Fourmile (15 page)

“Daddy,” I said. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t wanna leave you. I don’t know if you’re still here.”

But there was nothing except the whisper of a light breeze in the pecan orchard and the grit against my face.

“I just want you to come back,” I said. “That’s all I want.”

*   *   *

It rained that night and a breeze swept cool mist through the bay doors. I was so wound up that I couldn’t sleep. I kept opening my eyes and watching the house, Kabo breathing heavily beside me. The lights in the kitchen were still on, but I hadn’t seen her pass the window.

Finally, I must have slept. I woke later that night to Kabo whining and standing up. Mother was hurrying across the yard with a rain jacket over her head. I’d thought she wouldn’t come after me. She hadn’t been in the barn in a year.

I sat up and crossed my legs and waited for her. She stepped inside and lowered the rain jacket and studied me. I didn’t say anything.

She looked around and saw a nail on the wall and went and hung the jacket on it. Then she turned and looked around again.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve been in here,” she said.

“I know.”

She walked over and sat down beside me. Kabo resettled in his spot and she petted him with her other hand.

“It smells like his clothes in here,” she said.

“I know.”

“Gary said you took him to the ravine today.”

I nodded. “We buried Joe back there.”

She didn’t say anything for a moment. “I miss him too, Foster,” she said. “I don’t know when it stops.”

“I don’t think it does,” I said.

“I just wish I had the answer to a lot of things.”

“Nobody has the answers,” I said.

“You can’t want to stay here,” she said. “He’s just not here now.”

“But Gary is.”

She looked at me and sighed. “I told you not to get attached to him. I told you he was leaving.”

“You got attached to him.”

She looked away.

“You know he’s in trouble,” I said. “And you let him stay.”

“I don’t know any more about him than you, Foster.”

“Why won’t he see doctors? Why is he scared of the police? He looks around all the time like people are after him.”

She looked at Kabo and didn’t answer me.

“Why?” I asked again.

“I don’t know,” she finally said. “I keep thinking tomorrow’s the day he’ll be gone. And I can stop thinking about him. I don’t trust my decisions these days, Foster.”

“I don’t want to go to Montgomery,” I said. “I won’t. Not yet.”

“Well, it’s too late to leave now. But Gary says you can’t stay out here tonight.”

“He’s awake?”

“He was. But he’s probably asleep again and you’re not going to bother him.”

“Does he think Dax’ll come tonight?”

She shook her head. “He doesn’t think so. But the barn’s no place to be if he does.”

“Mother?”

“Yes.”

“Why can’t we just fix it all?”

She pulled me close and rocked against me. “I’m trying, Foster. I’m trying.”

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I woke in my bed the next morning to the smell of bacon cooking. The storm had moved on and sunlight came softly through the curtains and fell over my face. I heard Mother on the phone, telling the post office that she wasn’t going to come in that day. I got out of bed, walked down the hall, and peered into her room. Gary cocked his eyes at me and smiled his crooked smile.

“Morning,” he said.

I opened the door and walked to the bed and sat on it. His arm was wrapped in gauze strips and a line of blood showed through. “Does it still hurt?” I asked him.

“Yeah,” he said.

“How long are you going to have to lie here?”

“You ready to get back to work?” he joked.

I smiled weakly. “No. I just wondered.”

“What’d I tell you about doing what your mother says?”

I looked at my hands and didn’t answer him.

“Hey,” he said.

I looked at him.

“I told her you needed to get out of town last night.”

“I’m not going,” I said.

He studied me for moment. Then, for the first time, it was him that turned away. He looked at the ceiling. “Thanks for showing me your tree fort yesterday, Foster.”

“I was fine because you were with me.”

He looked at me again. “You were fine because there’s nothing to be scared of. You get scared of life and it’s got you beat.”

“Sometimes I wonder if our cows know how close they are to where they used to live.”

He watched me.

“They probably like having the mules,” I said. “We never had mules.”

He listened patiently.

“Mules chase coyotes away from the calves.”

“I didn’t know that.”

