Cold Quiet Country (6 page)

Jars of noodles, jars with oats, and one with rice lined the counter. A breadbox next to the coffee pot almost spilled rolls and cinnamon bread. It was like a chef had been in the house cooking all the time. There were cookies inside a jar and the refrigerator had cheese and salami and bacon—the bacon cooked and cold inside Tupperware—and there was a full jug of milk and six-pack of Coca-Cola cans. I stood with the refrigerator air pouring over me, my stomach as tight as a ball of rubber bands, and I couldn’t reach for any of it. I stood, and after minutes not being able to do anything, turned back.

It wasn’t fear of Mister Sharps that kept me true. I knew if I was caught I’d be tied to a flagpole and flogged, but I didn’t believe I’d be caught.

After watching from inside the screen door until I was sure Schuckers was still in the barn, I rejoined the boys.

“Where’s the food? Why didn’t you bring any back? What’d you eat in there?”

“Nothing,” I said.

“Liar.”

I didn’t say anything to that. Schuckers was still in the barn and two minutes hadn’t passed when Murph threw down his scythe and ran to the house. He was inside a long while. I watched the house and then kept the lookout in case Schuckers came out, but I didn’t have any way to warn Murph that wouldn’t give me away.

I ran into the house and didn’t stop at the porch.

“Hey, you! Redpants!”

I raced down the hallway to the kitchen and it was empty. Off to the side was a coatroom with another door. I crossed into it. Through the window I saw Murph slinking back toward the field, arms full of spoils, waiting his opportunity to cross the open stretch and rejoin the others.

I didn’t see the use in escape, since Schuckers had already seen me enter the house. At that tenderfoot age I didn’t consider any natural advantage to being outside with an angry man rather than behind closed walls. I stood my ground at the corner of Schuckers’s kitchen, hands open and up slightly, clearly empty. The screen door out front slammed. I swallowed. Boot steps down the hallway. Schuckers was awful big or the house was awful small.

“What you doin’, boy?”

“Nothin’.”

“Uh-huh.”

Schuckers strode to me, took my hand like it held something invisible that he could render visible by peering close, then tossed my hand aside. Agitated even more, he opened the refrigerator.

“Where’s the salami meat? Where’s my smoked cheddar? Hunh?”

He slammed the refrigerator door and glass jingled. He swooped to the cookie jar and held it upside down above the counter. Crumbs fell. He threw open the breadbox, and the cinnamon rolls were gone.

He glared at me.

“What?”

“Which one of you hoodlums was it?”

“Which hoodlum what?”

He nodded, dragged a chair from the table so its rear legs squawked, threw his leg over it, and said, “Sit.”

I stood beside the table. Our eyes were level.

“Take a chair, Red. I know you didn’t steal from me.”

I pulled a chair and shifted sideways onto it, with my butt on the corner so I could run.

“Are you hungry, Red? Is that why you came inside?”

I shook my head.

“If I gave you some of that pie in the refrigerator or ice cream from the freezer, you wouldn’t be interested in that?”

I swallowed and he said, “Ah! Let’s work together, right? You get up and walk around this kitchen. Do it now. Stand up! Open the refrigerator!”

I stared and he nodded, urged me toward the refrigerator. I opened the door and the cool air looked like a person’s breath in the winter.

“See anything you’d like? Take anything you want.”

Inside was all manner of foods, and every one looked tastier than the last time I looked. I thought about Mister Sharps, about Murph, and about the rules. Dogs fight over a scrap of bone, and it doesn’t matter which dog you give it to, the others will steal it. I never wanted to be like that. I’d rather be hungry. Though the refrigerator was chock-full and all the smells made my mouth water, Schuckers had tied a deal to the food. I would have to sell out Murph.

I bolted.

Schuckers was on one side of the table; I leaped around the other. The back door stuck and Schuckers glanced my shoulder. The door popped open and the edge clonked his head and he fell back far enough for me to get through. I sprinted to the field, hiding among seven-foot stalks before Schuckers came cursing after me. I was going to get a beating—a deserved one—but it takes a just man to give a just beating.

It took until nightfall to hike back to the Youth Home. I went directly to Mister Sharps for my punishment. Mrs. Sharps answered the door and led me inside to his study. He made me stand in front of his desk and report what I’d done. I began my confession at the beginning.

