Bent Road (3 page)

W
hen everyone is clustered around the new cow and Ray gives a loud shout of laughter, Ruth walks toward the back door. She smells them before she sees them—a patch of devil’s claw growing between the garage and the back porch. The pink flowers, thriving in dry sandy soil, give off a nasty smell that is strong this year, stronger every year since Father died. He was dead and buried before Mother called to tell Arthur. “No need to trouble him so far away,” she had said. “It’s his own father,” Ruth said. “Let him make peace with his own father.”

Mother had turned away, the black cotton dress she wore to the church service only lightly creased. “A funeral is no place for making peace,” she had said. “That time is dead and buried for both of them.”

The flowers, whose feathery centers are sprinkled with red and purple freckles, have grown thicker this year and richer in color. The plant’s broad, heart-shaped leaves give off the bitter smell and pods hang like okra from the hairy stems. Eventually, the woody husks will split open and curl like claws that will grab onto passing animals who will spread the seeds.

As a new bride, Ruth had picked the plump green pods, sliced them and sautéed them in buttery onions and garlic. They’ll bring a strong woman twins, her mother’s mother once said. Ruth cooked up these pods because, had Eve lived, she would have done the same. In the weeks and months following Eve’s death, everything Ruth did was because Eve would have done the same. Ruth began to visit Ray every week since Eve no longer could. When his laundry piled up in the hamper, she washed it and hung it to dry on the line. She swept his floors, scrubbed his bathroom tile and left casseroles in his icebox. Because Ray was a young man who needed a wife and because it was the thing Eve would have done, Ruth married him and began to wish for a baby. But soon enough her marriage aged a few years, and Ray realized that Ruth would never be the woman he had intended to marry. She would never be Eve. So she stopped cooking the pods and never looked back when she passed a patch of devil’s claw.

Inside the kitchen, Ruth puts the pie into the refrigerator and lifts the lid on the cast-iron skillet where several pieces of Mother’s fried chicken sizzle and pop. A rich, salty smell fills the house. She turns down the flame, checks the timer on the sweet bread and slides a pot of chicken broth onto the stove. In the open window, the curtains hang motionless. Outside, everyone is still gathered around the cow that Ray bought cheap at the sale barn because no one wants an apple-assed cow. Patting the animal on its hind end and saying something that Ruth can’t hear, Ray throws back his head and laughs. Ruth steps away from the window and turns when footsteps cross the living room and stop at the kitchen’s threshold.

“Are you Aunt Ruth?”

Ruth dries her hands on a dish towel. “I am,” she says. “And you are Eve?”

“Evie.”

Evie has long, fuzzy braids and a heavy fringe of white bangs that fall across her forehead and catch in her eyelashes. Her skin is like pink satin.

“Evie,” Ruth says, trying out the name. “And you’re Daniel?”

Daniel is only a few months shy of Arthur’s height, and eventually, after some good Kansas cooking, he’ll be as broad, too. However, unlike his father, Daniel is blond with pale blue eyes that shine against his tanned skin.

“I’m so glad you’ve moved to Kansas.” Ruth pats her face with the dish towel that smells of soap and bleach.

“We’re happy to be here, ma’am,” Daniel says, staring at his feet.

“Please, call me Aunt Ruth.”

“Whose room is that upstairs?” Evie asks, tapping the floor with the toe of one black shoe. “The one we slept in?”

Ruth swallows before she can answer. “I’m not sure which room you were in, sweet pea.” She slips, forgets that Evie is not her sister, calls her sweet pea. A sugary, delicate bloom like Eve.

Evie looks at her brother and then at the ground. “The one with the statue and the dresses.”

“That’s Eve’s room,” Ruth says. Her chin quivers. She clears her throat. “My sister, Eve.”

“Eve,” Evie says. “Like me.”

Ruth smiles. “Yes, very much like you.”

“She’s small, too, isn’t she? I can tell from the dresses. Small like me, and you, too. Not like Grandma Reesa.”

Ruth laughs aloud. The first in so long. “She was perfect like you. The exact right size.”

“I like her dresses,” Evie says, standing where the living room meets the kitchen. “Will she come for dinner, too?”

“No, I’m afraid not.”

The chicken broth has grown from a slow simmer to a rolling boil. From outside, Ray gives off another burst of laughter. Ruth steps aside and waves Evie and Daniel toward the kitchen window.

