Navigating Early (18 page)

I scanned the room for a glimpse of Early’s tartan red jacket, then noticed something out of the corner of my eye. As I turned my head to the right, I jumped back a bit at the gleaming knife stuck right in the wall, not two inches from
my face. It was an eerie sight and could have been a good indication that some crazy woodsman lived there, but I couldn’t just stay put. I had to find Early. And there was simmering meat. But mostly I had to find Early.

I heard footsteps. Not small, padded steps like Early would make. Big, lumbering footsteps like a giant would make. That must have been what it was, in fact, as a huge shadow passed over the side wall, darkening everything in its path.

Now I felt less like Goldilocks and more like that other boy named Jack after he’d climbed up the magic beanstalk. I waited for the deep voice of a giant to bellow
Fe, fi, fo, fum
.

Then I heard Early, his voice clear and a little too loud, filling me with relief.

“You got a lot of stuffed animals in here. Do you have any timber rattlesnakes?”

“No,” the man answered.

“Elephants?”

“No.”

“Do you think it’s true that elephants can’t jump?”

I listened, wondering if the man had already had enough of Early’s questions.

“I cannot say I have seen it for myself,” answered the man. “But if one had good reason to, he might figure out a way, no?” He spoke with an accent, and his words bobbed up and down like a whale skimming above and below the surface of the water. His voice was clear and full of feeling. What the feeling was, I couldn’t say. It reminded me of the church bells you’d hear from a distance back home and
how sometimes those bells could call you to a funeral just as surely as a wedding. Sadness or joy—strange how those bells could toll for both.

“Good reason like what?” Early asked.

“If he wanted something that was just out of reach. If he wanted it, you think he jump for it?”

I couldn’t be sure where the man was from—he said
dat
for
that
and
tink
for
think
—but whoever he was, he had a way with Early. I don’t know if the strange boy from Morton Hill had ever been asked what he thought.

Early pondered the question. “If he wanted it bad enough.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Did you know that the largemouth bass isn’t large-mouthed or a bass? It’s a sunfish,” Early said.

“You don’t say. I never hear such a thing in all my life.”

My curiosity got the better of me. I ventured out of the back room, drawn to the warmth, the smells, the voices.

There, by a great stone fireplace, sitting on a very sturdy wooden crate, sat the biggest, baldest bare-chested man I’d ever seen. He looked up and met me with the somber eyes I recognized from the river.

“Land sakes, little man, you give us a scare,” the man said.

“Yeah, Jackie,” Early piped in. “You shouldn’t have gone in the river like that. It’s dangerous. If Gunnar hadn’t been nearby, you’d have drowned. Plus, your clothes are still wet.” He gestured to my denims, shirt, and soggy backpack hanging near the fireplace. The man’s—Gunnar’s—much larger shirt hung drying on the other side.

“It is true,” Gunnar said. “But today you do me a great favor.”

“I do?” I said, wondering how his saving my life could have done him a favor.

“Oh, yes. I catch many fish in my life, but the Lord, he say, ‘Follow me and become fishers of men.’ Today I go out and catch me one!” His shoulders shook with a rumble of laughter.

I must have looked as dumbfounded as I was, because the great bald man stood, his head nearly brushing the ceiling and his width blocking almost the whole of the fireplace, and stretched out a massive hand to me, taking my small one in his. “Hello, young Mr. Jack. I am Gunnar Skoglund.”

“Skoglund?”
Early repeated the last name, apparently hearing it for the first time. “What kind of name is that?”

I thought it was a strange name too, but I wouldn’t have pointed it out. Still, I waited for Mr. Skoglund’s explanation.

“I come from Norway. A village near Oslo.”

“Are you a Viking?” asked Early. “Or do you know any?”

“I suppose every Norseman is a Viking. We are boat people. Voyagers. Seafarers. It is how I come to America. I work the docks in Portland. But that life is no longer for me,” he said, with a note of regret. “Come on over here, and let’s have a look at that cut.” I winced a little as he moved my hair to check the gash. “Oh, yes. It need a stitch or two. It could have been a far sight worse, I give you that.”

