Fourmile

by Watt Key

  She looked at me.

  “I’m sorry about the brick,” I said.

  He kept scraping.

  “He’s going to work it off,” she said.

  He still didn’t face us. “I tell you what, boy,” he said, “one of these days you’re gonna appreciate what it takes to earn a livin’ and buy somethin’ like a truck.”

  I didn’t respond. He set the knife down and faced us and leaned against the counter. “You hear me?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He studied me for a second, then turned back to the animal hide. Mother reached into her pocket and pulled out an envelope and walked over to him. She started to reach around him and set it on the counter, but changed her mind and tucked it into his back pocket. Then she touched his shoulder with her hand. “Let me know if it’s not enough,” she said.

  He kept working. She hesitated for a moment, then pulled her hand away. “I’ll call you later,” she said.

  4

  Granddaddy was driving down from Montgomery for lunch. I waited for him with Joe under the pecan tree closest to the house. This tree was bigger and older than the rest, offset like it had never been part of the orchard at all. Daddy once said he thought it had been there since before the land was cleared for farming. Sometimes I liked to imagine it long ago in the midst of a thick forest. I remembered the first time I came to Fourmile when I was six and how small I felt standing under it.

  It seemed strange that we were moving down near the Alabama coast to have a farm, but Daddy said it was everything he’d been looking for and the price was too good to pass up. He’d worked and saved ten years for it as a UPS driver in Montgomery. His childhood was spent on a cattle farm in Mississippi and he knew the business. Mother had always been supportive of his dream, but it certainly made it easier that she was already familiar with Baldwin County from having spent a few summers there as a child.

  It was late fall when we left the Montgomery suburbs and headed south. After two hours we exited the interstate and drove east into the country. The blacktop was faded and worn and gouged by plow points. There was so little traffic that the road stayed sprinkled with leaves that crinkled like paper under the car tires and whorled behind and resettled. Eventually we came to a pecan orchard and just past it was a rusty metal sign that read FOURMILE. The dirt drive ran the outside edge of the orchard up to the house. We got out and I stood under the pecan trees and before the expanse of open pastureland. The air was cool and clean and still. The countryside was soft and quiet, punctuated with the lowing of cows and the whistling of killdeer and doves. The smell of hay and damp soil and soybeans flowed into my nose.

  Fourmile wasn’t very big compared to other farms in the area. Just the ten-acre orchard and two hundred acres of pasture that backed up to another sixty acres of creek bottom. The house was a one-level brick ranch with three bedrooms. In addition to the barn and the tractor shed there was a cattle chute and a dipping trough. Our closest neighbor was a widow a mile to the north.

  I don’t remember much about my father before we came to the farm. He was at work most of the time and when he was home he always seemed tired. He never seemed tired after we came to Fourmile. There was always something to do, something he wanted to show or teach me.

  In fall we woke before school and crouched at the edge of the pasture and shot doves as they whistled in through the slanted sunbeams, their wings still heavy with dew. In winter I sat with him just inside the trees of the creek bottom, our breath misting before us, waiting for the eight-point buck he called Walter. And when the heat of an Alabama summer threatened to bake us dry, Mother made picnics and he drove us up the blacktop to Tillman’s bridge, where we soaked in the clear creek water.

  As I grew older he taught me about using tools and working on equipment and tending the livestock. I looked forward to waking early and feeding the cows. I lay in bed at night thinking about the projects we’d planned, like the new watering system and the hay feeder. Work and play and attention that makes a boy proud and confident and secure.

  Fourmile was a life we built together, something I was molded around, all I knew, the best of him and me and Mother. As if leaving it wasn’t enough to bear, I had to watch it die first.

  * * *

  When Granddaddy pulled up in his big silver Buick sedan, I didn’t see Grandmother with him. But I hadn’t expected to. I knew this was a special trip.

  His car came to a stop and he studied me and Joe out the window. “Fine spring day we’ve got here, you two.”

  He didn’t know anything about farm life. I couldn’t imagine him out of his leather lace-up shoes and Sunday suit and felt hat. His face was soft and calm and free of worries. I was ashamed of myself for letting him down.

  I got up and approached the car. “Hey, Granddaddy.”

  “Looks like you grew another two inches on me,” he replied. “Maybe you got some of your grandmother’s side in you.”

  I looked at the ground and shrugged my shoulders. Sometimes he just said things like that when we both knew it wasn’t true. It was obvious that I took after Daddy, thin, not overly tall, with hair that went from blond in the summer to brown in winter.

  He got out and stretched and looked around. He still had a lot of energy and his eyes were always wide and wet with good nature.

  “Your grandmomma said to tell you she’s sorry she couldn’t drive down. She’s a little under the weather.”

  “That’s okay. I hope she gets better.”

  “Oh, she’ll be okay. Just a spring cold. Your mother inside?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He leaned back into his car and grabbed a newspaper off the seat. I saw that it was a copy of the Montgomery Advertiser. He tapped it against his leg. “Let’s go check on her.”

  “Okay,” I said. I was up for anything that put off the talk I knew he’d driven almost three hours to have with me.

