Lost

by Devon, Gary;

  She was trapped in that disarming gaze. It was only then that she let herself admit that she loved him. The idea asserted itself and she accepted it. Until then, she hadn’t. She would miss his little actions and expressions, his laugh, his voice that touched her so, his clarity. The moments loomed between them, charged with everything that would remain unsaid. She knew it had already been decided; she had the sensation of rushing toward an unavoidable fate. Searchingly, she touched his face. All the feelings she’d kept in silence these days gave way to the folds of peace that surrounded them. She remembered thinking, If I’m really going to do this, I’ll do it to last me the rest of my life. She kissed him again and trembled, anticipating what would happen now, what had to happen, what she would do. He began to loosen her clothes. “No,” she murmured, “not like this,” and let out a convulsive breath. “I’ll do it.”

  Nothing else was said. She turned from him blindly, and moved down the hall to the room where he slept. Still feeling where his fingers had touched her through her clothes, she lifted the glass chimney from the lamp and lit it with a match from the holder. The flame nibbled blue on the wick. He had not yet come into the room, but she could sense him in the doorway, watching her, silent. Her body rocked forward a little on the throb of her heartbeat; she began to undo her clothes. Look at me, he had said that first morning when she opened her eyes. Look at me, she thought. With a twinge of self-consciousness, she undressed, then watched him enter the room and undo his trousers. She turned from him to pull the covers back on the bed, her breasts yielding to his hands. Her pulse deepened and flashed.

  She trembled as she turned back to him, letting her arms close around him and lifting herself up to his mouth. And the rhythm that had lain dormant in her for so long was alive in her lips. “I’ve wanted you,” she said, and she was still trembling when he lifted her and laid her back on the bed.

  Suddenly, passionately, without any thought or even the will to think, she gave herself to him. It hurt a little at first and she thought she was tearing inside like new leaves, but he was bending over her, between her legs. “Mark,” she murmured. “Mark …”

  Then they were apart and his dark eyes, full of admiration, devoured her. She moaned watching him and drew his head down to her, to feel him there again. “Don’t stop,” she murmured, “don’t stop,” still smoldering inside.

  He touched her lips to silence her. “The night’s still ahead of us,” he said.

  She looked at him, and smiled. “Do you suppose they’ll know what we’ve done?”

  He looked amused. “You worry too much.”

  “No,” she said, “it’s not that. It’s just … this night will have to last me a very long time.”

  “Nothing lasts as long as we want it to,” he said.

  “Maybe it will for me. I want to be everything with you.” She could see the kindling in his eyes; he was about to speak again. “Please,” she said, suffused with tenderness. “Don’t talk … don’t talk.”

  Her lips roamed his body, never stopping; his long muscles shivered under the slow brush of her mouth. She lavished herself with him, nuzzled and caressed him with her flesh, touching him everywhere, her breasts trailing over him, feeling his chest with them, his mouth, his eyes. She kissed the soft plush skin of his belly. As if from far away, she heard him groan. “Ah,” she laughed and, rising on her arms, leaned over to kiss him fully. “Let me look at you,” he said. She sat astride him, bedazzled. His hands covered and caressed her nipples, sending liquid contractions all through her. She wanted to let her flesh absorb his in an act like fire. She thought his eyes had narrowed. “What is it?” she murmured. “Tell me.”

  “Leona …” His voice throbbed inside her. She closed her eyes. “I swear to God, Leona. You take my breath away.” They were like words from another time, cloaked in his man’s voice.

  Folding to him and arching back just a little, she received him in a gentle smothered meeting, and her body began to move in a rhythm of its own, to and fro, as fluent and unrestrained as light switching through prisms. She abandoned herself to her own pleasure. The lamplight shattered to filaments; she could hardly see the shadowed blur of his face. All her movements began to gain speed; an indescribable, sweet pressure ripened inside her. “Mark. Touch me.” And when she couldn’t contain it any longer, she threw herself upright on him, arched and tensed, her thighs shuddering with exertion, and a scream rose deep in her throat. “My God! … God! … God!” Her hair hung in her face. Strumming inside, she toppled to him. Rapture flooded through her—wave upon wave, as if a long sweet ribbon were being drawn from her.