I nodded. “They hate coyotes. That’s why farmers have them.”

“Sounds like a good place to be for a cow.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“I smell bacon,” he said. “Been a while since I’ve had breakfast in bed.”

“When does your blood grow back?”

“Couple of weeks. Maybe a month.”

My eyes widened.

He smiled. “I won’t be in bed that long,” he said. “I’m going to get up and walk around some today. Just might be a little dizzy for a while.”

“I can paint until you’re better.”

“It’ll wait,” he said. “Why don’t you go out to the barn and get the rest of my things and bring them inside. Put them in your room.”

“Okay,” I said.

“That pack’s pretty heavy.”

I got up to leave. “I can get it,” I said.

*   *   *

I walked into the barn and saw Kabo lying next to Gary’s pack. I got some of Joe’s dog food and poured it into his bowl and made the clicking sound. I could tell he’d lost some of his spirit too. He got up and slunk to the bowl with his head down. He looked at it then looked up at me again.

“I know, boy,” I said. “Me too.”

I gathered Gary’s things and put them into the pack. I hefted it onto my shoulder and staggered toward the house with it. After I got it to my room, I went back to the kitchen, where Mother had bacon and eggs and biscuits ready. She fixed a plate for me and a TV tray for Gary. She knew what I was thinking.

“Let him eat in peace, Foster,” she said.

I took my plate to the dining room table and watched her disappear with Gary’s tray. In a few minutes she came back to the kitchen and started cleaning up. I finished eating and took my plate and eased it around her into the sink.

“I took off work,” she said. “I can’t leave you here with him like that.”

“Dax’ll try to kill him.”

She turned to me. “If Dax tries to come over, then I can call the police and have him arrested.”

“Then we can’t leave. We have to watch for him.”

She studied me for a moment then turned back to the sink.

“No reason we need to stay cooped up in this house all day,” I heard Gary say.

We both turned and saw him leaning against the wall. His face was pale and his bandaged arm hung limp and swollen at his side.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Little light-headed. Like I’ve got a blowtorch on my arm.”

“Maybe you should rest some more,” she said.

“If you can wrap it in a plastic bag for me I think a soak in the creek might get my fever down.”

“I can fix a bath for you.”

“A little sunshine and fresh air wouldn’t hurt either.”

“You don’t think we should be here?”

He hesitated and gave her a long look. “I think it’d do us all some good to get away for the day.”

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I loaded Kabo in the truck, feeling the stab of Joe’s memory once again. But it was like a loss that was partly on hold while something bigger hung over me. I slammed the tailgate and blocked it away.

I drove around to the front of the house and saw Mother coming out, holding Gary by his good arm. He didn’t seem to need the help, but took it anyway. I scooted over and opened the door for him, and Mother waited until he’d eased himself onto the seat. Once he was settled she shut the door and went back inside. She came back a moment later with an ice cooler and a cloth bag and put them in back with Kabo. Then she got behind the wheel and studied the column shifter and smiled like there was something she’d been holding back. “Been a while since I’ve driven one of these,” she said.

“Want to help her out, Foster?”

I leaned over and started to grab the gear lever.

“Now, hold on,” she said. “I was driving these things ten years before you were born.”

“I’ve never seen you,” I said.

“Well, sit back in your seat. I used to do more than wash dishes and sort mail.”

I looked at Gary and he stared ahead and smiled.

She could drive it. We sputtered and jerked in the driveway, but once she got on the blacktop, she was working through the gears as good as anybody I’d seen. It was just cloudy enough so that large shadows eased across the pastureland and the morning alternated between sunlight and shadow. It felt good to leave Fourmile. It felt good to let go of it all and put it down for just a little while. I was getting tired now. Tired of thinking about everything. Tired of clinging to everything.

*   *   *

She spread a blanket on the creek bank and Gary eased himself onto it. She sat next to him and got a garbage bag and taped it over his arm. I sucked in my stomach and crossed my arms and waded into the creek. When I turned, Gary was sliding on his rear into the shallows. He came to rest with his good elbow propped on tree roots and the water swirling around his torso.

