Bent Road Part 22

Cold air sticks to Aunt Ruth and she smells like ice and snow.

"We'll be fine," she says, scooting closer to Evie, her knees bobbing up and down. "Just fine. Your daddy will be right back."

Evie scoots away, toward the spot behind the steering wheel, while Aunt Ruth watches Daddy walk up the stairs and onto Mrs. Robison's porch.

Hoping the red truck will drive past again, Evie says, "Did Aunt Eve die because her baby came out too early?"

"Where did you hear that, sweet pea?"

The sunlight bouncing off the white snow makes Evie squint. "I heard you all at Julianne's funeral. Will yours come out too early?"

Evie used to worry that Aunt Ruth would have a baby who was blue like Ian's baby sister and that they'd have to put her in the oven. Maybe the baby would wake up and cry. Maybe not. Maybe she'd die. Maybe Aunt Ruth will die, too.

"No, Evie," Aunt Ruth says. Her knees stop bobbing and she crosses her mittens on her lap. "I hope not."

Up on the Robisons' front porch, Daddy knocks on the door and pushes it open. Straight ahead, at the end of the street, the red truck is there again, rolling across the intersection. And then it is gone.

Chapter 31.

Celia stands at her kitchen sink, her back to the conversation going on at the table, and dries the last dish from an early supper. Outside the window, as dusk falls, the light bouncing off the snow is gray. On the back porch, Jonathon is prying the wood from the window that Ray broke so he can lay in the new gla.s.s. Elaine is in her room, waiting for him to finish. Celia startles each time his hammer slams down. If only he would stop, for a moment at least, she could catch her breath. A piece of wood falls and clatters across the porch. Celia leans against the sink, and Arthur talks on, over the noise.

He called Floyd Bigler from Mary Robison's living room, relit her heater, and while they waited for the sheriff, Mary told Arthur that she had visited the house to tidy up for Julianne who lay dead there since summer. Mary had shined the windows with vinegar-water and swept the corners. Before the weather turned, she laid a new white quilt over Julianne because the house carried a terrible chill. It didn't seem right to bury the girl. That's what Orville did at first. He wrapped her in feed sacks and buried her on Norbert Brewster's land. But Julianne was too lovely, too tender, and when she was dead, first dead, still too beautiful to be buried. So Mary dug her up, carried her inside the old house, and tucked her in tight. When the sheriff arrived, she retold the same story.

"Yes," Mary Robison said. "Orville killed her." She nodded toward the garage behind the house. "Done the same to himself."

Arthur and Floyd found Orville Robison on the garage floor, frozen solid, a hole blown out of the back of his head. Mary told Arthur and the sheriff that she thought to clean up after her husband, but then decided it wasn't her business to tidy up another one of his messes. She didn't know for sure how he killed Julianne, only that he said it was an accident, same as snagging a fish instead of catching it proper with bait and a hook. Didn't much matter how it got done-there's a fish on the end of the line either way.

"Some men don't know the difference between a daughter and a wife," she said. "Don't let Ruth go back to that husband of hers. Don't let him have that sweet tiny baby like Orville had mine."

Arthur turns away from Ruth and chokes as he repeats Mary Robison's words.

"Don't let Ray have that sweet tiny baby like Orville had mine." Celia slips behind Arthur's chair and kneels next to Ruth. "You're safe here. You and Elisabeth are safe." Holding Ruth's narrow shoulders, she raises her eyes to Arthur. "Is she not well? Has the sheriff taken her for help?"

"She didn't seem altogether aware. That's the only way I can put it. Not at all aware."

"That poor family," Ruth says. "That poor little girl."

Celia presses her palm to Ruth's cheek. "You should rest. This can't be good for you."

Celia says this because she has to. If she is to be a good person, she has to say it, and if she weren't so scared, she'd mean it. She reaches to touch Ruth's hand, but stops when Daniel's bedroom door opens. She doesn't want him hearing any of this conversation, doesn't even want him close to it. It's not fitting for a child to hear, but when he walks out of his room, he has become a man. Just like that. He is a man.

"You hungry?" Celia asks.

