Still Mine

by Amy Stuart

  Clare’s vision has adjusted to the low light. A colony of bats streams out the barn doors. One of them dives and climbs, its movements circular, patterned. She aims, sucking in a tiny breath, then fires. The bat jerks and then drops to the ground ten feet to the left of them.

  “Cripes,” Charlie says.

  Clare’s mouth is dry, her shoulder throbbing from where the rifle pressed into it. Wilfred edges out of Charlie’s reach, hands up, eyes never leaving Clare. She breaks the rifle open and lets the remaining cartridges pour out.

  “Go home,” Clare tells Charlie.

  “You going to give me back my gun?”

  “No I’m not,” Clare says. “And tie up that dog of yours. I don’t want to have to shoot him.”

  With a swat of his hand, Charlie starts back toward the barn. “To hell with you both. You go back to wherever the hell you came from! You go back to your crazy wife and your dead daughter, old man. Tomorrow I make a bonfire out of your damn fence posts.”

  When Charlie’s gone, Wilfred spits on the ground, then topples the wheelbarrow with a swift kick. Even in the dusk, Clare can see his nose running with blood, his left eye nearly puffed shut.

  “You need some ice,” Clare says. “I can find you some.”

  “To hell with you,” Wilfred says.

  He turns and recedes into the birch trees that mark the true property line. Clare snaps the rifle closed. The barrel is still hot. The way he walks home, a shadow with his hunched shoulders and head down, Clare wonders whether Wilfred might have wanted this scene to unfold differently, wanted her to stand by and let Charlie shoot him.

  In the back corner of the barn, Clare finds the storage room with an unlocked rifle cabinet. Out of habit she takes a rag from the shelf and runs it over the barrel of the rifle before reaching up to set the gun on the top rack. A single bare bulb lights this space, the rest of the barn in such bad shape that Clare can make out the curl of the low moon through the gaps in its far wall. She pulls the cord to kill the bulb and stands for a moment in the dark, peering through the slats, steadying her breaths. Then she starts back to the trailer.

  The kitchen light is on in the Merritt house but Clare can’t see anyone through the window. A car is now parked in the driveway beside Charlie’s truck. Around front she finds Charlie and Sara Gorman sitting on the steps, Timber curled up beside them. They both drink beer and Sara holds a bag of frozen peas to Charlie’s swollen face.

  “Well look who it is,” Charlie says. “Billy the Kid. Sharpest shooter in town.”

  “Your rifle’s back in the barn,” Clare says.

  “How nice of you to take such good care of it.”

  “You could have killed him.”

  “Trespassing is against the law,” Charlie says.

  “C’mon, Charlie,” Sara says, pinning the peas to his cheek. “Go easy.”

  “I’ll never go easy.”

  Charlie’s hand rests high along Sara’s thigh. They are more than just friends.

  “They’ve been at it for years,” Sara explains. “Neighbors from hell.”

  “What’s the deal with the land anyway?” Clare says.

  “It’s mine, is the deal.”

  “Used to be Wilfred’s,” Sara says to Clare. “It’s a long and very boring story. Don’t let him corner you with it.”

  “Let me tell you something about our photographer friend,” Charlie says. “She shot a bat right out of a dark sky.”

  “No kidding,” Sara says.

  “Really. A bat. With my rifle. I am not kidding.”

  With her ears still ringing from the blasts, a pain rises in Clare’s chest. She sees the image of her brother Christopher standing in her backyard, arms up, pleading against the gun pointed at him. She blinks. Charlie looks down at her from the porch, almost in awe, Sara watching him, pressing the peas harder into his swelling eye.

  “I’ll go pack my things,” Clare says.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I can sleep in my car.”

  “You don’t like my mother’s quilts?”

  “I figured you wanted me gone.”

  “What, that? C’mon. Just a little gunfight.”

  “You pointed a rifle at me,” Clare says.

  Charlie pouts, licking at the droplet of blood that forms on his split lip. “You stepped into the line of fire,” he says. “It’s not the same thing. And you pointed a rifle at me too. That makes us even.”

