Jewelweed (68 page)

At least for the moment, no outstanding tensions or pressing psychic imperatives demanded her life's energy. The house was clean and her chores completed. The people she most cared about were doing fine, and their imagined representatives in her mind did not require her anxious vigilance. August was looking forward to the beginning of school and the prospect of seeing Ivan every day. Their friendship was more secure than ever.

Just a couple of days before, Ivan had called and told August he had something for him to see, something secret and important. August went with him that evening to a remote place not far from where Lester Mortal had conducted his ceremony with the burning statues. As the sun went
down, they sat under a rock embankment. “Why are we here?” August asked.

“Wait,” said Ivan. “My dad showed me this place. Listen. They're coming.”

“What?” asked August.

Before Ivan could answer, there was an unearthly rattle above them. August looked up as the swarming sound grew louder.

And then a river of bats poured out of a deep crevice in the rock above him, gushing into the open and flying in all directions, clogging the air in a mad frenzy of beating black wings. The thick eruption of hungry creatures went on and on, until it seemed as if there would never be an end to the outpouring. The frantic flapping of thousands of individual bats breaking off from the dense cluster and speeding off in their own directions continued until they were all gone, dissolved into the evening light.

“See,” said Ivan, and August felt an exhausted contentment that he carried inside him for the rest of the night and into the following day.

Jacob's application for a loan to build an addition onto his shop had been approved, and he was busily consulting with Roebuck Construction, planning the final details and selecting pieces of machinery to install.

The church had finally accepted Winnie's resignation, hired a new pastor, and was collectively swooning over every nuance of his emerging religious character.

Blake and Dart had found a way to resume actively loving each other, and Ivan and his father spent time together nearly every night, including long bouts of video-gaming, walks through the woods, studying math, and punching the heavy exercise bag that Dart had moved out of the dining room and into the barn.

All the forces demanding Winnie's attention seemed to be releasing their grip. Still seated on the bench with her eyes closed, she contemplated this brief freedom, and felt herself falling deeper and deeper into an indescribable peace. Both the falling and the peace had many layers, and she slowly dissolved into them until there was nothing left of her but a single wordless prayer, which she experienced over and over again.

After some time, Winnie began to experience a silent nudging to return to the practical world of everyday events. She felt the outer layers of
her consciousness growing firmer, more alert. There was a new coolness in the air. The sound of birds resurfaced in her mind, accompanied by a number of recognizable fragrances.

Slowly opening her eyes, she noticed early evening shadows lying at the base of things. She took a deep breath and looked at her wristwatch. Over three hours had passed since she'd entered the garden. Jacob and August would be home soon and she had things to do.

Then her attention was drawn to a gangly shadow beneath her. Something about it was disturbing. She wondered briefly how a shadow could be there, and soon understood that it was her own, and then—in a rush of recognition—that she was five feet above the ground, levitating in midair.

A west wind came up the valley and Winnie was blown several feet to the east, directly above the painted bench she had been sitting on. She tried to propel herself downward, but without success. Her movements succeeded only in swiveling her around, turning her over, or having no effect at all.

Winnie laughed. She stretched her right foot out beneath her and managed to hook her toes inside the space between the horizontal board on the bench-back and two of the wooden slats connecting it to the seat. Anchored in this tentative way, she exerted pressure against the bench with her toes, and lowered her body several inches in the air. But as soon as she relaxed, she rose back up. Then she lost her tentative grip and floated freely again.

Fortunately, the next breeze that came along blew her farther into the garden, where she brushed against the ornamental crabapple that Jacob had planted for her several years ago. Grabbing the nearest limb, she pulled herself into the center of the tree and attempted to grapple her way toward the ground. By pushing against the fattest part of the limbs she managed to force her feet into the grass, but as soon as she let go she rose back up into the tree.

“Put me down!” She laughed and was suddenly alarmed to find she was not alone.

Dressed in a long-sleeve muslin shirt, red suspenders, gray work pants, and duck boots, Wally Roebuck stood about twenty feet away, watching her. When he saw her startled expression he said, “I'm sorry, Winnie, I
should have announced myself. There wasn't anyone in the house, so I came out to look at the fish in your fountain. Ivan told me about them, and I've been wanting to come over and see them for a long time.”

“This is very embarrassing,” said Winnie, still holding on to the limb above her head and attempting to keep her voice calm. “I've been experiencing something I can't explain.”

“I don't understand it either,” said Wally. “I've found the key is to eat something, and almost anything will do. Here, eat some of this.” He walked over, took a couple of nuts and dried berries from his shirt pocket, and handed them to her. She ate them, and within a few minutes she felt firmly earthbound.

Then she noticed that her feet were cold, and put her socks and shoes back on.

Wally went to the fountain and looked at the fish in the deepest part of the water. Their gills fluttered, but otherwise they were motionless. “I've stopped trying to make sense of everything,” he said. “I had to after I began thinking about the afterlife. Acceptance is the only useful logic for me now.”

“Do you believe in individual salvation?” asked Winnie.

“I don't,” said Wally. “How about you?”

“I used to,” said Winnie. “But the thought eventually just wore itself out inside me. Either we will all become fully conscious or none of us will.”

“What about those gifted ones who seem so far ahead of the rest of us?” asked Wally.

“Even the scouts are part of the wagon train,” said Winnie. “Why do you want to look at my fish?”

“Fish fascinate me. I don't know why, but I dream about them all the time. And yours are beautiful and strangely colored. I imagine your son knows the scientific names for them.”