"Na," Daniel says. His voice, like Arthur's, is a low croak. When did his voice change? She thought she would hear it coming in cracks and squeaks along the way. His neck is thicker, too, and triangular muscles fix it to his shoulders, which are suddenly wide. Even his hands, they're larger. Just like that, when she was wasn't looking, he became a man.

"You should eat," Celia says, but he shakes his head and walks across the kitchen toward the back porch where Jonathon is still pounding. As she watches him walk away, tears well in the corners of her eyes.

He is gone.

"I won't have the children hearing any of this." Celia spits the words at Arthur as if it's his fault this has happened, his fault that the town will bury Julianne Robison and Ian in the same week and that Daniel grew up when her back was turned. Another funeral before Julianne's grave is even settled. Another small coffin, too small. Another child grown. What if it were one of her children instead of Julianne or Ian? How does a father kill his own child? How does a mother turn her back and find a man has taken over where once she had a boy?

She says it again. "None of it. Not a word."

Because Arthur is a good man, he nods and lowers his head, gladly taking the fault. Now the tears spill onto Celia's cheeks. She lays aside her dish towel and goes to him. He is stiff at first, not letting her feel him, but then his body warms, his muscles soften, and his shoulders fall. He leans into her for this moment.

Before he walks onto the back porch where Jonathon is pulling the last board off the broken window, Daniel stops in front of the gun cabinet. He takes his winter coat from the hook and sees the small gold lock hanging in place, snapped tight. Glancing back to make sure no one can see him from the kitchen and waiting until he hears Jonathon working at the back door, he stretches up and reaches for the key on top of the cabinet. He's never been tall enough before but Mama says he's growing like a weed. Dad says like a stinkweed. Lifting onto his toes, he reaches over the ledge. He stumbles, reaches again, his side starting to ache. He feels it.

Checking again and waiting until he hears Jonathon fumbling in his tool chest, he slips the key into the lock, turns it, thinking the click will echo through the house. No one hears. The lock falls open. But then he considers Jonathon working there on the back porch. There is no other way out. He won't let Daniel walk by with a rifle in hand. He'll tell him to put the d.a.m.n fool thing away and then he'll tell Dad and Dad will hide the key somewhere higher. So Daniel snaps the lock closed and reaches overhead to replace the key. He stumbles again, not very steady in his leather boots because they cramp his toes. Bracing himself against the wall, he tries again and, as he slides the key back over the ledge, he knocks several coats off the crowded hooks. Pausing to make sure no one heard, he bends down to pick them up. Jonathon's, Dad's, Elaine's, another of Dad's. Then he stands and, as he begins to hang them up again, he sees the empty spot where Dad's shotgun usually rests.

Evie sits on the edge of her bed where she can see out her bedroom window. It is nearly dark, but through all the trees that have dropped their leaves, she can still see the road. A truck drives over the top of the hill. So many cars since everyone started to die. And phone calls. First Olivia the cow died. Evie doesn't like her anymore. She brought death to them and now it has settled in for a good long stay. She's probably not even all the way dead yet because of the cold. It will keep her for a while, that's what Ian said before he was dead. But not Julianne. She died all alone, all the way dead, in a little bed in a strange house, and now she's buried, still all alone. How did they dig it up, the frozen ground? Will the same two Negro men dig Ian's grave? They are small graves. Not so much digging. What if Aunt Ruth's baby comes too early and it's blue and it doesn't wake up in the oven? That will be a very small grave, but Aunt Ruth's will be regular sized, almost regular.

The truck is still driving down the hill toward their house. Daddy says there's black ice. It's the most dangerous. The truck knows it, too. It drives slowly, and at the bottom of the hill, it stops, white smoke spilling out of its tail end. Then the truck, the red truck, drives slowly past.

Chapter 32.

Standing on the back porch, Daniel watches Jonathon, who is squatting near the door, a pane of gla.s.s balanced on his two palms. At first, Jonathon doesn't notice Daniel standing there. Daniel could push him down with one kick in the b.u.t.t and he'd topple over and the gla.s.s would shatter all over him. It might even kill him, and he'd never find cabinets for his new house. Then there would be room for Daniel to be a man. Jonathon is a pocket clogger. That's what Dad called the men who worked in the car factories and made sure not to work too fast or too slow. Lots of the men complained about the Negroes taking jobs. Dad only complained about the men who did just enough to keep on working. Dad said they took a job from another man, a better man, who would take pride in his work. They were the pocket cloggers. Jonathon is a pocket clogger-clogging up the spot that Daniel should have.

