The Auctioneer (11 page)

Sunday was cold and bright, etched with the fresh hard energy of autumn. Ma was pleased to be going to church. Looking strange and fragile in her navy blue gabardine suit, she sat between Hildie and John on the hard seat of the pickup truck. After Pa died, John had taken her to church until she gave it up of her own accord. “It ain’t the same,” she said, “with you a twistin’ and turnin’ in the pew like a cat in a trap.”

John and Mim said nothing as they drove slowly past the church with its half-finished steeple. John passed the four shiny new Crew Cab trucks in front, then pulled to a stop by the post office.

“Don’t stop,” Mim said. “No point to goin’ now. We seen enough already.”

“Not go!” Ma said. “Just on account of them trucks? They got as much right to the church as you. More. It would a been fittin’ when you took a Harlowe man if you’d a took his church as well. But you was always strong in your ways when it was any but Johnny doin’ the pushin’.”

“Get out, get out,” sang Hildie, absorbed in the delight of wearing her party dress. “I want to twirl my twirly skirt.”

And the child’s as wild as a Chinese, added Ma. “You send her to Sunday School once. Then she says no and you let her be.”

“Look who’s teachin’ it, Ma,” Mim said.

“Well Sunday School’s Sunday School. And anyway, I say it’s Mudgett’s behind all this.”

John let the truck idle, staring out at the church. Ma reached over and patted Mim’s knee. “Not that I blame you,” she said. “It’s just you mustn’t let them stop you when you got a plan.”

In the foyer of the church, the greeters lined up—first Sonny and Theresa Pike, then Mickey Cogswell looking overstuffed and florid in a suitcoat and tie. The Moores shook hands unsmiling with the Pikes and passed on to Cogswell.

“Where’s Agnes?” Mim asked.

“Not up to comin’,” he said. He looked down at Hildie and had no greeting for her. “You heard the preacher’s gone?” he said.

“Gone!” Mim said.

But Cogswell motioned to the Moores to move on. “You’ll see,” he muttered.

Mim caught the child up and carried her down the aisle, while John supported Ma on his arm and followed Ezra Stone as he ushered them to a pew in the middle of the church.

In the sanctuary, Fanny Linden was playing the organ the way she always had, and sunshine poured past yellow maples through the high clear windows. The church was never more than a quarter full even on Christmas, yet as soon as the Moores sat down, they felt another couple move in directly behind them. Glancing back, John saw the Jameses. Ian James was a deputy, one of the first. John pulled Hildie close to him.

Ma picked out her friends among the old people, and noted with pleasure that there were more of what she called “young folk” than usual. But then, there always were on the first Sunday of the preacher’s quarter. It was like a special town holy day. John looked around marking which men were there, wondering whether they were all deputies, or whether some were there for the same reasons he was. Mim listened to the solemn music and longed for the rough boards of her own kitchen beneath her feet.

With a decisive series of chords, Fanny moved into the Processional. The choir—six people in maroon surplices—shuffled into the back of the church. Mim turned to look, just in time to see Perly crowding Dixie into a back pew. He caught her eye and nodded at her as if, in all that congregation, she were his special friend. Then he sat and bowed his head.

Everyone stood up and the singing began, discordant and somewhat unsure—“A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing.” Mim followed the words in the hymnal with her finger, too shy to sing.

Suddenly, Ma clutched at her arm. “Good God in heaven,” she said.

From a side door, a figure was approaching the pulpit wearing Janet Solossen’s black robe with the red hood. He climbed slowly up into the high central pulpit and stood silent during the singing, looking out over the congregation with blank black eyes. It was Mudgett.

After the singing was over and the organ fell silent, Mudgett read the Psalm: “My heart was hot within me; while I was musing the fire burned...” His voice was high and tense and slow. He seemed more a preacher than the preacher herself. When he lifted his head and prayed, Mim raised her eyes from her bowed head and watched, struck cold by her feeling, despite all she knew, that Mudgett had received a call and turned himself into a spokesman for God.

After the prayer, he looked out over the congregation until everyone began to squirm. It seemed a practiced gesture, one that brought the pressure of conscience to bear on them.

