With (50 page)

Since Adam was so fond of Nabokov, he was not against Russians. This man’s name was Tchelistcheff, which, Frances told Adam, could be pronounced as Shelly-shef. He was a winemaker, a research oenologist, working for
BV
, as everyone called the large Beaulieu Vineyards. In fact, André had years before developed the Cabernet Sauvignon which became the valley’s principal wine, and was of course Adam and Frances’ favorite beverage. They sometimes consumed too much of it.

Eventually, since they shared the library every Saturday, Frances introduced Adam to André. Frances said to André, “Adam is my protégé in the realm of letters but in the realm of work he’s a master cooper.”

“Oh, indeed?” said André Tchelistcheff. “Where is your workshop?”

“In the oak woods on a mountain in the Ozarks, sir,” Adam said. “But if you mean the place I’m employed, it’s Inglenook.”

“You make barrels for Inglenook?” André said.

“Yes, sir.”

“I did not know they make their own barrels. We order ours, and it is huge bother to wait for them most of the time.” And then he asked, “Where is Ozarks?”

Adam explained that he had only been referring to his grandfather’s shop in the forest on Madewell Mountain, in the state of Arkansas, which he had left five years before.

“Madewell. Is good name for cooper. Will you show me your work?”

And that was how Adam became friends with André, the great oenologist, who, when he was taken to inspect the Inglenook cooperage, demonstrated the same discrimination that made a
San Francisco Chronicle
writer once say of him, “His palate was so refined he could tell by taste whether a wine came from Rutherford dust, Oakville dirt or a furrow in between.” After Adam introduced André to his father at the shop, André later whispered to Adam, “Let me see can I not distinguish your work from your father’s,” and after inspecting several of the finished barrels he did indeed select one and say, “This one you make.” Adam had a habit of burning his initials “AM” inconspicuously onto a stave of each of his barrels, but André had not noticed that or used it as a clue to distinguishing Adam’s work from his father’s. “Miss Frances said what is truth. You are
master
cooper,” André said. “But she spoke one mistake. She said you are
her
protégé. I would like you should be
my
protégé.”

And that was how Adam escaped from his father’s control, and, in time, from his father’s house.

Part Five

Whither with her

Chapter forty-one

I
n her sixteenth year she decided to make contact with the world again. Or, she thought, what ought to be called the
other
world, since the world in which she lived, not just Adam’s haunt but her own haunt that went far beyond his, was plenty of world for her. But it had been seven or eight years—she had lost count—since she had pulled the trigger on Sugrue and thus had her last sight of another human being. She had plenty of company from nonhumans; in fact, she had too much company from Paddington, who adored her and could barely (ha!
bear
ly!) let her out of his sight, but sometimes she considered the fact that being the only human being in her world made it too easy to feel that she was the only person in the world, an incorrect and dangerous thought, a thought that allowed the more incorrect and dangerous belief that she had simply created the entire world in her imagination. She was proud of her imagination, whether it simply took the form of giving names to her pair of mourning doves, Sigh and Sue, or, as she had been doing for some time, rewriting the Bible in her mind to make the stories more interesting. She wrote a new version of creation showing that God created woman first and Eve had to wait a while for the man to show up. She attempted to tell what happened to Lot’s daughters after they had birthed their babies, and she told the story of David and Goliath from the giant’s point of view. But recreating the Bible shouldn’t be permitted to allow her to feel that she was in competition with God for creating the whole world, and she needed to get out into that world and see for herself that it contained human beings she had not created.

