Runaway Dreams Read Online Free Page B

wife and him
    coming here in the late summer of 1949
    fresh off failed farmland outside of Milton
    and determined to find waters like those
    he fished as a boy in Finland and laughs
    and tells me about pike longer than his arm
    pulled out of the Ruunaa Rapids
    and how this country here takes him back
    even the smell of it he says and that’s why
    they come to build a fishing lodge here
    because the Nipigon River runs like the
    River Lieksanjoki of his youth and “by god
    we got brook trout break da goddam arm sometimes”
    Â 
    he tells of building the lodge on the rocks
    above a wide bend in the river
    and how his wife came to love the feel
    of the wind on her face those nights
    when the work was done and she’d sit
    in the willow rocker he built her
    set under the eaves on the rough-hewn deck
    and sing him Finnish folk songs
    while he sat drinking tea and staring
    out across the sweep of land
    that reminded him so much of home
    until one by one the stars winked
    into view and they would move into the house
    to lie awake to watch the moon shadow
    creep across the log walls until sleep came and swept
    them both away to Kuopio and the waters
    they still loved as much as these
    Â 
    Anna-Liisa he says quietly and rubs
    at the corner of an eye before he speaks again
    she passed away three years before I met him
    and he talks of laying her to rest
    beneath the towering pines that hung
    above the cleft of pink granite where
    she planted wildflowers in the cracks and crevices
    and he set that old willow rocker on those rocks
    so he could go out of an evening and sit
    and talk to her and sing old Finnish folk songs
    while he watched the sun go down
    â€œit’s her land now by god” he says
    â€œand my land too because of where she sleeps”
    and there’s nothing I can say but nod and smoke
    and stare at the Nipigon River rushing south
    beyond the peninsula and out into
    the broad purple dream of Lake Superior
    we ate sardines and crackers and drank warm ale
    in the cab of that beat-up truck
    and he asked me questions about myself
    that I didn’t hold the answers to and he
    would nod his head and rub the dashboard
    in small gentle circles with the pad
    of one finger and smile sadly
    â€œI come here to find myself” he said
    â€œand it was not even yet my home
    and here it’s been yours all along
    and still we make the same journey”
    he dropped me off outside of Thunder Bay
    in the chill and wet of morning
    handed me thirty crumpled dollars
    and said “come back and work by god”
    and waved and drove away for food
    supplies and a host of Finnish friends
    and I stood alone
    on the shoulder of another deserted highway
    waiting, that summer of ’74, and wishing
    that I might make it back someday but
    both of us knowing
    that I never would
    Â 
    Â 
    III
    in Shebandowan the miners drive
    their Cats into town to drink
    with Ojibway kids
    on the run from Kaministiquia
    or Shabaqua or Atitkokan
    roll them cigarettes one-handed
    tell them horror stories of the mines
    then let them win at pool
    so they can get them drunk and laugh
    Â 
    there’s something about a D8 Cat
    that gives a man a sense of power
    and maybe that’s what they chase
    so they don’t have to think
    of home and women and kids
    or ordinary shit like that
    they drink as they live
    hard and fast, two-fisted
    as if they could blow the foamy head
    from all the tomorrows
    and never heed the darkness
    that walks with them
    in the depths
    instead they sit and drink and cuss
    arm wrestle and brag
    and leer at the Indian girls
    until someone hollers “squaw”
    and the fight breaks out
    Â 
    well, I heard all their stories
    then I drank their beer for nothing
    before kicking ass at pool
    and thumbing out of town
    with a pocketful of their money
    Â 
    Â 
    IV
    Riding out of Elkhorn with a gang of transients in the back of
    a stake truck after stooking wheat for ten days in the