Evening Snow Will Bring Such Peace

by David Adams Richards

  But he did not talk about this. He only wanted one thing. Just as in the winter he wanted heat, and last spring he wanted to be paid his money back – now he wanted escape from the heat, the blackflies, and the illegal enterprises Antony was propelling them towards.

  He would look at Antony, with his welder’s cap, his torn red jacket, his ELVIS LIVES button, and realize that all his ideals had come down to stealing two kegs of swish.

  The biggest problem was Vera. How could he admit to her that he had stolen. When Vera asked him how he was doing, or especially if she tried to include him in a joke about Antony, Nevin would turn away.

  One morning they took the truck and drove along the upper part of the doctor’s land. It was mid-morning. They came to a huge brown puddle. The poplar trees that overhung the roadway were caught in a milky light.

  They stopped at the puddle, and were looking for a place to turn – in another instant they would have been gone. But just then a young cow moose and her little calf stepped out on the road. The little mother was not much bigger or older than her offspring. She stood on the far side of the puddle, on the right-hand side of the road near the turn, flicking her ears and waiting for her calf to wobble up behind her.

  The calf kept twirling its ears to keep the hundreds of flies off it.

  “Get out your side – but don’t slam the door,” Antony ordered.

  “Why?” Nevin said.

  “Why – what do you mean why?”

  Once Nevin got out, Antony pulled the seat forward and took out his rifle. Nevin was filled with a mixture of fear and excitement.

  He heard Antony cursing because he dropped his bullets and had to reach under the truck for them.

  By this time the calf had wandered across the puddle and its mother now waited in the centre of the road.

  Antony’s hands shook as he put the 180-grain bullets in, but his whole body shook as well. And just as he raised the gun, the mother gave a short owl-like call to her child. The calf, instead of heeding this warning, walked even closer, on the left of the road, still twirling its ears, curious as to who they were.

  “Why aren’t you twirling your ears?” it seemed to ask.

  Antony managed to fire once and the gun jammed. But that first shot dropped the cow, and it bellowed, falling ahead on its knees and making a track in the dust at the puddle’s edge. Its eyes, to Nevin who had never witnessed anything killed, looked about as if wondering at the nature of its distress.

  It called to its calf, a gurgled cry because one of its lungs was filling with blood, and tried to stand up – which it did momentarily – and run – which it couldn’t do.

  The calf looked back at its mother, and then looked back at the men, and ran behind a bush, where it stood watching, its ears still twirling, one clockwise, one counter-clockwise, over the top of the branches. Now the mother ran also, but fell headlong into the alders.

  Antony walked straight into the puddle, still trying to unjam his rifle, and cursing. “Get the axe, Nevin – get the axe,” he said.

  And Nevin reached into the box of the truck and got the axe.

  The cow moose was bleeding a great deal. Spots of bright red blood were all over the road, but a huge amount of dark clotted blood was on the leaves.

  All the while the sun beamed through the milky white trees as it had done five minutes before, and three broken branches the little cow was munching on were still wet from its tongue.

  “Give me the axe,” Antony was saying. “Give me the axe.”

  Antony was now beside himself, because the nature of the situation had begun to sink in. They were on the dirt road. Anyone might have heard the shot, or someone might pass by. Not only did they have the cow to worry about, but Antony realized they would have to kill the calf as well – and this was just beginning to sink in, as was the water and blood on his pant legs.

  “I’ll show you!” he roared.

  He crashed the blunt side of the axe down upon the cow’s head. This made the cow, as small as it was, stand to its feet, and try to back Antony away. But another blow came down upon its skull, and it fell once more.

  The calf had come to watch and was standing ten feet behind Nevin.

  After a while, Antony came out of the bushes with the axe in his hand. His big belly was jiggling as he walked, his pants were all twisted. He waved the axe and began to chase the calf.