There was no longer any problem, really, in getting out. Over the years her explorations of the countryside, with or without Paddington or one or more of the dogs, and sometimes with Ralgrub and her offspring, had shown her several possibilities for escape. She had been as far south as the great waterfall which fell into the magical glen Adam had told her so much about, in which he had explored and found Indian relics. She had seen the treacherous place where he had fallen trying to get down, and she knew that even if she had a rope she wouldn’t want to try to get off the mountain
that
way. But her wanderings had also led her to the place where she found the crumpled, blackened remains of a vehicle, and she guessed it had been Sugrue’s truck, and climbing the bluff side above it, with Hreapha and Hrolf, who seemed to know where they were going, she had discovered the end of what little remained of the trail on which she had been brought to Madewell Mountain so long ago. She knew that if she followed that trail she could find her way down off the mountain. So momentous was the discovery that she was tempted to try it right then and there, but she was naked, as usual, and decided that if she ever encountered another human being, she would have to be clothed.

Thus, when she finally embarked upon her journey to the
other
world, it was only after substantial thought and preparation. She even considered cutting her hair, which now reached nearly to her knees, but instead she simply gave it a thorough washing and braided it into two long pigtails which she wrapped around the top of her head into a kind of crown or turban, held in place with small wooden pegs. She trimmed her fingernails with the scissors and used a knife to clean carefully under the remaining nails, then she did the same for her toenails, which had practically become claws. She considered using Sugrue’s razor to remove the hair from her legs and under her armpits but she decided that would be hypocritical if she allowed the bush of golden hair to remain around her poody, and besides, her clothing would cover her legs and armpits (and of course her poody). She donned Sugrue’s best shirt and his overalls, also freshly washed, and scarcely needed to roll up the trouser cuffs, since his clothes now fit her well. His shoes were too large, but she didn’t mind going barefoot; in fact, she preferred it. She remembered how once long ago she and Beverly had gone into her mother’s bedroom and put on her mother’s make-up, what fun it had been to pretend to be grown-up, and now that she actually was grown-up, she wished she had something to use in place of lipstick. She took the juice of pokeberries and stained her lips with that, although it wasn’t very neat, and rather purply.

Then she called for Adam and attempted to keep the condescension out of her voice, which was hard, because he was such a child, just an awkward, ignorant, backwoods kid. “Well? What do you think?” And she held her arms wide.

Holy moses,
he said.
You shore are dolled up fit to kill. Are you a-fixin to git married?

“No, I’m ‘a-fixin’ to see if I can’t find Stay More.”

You don’t mean to tell me. What for?

“Just to see what it looks like.”

Last time I looked, they wasn’t hardly nothing there to speak of.

“But I need to see whatever’s left of it. I won’t be gone long.”

We’uns will all miss ye. I’d admire to go with ye, but of course that’s right far out of my haunt.

“I’m taking Hreapha with me. I need you to explain to the others, particularly Paddington, that I haven’t abandoned them, I’ve just gone away for a day or so, however long it takes to get there and look around and get back.”

You might have to tie a rope and collar on Paddington to keep him from a-follerin ye.

“I’ll just sneak away. But I need you to tell me how long I can leave Bess without milking her.”

Well golly gee, I caint rightly say. I never heared tell of no cow that was left alone and unmilked unless she was dry anyhow.

“
Think
about it, Adam. Use your head. And let me know, soon. I’m in a hurry to get started.”

Adam needed a while to think about it. Or at least he took a while. She wondered if maybe his feelings were hurt, the way she’d spoken to him. Or possibly he simply didn’t know what to tell her but couldn’t admit it. From the time, three years before, on or around her thirteenth birthday, when Hreapha and the others had appeared herding the cow across the meadow and to the barn, Adam had told her all he knew about the care and keeping and milking of cows. He hadn’t been able to
show
her how to squeeze the teats but he had verbally described it so well that after several attempts she learned to do it, and ever since had enjoyed plenty of milk and cream and butter, with a surplus that kept the animals, especially Robert, happy. She had milked Bess for ten months of each year, nearly every day. It had never crossed her mind that there might ever be an occasion when she’d go away and not be able to milk her. Adam—or his voice—finally returned to tell her that he didn’t honestly believe it would hurt Bess any to leave her unmilked for a couple of days, or even three days at the most, although it wouldn’t be such a bad idea (Adam always pronounced that “i-dee”) to just tie Bess to her stall in the barn so that she couldn’t get out into the pasture and eat grass. That way, she wouldn’t store up too much milk. But Robin was sure she could return after a night or two away.