  18

  On the edge of sleep, Funny Grandma heard Vivian out by the gate saying goodbye to their company. “Now, don’t stay away so long next time,” she called to them.

  “Goodbye, Vee. Thanks for everything.”

  Her old fingers pecked the nightstand and closed on her eyeglasses. Funny Grandma set the springlike wires over her ears. Now she could see. Leaning to her window, she peered through the long depression of tree shadows and fence, woodpiles and sheds. Headlight beams flashed across her face, dazzled her glasses, and made her squint. “They’re out there waitin’,” she muttered, her mouth working on the words. “Just waitin’. If you listen, you’ll hear ’em.”

  “Good night,” Vivian called. “Don’t forget, now. Come see us. Goodbye. Bye.” Doors slammed, metal doors out in the night; motors started up. The gate closed. Vivian’s footsteps crossed to the porch, the screen door clapped.

  Funny Grandma nestled her head in the crook of her arm to watch the night. Moments later, she was talking though there was no one there to hear her. “Vivy,” she was saying, “why won’t ye listen to me? I am an old, old woman, not very long for this world. I have seed many things and did many things I shouldn’t, but Vivy, if I never knowed anything else, if I never draw another breath, I will prove to ye once and for all what ye won’t hear of. That no account, lowlife trash ye feed on the porch is stealin’ us blind.” Her head curled and rolled to the pillow, her eyelids sagged shut, her breathing grew deeper and slower. “I don’t know why yer daddy puts up with it. Why don’t he just drive ’em off?” She dreamed she could see them crouched behind bushes, eyes flashing in the moonlight.

  Vivian was coming in to say good night. “Mama, shame on you. You’ve still got your clothes on.”

  Funny Grandma rose toward the face whose features were like her own but younger for all eternity. “Vivy, ye have to listen to me. Will ye listen?” And it began again. “They’s out there stealin’ our corn we slaved for.”

  “I know, Mama,” Vee said. “I know. But it’s all right.… I know. Let’s see if we can’t put this nightgown on.”

  Through the walls of the toolshed came the sound of a truck motor, and the growl went on building in the Chinaman. “That’s the last one,” Sherman told him and held the black mouth tighter. Thin razors of light flickered through gaps in the crude plank wall, expanded and rotated in the air above his head. In the barnyard, the truck turned; the Chinaman’s growl deepened.

  The last of the pickups rumbled past the shed. Minutes passed. The Chinaman struggled to get up, but Sherman held him, speaking directly into his ear. “Now, be still,” he whispered. “Lay still. I mean it.” Out on the main road, the noise of the truck engine gradually sank to a distant buzz. Then silence.

  Sherman pulled the loose galoshes from his shoes. Tapping the pill bottle to his mouth, he gulped three of the pills, then stared at the bottle while he capped it. These new pills ain’t as good as the others, he thought. Not near as good. He unfastened the toolshed door, patted his leg, and the Chinaman followed him out. Under the dim full moon, the mist stung his face like needles. When he walked across the untrodden snow, it cracked under his feet, and the noise made him even more jittery than he had been.

  Only that snowman in the yard told him children were here, that they were really here.

  At the woodpile, he studied the quiet hous
e. He scanned the shadowed porch where the others had come out, saying goodbye; then he looked back to the side of the house where the tall windows flickered with stovelight. Keeping the Chinaman close, he followed the path around the picket fence until he could look directly through the four windows and into the dim interior.

  Then the medicine took hold, so hard he swayed with it. The surrounding night distorted and slipped into place, then grew so sharp it was almost painful. And Sherman felt it come over him like ice water, his muscles pulled tight, his breath drawn in short, deep gasps. There was nothing but the house now and the people in it, Mamie in it. Nothing else reached him, there was no other world. If that woman tried to stop him, that woman he had hated so long … If anybody tried to stop him, he would do whatever had to be done. He would kill them all. The knife blade glistened at the end of his fist. Nothing would keep him from Mamie this time. He looked again at the firelit windows where nothing moved, then back at the gate in the picket fence and slowly turned and beckoned the dog.

