David Wroblewski - The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

Edgar took a cup from the cupboard and walked to the Mr. Coffee sitting by the stove. He poured until the cup was half full and lifted it to his mouth. He must have made a face.

“Fill it with milk,” Trudy said. “Use lots of sugar at first.”

Okay.

He sat and they waited for the sun to rise further. After a while Trudy scrambled eggs and made toast.

“Will you cut the fence this morning?” she asked over her shoulder. “Where we talked about? We need a path to the birches so they know where to plow. Do it first thing. I don’t know when they’ll be here.”

In the workshop he tested the fencing pliers on a nail, squeezing the handles until the halves clinked to the floor. He hooked a training collar over his gloved fingers and pulled Tinder out of his pen. He slipped the loop over the dog’s head and heeled him onto a dusting of new snow so weightless it flew from beneath their feet.

The road had been plowed in the night. There were no cars coming. They would have seen them or heard them in the distance anyway, but there never were. At the top of the hill he stopped and gave Tinder a chance to finish in a sit. When the dog walked past, intent on something in the distance, he reversed. They did this twice before Tinder sat by Edgar’s knee. Then he released the dog and they waded to the fence. He pulled the pliers from his pocket and cut the barbed wire and spiraled the ends back along the fence and they broke a path through the calf-deep snow. The sun-glaze on the drifts cracked into plates underfoot. On the way back to the road Tinder threw himself down and pedaled with his legs and dug his snout beneath the snow, turning a daft eye on Edgar.

What is it about this weather? Edgar signed. It’s making all of you crazy.

In the end he had to kneel and set his mouth by the dog’s ear and make words with his lips before Tinder would let himself be guided to his feet. Once up, the dog reared back and did a little canter in place and bit the lead and tossed his head. Edgar sighed and waited. Ten steps farther, Tinder began all over again. This time Edgar gave up and unsnapped the lead and halfheartedly pitched chunks of snow for Tinder to leap at while the dog dashed through figure eights in the field with ears laid back on his skull and tail straight behind, turning so madly his hindquarters slung to the ground. When he’d run out his lunacy, he trotted back. By the time they’d returned to the barn, Tinder was heeling without flaw, and when Edgar stopped before the Dutch doors, the dog dropped into a perfect sit at his knee.

A SNOW-BLADED TRUCK passed their driveway, paused, backed up, and turned in. In the cab sat two men, knit caps on their heads and collars turned up. The driver stepped half out of the cab and leaned over the top of the door while Trudy explained what she wanted.

“Shut the door, for crying out loud,” the man in the passenger seat said. He was much older than the driver, who waved his hand as if to shoo something away and kept talking. The older man leaned over and pushed the driver out and slammed the door.

The men backed their truck up the driveway, gearbox whining. The older man was giving directions, much to the other’s annoyance. Up on the road, Edgar and Trudy climbed into the truck’s bed. When they reached the spot where Edgar had cut the fence, Trudy tapped on the cab’s back window. The driver put the truck sideways in the road and the two men produced a pair of snow shovels to clear the plow mound, and then they drove through the cut fence, exposing a swath of honey-colored hay.

The truck rounded the birches and turned back up the hill. Halfway to the road its chained tires lost purchase and they backed down and tried again. They made a second pass and then stopped the truck and stood stamping their feet and clapping their hands while Edgar’s mother explained what was to be done next.

The two men worked that morning with picks and shovels. Their argument carried over the field like the squawking of geese. In the afternoon the truck trundled down the driveway again and the men came onto the porch, bickering in hoarse whispers. Trudy opened the door. The men walked into the kitchen.

“Ma’am, there’s a problem,” the older man said.

“What is it?”

“That ground is harder than concrete. We can’t dig in it with the tools we’ve got.”

“Of course it’s hard,” his mother said. “It’s the middle of winter. It’s frozen. When we talked, you said you’d done this before.”

“Not in the winter. Not in ground frozen that solid.”

“You’ve never done this in the winter?”

“Fact is, we mostly do plowing. The occasional odd job, but mainly plowing. We’ve only serviced a few, uh, home burials, and those were in the summer.”

“Then why on earth did you say you could do this?”

The older man nodded as if this question were exactly his.

“I didn’t. My idiot son did.” He glared at the younger man, who raised his hands speechlessly. “I’m real sorry. I wanted him to call you when I found out, but I let him talk me into trying. Said we could break through the frost. I was stupid enough to go along. But it’s like digging into an iron plate.”

“So what do we do?”

The two men stood and looked at her.

“We have a burial tomorrow,” she said. Edgar could see she was getting angry. “We are going to bury my husband. This isn’t a problem I want to have to solve. Do you understand that? Did either of you spend a second thinking about what would happen if you couldn’t do this?”

The older man shook his head and said, “Ma’am, I can’t apologize enough. Whatever kind of equipment it takes to break ground like that, we don’t have it.”

They stood there for some time. Edgar stood behind the men and he could see his mother’s face as she appeared to them, frightening and regal at the same time.

We could build a fire, he signed.

She frowned, then looked back at the men.

“You can’t do it.”

“No ma’am. The folks at the cemetery must have something. Maybe they could help out.”

“Okay,” she said. “Follow me.” She tore her coat from the hook and walked out the door and in the waning afternoon light led them around the corner to the woodpile.

“Here,” she said. “I want you to load this into your truck and take it out to the field. Every stick. Edgar will show you where the wheelbarrow is. Then I want you to go into town and go to Gordy Howe’s place and get another truckload and bring that back. I’ll call him now.”

The old man scratched his head and looked at her.

“Will it be enough?” she said.

“Yes, ma’am, I think it will be. It might take some time, even then, but I believe that will do it.”

“And will you help?”

The old man smiled and nodded.

“Oh, we’ll help all right. We’ll be here until the ground is thawed.” He turned to the younger man. “Won’t we?” he said. “Son?”

ALL NIGHT THE FIRE BURNED in the snowy field. Streamers of sparks rose every time the men tossed another log onto the blaze. The birches towered orange over it all. Even the barn was painted by the light. Edgar and his mother watched from the living room. Edgar thought of the bonfires Schultz had lit to incinerate the great piles of stumps and roots.

Twice they carried food and coffee out to the men. His mother had to knock on the fogged truck window to get their attention. They refused her invitation to warm up inside the house but took the offering. On the second trip they brought the men blankets and pillows. The cordwood was heaped between the truck and the fire and the blaze occupied a rectangle at the base of the birches. Bare, wet grass surrounded the flames. Edgar’s mother walked to the fire and peered into the embers. He joined her. Heat scalded his face. When the smoke drifted back, his mother coughed but stood her ground. Edgar breathed it in, feeling not the slightest tickle.