  “Wilfred might come looking for you,” Clare says.

  “He won’t,” Sara says. “He knows better.”

  “I feel sorry for him,” Clare says.

  Charlie snatches the peas from Sara and descends the steps toward her. Like Wilfred, one eye is puffed shut. Clare holds her ground though he comes within arm’s reach.

  “I think you should stay,” he says, almost a whisper.

  “Why?”

  “So I can keep an eye on you.”

  “That sounds like a threat.”

  “A threat?” His voice booms again. “I figured you’d want some protection. I don’t know what your deal is, but I’m guessing you could use a man around.”

  Clare feels her jaw tighten at those words. “I should be calling the police,” she says.

  “Be my guest,” Charlie says. “Three quick hours and they’ll be here.”

  “We’re doomed,” Sara says.

  “You might be doomed.” Charlie reclaims his seat next to Sara. “I’ve got everything I need right here on this ridge.”

  When Clare turns to walk away, Charlie calls to her back.

  “Does that mean you’ll stay?”

  Clare doesn’t answer. Her heart has still not slowed to its normal rhythm. She climbs the dark hill, Charlie’s sharp laughter cutting through the woods. Back at the trailer Clare secures the door closed and cups her hand at the tap to gulp some water. Then she roots until she finds the newspaper she’d taken from the Cunningham coffee table this morning. In the central pages she finds a photograph of Charlie dressed in a suit, flanked by lawyers and reporters. Three years after the accident, Charlie launched a lawsuit against the mining company and Wilfred Cunningham, the foreman at the time of the blast. The article quotes Charlie: “Wilfred Cunningham killed my father and brothers and I need him to pay for that.”

  There is a knock at the trailer door. Clare freezes.

  “You in there?”

  Sara’s voice.

  “One second.” Clare stuffs the paper into a cupboard, then opens the door.

  “Packing up?” Sara asks.

  “Thinking about it. Where’s Charlie?”

  “He sent me up here to make amends.” Sara raises a twelve-pack of beer. “I sent him to bed.”

  “I should probably leave.”

  “Not now. Where are you going to go?” Sara motions to the fire pit. “You want to build a fire?”

  The woods behind Sara are dark. Clare can’t think of what to say, whether to believe she is really here to make amends.

  “Or never mind,” Sara says.

  “No. A fire sounds good.”

  “Great. Can I put these in the fridge?”

  Clare takes the pack from Sara and pulls two cans out before stuffing the rest in the bar fridge. Her sweater is tinged with a streak of Wilfred’s blood. She pulls it off and finds the other one, her warmer one, then the matches and lighter fluid from the hardware store. Outside Sara is on her knees, snapping twigs and arranging them into a teepee in the pit. It has been six months since Clare drank anything besides soda, water, coffee, juice. Beer was never her weakness. She hands Sara a can and pries her own open.

  “Where’s your son?” Clare says.

  “With his grandfather. He spends most weekends with him.”

  “Your father?”

  “My father-in-law.”

  With a single match the fire takes, tracing the thin trail of fluid Sara poured on top. Country fire, Clare’s father used to say. Wood and gas. A minute later the flames dance t
wo feet high, the wood cracking against the heat. Clare and Sara sit in the lawn chairs and sip their beer. The instant warmth that comes with the alcohol evokes a familiar ease in Clare. She sizes Sara up with a sidelong glance. Since this morning Sara has showered and changed, her brown hair clean and loose around her face, too thin.

  “Charlie says you’ve got good aim.” Sara coughs on her beer. “I think you scared him.”

  “I was pretty sure they were going to kill each other.”

  “I don’t mean to laugh. Charlie can be a real idiot. He takes that patch of land very seriously.”

  “I can see that.”

  “He got it in a settlement. It was a messy deal.”

  They are quiet for a moment, Sara looking to the fire, its light on her. Her foot bounces in quick rhythm. “My husband died in the mine,” she says. “Michael.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” Clare takes another sip and risks it. “Do you ever go up there?”

  “To the mine? Sometimes.”

  “Must be an eerie place.”