  Untying her sash, Vee slipped the bright collar over her head and dropped the apron on the back of a kitchen chair. With the neighbors gone, the house seemed hollow and lonely. She hadn’t missed Leona until she stood up from the piano an hour ago to offer her neighbors dessert and a late-night cup of coffee. Hardesty was gone, too; she knew immediately what had happened. She smiled. Well, I hope they have a good time, she thought. It’d do her good. Now, except for the unwashed coffee cups and dessert dishes left on the table, everything was in its place, the kids’ playthings still upstairs where she had stashed them, the room pretty much in order. It was almost too tidy for her taste; she had grown used to having the kids and their things underfoot. Through the doorway to the living room, the light from the stove throbbed.

  After the festivities, she felt her solitude acutely. She opened one of the tall windows a crack to air out the room. The pall of tobacco smoke began to seep away. The night sky looked so close now. With a barn ladder, she could crawl right up into that moon and go to sleep with no regrets. She stood looking through the window at all that was hers and thought, Shame on you, Vee Turner, what’ve you got to feel so low about? There’s corn aplenty in that crib, chickens brooding on eggs this very minute, and three little babes fast asleep in your attic. Then she knew what she wanted to do. I’ll go upstairs and keep ’em company till Leona gets back. I don’t need to stand here feelin’ so blue. She shut the window, turned back the covers on Leona’s bed, and went toward the stairs.

  Hearing footsteps, Mamie sat up in bed. “You’re not her,” she said.

  “No, I’m not,” Aunt Vee told her quietly. “But I’m the next best thing. Slide on over there a little bit. I’m goin’ to keep you company.”

  “Stay,” Sherman whispered, bending down, his voice a dry husk. “Stay. Wait here.” Obediently the Chinaman sat down, his matted tail sweeping the snow. Sherman straightened up to study the night.

  The gate opened, silent as ball bearings, and stuck in an icy drift. He stepped into the yard. Clouds drifted across the moon. The mist was changing to rain.

  Leaning toward the window, Funny Grandma watched him come through the misty haze. Then she heard him entering the house—a muffled sound that struck at some deep chord in her heart.

  A plate was set aclatter. All at once, it was stilled. Sitting upright in bed, her heart pounding, Funny Grandma strained to hear him through the drafty walls of the house. “I’ll show ye,” she muttered. “I’ll show ye, damn ye! Won’t let an old woman catch ’er breath.” She shifted to the side of her bed and squinted through sleep-tilted glasses at the door. “Vivy!” she called, and choked; her heart twisted painfully. No voice answered her, no one came to the door. Somethin’s afoot in the house.

  Out of the dark, Sherman emerged in the doorway. The wood stove left burning in the living room gave off little light. Across the room a bed was turned down and even that was hard to see. He wondered what it meant—that bed. He wished he hadn’t lost his pencil flashlight. He lit a match. Yellow light leapt from his fingers and he held it higher. He saw nothing to indicate that children had been here. The match burned out; he dropped it and struck another, then another, wandering past the stove. Is this the wrong place? His eyes roamed back to the turned-down covers. He struck a match and stepped toward the bed. Suddenly he bit his lips and flung the smoking black stick from his scorched fingers. “Ah, shit,” he mumbled, sucking at his fingers. The bed had been turned down, but why? Who for? He had seen all the others leave. Where is everybody? At the foot of the bed, wedged among suitcases, was a purse.

  He looked back toward the dark doorway and heard nothing. He grabbed the purse, opened it. Feeling inside, he pulled out some papers and set them out on the bed. Then he dug down inside the purse until he found a billfold. Quickly he flipped through the plastic sleeves, past meaningless snapshots, looking for something with a name—and saw the driver’s license. He struck a match, his next to last, and read the signature. Leona Hillenbrandt. Seeing her name sent sparks through his blood. He shook out the match. I knew it! he thought, thrusting the billfold back into the purse. I knew it.

  Then he saw the map.

  In her house slippers, Funny Grandma crossed the painted floor to her wardrobe. They come in here, Vivy, at night, in here. To steal our corn … in my own house. She could feel her heartbeat in her runaway hands, but she caught the wooden knob, opened the mirrored door, and pulled out, through hanging clothes, her dead husband’s 10-gauge shotgun, the big gun, the one he’d once used to kill a bear. From the hat shelf on the other side, Funny Grandma took down a box of shells. The exertion only increased the wildness in her hands. The box shook like a live hornets’ nest. Don’t respeck nothin’, nobody! She tore the box open and dumped the cartridges on her bed, where they fell together in a loose clutter of thuds.

