by Chris Offutt
“Three hundred,” Uncle Boot said.
“Two hundred,” Tucker said. “And I’ll throw in the liquor.”
Rhonda stepped onto the porch with a thirty-eight pistol and a ballpoint pen that advertised a funeral home. Tucker sheathed the knife. He spread the title out on the oak step, worn smooth from years of shoe leather, and began methodically pulling folded sheaves of money from his pockets. Rhonda stared, entranced as if witnessing a magic trick—the man’s clothes were made of money. He counted the bills into a pile, and Uncle Boot signed the title. Tucker took the pistol from Rhonda, removed the bullets, and threw them in the creek. He tossed the gun onto the porch roof.
Tucker hauled Uncle Boot to his feet and walked him through the dim front room and deposited him on the couch. Uncle Boot nodded thanks but Tucker ignored him. He wasn’t doing the man a favor. He didn’t want anybody driving by to see a bloody man lying on the steps.
Outside, Rhonda stood still and silent as a tree. He didn’t know if she was waiting on him or afraid of him.
“What county is this?” he said.
“Fleming. Why?”
“So I know to stay out of it.”
Tucker went to the car and started it. Rhonda joined him and he made a three-point reverse turn and crossed the creek. She sat primly in the front seat, staring through the windshield. She’d changed clothes and pinned her hair up. In her lap was a small box her father had made of cedar, the dovetailed pins and tails interlocking as tight as the day he’d finished.
Tucker focused on the road, glancing at the mirror for signs of pursuit. The gas gauge indicated enough fuel to get out of the county before nightfall. He had two hundred forty dollars left, plenty of money. He tried to light a Lucky but the flame blew out. He tried again. Rhonda took the cigarette and lighter and got it going and passed it back to him. Their eyes met briefly and both looked away at the same time.
“Where do you want me to take you?” he said.
“I ain’t a-caring.”
“Sister’s house? Town? Where at?”
“Where you’re going for now,” she said. “Is that all right?”
Tucker nodded and drove. Rhonda’s insides tingled like a bottle of shook-up pop. She’d wanted out of that house and holler for years but wasn’t about to do what her sisters had done—marry the first boy who came around by making sure to get pregnant. No, she’d have none of that.
A part of her wished Uncle Boot wasn’t her uncle so Tucker could have gone ahead and killed him. She’d wanted to ever since he started brushing up against her accidental-like in the house, then jumping back as if it was her fault. She’d never told anyone because no one would believe her, and she’d slept with an ice pick under her pillow. Now she was out, she was free. She pulled the bobby pins loose and clipped them to her collar for safekeeping. She leaned her head out the window, squinting against the wind. Her hair flowed like liquid in the air. She’d never felt as good in her life.
Chapter Four
Tucker drove on back roads, leaving Fleming County and crossing a wooden bridge over the Licking River into his home county. He didn’t talk, just drove. Mainly he was trying to ignore Rhonda’s satiny brown legs. All the women in his family were blond-headed with blue eyes, heavy-hipped, and tall. Rhonda’s dark eyes had brows that lay along her face like embroidery. The best he could do was not look at her at all.
He left the bridge for the blacktop and parked in a wide spot strewn with fishermen’s litter—knotted line, lost lures, and a broken crawdad trap. He got out of the car and stretched his legs. The river was high from spring rain, debris distributed from a surge that he figured had come last week, judging by the amount of dirt encasing the driftwood. He scratched his bee stings. He walked to the water’s edge and admired a turtle sunning itself on a fallen maple, its roots eroded away. He wondered why a tree grew so close to the same water that would make it fall. Maybe trees were as greedy as people.
He climbed the slope to the road and checked the radiator, which was full, no leaks. The oil level was good and the tires held air. He knew Rhonda was watching him but he refused to meet her eyes.
“You want to know something?” she said.
He shrugged.
“The Licking River is the longest in the world,” she said.
“I don’t know about that.”