  “It is.”

  “I’d like to see it. Might make for some decent photos.”

  “I can take you tomorrow if you want,” Sara says.

  “That’d be great.”

  “Charlie likes it there. No one bothers him. It’s his turf.”

  “He seems to like you,” Clare says.

  “You think? Sometimes I go a week without hearing from him.”

  “Guys can be that way.”

  “So why do we bother?”

  Clare laughs. “Good question.”

  Why bother? Clare’s brother used to ask Clare this very question, early in her courtship with Jason. Why do you bother with that guy? Why do you make excuses? he would say as she sat by the window, knowing he’d be an hour late, knowing he’d arrive at the door with daisies plucked hastily along the driveway to hand her as penance. At parties Jason would abandon her as they walked in, absorbed by the crowd, by the friends and the women who fell prey to his charms as Clare did. In town he walked a few paces ahead of Clare on the sidewalk, as though she were a stranger. That isn’t love, Christopher would tell Clare. Don’t you see it? It’s closer to hate.

  Sara sets her foot into the fire and kicks at the logs until the flames dance higher.

  “My father-in-law watches me like a hawk. He has no time for Charlie.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s looking out for me. For Danny. I get it. Charlie’s not exactly the most virtuous guy.”

  “It’s nice that your father-in-law’s involved.”

  “He’s got nothing better to do. For a while Danny was living with him. I got a bit caught up.”

  “I can relate to that,” Clare says.

  “Used to be the worst of my problems were the hangovers. When it was just booze.”

  “When there wasn’t the ache,” Clare says.

  Sara clears her throat and looks straight at Clare. “Exactly.”

  “I know all about the ache. My town was bad too.”

  Pills, small and colorful, easy enough to come by in any small town. By the time she’d met Jason, Clare was already plucking daily from her mother’s supply, even versed on how to grind it up into something more potent and shoot it straight into the vein. Jason seemed to like her more when she was in the throes of it, when it rendered her cool and uninhibited yet willing to let him command.

  “Charlie gives them pet names,” Sara says. “The ox, the hare, the turtle. Speed you up or slow you down.”

  So he is the dealer, Clare thinks.

  “Was that missing neighbor taking them too?” Clare asks. “Shayna?”

  “Why are you asking me that?” Sara says, straightening up.

  “I met her mother yesterday when she wandered up this way. She said something about it.”

  “I’m surprised Louise said anything about anyone.”

  “She seems to go in and out of it,” Clare says.

  “I’m glad she doesn’t get what’s happened. Doesn’t have to wonder like the rest of us.”

  “You and Shayna were friends?”

  “Sure. Since we were kids. We left for college together. She came back for Jared, I came back for Mike. Both of us dropped out. Both of us dumb in exactly the same way.” Sara pauses to light a cigarette. “Did you go to college?”

  “For a while. I dropped out too.”

  “Let me guess,” Sara says. “For a guy.”

  Something tugs at Clare. To think of leaving for college. When she was twenty-two, a month after meeting Jason, Clare too left her small town to join Grace in the city, her mother’s cancer in delicate remission, an acceptance to art school a chance to clean herself up. But she was ill-equipped for the city, and Grace was already well established there, already a medical student, leaving Clare adrift. After only a few weeks Jason showed up at her dorm with a dozen roses. Please come home, he said. The way he kissed her made her burn. By dinnertime she’d packed her things and left with him. Clare remembers the harvest moon out the window as they drove north, the city flickering behind them, how she hoped Grace would be hurt, jealous that no man had swooped in for her.

  The fire has warmed the beer in Clare’s hand. Sara is enthralled by the flames.

  “What do you think happened to Shayna?” Clare asks.

  “I wish I knew. She just vanished. Poof. Like that.”

  “You were there?”

  “A dozen of us were there. At least. Jared was with some girl. Basically a teenager. Shayna was pissed about that. When Charlie and I left, Shayna was passed out on a log. I don’t remember much.”

  “You left her there alone?”

  “I just said there were dozens of us. You sound like my father-in-law. Lots of questions.”

