by Laird Barron
Everything might’ve been okay, maybe we would’ve settled in as a family if we could’ve held on until the old man retired and relocated us to the islands as he’d always promised. Everybody knows how the gods are when it comes to the plans of mortals.
Dad claimed to love Mom more than sweet life itself. Maybe it’s true. Nonetheless, he killed her one summer night as they rowed a skiff across Black Loon Lake. I was fifteen.
EIGHT
Virgil Walker and foreman Coates didn’t quite break me that first two weeks on the farm. There were moments I believed they must have been trying. As Jade foretold, I bucked hay and mucked out stalls and swept the stables, mostly under the stern eye of the foreman himself. I stacked cordwood that Coates or Lionel dragged in behind the tractor and unloaded burlap bags of feed from the container van that rumbled in every few days. Acclimating to the weather required some fortitude, as I’m a gloomy-day person. Years of outdoor adventuring in the Arctic had thickened my blood.
Rough, salt-of-the-earth labor. Virgil had constructed a rude sauna of planks and logs on the far side of the main lot. I crawled in every sundown and steamed my blisters and bruises.
After my steam session, I’d eat a plate of whatever Jade left covered in tinfoil on the hood of the broken-down Ford by the woodshed. Vicodin with a Johnnie Walker Black chaser from a bottle I managed to smuggle in via bribing Lionel. Then, lights out, while the owls hooted and the crickets chorused around the cabin. I was so damned tired that plotting my comeback, or at least my next move, remained as remote as the moon.
There were bad moments. My ribs were the worst. Every sneeze or cough felt like a body blow from George Foreman. I endured. Each day I felt a little better, a little more like myself. Virgil, Jade, and Coates treated me with grousing wariness; Gus, the stable hand, loved everybody; Lionel maintained an affable diffidence like a dog who’s been kicked; and Reba gave me the stink eye when she wasn’t ignoring my existence altogether.
I got acquainted with the horses. Eleven of them; ten, easygoing and peaceable, and Bacchus, a huge piebald gelding who didn’t tolerate anyone on God’s green earth but Jade and Reba.
“An ornery cuss,” Virgil said, and he wasn’t kidding. At least once a week, Bacchus kicked down a fence or charged through a gate and escaped into the surrounding countryside. I spent several hours alongside Lionel rounding up the herd that had followed Bacchus in a massive jailbreak. In the end, we came full circle back to the barn to find the gelding placidly eating sugar cubes from Reba’s hand. He flicked his ears at me in a decidedly insolent gesture.
“Get used to it.” Lionel wiped sweat from his brow. “Damned horse loves to torment us men. He wants revenge because we still got our balls.”
There were goats, a gaggle of chickens and peahens, a coal black, snarly barn cat named Titus, and Titus’s mortal enemy, Chaucer, a decrepit, deaf Australian shepherd who didn’t venture off the front porch of the main house anymore. Chaucer barked at his own shadow.
The place existed in a perpetual state of charming dilapidation. Lionel traveled in my periphery, tending to leaky roofs, busted fence posts, cantankerous machinery, and a hundred other nagging tasks that never ended, mounting ever higher like some hellish version of Green Acres. He was, in the vernacular, busier than a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest. Reba tagged along, carrying buckets, tools, and bags of nails. I suspected she carried a torch for him as well. For his part, he obviously considered her a little sister. Even had she been a few years older, it wouldn’t have changed anything. Him being one of those guys who’d never consider dating a woman he actually respected or liked. The old Madonna–whore complex.
Lionel resided in the yellow cottage in the woods and spent his evenings there killing a bottle of Jim Beam, or down at the Golden Eel, a bucket of blood on the Rondout near the 9W bridge in Kingston. He invited me to tag along some night. The bartender laid on the hooch and cute girls from SUNY New Paltz frequently slummed with the locals. A man could do worse than spend a Saturday night knocking down whiskey, listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd on the juke, and ogling skirts. I’m more a Hall & Oates man, but I took his point.