“The other boys corroborate what you’ve said, so far,” Mister Sharps said. “But you didn’t mention why you ran back into the house.”

“No reason.”

Mister Sharps looked at his fingernails. “Gale, Murph came clean about the food he stole.”

I kept with the story without a lapse from that point. I didn’t leave out how good that cheese smelled, and how sweet those cookies looked with their chocolate morsels. The more I spoke, the sicker Mister Sharp looked. When I was done telling how I got away from Schuckers, and that I just now returned to the Youth Home after walking all those miles, Mister Sharp backed from his desk.

“You understand what you did was wrong?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How was it wrong?”

“I went into the house without Mister Schuckers being there. I was thinking about stealing from him.”

“That’s right. You went in to steal. You were hungry, yes?”

“Yes, sir.”

Mister Sharps walked to the black paddle hanging from a nail on his wall.

“The world is slow to forgive even a hungry thief, Gale,” he said. “Slow indeed.” He pulled a book from a shelf and passed it to me. “I commend your integrity. Your restraint. But you entered the man’s house, and that must be punished.”

I nodded. So far he’d only walked to the paddle and left his arms at his side. I caught a ray of hope from his tone, but I had a whompin’ due.

Mister Sharps lifted the paddle from its nail and said, “Hands on the desk.”

I placed the book on the edge and braced against the side. He stood beside me so close I smelled tobacco smoke on his jacket. I waited and it didn’t come, and then he whapped my backside like to drive that paddle straight through me. Though I was prepared to be a man, I bleated like a lamb.

“Have you learned your lesson from this affair?”

“Yes, sir.” My behind was on fire.

“Then come with me.”

I followed him out of his study. His house was a small thing—smaller than Schuckers’s, but tidy. Mrs. Sharps was a stern old bird who stared into the television as Mister Sharps marched me past her into his kitchen. I knew she knew I’d just been punished and the shame of it burned worse than my backside.

“I’m to understand all you had to eat today was your morning oatmeal and two eggs for lunch?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Why don’t you take a seat?”

“I didn’t want to be bad,” I said.

When the one who has the right and authority to punish you tells you to take a seat and receive his blessings—my eyes swam in water and my belly opened up and I was so grateful and hungry all I did was stand there with my face dripping until he put his hand on my shoulder.

“You’re a good boy, Gale. You’re a fine young man. Won’t you sit for some supper?”

* * *

I never went to Schuckers’s again. None of us did.

Now I’m in another man’s kitchen looking at food that isn’t mine, holding a candle I found in a cupboard and lit with a match from the hearth. I carry the tiny flame into a closet and behold shelves of soups and staples. If the man who owned the house was here, surely he wouldn’t begrudge me a can of soup? A jar of venison? Some crackers to deaden the salinity? I pile interesting items on the counter. Jars of peaches and apples. Even a five-pound bag of rice.

I open the refrigerator and the stench is instant and breathtaking. Spoiled milk, vegetables, who knows what? I slam the door.

Before sampling my host’s food, I pen a note on paper beside his telephone. “I ate a jar of venison and a jar of peaches.”

I leave plenty of space to record additional items, and sign Gale G’Wain at the bottom.

Eight months and two days after her grandfather died, Guinevere Haudesert lay in bed. Her alarm clock ticked; it was a school night.

Floorboards groaned in the hallway.

The door handle clicked.

A yellow beam from the nightlight down the hall invaded through the door aperture. Burt’s silhouette crossed it. The door closed silently, and her father’s shadow melded into others. She smelled dried sweat—the scent of redness baked into his forearms and dirt below his fingernails. The most terrifying pungency was dried urine from his shorts.

His hand found her foot. Guinevere rolled sideways and squeezed her eyelids tight.

“This isn’t right,” Gwen said. She lay with her arm over the edge of her bed. Her fingers touched the hilt of a paring knife, tucked between mattresses. She’d chosen the knife not to kill, but to wound. While he was inside her, she capitulated.

“This is wrong,” she said again.

He was silent. He was a hand on her shoulder, arm below her neck. He was a hand under her breast. He was an acrid smell. He was pain inside.