  5

  Granddaddy said he wanted to take a drive to the coast and see a house he had rented for years when Mother was young.

  “The old Morris place,” he reminded her.

  “I haven’t been by there in twenty years,” she said.

  “We’ll be back after a while.”

  We left her at the kitchen table, going through the newspaper, looking for houses she thought we could afford. She’d been doing the same thing for nearly eight months, ever since she’d told me that we were moving.

  Granddaddy and I drove through the countryside with the windows down and the spring air cool and smelling of cut grass and pine sap. His car was big and comfortable and I sat back in the seat and wished he would tell me everything I needed to know about growing up. Surely he had the answers. Surely there would come a day when he would just laugh and tell me it was all a joke and give me the secrets.

  “Your mother says you might need to make a little extra money.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  “Thought about what you might do?”

  I shrugged.

  “Seems to me like there’s a fence needs painting.”

  “It’s a pretty big fence.”

  “You’re a big kid now.”

  I didn’t answer.

  “House in the city doesn’t require all this upkeep,” he said.

  “Have you met Dax?” I asked him.

  He shook his head. “Haven’t met him yet.”

  “I don’t like him.”

  “That doesn’t give you an excuse to damage his property.”

  “No, sir,” I said, sinking lower in my seat.

  He reached over into the glove compartment and pulled out a roll of Life Savers candy. He held them out to me and I shook my head.

  “No?” he asked.

  “No, thanks,” I said.

  He shrugged and stuck one in his mouth and worked it slowly in his cheek.

  “Why does Mother like him?” I asked.

  “Maybe you should ask her.”

  “She won’t talk about it to me. She just says h
e’s nice to her, but he’s not.”

  Granddaddy pulled to a slow stop at the intersection. He looked both ways and swung the car left toward the coast.

  “Your mother’s entitled to her privacy,” he said. “And she knows how to take care of herself.”

  I saw he wasn’t going to choose a side, so I dropped the subject and looked out the window. Even with a strong west wind the briny smell of seawater rarely drifted inland to Fourmile. The only reminder that we were close to beaches was an occasional lone seagull passing nonstop over the pine trees.

  Granddaddy pulled off the highway before the beach house he’d been looking for. It was still there, but it wasn’t like he remembered. It was more modern and groomed, with a carport built onto the side.

  “I spent ten straight summers here,” he said. “Some of my best memories with your mother and grandmother were made right there.”

  I studied his face while he stared at the house. I could almost see the memories flipping through his head.

  “I tried to buy it when they stopped renting it.”

  “What happened?”

  “I guess it wasn’t for sale. I don’t really know. But I remember feeling like something was getting jerked out from under me. It didn’t seem right to have gotten to know a place like that and then have somebody take it away from you.”

  “You missed it?”

  “Yeah, but you move on.”

  He put the car into gear and turned around in the road. On the way back we stopped at the hardware store and purchased ten gallons of white paint and loaded it into the trunk.

  “How much do windshields cost?” I asked him.

  He studied me for a second, then chuckled. “Not as much as education, Foster.”

  * * *

  Granddaddy stayed for supper and talked with Mother about the houses she’d been looking at in the paper. After the meal I went out to the barn to feed Joe. When I returned, Mother was putting the dishes away and Granddaddy was standing in the living room.

  “Want to walk me to my car?” he asked me.

  “You going back tonight? It’s kind of late.”

  “What else does an old man have to do?” He smiled. But he knew what I was thinking. I followed him outside and shut the front door behind me.

  “I wish you’d stay,” I said.

  He put his hand on my head. “I’d like that, but I better get back and check on your grandmother.”

  I looked at the ground and nodded.

  “We’ll be seeing plenty of each other real soon.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He pulled his hand away and patted me on the back. “Be good to your mother,” he said.

  “I will.”

  * * *

  I agreed to work off the money by painting the fence. There was nearly a quarter mile of it in a square around the house, two-by-four timbers notched into six-inch cedar posts. I started on the section out by the blacktop, thinking that if I wasn’t able to finish it all, at least I’d get the part people saw.

  Despite how he acted when we went to his house, Dax didn’t stay away. It was no time at all before he was leaning on the kitchen counter with Mother smiling and wearing her perfume again. I was happy to have a reason to get out of the house.

  All day Saturday and Sunday for two weekends I lugged around a gallon-can of paint, a brush, and a feed bucket to sit on. I found myself looking forward to the work. Besides a way to avoid Dax, it was something different to occupy my mind. When Joe wasn’t chasing killdeer, he napped in the broomsedge nearby. Cicadas buzzed like electricity and breezes fluttered the tops of the pecan trees. In the breath of the hot asphalt I dipped and swiped paint. As much as it seemed time stood still on the farm, summer wasn’t the only thing making its way toward Fourmile. I was about to meet a stranger who would change everything.

  6

  The air was balmy and windy under a sky of rolling gray clouds. I was halfway down the front fence, sitting on my bucket, when I saw him coming up the road with his dog. I’d never seen a person walking this stretch of highway. Joe stood and trembled with an inside whine that meant he was either nervous, excited, or both.

  “Easy, boy,” I said to him.