“It’s all the turns and twists. You was to straighten it out, just grab hold of it and shake it like a rope, it’d be longer than any of them.”
He looked at the river, gauging the veracity of her words, trying to figure out how anybody could grab a river.
“You don’t believe me, do you,” she said.
“I don’t know what to believe.”
“It’s the truth. I read it in a book.”
“A book.”
“Yep,” she said. “I like to read. You?”
“I ain’t had much luck with that.”
He used his shirtsleeve to brush a skim of dust from the outside mirrors. Not many cars had them on both sides and he examined the passenger mirror. Two new screws held it in place and he wondered why someone had bolted it on.
He opened the canteen and offered it to Rhonda, keeping his eyes downcast until seeing her slim ankles, then jerked his head as if struck by a rock. She tipped her head and drank, her throat moving like a hummingbird. She lowered the canteen and caught him looking.
“What?” she said.
He opened the door and got in. The upholstering already felt molded to his body and the pedals had just enough give. He waited for her but she stayed in the road and after ten minutes he left the car and asked her what was wrong.
“Where are we going?” she said.
“I don’t know exactly. I was aiming for home but I can’t just show up with you.”
“Why not? Something wrong with me?”
“That ain’t it,” he said. “My mom died. Afterward my sister got churched up. She’d not let you stay the night. Wouldn’t be right.”
“I’ll sleep in the car.”
“That’d be worse. You could stay with my other sister, but you’d not like her.”
“How do you know?”
“Nobody does, not even her husband and kids.”
“How come?”
“She’s like a blue jay. Pretty to look at but loud and mean.”
She laughed, the sudden sound so full of genuine merriment that Tucker felt momentarily discombobulated. She had a broad smile that showed just enough pink gum to make her look like a little kid, accentuated by the tip of her tongue sticking out between her teeth. A small dark bug was on the right side of her face.
“Watch that,” he said, and brushed his own cheek. “Think it’s a tick.”
She wiped her jaw.
“Did I get it?” she said.
“No.”
She wiped harder, lifting her eyebrows to him, and he shook his head. She leaned toward him, cocking her jaw.
“Get it off me,” she said. “I despise a tick.”
He lifted his hand and stopped as he realized it was a mole.
“Uh …” he said. “It ain’t nothing.”
She laughed again.
“It’s my beauty mark,” she said. “Movie stars in magazines got them, too.”
He walked to the other side of the car and fumbled for a Lucky. He should never have started looking at her, let alone talking. A large cloud moved across the sky, crumbling into tattered shards that bunched up like a herd of sheep. He heard the rapid cry of a rain crow and looked in the weeds for its long bill aimed toward the sky.
“Hear that?” he said.
She nodded.
“Storm’s coming,” he said.
“I guess that bird told you that just now?”
He studied the earth for the dry residue of working ants until he found a series of their tiny mounds. The entrances were covered by dirt.
“See there,” he said. “The ants are drawing up and closing their doors. A book ain’t the only
thing there is to read. We best get going if we’re going to.”
She walked to the car door but didn’t open it. What now, he wondered.
“Why won’t you look at me?” she said.
He glanced away.
“See there,” she said. “Is it because your eyes being different colored? I don’t care about that.”
“That ain’t it.”
“Well, what then?”
He didn’t answer.
“Tell me,” she said, “or I ain’t getting in that car again.”
“I can’t leave you here. And I can’t take you back.”
“Then why won’t you look at me?”
He stared at the blacktop. Midday sun had heated the edge of the road enough to turn it soft. A blade of grass protruded from the imprint of a boot. He heard the rain crow again.
“On account,” he said.
“Of what?”
“Of thinking you’re pretty.”
“What about that wife of yours up in Ohio?”
“I ain’t got a wife,” he said.
“So you lied.”
“Not to you.”
“If that was a lie, how do I know you ain’t lying now.”
“Don’t reckon you do,” he said. “I told your uncle that in case he chased after me. He’d go north hunting a married man.”
