The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

He heard a sound: the muffled crunch of tires on the icy driveway. The dogs began to bark. Some threw themselves at the closed drop-gates to their outer runs. A man’s voice shouting. The porch door slamming. The sounds drew him back until he was sitting beside his father once more.

He tried to stand, but failed. At the last minute, he threw his weight to the side and scrambled along the barn floor in order not to touch his father. He lay panting. Almondine came from somewhere—near the file cabinets—and nosed his hand until he forced himself up. He went to the barn doors and threw them open. Blue snow. Shadows bluer yet. He was almost to the house when Doctor Papineau appeared at the back porch door.

“Edgar, your door was swinging wide—” he began, and then stopped. His gaze moved to the barn. “What’s going on?” he said. “Where are your folks?”

All Edgar could do was stand before the old man, trembling. His teeth chattered and the muscles in his face began jerking all out of control. Then one of his legs buckled and he sank into the snow and the last thing he saw was Doctor Papineau rushing forward.

HE WOKE IN HIS PARENTS’ bedroom. He was lying on his side, facing the doorway, Almondine beside him. Doctor Papineau was leaning heavily against the kitchen cabinets, his back to Edgar, talking on the battered phone.

“—yes,” he was saying. “Of course. For God’s sake, Glen, Gar Sawtelle’s lying out there in his barn, and his son is in some sort of shock. No. No. I don’t know. His hands are bruised and cut up. All right. Okay. Yes, that must have been him. It was busted to pieces and hanging off the hook when I got here. I’m surprised it even works.”

There was a pause. “The feed mill,” he said. “Maybe the grocery store. If she’s not on the way back already. Try to get a hold of her before … She has the truck. It’s a brown … uh, Chevy with a topper. Uh-huh. Uh huh.” Then he said, “No.” The word had an air of finality to it.

When he hung up the phone he ran his hands through his white hair and heaved himself upright and turned and walked to the bedroom.

“Son?” he said. “Edgar?”

Edgar looked at him and tried to sit up. The old man put a hand on his shoulder.

“Just lie back,” he said. “Do you know what’s happening here?”

I shouldn’t have left him. He won’t stay warm out there.

“Edgar, I can’t understand when you sign.” Doctor Papineau stood and turned back to the kitchen. “I’ll get you a pencil and paper.” As soon as he was out of the room, Edgar was up running through the kitchen, but his sense of balance had gone awry. He crashed into the table and fell. By the time he got up and opened the porch door, Doctor Papineau had him by the arm. For a moment he hung suspended, in mid-stride, above the back steps. Then Doctor Papineau couldn’t hold on and Edgar fell into the snow just beyond the stoop. Before he could move, Doctor Papineau was on top of him.

“Hold on,” he said. “I don’t want you going out there. There’s nothing you can do right now, and seeing him like that is going to make it worse later. Come inside and wait with me, okay?”

For an old man, Doctor Papineau was surprisingly strong. He lifted Edgar out of the snow by the back of his shirt. Edgar felt the buttons in front straining to pop as he got his feet beneath him.

“Can you walk okay?”

He nodded. The snow where he had fallen was stained red from the cuts and gashes on his hands. They walked into the house, Papineau’s hand firmly on Edgar’s shoulder. Edgar sat at the table and looked at the veterinarian until the old man looked away, then stood and began to make coffee. Edgar walked to the corner of the kitchen and sat on the floor near the heat vent, letting the air blow across his feet. He clapped for Almondine. She came and stood beside him and breathed and leaned against him. The cuts on his hands stung as if they had burst into flame.

“There’s coffee,” Doctor Papineau said after a while.

When he didn’t answer, Doctor Papineau took a cup from the cupboard and filled it and sat back down at the table. He looked at the phone and the clock and the boy.

“I’m sorry about all this, Edgar,” he said at last. “But one thing I’ve learned from all these years of veterinary has been to attend to the living. Your dad’s out there, and I’m sorry there’s nothing we can do for him, but it isn’t going to do anyone any good for you to go out there and drive yourself crazy. I know that’s hard, but in time you’ll see it’s true. Everyone loses people. You understand? It’s terrible. It’s a tragedy for a boy like you to have to deal with this, but there’s nothing you or I or anyone else can do now but wait until people get here who know how to handle this.”

Doctor Papineau’s voice was calm, but his thumb was twitching and thumping on the table and he’d put one hand over the other to steady it. Edgar closed his eyes and let the black-petaled thing twist before him. After a while he was walking along the dark road again and the rain was falling, and the longer he walked, the narrower and more overgrown the road became, until at last it was almost a comfort.

