Heroes of the Frontier Read Online Free PDF Page B

where the future was bulbous and sleek and reaching upward.
    “That yours?” the woman said, her chin giving a quick acknowledgment of the Chateau. “One night?”
    Josie confirmed one night and, in a rare burst of chattiness, asked the woman, “How you doin’ tonight?” dropping her
g
for no reason she could account for.
    “Hoping for rain,” the woman said. “Need some rain.”
    Josie nodded, not immediately understanding why—she thought of farms, crops, droughts, not knowing Alaska to be a major agricultural state, but then remembered the fires. She’d heard a radio report that day that counted at least a hundred and fifty currently burning. “Hope you get some,” Josie said, still using her new, fake accent.
    The woman charged her forty-five dollars and told Josie she could stay parked where she was, or park anywhere in the lot that suited her fancy. The entire lot was empty.
    “Breakfast at seven if you want it,” the woman added, and closed her door. When Josie returned to the Chateau, the kids were awake.
    “Did we move?” Paul asked.
    Josie explained they had moved, but left out the part about the state trooper. She couldn’t predict how the presence of any police officers would affect either child. Sometimes police made them feel safe; other times they implied the closeness of chaos and crime. More so than any other earthly threat, the kids were preoccupied with the idea of “robbers.” Every third night in their Ohio home Josie had to explain that there were no robbers in their town (there were), that they had an elaborate alarm system (they did not), that there was no remote possibility of any robber ever getting within a mile of their house (the house next door had been burglarized in the early evening, three months earlier, by a pair of meth addicts who had beaten the owner senseless with his own tennis racket).
    “Let’s go back to sleep,” she said, knowing it would not happen. Her children were hungry. Ana wanted to see the wigwam. Josie noted it was almost three a.m. and the world was asleep, but the children had no interest in that news. And so, after feeding them cold quesadillas and raw vegetables from a plastic bag, she let them watch
Tom and Jerry
en español above the cab.
    She poured herself a splash of the second pinot she’d bought in Anchorage and stared into the woods before her. She found her
Old West
magazine, turned to “Trails Grown Dim,” and found a doozy:
    “My father, Addison Elmer Hoyt, lost his genealogy book of the Hoyt family in or near Polson, Montana, about 1916—at least before World War I—and was too ill to search for it. Our family Bible shows Hoyt ancestors in Worcester, New Braintree, Massachusetts, about 1723 or earlier. The first Hoyt listed is Benjamin, born 1723, killed in the Battle of Ticonderoga. Benjamin had a son, Robert, born May 6, 1753, married to Nancy Hall, daughter of Zakius Hall and Mary Jennison Hall. After all these years do you suppose that the Hoyt book is still in existence? Possibly there were ink sketches of horses, little birds and fine penmanship in the book as Father loved to sketch and draw. He was born in Greene County, Illinois, son of Albinus Perry and Surrinda Robinette New Hoyt. I would like to hear from descendants of our lineage who are willing to share information.”
    Josie, thinking of redirecting her life to help the Hoyts, thinking of renaming herself Surrinda, climbed up to the bed over the cab. It was wide enough for three of them, though the head clearance was coffin-tight. The mattress was flimsy and the sheets and pillows smelled of mildew and dog, but she knew she would fall asleep in minutes. Ana’s face appeared, her eyes wild with disbelief, seeing this as some enormous traveling bunk-bed, and Paul followed. Josie grabbed them, tickled them, pulled them into her, wrapped her arms around them both, Ana sandwiched between her two guardians. What would that be like, Josie wondered—to know there were