Dave Eggers - Heroes of the Frontier

Josie nodded, not immediately understanding why — she thought of farms, crops, droughts, not knowing Alaska to be a major agricultural state, but then remembered the fires. She’d heard a radio report that day that counted at least a hundred and fifty currently burning. “Hope you get some,” Josie said, still using her new, fake accent.

The woman charged her forty-five dollars and told Josie she could stay parked where she was, or park anywhere in the lot that suited her fancy. The entire lot was empty.

“Breakfast at seven if you want it,” the woman added, and closed her door. When Josie returned to the Chateau, the kids were awake.

“Did we move?” Paul asked.

Josie explained they had moved, but left out the part about the state trooper. She couldn’t predict how the presence of any police officers would affect either child. Sometimes police made them feel safe; other times they implied the closeness of chaos and crime. More so than any other earthly threat, the kids were preoccupied with the idea of “robbers.” Every third night in their Ohio home Josie had to explain that there were no robbers in their town (there were), that they had an elaborate alarm system (they did not), that there was no remote possibility of any robber ever getting within a mile of their house (the house next door had been burglarized in the early evening, three months earlier, by a pair of meth addicts who had beaten the owner senseless with his own tennis racket).

“Let’s go back to sleep,” she said, knowing it would not happen. Her children were hungry. Ana wanted to see the wigwam. Josie noted it was almost three a.m. and the world was asleep, but the children had no interest in that news. And so, after feeding them cold quesadillas and raw vegetables from a plastic bag, she let them watch Tom and Jerry en español above the cab.

She poured herself a splash of the second pinot she’d bought in Anchorage and stared into the woods before her. She found her Old West magazine, turned to “Trails Grown Dim,” and found a doozy:

“My father, Addison Elmer Hoyt, lost his genealogy book of the Hoyt family in or near Polson, Montana, about 1916—at least before World War I — and was too ill to search for it. Our family Bible shows Hoyt ancestors in Worcester, New Braintree, Massachusetts, about 1723 or earlier. The first Hoyt listed is Benjamin, born 1723, killed in the Battle of Ticonderoga. Benjamin had a son, Robert, born May 6, 1753, married to Nancy Hall, daughter of Zakius Hall and Mary Jennison Hall. After all these years do you suppose that the Hoyt book is still in existence? Possibly there were ink sketches of horses, little birds and fine penmanship in the book as Father loved to sketch and draw. He was born in Greene County, Illinois, son of Albinus Perry and Surrinda Robinette New Hoyt. I would like to hear from descendants of our lineage who are willing to share information.”

Josie, thinking of redirecting her life to help the Hoyts, thinking of renaming herself Surrinda, climbed up to the bed over the cab. It was wide enough for three of them, though the head clearance was coffin-tight. The mattress was flimsy and the sheets and pillows smelled of mildew and dog, but she knew she would fall asleep in minutes. Ana’s face appeared, her eyes wild with disbelief, seeing this as some enormous traveling bunk-bed, and Paul followed. Josie grabbed them, tickled them, pulled them into her, wrapped her arms around them both, Ana sandwiched between her two guardians. What would that be like, Josie wondered — to know there were people around you always, committed to your well-being and safety? To the best of her knowledge, Josie had not had such a person in her life in twenty-five years. She closed her eyes.

“I’m not tired,” Ana said.

“Then maybe Paul can read to you,” Josie said, and felt herself drifting off very quickly, while also knowing that if her children rolled the wrong way they would fall five feet to the floor below. She rearranged them so she was facing out and they were contained, stuffed into the front of the compartment like luggage.

She heard the sounds of Paul and Ana having one of their conversations, often made within earshot of Josie, where Ana would ask existential questions about herself and her family, and Paul would answer as best as he could, having no inclination at all to ask for Josie’s help.

“Are we going to school here?” Ana whispered.

“Where?” he whispered.

“In Aska,” Ana said.

“Alaska? No, we’re on vacation. I told you that,” he said.

“Can robbers come into here?”

“No, there are no robbers who rob RVs. And there are huge locks and alarms all over this. And police who guard us and who see us from above.”

“From hellcopters?”

“Yup. So many helicopters.”

“What’s above the hellcopters?” Ana asked.

“The sky,” Paul said.

“What’s above the sky?” she asked, and after a long pause he answered, “Space. Stars.”

“Are they good?” Ana asked.

Ana had gotten this from Paul. Every day, Paul wanted to know if something, a movie or car or park or person, was good. Is he good? Was that good? He didn’t trust his own taste, or hadn’t developed it yet, so always with great seriousness, and with finality, he wanted to know, Is it good? The one question he didn’t seem to ponder was Am I good? He seemed to know he was.

“You mean are they nice?” Paul asked.

“Yeah.”

“The stars are really nice. And I forgot to tell you that between the sky and the stars there’s a whole layer of birds. And the birds guard everyone below.”

“Are they big?” Ana asked.

“The birds? Not so big. But there are millions of them. And they see everything.”

“What color are they?”

The boy’s patience was astounding. “Blue. Light blue,” he said, and after a pause during which Paul must have had a realization that impressed even himself: “That’s why you can’t see them. They blend into the sky.”

Josie loved her children, but had heard this kind of thing from Paul before, and so put a pillow over her head to drown out their voices, and soon felt Paul climbing around her, and then down to the kitchenette, and then sensed him returning. He crawled over her and she heard him turning the pages of a book, whispering words to Ana, and Josie could picture their faces, their heads joined, and soon knew from her silence that Ana was asleep, so finally she found it, too.

BUT THIS WAS NOT YET a land of mountains and light. What they’d seen so far was just a place. There were mountains, some, but the air was jaundiced and the light plain. The little oval window that faced forward presented the real Alaska to her: a parking lot, a wigwam, a sign telling passersby that the wifi was free. It was seven a.m. She looked down to find her children awake and exploring the cabinets.

“Let’s have some breakfast,” she said, and they dressed and walked across the gravel parking lot to the diner. Inside there were a pair of firefighters, a man and a woman, both seeming managerial in age and demeanor. Their shirts said they were from Oregon.

“Thank you for your help up here,” the waitress said to them, refilling their coffee. Periodically Josie would catch other diners nodding to the firefighter table, closing their eyes in gratitude.

Paul and Ana ate eggs and bacon, Ana sitting on her foot, vibrating. Josie had told her that there was no plan for the day and this, to Ana, seemed to unleash all possibility of mayhem.

“How’s the food?” Josie asked Paul.

“Fine,” he said, and blinked his long-lashed eyes. His lashes were spectacular, and no matter what happened in his life he would have them, and these lashes would imply to all he was gentle and kind and, framed by his ice-blue eyes, that he was intelligent and wise and perhaps saw the future. Paul was an extraordinary-looking person, his face a long oval of polished stone, his eyes startling from forty feet.