Chapter 14
IN THE house she slept, and when she woke the sun was red falling west and everybody wanted food. She splashed her face at the kitchen sink, dried on a crusted towel. A pot full of odd-looking food she could not name sat on the stove, a creation of the boys from the supper before. It smelled like soup but looked like bloodied mashed potatoes. Mom was in her rocker clutching a wooden spoon and the boys sat wrapped in quilts watching television, a public TV gardening show offering tips on how best to grow row upon row of spiffy plants you never got to eat.
“Hey,” she said, “what is it in this pot on the stove?”
Harold came to her, quilt over his head, face peeking out. He looked into the pot, sniffed, puckered and frowned.
“That was supper,” he said. “Me’n Sonny made it when you never came home. Mom reckoned we cooked it too much.”
“What is it?”
“Basketti.”
“That’s what that is? How’d you make it?”
“Tomato soup and noodles.”
“Looks awful gluey. You boil them noodles separate, or in the soup?”
“In the soup. Why mess two pots?”
“That ain’t how you make basketti. You boil the noodles separate.”
“But that way you got two pots to wash.”
Ree pinched his cheek, opened the cupboard, shoved the few cans around, then said, “I don’t think I can save that glop with nothin’ we got. Toss it behind the shed.”
Ree set the big black skillet on the stove and sparked a flame. She pulled the bacon grease can from the bottom shelf of the fridge and scooped a cup or two into the skillet. She cleaned potatoes and onions, chopped them, and dropped them hissing into the fat. She salted and peppered and the smell ranged to the front room, called Sonny to the kitchen.
Sonny said, “I could eat that much myself.”
“Take this and flip ’em when—”
Quick steps on the porch and the door flew open and Blond Milton stood there pointing at her. He said, “You know, there’s people goin’ ’round sayin’ you best shut up.” Blond Milton was a grandfather in age but not in manner, square-shouldered and flat-bellied, fair-haired with ruddy skin, and generally wore fancy cowboy shirts over starched jeans ironed into a stiff crease. He was most always shaved clean, barbered, talced, smelling of bay rum and armed with two pistols. “People you oughta listen to, too.” He held the door open and waved for her to follow him outside. She grabbed her coat and met him on the porch and he flung her down the steps onto the scree of ice that had fallen from the eaves during the day. “Get up’n get your ass in the truck. Get your ass in there.”
Harold and Sonny stood in the doorway watching as she pulled herself to her feet. Harold had his mouth open and Sonny had his eyes narrowed. He stepped forward and said, “You don’t get to hit my sister.”
“Druther I hit you, Sonny? ’Cause I will if you want.”
“Boys! Go back in, boys. Cook those taters ’til they brown. Cook ’em brown, Harold, then be sure to turn the fire off. Go on.”
Sonny came down two steps, said, “Nobody gets to hit my sister who ain’t her brother.”
Blond Milton fairly beamed looking at his seed Sonny standing there defiant with fists balled and jaw set. He smiled a twisty proud smile, then stepped over and swatted Sonny flush in the face with an open hand. The swat knocked Sonny to his rump. Blond Milton said, “Balls is good, Sonny, but don’t let ’em make you into a idiot.”
Bubbles of blood puffed from Sonny’s nostrils and burst to speck his lips.
Ree said, “Dad’d kill you for that.”
“Shit, I whipped your daddy about twice a year since he was a kid.”
“You never whipped him as a man inyour life! Not when he wasn’t too fucked up to punch.”
Blond Milton grabbed her by the coat sleeve, pulled her toward his truck.
“Get your dumb ass in there. I got someplace to show you.”
He drove fast on the rut road, turned west on the blacktop. His bay rum smell filled the cab and Ree cracked a window. The truck was a big white Chevy with a red camper shell. There was a mattress in the shell. Blond Milton drove a truck with a mattress in the camper shell but he never went camping and his wife hated the very idea of the truck but never said so to him. He ran a crew of pot farmers and crank cooks that often included Jessup, always had cash, and folks said he was the Dolly who’d years before stepped forward and shot the two Gypsy Jokers who’d come south from Kansas City figuring their loud scary biker reputations would let them muscle in on the yokels and take control.