He shuddered as she sniffled. Withdrew and climbed from her.

“That’s Daddy’s special girl,” he said.

She rolled from the mattress and clutched the knife. Standing deep in a shadow, she saw her father’s waist in a bolt of moonlight; saw him stepping into and pulling up his underwear.

“What are you doing?” he said.

She trembled. “You better never come for me again.”

“Yeah?” He stepped closer, still on the other side of the bed. “Or what?”

She pointed the blade at him.

He rounded the bed, snapped his boxers’ elastic waistband. “You don’t like what I’ve been giving you?” His voice was quiet like rocks. “Liked it enough when we started. Came on real strong. Now you changing your mind. That it?”

“I never liked it. Don’t come any closer.”

“Or?”

“I’ll cut you.”

“Cut me?” He stopped.

“I’ll scream.”

“I’ll beat you silly.”

He stepped into the shadow. She smelled his breath. “I have a knife,” she whispered. She probed slowly, felt resistance. He grunted, slapped her hand and the knife vanished from it. He gripped her shoulders, drove her against the wall. Wrapped his hand over her throat. As the pressure grew, he brought his face close to her ear.

He exhaled, as if unsure how to express his fury in words.

She gagged. Struggled against his hand until faintness overtook her and she blacked out.

Guinevere awoke in her bed, tucked in, like it had all been a dream.

She curled into a ball and stared through dry eyes at a gray sliver of wall. This wasn’t her father’s second visit. It wasn’t his tenth. She didn’t count. Now, eight months and two days after her grandfather died, when she closed her eyes, Guinevere heard bassoons and oboes—bullfrog notes. The sounds so rich they might have had color. She could almost see them vibrate and wiggle like…sperm flagella on the films they showed in biology class.

The tones and harmonies whisked away her thoughts until an inevitable realization surprised her.

Whose face would she see? Burt?

She crossed her fingers then crossed her heart with crossed fingers. Before she could whisper an apologetic prayer, she saw her grandmother’s face. Grandmother’s eyelids were low, her jaw slack. She saw something she didn’t like; her eyes canted toward the ground.

Guinevere reached into the vision but it was like reaching into a pool of water. Grandma was too far away—though so close.

“Grandma!” Gwen whispered. “Grandma!”

The old woman’s gaze was solemn; her face was motionless. Guinevere lay still. Grandmother didn’t move except to blink. Her watery eyes remained fixed, yet each moment carried her closer to death.

Gwen threw back her covers. Dropped her feet into slippers. Threw open her bedroom door and hurried to the hallway telephone. She pulled out the card tucked between wall and wall-plate, and held it to the soft green light of the handset. Too faint. She carried the card to the nightlight and dialed her grandmother’s number.

The phone rang. Gwen counted one bleat after another, over and over, until at twenty she dropped the phone into the receiver.

Her parents’ bedroom door opened. “Who were you calling? You almost got yourself shot,” her mother said.

“Grandma.”

“Grandma? At midnight? What the hell for?”

Guinevere was silent.

“I asked a question.”

“I had a bad feeling for her.”

“So you wake her in the middle of the night?”

Burt joined her mother in the doorway. “What the hell?” He stood in his underwear and scratched his lumpy crotch.

Can’t she smell me on him?

“Well?” her mother said. “What did she say?”

“She didn’t say anything. She’s dead.”

Fay marched down the hall and swiped the handset from the wall. Dialed Grandma’s number with her thumb. In her other hand, tucked partly under her arm, a handgun glinted in moonlight.

Mother waited several minutes with the phone to her ear. Gwen’s feet grew cold and she stood with one set of toes resting atop the other, and traded off. She overheard the ringing in the handset. Her mother placed the phone in the receiver. “She’s been a heavy sleeper all her life. Go back to bed.”

“What if you’re wrong? What if she needs help?”

“Go to bed,” her mother said, trailing Gwen back the hallway.

Burt had already returned to the sheets and his snores drifted into the hall.

I open the Bronco’s passenger door. Sager sits in the driver’s seat. Looks sick. His face points at the floor; his elbows are braced on wide-set knees. The windshield is wet with melted snow, and flakes dissolve as they land, and it puts me in the mind of a snowball spittin’ and sizzlin’ on the flat of a wood stove.