  I went back to painting, glancing up from time to time as they drew closer. After fifteen minutes I heard the man’s feet crunching the loose gravel on the roadside. I set my brush on the rim of the paint bucket and grabbed Joe’s collar.

  The man wore a tall frame backpack like I’d seen on hitchhikers before. I guessed he was about Dax’s age, but maybe younger. He was dressed in blue jeans and a white undershirt with a camo bandanna tied around his forehead so that his hair was covered. On his belt he wore a hunting knife. He was medium height and thin like Dax, but there was something a lot tighter and healthier about him. The way the straps of the pack pulled against his shirt made his chest and arm muscles stand out like smooth river stones.

  He stopped and knelt at the side of the road, putting a hand on his dog’s head. “See a friend, Kabo?” he asked.

  The dog was black with a little white under its neck. It seemed to be a mix between a collie and a black Lab, a mutt like Joe. Kabo wagged his tail and approached. I stood and walked Joe closer until their noses were touching.

  “What’s your dog’s name?” the stranger asked me.

  “Joe,” I said.

  “Good-looking dog.”

  Joe wasn’t a good-looking dog appearance-wise, but I knew what the stranger meant. I figured he could see in dogs what a farmer can see in cows and horses.

  “He’s real smart,” I said.

  We let them sniff and circle each other. After a moment I let loose of Joe’s collar and looked back at the stranger. “Where you going?” I asked.

  “Texas,” he said.

  “You going to walk the whole way?”

  “I might. I’m doing pretty good so far.”

  “That’s a long way.”

  The stranger bent down and unclipped Kabo’s leash. The dog bolted away with Joe in pursuit.

  “Yeah,” the stranger continued. “It’s a long way. I don’t plan to rush it.”

  There was something interesting about the man. Something young and fresh and adventurous I hadn’t been around in a while.

  “I’ve never seen anyone walk past here before,” I said.

  “I like to use the back roads. It takes a little longer, but it’s a lot more interesting.”

  I watched him studying my painting supplies.

  “You paint all the way to here by yourself?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir. This is my third weekend working on it.”

  “Just call me Gary.” He smiled.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’m Foster.”

  Joe and Kabo had jumped through the fence and were chasing each other through the pasture.

  “This your farm, Foster?” he asked me.

  “Yeah, but we’re going to move.”

  “What do you grow here?”

  “We used to raise cows, but we sold them all.”

  “It’s a nice place.”

  I didn’t answer him.

  “You mind if I use your hose to fill up my water bottle?”

  I was glad that my meeting with Gary was going to last a little longer. “I don’t mind,” I said. “I’ll show you where it is.”

  A strong, cool breeze came across the tops of the pecan trees and a long shadow crept over us. The sweet smell of an afternoon squall was in the air. Gary looked toward the west and saw the line of bruised-looking clouds approaching. “Better bring your paint in,” he said. “Looks like we might get some rain.”

  I realized he was right and began gathering my supplies. Finally we started toward the driveway. I knew Mother wasn’t going to like me bringing a stranger to the house, but lately I hadn’t trusted her judgment any more than my own.

  7

  The dogs fell in beside us before we made it back to the house. I showed Gary where the hose was just to the left of the front doo
r. He hefted his pack to the ground and pulled a canteen from a side pocket and began to fill it. Kabo rubbed against him and Gary glanced at him. “I know, boy,” he said. “Just hold on.”

  Gary stood and recapped the canteen and left the water running. Kabo began to lap from the stream. Then I heard the front door open and turned to see Mother standing there with a look of concern. “Hello,” she said, more like a question than a greeting.

  “Hey, Mother. This is Gary.”

  “Hello, ma’am,” he said. “Foster offered your water faucet to me. I don’t mean to be any trouble.”

  Mother looked at the highway like she was still trying to figure out where the stranger had come from. Meanwhile Gary stepped past Kabo and shut off the water. “My dog and I are hiking across the South,” he continued. “We haven’t had anything but creeks to drink from since yesterday.”

  Mother started to say something but didn’t. I could see she was nervous about Gary. “That’s fine,” she finally said. Then she noticed my paint supplies on the ground. “Foster, are you finished painting for the day?”

  “It looks like it might rain,” I said.

  She looked at the sky and frowned. “Okay then. Why don’t you come inside and wash up. Dax is on his way over here to watch the game.”

  “What game?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. But you need to clean that paint off of you.”

  “Why do I always have to clean up when he comes over? He doesn’t care.”

  “I care. And don’t argue with me.”

  I frowned and turned to Gary. “See you later,” I said. “That’s cool about walking to Texas.”

  He smiled. “Good luck with the fence, Foster. Nice to meet you, ma’am.”

  I went inside and Mother came behind me and shut the door. “Foster,” she said.

  “Ma’am?”

  “You don’t bring strangers up to the house like that. Especially with me alone in here.”

  “He’s nice.”

  “You don’t know anything about him.”

  Thunder rumbled in the distance and I looked out the window to see Gary and Kabo and Joe walking down the driveway.

  “I can tell he’s nice,” I said. “Joe likes him.”