“Where’re we goin’?”
“Down the road.”
“Down the road to where?”
“To somewhere you need to see.”
They drove past deep woodlands and ranges of snow. The sun was behind the hills, the last western light made a sky of four blues, and the gaunt trees on the high ridges were stark in relief. Crows sat on limbs and looked like black buttons on twilight.
Just beyond the one-lane bridge across Egypt Creek, Blond Milton gunned the truck up a washboard rise and along a crooked lane. He drove until he reached the drive to a house in the near distance, then parked. The house had burned. Three walls and part of the roof still stood, but the walls were blackened and the roof was blown open in the center with sections slanted away in every direction.
Ree said, “What’re you parkin’ here for? Man, I ain’t gettin’ back there in that camper!”
“You think I’m wantin’ to fuck you?”
“If you are, you’ll be fuckin’ me dead! That’s the only way.”
“Jesus, but you’re sure ’nough twelve to the dozen, know it? Just quit kickin’ a minute and listen.” Blond Milton turned to face her. “Why I parked here is to show you that house.” Dark was near full but the snowscape had caught and held light, so the house remained visible. “That right there’s the last place me or anybody seen Jessup. The other fellas went off doin’ things’n when they got back that’s what they got back to, only it still had fire goin’.”
Ree looked at the ruined house, the splintered roof, charred wood, walls licked black by flame.
“He never blew no lab before.”
“I know it. But somethin’ musta jumped wrong this time.”
“He’s known for never fuckin’ up labs nor cookin’ bad batches. He’s known for knowin’ what he’s doin’.”
“You cook long enough, this’s bound to happen.”
Ree opened the door, lowered one foot, said, “You sayin’ Dad’s in there burnt to a crisp?”
“I’m sayin’ that’s the last place me or anybody else seen him. That’s what I’m tellin’ you.”
She stepped out, eyes on the house, boots in snow.
“I’m goin’ up for a look.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa! No, you ain’t! Get back in here. That shit’s all poison, girl. Toxic. It’ll eat the skin clean off your bones and wilt the bones, too. It’ll turn your lungs to paper sacks and tear holes in ’em. Don’t you get nowheres near that fuckin’ house.”
“If Dad’s in there dead, I’m collectin’ him and carryin’ him home to bury.”
“Stay the hell away from that house!”
The snow on the drive to the house was unmarked by boot or hoof or claw. Ree hustled up the slight rise, glancing backwards at Blond Milton. He did not give chase and she slowed. She kept at a distance from the walls, began circling in the pure snow. One wall had flown into the yard. Windows had exploded and the frames dangled, blackened with glass fingers clinging. The charred wood smelled. There were other acrid smells. She circled through snowdrifts to the back. There was a trash pile topped with a cap of snow. Big brown glass jugs, cracked funnels, white plastic bottles, garden hose. She edged slowly between the trash pile and the house. She could see well enough. The kitchen sink had snagged on floorboards falling through to dirt and the curved faucet poked up amidst the blackened wood. Horseweed turned white stood chin-high in the f
loorboard holes. There were humps of ash where furniture had been. A round wall clock had cooked black and fallen in the heat to become puddled across the stovetop. The stove was wedged partway down a hole in the floor and… horseweed. Horseweed turned white stood chin-high in the floorboard holes.
Ree eased back from the house, whirled on her heels, and walked briskly to Blond Milton.
“We can get.”
“You did right to not go in there.”
“You showed me the place’n we can get now.”
“It’s always a bad deal when these things blow. Jessup’n me maybe had our tussles, but he was my first cousin still. I’ll see whatever I can do for you.”
She did not speak all the way home. She gouged herself to keep from speaking. She counted barns to keep from speaking, counted fence posts, counted vehicles that were not pickup trucks. She bit her lips and clamped with her teeth, counting for distraction while faintly tasting blood.