“You could safely bet your afterlife on that,” said Winnie with a smile. “I hear you and Buck are going to build a heated garage for Jack Station.”

“Yes, and I'm going to get a new hammer. Working with Buck has been one of my greatest joys. I assume you're coming to Blake and Dart's party?”

“I'll be there,” said Winnie.

“So will I,” said Wally, looking up from the pool. He jotted something
into his notebook and turned back to her. “Can you tell me anything about this Wild Boy that August and Ivan keep talking about?”

“I suppose it would be all right to tell you,” replied Winnie. “The Wild Boy is no wilder than you or me. Lester Mortal brought him back from a mountain village in Vietnam. The boy lives with Lester and is well cared for in every way. Believe me, I've checked.”

“How do you account for the way Ivan and August think of him?”

“Mostly that's just boys being boys, but some of it is probably Lester's doing. He has his reasons, and I suppose we should respect them.”

“What are they?”

“The boy is a grandchild of a friend of Lester's. They served together in one of those special units of the army. They were running reconnaissance missions and his friend fell in love with a woman who lived outside their temporary base. They had a son together. After his discharge, Lester's friend returned to Vietnam to be with her. They stayed together for many years, and their son eventually married a local girl in the village. After Lester's friend got sick from Agent Orange poisoning, he returned to the States and Lester visited him in a veterans' hospital several months before he died. He asked Lester to go back to the village and make sure his wife and son were provided for. He made Lester promise, and when Lester finally fulfilled that promise several years later, the village had been devastated by typhoid. His friend's wife and son were no longer alive, and his daughter-in-law had died three years after giving birth to another son.”

“What happened to the child?” asked Wally, crossing over to the bench and sitting down.

“The child was badly neglected, partly because his features increasingly resembled his American grandfather's. Isolated and ignored, he had learned very little language. He was six or seven years old when Lester found him, an elective mute living on the edges of the village, scavenging for food, and roaming through the mountains. His face and hands had been scarred by a land mine that was set off when another child stepped on it.”

“Lester brought him back here?” said Wally.

“After returning to the States, the child's fear of other people made life difficult. Lester tried to enroll him in a public school, and later he took him to several private clinics. The child resisted all the help that was offered,
and after a while Lester began to resist it too. Every time the child was given a new label, his spirit dimmed further. He persisted in not speaking, and his health declined. I should also say that Lester had come to a place in his own life where all he thought about was protecting the child. You might almost say that civilization and Lester had fallen out. He'd come to the end of one phase of his life, and except for that child, he had nothing good to begin the next one with. And so he decided to keep the child beyond the grasp of anything resembling modern society. The child had already been damaged, and Lester vowed that he wouldn't be hurt again. He was also afraid that the boy's right to be in this country would be questioned, and perhaps there would be some attempt to deport him.”

“So Lester came here,” said Wally.

“Nature was the only thing that consistently appealed to the child, and Lester was determined to hide him in the Driftless—away from the great urban centers, hidden away from institutions and other people. He wanted him to be able to roam about as freely as he had in the mountains of Vietnam. And so Jacob helped him purchase a piece of land. Jacob also helped him register the child for homeschooling with the Department of Public Instruction, and makes sure that Lester has all the books he needs for the child's curriculum. He also helps him market his ginseng. And he still checks on them both every couple weeks.”

“So Jacob knew about this child before anyone else?”

“Yes, and Lester made Jacob promise never to tell anyone. He even made him promise not to tell me, and Jacob kept that promise until very recently, when August became fascinated with the child. Jacob asked Lester if he could tell me, and when he had I went out to Lester's hut. I saw the child's room, which was clean and in good order, and I saw the medical reports from the doctors, and watched from a distance as Lester and the child conversed in sign language. It was perfectly clear to me that they are both reasonably happy.”

“So Lester became a hermit and frightened people away in order to protect the child,” said Wally. “All these years he's been protecting him.”

“Lester worked at cultivating the image he wanted, and for the most part it worked. People stayed away. And according to Lester, living in nature—among plants, animals, and changing seasons—restored the child's intelligence and spirit. Along with his health.”

“But Lester couldn't expect to hide him completely.”

“He knew the child would be seen from time to time. It couldn't be avoided in the beginning. He made mistakes and once in a while someone saw him. But whenever anyone went looking for him, Lester chased them off. And as the boy became more knowledgable about the area, he was seen less and less often.”

“Ivan says he and August have visited Lester's home many times.”

“Lester says he's fine with the boys coming. Usually the child hides in his room, but Lester imagines that over time he will become more comfortable with them, and may even start interacting with them. But Lester wants to take it slow. Like I said, he's protective.”

“Fascinating,” said Wally, and wrote something in his notebook. “What does Lester call him?”

“JW.”

O
n the day of the wedding an ominous cloud rose out of the west. It grew darker and threatened to rain on Nate as he turned the pork over the fire pit at the end of the driveway. Several drops seared into steam as they struck the hot coals. Dart came out of the farmhouse to check on the meat sauce and yelled at the sky. By ten thirty the clouds had cleared.

Bee took over the job of roasting pork while Nate and Blake brought folding tables from the basement of Winnie's church. In the farmyard, they arranged them in lines of five around two tables that would soon hold the large platters of food: pork, barbecue chicken, corn on the cob, homemade beef bratwursts, potato salad with pickles and sweet onions, zucchini bread, green beans with almonds, baked beans flavored with maple syrup, wild Wisconsin rice, sliced tomatoes, fruit and nut pies with homemade frozen custard, and an assortment of locally made beers and wine from rhubarb, peach, apricot, and strawberry.