Bit by bit, I settled in to the rhythm of the farm. I straightened the cabin, nailed up shelves and stocked them with hardback encyclopedias and treatises on world mythology and the natural sciences that’d moldered in Virgil’s storage shed for decades. A Methuselah-like Vietnam vet named Emmitt Rogers periodically came around in his renovated Consolidated Edison repair truck that he’d plastered with slogans of antiwar and looming apocalypse by the Hand of Almighty Gawd. Bald, bearded, and wild-eyed, he most definitely resembled an Abrahamic prophet.
Emmitt was a local scavenger who lived a nomadic lifestyle, packing his tent camp whenever a farmer or the sheriff’s department rousted him. He peddled his treasures for pennies on the dollar. I scored a box freezer and propane fridge, both items previously dumped roadside. A bit of spit and polish and creative rewiring and I got them humming well enough to keep my beer frosty and cold cuts frozen.
Baby steps, baby steps.
Emboldened, I decided to secure a ride. There are two things every man must have—a good dog and a ride. I couldn’t bear the thought of getting a dog. A vehicle, yeah. Virgil told me to avail myself of the antique Ford if I could get it running. Mechanics aren’t my forte, so I asked Mr. Handyman, Lionel, what it would take to help a brother out.
“A case of Colt 45. Oh, and round up Virgil and Gus to help get the engine in the wagon. I’ll rig a block and tackle to set the thing back in the truck.” He’d tinkered on the engine and then abandoned it in the workshop last year. His own chariot was a 1975 Monte Carlo, deep green and burnished to a high shine.
“No problemo.”
I fetched the wooden wagon we used to tote hay bales around the yard. After some grunting and groaning and colorful language, I loaded the monster block into the wagon and dragged it over to the truck, where Lionel stood, hands in pockets, his eyes shining like quarters.
“Hoss, that weighs six . . . damn, seven hundred pounds.”
“Yeah. I may have herniated myself.” Too close to the truth. Stars and little birdies flickered through my vision. Definitely a shadow of myself—I’d flipped a compact car onto its side once. Granted, I’d been in a fury, and when I’m raging, best to step aside. Nonetheless, my rehabilitation had miles to go.
He whistled.
“I almost herniated myself watching. Gimme a few days. I’ll see if there’s any spark left in her. Meanwhile, can you carry that anvil to the barn? There’s a boulder stuck in the mudflat by the pond . . . Just kidding. Damn, Hoss. Fucking Hercules done come down to the farm.”
“More like Milo.”
“Milo?”
“Milo of Croton. The kid in ancient times who carried a calf across the stream every morning on the way to pasture. One day, the kid had grown into a man and he was lugging a bull. Milo, god of Greek wrestling.”
“Oh, yeah, that guy.”
I removed my shirt and sluiced the grease from my hands and arms with a cold-water hose outside the workshop. Jade leaned against the rail of a nearby corral. She called occasional instructions to Reba, who stood at the center of the ring.
The girl was dressed in a yellow polo helmet, jacket, and long pants. Decals of the band Sublime and Bob Marley decorated the helmet. She lunged Bacchus with a lengthy nylon rope. Bacchus snorted and stamped and flexed his massive muscles, posturing and threatening to bolt. Reba spoke to him softly, praising and cajoling in a precarious dance to keep the piebald on the right side of the razor’s edge. She appeared fragile alongside the powerful bulk of the horse. Both were ghosts in the rising dust.
“Beautiful,” I said, taking a spot next to Jade.
“They are.” She glanced at me while I buttoned my shirt. “Heck of a scar you have on your neck, Isaiah. Or is that a burn?”
“Rode hard and
put up wet in my youth.”
She’d noticed the light chain necklace.
“Were you in the military? I didn’t realize.”
“No, ma’am. Rabies tags from an old dog who isn’t around anymore.”
If she thought it bizarre that I’d made a piece of jewelry from some mutt’s tags, she was too decorous to let on. Virgil and Coates had extended the same courtesy. Polite folk here at Hawk Mountain.
She reversed course and came at me from another direction.
“How’s the drinking?”
“No problems swallowing.”
“Nobody likes a smart aleck.”
“History agrees with you.”
She snorted.
“Well, you’re settling in fine. Maybe we’ll get you on a horse before the summer is over. Take you out on the Rail Trail, yondering. It leads through the lower Catskills and keeps on a winding.”