“Come,” she says. “See what Uncle Ray has brought for you.”

While Daniel hangs back, not seeming to care about the shouts and laughter coming from outside, Evie joins Ruth at the window and hoists herself up onto the counter for a better view.

“A cow,” she says, her pink cheeks plumping up with a smile. “Uncle Ray has brought us a cow. And he’s a cowboy, Dan.” She slides off the counter and turns toward her brother. “He’s wearing a hat and boots, too. He’s a real cowboy.”

Ruth brushes aside the fringe of bangs that fall across Evie’s brow. “You two should go on out and get a closer look.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Daniel says, taking Evie’s hand.

Evie stops before disappearing into the back hallway. “I’m glad we’re here, Aunt Ruth,” she says. “I’m going to like Kansas very much.”

“And we’re happy to have you.”

The hinges on the back door whine as they open and close. Pressing the dish towel to her face, Ruth returns to the kitchen window and breathes in the lemon-scented soap until she knows she won’t cry. She is a child again, nine years old, seeing her own sister, Eve. She was the oldest, perfect in almost every way. Evie is so like her, has her light blue eyes and shimmering blond hair. They could be twins, Eve and Evie, separated by many years but twins just the same.

Outside the kitchen window, Evie skips across the drive, kicking up small clouds of dust. Nearing the cow, she slows and walks to Ray’s side. She raises one hand to her forehead, shielding her eyes from the sun, and looks up at him. Ray steps back and lifts the brim of his hat as if taking a closer look. All these years, Arthur has lived with this painful reminder. Now Ruth and Ray will do the same.

Evie sits next to Daddy in the cab of his truck, her stomach stuffed full from her first Kansas meal. Daniel slouches in the seat next to her, a dish of Grandma’s leftover fried chicken resting on his knees. After everyone finished eating lunch, Grandma asked them to take the food to the Buchers because Mrs. Bucher just had a new baby. Uncle Ray said the Buchers are one lucky family because their baby was born a blue baby and nearly died. Evie asked Daddy what a blue baby was, and he said the Bucher baby was pink as any other.

Cradling a loaf of sweet bread, Evie leans against Daddy so he’ll shield her from the hot dry wind blowing through the truck. “Tell me about Aunt Eve,” she says.

Keeping one hand on the steering wheel, Daddy wipes the other over his eyes and down his face. “She always wore her hair in braids when she was a girl. Same as you.” Daddy looks down at Evie. “Looked a good damn bit like you.”

Over lunch, Grandma Reesa said that in her house Evie is to be called Eve. Mama frowned and asked Daddy what he thought about that. Instead of giving Mama an answer, Daddy patted his stomach and said Grandma’s fried chicken was the best in the Midwest. Mama frowned about that, too. But Evie won’t mind being called Eve. It makes her believe that in Kansas she’ll grow like a weed and one day soon, she’ll be big enough to wear Aunt Eve’s dresses.

Evie giggles to hear Daddy curse. “She doesn’t live here anymore?”

Daddy shakes his head, stops and shakes it again. His white teeth shine against his dark skin. “No, Evie, not anymore.”

Driving through the dust kicked up by Jonathon’s truck, they near the tumbleweed-lined fence. Jonathon is towing their cow to the new house. Mama had thought Elaine should get to name the cow because she is the oldest, but Uncle Ray said he figured it was a job for the youngest in the family, so Evie picked Mama’s middle name—Olivia. This made Uncle Ray smile. He tugged on one of Evie’s braids and then winked his milky eye at Mama, patted the new cow on the rump and said that Olivia was a damn fine name. Mama frowned about that, too, but it was too late because Olivia was already Olivia.

Daddy slows at the top of the hill and the truck drifts toward the side of the road until it feels that the wheels might slip off into the ditch. Evie looks for the monster they saw the night before. Daniel leans forward, too, but he’s probably looking for the man he thinks Mama hit. In the daylight, Evie doesn’t see a monster, only a fence that Daddy says will cave in if someone doesn’t pull off those weeds soon. She doesn’t see a strange man, either. Once over the highest point, a truck driving the other direction appears. The other truck swerves toward the tumbleweed fence, slows and stops. Daddy stops, too.

A dark hand hangs out of the driver’s side window of the other truck. “Damn good to see you, Arthur.” A man wearing a round straw hat leans out his open window.

