At the dinner table my mother and father spoke only the necessary words: “I need to use the truck tonight,” she might say; and he would answer, “Tank’s almost empty.” Then they both went back to spearing peas, their forks clinking against their plates.
Sooner or later I knew Mother would break down and ask a favor of Daddy. “I wish you’d clean out the garage and take a load to the dump,” she might say. This was a dreaded job, neglected through a year of Saturdays. But this time Father would be grateful and comply, buying her pardon with his sweat.
In the meantime Gwen Holler distracted me. I lived by her whims. For days she might ignore me, not returning my phone calls, sitting in her room while I banged on her front door. But when she whistled, I ran; when she smiled, I forgave. And if she spoke to me in a hushed voice, gooseflesh raised the fine hairs on my arms and legs.
If Gwen was in the mood after school, we played our game in the gully, became the trapper and the Indian girl. We added characters, but Gwen always got to be the girl and I had to be everyone else.
We climbed down the ravine one afternoon in October. “Catch me,” Gwen said, her voice low and husky, barely a whisper. She darted through the brush. I stumbled, scraping my knee, picked myself up and sprinted after her. We ran a hard quarter mile before I took a flying jump, caught her legs, and brought us both to the ground.
“Did you think I was your Indian girl?” she said.
“The trapper wouldn’t mistake any woman for the one he loves. He’d know her, just by her smell.”
“If he got crazy enough, he might see her everywhere. He might think every dark-haired girl was the Indian. He might see her in a rabbit or a waterfall. You don’t know how far out of his head he got. If you chase someone for a long time, you could see her in anything that moved.”
I nodded. Sometimes I saw Nina when I stood by the pond and glimpsed my own reflection. Sometimes on Main Street I spotted a girl with golden hair and ran to catch her; but when she turned, she was too young or much too old, her face was scarred by acne or her eyes were small and dark.
“You be the trapper,” Gwen said, “and I’ll be the girl. Give me ten minutes, and then come looking for me, okay?”
“No fair turning into a waterfall,” I said. “I’ll never find you.”
I gazed into the woods and began to count the minutes. Fall had come quickly. Already the leaves of maples and willows had turned rust or yellow. In a week, they’d be blown to the ground. The tamaracks were golden, brilliant in the sun, but they looked like dead pines, victims of a beetle kill, and it was difficult to believe those needles would ever be green again.
I saw Gwen from across the pond, her dark hair knotted in two braids and her skin tawny in the afternoon light. When I got to the other side, she’d disappeared. My heart beat so hard that my chest ached, and I thought this must be what it’s like to chase someone day after day and never reach her.
I caught sight of the girl again, running along the edge of the creek, with her shoes in her hand. This time I nearly had her, but she splashed to the other side. By the time I got my shoes and socks off, she’d vanished in the woods like a rabbit down a hole.
For an hour or more I pursued her, until my legs throbbed from running and my shirt clung to my sweaty back. I was the trapper, desperate to find this girl I’d been tracking half my life. The crackle of twigs being broken as someone scrambled through the brush made tears well in my eyes. She was close. I crouched, trying to be quiet, patient: Now you can touch her if you can only wait. But my breath came in hard gasps and blood rushed in my ears. I smelled my own sweat; she would smell me too and become her own shadow.
I kept falling into the places she’d been. Pockets of air felt hot and still, as if another person had just stopped there to rest, her body flushed; leaves quivered where her shoulders had touched them; footsteps made the earth vibrate. She led me deeper into the woods, away from the pond. The trees grew close and dark; deer moss hung from the low limbs, brushing against my face like hair. Suddenly I knew where she was going. Her thoughts leaped into my head: that’s how close we were. I almost laughed out loud, knowing I had no need to hurry now, knowing she’d hide in the tree house. She thought it was a safe place. High in the trees, she could see every finch and squirrel. But the back side had no windows. If I took a wide circle, she wouldn’t see me until I made a mad dash for the ladder. The tree house was a trap; she’d have to fly to get free.
I grew calm. It was all so simple in the end. I lay on my stomach behind a rock and watched her climb the rickety ladder. I tasted dirt. I was a skittery lizard, a long snake, all things evil and smart. The tree house swayed with the girl’s weight. The silence in the forest was too deep: as if the river had run dry. She knew I was there, just as a sleeping child knows when someone stands over her and stares at her through her dreams.
I waited. I had the rest of my life. She’d have no chance to tumble down the ladder and slip through my hands like water.
She poked her head out the side window. When she ducked inside, I tore down the path and was on the ladder before I heard her squeal. I took two rungs at a time. The dry wood crackled under my heavy feet.
I filled the doorway and she backed into the darkest corner. “Don’t be afraid,” I said.
“I left you,” she answered.
“Your brothers kidnapped you.”
“I didn’t fight them.”
“You couldn’t have won.”
“I should have fought them until they killed me.”
“No,” I said, “you should have done anything to stay alive so that I could find you.”
“Death is more honorable.”
“Death is for the weak.”
“Do you forgive me?” she said.
“I never blamed you.”
“Then kiss me.”
All at once I was no longer the trapper. I was myself and the Indian girl was Gwen Holler. I remembered how she spit and wiped her mouth the last time we kissed. I didn’t want to be the trapper any more than I’d wanted to be that greasehead Gil Harding. She’d tell me I did it wrong and I’d want to jump out the window because climbing down the ladder would take too long.
But I wanted to touch her. I was light-headed from running through the woods, and I knew how good it would feel to lean against her. I wanted my legs to stop shaking. She took a step toward me. I couldn’t move away: one step backward would send me hurling out the door.
“Prove that you don’t blame me,” she said. She was so close I felt her breath on my lips.
I put my arms around her. I kissed her eyebrows and her hair; I stopped to kiss her brown cheeks and her smooth, hot neck, but I didn’t even try to kiss her mouth for fear I’d miss again.
At last she was the one to put her hands on my cheeks and pull me toward her. I tried to keep my eyes open, to see her mouth; as she got closer, she seemed to have two mouths and two noses. I closed my eyes and hoped.
Her lips were so soft I almost jerked away, but she held my head tight in her two hands. I felt I touched something no one should touch, something frightening and delicate, a petal that could be torn by a rough finger, a poppy that could be bruised by rain. I wondered: Do my lips feel as fragile to her? I caught a butterfly once, though Nina cried, “Don’t touch it, don’t touch it.” And when I let it go, it couldn’t fly.
Gwen opened her mouth and ran her tongue along the ridge of my teeth. Now I was less afraid: her tongue was strong, protecting her lips.
She whispered, “Do you trust me?”
“Yes,” I said. I would have told her anything just then.
“I have a surprise for you,” she said.
I nodded—Anything, yes.