"Hey," Jonathon says. Balancing the gla.s.s on his two flat palms, he begins to stand. "You going out?"

Daniel nods but doesn't answer.

"Getting dark," Jonathon says, glancing outside. "Want some company?"

Across the porch and beyond the screened door, the gravel drive isn't white anymore. All the cars coming and going have ground it down to dirt again. One thing is for d.a.m.n sure. This roof won't collapse because he cleaned off every speck of snow himself.

"Na," Daniel says to Jonathon because he most definitely does not want his company.

"Cold out there." Jonathon slides the gla.s.s into place. "Would you look there in that toolbox?" he says, motioning toward a silver box on the floor. "You see a small can in there?"

Daniel flips open the lid with his foot. He shakes his head.

"Well, d.a.m.n it all. Forgot the glaze." Jonathon lifts the gla.s.s out again and lays it back on the cardboard box it came in. "A lot of banging around for nothing. You want to help me put this wood back up?"

Daniel shakes his head as he b.u.t.tons his coat. Then he takes a hat from one of the pockets and pulls it down low on his forehead. Inside, a kitchen chair scoots across the wooden floor and someone walks through the house.

"I'm real sorry about Ian," Jonathon says, closing the cardboard flaps over the gla.s.s and looking at the ground instead of Daniel. It seems everyone is afraid to look at him. "Real sorry that had to sneak up on you."

"Didn't sneak up on anybody. I knew he'd die soon enough."

Jonathon lifts his eyes, one hand still on the pane of gla.s.s. "Well, so it wasn't such a surprise. Still sorry, though."

When Jonathon looks away again, Daniel wants to kick him hard, so hard that he flies through the door and lands in the kitchen at Elaine's feet. Instead, he says, "See ya," and starts to walk outside.

"Hey, Dan," Jonathon says. "Listen, I'll be taking off when I get this wood back up. But you ever need anything, just call. You know where to find me."

Daniel nods and walks across the porch.

By the time he reaches the last stair but before he steps onto the gravel drive, a thought starts to gnaw at him. He stops on the bottom stair and lets it gnaw all the way through. When it does, he looks toward the garage and smiles because now he knows where he'll find Dad's shotgun.

Celia offers Ruth a third cup of coffee when she excuses herself to go lie down, but she shakes her head and pats her stomach to signal a tired baby and Mama. At this, Celia smiles, but Arthur still can't look at Ruth. Celia nudges him for being impolite even though she knows it's not bad manners; it's fear. Mary Robison showed them all the truth about the very worst that a man can do to his own daughter. She made them all think, believe even, that Ray might do the same to little Elisabeth. She made them believe it so strongly that it still seems Ray is the one who hurt Julianne. It still feels like he is the one who wrapped that poor child in feed bags and dropped her in a hole.

"Rest well, Ruth," Celia says. "Things will be better tomorrow."

Daniel waits in the garage until Jonathon and Elaine leave, and then, thinking someone will put out the porch lights, he waits even longer. No one ever does, so taking a deep breath, he slips behind the oil drum, pushes aside an old woolen blanket and lifts the shotgun. He cracks it open and sees the bra.s.s end of two sh.e.l.ls. Loaded. It's heavier than he remembered, and the barrel is cold, even through his leather gloves. He slaps his palm against the wooden stock, getting a good feel, a good G.o.d d.a.m.ned feel, and then props it on his shoulder, barrel pointing up like Dad taught him. After looking through two loose slats in the door and seeing no one on the porch, he slips outside and runs across the hard gravel drive, through the gate that used to hold Olivia before Jonathon shot her dead. High stepping it through the snow, he runs toward the spot where the prairie dogs once lived.