  Her arms ached and her joints were beginning to stiffen. Her heart would not slow down. She managed to break open the breech of the shotgun. Humped over the bed in a bank of hazy moonlight, she caught up one of the red waxed shells and jammed it into the first of the two empty chambers. “Ha!” she exclaimed, under her breath. She reached for another shell, but her hands were shaking too much. She dropped it. The weighted casing struck the floor with a loud clack, then rolled in noisy rim runs. “Damn ye,” she mumbled, startled, and held her breath. Then she snatched up another cartridge. The shell stuttered against the chamber opening and slipped in. She cranked the double barrels upright. The breech plunked to. She let loose a sigh and drew the hammers back to cock the gun. Holding it cradled against her chest, she went to the door and crossed the porch, her right-hand forefinger on the trigger.

  The kitchen door was standing open. She squeezed her eyes and stared at it. The door was ajar, nothing else. Dim moonlight fell through it in a long broken crack, exposing part of a chair and the edge of the kitchen table. The wind’s ablowin’, she thought; fixin’ to rain. She opened the door wider and peered over her shoulder. Setting her feet, she swung around and the shape of darkness on the wall changed into harness. “Shadder,” she said, and let go all her breath, “you ain’t nothin’ but night standin’ still.” But afterward, to keep her courage up against the terrible thing that was afoot, she began to talk to herself. “I ain’t afeared,” she murmured. “I ain’t afeared.” Drifting forward, tottering from side to side, she crossed the worn threshold. Not a plank announced her passage.

  Brandenburg Station.

  He held the map down in the stovelight to see it clearer. With his finger, he followed the pencil line across the map of Kentucky till it ended. A town on the river, circled. In the flickering dimness, his eyes smarted. Even down close to the stove, he had trouble reading the tiny map words. Again and again, he shaped the name with his mouth to remember it. He had started to take the papers—had unbuttoned his shirt to stuff them in—when he thought, No. Put them back. Just in case. Then she won’t never know the difference. Quickly he returned the papers to the purse and slid it
back in its place. From some other room, he heard a noise, and somebody talking very low. Then silence. Bent in concentration, he listened and heard it again, a soft garbled voice like somebody talking in their sleep. He drew rigid, turned and glimpsed a shadow drifting toward the doorway: a woman, it looked like. Wavering ahead of her, the long double barrels of a gun protruded into the firelit room.

  Twisting, darting for a place to hide, he bumped a rocker and shadows leapt around him, like crazy laughter.

  “I have seed all kindsa things good and bad come my way. I have seed women built up wi’ child and tore down and put asunder. I have seed men strung up and shot down.…” Outside, the black night shook with loud thunder. Her arms began to cramp. The big gun was too heavy. She had to stop and rearrange it in her hands.

  Next to the turned-down bed, Sherman stood inside the filmy curtains watching her come.

  “I know of things ye’ll never know.…” In the glimmering light, the doorway rose up around her. She stood straight as a stake. In that terrible instant, Sherman saw her as he had never seen anything in his life. She was small, smaller than him, and old, her skin as patterned as a snake’s hide. Blurred behind glasses, her deep-socketed eyes watched the room with hawklike scrutiny. Her lips were puckered together, absolutely expressionless and unchanging. She was making a little noise, humming or moaning. His fist grew slippery on the knife. In her hands, she carried a shotgun that looked longer than she was.

  Everything was swaying and uncertain: the stovelight ebbed and receded, her flannel nightdress shifted, her face quivered uncontrollably. She heard a sound, but even in that suspended silence it was so low she couldn’t make out what it was. “Whar are ye?” she demanded.

  Only his eyes moved.

  “Who the hell are ye?” she snapped even louder. “Botherin’ me and mine.” Suddenly there was a noise—a grating noise tearing across her nerves—and she turned swiftly toward it. Standing boldly at the window was a monstrous shadow thing. She staggered forward and stared at it. Hit’s some man, she thought, peerin’ at me. In my bedclothes. A big man, black, mulled by the rain on the windowpane. Her spine stiffened with fright. The glass fogged and cleared under its breath, but it made no sound just then. Trembling all over, she drew her mouth even tighter. “Who are ye?” she demanded sharply. “Show yerself!”