“I have a letter here from the Reverend Solossen,” he said at last. It’s dated yesterday.

My dear friends:

As you all know so well, I have for years taken as my special missionary concern the plight of the orphans of Vietnam. Now a wonderful opportunity to serve God has come to me, and indirectly to you. Three days ago I received an invitation to serve on a delegation of clergy to the government of Vietnam to discuss facilitating the care of these needy children. Then, today, even as I was considering whether I was meant to leave my own parishioners, and whether I could afford the plane fare, a ticket was slipped under my door for the midnight flight to Hong Kong, where I can connect with a flight to Saigon. This anonymous donation from one or more of you came to me like the answer to my prayers and like an assurance that my participation in this delegation is meant to be.

Although I know that this probably means that Harlowe will not have a preacher at all this year, 1 hope that you will feel that through me you are all helping to save the lives of these poor children—the victims, in part, of America’s tragic involvement in Southeast Asia. May your prayers go with me, as mine are with you.

Janet Solossen

The service went on—the Lesson, the Responsive Reading, the Anthem. It seemed a normal service, and it was hard to realize that the man in the robes was Mudgett. Jimmy Ward preached the sermon, taking for his text “Suffer the little children to come unto me.” Much to Mim’s relief, he seemed exactly like Jimmy Ward, stumbling and apologizing and getting tangled in his words.

Afterwards, Mudgett made the announcements: coffee after the service, a fellowship dinner on Thursday, a meeting of the Women’s Overseas Mission group to sort clothing for the Vietnamese orphans. “We plan,” he said, “to continue church services on a regular basis while the preacher’s gone. Anyone who wants to help should speak to Mr. Ward or myself after the service.”

“That’s not even the way Red Mudgett talks,” Mim said on the way home.

“He was ever a weasel, that one,” Ma said. “Ain’t nothin’ he could do would surprise me.”

6

The week came when there were no nonessentials left. They couldn’t let Ma’s couch go, and not even Perly could have raised any cash for the kitchen table and benches John had put together from some old planks in the barn. As if he sensed their difficulty, the auctioneer came himself with Gore.

Dixie ran up the path to meet Lassie, her silky tail waving. John watched from the doorway as the two men approached. When they stood on the stoop facing him, he opened the storm door and stepped out to join them.

“There’s nothin’ left, Perly,” he said, his body firmly planted between Perly and his door. “There’s no point you stickin’ round. You can’t squeeze blood from a turnip.”

The auctioneer looked down on John, his brown eyes heavy with concern. “You’ve been very generous,” he said slowly. He stood so close that John inched back until he could feel the glass of the door against his shoulder blades.

Gore leaned on the cornerpost of the house, turning the handle of a rake around and around in his hands, not meeting John’s eyes. Finally he put the rake down and said, “It don’t matter, Johnny. All we want’s your guns.”

“My guns!”

Perly stooped to pick a sprig of mint growing near the door. He put it in his mouth and chewed it. “With hunting season coming up, we thought a special firearms auction might be a good idea.”

“So it’s come to disarmin’ us,” John said, standing solidly before his door.

Perly threw back his dark head and laughed. “If you’re working for law and order,” he said, “you have to admit it’s not a bad idea.”

“It happens I need my gun,” John said.

“What for?” Perly said. “Town records show you haven’t taken out a hunting license for ten years.”

“A farmer needs a gun,” John said.

“Don’t suppose you’ve got an old muzzle-loader?” Perly asked, glancing through the door into the kitchen. “Those are fetching a pretty price these days.”

Gore was kicking at the mudscraper by the door. “He keeps them in the pantry, Perly,” he mumbled without looking up.

Perly raised his brows. “If you’ll excuse me...” he said to John.

John stood his ground and Perly waited to pass. Gore watched, his hand hovering near his gun. Hildie was chirping inside, happy to see the auctioneer.

Perly raised his brows. “Have you considered, John, whether you’re in a position to bar the door?” he asked. He cast a glittering eye over Mim and Ma and Hildie, then seemed about to turn away.

Finally, his face flushing deeply beneath his sunburn, John thrust his hands deep into his overall pockets and stepped slowly off the back step. He paused, then moved away toward the barn.