“I pity the horse, ma’am.”
“Don’t worry. They can handle even fatter cabooses than yours. Unless you’re scared.”
My turn to snort in disdain.
We observed the center ring waltz for a time. I’d picked up on tension between the Walkers and their granddaughter. The couple paid her a small wage for her labor. Reba rented an apartment in Kingston with another girl and spent some evenings and most weekends on the farm. Considering Reba’s youth and attraction to the dark side, the wisdom of that setup escaped me. Jade spoke of baby birds and nests.
The girl attracted a procession of suiters and that’s where the tension arose. Virgil ran off three guys in a red Suburban who’d come to pay her a courting call. Early to mid-twenties; one Hispanic, one white, another possibly Native American. Some of Reba’s hood friends from town, apparently. In any event, the old man gave them the heave-ho, which royally pissed off the girl. You’re ruining my life, I hate you—sob, scream, sob. The tempest blew over to be replaced by the glacial sulk only a kid can level at the beloved authority figures in his or her life.
Today, tempers had soothed. It’s difficult to maintain a proper snit around animals.
Reba patiently reeled in Bacchus and patted his neck. She waited for him to steady, then vaulted atop his back. Bacchus cantered around the ring, stately as you please. From what I gathered, the gelding balked at road crossings and streams and presented a serious danger to his rider. Reba insisted upon riding bareback whenever the chance arose and that caused even more indigestion for the elder Walkers. Lionel ambled over to observe the proceedings. He scowled with worry. Bacchus had kicked the stuffing out of him before.
“Bacchus was a racehorse,” Jade said. “Never properly gentled. He bites and kicks. Acts the fool. His previous caretakers neglected the pitiable sod. On his way to the stew factory the day I rescued him. A coincidence. I happened by the feed store for a trifle and heard a man talking about this horse he meant to euthanize.”
“There aren’t any coincidences, Mrs. Walker,” I said. “Only cycles and patterns.”
“Buddhist?”
“A superstitious cynic.”
“Within every cynic beats the heart of an idealist. I gather that you read. Mythology is integral to our studies at the Center.”
“Mythology is my favorite history. The Mahabharata, the Labors of Hercules, the Prose Edda. The Bible, of course. How could I not love Samson?”
“How could you not love Tū of the Maori? Or do you not cleave to your roots?”
“Creation myths are all the same at the core. The Maori gods, the Norse pantheon, the Greeks . . . There are fathers, mothers, nurturers, tricksters, and destroyers. Everybody screws everybody else, in the end, and the joint gets wrecked. Tū, Mars, Apollo. Killers, each.”
“What did you do in Alaska?”
I was ready for that one.
“Communications expert.”
“Mmm-hmm. Perhaps you’ll ply your trade here. Once you get your bearings.”
“One can’t predict these things.”
“That is true. This might be your big chance to start over. Sail home from the wars as Odysseus did.”
“Odysseus had a heap of trouble awaiting him, didn’t he?”
“An annoyed wife.”
“Yeah, the Penelope situation. A houseful of enemies too. I’m more the Hercules type.” I flexed my biceps.
“For your sake, I hope not. For everybody’s sake, I hope not.”
I couldn’t take my eyes off the girl or the horse. Perhaps because we’d been speaking of myths I caught that aura from them, a sense they’d merged as a centaur from legend. Dust billowed, golden in the glare.
“Not much on mulligans, Mrs. Walker. Maybe this time is different.”
“It’s always different. You’re a sprout, else you’d know that.”
NINE
Money comes and money goes. I’ve always maintained an account with a national bank in order to establish credit and make certain my plastic works when flashed. The remainder gets hidden in a mattress or a hole in the ground.
When I’m flush, it’s with a fat stack. That’s fortunate because the stuff tends, like women and hooch, to run through my fingers. I do so love the ponies, boxing, mixed martial arts—you name it, I’ll lay odds on it. I tend to put my money where my mouth is. In the end, the house wins. A lesson guys like me don’t retain past the next major score.
