting in every port. Remember? You never did it, Edward. You never did it.”
“This was my other dream. Owning a cottage and raising rabbits.”
“Oh, that’s it, Edward. Think of the spring and the little bunnies with their pink noses twitching and you all in the yard. Hippitty hop, hippitty hop. Think of that now, Edward. Think of that.”
Edward smiled dreamily as he imagined an early spring, a yard full of clover, and a good crop of bunnies. He dreamed of a summer full of weekenders and the Conrads and the two boys fishing at the lake. Maybe he could join them this year. He’d show the boys how to cast a line and where to land the big ones. He knew the part of the lake where the big fish schooled in the early morning and at dusk. Mrs. Conrad and Petrine would become close friends and Petrine could learn about the latest decorating fashions and how best to dress up the cottage. She’d be a great student. It would be a grand summer.
“Do you wish we’d had children?” Edward asked.
“No, not anymore, Edward. Not now. Years ago, I did wish for children. It’s just us, Edward. Always has been and that won’t change.”
“It won’t be forever,” he said through shallow, uneven breaths.
“Forever isn’t today, Edward. It doesn’t end here. Think of the bunnies and the clover.”  
“No, not today,” he whispered.
“Bob Shawl should learn to mind his own matters. You’d still be here having breakfast.”
“My clumsiness isn’t his fault,” Edward replied, dozing off again.
“Edward!” Petrine called, shaking his shoulders. “Edward!” His eyes opened again, uneasily. “There you are, Edward. Stay awake now.”
“Just sit with me, Petrine.”
“I’m here, Edward. I’m here.”
“Will it be a good spring?”
“Yes, a grand one, Edward. With this mild winter it should come early this year. Before long you’ll be out in the yard.”
Edward smiled weakly as Petrine adjusted the cloth. Soon through the dense quiet of morning came the far-off sound of a siren. The sound hurled through the trees and emptiness, peaking and then fading. The peak and fade were distant, distinct and separate, like a flash of lightning and then the chasing thunder.
“Sounds like they’re near the tavern,” Edward said. “Bob will wonder what in God’s name happened up here,” he said, his voice fading.
“Let him wonder,” Petrine snapped. Edward said something that Petrine didn’t hear. “What did you say, Edward?” Her face came close to his.
“Maybe the Conrads won’t have to know,” he whispered, barely audible.     
“What do you mean?”
“We won’t tell them. I’ll fix the floor and the window and they’ll never know. Just like new. I’d hate so to disappoint them.”
The ambulance wheeled into the drive and Petrine hurried to the door. The driver killed the siren. The lights were red and chaotic. They lit the cottage front and the nearby snow, making it soft and downy pink, vintage in its display.
“He’s on the sofa.”
Two men entered with a stretcher and prepared Edward for transport. The nearest hospital was fifty miles away.
“I’m riding with him,” Petrine insisted.
“Of course, Ma’am.”
Edward was wheeled outdoors, raised and positioned, strapped, covered, and fussed over. Petrine gathered her coat and gloves. Edward trembled heavily beneath the blankets. Petrine climbed into the back of the ambulance to find Edward fighting sleep’s powerful draw. She dampened his lips with the cloth.
The ambulance rolled from the drive, and when it reached the county pavement the siren came again and the sound peaked and faded all at once, on top of them, not like it had sounded from a distance.
“The Conrads won’t have to know,” Edward said.
“No, I promise, they won’t have to know, Edward.” 
“They’re good people,” he whispered as the ambulance sped past the Swedish Tavern, where Bob Shawl, clutching his second drink of the morning, stared in wonderment through the front window.
“Yes, Edward, they are.” 


Copyright 2007 Todd Spooner