The Lighthouse Road (11 page)

   "What did you prescribe?"

"Spiderwebs. A ball of spiderwebs."

   The foreman smiled. "I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't heard about the ox shit you slathered all over that boy's back after he fell into his family's stove."

   "It worked— both the dung and the spiderwebs."

   "Tell me, with what would you remedy a frozen timepiece?"

   "For that you'll want Joshua Smith. He'll be passing through before long."

   The foreman took a deep breath. " Sorry you didn't get your wolf."

   "I'll get one yet."

   "I believe you will."

   Hosea offered his hand. "I'll see you in town."

   "Soon enough."

   As the two men parted ways on the river, an unkindness of ravens decamped from the high boughs of a white pine and flew up the gorge. Their cries were horrible and their moving shadow cast yet another shade on the snow.

   Hosea Grimm turned back to the foreman and shouted across the river, "What did I say about the ravens?"

T
he ice road cut through the tallest stand of white pine along the river. Before the upper falls, the road veered south and plunged into Gunflint. The next morning Trond Erlandson sat his horse on the crest of the road looking onto the morning over the lake. A mile offshore the vaporous open water cemented his doubt. It clouded the sunrise. He looked down the shore for Isle Royale, but it was gone in the sea smoke.

He had once been a peaceable man— not given to the agitation that

was so much a part of his daily routine now— and the vista, though it complicated things, reminded him of that quiet part in him. When he had first arrived in these wilds, now thirty years ago, he'd looked on the country— in all its enormity and ungoverned beauty— as if it were his own private opportunity. Though he had worked tirelessly and with unchecked vigor, all he had to show for his labor was his authority. And his responsibility. He took neither lightly. He spit a stream of tobacco juice into the snow and spurred the horse forward.

   In all that cold the leather saddle creaked with the first stride. The horse sidestepped into the soft snow on the edge of the road and began his cautious descent. Some few paces down, the wind paused and when it did the horse paused, too, and the foreman craned his head toward the river. He heard the water coursing under the ice and over the falls and into the Devil's Maw. He cursed it and spit in its direction. Were it not for the falls and that hole in the river he could have rafted the harvest down to the mill instead of hauling it on the treacherous road. The horse stepped again without prodding and in half an hour Trond heard the whine of the mill and saw the mountains of stacked pine in the mill yard.

   Instead of hitching his horse outside Grimm's, he stabled him at the livery to be blanketed and fed. Before leaving the horse he took his Winchester from the saddle scabbard and unloaded it and put it over his shoulder. He asked the livery keeper to water the horse, too, and he patted the Appaloosa's mottled hindquarters and walked to Grimm's.

   By any definition Grimm's store was more than an apothecary— if it was an apothecary at all— though that was what the signboard above the door advertised: grimm's apothecary. The first time Trond Erlandson entered the store had been in the late spring of 1894, a few months after it opened. His piles had become insufferable and he submitted to his embarrassment and sought counsel. Grimm prescribed oakum, to Trond's dismay, but it worked. He'd been a reliable customer since.

   The store was as much a testament to Grimm's eccentricity as it was a place of commerce. When Trond entered that midwinter morning, the whole of his beard was coated with ice stained amber from the snoose dribble. For as often as he frequented Grimm's apothecary, and as fond as he was of its proprietor, Trond did not feel, now more than a year after his first visit, any closer to knowing Hosea Grimm.

   The door closed behind Trond Erlandson, sucking much of the heat with him. He stomped his feet and took off his mittens and hat and nodded at Rebekah, who darned socks in a chair beside the box stove. There was a basket of socks on the floor beneath her. Hosea himself stood behind the counter, his felt derby squarely on his head, his apron starched and hanging to his ankles. The store was, as always, impeccably clean. At this hour there were no other customers.

   "Trond, my good man. Every time I see you you've ice on your face."

   "Thirteen mornings in a row below zero," Trond said, stepping forward and cupping his beard in his hands. He stood above the spittoon and waited for a moment while the ice melted, dripping into the slurry. "I see you survived yesterday's hike out of the woods."

   Hosea stood before the beakers and vials and canisters lining the shelf behind him. "I guess I'm hardier than all those frozen moose."

   "That's why I'm here," Trond said. "Will you show me that advertisement again?"

   Grimm checked a pair of drawers behind the counter before he found the week-old Two Harbors
Ledger
in question. At the bottom of the back page an outfit in Castle River advertised the dogs. Grimm asked Rebekah to bring Trond a cup of tea and left him to the classified.

   The headline read, world's biggest dogs
^!
Two droopy-faced hounds were drawn muzzle to muzzle, looking not unlike the foreman's St. Bernard. Trond read the rest of the ad: russian ovcharka watchdogs, beasts of the bravest order, fear nothing and no one.

bred for our killing winters. guard your livestock or family. $30. litter of six yearlings ready for you! It then listed the name of the breeder and an address at which to contact him.

   "What can you tell me about this Olli?" Trond said.

   "He's a Laplander," Grimm began. "Used to run a trapline way the hell up the Bunchberry River, but he lost a foot winter of '93. Now he raises these dogs. And a little hell if truth be told."

   "On one leg he gets around?"

