Chasing Redbird (22 page)

“Uncle Nate, where did you go, you and Aunt Jessie, when you came up here—?”

He shook his head. “Cain't—”

“And why did Aunt Jessie stop coming?”

“Her legs was bothering her.”

We crossed Baby Toe Ridge, where we stopped and gave the horse a rest. The wind whipped across the hillside, and I wished I'd thought to bring jackets. Uncle Nate was shivering.

“Shouldn't be out riding in my pajamas,” he said.

“We'd better turn back,” I said. “This isn't a good idea—”

He waved his stick in the air. “We ain't turning back! We ain't! We're going up there—”

“Have you been meeting someone up here?” I asked.

He tapped my leg with his stick. “You're so dang nosy all of a sudden—”

“Were you?” I pressed. “Were you?”

He whispered, “Yes.”

He might as well have hit me over the head with a sack of coal. “What's she like?”

“What're you talking about?”

“The woman—
that woman
—the one you were meeting.”

“You are out of your noodle, pumpkin!”

“Zinn-eee! Zinn-eee!”

Shouts came from beyond the railroad tracks, nearly sending us out of our skins. I think we both thought it was a ghost. Willow's ears flattened against her head.

“Zinn-eee! Zinn-eee!”

“Should I answer?” I said.

Uncle Nate gripped his stick. “Well, we cain't just dig ourselves a hole—”

I called out, “Helloooo—”

Straggling toward us came Jake, covered in briars and scratches. “Zinny, Zinny!”

“What happened? What's the matter?” I thought maybe he'd murdered someone, from the look of him.

“Zinny! Where've you
been
? I've been up here all night looking for you. I thought maybe you got lost or got eaten by a bear or—or who knows what could have happened to you. You weren't supposed to go home again yet. It hasn't been ten days.”

Had it been Jake's voice I heard calling me last night? “Mom
asked
me to come home today. I'm watching Uncle Nate. And what are you doing up here?”

“Aww, Zinny—” He put his hand on my arm. “I couldn't help it. I didn't want you to be all by yourself.”

I remembered May standing in the kitchen saying,
I know the whole story. He confided in me.
I slugged Jake. “Let go,” I said. “I've gotta take Uncle Nate somewhere.”

“Then I'm coming too.”

“It's a dag-blasted party,” Uncle Nate said.

“Hey, Zinny, where'd you get this horse?”

U
ncle Nate was quiet as we turned off the trail and rode down through the larch groves, with Jake walking beside us. “I saw Aunt Jessie down there,” I said, “at the bottom of the hill.”

“She sure gets around,” Jake said.

I pulled up in sight of the cabin. I wasn't sure what to think, anymore. I didn't know what to expect.

Uncle Nate stared at the cabin. “I made it!” he said. “I made it!” He twisted and fidgeted, trying to get off the horse.

“Wait a sec—” I said. “Wait—”

“What's this all about?” Jake asked.

I wanted to turn around and go home.

“My heart's a-jumping,” Uncle Nate said.

“Zinny, does he look funny? Nate?”

Uncle Nate lay on the bed in the cabin, as Jake and I tried to revive him. Jake had kicked in the door and carried Uncle Nate inside. I feared Uncle Nate was going to die. Had I done it again?

“Jake—he's going to live, right?” I said. “He'll be okay, right?”

Jake didn't answer. He searched for Uncle Nate's pulse. “Nate? Nate?”

Everything was swirling around: the bed and Uncle Nate and Jake. Pictures on a dresser, cushions on a chair, toys, the coat.

I grabbed Uncle Nate's hand. “You'd better not die. You'd better talk to me.”

He mumbled something that I couldn't understand.

“Hear that?” I said. “He's trying to talk. He's not going to die, is he?”

Uncle Nate whispered, “Our place.”

“Whose place? Who lives here?”

He blinked. “Rose—and Jessie—and me—”

I shrank back, staring at him.

“Cripes!” Jake said. “Cripes!”

Uncle Nate blinked. “No drawer—” He tapped my wrist. He seemed very earnest; he wanted me to understand.

“Uncle Nate? The drawer—? Why did Aunt Jessie climb in the drawer? Did I scare her? Was it the snake?”

He didn't answer.

“Was it the medallion—was that it? Because she had last seen it in Rose's hand—?

“In the barn,” he whispered, “she thought you were Rose—”

“But I wasn't! I'm not! I'm not Rose!”

“Rose coming to get her—”

I could hardly bear it. “How awful, how terrible—”

He tapped my wrist again. “No—she
wanted
Rose—she
wanted
to see her—”

“Cripes!” Jake said.

“Three nights,” Uncle Nate said, “three nights she heard Rose calling. Rose said, ‘Get ready…'”

“Cripes!” Jake said.

Uncle Nate said, “That doctor said Jessie had a diabetic comma—”

“Coma, you mean?”