He got back into the car and slammed the door and turned the key. The sky was dark in the west behind him, the air cooling rapidly, tree leaves tipped toward the ground. The storm was moving fast. Rhonda sat as far from him as possible. He nodded to himself, ratcheted the car into gear, and drove. It was a good thirty miles to his house, the last ten on dirt roads adjacent to creeks. The hollers were tight enough that mushrooms grew on both sides due to lack of light.
Four miles farther a ferocious wind hit the car and Tucker stopped on the side of the road. Hail drilled the roof. He peered through the windshield and saw lightning strike a beech. Two seconds later, the lightning shot from the earth, showering the car with chunks of dirt. Tucker realized that the lightning had traveled the length of the tree into the ground and along a root until it hit a rock and ricocheted back toward the sky. His chest felt light and he could smell a chemical scent. Rhonda scooted swiftly across the seat, reaching for him, pressing her head into his shoulder, arms clinging to his chest, her body trembling.
He’d never understood being afraid of a storm. It was just water. Half the planet was ocean and lake and river, and he’d heard that humans were mostly made of water, too. He believed that thunder occurred when two clouds bumped into each other. Lightning came from their friction, like sparks from scraped rocks, and rain was a kind of blood falling from the wounded clouds. He breathed evenly. The storm would pass and he didn’t care one way or another.
Rhonda’s shivering limbs and heartbeat thudding against his chest produced a series of unfamiliar sensations. He felt as if he was suddenly hungry for a kind of food he’d never known existed. He held her without moving. His arms and legs tingled as if shot through with a mild electrical pulse. He’d never felt so calm. He was rooting for the storm to stay, to increase intensity and prolong the new notion of himself—every cell cognizant of her.
Twigs and leaves pressed against the windshield before they were blown away by sudden gusts. The sky was black as night without the depth. The storm’s center lingered overhead as if trapped between the hills, thunder echoing like artillery. A crack of lightning striking wood abruptly felled a tree across the road. He could smell the burned inner core of the trunk.
Rhonda clung tight as if trying to burrow into his body. Their breathing fogged the window and he smeared a porthole with his hand but there was nothing to see—the world was dark and wet and fierce. After an hour he dozed. Thunder woke him several times but the rain itself was soothing. At some point the storm began to move but night had arrived and the sky remained as dark as coal. Thunder faded to the pall of silence.
He woke at dawn, pressed against the car door, neck stiff, one arm gone dead from the weight of Rhonda’s body. She was curled into herself on the broad bench seat, knees tucked high. She’d crooked an elbow beneath her head as a pillow but her other arm was around his waist, her fingers clutching his shirt. Occasionally her body twitched. Tucker tried to remain utterly still, aware of her warmth. He couldn’t recall having slept with such proximity to any living body.
The sky became light gray overhead, but the woods beyond the automobile were a dark wall of trees. The sun lifted. He used his free hand to clean the condensation and saw a tree blocking the road—a poplar with bark seared from lightning. The sound of birds came tentatively at first, as if they didn’t fully trust the weather, but as the sun imbued the land with golden light, the birds began in earnest.
Rhonda was lovely at rest, face relaxed, lips slightly parted. Hair surrounded her face like a black halo. He caressed her cheek gently, brushing aside stray strands of wispy hair. Her ear was tiny and snugged tight to her head. The back of her neck held a small furrow of muscle with a dark speck, another tiny mole. He sat without moving, marveling at her beauty. He feared that the roughness of his palm would disturb her and reversed his hand to stroke her face with the back of his fingers. Her cotton dress was thin enough that he could see the intricate structure of her collarbone, the small pocket in her shoulder surrounded by bone and cartilage. It was the ideal spot to place a four-leaf clover.