WHEN ALMONDINE LIFTED her head, he heard the siren, faint at first, then louder as it topped the hill. He looked at his hands. There were windings of white gauze around each palm, neatly secured with medical tape. Doctor Papineau must have dressed them with bandages, but he didn’t recall it. He walked into the living room and found the veterinarian standing at the window. They watched the ambulance pull into the driveway, and then the truck. Edgar’s mother sat on the passenger side. She turned to look through the window as the truck passed the house, her face blank with shock.

Edgar walked to the kitchen and sat by the register again. Doctor Papineau opened the kitchen door and went outside. Edgar heard men’s voices. In a few moments his mother knelt beside him.

“Look at me,” she said, hoarsely.

He turned, but couldn’t meet her gaze for long.

“Edgar,” she said. “How long were you out there?” When he didn’t answer, she said, “The operator got a call around two o’clock, but no one spoke. That was you?”

He nodded. He watched her face to see if she already guessed how much he was to blame, but she only bent her head to touch his and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. At her touch, a flame rose in him and ate him alive, and when it was gone he was left sitting hollowed out in her arms.

“I know what you’re thinking, Edgar,” she whispered. “Look at me. This wasn’t because of you. I don’t know what happened, but you’re going to have to tell me, no matter how bad it was. Do you understand? I’ll wait all night if you need me to, and we’ll just sit together, but before we go to sleep, you have to tell me what happened.”

It wasn’t until she pulled his head up that he realized he had crossed his arms over his head. Her hands were warm against his face. He wanted to tell her everything, right then, and he wanted to say nothing, ever. He lifted his hands to sign, then realized he didn’t know what he wanted to say. He tried again.

It won’t be true if I don’t say it.

She looked down at his bandaged hands and took them into hers.

“But you know that’s wrong, don’t you? There’s nothing we can do to bring him back.” Her face crumpled and she started to cry. He put his arms around her and squeezed.

Then a man appeared in the doorway, an enormous broad man, a giant, youthful projection of Doctor Papineau. Glen Papineau, the Mellen sheriff. Edgar’s mother stood. Glen put his hand on her arm and guided her to the table and pulled out a chair.

“Why don’t you sit down,” he said. Glen Papineau pulled out a chair and sat, too, his parka rustling as he moved, the chair creaking under his weight.

“From the way things look out there, he was carrying something heavy, a bucket of scrap metal, when it happened,” Glen said. “It’s possible he had a stroke, Trudy.”

There was a long silence.

“Is there somebody I can call for you?”

Before she could answer, Doctor Papineau spoke up.

“I’m going to spend the night here, Glen. If there’s someone to call, I’ll do it.”

The sheriff looked from his father’s earnest, elderly face to Trudy, who nodded absently.

“I’m going to need to talk, uh, with your son, eventually, for my report, Trudy. I know this isn’t the best time, but it has to be soon. Now would be best.”

“No,” she said. “Not today.”

“Okay. Tomorrow at the latest. I guess I’ll need you, too. He only signs. Is that right?”

“Of course. You know that, Glen.”

“I just mean, if you don’t feel up to it I could see if we could arrange an interpreter,” Glen said. He sounded taken aback at his mother’s tone, which was a mixture of weariness and pain and impatience.

“It has to be me.”

“Why’s that?”

“What Edgar signs is a sort of … half his own invention. Gar and I can read it. Could. Can. A conventional signer wouldn’t make much sense of it. He could write things out, or we can bring in his old letter board, but that would take a long time. Besides, I wouldn’t let you question my son without being there.”

“All right, all right,” Glen said. “I just thought it might make things easier on you. When you feel up to it in the morning, call the office.”

He turned and stepped onto the porch. Doctor Papineau followed him out of the house. They talked outside, on the stoop, voices low. Suddenly, Edgar’s mother stood up and strode to the door.

“God damn it, Glen!” she shouted, her voice so loud Edgar could hear an echo off the side of the barn. “If something needs taking care of, you talk to me. Me, do you understand? Page, thank you for being here. But I won’t have you and your son making decisions for us. This is our place. Glen, you’ll talk to me.”

“Trudy,” said Glen, “I, uh, guess I was just telling Dad here that I asked John and Al to take Gar to Brentson’s. And that you or he, somebody, should call and talk to Burt about the arrangements. If you want someone else to handle things, he’ll help get that squared away. That’s all. We weren’t trying to hide anything from you. We were trying to ease things up on you.”

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