by Ron Rash
“Drugs, you mean.”
“Yes.”
“But if they’re your kids and you’ve served your time…”
“They ain’t mine by blood,” he says. “Their real daddy took off and left them. They was three and five when I moved in. I ain’t done much good in my life, but I tried hard to be a good daddy. For a while I was.”
“She got a restraining order against you?”
“No.”
He turns and looks out the window and I figure he’s had his say but not yet.
“After I got out I went over to Tennessee. My uncle’s got a body shop there and gave me work. I’ve been clean for a year so figured she might give me another chance. I called but hardly got a word out before she told me she’s with another man now, that he don’t do drugs or drink and holds down a steady job. She said he treats the kids great and if I really loved them as much as I claimed I’d never come near them again. She told me I’d had my chance.”
“You don’t think those kids will know who they’re from?”
“I didn’t put in a card or note, and they won’t see me clear enough in this helicopter. Their mom might know, but she won’t tell them.”
I already know what I’m going to do, but it has nothing to do with him.
“Okay,” I say.
As we head back to Sawyer Ridge, I try not to think about how many NAB regulations I’m about to violate. The kids aren’t outside when I settle over the house. He drops the ball and glove first. It lands in the front yard, hitting so hard the paper splits open. The doll hits the roof and slides off into the yard. The last gifts land as the boy and girl run out of the house. We watch as they gather up the presents. Then I pivot and head back.
We cross the river and pass over the high-stilted water tower and the school. Soon we’re back on the ground. I cut the engine. We sit a while longer, lost in our own thoughts.
“Listen,” I finally say, taking two twenties and a five from my billfold. “I don’t feel right charging you more just because you went solo.”
“I knew the price ahead of time.”
“It’d make me feel better if you took it.”
He puts the cash in his billfold and we get out. No one’s waiting to take a ride so I ask if he needs me to drive him somewhere.
“I’m just down the road at the Super Eight,” he says. “It’ll be good to stretch my legs a bit before the bus ride back to Tennessee.”
“When do you leave?”
“Tonight.”
We stand there a while longer. I try to think of something to say, but nothing comes. All the while I’m staring at his tattoo, though I don’t realize it until he lifts a hand and touches it.
“I hoped it might keep things out,” he says, “but all it seems to do is keep them in.”
He stuffs the pillowcase in his back pocket, walks out to the road, and heads back toward town. In a few minutes my first group of leaf peepers come and a while later the second. By the time we land, Todd Watson and his oldest boy are waiting. I don’t mention the man and the presents, just hand Todd the checks and bills, tell him I’ve already taken forty-five out of my share. We settle up for the rest. Then I get in my truck and head home.
Fay’s getting dinner ready, so I put the money on my bureau and join her in the kitchen.
“Did the girls call?” I ask.
“Bobby Jo did.”
“Any news?”
“Hal’s got a new line shift supervisor,” Fay says. “Jessica’s trying out for the basketball team. That’s about it.”
“You didn’t hear from Dena?”
“Got an email,” Fay says. “She told me she’s doing fine, just having to work extra hours on a project.”
It’s Friday night but Fay has to work in the morning, so she goes on to bed. I drink a beer and watch a little TV. I’m tired but I know sleep won’t come easy tonight. At eleven I lock the doors and go to bed. I snuggle up close and put my arms around her.
“That alarm goes off early for me,” she says.
“It ain’t about that,” I answer.
Fay’s body settles deeper into mine and she’s soon back asleep, but I’ll be awake awhile. Too many memories have gotten stirred up, including times I was in the air wondering if I’d ever see my family again. But that’s not what’s most on my mind. I’m thinking about those two kids and how, unlike all the other children I watched from above, they were running toward, not away from, what might rain down from the sky.