Despite his care, she stirred, shifting her slim body, stretching her legs until her feet touched the door. Her arm drifted from his waist, her hand settling against his leg. He gently moved her hand away and underwent a sense of relief. His experience with women was limited to one Korean hooker and even then, he’d been drunk but not drunk enough to fully engage. She’d touched him with her hand. He’d been grateful for the release, doubly grateful that he hadn’t gone all the way since he wasn’t married. He’d never told his buddies, knowing they’d jeer at him.
She breathed deeply and her eyelashes fluttered like the dainty wings of a butterfly. He watched her open her eyes, close them, open them again, and blink several times. She shifted, turning her body on the seat, looking up at him. Her eyes were soft and warm. She smiled, a small one as if testing the waters for something grander. He set his hand on the bottom of the steering wheel to protect her head in case she rose suddenly. With a dainty slowness, she slid her fingers between his. They looked at each other for a long time as the sun warmed the air. He wanted to speak but didn’t know what to say and was afraid. She licked her lips.
“I love the light after a storm,” she said. “The birds are always happier.”
He nodded.
After a few minutes, she opened the car door and stepped out. His arm felt on fire as the blood rushed its length. He watched her go into the woods. He got out of the car and swung his arm around, feeling the sensation return to immobile fingers. He examined the poplar blocking the road. Strips of bark lay scattered among limbs and leaves. It was too heavy to move without a chainsaw. He searched the ground until finding a crescent of wood singed black by lightning.
Rhonda emerged from the woods, her ankles damp from dew. She hopped over a rain branch as nimbly as a yearling and came to him. He offered the piece of lucky wood. She smelled it and smiled at him, a full smile this time. She glanced at the poplar in the road that prevented their passage. She hadn’t spent a single night away from family, and certainly never slept in an automobile. She’d only been in a car three times. The best part of her father’s funeral had been riding in the backseat, dressed in her Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes, hoping to pass someone she knew.
The world appeared for the first time beautiful, the air scoured of dust by the rain, each leaf holding a sheen of water. She could smell the loam and wildflowers, hear the birds braiding their song along the land. In the purity of morning light she’d never seen anyone so handsome or strong as Tucker.
“What are we going to do?” she said.
“Get married, I reckon,” he s
aid. “We spent a night together already.”
“I meant about this tree in the road.”
“Back up to a wide place and turn around.”
She nodded. What she saw as an obstacle, he regarded as just another thing to circumvent.
“You want to?” she said.
“Well, we can’t stay here and wait for the tree to rot.”
“No,” she said. “I meant the other. What you said.”
“Get married?”
She nodded.
“I meant it,” he said. “I don’t never say things I don’t mean. You want to or not?”
Tucker matched her, she thought—small like her, serious and capable. She wondered if their children would have his eyes. She took his hand and silently vowed to stay near him forever. She would never forsake this man. They leaned together and gazed at the land. She hoped for a rainbow but none came and she understood that she was an adult now and adults didn’t hope for what they couldn’t control, but accepted what was there—the tree in the road, the woods, the soft thin blue of sky. The birds were already beginning to ease their song. She heard the swift rush of rain running to a creek. She stood on her tiptoes and touched her mouth to his ear.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, I do.”
He thought about kissing her but decided he should wait. Unsure of protocol, he didn’t want to make a mistake. He’d never seen anyone kiss before, and figured it was a habit for married people, best done in private.
The moon was in the sky, translucent as mist. Venus faded into the leaves of the trees. Yellow light glowed across the land. If Tucker had a chainsaw, he’d cut a car-sized gap in the downed poplar and head home. Instead he backed four miles along the road.
His neck began to ache from looking over his shoulder and he tried using the mirrors, glancing back and forth from the conventional mirror to the larger one bolted on the passenger side. He turned around at the fishing spot where they’d stopped the day before. Several times he had to drive off the edge of the road to avoid windblown limbs. The car handled in an impressive manner, heavy as a truck, the tires always grabbing tight. He became accustomed to the side mirrors and realized the extra one provided more visibility. He wondered if it was a rich man’s vehicle.