Fourmile (8 page)

“I understand. But I might be able to get a better price for you real quick at the feed store. They have advertisements posted on a bulletin board.”

“Dax said he priced the tractor for me. Maybe I’ll need your help when it comes to the truck.”

There was a pause. “Okay,” he said. “Just let me know. It won’t hurt to have a number in your head for some of these things.”

“Thank you, Gary. Is there anything you need out there?”

“I’m fine, thanks. Tell Foster I’ve got some errands I need to run tonight. I’ll feed Joe for him and see him first thing in the morning. We’ll need to start stripping the shingles off the roof early before the heat hits us.”

There was another pause.

“Gary,” she said.

“Yeah?”

“Be careful with him,” she said.

“I know, Linda,” he replied.

*   *   *

She heated some leftover spaghetti for me and placed it on the table with a glass of milk. She didn’t fix anything for herself, but sat across from me and watched me eat. I stared at my plate and picked at my food. I didn’t want to talk to her.

“Gary said he’s got some things he needs to do tonight,” she said. “He wants you to help him with the roof in the morning.”

I kept eating and didn’t answer.

“What’s wrong?” she said.

I didn’t look at her. “You know what’s wrong.”

“We really need the money.”

“You could have sold it to somebody else.”

“It seemed like the best thing to do.”

I looked at her. “I thought he wasn’t coming back.”

“He wanted to apologize, Foster.”

“Gary doesn’t like him either.”

She sighed and got up from her chair. “I can’t talk about this tonight,” she said.

“Me neither.”

*   *   *

I lay in bed that night, staring at the dog tags on the bedside table and holding my closed pocketknife in my fist. My head raced with too many thoughts for sleep to come. Eventually I heard the farm truck crank. I got out of bed and stepped to my window and looked out in time to see him pull around the house toward the blacktop.

*   *   *

Sunday morning we started at daybreak. Gary got on the roof of the house, scraped the old shingles up with a flathead shovel, and flung them off. I busied myself on the ground, picking up the pieces and tossing them into the farm truck.

Mother brought us bacon and eggs and biscuits after we’d been at it for an hour. Gary came off the roof and we stuffed them down and got back to work within a few minutes. The cicadas were already rattling with the oncoming heat.

By ten o’clock Gary had his shirt off and glistened with sweat. The smell of hot tar and pine hung thick in the air while his shovel scratched and popped across the loose grit and plywood. His back muscles rose and fell against it all as he tore it away. Occasionally he’d stop and take the bandanna off his head and wipe his face with it.

For the first time I was able to study the tattoo as much as I wanted. It was a haunting image that spoke only of death. I couldn’t help but think it had to be connected to whatever it was Gary thought about when he grew distant with me.

“Hammer,” he called down to me.

I got the hammer out of the truck and tossed it up to him. He caught it and smirked like he was impressed.

“That’s too good an arm to waste,” he said.

“It was just an underhand toss,” I said. But I knew what he meant.

He knelt and began using the hammer claw to pull up some stubborn roofing nails. I caught them as they rolled off the edge and tossed them into the truck bed with the other trash.

Just before noon he came down the ladder and leaned against the truck. He took off the bandanna and wiped his face again and draped it over the side rail.

“Must be a hundred ten degrees up there,” he said.

“You need some more water?”

He glanced out at the blacktop then looked at me. “Yep. A lot of it. You got a swimming hole around here?”

“There’s Tillman’s bridge about five miles up the road. You can swim there.”

He pushed himself away from the truck. “Sounds good. Go get your swimsuit on. Ask your mother if she wants to go. Lunch is on me.”

“Mother?”

“That’s right. I’m going to get a dry shirt and shorts out of the barn. I’ll meet you out here in ten.”

20

I knew Mother would be surprised about Gary’s invitation, but I never thought she’d accept it.

“I don’t think I’ll swim,” she said, “but I could get out of this house for a spell.”

She changed into a wide-brimmed straw hat and a sundress I hadn’t seen in a long time. Then she moved about the house gathering her sunglasses, three beach towels, and a John Grisham paperback. She held that same resolute expression I’d seen when she decided to hire Gary.