Blond Milton took the rut road that led to his side of the creek. He parked near the three houses. They got out and stood beside the truck. He said, “I know losin’ Jessup leaves you-all hurtin’ over there. I know it’s a lot to handle. Too much, probably.”
“We’ll make do.”
“Me’n Sonya talked about it’n we feel we could take Sonny off your hands. Not Harold, I don’t reckon, but we’d take Sonny. We could help you that much.”
“You what?”
“We could take Sonny for you and raise him up the rest of the way.”
“My ass, you will.”
“Watch your mouth with me, girl. We’d raise the boy way better’n you’n that momma of yours can, that’s for certain sure. Maybe on down the line we’d take Harold, too.”
Ree started walking fiercely toward the narrow footbridge. He snatched at her arm from behind but she spun away. On the flat bridge she paused and called, “You son of a bitch. You go straight to hell’n fry in your own lard. Sonny’n Harold’ll die livin’ in a fuckin’ cave with me’n Mom before they’ll ever spend a single fuckin’ night with you. Goddam you, Blond Milton, you must think I’m a stupid idiot or somethin’—there’s horseweed standin’ chin-high inside that place!”
Chapter 15
REE SLAMMED the door behind herself and stomped past the boys, clomping loudly to the closet in her own room. She reached behind the rank of skirts and dresses hanging, into the far hidden corner, and retrieved two long guns. She dropped boxes of shells into a pocket of Mamaw’s coat. She cradled the guns in her arms, jerked her head at the watching boys, and led them to the side porch. She turned on the porch light and rested the weapons upright against the rail, then began to load them.
“I wasn’t sure just when you boys’d need to know about shootin’, but I think maybe now it’s time you do. Now’s when you boys start learnin’ how to shoot guns at what needs shootin’. Throw some cans’n stuff out on that slope there. Set ’em up standin’ so they’ll keel over when you hit ’em.”
Sonny and Harold bounced to it with glee. They rooted eagerly in the trash heap and started arranging targets on the slope of snow. The bright porch light laid long menacing shadows behind the targets.
She said, “No bottles. The glass’ll wash down to the yard in spring’n I’ll be doctorin’ your feet all goddam summer. Just cans or plastic, stuff like that.”
One gun was a double-barreled 20 gauge, a strikingly handsome heirloom shotgun with a creamy blond stock. The other was an old and abused .22 rifle with a busted stock put back together by brass screws, a semi-automatic that held sixteen shorts. Ree’d learned to shoot on these very weapons, trained in the fields by Dad, and had a deep fondness for them because of that. The shotgun was the prettiest thing she owned and she’d used it to take rabbits, dove, and quail. The .22 was for harvesting squirrels from trees or frogs from ponds and plunking armadillos rooting holes in the yard.
She held the shotgun, said, “This trigger shoots this barrel, this one shoots this one. There’s hardly goin’ to be any time ever when you need both barrels at once, but if what you got to shoot is somethin’ big’n mean, pull ’em both and splatter the fuckin’ thing. For these cans’n stuff, though, just shoot one barrel at a time.”
She started them both on the shotgun. She steadied their arms and guided their fingers on the trigger. Snow jumped where they shot and each blast rocked the shooter backwards.
“You think you can’t miss with a shotgun, but you can. You still gotta aim good.”
Harold said, “Holy cow, that’s loud!”
“Uh-huh, it is kind of, ain’t it?”
The boys shot hell out of the snowy slope. They exploded cans, milk cartons, boxes, and each explosion tossed snow and dirt briefly aloft and scattered. They shot boom-boom, plink-plink-plink, and the scent of shooting spread on the wind. Ree made suggestions, patted heads, loaded weapons. She counted shells and kept the boys shooting until but a handful for each gun remained.
“That’s it,” she said. She spread her arms in the night and nodded while inhaling the smell of shooting. “We’ve raised enough ruckus for now.”
Sonny walked to the slope and began to boot the blasted targets. He stomped shot cans flat and kicked shot boxes into the dark, doing a short hop from one victim to the next, humming as his pounding feet finished the wounded.
“Man, that shootin’ is major fun!” Harold said.
“It can be.”