He motioned for me to sit on a smaller crate. I did. Then Gunnar Skoglund moved around the cluttered cabin like a
great bull but somehow managed to disturb nothing. He came back to the fireplace with a jug, probably of whiskey, and a needle and thread.

My fingernails dug into both sides of the wooden crate.
Stitches
, he’d said.

“Don’t you worry,” said Gunnar. “I had stitches once before, on my knee, but the doctor, he give me an anesthetic that numbs the skin and I barely feel a thing.”

Gunnar popped the cork out of the jug. Maybe he planned to get me so liquored up that I wouldn’t feel the pain. But instead of pouring me a jigger, he took a clean rag and soaked a corner in the liquid. Of course I knew what was coming next. He put that rag right on the gash on my forehead. It hurt like a son of a gun. I pressed my lips together and only yelped a little.

All this was being done to a running stream of questions and commentary from Early.

“What are you doing with that needle, Gunnar? Are you going to sew up Jackie’s head? I had a hole in my pants one time and I sewed them up, but then I couldn’t get them zipped anymore. Do you think if I brought you my pants, you could fix them?”

Gunnar remained silent, leaving Early’s questions unanswered as he placed the needle in a pair of tongs and held it to the fire. The sight of it nearly made me pass out all over again. “Now then,” he said, “I do believe I need my glasses.”

The glasses on the nightstand. “I’ll get them!” I jumped up and made a beeline.

“While you are there, could you check the bookshelf? There is a medical journal that should have instruction for the proper conferment of stitches.”

Was he kidding? I tried to gauge his tone, listening for a hint of a smile or smirk to let me know he was just pulling my leg. The glowing needle had burned its image in my mind, and I was in no hurry to see it again, so I scanned the bookshelves, looking for any type of medical guide.
“Proper conferment of stitches?” Who talks like that?

I studied the titles, and the answer came to me: people who read Plato’s dialogues. Philo of Alexandria. Dante’s
Inferno. Aesop’s Fables
.

I recognized some of the titles from my mother’s book collection at home, and others I’d seen in the library at Morton Hill. Still, this display of books reminded me of something else. I took one off the shelf, then another, touching their embossed covers and smelling their pages.
Robin Hood
. I’d read that one.
The Confessions of St. Augustine
. I hadn’t read that one.
Romeo and Juliet
. That was a love story; I would
never
read that one.

They were all hardbound volumes, old and worn but lining the shelves like trophies. That was it! Like the
National Geographic
said, you can tell a lot about people by what they enshrine. This was Gunnar’s shrine, and it reminded me of the trophy case at Morton Hill. These books, with their tales of valor, love, sacrifice, and mystery—these books were special and important.

“Do you find it?” Gunnar called. “It is on the second shelf, right next to
Frankenstein
.”

A shudder ran down my spine. There it was, the
Alford Medical Manual
, right next to Mary Shelley’s
Frankenstein
. Frankie Daniels had been Frankenstein’s monster last Halloween. His mother had drawn a huge scar with ragged stitches across his forehead. Hopefully, the medical manual would provide better instructions for the “proper conferment of stitches” than the ones Frankenstein used.

But it was the small rose-colored volume two books down from
Frankenstein
that caught my attention. It stuck out at an angle, just begging to be looked at. I pulled it from the shelf—
The Journal of Poetry by Young Americans. Figures
, I thought.
What else is a pink book going to be?

I’m not a fan of poetry unless it’s the kind that starts with
There once was a man from Nantucket
, so I gave it only a brief flipping through. There was an inscription on the inside cover.
To Gunnar—Love, Emmaline
. This was getting gushier by the minute. Then I noticed a paper peeking out from the pages. I knew it was snooping, but I opened the folded sheet. It was a handwritten letter dated June 5, 1938.

Dear Emmaline
,

I have strength to move mountains but cannot move time from present to past. I wish I could speak the words you have read to me in the books. Words of love and regret and of things lost. But I wish even more that I could hear your gentle voice. Instead I have comforted myself in reading the books you would have read with me. Filling my mind and heart with the tales of adventurers, thoughts of great thinkers, and poems of the stars. You have given me a great gift, this love of words, and for that I am

Gratefully yours
,
Gunnar
               

“The needle, it gets hotter!” Gunnar called, startling me from the then and there and returning me to the here and now.

