Fourmile

by Watt Key

  I didn’t like what she was telling me, but I had no argument against it.

  “So don’t get too attached to him,” she said again.

  “I’m not,” I said.

  * * *

  I didn’t hear Mother talk about Dax that week and I wasn’t going to ask her about him. By Friday evening Gary had finished the south end of the front fence and moved on to the shorter north end. He said that with my help the next day he thought we could finish. Then we’d go into town and get supplies for re-roofing the house.

  Saturday morning I met Gary in the barn after a quick breakfast of cereal. We had some time to kill until the dew burned off, so I helped him fix two fence rails that had come loose. Then we gathered our paint supplies and hauled them out to the road. Joe and Kabo raced across the field and I was happy to see my dog acting like his old self again.

  “How do you like being out of school?” Gary asked me.

  “Good.”

  “It’ll be nice to have some full-time help.”

  I smiled to myself and hefted my load a little higher.

  We set our buckets where Gary had left off the day before and got to work.

  “When we move to Montgomery, he’ll have to stay in a pen,” I said. “You think he’ll hate it?”

  “He’ll be fine as long as you’re with him,” Gary said.

  “I don’t know what I’d do if he couldn’t come,” I said.

  Gary kept painting and didn’t answer.

  “I thought we’d always be here,” I said. “I didn’t think we’d ever leave.”

  “There’s not much in life you can hold real tight to, Foster. I’m sure you’ve got a lot of good memories here. You’ll make some more in another place.”

  His words triggered a white-hot flash of images from that day in the creek bottom. It came across me so suddenly that I made a strange noise from deep in my throat. Gary stopped painting and studied me for a second.

  “Everything all right?” he asked.

  I nodded and started moving my brush again, trying to suppress my thoughts. I could sense his eyes still on me.

  “You want to tell me about it?”

  “No,” I said suddenly. It had never seemed possible that I could talk about it with anyone.

  I heard his brush swishing again. “I didn’t say that like I wanted to,” he finally said. “I lost my dad too.”

  I didn’t answer him. I didn’t want to say or think about anything until I was sure the images were gone.

  “Not in the same way, but the end result was no different.”

  I looked at him again. “What do you mean?”

  “I let him down.”

  “How?”

  “It doesn’t matter. But I have good memories. It wasn’t anything he did.”

  I didn’t reply.

  “Let’s move on down,” he said.

  We worked silently for a while as the sun rose over the pasture and the shadows receded into the far trees.

  “What do you like to do, Foster?” he asked.

  “Like what?”

  “That’s what I’m asking you.”

  “I used to play baseball,” I said.

  “But you quit?”

  I nodded. He glanced at me and continued painting.

  “I like this,” I said.

  “Painting?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Working on the farm. I wouldn’t just do it for Dax.”

  * * *

  We heard the trucks approaching just after noon. As usual, Gary stopped what he was doing and grew tense and alert. He watched them through the shimmering vapor of the blacktop until they were close enough for me to recognize Dax’s truck. I felt my stomach turn.

  “It’s Dax,” I said.

  “I know,” Gary replied. “Remember what I told you.”

  18

  Dax slowed and stopped in the road before us. The other truck, a green Dodge dually with HADLEY TRENCHING on the door, stopped behind him pulling a large flatbed trailer. Mounted on the front of the truck was a black iron grille guard and a Warn winch. The pickup’s oversized knobby mud tires, chrome roll bar, and guttural, throbbing muffler were enough to tell me everything I needed to know about the two men inside. But I’d seen them before. They’d dropped Dax off at the house once. They were big and dirty and didn’t have anything to say to me or Mother.

  Dax rolled his window down and looked us over. “You might get to the end of this thing yet,” he said with his friendly voice.

  I glanced at Gary. I could tell he was studying the second truck. Then his eyes swung back to Dax.

  “How you doin’, Foster?” Dax said to me.

  “Okay.”

  Then he looked at Gary. “I’m Dax,” he said. “Met you the other night.”

  Gary nodded at him.

  Dax motioned to his friends behind him. “Linda said that tractor was for sale. I brought my buddies by to pick it up. She said you got it runnin’.”

  “It’s a good tractor,” Gary said.

  “We got a deer camp we could use it at to plant green fields.”

  “There’s a disk behind the back fence. I’m sure she’d sell that to you as well.”

  “Really?” Dax said.

  Gary nodded. “That and the Bush Hog hooked up to it.”

  Dax smiled and winked at him. “I figured the implements came with it.”

  Gary didn’t smile. “That’s about a thousand dollars’ worth of equipment you just threw into the deal.”

  The smile left Dax’s face. “Well, I’ll talk to the owner about that.”

  Gary didn’t reply. Dax looked across the pasture at Joe. He looked at me again. “I’m gonna get your momma some cash in her pocket, kid. That oughta make her happy.”

  I didn’t respond. He smirked and looked back at Gary. I felt the tension between them like a rope stretched taut between their eyes.

  “I don’t think I like the way you look at a fellow, mister.”

  Gary didn’t answer him.

  Dax finally turned away and started rolling up the window. “Make sure that dog stays out of my way, kid,” he said.

  The trucks pulled off and we watched them turn in to the driveway.

  “She should have asked me about it,” Gary mumbled.

  “The tractor?”

  “All of it,” he said.

  * * *

  Dax’s friends left with the tractor, Bush Hog, and disk chained to the flatbed. Gary didn’t look up from painting, but I watched them until they were out of sight. Then I looked back at the house and a sick feeling crawled over me when I saw Dax’s truck still there.

  “He didn’t leave,” I said.

  “I know,” Gary replied. “Keep painting and get your mind off it.”

  * * *

  Late that afternoon we came to the end of the fence. Gary finished his part and waited until I’d brushed my last strokes. Then he stood and backed away and stared down the long line we’d painted over the last two weeks.