  They had to chase the calf back and forth across the puddle, trying to corner it. For ten minutes it eluded them, while refusing to leave the road. But after hitting it a number of times on the back and legs, it fell, crying, and Nevin was able to finish it with a dozen blows to the back and spine.

  Each blow purposeful and spotting his cheeks with blood.

  After Nevin went home, he shook for three days. Every time he looked at food he would think of the little calf moose twirling its ears.

  “Oh, Nevin,” Vera would say, “why aren’t you eating your supper – you can’t expect me to make supper every night and you not eat.”

  Nevin would look up and see the pork chops on the table and begin to tremble as if he felt cold.

  “I’m not hungry – just feed it to the goats.”

  And he would leave the table and go to bed. He had hardly seen Antony since that day either. Nevin could not look at him without hanging his head.

  “Why, why, why did we do that?” he would say to himself. “God, why did you let this happen?”

  And he would stare at the walls, and listen as the wind blew and dust rattled the window – for it was a tumultuously hot dry summer – and he would put the pillow over his head.

  But all he envisioned when he closed his eyes was the little calf moose trying to run away, and thinking it had outsmarted them once because it turned left instead of right.

  So he would open them again, quickly, and stare at the sheet. Like a person suffering a hangover. Moose swam before his eyes, and water and puddles, and little twigs, and voices of sad animals – all seeming to suffer at the exact same instant.

  “Why did you let that happen?” he would ask. Nevin, like every other mortal who cried out, cried out to something, though indeterminate, which was far greater than himself.

  And the answer came, just as it had come when his first wife left him years before – through, he thought, no fault of his own.

  “God either wills or allows.”

  There was no other answer at all.

  What Nevin was most conscious of now was his great love for Vera. Why this seemed so striking in the midst of his failure he did not know.

  “You’re just filled with energy,” Vera would say, smiling, because she confused his condition with energetic excitement and did not know his agony.

  And at work, what did he do? He did nothing. He wore his new work gloves that looked ridiculous upon his slight hands, and picked up whatever it was Antony told him to.

  So he had no one at all. He thought really of ending his life – but then he thought of how much he would shame his father if he did this. Or he thought that if he did this, people would laugh at him – maybe, he thought, they would refuse to bury him. So perhaps they would have to cremate him.

  He was frightened and apologetic and only wanted people to like him.

  And no one in the world seemed to like him or care for him – except Margaret, who helped with the goats, and fed the chickens, and made sure the rabbits didn’t do too much damage to the garden.

  Margaret had no friends. All summer she had been alone, doing her jigsaw puzzle, or taking care of Valerie. Every time they met she would talk about her brother, Ivan. She was sad about him. And worried about him – because of all the rumours. Everyone said things about him. It seemed his old friends were the first to turn on him.

  Sometimes, when she met Nevin, she would be wearing an old pair of her brother’s cutoffs. She was very pretty. She, like her brother Ivan, had inherited that simple strength that showed in her movement.

  Once, when she brought him one of he
r grandmother’s blueberry muffins, she said: “We’ll have to go on a picnic.”

  And once she wanted him to go swimming.

  “Where will we meet?” he said.

  “I change down behind the shed on the shore,” she said. “You could meet me there if you want to.”

  He only wanted to talk to her and eat muffins, but he kept going over in his mind if this was really the case. He was worried that he had hidden intentions, and therefore had been embarrassed when she mentioned swimming. He had to realize that he was much older than she.

  “No, no, no,” he said. “I’m not going to see her again.”

  But then, the next day, she came running over with two pails and told him that if he wanted blueberry muffins, he would have to help her pick some blueberries.

  That day he and Antony were supposed to go to Buctouche, but since it was raining Antony didn’t want to go. He had decided to stay home and stamp DECEASED on the most pressing bills, and return them – something which never failed to stall those he was indebted to.

  Margaret and Nevin met halfway between his house and hers and stood for a while smoking under a spruce tree, which allowed them both to stand as long as they stood with their backs pressed to the trunk. It was where Margaret came to be alone, where she had built a fort. Spruce boughs dropped over them and they could hear the rain beating and pelting the ground, while only one of Nevin’s shoulders was getting a little wet.