Evie crawls into her closet but scurries out when someone walks across the living room floor, footsteps rattling the floorboards all the way in Evie's room. Through her terry-cloth robe, the floor is hard and cold on her legs. She sits back, pulling her knees to her chest, and listens. The footsteps pa.s.s by and Elaine's door opens. Aunt Ruth has moved into Elaine's room where she and the baby will live after the baby is born, so long as the baby isn't blue and dies in the oven. She switched rooms because Evie doesn't like her anymore. Aunt Ruth said it was because Elaine needed so much help with the wedding. Evie told her it didn't matter one bit and to go ahead and change rooms. After Aunt Ruth closes her door, Evie falls onto her hands and knees, pushes through the hems of Mama's skirts and dresses, the ones she only wears in the spring, and drags out a wadded-up blanket.

Waiting and listening and hearing nothing more, Evie slowly untangles the blanket and pulls out the Virgin Mary. She holds her up, looking first into her ivory face and her tiny blue eyes and then at the seams where her wrists meet her hands. She thinks she'd like to talk to the Virgin Mary, but someone might hear. So instead, cradling the statue like a baby, she hops back onto her bed, scoots until she can see out the window, and together they watch the red truck, driving down the road from the other direction, drift over toward the ditch and stop.

Soon it will be all the way dark. Setting the statue on the bed next to her, Evie stands and presses her nose to the cold gla.s.s. Out on the road, beyond the bare trees where the red truck is parked, the driver's side door opens and a man steps out. He stands still, his hands on his hips, and looks up at the house for a good long minute. He wavers, like the tall wheat stalks on a windy day. He must be cold, even with his jacket. The brim of his hat rides high on his forehead. Tugging it down, Uncle Ray reaches inside the truck and pulls out a long, thin gun.

Chapter 33.

Celia shuts off the hot water when the bubbles reach the top of the sink. Gathering her cardigan sweater closed and wrapping her arms around her waist, she stares out the dark window. The tree is there, holding out its bare branches, reminding her of the cold, harsh winter. In the dim light, its icy coating doesn't sparkle. The tree looks nearly dead, standing in the dark, making Celia doubt it will come to life again in spring, making her wonder if spring will ever come.

"It's been such a long few days," she says to Arthur, who is sitting at the table. "You should have something more to eat."

Arthur holds his head in his hands and nods, though to what, Celia isn't sure.

"I could make you a sandwich for now. Then you could sleep."

"I found her in the shed, you know," Arthur says, his head lowered as if talking to the table. "I did. I found her."

Celia slides into a chair without pulling it back or making any noise.

"I knew she was in there, even before I opened the door." Arthur presses both hands around his coffee mug. "How does a person know something like that? Even before I opened the door. I could feel it, feel something on the other side."

He looks up at Celia.

"How does a person know?"

Pressing a dish towel over her mouth, Celia shakes her head.

"She had Mother's statue with her, holding it in one hand. Must have thought it would help her." Arthur exhales, almost a laugh. "She was so tiny, lying there. More like she was sleeping, except for the blood."

"It's so long past, Arthur. It wasn't your fault. Wasn't anyone's fault."

"I dropped her, the statue. Broke both hands off. Mother lost them in the laundry. For days, Ruth searched for them. Long past the funeral. Through every sheet and sock and basket. Looked until she found them both."

From behind the cover of her dish towel, Celia nods because that is so like Ruth, hunting and searching-probably the only helpful thing she could find to do. Because there is nothing she can say, Celia reaches for Arthur's hand instead. He lets her touch his fingers. They sit this way, their fingertips intertwined, not speaking, until their coffee has gone cold. Celia wants to remind Arthur that he was a boy when Eve died. He did what his sister asked, thought he was helping. She wants to soothe him, but before she finds the proper words, a familiar sound outside the kitchen window distracts her. Olivia has gotten out again. Arthur will be so angry with Daniel. No, it's not Olivia. Olivia is dead. Celia slowly pulls her hands away and turns toward the dark window.

Arthur hears it, too, because he lifts up a hand to silence her when she begins to speak. A rustling. A snapping. The wind. Or a coyote. It's always a coyote. Whenever Celia is lying in bed late at night and hears something outside, Arthur wraps an arm around her, pulls her close and whispers that it is a coyote. Celia waits for him to say the same now, but instead, he holds up a hand to keep the silence and slides his chair away from the table. Celia mirrors his movement, pushing back her own chair, silently, slowly. Arthur steps up to the kitchen window, leans so he can see around the side of the house and exhales.