L’homme Blessé
Every month there were two or three phone queries like this one. Someone had bought a Monet at a yard sale in Weaverville or found a Grecian urn in a woodshed. One unhinged caller claimed he’d discovered the missing arms of the Venus de Milo. Others wanted Jake to evaluate folk art, hoping some elderly relative might be the new Grandma Moses or Howard Finster. A few showed up at the college unannounced, treasure trove in hand, sent by a receptionist or administrator to him, Brevard’s only art teacher. Most could be persuaded to seek evaluations by museums or galleries, though sometimes, out of personal curiosity or their insistence, Jake agreed to examine what they had. If nothing else, the consultations fulfilled his department’s community-outreach requirement, which would help next year when he came up for tenure.
This time the art was too large to bring to campus, which meant a twelve-mile drive to an isolated farmhouse, but it was an excuse to miss his afternoon office hours, which so late in the semester meant students either arguing or begging for higher grades. He was too tired to face them. Besides, the caller was Shelby Tate, whom he’d taught last fall. A good student—smart, serious, a bit older than most. She’d mentioned the paintings in class one day. Her great-uncle had covered every wall in his bedroom with painted portraits of strange beasts, her comment garnering odd looks from the other students. Jake was curious and planned to go see them during the Christmas break, but what had happened to Melissa changed all that.
Jake locked his office and walked to the faculty lot. Across the way, a grounds crew hung a wreath above the dining room door, a reminder to stop by CVS when he returned. He headed west on Highway 19, the directions on the passenger seat. The leaves were off the trees now, revealing time-worn swells so unlike the wild, seismic peaks and valleys beloved by European Romantics such as Pernhart and Friedrich. Sturm und Drang. Yet the Appalachians were daunting in their uniformity, a vast wall, unmarked by crevices that might provide an easy path out.
When the odometer neared twelve miles, Jake watched for the red realty sign marking where to turn. Gravel first, then dirt leading to a bridgeless stream. He pressed the brake, might have turned and gone back home if not for the urgency in Shelby’s voice. Please, Dr. Yancey. If you don’t come now, it’ll be too late. As the car splashed across, a back wheel spun for a moment before gaining traction. The woods opened up and a small house came into view, most of its paint peeled off, the tin roof pocked with rust. A red Jeep Wrangler was parked in front of the porch. Shelby came out to greet him. Although she wore sweatpants and an oversized sweatshirt, her pregnancy was evident. Her eyes were the same light blue as Melissa’s had been, which he’d either forgotten or not noticed before.
“Thank you for coming, Dr. Yancey,” Shelby said, her accent more noticeable than he remembered. “I’m sorry to call you so sudden, but Daddy sold this place yesterday. The new owner’s going to raze this house next week.”
“It wasn’t a problem,” he answered. “It gives me a break from listening to students complain about grades, something you never needed to do. You made an A, I recall.”
“Yes sir, I did,” Shelby answered, and hesitated. “I wasn’t certain you were still at the college, but I’m glad you are.”
For a few moments, neither of them spoke.
“Well,” Shelby said, nodding toward the open door. “What I wanted you to see is inside. Watch that fi
rst porch step. It’s so rotten it might give way on you.”
A lantern was beside the door, and Shelby struck a match and lit the wick.
“There’s no electricity,” she said.
He followed her into the front room. As his eyes adjusted to the muted light, Jake saw dusty pieces of furniture, a fireplace holding a few charred logs. They walked through a small kitchen and then down the narrow hallway. Shelby paused at a bedroom door on the left.
“In here, Dr. Yancey,” she said, raising the lantern as they entered.
Strange beasts, indeed, Jake thought, his gaze drifting across the walls. The images were amateurish but discernible. A zebra with red spots instead of stripes, a small spiked fin on its back, a shaggy elephant with down-curving tusks, a deer with the snout of an anteater, a thin-legged boar. Plywood had been nailed over the single window frame, on it in calligraphic black the face of a lion. Except for a moldering mattress on the floor, the room was bare. But as Jake’s eyes adjusted, the animals became more distinct. A mastodon, not a hairy elephant; a bison, not a boar. Despite the fin, the spotted horse too was familiar.
“I’ve seen these images before,” Jake mused aloud.
“Where?” Shelby asked.
“A book on ancient art. They were inside a French cave.”
“A French cave?” Shelby asked, clearly puzzled. “That seems so unlikely.”