We loaded the dogs into the farm truck and set out with the windows down, me sitting between the two of them. Gary pulled onto the blacktop and shifted through the gears, and the sound of the truck, the feel of the acceleration through the seat and the tires on the highway and the faint popping of the muffler were all familiar, things pulled from a dark closet. Gary smelled like tar and sweat, but in a good way. Mother held her hat in her lap and her hair swished about her face in the breeze. The heat brought a healthy flush to her cheeks. As muggy and hot as it was, a deep sense of contentment coursed through me and gave me chills. This time, I let my imagination have its way.

The creek ran tea-colored over polished gravel and white sand. Bay trees and water oaks grew tall from the bank and shaded all but a sunlight-dappled area in the center. The effect was that of a cool tunnel with sparrows and thrushes calling from deep in the tangled walls. The dogs leaped in and waded in circles. After a moment they both turned and looked at us as if to tell us it was okay.

“We’re coming,” I said.

Satisfied, Joe lowered his head and started lapping up the cool water. Kabo headed upstream toward the dark shade of the bridge.

Mother sat on a towel a few feet back from the bank and laid her book open beside her. Gary and I stepped to the creek edge and contemplated the water.

“It’s cold,” I said.

He stripped off his shirt and hung it on a branch. The tattoo was in full view. I glanced at Mother and she averted her eyes and placed a hand on her book. Gary waded into the shallows and fell backward and sat up on his elbows. He looked at me and grinned. “Man up, kid,” he said. “It’s worth it.”

I hung my shirt beside his, backed up, and tackled the water. I fell into the shallows, the water so cold it burned. I rolled over and sat up and crossed my hands over my chest and gasped. Joe splashed up to me and began licking my face until I shooed him away. He didn’t seem to mind and crashed off upstream after Kabo.

The creek licked my ribs and I felt the heat in my cheeks fade. My body slowly relaxed and I eased back onto my elbows into the coolness.

“You’re missing out,” Gary called up to Mother.

She smiled and finally picked up her book.

“There’s bass in here,” I said to him. “If you walk downstream a little ways you can find some deep holes. They hang out in the cut banks.”

“You ever caught any?”

“It’s pretty hard in this clear water, but I used to catch some.”

Gary stood and looked downstream. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll show you a trick.”

I got up and waded after him, the cool-off giving me new energy. It was only a second before the dogs caught on to our plan and came splashing after us.

“Where are you two going?” Mother called.

“Fishing,” Gary said. “We’ll be back in a minute.”

Mother set her book down again and watched us until we were out of sight.

*   *   *

I knelt in the shallows, holding both dogs by the collar. Gary lay flat on the creek bank just downstream from us. He had one hand in the water and the other was at rest beside him. Kabo whined and trembled with anxiety.

“Shhh,” I said. “It’s okay.”

Minutes passed while Gary remained as still as a log. Nothing about him even twitched except for his eyes, which blinked occasionally. The dogs grew impatient and tugged at their collars, but I held them and waited. Eventually I saw the hand in the water ease along the bank a tiny bit. A few more seconds passed. Then his other hand inched away from its resting place and stopped just above the surface. Suddenly he plunged it into the water and his arms jiggled about.

“You got one!” I yelled, leaping up. Kabo barked and lunged forward, pulling me face-first into the creek. I let the dogs go and struggled to my feet again. When I stood Gary was in the water, lifting a two-pound bass from the shallows. The dogs crashed up to him and circled him, eyeing the fish.

“How’d you do that!”

He turned to me and smiled. “Practice.”

I started toward him. “Can you show me?”

He knelt with the fish and cradled it into the water again.

“Wait!” I said. “We can eat it.”

He paused and looked at me. “Kind of small, don’t you think?”

“No, we can eat it. I want to eat it.”

He shrugged and lifted the fish back out of the water and tossed it onto the bank. “You better catch another one if you want to make a meal for us.”

“Show me,” I said.

We lay side by side just as Gary had been earlier. It wasn’t much use with the dogs pacing before us and scaring the fish, but Gary said he’d tell me what to do and then he’d hold Joe and Kabo while I tried.

“You make your finger look like a worm,” he said. And I saw his hand below the surface and his pointer finger slowly curling and uncurling.