Mr. Apollo’s severance pay included a bonus. I jammed the money into two metal lunch boxes in denominations of fifty- and hundred-dollar bills shrink-wrapped for freshness. Several grand went into a jar in the cupboard, another few hundred I stuffed into my wallet. The majority stayed neatly layered in the boxes, which I buried under a rock by the light of the moon.
Lionel bolted the Ford together in short order. She roared when he stamped the gas pedal. Smoke rolled forth, and maybe a few flames. The truck was a ’59; white and red, with plenty of rust and body damage, and major spiderweb cracks in the windshield. Virgil slapped the tabs on and handed me the title and registration without comment.
I took the day and drove into Kingston on an expeditionary mission to restock the booze and visit the hardware store. Then there was the matter of dropping into Big John’s Surplus and selecting two brand spanking new revolvers—a .38 snub, with an ankle holster, and a .357 S&W Magnum. I also nabbed a clean, pre-owned twelve-gauge pump shotgun and a bucket of ammunition. Big John’s sexy blonde partner, Arlene, got the paperwork started while I flirted with her. Finally, I ducked into an office supply store and purchased a top-end laptop with onboard Wi-Fi. The Internet made everything easier, especially research, should the need ever arise. I may be a barbarian, but never a Luddite.
I made a triumphant return, laden with beer, whiskey, and miscellaneous supplies. The rest of the long, hot afternoon saw me hammering five treated four-by-four posts into the turf behind my cabin. I poured in quick-set concrete, padded the posts, and wrapped them in all-weather matting. Afterward, I relaxed beneath the shade of an oak tree and sipped from a glass of ice water Virgil brought when he came along to survey my handiwork.
“Striking posts?” The old man jingled ice in his own glass and looked at me.
“Yes, sir.”
“Thought so. My boy took karate for years. Had something like ’em in his dojo. You a karate man? You got the moves.”
“Not really,” I said.
He drained his glass and wiped his mouth and looked at me again before he walked away.
After the concrete hardened, I rose and slipped off my boots and landed a few tentative blows. I played it safe, testing these scarcely healed bones. A kick here, an elbow there, moving from post to post in slow motion. This went on for a while. I gradually increased the tempo, maybe pushed it a little too hard. Sweat poured from me, and I finished by slamming my right fist into the matting with a dull thump that shivered the wood. My blood pumped, my teeth were bared.
/> I glanced at the crosshatch of shadows and light filtering through the oak branches and witnessed another death’s-head, this one as large as a movie screen. A breeze shifted the leaves and the image vanished. Not from my mind, though.
Lifting weights and hitting the post or the bag or grappling with my colleagues had become intrinsic to my identity during adolescence. This felt different, electric. There were forces in motion and I had to be ready. Maybe it’s a myth that animals sense earthquakes, are keen to approaching doom; that’s a trait I share in regard to intuiting the presence of danger and death. Maybe it has something to do with the fact a man with my baggage is bound to attract attention from the powers that be. Whatever the cause, my hackles were up.
Summoned by my grim thoughts, a storm front rolled over Hawk Mountain. Black-and-blue clouds were announced by stabs of fire and the cymbal clash of thunder. I loved that sound. I feared that sound. The gods were telling me something.
As the wise men say, act and the universe will respond.
TEN
Near the witching hour, headlights splashed the window. There came a knock at the door. So much for a low-profile relocation. The peace couldn’t last.
“Come on in.”
I’ve owned a greenstone mere since age eleven. A rite of passage gift from my maternal grandfather, but that’s another story. It’s a short, heavy war club the Maori used to crush the skulls of wild boar and to beat their enemies to bloody death. I sat in a rocking chair near the fireplace and laid the mere across my thighs and an open 1978 National Geographic magazine over that.
Two men came through the door. One was a goon, the other a slick-haired wiseguy flashing a gold Rolex. Both wore custom suits, dripping from the rain, and both were strapped under their coats. The slick one introduced himself, with a New York accent, as Marion Curtis. He didn’t acknowledge his partner but instead crossed the floor and made himself comfy on the edge of my bed. The goon guarded the door. Scary pair, yet I felt relief that they’d been sent by one of the New York families and not the Chicago Outfit. I assumed this because they hadn’t blasted the cabin with a machine gun or lobbed a grenade through the window.