North to Benjamin Read online

  Caroline joined them inside again. “So, whose house are you sitting for, anyway?” she asked.

  Edgar’s mother looked away in annoyance, probably because she couldn’t remember the name of the family, or possibly had not written it down. So Edgar said, “There’s a dog I will be looking after, Benjamin.”

  Caroline’s eyes widened. “You’re staying in the Summerhills’ place? That’s just down the street from us! Benjamin is the Summerhills’ dog! I’ve been looking after him, since they couldn’t find a sitter. They’re down in Arizona.”

  “But—” Edgar said.

  Edgar’s mother interrupted him. “Yes, that’s it, the Summerhills. I don’t know them directly; it’s all through my friend, Regina. But somebody, this fellow who was supposed to pick us up, has the key. He has a funny name, if I remember. I can’t quite—”

  “Ceese?” Caroline said, shaking her head, as if she knew what Edgar’s mother was going to say and yet still could not believe it.

  “Yes, that’s it, Ceese!”

  “He’s my father!”

  “Well, where is he?” Edgar’s mother said. “Did he not tell you he was picking us up?”

  “I tried calling him,” Caroline said. “He’s out of range, but that’s pretty usual around here. He’ll probably show up any minute now.”

  Finally Edgar got a word in. He said, “I’m supposed to look after Benjamin. We’re going to be friends!”

  Caroline looked at him. “We can all be friends,” she said, as simple as that.

  TREK

  THE MINUTES LEAKED BY, AND no one showed up. Caroline talked to Edgar’s mother about her own mother in Whitehorse, who was a lawyer for the territorial government, and how together they had walked the Chilkoot Pass last year, which was not as difficult as everyone said. “You don’t have to carry a ton of equipment or anything like that,” Caroline explained. Edgar didn’t know what the Chilkoot Pass was, but a ton sounded like a lot for a girl and her mother, or for anybody, really.

  She talked and talked, this Caroline, about her father’s girlfriend, Victoria, who lived across the river in West Dawson, which didn’t have electricity, but it had a lot of dogs, and about how Caroline couldn’t call Victoria because her truck had troubles, but not to worry, her father would be here, he always was.

  But he wasn’t, so they started to walk.

  Edgar swung his big knapsack onto his back, and his mother put his little knapsack on his front, making him feel like a turtle. It wasn’t too cold, and the road was deserted. It was bright, though; he had to squint.

  Caroline asked where they had come from, and when Edgar told her, she said, “You came all the way here from Toronto just to housesit for a couple of months? Or are the Summerhills not coming back in June like they always do?”

  Edgar’s mother was thinking, so Edgar had to answer. “I think if we like it here, then maybe we will look for an apartment of our own.”

  “Good luck with that!” Caroline said almost gleefully. “Everybody likes it here by June, so it’s really hard to find a place to stay. Unless you like camping.”

  There were no signs. The sides of the road were humpy, covered in snow. Edgar was hoping that when they rounded the curve—it took a long time—then the town would appear, but it didn’t.

  Ten miles really was going to be a long, long way. If only they’d had breakfast!

  Suddenly a truck came up from behind them—whoosh! They hardly had time to step out of the way. Edgar’s mother turned and raised her hand. “Hey!” Then the truck was by. But it stopped down the road and all three ran to where a man with a hard face was leaning out the window. He had very few teeth, and Edgar felt his mother’s hand stiffen around his.

  “Going to Dawson?” the man asked.

  Caroline said, “Absolutely!”

  But Edgar’s mother said, “No,” almost at the same time. “We don’t need a ride.”

  “What?” The guy couldn’t seem to believe what he was hearing.

  “It’s okay,” Caroline said. “He’s got room in the—”

  “We’re fine. We’re just out for a walk,” Edgar’s mother said. “Sorry for the trouble!” She pulled Edgar and Caroline across the road so that the man would understand.

  “But he’s going into town!” Caroline looked stunned.

  Edgar’s mother stayed quiet and maintained her grip. Edgar knew—she didn’t feel right, and that was that.

