Cold Quiet Country (32 page)

She turns to the kitchen. Glances back at me.

She spends a moment near her father, studying him. She finds matches in a cupboard. Rolls
The Daily Worker
, strikes a match, and holds it to three separate places on the newspaper. The flames glow fiercely, and she thrusts the paper to the curtains.

I enter the house again. I’m hungry and won’t have food for I don’t know how long. It’s absurd and comical—entering a burning house for a sandwich. Fire swells to our side. Smoke rolls above our heads. I open the refrigerator.

“You know how to drive that truck outside? In a blizzard?” I look to the refrigerator’s shelves as the air thickens with smoke.

“Tires have chains and there’s four bags of sand in the bed. I packed everything we need to treat your wounds.” She stops cold. “What? What’s that look?”

I step away from the refrigerator with a block of cheese wrapped in plastic. “I’m not going with you to Monroe.”

I see where Gale and his tramp girlfriend parked. I switch off my headlights and crawl closer in moonlight. Park on the road and approach on foot.

I know that filly, Liz Sunday. Brown mane thrown back, eyes bolt open, nostrils wide. Ran into her last fall a few days after she ditched school with Gwen. Couldn’t help notice the size of them thighs, and imagine their strength. Got a rack on her, too. Wide and heavy—enough to make a man want to get familiar. I pulled beside her in the Bronco. Told her to get in. She had her shoulders hunched over a single textbook and took small steps. Any girl old enough for freckles knows how to fake the cotton pony.

“I’m not well.”

“Sheriff tells you to get in the truck, that’s a lawful command.”

She climbed inside.

“You’re the Sunday girl. That your daddy? The communist?”

She watched the glove box.

“Whoring around, skipping school. You’re going nowhere fast. You want to break rules, you’d best learn to please the men who make them.”

She swallowed.

“You got problems in school. I might smooth things over. Superintendent’s a friend of mine. A good friend. But you miss two weeks of the year and skip days here and there like I saw you the other week…all that makes things difficult. Maybe you and me can work together.”

She squinted.

“I might be inclined to help, if we was to get familiar with one another.”

“Familiar.”

“That’s right. Come over here. You’ve done oral work, I take it?”

“What the hell does that mean?”

I judged her with a stern look. She judged me right back. I pulled her shoulder. She wrenched away. “You know how to use your mouth. Get the fuck over here.”

“No—God help me!”

She swiped for the door handle. I grabbed her wrist and yanked ’til she stopped pulling.

“You’re in real stiff trouble. I’m going to give you some tough love, so you might learn to get on in a town like Bittersmith. ‘God help me.’ How old are you?”

She wrinkled her brow. Jutted her chin. Looked out the windshield.

“Something you’ve got to learn, and I’m going to break this down simple, and only say it once. This is all you got to know the rest of your days. There is no higher law. You can’t appeal to God, because nobody believes in him but you.
God help me
. You can’t trust your neighbor’s goodwill. You can’t even trust your father. He’s a fuckin’ pervert. I know all about that pinko son of a bitch—raised an uppity girl for damn sure. The only way you’re going to enjoy your wretched-ass life is to accept the rules. God don’t have a goddamn thing to do with it. So fuck your attitude. Fuck God. Drag your ass over here and suck.”

I gave her a chance. I let go her arm and she bolted. I watched her run down the sidewalk, period and all.

I’ll enjoy getting reacquainted.

I walk up the Sunday drive. A snowmobile is parked in the stretch between the barn and the house. A truck sits nearby. Both the barn and house got a light on. I watch the glow in the kitchen window and before long, shadows move inside. Murderous thug like G’Wain wouldn’t think twice about planting a bullet in a man’s back. Twenty yards out I stop, waiting ’til I see both of them.

Instead Liz Sunday steps to the glass and holds a flaming wand to the curtain. I don’t give a shit for the communist’s house, but these kids have a habit of burning bodies. Three sandwiches and a half-thermos of coffee, I’m feeling my oats. I run. Maybe too fast, without thinking.

The door is open. I come straight at it and the picture resolves. The man on the floor is Sunday. Got a puddle of brain noodles all around his shoulders.