“Whatever—she forgot to take her insulin—or she took her insulin and forgot to eat, one of those, and that doctor said she went into that diabetic comma thing.” His eyelids fluttered. “But I know better. She was pining for Rose—” Uncle Nate closed his eyes.

It hadn't been my fault. He didn't blame me. This hit me like a huge wave breaking down on me, washing me over, pushing me to shore. But still, I didn't like to think that I had been there, living and breathing, and still she might have preferred to be with Rose. “What about
me
?” I said.

“Pumpkin, you've
got
a mother—” He groaned once, and drifted off.

Prickly stings went all through me. I turned away. “Do something!” I begged Jake. He leaned over Uncle Nate. As he did so, the row of pictures on the dresser caught my eye. I looked closer. I knew these people.

There was Aunt Jessie and Uncle Nate. There was baby Rose. Dozens of framed photographs. Aunt Jessie's lotions. Her perfume. Her hand mirror.

I felt so cold, so cold.

Aunt Jessie's coat on the hook. Her sewing basket on the floor. And there, beside the wardrobe was a shopping bag, and in it were toys and stuffed animals. I lifted them out, one by one. They were familiar to me. I'd seen them, handled them, played with them.

On the shelf, in the pot, was a tiny baby bracelet with the letters
R-O-S-E
, resting on a pink crocheted bonnet. The book next to it was an album filled with photographs of baby Rose: cradled in Aunt Jessie's arms; lying on a white blanket; sitting next to Uncle Nate on the sofa—on and on. And then, there it was: a photograph of me and baby Rose, hobbling across the living room doing the old lady.

Next to the pot and the album was the little black box, and in it was Jake's ring. I snatched it up, handed it to Jake.

“Cripes—”

“Zinny—pumpkin,” Uncle Nate whispered.

Jake clutched Uncle Nate's hand. I leaned close.

“That ring was from Rose.” He gurgled. “Rose was calling—” His mouth formed a thin smile. “I like it here, and I'll like it over yonder, but—” Again his arms twitched. “I don't wanna be in that drawer—”

I glanced back at the dresser, but as I did so, Uncle Nate's whole body jerked and convulsed, and then he was still and quiet and I feared he was gone, gone, gone.

J
ake took the horse and raced to find my parents, while I stayed with Uncle Nate. His eyes were closed, his body still, and on his face the look of purest calm, as if he'd finally gotten to the place he'd been longing for. He wasn't dead, but I was afraid that death would slip in the way night overtakes day, subtly, quietly. I opened the drawers of the dresser one by one. In the thin top drawer were dozens of letters. They all began:
To my dearest Rose.
Some ended,
From your loving mother,
and the rest ended with
From your loving Pa.

They were written over the course of the last nine years, ever since Rose had died. They were alternately newsy:

We planted corn today,

and affectionate:

Your skin is like silk,

and filled with longing:

We miss you so—

Many of them mentioned me:

Zinny can read! She read the whole of your Baby Bear book to us tonight. Are you reading, Rose?

and:

Today Zinny found two brachiopods, but she calls them “broken pods.” We saved one for you.

and:

Zinny has the flu, and we are terribly, terribly worried. Are you well, Rose?

In the second and third drawers were baby Rose's clothes, from infant gowns to the dresses and rompers of a four-year-old. All were neatly folded, and scattered among them were sprigs of lavender.

I wasn't prepared for what was in the bottom drawer. When I pulled it open, I cringed. There, lying side by side, were me and baby Rose. Our hands were pressed together in a friendly clasp.

These were the dolls Aunt Jessie had made, but they were so lifelike, so rounded and soft like real toddlers, that it wasn't hard to imagine that they were real children sleeping.

I touched their clasped hands, and as I did so, a coin slipped from within. It was a duplicate of the medallion, with
TNWM
engraved on it.

'Til Next We Meet
. And then more of the memory poured forth, in a stream of images. We'd been at the circus, Rose and I and Aunt Jessie and Uncle Nate. We'd stopped in a fortune-teller's booth and gazed into her crystal ball. She'd held our hands, examined our palms, Rose's and mine. The fortune-teller pressed a medallion into each of our palms, and she'd said,
“'Til Next We Meet.”

I had touched Rose's hand in the drawer and taken her medallion. I'd run through the woods and I'd buried it. And later—days? Weeks? I'd taken my own medallion and pressed it into Aunt Jessie's hand. “For Rose,” I'd said, and Aunt Jessie had hugged me, hugged me so hard and so long, and I didn't want her to stop.

And remembering this, I could feel Aunt Jessie there in the cabin, near Uncle Nate lying so still on the bed, and I could feel Rose there, too. I took Rose's medallion from my pocket, and my own medallion from the cabin drawer, and I held them a long time, a long, long, long time.