  The man seemed struck dumb. Then in a minute the truck was on its way and had soon disappeared.

  “We’ll get the next one.” Edgar’s mother wasn’t wearing a hat, and her ears were turning bright red, but her cheeks were white. Edgar remembered a story he had read about a man and his dog here in the Yukon. It was so cold, the man’s spit froze in midair. Edgar knew it was not that cold now, but he spat anyway. Both his mother and Caroline looked at him. Maybe they were thinking he was upset about the truck.

  He was more upset about possibly not taking care of Benjamin after all. But Caroline had stood up for him against the bully, and maybe she would be nice about this, too. She wasn’t bothered now at all. She had her parka, she had boots with fur trim, she looked like she wanted to walk all day.

  Edgar was beginning to feel cold in his toes. That’s how it had started for the man in the story too, after falling through the ice and getting wet. His toes lost feeling, then his hands. Edgar opened and closed his fists. It helped a bit when he thought again of Benjamin. Now that he could see what the north looked like, how frozen and wintry it was, he knew that Benjamin had to be a husky dog with a thick fur coat and gleaming eyes. Like the dog in the story, actually. But friendlier.

  “This is all going to work out,” his mother said then.

  “That guy did look freaky,” Caroline said, “but I’ve seen him around. He would’ve been all right. Anyway. There’ll be another truck along soon, I’m sure.”

  Two ravens perched together at the top of a tall fir tree had a strange barking chat. For a moment Edgar imagined himself up there with the ravens looking down. He would be able to see Dawson, how far away it was.

  Caroline was right. Soon enough they heard another vehicle approaching, and this time Edgar’s mother started waving and calling out even before they could see who was coming. It was a pickup truck, silvery, and it started to slow as soon as it came into view.

  “That’s my dad!” Caroline broke into a run.

  The truck lurched to a stop, and a big man jumped out. He was wearing a thin jean jacket that was open, his boots weren’t even laced up, and he didn’t have on a hat or mitts. He swung Caroline around until she was laughing. Then he kissed her and put her down, and walked toward Edgar’s mother.

  “Are you Stephanie?” His skin was darker than Caroline’s and he had a brilliant smile, and gray hair, and brown eyes full of light.

  “Yes!” She was sparking on him, just in her brief look. She couldn’t help it; it was as if she had a switch she could not keep from turning on.

  Caroline’s father hesitated—of course he did. Then he seemed to recover. He took Edgar’s mother’s bags and placed them carefully in the truck, where there was a backseat.

  “I’m so sorry to be late. There was some weather coming down the Dempster, really slowed me up. My name is Ceese.” He held out a large hand to her in a friendly but formal way. Edgar remembered Roger shaking hands like that too, but not with his mother, with Edgar himself. This man, Ceese, did not seem to even notice that Edgar was there.

  “We are freezing,” Edgar’s mother said in what sounded like a brave voice, as if it were no big deal.

  “You didn’t tell me you were picking anybody else up!” Caroline said.

  “Sorry. Sorry!” Ceese opened the door of the truck and guided Edgar’s mother in. Edgar stood and watched while he helped her with the seat belt and shut the door against the cold. Finally Ceese turned to him. He squatted down so that they were eye to eye. “I’m afraid I didn’t get your name, sir.” Ceese’s mouth
was serious, but his dark eyes were not.

  “Edgar.”

  He put big hands on both of the boy’s shoulders. “I imagine you’re having a day you’re going to remember the rest of your life.”

  Edgar nodded at him carefully.

  “We’ll both make sure your mother’s all right,” he said.

  DAWSON

  WHILE THEY WERE DRIVING, CEESE, who liked to talk, told them all about the history of this place called the Klondike, where gold was discovered a long time ago and thousands of men scrambled north to try to become suddenly rich. Those large humpy mounds, like enormous white worms lining the side of the road, were piles of river stones left by the dredges, now covered by snow. Those dredges were huge, rock-eating ships that chewed up all the streams and spat out everything that wasn’t gold dust. Edgar was tired and hungry, and it was difficult to follow such fantastical stories, until Ceese finally said, “Say, does anyone need some breakfast?”