"Looks to be Mary Robison," he says, walking toward the back of the house. "Awful cold night to be out and about."

Celia stands and presses out her skirt. "Well, heaven's sake, invite her in. I'll start some fresh coffee."

Dumping the stale grounds into a tin can near the sink, Celia shivers at the rush of cold air that spills into the kitchen when Arthur opens the back door. She spoons fresh coffee into the percolator and takes three mugs from the cabinet as Arthur and Mary walk into the kitchen, Arthur helping Mary out of her coat. Neither of them speaks. Mary is smaller here in Celia's kitchen then in St. Anthony's or the cafe or her own living room when Celia delivered Ruth's food. Her face is small enough to cup in one hand and, standing next to Arthur, she seems she might disappear in his shadow. Once Mary is seated, Arthur kneels in front of her, takes both of her hands and rolls them front to back. Then, he unlaces one of her boots and slips it from her foot. Celia steps forward. He sets the boot aside and begins to rub Mary's foot.

"Arthur," Celia whispers.

Shaking his head to quiet Celia, Arthur removes the other boot. Mary's small shoulders fall forward as he rubs her second foot. Celia sets down the coffee mugs, goes to the linen closet outside the bathroom and pulls out her heaviest quilt. As gently as she can, she wraps it around Mary, pulls it closed under her chin and tucks it around her narrow hips. Rubbing both feet at once now, Arthur glances up at Celia.

"She must have walked," he whispers. Then, leaning forward and inspecting Mary's eyes, he says, "Did you walk, Mary?"

Mary smiles down into Arthur's face but doesn't answer.

"Best you go wake Ruth," he says to Celia. "Think Mary'll be needing her about now."

Within five minutes, the glow of the porch lights has faded and Daniel is breathing hard, fogging the air around him though he can hardly see it. His thighs ache from running through the snow, throwing his knees waist high for every step, and his left side throbs. Deep in his chest, the icy air burns his lungs. His own breathing is the only sound he hears. When he reaches a low spot in the snow at the bottom of a drift, he stops, the shotgun still propped over his shoulder, leans forward, and rests with one hand braced against his knee. He is nowhere near the prairie dog mound, or where the prairie dog mound used to be. Ian went back there, flung that dead prairie dog for his brothers to see. The brothers said prairie dogs wouldn't live there anymore, not since Daniel killed one. Ian said, "Who the h.e.l.l cares? It was a good shot, a d.a.m.n good shot, so who the h.e.l.l cares about some G.o.d d.a.m.ned old prairie dogs?"

Standing straight, Daniel lifts the gun. He braces the b.u.t.t against his right shoulder and brings the stock to his cheek, keeping his head high. Ian showed him how with a sawed-off broomstick.

"Don't let your head sag," he had said. "Keep it straight. Point; don't aim. That's the big difference. Aim a rifle. Point a shotgun."

Problem is Daniel doesn't have anything to point it at. Staring down the barrel, he sees nothing but dark rolling fields. He listens hard, thinking that maybe he'll hear chains. Chains dangling from Jack Mayer's wrists. He'll see Jack Mayer, his black skin, his white eyes glowing bright as the snow in the dim light. He'll see those thick heavy arms again, pumping hard with every stride. He'll shoot Jack Mayer. He'll shoot him because Ian said Jack Mayer killed Julianne Robison. Except he didn't. Mr. Robison did, and he's dead already. So Daniel will point, not aim, because Ian is dead and Daniel doesn't have any friends left. He'll lead the target that will be running through the snow, high stepping under the weight of shackles and chains, and he'll spatter buckshot across Jack Mayer's back. Daniel will shoot him dead and then he'll be a man.

But, in the fading light, on the distant horizon where the last of day is sinking, Daniel sees nothing. There is no Jack Mayer. He's dead somewhere, lying in a ravine or buried under a snowdrift, or maybe he escaped across state lines. For months, he's been gone, been gone all along. He didn't do any of those things that Ian read in the newspaper. Didn't live in Ian's garage or steal Nelly Simpson's Ford Fairlane. He's gone. Daniel lowers the gun and walks toward home, still a boy.