“Far as I go today,” he said.

“Feels good,” I lied.

He laid his head back and looked into the cool canopy of the evergreens. Kabo walked up behind him and settled down just above his head.

“I’m going to catch a fish,” I said.

“Get dinner for us,” he replied.

I lowered my arms and started wading downstream. I hadn’t gone far when I felt loneliness creeping over me. I slowed and studied the shaded tunnel of juniper and cypress curving out of sight. Suddenly I didn’t want to go and I stopped and looked back. I couldn’t see them behind the trees. I was ashamed. I stepped over to the edge of the creek bank and sat down in the shallows and wedged myself between two cypress trees. A breeze rustled overhead and their voices came clear over the gurgling water.

“Would you tell me if I asked?” she said.

He didn’t reply right away. Then I heard him say, “No.”

“Do I want to know?”

“You don’t need to be scared of me,” he said. “It’s nothing for you to be scared of.”

“I’m not scared of you. Not in that way.”

He didn’t answer.

“What do you think will happen to you?” she finally said.

“I don’t know.”

“Was it just a mistake?”

“No, it wasn’t a mistake. I knew what I was doing.”

“But you’re a good person.”

“Am I? Why did I stay? If I was such a good person, I would have left.”

“You know why,” she said.

“You could go to prison, Linda.”

No one spoke for a moment. For the first time I wondered where Mother had slept the night before.

“I just needed somebody,” she said. “I didn’t know he was like that.”

“You’ve got some bad luck when it comes to men.”

“Foster’s dad was as good as they come. He always did the right thing. I don’t consider any part of him bad luck.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I know,” she said. “You remind me of him.”

“But I don’t always do the right thing.”

“You can have the truck,” she said.

“I can’t drive with this arm.”

“Maybe a lawyer can help?”

“Even if I had the money, no lawyer can help. There’s no defense against what I did.”

She sounded desperate. “I can drive you somewhere. Get you a hotel room for a while. I can pay for that.”

“Forget it, Linda. Unless you get everything in that house packed today, I’m not going anywhere. I’m telling you, Dax is no joke. And I can assure you he’s into more than power lines and cutting up dead animals.”

“But he works for the power company. He can’t have a criminal record.”

“He doesn’t work for the power company, Linda.”

“But—”

“He does contract work for his buddy’s trenching service. They do some jobs for the power company.”

She didn’t say anything.

“And you don’t dig trenches at night,” he said.

“How do you—”

“I called the power company and asked about him,” he said.

She didn’t reply.

“You were vulnerable,” he said.

“It’s no excuse.”

“Yes it is. But I’m going to see this through for you.”

“What can you do with your arm like that?”

“Enough. I’m better already.”

“Maybe he’ll leave us alone.” She sighed.

“I don’t think so.”

I sat there frozen, too scared to move. Scared they’d see in my face that I’d been listening. I realized I was shivering and it seemed like maybe I’d been shivering for a while. They had stopped talking. I stood and waded quietly downstream and stopped and waited a few minutes more. Then I grabbed a stick and hit it against a tree and started back toward them, being as loud as I could. When they came into sight Gary was lying on his back on the blanket and Mother was sitting up watching for me. Her eyes were red and her mouth was drawn tight.

“Did you get anything?” she asked me.

I shook my head.

“I told you it takes practice,” Gary said to the sky.

“Come on up, Foster,” she said. “You look like you’re freezing.”

*   *   *

After lunch we went riding to the coast. The clouds were gone and the day was bright and hot. Gary and Mother sat in the dunes above the beach and watched me and Kabo walking at the water’s edge, where the waves crashed and reached up the sand and died at our feet. The cool salty wind off the Gulf felt good and healthy in my face. The noise of the place tried to smother my thoughts, but they were too loud, beating in my head and chest … Gary was leaving. We were all leaving. I couldn’t hear them, but I knew they were talking about it. I felt like I was sensing everything for the last time. I felt that nothing would ever matter again.

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