  Edgar’s mother, who had stopped even pretending to listen, glanced away from the window, and for a moment Edgar was hopeful. “We had some earlier,” she said finally, which was not true at all.

  “The Eldorado has a great breakfast!” Caroline said.

  Ceese turned to Edgar’s mother. “My treat! I was late coming to get you. Sure glad you didn’t have to walk all the way into town. Must’ve been Caroline’s idea.”

  “I knew you’d probably get us on the way!” Caroline protested.

  “We didn’t have breakfast,” Edgar said then. He tried to find a large voice, but it came out, as usual, pretty soft.

  “We didn’t have a lot of breakfast.” His mother flashed him a look, and he pretended not to see it.

  “All right, then. You’ll be riding into Dawson on an empty stomach, but we’ll top you up soon enough!”

  The town was not big. For a while they were driving along the highway with steep hills to one side and those mounds and a frozen river to the other. Then they took a bend and saw wooden buildings, none of them very high, and most of them, at least on the main street, were closed. One very old building faced many of the others and seemed to be falling apart, and there weren’t many cars, or even a traffic light.

  “Plenty to do in Dawson,” Ceese said, “but not so much now. Everybody who stayed the winter is just kind of waiting and watching as the days get longer and the snow shrinks. When the ice goes out, though, then you’ll see a whole flood of people coming for the better weather.” He turned to Edgar again. “Do you like contests? Ever since the gold rush there’s been one to guess the exact date and time when the ice breaks up on the Yukon River. If you aren’t actively panning for gold, that’s another way to make a whole bunch of money real quick!”

  As they drove along, Caroline pointed out a large orange marker in the middle of the frozen river, with a wire leading back to one of the buildings onshore. “As soon as that pylon begins to move with the ice, it trips the clock,” she said. “May the second. That’s my ticket. Two seventeen p.m.”

  “Climate change has screwed everything up,” Ceese added. “Breakup could be a lot earlier than that. It’s hitting us here in the north much harder than other places. Everything’s turning unpredictable.”

  He steered them away from the river and parked in front of one of the larger buildings. They walked on a wooden sidewalk and up the stairs into the Eldorado Hotel. It looked old and dirty, but Edgar could smell bacon and eggs even before they got to the dining room.

  “This is very nice of you,” Edgar’s mother said to Ceese when they sat down. She took off her winter coat and shook out her hair. Ceese watched her with a big grin on his face. Edgar knew it was hard for men not to watch his mother. Her black hair, her unexpected eyes—so darkly blue.

  An older woman with almost orange curly hair brought four menus. “I’d like the pancakes,” Edgar blurted. Then he looked up and realized he had interrupted—Ceese had been saying something to his mother, who was smiling.

  “Specialty of the house,” Ceese said, switching gears. “Syrup, everything, the works?”

  Pancakes were more expensive than just the toast and cereal. Edgar hoped his mother wouldn’t stop him. “The works,” he said in a soft voice.

  It all costs money, his mother said, just in the way she blinked her eyes.

  But he’s paying, Edgar blinked back.

  And Caroline was watching everything. She could talk every bit as much as her father, but she had those big eyes too. She asked for a soft-boiled egg and toast for dipping.

  Edgar’s mother ordered fruit in a bowl of yogurt, and not even any coffee, which could only have been to impress Ceese somehow. But why did she need to impress him? He was the one who had been late to pick them up.

  And there was a girlfriend, Victoria. Edgar’s mother had clearly heard Caroline explain the situation.

  Ceese ordered steak and eggs for himself, and two side orders of toast, in case anyone was still hungry.

  “Are you sure you don’t want any coffee?” Ceese pressed Edgar’s mother.

  “Some orange juice would be nice,” she allowed. She looked around, yawned, then covered her mouth.

  “So I guess you guys have had a long couple of days of travel,” Ceese said. “All the way from Toronto? I heard you had to clear out pretty quick?”

  The orange juice came, and Edgar’s mother sipped it slowly with her eyes closed. “I was really looking for a change of scene.”