“Why?”
“How would Uncle Walt know about paintings like that?”
“Same as me, I imagine, from an art history book.”
“But he didn’t have any art books.”
“Then television, or a magazine.”
“Uncle Walt didn’t have a television, and once he got back from World War Two Daddy says he hardly left this place. Twice a month Grandfather drove him to town to shop and cash his Social Security and VA checks, but that was it.”
“When did he paint these?” Jake asked.
“Daddy says it was right after he came back from Europe.”
The images did appear that old, the red and black paint flecked, the lion fading into the warped and rotting plywood.
“Maybe he saw the images over there.”
Shelby shrugged.
“Maybe.”
“When did he die?”
“2001.”
“Did he paint any besides these?”
“Not that I know of.”
“So during the war, he was in France?”
“I know he was at D-Day,” Shelby said, and nodded at the animals. “I used to think it was what he saw in his nightmares, but if it was, why did he sleep in here all those years?”
“Maybe he needed to confront it,” Jake said. “Was there ever a bed in here?”
“No, just the mattress. Daddy thinks that had something to do with the war, needing to be closer to the floor, feel less exposed. When I was a kid and we came to visit, Uncle Walt let me jump on it, like it was a trampoline. He was always kind to us kids. A couple of times I got spooked being alone back here, so I’d go out front with the grown-ups.”
“A folk art dealer or museum might find these walls interesting,” Jake said, “but with the paintings so faded, and trying to get them out without the plaster crumbling, I doubt…”
“I know, but it’s not why I asked you to come. Daddy’s having to sell this place because the taxes are a burden. Before they tear the house down, I wanted at least one person besides Uncle Walt’s kin to see the paintings, someone who might appreciate his doing them.”
In the last week, the exhaustion and lack of sleep had made his emotions so raw. Now, despite the Klonopin, he blinked back tears. Jake took out his phone, busied himself with it. Only one bar appeared.
“I was going to pull up some of the cave images.”
“There’s no reception out here,” Shelby said, and smiled, “which isn’t always a bad thing. I get a few whiners about grades too, not the students but their parents.”
“Which grade?”
“Fifth,” she answered. “Most of the kids are real sweet and I’ll miss them when I’m on maternity leave.”
“Mind if I take a couple of pictures?” Jake asked.
“No.”
Jake took one of each wall before putting the phone back in his pocket.
“I’ll compare them when I get back to the office. Like I said, maybe he saw photographs in France, if not in a book then a magazine or newspaper.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Shelby said. “The main thing was just you seeing them.”
They looked at the walls a few more moments. The images were not originals like the wild bestiaries of a folk artist like Robert Burnside, nor was there some stylistic quirk. More like something copied from a book by a talented child, but as Jake stared at them he was moved that the man felt such a deep need to express what he’d endured. They walked up the hallway and onto the porch. Shelby closed the door but did not lock it.
“If you give me your number I’ll text or call if I find out something,” Jake said, pausing as Shelby wrote her number on a scrap of paper. “Thank you for the card you sent after Melissa died. I should have responded, but, anyway, this visit allows me to say it now.”
“I’ve thought about calling you for months,” Shelby said, “but figured you had a hard enough time without burdening you more. But with the sale…”
“I’m glad you called,” he said.
As Jake drove back to Brevard, the name of the cave lingered just on the edge of memory. Not one word like Lascaux or Chauvet, but two words. Just outside the Brevard city limits, a Subaru wagon came up fast behind him, tied to its roof a Christmas tree, its tip pointed at him like a spear. A black tide of memory washed over him.
December 14, almost exactly a year ago, he and Melissa had been decorating for a Christmas party, three other couples invited. Melissa had gotten a promotion and Jake’s division chair had mentioned that his chances for tenure were excellent, so there was much to celebrate. They had gone all out: holly on the fireboard, a Fraser fir wreath. Melissa had been setting the table when the forks slipped from her grasp and clattered against the floor. She placed a hand on the table to steady herself and told Jake she was dizzy. A day later Melissa was dead. In the hospital room, he had lifted a hand heavy and cold as clay.
