“No,” Steve said. “I mean, yes, I was in the bathroom.”
“I didn’t see you come in. Sally was acting strange so I took her home. I guess she must be all broke up about her kid starting the fire.”
“It’s quiet for a Saturday,” Steve said.
“Oh, everybody else went up to look at the barn—somebody had packages of hot dogs they were going to cook over the fire. What can I get you?”
“A draft would be fine, and I’ve got to have some kind of a sandwich. I’m starved.”
“Ham and cheese coming up. Give me a few minutes.”
When Steve looked around the room, he noticed for the first time that the three main vertical supports had been chewed on—Milton had stained and finished the wooden posts but hadn’t sanded out the big animal tooth prints, maybe from horses or cows. Steve got up and and ran his hands over the bite marks. From there he noticed that the dartboard did not have a red bull’s-eye at the center, but a locket-sized picture of horned Satan. Steve reached out and touched a plaster relief of Christ’s head and pricked his finger on the crown of real thorns. He returned to his seat, and as he dabbed blood on his napkin, Milton placed before him a grilled cheese and ham sandwich, the bread perfectly browned.
“Cooked with butter,” Milton said. “I just ate one myself.”
“So what’s up with that Rachel?” Steve took a long draw of beer and set it down on the bar. “Why won’t she even wave hello to a person?”
Milton said, “She’s a different kind of girl, all right.”
“Does she really own the boat? That camper thing?” Steve bit into the sandwich.
“Yep. The Glutton was her ma’s boat, but as long as her ma stays gone I guess it’s Rachel’s.”
Steve finished his beer and pushed his empty glass toward Milton. “Think she’d rent that boat out to me?”
“The girl does like money.” Milton refilled Steve’s glass and took five dollars. “I wish she’d open her heart to Jesus the way she opens it to cash.”
“What do you think she’d say to a hundred bucks a month?”
“I’m guessing you’d get her attention.”
“That girl’s got quite a garden across from my house up there.” Steve took another bite and swallowed. “What’s with those mounds?”
“You’re taking quite an interest today,” Milton said.
“I’m just curious.” Steve was the kind of guy who could usually trace the lines of a human drama in a few minutes, from a conversation or just the evidence lying around on a kitchen table. Today, though, he’d taken in more than he could make sense of. “Good sandwich,” he said.
The bell on the front door jingled as a tired-looking Officer Parks came in and sat on a bar stool, leaving one empty between himself and Steve. He’d changed out of his uniform and was wearing jeans and a quilted flannel shirt. “You guys haven’t seen Sally’s kid yet, have you? I was so sure he couldn’t have been in that barn, but now I’m starting to worry.”
“He’ll be okay, praise Jesus.”
“Amen,” Parks said. “Another thing is, I can’t figure out what happened with those cigarettes I found in the barn. They were on my dashboard.”
“That fire was something,” Milton said. “Nothing burns like hay.”
“Some of that was straw,” Parks said.
“Straw burns even hotter,” Milton said.
“Fire marshal told me flames were over a hundred feet high.”
“Does that kind of thing happen very often?” Steve asked. “A barn burning, I mean.”
Milton said, “One time I saw a barn burn up north but it was empty. Say, Tom, didn’t George’s grandpa burn down a barn behind his house?”
“That’s what my dad told me whenever he was warning me against baling hay too green,” Parks said. “Hey, that’s a good-looking sandwich you’re eating.”
“It is good,” Steve said, wiping his hands on a napkin. “Nothing like a pan-grilled ham and cheese.”
“Maybe I’ll have one of those,” Parks said. “I haven’t eaten anything since breakfast.”
Milton said, “That fire makes me think about how George is just resisting the future, holding on to his farm. Of course, Rachel wouldn’t go for him selling.”
“Speaking of Rachel,” Parks said, putting some bills on the bar. His eyes were on the last corner of Steve’s sandwich as he spoke. “You know, Milton, how I been wondering about her ma’s disappearance?”
“Yep. You got yourself a real mystery there.” Milton drew him a beer and took a buck. “If you don’t mind my saying.”
