Dreamcatcher

“We’ll take you out. If we can. I mean, this weather came in fast.”

“It sure did,” McCarthy said bitterly. “You’d think they could do better with all their darn satellites and doppler radar and gosh knows what else. So much for fair and seasonably cold, huh?”

Jonesy looked at the man under the comforter, just the flushed face and the thatch of thinning brown hair showing, with some perplexity. The forecasts he had heard-he, Pete, Henry, and the Beav-had been full of the prospect of snow for the last two days. Some of the prognosticators hedged their bets, saying the snow could change over to rain, but the fellow on the Castle Rock radio station that morning (WCAS was the only radio they could get up here, and even that was thin and jumbled with static) had been talking about a fast-moving Alberta Clipper, six or eight inches, and maybe a nor'easter to follow, if the temperatures stayed down and the low didn’t go out to sea. Jonesy didn’t know where McCarthy had gotten his weather forecasts, but it sure hadn’t been WCAS. The guy was just mixed up, that was most likely it, and had every right to be.

“You know, I could put on some soup. How would that be, Mr McCarthy?’mcCarthy smiled gratefully. “I think that would be pretty fine,' he said. “My stomach hurt last night and something fierce this morning, but I feel better now.” “Stress,” Jonesy said. “I would have been puking my guts. Probably filling my pants, as well.”

“I didn’t throw up,” McCarthy said. “I’m pretty sure I didn’t. But…” Another shake of the head, it was like a nervous tic with him. “I don’t know. The way things are jumbled, it’s like a nightmare I had.”

“The nightmare’s over,” Jonesy said. He felt a little foolish saying such a thing-a little auntie-ish-but it was clear the guy needed reassurance.

“Good,” McCarthy said. “Thank you. And I would like some soup.”

“There’s tomato, chicken, and I think maybe a can of Chunky Sirloin. What do you fancy?”

“Chicken,” McCarthy said. “My mother always said chicken soup was the thing when you’re not feeling your best.”

He grinned as he said it, and Jonesy tried to keep the shock off his face. McCarthy’s teeth were white and even, really too even to be anything but capped, even the man’s age, which had to be forty-five or thereabouts. But at least four of them were missing-the canines on top (what Jonesy’s father had called “the vampire teeth”) and two right in front on the bottom-Jonesy didn’t know what those were called. He knew one thing, though: McCarthy wasn’t aware they were gone. No one who knew about such gaps in the line of his teeth could expose them so unselfconsciously, even under circumstances like these. Or so Jonesy believed. He felt a sick little chill rush through his gut, a telephone call from nowhere. He turned toward the kitchen before McCarthy could see his face change and wonder what was wrong. Maybe ask what was wrong.

“One order chicken soup coming right up. How about a grilled cheese to go with it?”

“If it’s no trouble. And call me Richard, will you? Or Rick, that’s even better. When people save my life, I like to get on a first-name basis with them as soon as possible.”

“Rick it is, for sure,” Better get those teeth fixed before you step in front of another Jury, Rick.

The feeling that something was wrong here was very strong. It was that click, just as almost guessing McCarthy’s name had been. He was a long way from wishing he’d shot the man when he had the chance, but he was already starting to wish McCarthy had stayed the hell away from his tree and out of his life.

2

He had the soup on the stove and was making the cheese sandwiches when the first gust of wind arrived-a big whoop that made the cabin creak and raised the snow in a furious sheet. For a moment even the black scrawled shapes of the trees in The Gulch were erased, and there was nothing outside the big window but white: it was as if someone had set up a drive-in movie screen out there. For the first time, Jonesy felt a thread of unease not just about Pete and Henry, presumably on their way back from Gosselin’s in Henry’s Scout, but for the Beaver. You would have said that if anybody knew these woods it would have been the Beav, but nobody knew anything in a whiteout-all bets were off, that was another of his ne'er-do-well father’s sayings, probably not as good as you can’t make yourself be lucky, but not bad. The sound of the genny might help Beav find his way, but as McCarthy had pointed out, sounds had a way of deceiving you. Especially if the wind started kicking up, as it had now apparently decided to do.

His mom had taught him the dozen basic things he knew about cooking, and one of them had to do with the art of making grilled cheese sandwiches. Lay in a little mouseturds first, she said-mouseturds being Janet Jones for mustard-and then butter the goddam bread, not the skillet. Butter the skillet and all’s you got’s fried bread with some cheese in it. He had never understood how the difference between where you put the butter, on the bread or in the skillet, could change the ultimate results, but he always did it his mother’s way, even though it was a pain in the ass buttering the tops of the sandwiches while the bottoms cooked. No more would he have left his rubber boots on once he was in the house… because, his mother had always said, “they draw your feet.” He had no idea just what that meant, but even now, as a man going on forty, he took his boots off as soon as he was in the door, so they wouldn’t draw his feet.

“I think I might have one of these babies myself,” Jonesy said, and laid the sandwiches in the skillet, butter side down. The soup had begun to simmer, and it smelled fine-like comfort.

“Good idea. I certainly hope your friends are all right.”

“Yeah,” Jonesy said. He gave the soup a stir. “Where’s your place?”

“Well, we used to hunt in Mars Hill, at a place Nat and Becky’s uncle owned, but some god-bless’d idiot burned it down two summers ago. Drinking and then getting careless with the old smokes, that’s what the Fire Marshal said, anyway.” Jonesy nodded. “Not an uncommon story.”