Returning the rose-colored book to its place on the shelf, I reached for the black and more masculine-looking
Alford Medical Manual
and headed reluctantly back to the main room.

Gunnar placed the glasses on his nose and thumbed through the pages.

“Oh, yes. Here we are.” He moved his lips and muttered words like
incision
and
laceration
and
coagulation
. Then he placed the book facedown in his lap, as if he might need to refer to it again during the procedure.

“Have you ever done this before?” I asked, my eyes growing wide as Gunnar took up the needle.

“Oh, you bet. I make the stitches one other time. Of course, I was much younger then. Just a boy myself.” He threaded the needle. “It was another boy, his name is Lars. He start a fight with me, saying all manner of mean things, and I punch him in the mouth. His lip, it start to bleeding all over, so I stitch him up good. He never say those mean things again. In fact, I don’t recall him saying
anything
again, his lips sewn up so good.”

I pulled my head back but caught Gunnar giving Early a wink as he set to work on my forehead. I winced and
grimaced. If I’d had a bullet to bite on, I might have bitten clear through it. But with a few steady strokes, Gunnar had stitched me up good. The wound was throbbing. Early reached into his backpack and unscrewed the lid of a small tin. It was some kind of lavender-scented salve that he gently dabbed on my new stitches. “It will ease the pain,” said Early. “It’s really for snakebites, but it should work on stitches too.”

“Now it is the time to eat lunch.” Gunnar cleared away the stitching supplies and washed up while Early made himself completely at home and stirred the simmering stew.

Gunnar took three wooden bowls from a cabinet and spooned out generous helpings. We all sat on stools around the fire and ate for a time in silence. The stew was hot and filled with flavors and spices.

I was just pondering what might be in it when Early said, “Jack, did you know Gunnar’s missing a toe?” I gagged a little on the stew. “Gunnar, tell Jackie about that time when you went fishing and you caught that sea bass, but when you pulled him out, it was a shark instead, and he bit your toe right off. Remember that?”

I looked at both of them, Early and Gunnar, with my mouth hanging open. It was only lunchtime. How could Early have learned so much of Gunnar’s life?

“Yes, I remember. But we’ll save that story for later. I’d like to hear how young Mr. Jack is feeling after having drink half the Kennebec River.”

“A little shaky,” I answered, partly because of the stitches and partly because I had bitten down on something
I hoped was a carrot. I still had not heard the fate of Gunnar’s toe, and my imagination was running wild.

“That’s right. Go on now, eat your supper.”

I was hungry enough, and the meaty broth was so good, I decided to take my chances.

“So,” Gunnar continued, “Mr. Early tells me you are on a quest.” He finished his stew and set the bowl aside.

“It’s really Early’s quest,” I said, trying to distance myself from Early’s crazy notions. “I’m just going along.”

“I see.” Gunnar picked up a rabbit skin and, using a curved white bone, started scraping the inside of the pelt. “Just going along? That is what you are doing in the river too—just going along.” He puckered his lips out. “You might consider taking a more active role in your pursuits.” There was something between a challenge and a chastisement in his voice. “Leastways, if you end up in the river again, you’ll have the comfort of knowing you played some part in getting yourself there.”

My face flushed a little at being called out. “Yes, sir,” I said. I knew what he meant. My mom used to say,
If you get caught with your hand in the cookie jar, don’t pretend like somebody else reached it in there for you
.

“What is it you do here, exactly?” I asked, trying to change the subject. Plus, the cabin, with its array of animal skins and gear, begged for an explanation.

“I am a veterinarian” came his answer. I felt my insides ball up again.
He can’t be a very good one
, I thought, looking at the stuffed badger in the corner with his mouth pulled open in an angry snarl. And the raccoon hides that hung from the ceiling. Yes, every doctor loses a patient now and
then. But how many doctors hang their dead clients from the rafters or have them stuffed and on display in the corners of their homes?