“Keep it moving real slow. When the fish gets close, start tickling his belly.”

I looked at him and laughed. Gary remained focused on his finger.

“It works,” he said. “It sort of relaxes them. You’ll notice when they get calm.”

I studied his finger again, moving in the clear depths.

“Then you ease your other hand over,” he said, sliding his left hand off the bank and slowly positioning it over the imaginary fish. “Get it below the surface so you don’t splash. Stay a little behind him.”

I watched as the top of his hand sank into the water.

“Then snap!” he said, bringing both hands together. He withdrew his arms and flicked them dry and turned to me. “Think you can do it?”

I didn’t think so, but I nodded anyway.

We moved downstream and Gary held the dogs while I tried his technique. I could see the bass, suspended in the dark water beneath the overhanging tree limbs, but couldn’t attract them to my fake worm. After five minutes my finger was so cold that I couldn’t bend it, but I didn’t pull it out. I didn’t want to give up. I wanted him to see me catch one.

“Maybe we’ll try some more after lunch,” he said. “My stomach’s starting to growl.”

I was relieved to have an excuse. I sat up and saw the bass dart away. “I think I was close,” I said. “They were looking at me.”

“It takes a while to get the hang of it. Let’s head back and eat.”

21

I carried the bass back with us and showed it to Mother and told her how Gary had caught it with his hands. She acted impressed.

“We’re going to eat it for supper tonight,” I said.

“You need to keep it cool,” she said.

Gary started for the truck. “Let me get lunch out of the cooler and we’ll put the fish in it.”

He brought back a small Playmate lunch cooler that I remembered seeing in the equipment room, where it was filled with nails. He came over to Mother and knelt and took three sandwiches, three bags of potato chips, a thermos, and three paper cups from it. He placed them all on the towel and motioned at me with his chin. I brought the fish over. The inside of the cooler was scrubbed clean and a Ziploc bag of ice cubes lay across the bottom. I placed the fish inside and he closed it.

“I hope everybody likes ham and cheese,” he said.

Mother smiled and reached for a sandwich. “I didn’t know your kitchen was so stocked,” she said.

Gary opened the thermos and began filling three cups with water. “Best accommodations I’ve had in a while,” he said.

Mother got the other two towels out of the beach bag and we spread them side by side. I sat in the middle and we faced the creek and ate our lunch while the dogs lay in the shade under the bridge. Gary chewed slowly and seemed to be catching up on his thoughts of that other place he carried in his head. Mother glanced at me occasionally, but mostly stared over the water. I could tell she wasn’t completely comfortable and maybe not seeing the creek at all, but not sure where to look or what to say.

After a few minutes Gary got up and took the cooler back to the truck. He stayed there for a moment, kneeling beside Kabo and scratching behind the dog’s ears. When he came back he dropped a plastic grocery bag in my lap. “For the trash,” he said.

Mother wiped her mouth with the corner of her towel. “That was good, Gary.”

“I never had a bad picnic,” he said. “Foster, let’s clean up and see if we can get some more fish.”

I watched him catch two more bass that afternoon. I tried a few more times myself, but despite his encouragement, I wasn’t able to get the fish to approach me. By the time we started back upstream the creek was darkening with the shadows of late afternoon. The bird calls were less and more shrill in the breezeless air and the thrumming of the cicadas had faded. Squirrels fussed from the treetops, waiting for us to move on so they could come down and feed. I walked beside him, the dogs trailing us, finally too worn out to care about dashing ahead. My skin felt tight and sunburned on my face.

Mother packed the towels while Gary and I put our shirts and shoes back on.

“That’s an interesting tattoo,” she said.

Gary pulled his shirt on. “Yeah,” he said. “I guess sometimes you get caught up in the moment of things.”

“Must have been quite a moment.”

Gary looked at her. She smiled and looked away.

He started for the truck. “I was young,” he said.

“You’re still young,” she replied.

We loaded the dogs and then Gary opened the truck door for me and I swept by and climbed in. He followed and leaned over me and opened Mother’s door. She said “Thank you” and got in beside me. Gary popped the bandanna out the window to get the sand off and tied it around his head.