“Recently, for your information. It was last night. In a dream. It looked just like Frost’s hands.”
Daniel Charlie said “Just glue them at a bit of an angle. So’s the arrow will spin. That’s to….”
“I know” said Frost, stretching his back. “So it will fly straight.”
The men were still and silent for some time. There seemed to be an unseen weight in the gloom of the shop, against which each of them had to struggle. As if at a signal, they shook their heads wearily.
Daniel Charlie said “I guess Granville done it.”
Wing said “If he didn’t he wouldn’t of run off.”
The men were silent. The rain whispered above them on the roof. There was a noise beyond the door. Wing slid off the bench. The men’s eyes widened. They turned to the door and reached for their swords, which none of them was wearing. A dog burst through the plastic curtain and trotted to Frost and reared up and put its front paws against his chest and licked desperately at his face. Its tail beat against Wing’s leg.
Frost did not push the animal down. He lowered his chin for the dog to lick, while he thumped its sides with both hands. Will came through the door. He said “Down, King. You’re going to knock Grampa over.” At this, Frost did step back so that the dog had to get down.
But King was still excited. He tried the same business with Daniel Charlie, who would not let him jump up. “Stay down, now” he said. “You’re a good dog. But stay down.”
Finally King sat at Will’s feet. Will said “He doesn’t have any friends now but us.” Will looked small and frail and deeply sad.
Frost sat again on the pile of blocks. He motioned to King and whispered “Come on.” The dog went and sat by Frost and laid his head in Frost’s lap. Frost held the dog’s ears and spoke to it, a long stream of nonsense endearments. It was a while before Frost could look up. He said to Will “We’ll get some more dogs.”
Will went to his grandfather. King moved his head away so that Will could sit in Frost’s lap. Will put his thumb in his mouth and leaned his head against Frost’s shoulder. Frost held him and kissed his head.
Will said “What’s going to happen, Grampa?”
Daniel Charlie turned and clamped a new cane in his vise. Wing picked up the arrowhead he had been working on. He leaned back against the bench and examined the edges and started filing it again.
Frost said “Well, good things are going to happen. We’re going to build a good world. We’re going to build a happy world. We’ve just got some things we have to fix first.”
“Is there going to be a war?”
Frost waited. Daniel Charlie looked toward him. Wing looked up from his filing. The rain fell steadily on the roof and pattered occasionally against the plastic that covered the door and the lightning-shaped crack and the window. King lay with his head on his front paws. He seemed not to like the silence. He gave a small whine.
Frost said “Some kind of war, yes.”
Will said “And it will be all right after that?”
“Yes. Then things will be a lot better.”
The scrape of the file resumed.
Will said “Are you going to die in the war?”
The filing stopped.
Frost said “I’ve got to fight. I didn’t want to before, but I’ve got to. I’ll try not to die. But I will die sometime. I’m old. We’ve talked about that.”
Slowly, with no expression, like a lost boy encountered in a dream, Will got off his grandfather’s lap. He stepped to the bench and picked up one of the finished arrows. He brought the tip close to his face. He turned the arrow, examining the sharpened and shining edges of the rusty metal. He moved his index finger slowly toward the point. He touched it. He jumped when King suddenly scrambled to his feet.
For a second the dog stood there with his ears erect. Then he started barking furiously and shot out the door, blasting the plastic aside. Frost and Wing and Daniel Charlie each grabbed a handful of the finished arrows. They snatched their bows, which were leaning in a corner. They ran from the workshop.
Near the bank of the river, where the River Trail emerged from the shadow of the bridge, four figures were standing around a cart. Two of them held spears and had bows slung over their backs. King raced on, barking, until he reached the group, then stood silent and alert. Frost, Wing and Daniel Charlie slowed to a walk. Will followed at a distance. Frost gave a signal, and the two men with spears jogged away toward the ramp that led onto the bridge.
The shafts of the two-wheeled cart rested on the ground. A woman stood beside it, staring toward the river. She was thin like her man and equally tall. Like the last time Frost had seen them, water dripped from their garments, their hair and the man’s beard.
BC said “I brung them two things you wanted.” His voice was weak and rough and slurred. He held an edge of the cart with one hand, near where a small black plastic bag hung from a nail. He weaved a little.
Frost and Wing traded glances. Frost slung his bow over his back and stepped past BC and looked in the cart. There was a thick rusted metal disk a yard across, with gear teeth around the edge. And there was an object the size of a cantaloupe, in an aluminum housing. With his free hand Frost lifted this from the cart. Then he nodded to Wing and Daniel Charlie. The two men slung their bows and laid their arrows on the ground. They hoisted the shafts until the flywheel slid off the back of the cart and thudded on the sodden soil. BC did not let go of the side of the cart, so that his arm went up, then down, like a barricade at a level crossing of the old railway near which they stood.
Frost stood close to BC and looked into the eyes the colour of silty river water. He said “Your pupils are the size of pinholes.”
BC lowered his gaze, which Frost followed to the heads of the arrows he still held in one hand. BC said “I see yous had some other ideas for that sheet metal I brung.”
Wind turned from the river and stepped between the shafts, as if she were about to haul the cart back the way they had come. Today her face was not bruised. Her gaunt cheeks were coloured either from anger or from pulling the cart fifteen miles through the rain. There was life in her eyes as well, some spark of determination.
She said to BC “Just shut up.”
BC did not react. He stared at Frost, weaving slightly, like a fir tree in a storm. His hand rested on the side of the cart near the black bag. His eyes were as empty of emotion as the muddy water they resembled.
Frost walked away a few paces. He turned, spat, waited.
Will now stood beside Daniel Charlie, who had his hand on his shoulder. King stood by Will, watching the proceedings.
Wind said “We brung the flywheel and the alternator.”
Frost showed her the alternator in his hand, said “I see that.”
“So, what’re you plannin’ to pay us with?”
“What do you need?”
“We need meat.”
“That’s what I thought. Well, I won’t give you meat.”
She glared at Frost.
After a few seconds BC gave an angry twitch and said “You won’t what!”
Wind said to him “I said shut up” and to Frost “You owe us meat, Frost. Fair’s fair.”
Frost said “I owe you a cow, which is to pay for Wing’s wagon. When my next calf is grown up you’ll get it. That was the deal. I’ll raise it and slaughter it and salt the meat. I gave you a down payment last time you came. You only get one down payment. For the flywheel and the alternator I’ll give you spuds and carrots and squashes and cabbage. I’ll give you some eggs.”
Finally BC took his hand from the cart. He threw up his arms. “We need meat, Frost!”
Wind said to BC “God damn you! I said shut up!” She made fists and stepped over the shaft.
BC skipped backward awkwardly and stood in a crouch, with his own fists up. “I’ll bust your nose!” he slurred.