“Afternoon, Orville.” Daddy nods and lifts one finger. “Good to be back.”

The man glances in his rearview mirror. “Been a long damn time.”

Daddy nods. “These here are two of my kids,” he says, tipping his head in Evie and Daniel’s direction.

Evie leans forward and waves at the man. Daniel lifts a hand.

“Pleasure,” the man says. Mama would have said he had a strong nose. Thick creases fan out from the corners of his eyes and his skin is as dark as any Negro except he isn’t a Negro.

Daddy and the man talk for a few minutes about the long drive from Detroit, the price of wheat and when the next good rain will fall. Then with another tip of his round straw hat, the man says, “Glad you remembered this stretch of road. Can be a good bit tricky. You all take care.” And slapping the side of his truck, the man pulls away.

As Daddy eases onto road, Evie looks back toward the tumbleweed monster. In the other truck, a young girl stares out the rear window, one hand and her nose pressed to the glass. She must have been scrunched down in the seat because Evie didn’t see her before. She is about Evie’s age and has long blond hair that hangs over her shoulders. The girl lifts her hand from the glass and waves. Evie waves back and watches until the truck disappears down Bent Road, and the girl is gone.

 

D
aniel climbs out of the truck, glances at the Buchers’ house and then at the group of boys near the barn—the Bucher brothers—and wishes he had a hat to pull on like Dad’s. So far, not one person in Kansas has blond hair except Evie and Mama.

“Go on over and say hello,” Dad says, taking the dish of chicken from Daniel. “You’ve been so worried about friends. Well, there’s a whole mess of them.”

Tugging at the tan pants Mama made him wear because he was meeting new people, Daniel walks toward five boys who are huddled together, digging a hole in the ground with their bare hands. The youngest is probably seven; the oldest, fifteen or sixteen. All are barefooted and dirty up to their ankles. One boy close to Daniel’s age sits off by himself, leaning against the barn.

“Hey,” the tallest brother says. “You one of the Scotts?”

Daniel nods. “Yeah. Daniel.”

The boys drift together and stand with their arms crossed over their chests. They all have straight dark hair that hangs over their ears and wear jeans cut off at the knee instead of tan pants with a crease ironed into each leg.

“Moving into the old Murray place?” one of them says.

A smaller boy steps forward, tossing back his head to get the hair out of his eyes. “Yeah, it’s the Murray place,” he says before Daniel can answer. “Saw them hauling off Mrs. Murray’s stuff.”

“She died in that house, you know,” another of the younger boys says. With his elbow, he nudges the brother next to him. “About six years ago. They found her dead, slumped over the radiator. Cooked up real good.”

The oldest-looking boy shoves his brother. “Shut up. She was just old.”

Daniel jams his hands in his pockets and steps into the shade so his hair won’t sparkle. Behind him, the boy leaning against the barn pulls the fuzzy seeds off a giant foxtail, holds them between two fingers and blows them away.

“Sure she was old, but that ain’t what killed her,” the same younger boy says. “It was one of them crazy guys from Clark City. You know about Clark City, right?”

“Never heard of it,” Daniel says as he digs a hole in the ground with the toe of his left shoe, wearing off the shine Mama made him buff on before they left the house.

“That’s where they lock up crazy folks,” the tallest boy says. He leans against a tree and gestures with his head off to the left. “It’s a town about twenty miles southwest of here. Happens a few times a year. One of them gets out and heads this way. Should probably lock up your house. But mostly they’re just looking for food. Mostly.”

Behind Daniel, the screened door opens and slams shut with a bang. Evie steps onto the porch.

“One just escaped,” one of the smaller boys says, nudging the same brother again. “Seen it in yesterday’s paper. Say his name is Jack Mayer. Has a taste for boys. Don’t know the difference between his wife and kid’s hind end.”

The tallest brother kicks a cloud of dust at the smaller boy. “No paper said nothing about hind ends.”

“No,” the boy says. “But it did say Jack Mayer couldn’t be found because his skin is black as night. Said he’s as good as invisible when the sun sets.”

Walking up behind Daniel and standing next to him, Evie flips her braids over her shoulders, crosses her arms and stares up at the new boys. Back near the barn, the boy sitting by himself uses both hands to push off the ground and walks toward them.