  Nevin started telling her about his early manhood, about university, about the things he and his first wife used to do.

  Nevin talked for almost an hour. Margaret was silent, but sometimes her eyes would wander a little, and she became uneasy, and then she would grow attentive again.

  After he stopped talking, he looked at her.

  “Ivan used to take me out once in a while as he cut pulp,” Margaret said. “He could work all day in the rain – or snow. I would have to get under a tree or something – and then I’d get cold, and he’d have to come make me a fire – and rub me down. At night he’d sit me up on Ginger Cake and lead me out. And if we got out before eight o’clock, then he would get me a pop and a bag a chips at Donnie’s store. Ivan once had a pit bull that bit me, and he had to destroy it – as soon as he saw me bleeding. That was it for the pit bull.”

  For some reason it seemed she said this as if answering his story. And in her story there seemed more freedom than his could ever possess. But what was sad is he did not know why.

  “I love November eleventh because we would go hunting. Two years ago it was snowing, and Ivan and I sat in a tree from seven in the morning. He didn’t get down, and wouldn’t let me out of the tree. He wouldn’t let me sneeze. Every time I wanted to sneeze he would stick his finger across my nose. He wouldn’t let me piss” – Margaret said “piss,” which startled Nevin – “so I had to wet my pants – honest. He said to me, ‘You wanted a deer – make the best of it – this is my last chance at getting you a deer.’

  “The day got longer and snow fell – and he kept checking his sights. We were staring down at a little gully. I had worn leather boots and they were freezing my toes off, but I didn’t want to complain – I was afraid if I did Ivan would push me out of the tree.” She looked at Nevin and smiled. Now and then rain fell off one of the spruce bellies and landed on her chest. “So we waited. And the snow got badder and badder. It started to blow – and was cold – and Ivan didn’t move, didn’t speak to me. Every now and then he would take out some scent from a deer’s privates and drop it on me head. ‘There, you can get yerself a young buck tonight,’ he’d whisper.” She looked at Nevin again, glancing quickly as she always did.

  “We kept on waiting. The day got longer. I was scrunched up beside him. Then I was afraid we wouldn’t be able to get out to the road, and be snowed in and die in a ditch somewheres – the snow come down, over my pants – there was six inches of snow on my shoulder.”

  She stopped talking and lit a cigarette.

  “Then it started to get dark – I was getting real scared. I wanted to go home – it weren’t no fun. I had chapped my bum from peein myself,” she laughed. “It weren’t no fun at all. ‘It’s dark, Ivan,’ I said. ‘Wait,’ Ivan said. So I waited ’cause there was nothing else to do. It was that dark I didn’t even see it. It looked like a bush. It was about two hundred yards away. And I was staring at it all along, but not knowing that it was nothing more than a bush. Ivan had seen it for the last fifteen minutes. He hadn’t taken his eyes off it. But it had to step out – and he waited. He just stared at it. Suddenly it stepped out and began to walk towards us – covered in snow, with its head up, and its tongue tasting the air. Ivan shot it in the head.”

  She finished her story. The rain beat down, and she shivered. And Nevin, for the life of him, not knowing why, bent over and kissed her.

  She just stared at him, going on with her story.

  “Then we had to lug and lug and lug,” she said. “It was a 247-pound, 12-point buck – and after he cleaned it up we had to lug it. I was never so tired. I was sorry for the deer, but the only thing I wanted was to get it home and eat its liver,” she nodded with conviction. “I never seen a man so small as Ivan so strong.”

  Nevin, not knowing why, went to kiss her again, but she turned away, and he coughed and backed up.

  “I’ve never been kissed before,” she said.

  “YOU!” came a voice. It was Antony. “AND YOU – IT’S YOU!”