“When do we get to do it more?”
“I’ll try’n get shells at Bawbee pretty soon.”
Sonny paused in the middle of a stomp, looked toward the side of the house and suddenly moved that way.
“Hey, who’s that comin’?”
Ree stepped from the porch with the shotgun at her side and Harold followed, toting the rifle. The crunch of oncoming footsteps carried. A bent-over shape was slowly edging around the house into the side yard, hoisting something bulky.
The shape saw Ree and the boys and the weapons, halted, tried to raise its arms but could not raise the bulky thing overhead, and said, “Goddam, Sweet Pea! It’s just me’n my baby! What in blue blazes is everybody doin’ with a gun out over here?”
On hearing that voice Ree broke her tense stride and ran joyously to Gail’s side. She held the shotgun swaying low and leaned to kiss the crown of Gail’s head. She snorted, laughed, gave a joshing shove, and said, “I knew you wouldn’t eat shit long. I know you good enough to know that. I knew you’d get back to yourself’n show up for me. I just knew.”
Gail touched her free hand to the shotgun and raised the barrel until it pointed at the sky. She said, “What on earth gives?”
Chapter 16
A PICNIC OF words fell from Gail’s mouth to be gathered around and savored slowly. Ree’s feelings could stray from now and drift to so many special spots of time in her senses when listening to that voice, the perfect slight lisp, the wet tone, that soothing hillfolk drawl. She nodded and nodded, drifting while absently forking fried potatoes straight from the black skillet. She paused with the fork stalled midway between her mouth and the frying pan.
Gail went on, “He told me he wanted to go check his deer stand—you believe that baloney? In all this snow’n icy mess he decides along toward dark he’s just gotta drive out to Lilly Ridge right now’n look at his stinkin’ ol’ deer stand. Again.” Gail sat on a kitchen chair and Ned lay on the table, restful inside a plastic baby carrier that had a thin swinging handle. A big soft blue bag with a shoulder strap sat on the floor, full of baby stuff. “I know when he says deer stand it means he’s gone over to fuck Heather. Where else could he be goin’? Ain’t nobody needs to check on their deer stand twice a week. At night. Sayin’ deer stand just means… It’s her who was his girlfriend forever. It’s her who he really loves. It’s her who he wants. I’m just what he’s got.”
The fork reached Ree’s mouth and she swallowed while sighing. She squirted more ketchup on the brown leavings stuck to the skillet bottom, scraped. She said, “I think he got awfu
l lucky to get you, Sweet Pea. I always have thought that.”
“He loves Heather. Me’n Ned’s just the booby prizes he’s stuck with instead of what he wanted.” Gail raised her head, shrugged, then snickered. “But Floyd’s not all that mean, really, he’s just a liar who don’t bother to come up with lies you can swallow.”
“Those kinds of liars are the worst. They’re lyin’ to you’n callin’ you stupid in the same breath, with the same words.”
“I know, I know, but piss on him and his stinkin’ deer stand, anyhow—how goes it with your troubles?”
Ree licked her fork shiny and dropped it into the skillet, wiped her lips with two fingers. She flapped a hand toward the boys, shook her head, said, “I don’t want to say while we’re sittin’ here.”
“Still need to get down to Reid’s Gap?”
“Yup. That might be the one last place worth checkin’.”
Gail raised a key ring and jingled it while grinning. She said, “Got the in-laws’ old truck.”
Ree brightened and smiled and said, “You are who I always did think you were, Sweet Pea. You truly are.” She bent over and began to unlace her boots. “Let me get dry socks on’n we’ll head out.”
The boys watched television, some masterpiece show about dandies with fancy stagecoaches and houses like castles and different accents. Mom sat in her rocker staring at the baby with alarm, pondering wretchedly, tired face riffling between shimmers of suspicion and guilt, as though trying hard to recollect if maybe she could’ve birthed yet another little bundle who’d somehow already slipped from memory. Gail snacked on animal crackers from a small box in the blue bag. She studied Mom’s face as she chewed. She reached to pat Mom on the arm, get her attention.