G’Wain’s on the far side of the kitchen, turned to the side, got a pistol in his holster and his hand hanging loose. Gunslinger holds a lump of cheese while the house burns. Twenty feet out, I stop and line the sights on his head. I squeeze the trigger. My Smith & Wesson jumps and Liz Sunday steps into view. She drops the burning paper. She lifts her open hands to her chest. Panic pales her face. I shift left. Fire again.

G’Wain spins. Ducks away.

I shot the damned girl. I shot that big-titted Liz.

I follow my Smith & Wesson barrel to the door. The flames chew both curtains and lick at the ceiling. I see Liz’s knees and wonder if she’d gotten down on them, would any of this have been any different?

“You don’t have time for a gunfight, Gale! Put the rifle on the floor and come outside. This is the law speaking.”

I fire again, into the flames.

* * *

Liz fell toward the hallway. The front door remains open. I glance at her father as if he lifted his dead pistol-arm and shot her, but the blast came from outside. I jump back. Another shot cracks by and I see the muzzle flash.

Bittersmith.

I reel back, lose my balance. He would have had me, but Liz stepped in his way. He’s waiting. He’s been after me all day, and I’ve been after him six months. His path is maddeningly direct and mine is woven between the lives of girls and perverts. He’s biding his time until I check Liz. I choke on smoke. Flames curl from wall to ceiling and leap at the other wall. Orange spreads exponentially. Everywhere. I fire my pistol through the open doorway.

“I’m coming for you, boy!”

“You’ll feel at home!”

I fire again and step closer to Liz. Fire again. I kneel beside her, take in the pool of blood, the glaze on her motionless eyes, the stillness of her chest. She’s gone, and though I don’t know if she’s going to heaven or hell I wish for a moment I had time to eulogize her. She didn’t choose to be bad.

Bittersmith fires through the door and the kitchen window shatters. “You’re going to die in that fire, ’less you come out now!”

I can barely hear him above the roaring flames.

“I’ll take you to the station. We’ll talk!”

“You into boys too, you prick?”

I continue firing and lurch to the hallway where the fire hasn’t yet ignited everything into a swirling orange maelstrom. The hallway feels like an august afternoon, but it will soon be hell. I point the pistol back toward the door, squeeze the trigger, feel an impotent click on my fingertip. I chuck the pistol and duck below heavy smoke.

Bittersmith would be a fool to wait at the front of the house. There are doors end of the hall on the left and right, and one on each side. Each is closed. I don’t know which is escape and which is Bittersmith.

I grab a broom leaning in the corner, hang my coat over the handle. Crouched low, I open the first door on my left and ease the silhouette-maker into the opening. Bittersmith does not shoot. Fire broils my back. I close the door, open the opposite, a bathroom, and flames lurch closer. I shift the broom and coat into the doorway. No response. I cough like to exhale three organs. I slam the door. At the end of the hallway, I throw open the door on the left. Mucus and spit hang from my jaw. My eyes burn and no amount of blinking soothes them. I shift the broom, but before it enters the opening a window shatters and a firearm barks.

“I got you covered! You’re going to die, you murdering son of a whore!”

I swing the door closed. Grab my coat and rush back down the hall toward the kitchen. The fire halts my advance. The heat is unbearable. I reverse to the bathroom, burst through the door, crawl inside. Another shot zips above me. I toss my coat into the bathtub and turn on the water. It splashes for five seconds and my coat is soaked. I drape it over my head, toss water to my face, my pants.

I can’t escape the premonition that I’m going to die in this fire. For the first time, I want to curse God. For putting me here, for giving me this mission and abandoning me in flames. I want to blaspheme; I want to say I’m on my own; I want to relinquish my faith as God has forsaken me. But biting my tongue brings clarity. I am not evil. I must not quit.

I’ll continue on my own and meet up with God later.

The flames have overtaken the hallway. Smoke pours into the bathroom. A bullet smashes through the window—rips my coat, creases my skin—and flames advance in an orange-black tornado.

My heart thuds. I see Guinevere. Red-faced. Ashamed and broken. I see hair stuck to her temple with tears. I leap into the hallway and for a split second my face is cool from damp air. I feel relief. This isn’t hot—

And then every inch of my body screams. I can’t breathe. Each step is a battle. I crash into the table. Trip on Sunday’s dead shoulders. My lungs are about to burst and my face feels about to ignite. I reach the front door and gulp brittle air. I’m steaming and dripping and expecting a bullet. The porch is dry. Breathing air is like biting ice. I hurry toward the barn over melted snow and mottled grass. I have to get cover before Bittersmith circles to the front of the house. How much time before he thinks of the barn?