  “No, no, it’s not me,” Nevin said, weakly. First you could see Antony’s boots and pant legs and then his whole large body moving towards them.

  “I’ll get you,” Antony said. “I’ll get the police – that’s what I’ll do.”

  “NO, NO,” Nevin managed. “It’s not me.”

  Margaret had run off the other way towards the house, and Antony was hauling Nevin towards his. “NO – don’t tell!”

  Vera was standing out in the yard now, with her right hand shading her eyes as she looked in their direction, although it was not sunny, and a goat near the garbage pail stood eating a tuft of blond cabbage while the rain off the roof hit the lid like a drum.

  “What’s wrong,” Vera said. Pregnant, with her feet swollen, her eyes were puffy, and her face bore the expression of all people who in the midst of planning joy come upon sudden upheaval and tragedy.

  “He was fondling my daughter’s titties.”

  “I didn’t,” Nevin said.

  But Antony was incensed, with the irrational anger that at times hits broken men when they have found a beacon for rage.

  “He was at her – I’m getting the police.”

  “No, please,” Vera said, “don’t get the police.”

  “I’m sorry,” Vera said, “I’m sorry.” This is all she could say. “I’m sorry,” she kept saying, “I’m sorry.”

  Suddenly Antony turned and walked away, left Vera and Nevin standing beside their little house, in the rain.

  Nevin could hear them about the house. He was sure they were about. The next afternoon, as he was sitting in his chair, he saw Antony and Frank Russell walking towards his house, Frank with his left foot turned sideways and his green work shirt making his red hair look fierce in the afternoon heat.

  And behind them, at right shoulder, was Jeannie, with a determined nasty grimace, with an unflagging step beside the men.

  “Come on out,” Antony said.

  Frank and Jeannie stood side by side, looking towards the house, the shiniest thing on Frank being his immobile belt buckle in the suffering heat, and Jeannie, her hair, which was a hay-crop red thrust back into a bun, and a small hearing aid in her right ear.

  Jeannie looked from one man to the other.

  “They want you to go out,” Vera said to Nevin, looking out the window at them.

  Nevin said nothing.

  Vera stared out at the two men and the woman standing in her lane near the row of alders.

  “Child molester,” Frank yelled.

  And Jeannie, with an
ever-present nod, looked up at her husband in the blind approval that they had for each other.

  Finally, Vera went out and stood at the door. Her maternity top lay on her, and her face bore the expression of suffering and beauty.

  “Go away,” she said.

  “We don’t want no problem with you,” Antony said. “I always liked you –” “For my sake,” she said.

  Vera went back inside and locked the door. She went over and sat beside Nevin.

  Nevin laid his head back and said nothing. Then he went to the window, looked out it, and stepped back.

  “Are they still there?” Vera said.

  He nodded. Then he started walking about the house, with his knapsack, picking things up.

  “What are you doing?” Vera said, her hands clasped tightly together so that some parts of her fingers were red and the other parts white, and tears started to run down her face.

  “Packing to leave,” Nevin said, as if all of this was natural and she should realize it.

  “You can’t,” she said.

  She started to cry, and Nevin, not really understanding what he was picking up, or why he had the knapsack in his hands, finally threw it down and went and stood in the corner.

  An hour passed and they were in the same position.

  “Go look out the window, Vera,” Nevin whispered.

  There was a smell of cinder in the air, that smell that came from the back of the house on hot days. The goats were in the garden. Vera’s pruning shears lay in the dirt where she had dropped them the day before just as she had seen Nevin being dragged across the yard.

  Vera stood and went to the window. Yes, they were still there.

  She waited by the window, looking at the three of them – to her, they had the weight of a sudden, furious apocalypse.

  Nevin was still in the corner, leaning against the wall.

  “I’ll phone the police,” she said, breathing out of her nose quietly. “No,” he said.

  “Then what do you want me to do?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t care.” And he sank down against the wall, with his elbows on his knees and his hands dangling outward.