  “She’s your friend. She might be dead.”

  “She might be. What can I do about it now?”

  “What if this starts happening? What if she’s just the first?”

  “She’s the first of nothing. It’s horrible, but it’s no shock. You could see it coming.”

  “People could say the same thing about you,” Clare says.

  Sara lifts her beer can in mock cheers. “That’s a nice thing to say.”

  “I’m not trying to upset you.”

  “No. I get it. You think I don’t give a shit. You think no one gives a shit. But you’re wrong.”

  “What about Charlie? They were neighbors.”

  “They were friends,” Sara says. “Who knows? Maybe more than friends. They’ve had this thing since we were kids. This closed little circle that let no one else in.”

  “That must have bugged you.”

  Sara shrugs.

  “Does Charlie talk about it? He must be worried.”

  “Hasn’t said anything to me. Maybe he’s glad. Anything to punish Wilfred.”

  A second wind has hit Clare full force. She sets her empty beer down and goes to the trailer. Inside she flips her cell phone open. This phone a relic, no modern features, just a screen with the glow of Malcolm’s message. She will have to be up early to make the drive to meet him. Still, she pulls two more beers from the fridge and hands one to Sara outside. Sara eases back into the chair and takes a long drink.

  “There’s a party tomorrow night,” Sara says. “A dance. At Ray’s. Town’s homecoming. We’ll be going if you want to come.”

  “I could.”

  “Whole town goes, pretty much. Used to be a big event. Not so much these days.”

  “Sounds okay.”

  The embers in the fire burn orange. Clare bends and collects a cluster of sticks to throw on them.

  “Charlie doesn’t know what to make of you,” Sara says.

  In her mannerisms, all hard angles and sharp edges, Sara Gorman might be the clear opposite of Grace Fawcett. Still, Clare feels a comfort with her, a willingness to share secrets that she can’t fully abide.

  “I’m not here to bother anyone,” Clare says.

  “So what’s your story? Beca
use this photographer stuff . . . sort of seems like bullshit.”

  “I had a hard time once. Same as you. I was married.”

  “Okay. And?”

  “I’m not anymore.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he was bad.”

  “Bad how?”

  “Just bad.”

  In the months since leaving it has become more difficult to itemize it, old scenes playing out differently depending on what prompts the memory, whether Clare is angry or lonely when it comes to her, whether she is dreaming or reliving it wide awake.

  “What’s his name?” Sara says.

  “Jason,” Clare says. Instantly she regrets it, whatever small power this tidbit gives Sara over her, a clue to place in her back pocket.

  “And this Jason, you’re done with him?”

  “I hope so,” Clare says.

  “I’m not sure we’re ever done with them. You know what I mean?”

  “I do.”

  “Maybe you’ll get lucky.”

  “I’m not sure it’s about luck.” Clare edges her chair closer to Sara’s. “Will you do me a favor?”

  “Sure.”

  “Don’t tell Charlie that. What I just told you.”

  Sara nods without looking at Clare, an incomplete promise.

  “You certainly ask a lot of questions,” Sara says. “Maybe you’ll wring it out of us while you’re here.”

  “Wring what out of you?”

  “I don’t even know.” Sara turns back to the fire. “The truth?”

  Clare puts her second empty beer bottle down beside her lawn chair. She opens her mouth to speak, then closes it. She understands that Sara is not to be pushed, that this conversation is over. Still, they will stay here for a while yet, finish the beers cooling in the fridge. The fire is nearly three feet high now, its warmth licking at Clare’s cheeks.

  There is this photograph taken the day before the mine exploded. It was my birthday and we were all at Ray’s. Nothing was ever good enough. I’m not smiling and neither are you. I blew out the candles and we lined up on the dance floor to pose. Sara and I stood at the bar and she took a shot with me even though she was out-to-here pregnant. I bought her the shot, then judged her for drinking it. Charlie was there with his brothers, and they got drunk and Charlie snatched the paring knife from behind the bar and waved it until one of his brothers landed a punch square between his eyes. You held him and stifled the bleeding with your shirt.