“The insurance paid the value of the place, but we had nowhere to hunt. I thought probably that’d be the end of it, and then Steve found this nice place over in Kineo. I think it’s probably an unincorporated township, just another part of the Jefferson Tract, but Kineo’s what they call it, the few people who live there. Do you know where I mean?”

“I know it,” Jonesy said, speaking through lips that felt oddly numb. He was getting another of those telephone calls from nowhere. Hole in the Wall was about twenty miles east of Gosselin’s. Kineo was maybe thirty miles to the west of the market. That was fifty miles in all. Was he supposed to believe that the man sitting on the couch with just his head sticking out of the down comforter had wandered fifty miles since becoming lost the previous afternoon? It was absurd. It was impossible.

“Smells good,” McCarthy said.

And it did, but Jonesy no longer felt hungry.

3

He was just bringing the chow over to the couch when he heard feet stamping on the stone outside the door. A moment later the door opened and Beaver came in. Snow swirled around his legs in a dancing mist.

“Jesus-Christ-bananas,” the Beav said. Pete had once made a list of Beav-isms, and Jesus-Christ-bananas was high on it, along with such standbys as doodlyfuck and Kiss my bender. They were exclamations both Zen and profane. “I thought I was gonna end up spendin the night out there, then I saw the light.” Beav raised his hands roofward, fingers spread. “Seen de light, lawd, yessir, praise Je-” His glasses started to unfog then, and he saw the stranger on the couch. He lowered his hands, slowly, then smiled. That was one of the reasons Jonesy had loved him ever since grade-school, although the Beav could be tiresome and wasn’t the brightest bulb in the chandelier, by any means: his first reaction to the unplanned and unexpected wasn’t a frown but a smile.

“Hi,” he said. “I’m Joe Clarendon. Who’re you?”

“Rick McCarthy,” he said, and got to his feet. The comforter tumbled off him and Jonesy saw he had a pretty good potbelly pooching out the front of his sweater. Well, he thought, nothing strange, about that, at least, it’s the middle-aged man’s disease, and it’s going to kill us in our millions during the next twenty years or so.

McCarthy stuck out his hand, started to step forward, and almost tripped over the fallen comforter. If Jonesy hadn’t reached out and grabbed his shoulder, steadying him, McCarthy probably would have fallen forward, very likely cleaning out the coffee-table on which the food was now set. Again Jonesy was struck by the man’s queer ungainliness-it made him think of himself a little that past spring, as he had learned to walk all over again. He got a closer look at the patch on the guy’s cheek, and sort of wished he hadn’t. It wasn’t frostbite at all. It looked like a skin-tumor of some kind, or perhaps a portwine stain with stubble growing out of it.

“Who, whoa, shake it but don’t break it,” Beaver said, springing forward. He grabbed McCarthy’s hand and pumped it until Jonesy thought McCarthy would end up swan-diving into the coffee-table after all. He was glad when the Beav-all five-feet-six of him, with snow still melting into all that long black hippie hair-stepped back. The Beav was still smiling, more broadly than ever. With the shoulder-length hair and the thick glasses, he looked like either a math genius or a serial killer. In fact, he was a carpenter.

“Rick here’s had a time of it,” Jonesy said. “Got lost yesterday and spent last night in the woods.”

Beaver’s smile stayed on but became concerned. Jonesy had an idea what was coming next and willed Beaver not to say it he had gotten the impression that McCarthy was a fairly religious man who might not care much for profanity-but of course asking Beaver to clean up his mouth was like asking the wind not to blow.

“Bitch-in-a-buzzsaw!” he cried now. “That’s fuckin terrible! Sit down! Eat! You too, Jonesy.”

“Nah,” Jonesy said, “you go on and eat that. You’re the one who just came in out of the snow.”

“You sure?”

“I am. I’ll just scramble myself some eggs. Rick can catch you up on his story.” Maybe it’ll make more sense to you than it does to me, he thought.

“Okay.” Beaver took off his Jacket (red) and his vest (orange, of course). He started to toss them on the woodpile, then thought better of it. “Wait, wait, got something you might want.” He stuck his hand deep into one of the pockets of his down jacket, rummaged, and came out with a paperback book, considerably bent but seemingly none the worse for wear otherwise. Little devils with pitchforks danced across the cover-Small Vices, by Robert Parker. It was the book Jonesy had been reading in the stand.

The Beav held it out to him, smiling. “I left your sleeping-bag, but I figured you wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight unless you knew who the fuck done it.”

“You shouldn’t have gone up there,” Jonesy said, but he was touched in a way only Beaver could touch him. The Beav had come back through the blowing snow and hadn’t been able to make out if Jonesy was up in the tree-stand or not, not for sure. He could have called, but for the Beav, calling wasn’t enough, only seeing was believing.

“Not a problem, Beaver said, and sat down next to McCarthy, who was looking at him as a person might look at a new and rather exotic kind of small animal. “Well, thanks,” Jonesy said. “You get around that sandwich. I’m going to do eggs.” He started away, then stopped. “What about Pete and Henry? You think they’ll make it back okay?'he Beav opened his mouth, but before he could answer the wind gasped around the cabin again, making the walls creak and rising to a grim whistle in the eaves. “Aw, this is just a cap of snow,” Beaver said when the gust died away.

“They’ll make it back. Getting out again if there comes a real norther, that might be a different story.” He began to gobble the grilled cheese sandwich. Jonesy went over to the kitchen to scramble some eggs and heat up another can of soup. He felt better about McCarthy now that Beaver was here. The truth was he always felt better when the Beav was around. Crazy but true.

4