  “Plenty of scenery here, all right,” Ceese agreed.

  Edgar’s mother sipped a bit more of her juice, and then it was as if she couldn’t help herself, she drank it all down. “You know, maybe I will have that cup of coffee after all,” she said.

  “That’s the spirit!” Ceese motioned to the orange-haired waitress, and she brought over the coffeepot. They were not the only customers: a pair of large unshaven men in muddy workboots and dusty overalls were sitting back, legs open, staring at Edgar’s mother.

  “So I heard you were leaving a tough situation,” Ceese pressed, swinging the conversation back.

  “You could say that.” Edgar’s mother’s tone meant she didn’t really want to say.

  “Lots of folks come up here to start fresh,” Ceese said. “It’s amazing how many people came for a summer twenty years ago, and they’re still here!”

  “Like my mom,” Caroline said in a voice, low like her father’s, just to Edgar. “But she’s in Whitehorse now!”

  Edgar’s mother sipped her coffee slowly. “Just a good, peaceful couple of months would be fine.”

  Finally the food came, and Ceese talked on, a torrent of friendly, soothing words, like water in a stream in the background. He had a story about the dredge, and another about a grizzly bear, and one about a miner who lost his gold, and he talked about the old paddlewheel steamers that used to be the only way to make it up and down the river to Dawson. Edgar listened to it all. The more he chewed his pancakes, the sweeter the syrup tasted mixing in with the bacon. And the more he gobbled the side orders of toast all by himself, going through four little packets of jam and one of marmalade, the less he could hold on to all those stories.

  Caroline dipped toast soldiers into her eggs, how exactly? Like she was the queen of breakfast.

  Afterward Ceese drove them up the hill past wooden buildings, some of them leaning this way and that, as if tiring over the years. Then they took a right on the last street. “That’s our house!” Caroline said, but she was blocking Edgar’s view. Then they stopped before a house that seemed to have been built largely below the level of the street. It had a wooden bridge to the front door, almost like a drawbridge from an old castle heading over a moat.

  Edgar carried his bags across the planks. There was no moat down below, just snow, but there was a lot of space between the railings, and it would be a long drop. Then he was inside, looking, but the place was cold, empty, and terribly silent. “Where is he?” Edgar asked Caroline.

  “Who?”

  “Benjamin!”


  “At my house still,” Caroline said. “It’s okay, you don’t have to look after him right away. Just get settled.”

  But soon, yes? Edgar said to her with his eyes.

  She nodded a little bit, as if in understanding.

  “We’ll have to warm the place up,” Ceese said. “I imagine they’ve kept the bathroom heat on.” He kicked off his boots, and Edgar did the same. His mother seemed eager for Ceese and Caroline to leave, so she and Edgar could have the place to themselves.

  This was what the whole journey had been about, Edgar thought. This was why Roger had been in tears. Edgar almost felt sorry for him for a moment. How could Roger compete with an empty house like this, so quiet, full of other people’s furniture?

  “I would love to live here!” Caroline was saying. “The Summerhills really fixed the place up in the last few years. Retired financial advisers,” she said, under her breath.

  It was dark until they opened the blinds, cold even after Ceese turned up the thermostat. There were no hot-air registers, but some sort of hot-water-radiator system that would be slow, Ceese said. Now Ceese and Caroline stood together in the doorway, telling Edgar and his mother where the grocery store was, the post office, which bars would be open, what day the garbage was picked up. Edgar tried to keep it all in his head. The grocery store was down the hill almost all the way to the river. The post office was before that, on Third Avenue. He did not remember the bars because he knew his mother would. Garbage was Wednesday morning.

  “Anything else I can get for you? Are you all right for money?” Ceese said.

  This last question was something not many people asked, but clearly they were all thinking about it. Ceese looked like he had money somehow. Edgar knew that many of his mother’s friends had very little, but every so often someone like Roger came along, who had money sometimes at least.

  “Thank you, we’re fine,” his mother said. She smiled. It looked like a last, hard effort. She really wanted him gone! But he was lingering.