“Well, everybody thought Johnny was gone long before Rachel’s ma, but I’m thinking Margo and Johnny disappeared at the same time three years ago.”
“That’s just after my parents moved to Florida,” Milton said. “I can’t believe Margo is gone as long as all that. Did I ever tell you she threatened to shoot me?”
“Well, I’m thinking pretty seriously they’ve run off together. Margo and Johnny.”
“You tell George that?”
“I didn’t have the heart to tell him that his brother run off with his wife’s mother. Sounds too much like one of them country-western songs.”
Steve said, “That would make George what? Married to his niece?”
“Sounds downright Old Testament-like,” Milton said. “You know, I’ve been thinking of offering to give George a hand in the mornings next couple of weeks, before I open up for lunch. Since he’s got nobody helping him.”
“What about Rachel?” Steve asked. “She seems like a capable girl.”
“She don’t even drive,” Milton said. “But she might be willing to work down here for a few hours at lunchtime if I’m helping George. She’s good with money, and she’s an honest girl. I’ve been trying to save her soul for Christ, but I don’t know how well it’s working.” He stopped and looked at the two beers on the bar. The liquid shone golden by the light through the window. “Sometimes I wonder about this whole idea of serving up the spirit of the Lord alongside these other spirits. I can’t say for sure that I’ve helped save one soul.”
“Well, this place sure is an inspiration to me,” Steve said, raising his glass. “I’ve always felt better every time I’ve come here. Here’s to the Lord.” He lifted his glass just to show his good humor, but when he took a drink, he felt a little jolt pass through him.
Two guys in John Deere hats came in and ordered beers and asked for the darts, which Milton handed to them in a shoe box. Then two golfing couples came in.
Parks, meanwhile, sitting there on his bar stool next to Steve, felt himself starting to break open. He’d been so full of jealousy toward George that he hadn’t considered offering to help. When Milton returned to the bar, Parks said, “That’s real nice of you, Milt, to offer to help George. Especially since you don’t believe in farms anymore.”
“Maybe we have to keep one farm going around here,” Milton said. “Helping him is the Christian thing to do, anyhow. We’ve all got to help each other in this life.”
Parks said, “I just couldn’t imagine this place without George’s farm.”
Milton and Steve nodded.
“Well, he says he’s starting on the beans on Friday.” Parks spoke slowly, though he felt as though he were gushing. “Next few weeks I’m working six in the morning until two, so maybe I could give him a hand in the afternoons. You know, he’s still using some of the equipment he bought from my dad’s farm.”
Steve said, “I always had an urge to farm. That’s why I moved into this neighborhood, because I liked being next to farmland.” He took another slug of beer and got jolted again, this time with an inspiration about farming. His desire to work the land swelled in him, became as powerful as his desire for any woman ever was.
“So you figure Margo’s run off with Johnny,” Milton said. “You’re saying they disappeared at the same time?”
“Well, I only got Rachel’s telling me that other version of her story, but it’s
about a month after her post box expired and there was a DNR incident report right before that of Margo threatening a conservation officer. Nobody actually remembers seeing her after that September.”
“You make it seem like it’s no mystery at all. Good thing you come back to Michigan, Tom.”
Parks sighed. “Still, I don’t know if I’ll get used to George and the girl together.”
“What do they call that?” Steve said. “A May-December marriage, right?”
Milton said, “Yep, they got a May-December marriage going, all right. God works in mysterious ways.”
“A May-December marriage,” Parks said. “Well, here’s to pinning a name on a thing.” He drained his glass.
Milton said to Steve, “If you think Rachel’s a different kind of person, you should’ve met her ma.”
“Yeah, Margo was a heck of a woman,” Parks said. “Makes Rachel seem downright domestic, I guess.”
“Her ma could gut and skin a poached deer in thirty minutes,” Milton said.
“And bury the innards,” Parks said, “so you didn’t know a hole was ever dug.”
“She could skin out a skunk without breaking the sac.”