“Goodbye, Adam,” she said. “That’s a word that I haven’t used in a long time.”

Was he sniffling?
Promise me ye’ll come back. Don’t let nobody take ye away and keep ye.

“Don’t worry about that.”

And you be keerful on that trail. It’s bound to be the hardest hike you ever made.

Robin had fashioned herself a sort of backpack, in which she had some provisions—sandwiches, a couple of tomatoes, a couple of apples, a couple of boiled ears of corn. The backpack also contained, just in case, one hundred bills in the denomination of one hundred dollars each.

She turned to Hreapha and beckoned for her to follow, and the two of them started out. It was not easy. Adam was right that it was the hardest hike she’d ever made. It took almost an hour simply to reach the end—or the beginning—of the trail that led down the mountain, the place where Sugrue had burned his truck. To reach it, there were places where she had to boost Hreapha to get her up the sides of bluffs and out of ravines and gorges. She herself slipped and fell more than once. And even after they reached the remains of the trail, the trail itself was washed out in places and in other places extremely rocky and rough, and it wound back and forth, back and forth, as it crept down the mountain.

When at long last the trail reached the foot of the mountain and met the dirt road at a T, and the dirt road actually had the imprint of car tires in it, Robin started singing, a swelling chant of exultation at having escaped the mountain. She blinked back tears of joy. At the same time she was fearful of actually meeting somebody for the first time, of a car coming along, of her being exposed and spotted and approached and caught. Also she wasn’t sure which direction on the dirt road she should take. Her inclination was to turn left but Hreapha said “Hreapha!” and nudged Robin’s leg in the direction of turning right. From the turning Robin could see a pasture in which grazed several cows of the same color and coat as Bess, and she asked, “Is that where you got Bess?” and Hreapha wagged her tail. The owner of the cows must live nearby, she realized, but it wasn’t Stay More, not the place she wanted to go. So she heeded Hreapha’s guidance and took the road to the right, to the southeast.

Along the road that flanked the east feet of Madewell and Ledbetter Mountains, a one-lane dirt road that climbed and dipped and twisted and turned, Robin noticed a few, a very few, houses or other buildings, not one of them in use. And she encountered no traffic, no people, and the only creature she saw was a skunk crossing the road. Still, she felt a constant sense of excitement in anticipation of soon seeing an actual person.

It was late afternoon when Hreapha said “HREAPHA!” and bounded on ahead out of sight, but she soon came back, in the company of several other dogs, one of them the big shaggy fellow that Robin recognized as Yowrfrowr, and another dog that Robin also recognized but hadn’t seen for many a year: Hruschka, as well as an assortment of dogs that appeared to be Hruschka’s offspring. They were all announcing their names and busily chatting with Hreapha in dogtalk. Robin patted them one by one, and then she followed them as they led her to their home.

Robin had never seen that particular kind of log cabin before, consisting of two separate log cabins joined in between by a kind of breezeway where the people (and the dogs?) could lounge around in the open air out of the sun or rain. At the moment the only loungers were cats, and they were all over the place, in the breezeway and around the yard. Robin loved cats and wished she could go closer and admire them, but she was very nervous because obviously somebody lived here and she might soon be meeting one or more live people, and she hadn’t even given any thought to what she would say. She was scared, really.

The dogs were barking and even the cats were meowing, and soon the door leading onto the breezeway from one of the cabins opened, and an old woman stepped out. Robin’s eyesight couldn’t clearly perceive her, but she must have been eighty at least, with snow-white hair.

“Xenophon, what in tarnation is all this commotion?” the woman said, and Robin realized she was addressing Yowrfrowr. The dog continued repeating his name. Robin savored the moment of having heard a human voice for the first time in years, and although the woman was speaking sternly to her dog it was a very kind voice. Then the woman caught sight of her, and spent a long moment just studying her. Finally she said, “Why, howdy, there.”