Winter Birds (21 page)

Suddenly a voice calls, “Danny,” and your ears tingle.

When you turn you will see the lion, golden mane tumbling down like flame.

The voice calls you again and you turn serenely, smiling.

Only it is not the lion. It is your Mama walking through the snow in the red dress, trudging through the snow in Papa's old work boots with her white sweater clutched tight against her. The red dress glows. A bruise is purpling over one of her eyes. When you see that you find your voice. You call out, “I'm over here, Mama,” in a hoarse voice and she hears you and turns.

She simply watches you. Her arms relax a little. After
a while she says, “What are you doing out here in the cold, son?”

“Looking at the river.”

She walks toward you slowly. “You been out here a long time?”

“Yes ma'am.”

“Are you cold?”

“Yes ma'am.”

She is standing closer now, beside a sapling that long ago curved over and grew into the ground. Her features soften. You know what she is remembering. She asks, “If I told you to come here, would you do it?”

You say softly, “Yes ma'am,” again, and slowly unbend your legs. They are numb from the cold and will not hold you up. Mama watches you struggle and hesitantly comes toward you over the bed of vine. Gently she massages your legs till blood and warmth return. “You been sitting on the cold ground too long,” she says, but there is no admonition in her voice, she is tentative instead, and handles you as if you are more fragile than ever. “How is your shoulder?”

“It hurts,” you answer, “but not that bad.”

“Do you want to go home?”

“Is Papa coming back?”

“No. Not till late I don't expect.”

So you walk with her. There is no sense of hurry in either of you, and you shyly take her hand and lead her through the places that are familiar to you, that are your treasures in this house, so she will understand why you
come to the river. You do not sing now, but soon she is humming a hymn you do not know, and she tells you it is from the Holiness Church she went to when she was a little girl.

When you are near the edge of the woods, though, you both hear a sound and it stops you cold. A truck is approaching from far down the highway. The sound of the truck is as familiar to you as your own breathing.

You and Mama step behind the bushes that fringe the woods. Papa's truck does appear, but it passes the driveway to the house, passes the yard and field. By the edge of the woods the truck stops and the motor becomes silent. Papa steps out with the empty sleeve to his coat tucked into his pocket.

He watches the field for a moment. Then he pulls a shovel from the back of his truck, hefts it across his shoulder and jumps over the ditch. He walks slowly down the edge of the field, peering into the woods, and finally he pauses before a stand of bare dogwood, branches shaggy and white.

Mama motions for you to follow her and you do, without a sound, keeping behind the cover of the undergrowth.

It is easy enough to find him, in a clearing where two green fir trees stand in a circle of dogwood and cedar, all evenly laden with white. Papa is digging a hole. The ground is hard and he has trouble managing the shovel, but his face is grim and you know he will not be stopped by mere cold earth. You can hear that he is saying words.

Mama nods and watches, kneeling with the sweater stretched around her to hide the dress. You watch too, and after a while you understand what he is doing.

Beyond him is Queenie, lifeless, twisted curiously as if she had been leaping to catch one of your brothers' fallen birds but fell back to earth herself, frozen in arc. From the distance you cannot even see her wounds.

When the grave is deep enough, Papa lifts Queenie tenderly, nearly stumbling on the slick snow but cradling the dog even then, lowering her stiff body into the grave, and Papa goes on mumbling words.

Mama's eyes are closed, and her mouth moves silently. Papa covers Queenie with the pile of cold dark earth. Afterwards he stands for a while, studying the house across the field. Never once does he look toward where you and Mama are hiding.

Papa says audibly, “You better forgive me for this. You said you would.” He could be talking to the trees, or the clouds, or the empty air.

After a long time he returns to his truck and drives away. The sound dwindles, vanishes to nothing, and still Mama kneels in the snow without moving.

Finally she walks to the freshly turned ground where Queenie and her children lie. Mama stands there for a long time. She touches the heaped earth with the toe of one work boot. At last she says, “I don't reckon he could help it,” and looks at you.

You realize this is all she will ever say. You remember again the motion of her eyes closing, her head turning
away, denying, when Papa brought you naked to her bed; and suddenly you understand. In that moment against her dreamy lids floated the image of her own River Man, and while Papa held you against her she dreamed of a world in which you and Papa and all the others had never existed. You know this in your bones, not in words. So when she asks you, almost shyly, “Are you ready to go home?” you are able to say yes at once. You are able to follow her willingly across the snow-covered cornstalks, to say yes ma'am when she tells you to be careful. You are able to take one breath following another. What your eyes tell you is news. Mama is a frail woman in a red dress walking across a field toward a house where the doors open into a circle, room on room on room. You are a little boy following your Mama across the field. She has found you by the river and brought you home. You did not go down to the black water where River Man was waiting. But you will return to the river for as long as you live in this house, and now when you choose your path you will pass the clearing where your Papa has buried a dog. The grave will be like a channel marker, and when you are there you will know that facts are your only friends.