   "He limps and curses, but he does get around. Got a stump made of hickory. He runs a ferry up to Duluth in the summer months, keeps butter on his bread."

   "And what have you heard about the dogs?"

   "Joseph Riverfish tells a story how one of them giant mutts treed a bear this fall. Way up a white pine. Then waited the bear out. When it finally came down, the dog and it squared off. The dog won. Olli's got the pelt to prove it. I guess it's true they're two hundred pounds. Feet the size of skillets. Probably wouldn't want to curl up with one, but might keep the wolves at bay."

   Trond read the advertisement again, then asked, "When does Joseph make the next mail run?"

   "Not until Friday. But he can't bring those dogs back. He'll be fully loaded. He always is."

   Trond ran his hand through his beard again. "I can't spare the men or the time," he said.

   "For the right price his son would make that run."

   "He's what, fourteen years old?"

   "He might be, but he's been helping his father with the mail route. He can look after himself."

"What do you suppose the right price is?"

   "Christ, Trond, they live in a wigwam. Eleanor is pregnant. It's been a long, hard winter. I imagine any price is right. Just be fair."

   " Could he run up the lake?"

   "I've not heard reports from along the way, though you can be damn certain I'd not do it. You can see the water's still open just a mile offshore." He peered out the big window in front of his store. "But the trail is fast, from what I hear. The cold, you know. He could have those dogs back here in three or four days."

   "The dogs, you think they could run the trail?"

   "I imagine those dogs dictate their own terms. If they can't handle the trail, they'll let the lad know it."

   Trond walked to the window. He didn't have a choice, he reckoned. The jacks would tolerate about anything, but not wolves in their backyard. He turned to Grimm. " Where can I find the boy?"

I
n the middle of the night, exhausted, over a finger of Canadian whiskey, Hosea paged through Howe's thirty-year-old
Manual of Eye
Surgery
for the fourth time. Odd lay sedated on the same table on which he'd been born, the bleeding from his eye stanched, the hole in his face where his eyeball had been like a potato gone to mush.

   Rebekah slept in a chair at Odd's side. The cuffs of her blouse sleeves were stained with blood. Hosea set the manual down on the bedside table and stepped into the next room, returning with an afghan that he placed over her. He thought he could see her settle into a deeper sleep under the warmth of it. To what dreams he could not imagine. These two children, he did love them. Which was what made Odd's pain so difficult to bear. He was still just a boy. A boy whose only chance had been Hosea.

   Hosea looked down on Odd, the ether having blanched the color from his cheeks.
I have offered him a chance, haven't I?
This question had been dogging him since Danny had delivered Odd twelve hours earlier.

   Danny had left Odd unconscious on the toboggan outside the apothecary while he bounded up the steps and into the store. Breathlessly he shouted, "Hosea! Hosea! It's Odd! He needs help! Quick!"

   Hosea had been taking his evening inventory, up on the ladder counting the contents of the canisters on the shelves behind the counter. He jumped down and hurried around the counter to meet Daniel.

   "What is it, lad?"

   Danny still had his snowshoes on and he sat on the floor to take them off as he panted, "Odd, he's outside. He's hurt bad."

   Hosea ran outside, down the steps, and found the boy lying there. One of the town dogs had sniffed Odd out and was poking his cold nose into the wound on his face. Hosea kicked the dog away.

   "Daniel!" he shouted over his shoulder. "Daniel! Get out here."

   But Danny was already hurrying back to the toboggan.

   "What in Christ's name happened?"

   Danny's breath was coming back to him. "It was a bear."

   "A bear?"

   "Odd went into a den. It's my fault."

   Hosea stood quickly and removed his apron and balled it and put it firmly over Odd's eye. He turned to Daniel. "Listen to me carefully. Go inside. Tell Rebekah to put water on to boil. Lots of it. She's upstairs. Tell her to put fresh linens on the table in the surgery. Go."

   Daniel was back inside the apothecary before Hosea lifted Odd off the toboggan. By the time he'd carried him up to the second floor, Rebekah and Daniel were already preparing the table. Hosea laid Odd down. Though the boy was still unconscious, Hosea was relieved to find his pulse steady, his temperature, to the touch, normal.

   "Rebekah, listen."

   Rebekah could not take her eyes off Odd.

   "Rebekah! Listen to me."

   She finally looked up.

   "Do you have water boiling?"

   She nodded.

   "Go upstairs. As soon as it's ready, as soon as it's hot, bring it down. Put more on to boil. Do this as quickly as possible. Do you understand?"

   Rebekah answered by walking backward from the room, her eyes not leaving Odd until she'd stepped out.

   "Now, Daniel, I need you to tell me slowly and precisely what happened."

   So, while Hosea sedated Odd, while he stanched the blood and cleaned the eye, while he clipped away Odd's shaggy hair and shaved his eyebrow, Daniel told him the story of Odd climbing into the bears' den. Danny spoke slowly, as he'd been instructed, and tried to remember every detail. Hosea listened intently while he worked.

   "I tried to stop him but I was too late," Danny concluded. "He was half in the den when I realized what he was doing. It's my fault." Danny started to weep.

   Hosea stood up and checked Odd's pulse again and then looked at Daniel. "I don't understand how it's your fault," he said.