David Wroblewski - The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

An hour later they came to a place at the water’s edge where the riotous undergrowth gave way to a small crescent of gravelly sand. Further out, reeds projected through the silver surface. He stripped off his clothes and parted the dogs and waded in. The water was brown with tannin. He was covered with mosquito bites and the cool hug of liquid soothed the itching. He looked down to see a panfish darting between his knees. The dogs stood watching and wagging their tails but wouldn’t come in the water.

He emerged naked and knee-deep, splashing the dogs. They dashed away and back again, ears laid low, crouching and scrambling to dodge the spray, remembering, perhaps, games they’d played in the yard with the garden hose. Part of him was glad he’d found something that pleased them, but he quickly stopped. In himself he felt nothing but gloom, and the play seemed false, a pretense that everything was going to be okay. Besides, he began to worry about working them up. That wasn’t right, not until they got real food. Already they looked thinner to him, though that was probably his imagination. They were acting a little too wild, their hunger making them frantic. They stood panting and watching as he swept beads of water off his legs. In a minute or two the sun had dried him enough to dress. This time he flapped his trousers out and looked down the legs and knocked his shoes against his hand without a second thought.

THE NEXT CABIN LOOKED more promising. It was painted a utilitarian green, but it was sturdy and well maintained. A galvanized smokestack pierced its sloped roof. A pair of small windows were set high off the ground on either side of the door. It was so tidy, in fact, he watched it for a while before he was sure it was unoccupied. Even then his skin tingled as he approached. The door was held shut by a padlock threaded through a heavy metal latch. The padlock had been slathered with grease and wrapped with a plastic bag, presumably to protect it against the elements. He turned the knob and tried a few hard pushes. Then he backed up and took a running start and hit it. He bounced off. He tried again. The structure shook, but the door didn’t budge in its frame. And his shoulder began to hurt.

The dogs stood and cocked their heads.

It works on TV, he signed. Shut up.

He looked at the windows again. They were three-paned, top-hinged transom windows, set about six feet off the ground. Big enough to fit through, he thought, and he could easily break the glass, but it seemed unlikely he could heft himself through without cutting himself to ribbons. And, while he’d been throwing himself at the door, it had occurred to him that it would be best to enter without being obvious.

He searched the surrounds for a log or anything that might serve as a boost-to know whether it was worth breaking the window, and help him climb through if it was-but he found nothing useful. He looked for a likely spot to hide a key. Nothing again.

He walked to the front of the cabin and looked at the dogs.

We’re going back for that chair, he signed, and they set off the way they’d come.

HE DIDN’T REALIZE HOW far they would have to backtrack. It took over an hour before he glimpsed the purple shingles again. He grabbed a stick and swept the cobwebs from the chair and yanked it off the porch. Half a dozen spiders scrambled away like rotted berries on legs. The web straps that had formed the seat hung in brown tatters, but the frame itself seemed solid, if rusty. Baboo nosed it curiously. Essay and Tinder lay down. All three dogs had kept their noses to the ground on their return, no doubt hoping for more turtle eggs. More than once they had bolted after squirrels gibbering in the underbrush before learning it was a waste of time. Now they were acting dispirited and a stab of anxiety entered his chest.

When they passed the little beach on their return he was so eager he started jogging along. He set the chair frame beneath one of the transom windows and he was about to hoist himself up when he checked the impulse and decided to test the chair first. He planted his rump on the arm. One of the crusty front legs crumpled like a paper soda straw. He looked at it in surprise, then flipped the chair over and pressed both hands onto the joint where the back and the seat came together. Satisfied, he stepped onto the frame and put his fingertips on the windowsill.

During the walk back he had allowed himself to imagine how a fisherman might stock such a neatly kept shack with all sorts of canned goods and tackle, but his view through the window revealed only a bare cot folded against one plywood wall, a prefab fireplace at the base of the galvanized chimney, and a small kerosene stove and a lantern. There was no point trying to get in; it was obvious he’d find no food, and even if the lantern had fuel, which he doubted, it would burn for only a few hours. The camp stove was too unwieldy to carry.

He hopped to the ground. He sat beside the crippled chair and chastised himself. A good fisherman would never leave food to lure animals. He should have known that, but instead he’d talked himself into a fantasy. They’d wasted the better part of the day on a pointless errand. He was so hungry now his insides spasmed. His mouth had watered as soon as the cabin came into view. He’d read somewhere that a person could live for a month without food, but that seemed impossible. Perhaps if the person sat in one place and did nothing, but not if they were crossing miles of unpathed forest.

It was too much. With all that had happened at the kennel, and now the hunger and the worry about the dogs, and suddenly without Almondine there, it felt like some organ had been ripped from his insides. He brought his knees to his chest and lay over on his side. He thought he was going to cry, but instead his mind emptied and he lay staring along the roots and leaves of the forest floor and listened to the far-off sound of the dogs rattling through the underbrush. He stayed like that for a long time. Eventually, the dogs returned-Baboo first, then Tinder and Essay. They panted and licked his face and stretched out around him, grunting and sighing and finally sleeping.

HIS MALAISE DIDN’T ENTIRELY PASS, but it did lighten, and he sat up and looked around. In the distance, a prop plane sputtered. A flock of small, black birds with obsidian beaks cackled warnings at one another from lower branches of the trees. He forced himself to stand and the dogs assembled around him, nuzzling his hands for food. He knelt and stroked their ruffs.

I don’t have anything, he signed. I’m sorry. I don’t even know when I will.

They walked the lakeshore. In a clearing, he spotted a lone ripe blueberry hanging from a bush. Too early in the season, but there it was. He did not think it was nightshade, but he turned over the leaves to check. The blueberry patch covered a circle of thirty feet or so, and from it he harvested a single handful of ripe berries. He tasted one, then squatted and held them out. The dogs sniffed his bounty and walked away. No, try them, he signed. Come back. But they would not. As soon as he swallowed them his stomach began to churn. For a moment he thought he might vomit, but he didn’t.

At dusk he picked a spot to bed down among a grove of maples. They were settled and half asleep when a high, thin whine swelled in the treetops, then hovered downward until it seethed all around them. When he looked at his arm it was covered in undulating gray fur. He swiped a hand from elbow to wrist, leaving behind a mash of blood and crushed mosquitoes. At once, a rapacious new layer appeared in the slime. Mosquitoes began crawling in his nostrils and ears. The dogs leapt up and snapped at the air and Edgar waved his arms and slapped his neck and face, but in the end they ran and ran, the dogs disappearing ahead into the gloom.