Perly nodded politely at John’s receding back. Then he opened the door and waited for Gore to lead the way.

But Gore stood scowling and didn’t move until Perly said pleasantly, “Well, Bob?” Then the policeman moved heavily into the kitchen and, without stopping to greet Mim or Ma, strode directly into the pantry.

Perly entered with a smile for Mim and squatted before Hildie where she stood with Mim in front of the sink. “Hi there, sweetie,” he said, holding out his arms. “Come say hello to your old friend.

Hildie smiled, but hesitated. As she headed toward Perly, Mim caught the elastic at the back of her jeans and pulled her roughly back, so that she howled in outrage.

Perly stood up. He looked down into Mim’s face with a different kind of smile. Dixie whined at the door to come in but he ignored her. “So sorry,” he murmured, but Mim was looking past him at Gore who was carrying the shotgun and the .30-’06, one in each hand, his eyes fixed and sullen on the floor in front of him.

Perly turned to him. “Did you get the ammunition?” he asked.

“God damn it, Perly,” Gore muttered and did not turn.

Perly turned back to Mim. “Where is it?” he asked.

Mim stood still, pressing Hildie’s shoulders against her thighs, her face gone white.

Perly shook his head and grinned. “Guess you just can’t please all the people all the time,” he said, and brushed Mim’s cold cheek with his fingertips.

Then, with one step, he moved into the pantry and, without searching at all, reached up and swung the red steel box of ammunition off the top shelf.

Mim watched from the kitchen, Ma from the front room, and John from the barn as Perly followed Gore down the path and the two men sprang up into the cab of the truck and drove away.

The following Thursday, under a scudding sky, heavy with rain, Perly and Gore came again.

John came out of the barn and stood in the doorway, his feet spread wide and his arms folded. “There’s nothin’,” he said.

Perly gazed cheerfully around the yard, his face darker than ever after a summer in the sun.

Gore leaned against the truck watching. “We’re takin’ cows,” he said.

“Cows!”

“Just a couple,” Perly said and winked at Mim who was standing behind the glass in the door looking out. “Figure that’s two fewer to milk. Or if you’ve got a couple that aren’t milking at the moment, we’ll settle for those.”

John glanced up at the pasture where the seven red Jerseys were bunched together under the white ash by the gate, their udders swollen, waiting for him to come and bring them in.

Perly stood with his arms folded in a graceful parody of John. His eyes reflected the rainy sky. “We’ll take two,” he said.

“The hell you will,” John muttered. Then he said, forcing the words out slowly, “Get off my land.”

John turned and headed up the path toward the back door and his family. His body seemed numb and each step was an effort. He felt he was pushing not only through his fear of the gun in Gore’s holster, but through walls of confounding anger as well.

He didn’t hear the steps behind him or the rustle of clothing. Without a sound of warning or the slightest appearance of haste, Perly slid between John and the door he was approaching.

“Did you want to consult your wife?” Perly asked. He opened the kitchen door and caught Mim tightly by the shoulder as she stepped away. He smiled down on her. She raised her eyes to his and the two were caught in the posture of young sweethearts.

John stopped.

Holding Mim by the arm, lightly now, Perly led her toward her husband.

John saw Mim, pale and unfamiliar, walking obediently toward him in the crook of the strange man’s arm, her body brushing his. Fear had blanked out all expression on her face.

Catching his breath, John turned quickly away toward the pasture and the cows, his anger and the heaviness of the humid afternoon combining to stifle him. He moved toward the path between the barn and the woodshed that led up into the pasture. Dixie darted out ahead of him and Lassie yapped along behind.

He moved up and up into his land. He could hear Gore puffing behind him, but he could only sense Perly’s silent tread. Under the ash, a flat sharp stone, as big around as a milking pail, had fallen from the wall. It grew and changed in his sight as he approached, becoming a weapon.

When he got to the barbed wire section that opened to release the cows, he stopped until Gore and Perly came up behind him and he could feel their breath swirling around his head. The stone was six feet ahead of them. He would wait until they were through the barbed wire. Perly came first, moving through as silent and effortless as a cat. Gore watched John as he went past, his small eyes cautious.