“And sometimes you’d find yourself staring at her for a long time without realizing you were even doing it,” Parks said, and the clear-flowing memory of Margo’s face came to him, as though he’d just seen her. “That woman was as beautiful as the day is long.”
“Sounds like a heck of a woman, all right.” Every sip of Steve’s beer tasted better and better, and as he watched the two men and listened to them talk, Steve realized that Milton was gay. A few minutes later, though, Steve was less sure. He looked up at the muscular carved Jesus. Steve just couldn’t assemble the evidence he’d gathered over the course of the day. He didn’t really know what was going on beneath the surface of this neighborhood. Maybe that made him a little uneasy, but by the bottom of his glass, he decided he was never one to shy away from a challenge.
“Yep,” Milton said, as if that word pulled together the day’s events, put it all to rest, at least temporarily. “So you want one of them sandwiches like that, Tom? Ham and cheese?”
“That’d be great, Milt. I can’t believe I haven’t eaten in more than ten hours.”
When Milton returned from the kitchen, he waited on the two golfing couples, then returned and refilled Parks’s and Steve’s glasses without taking any money.
34
WHILE APRIL MAY WAS WAITING FOR LARRY TO RETURN from visiting his brother in Benton Harbor, she arranged her four biggest pumpkins with some straw out on the porch steps. She supposed it was a good thing she hadn’t waited until this afternoon to steal straw from George’s barn. Poor George, she thought, as she arranged the pumpkin gourds as a dining room centerpiece. Poor George, she’d continued thinking as she put the two smallest pumpkins over in the bay window with some Indian corn she’d saved from last year. What she was feeling most strongly this evening wasn’t sympathy, though—it was elation that the pain in her foot was gone. She hadn’t been entirely free of that pain since she was a girl of seven. It was as though all her life she’d been pinned to the ground by that old nail, but she’d finally stood on tiptoes tall enough to free herself.
By the time her husband arrived home, the wild-limbed flames across the street had died down and a house-sized heap of orange coals glowed atop the black earth.
“I don’t know if I want to carve the pumpkins this year,” April May told Larry during their late supper. “I kind of like them whole.”
“You’ll have to make at least one into pumpkin pie.”
“I make pumpkin pie out of a can,” April May said. “I’ve always made pumpkin pie out of a can. I can’t imagine making pumpkin pie out of a pumpkin.”
“Well, these little ones here are real cute,” Larry said, pointing his fork at the table’s centerpiece.
This morning April May might have preferred the smaller, more perfect pumpkins and pumpkin gourds, but over the course of the evening she found herself favoring the big ones, the misshapen, asymmetrical ones with flattened, dirty sides. She was no longer planning to burn down her house, but she was seriously entertaining the idea that on Halloween she’d dress in black and paint her face and jump out from the bushes and scare children who came to the door. She laughed aloud at the thought of it. Maybe she’d skip Christmas altogether this year, keep celebrating Halloween right through to the New Year.
“You seem cheerful,” Larry said. “Anything happen today?”
April May couldn’t believe that her husband still had not noticed that the barn across the street was gone. He’d pulled in to the driveway, parked his truck, and slogged into the house by the side door, exhausted from spending the day with his brother at the hospital. At first she’d thought it funny that he hadn’t even noticed the smell of burned wood, but now she realized she was being cruel. She took Larry’s left hand and tugged at him—he stood up automatically—and led him onto the porch. They hadn’t sat out there for ages, but now her husband fell into one of the dusty cloth chairs April May had been meaning to get rid of.
“My God, what happened?” Larry still gripped his fork in his right fist.
April May breathed deeply, reluctant to exhale the smoky air. She’d seen her whole neighborhood sprung open by the wind when she was seven, she’d birthed and raised three children from scratch, and she’d seen a teenage girl bury a man without ceremony. Dozens of bonfires had blazed for her, but never had she seen such a spectacle as the barn. In those flames she’d seen the ferocity she’d wanted in the pumpkin faces she’d carved over the decades. She could never explain all this to Larry. Because Larry did not know what Johnny had done to the girls in that barn, April May could not expect him to appreciate how justice could be beautiful even as it was merciless. The fire may have been started by a boy’s careless act, but it had burned with vengeance for her daughters, and for Rachel.