Shelby was one of two students who sent a card, one likely picked up at a CVS or grocery store, the card’s condolences followed by a handwritten sentence about his being in her thoughts and prayers. A brevity Jake appreciated. He’d been amazed at what people, intelligent people, could utter at such a time. An English professor, his wife beside him, quoted Tennyson’s “better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.” Another colleague said, “It’s good you two decided not to have children,” and yet another told Jake that at least he was young enough “to find another wife and start over,” as if Melissa were simply a defective machine part easily replaced.
* * *
—
When he got back to his office, no one else was around. Jake left the lights off, the only glow that of the computer screen as he tapped in “cave art France.” After a few clicks the bison, mammoth, and lion appeared. The spotted zebra was there too, though it was actually a horse. What Jake had thought a fin was instead a human hand hovering over the animal. Pech Merle was the cave’s name. He pulled up an article about its discovery in 1922. Black-and-white photographs showed the first scientists exploring the cave.
When they were in grad school together, Mason Bromwich’s dissertation had been on cave art, so Jake typed a message noting how the paintings were identical to those in Pech Merle, adding that the man who’d done them was in France during World War II.
MY QUESTION IS THIS, Jake typed. THE CAVE’S IMAGES WOULD BE IN FRENCH MAGAZINES AND NEWSPAPERS AT THAT TIME, CORRECT?
Jake hesi
tated. The email’s timing might be perceived as a subtle outreach for sympathy, for an invitation. Or seen for what it was, a request for information.
A STUDENT WANTS TO KNOW, he typed, and hit send.
He didn’t expect an immediate reply and was about to shut off the computer and leave when Mason’s response came.
HI, BUDDY, LONG TIME, NO HEAR. YOU NEED TO ANSWER YOUR EMAILS!! RE PAINTINGS—BY DETAILS, YOU MEAN EVEN THE COLORS ARE RIGHT?
YES, Jake typed. ORANGE BISON, RED DOTS ON THE HORSES.
LET ME CHECK A FEW THINGS IN SOME BOOKS. NEED IT SOON?
Jake’s hand paused over the keyboard.
YES, he typed.
GIVE ME A FEW MINUTES AND I’LL GET BACK TO YOU. YOU DOING OK? I KNOW IT’S PROBABLY NOT AN EASY TIME OF YEAR FOR YOU.
I’M FINE.
Jake leaned back in his chair and waited. Footsteps came down the hallway, a familiar clack of heels. Jake was glad his office light was off. If not, Lila Marshall would stop and want to chat. She’d recently gone through a divorce and felt she and Jake were kindred spirits. There are worse ways to lose your spouse than through death, she’d once told him. Lila’s office door opened but soon closed again. Her heels echoed hollowly back down the hall and she was gone. Half an hour passed before Mason’s response came.
YOUR SOLDIER DIDN’T SEE THEM IN A MAGAZINE OR NEWSPAPER. I EMAILED MARC VALERY AND HE AGREED THAT THE BEST SOURCES SAY NO COLOR PECH MERLE PHOTOGRAPHS BEFORE 1951, EVEN IN ART BOOKS, MUCH LESS NEWSPAPERS OR MAGAZINES. (THAT’S IN FRANCE OR ANYWHERE ELSE.) THE ONLY WAY TO KNOW ALL THOSE DETAILS WOULD HAVE BEEN VISITING THE CAVE ITSELF. M
Jake typed a response.
I DOUBT HE’D BE WANDERING AROUND IN CAVES. THEY WERE FIGHTING A WAR.
THEN SOMEONE’S FIBBING ABOUT WHEN THE IMAGES WERE PAINTED.
I DON’T THINK SO. THE PAINTINGS APPEAR THAT OLD.
MAYBE COLOR PHOTOGRAPHS WERE TAKEN, BUT A GI COMING UPON THEM? IT’S A STRETCH, PAL. CHECK TROOP MOVEMENTS. IF ANYTHING, THEY MIGHT HAVE PASSED THROUGH THE AREA.