The light is on in the top bay. I rush inside as a bullet smacks into a timber at my side. I have a minute. Maybe two.

In the center of the barn hangs a recently slaughtered hog. The carcass is hoisted high, as if Sunday feared roving animals. The blood that has dripped to the floor will surely bring coyotes. I glance at the workbench on the right side of the bay, below a hayloft, and thrill at recognizing the tools of slaughter—a bell scraper, hooks, knives—but they are useless. No small handgun like Burt Haudesert used, no grease pencil to draw the X.

I search the other tools. There’s a scythe on nails, a rake, a pitchfork. I study it. A pry bar—I could pull up a floorboard. I spin, look around. Haylofts above. If I could climb I could topple a dozen bales on Bittersmith. But he’ll arrive in a minute. There’s a hay chute a dozen feet away for a quick drop to the lower level. Back to the bench. Ropes, a set of tire chains. Screwdrivers and even a rusted chisel. Vise grips.

I feel like Judas looking at a tree over a cliff, and wonder if the best way to meet up with God is to get it over with.

* * *

That fuckin’ redheaded squirt jailbroke the house and made it to the barn. If he takes off through the snow, I’ll hound him to hell.

The barn’s got a yellow bulb shining sharp against darkness that covers the farm, the fields, the hill. The door is part open. I walk until I can see inside. G’Wain stands below the light. His face is pale. His hands hang at his sides and from the bottom of the slope, I can’t see what’s in them. He sees me and nods like he wants a palaver.

I stop and reload my Smith & Wesson. My fingers are cold. My arms are heavy. I drop a shell and leave it in the snow. Finished, I keep the pistol in my right hand. I face the barn and walk, but glance side to side. It wasn’t a mile from here that Burt met his end, and Gwen too, back in the woods.

I climb the slope. Gale’s hands are empty. As if reading my mind he rotates his wrists and shows me palms. Probably has a pistol tucked behind his back. His eyes are steady and the bulb overhead makes his brow sharp as a ploughshare.

I point my Smith & Wesson. It’s over for Gale G’Wain.

“You raped my mother.”

I pull back the hammer.

“Nineteen fifty-one. She was just passing through.”

“Oh, you want a conversation? Bodies all over. Gwen. Burt. Deputies and militiamen. Even shot the town Commie. Now you’re too chickenshit to face the music.”

“You raped my mother.”

He’s too cool. “Turn around. Let me see your back.”

Keeping his left foot planted and his arms away from his body, he pivots. He favors his leg and one arm shakes. No pistol stowed at his back; no knife. Nothing.

“Put your arms down. Turn around.”

He drops his arms and faces me.

I ought to shoot him. Lord knows I ought to blow his head off. It’d be an abrogation of duty to let him live. I hold the gun on him and my hand wavers. My arm is lead. I squeeze slow and try to time it so the sights are on Gale when the pistol goes off.

Nothing doing. My Smith & Wesson jumps, but Gale G’Wain don’t.

Closer. I won’t miss with the barrel at his forehead. I cross the threshold into the barn and the sounds change but the air is still crisp. Between us is the hitch-end of a rusted harrow, a Frisbee-sized dribble of blood from a suspended hog, and a foot away, a long clump of hay from a busted bale.

He stares like a judge. I step closer. Glance up at the hog.

He’s killed half of Bittersmith and thinks he’s going to turn himself in? Something ain’t right. G’Wain shifts and I look at his legs, his boots, and the rope below his left heel. He watches my eyes. The rope runs from his foot and disappears under the workbench. Seems to reemerge at the joist above, and stretches across the trusses, and concludes at the hog dangling in the air between us.

I snort, can’t help it. He thinks he’s my son, but any boy of mine would know better than to try to use a hog for a deadfall.

“I ain’t your father.”

He’s silent.

“You said I had your mother and that’s even odds. But you surely didn’t come out of it.”

G’Wain’s a scrappy little son of a bitch, and the wounds…he’s got a limp just standing there. Stiff like he’s full of bullet holes and it’s all he can do to keep from falling over. Yet he stands. He’s tough—I’ll hand him that—but he ain’t clever enough to be my blood. Rope out in the open. A hog!