Poor Larry, thought April May, poor Larry had missed the fire, and there was so much he would never know.
“Poor George,” Larry said.
“Oh, George will be fine.”
Larry continued shaking his head. The sun had already set and the sky was quickly darkening.
“What do you think about buying an RV?” April May said. “And driving to the Pacific Ocean. We can ask Tommy Parks to stay here while we’re gone.”
Larry said, “That’s something to think about.”
But April May didn’t really hear his response. At the pleasure of even suggesting they drive west she felt a sensation in her chest like birds lifting off the ground.
David Retakker lay deathlike in his ditch all afternoon and then shook himself back to life sometime after dark. Before him, where there had been first a barn and then a blaze, now a pile of coals glowed. David didn’t know how long he’d slept, but his breathing was a little easier now, and he was able to stand. He limped to within twenty feet of the coals, as close as he could bear the heat, then circled around slowly. The nearest maple, the bigger, older one, was gone entirely, but the maple on the other side, slightly farther away, smaller and leafless, remained. The cows no longer huddled in fear beside the creek, but simply chewed their cuds under the night sky as they might chew cuds under any sky, fully adjusted to their barnless condition. The old stone foundation of the barn’s lower level barely protruded above the coals at the back.
David tried to feel a perverse pride about having caused all this wreckage. Maybe if he lived past tonight, havoc and misery would become his marks. Maybe his life’s work would be to ruin things, to tear structures and people apart, to crash and burn through life not caring. But trying to force himself to embrace what he’d done quickly exhausted him, and he let himself sink back into regret.
Maybe he would stop at home now and tell his mother to go ahead, get the heck out of here, leave Michigan and go to California. Before destroying the barn, he might have been able to leave with her, but now he couldn’t possibly. If
his mother forced him, he’d pretend to give in and follow along, but the moment she got drunk, he’d sneak out and find his way back here, even if it meant hitchhiking the whole country. David would hide in the woods beside the golf course. He might steal food from neighbors but only enough to survive, and people might even leave food out for him as they would for a stray cat or dog they liked. He would try to remember everything Rachel had taught him about trapping and hunting, and for hours each day he’d pick berries at the edge of the woods and collect walnuts and crack them open with a hammer, which he’d return to George’s shed as soon as he finished with it. He might grow a few green beans and melons where Rachel used to garden beside the Glutton. Maybe he could even live on the boat. And his only goal in his secret new life would be to help George. In the evenings, after George went into the house for dinner, David would continue stacking hay or cleaning a barn or digging a trench, helping George the way elves sometimes helped people. He would never ever again rub poison ivy on himself—he would, in fact, avoid poison ivy with more care than ever, because he needed to be his strongest from now on, needed to be as healthy as possible in order to do the most he could for George.
David imagined his ankle healing thick and twisted, stronger than before but deformed enough to be a reminder of what he’d done. After his skin burned in summer and chapped in winter, after scars covered him, he would be so tough he couldn’t even cut himself with a knife. Without his inhalers, David’s lungs would reshape themselves so his breath would be permanently ragged and short. Soon enough he would become the monster of this place, living unseen like the ghosts of animals killed here by Rachel and her mother and by the Potawatomi Indians. David was certain that some of Rachel’s tribe must have stayed behind, and David would find their hiding places, maybe even find secret bands of Indians with whom he would live while he devoted his life to George. Probably that was what Rachel’s Corn Girl had been doing. Probably she’d just been trying to hide and grow her corn, when she took a careless chance and fell. David would no longer take chances in climbing the silo behind the house on P Road or jumping from wagons to haystacks. He held his hands a little farther out in front of him to warm them. The cows murred softly near the creek. Gray Cat stood a few yards away, waving his tail. Since David had last taken a good look at him, Gray Cat had become full-grown, and he looked healthy and whole. David called out, “Here, kitty-kitty.”
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