  “Proud of it?” he asked.

  I stood and turned over my bucket and dropped my brush into it. I looked down the fence and I was proud to see what we’d done together. Then my eyes wandered over to Dax’s truck.

  “Come on,” Gary said. “Let’s wrap up.”

  Joe and Kabo were far across the pasture, chasing something. I picked up my bucket and walked with Gary to the barn. I took my time putting the supplies away in the equipment room while he stood next to me rubbing paint off his hands with a rag and gasoline. When he was done he tossed the rag to me and I caught it and wiped my arm and fingers. He leaned against the workbench and watched me until I was done.

  “I’ll come see you after supper,” I said. “Will you tie up Joe for me?”

  He came away from the counter and I followed him out of the equipment room. He sat down against his pack and put his hands behind his head. “Have a seat,” he said. “Why don’t we hang out until she calls you.”

  I was happy to stay. I couldn�
��t help smiling to myself as I sat across from him.

  “Let me see your knife,” he said.

  I dug into my pocket and pulled out the Barlow and passed it to him. He opened the blade and studied it and scraped the pad of his thumb across the edge. Then he leaned forward and turned to get something out of his pack. He reached deep inside and dug about until he had what he was looking for. His hand came back with a rectangular leather case with a necklace of dog tags tangled around it.

  “Is that what you wore around your neck in the army?” I asked.

  He untangled the ball chain from the case and tossed it to me. “Yeah,” he said. “Sometimes. Depended on what we were doing.”

  I studied one of the metal tabs.

  CONWAY

  GARY L

  423-27-9646

  0 POS

  EPISCOPAL

  “Your last name’s Conway.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’s the number?”

  “It’s my social security number. Right under that’s my blood type. O positive. Then my religion.”

  “Why do they need to know the religion?”

  “In case I got killed. They’d know how to bury me.”

  The tags felt warm in my hands. Gary opened the leather case and pulled out a whetstone. He spit on it and rubbed my knife blade in a flat, circular motion. “You want them?” he said without looking up.

  I nodded. He continued working the blade. “They’re yours,” he said.

  19

  It was past our usual suppertime when Mother appeared at the back door. She called me and I came out of the barn so that she could see me. She looked tired and guilty and the spirit I’d seen in her lately was gone. I heard Dax’s truck start and drive away.

  “Foster, come inside,” she called.

  I shoved the dog tags in my pocket and turned back to tell Gary I’d see him later, but he had come up behind me. “I’ll walk over there with you,” he said.

  Mother waited for us. “I’m so sorry, Foster. I just lost track of time.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “We finished the fence.”

  She started to turn like she might be able to see it, then realized her mistake and faced us again. “That’s wonderful, Foster.”

  “You mind if I have a word with you, Linda?” Gary said.

  She looked at him with a little surprise. “No,” she finally said. “Come inside.”

  We all started for the back door.

  “It’ll just take a minute,” he said.

  I stood in the kitchen with the two of them, waiting to hear what he had to say.

  “Foster, go to your room and wash up,” she told me.

  I frowned and turned to go. I walked into my room and stood in the center of the floor and listened.

  “I don’t want to overstep my bounds,” he said, “but I can help you out when it comes to what some of the farm equipment’s worth.”

  “I just want it gone,” she said. “I’m past trying to get a good deal.”

  “I understand. But I might be able to get a better price for you real quick at the feed store. They have advertisements posted on a bulletin board.”

  “Dax said he priced the tractor for me. Maybe I’ll need your help when it comes to the truck.”

  There was a pause. “Okay,” he said. “Just let me know. It won’t hurt to have a number in your head for some of these things.”

  “Thank you, Gary. Is there anything you need out there?”

  “I’m fine, thanks. Tell Foster I’ve got some errands I need to run tonight. I’ll feed Joe for him and see him first thing in the morning. We’ll need to start stripping the shingles off the roof early before the heat hits us.”

  There was another pause.

  “Gary,” she said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Be careful with him,” she said.

  “I know, Linda,” he replied.

  * * *

  She heated some leftover spaghetti for me and placed it on the table with a glass of milk. She didn’t fix anything for herself, but sat across from me and watched me eat. I stared at my plate and picked at my food. I didn’t want to talk to her.

  “Gary said he’s got some things he needs to do tonight,” she said. “He wants you to help him with the roof in the morning.”

  I kept eating and didn’t answer.

  “What’s wrong?” she said.

  I didn’t look at her. “You know what’s wrong.”

  “We really need the money.”

  “You could have sold it to somebody else.”

  “It seemed like the best thing to do.”

  I looked at her. “I thought he wasn’t coming back.”

  “He wanted to apologize, Foster.”

  “Gary doesn’t like him either.”

  She sighed and got up from her chair. “I can’t talk about this tonight,” she said.

  “Me neither.”

  * * *

  I lay in bed that night, staring at the dog tags on the bedside table and holding my closed pocketknife in my fist. My head raced with too many thoughts for sleep to come. Eventually I heard the farm truck crank. I got out of bed and stepped to my window and looked out in time to see him pull around the house toward the blacktop.

  * * *

  Sunday morning we started at daybreak. Gary got on the roof of the house, scraped the old shingles up with a flathead shovel, and flung them off. I busied myself on the ground, picking up the pieces and tossing them into the farm truck.

  Mother brought us bacon and eggs and biscuits after we’d been at it for an hour. Gary came off the roof and we stuffed them down and got back to work within a few minutes. The cicadas were already rattling with the oncoming heat.

  By ten o’clock Gary had his shirt off and glistened with sweat. The smell of hot tar and pine hung thick in the air while his shovel scratched and popped across the loose grit and plywood. His back muscles rose and fell against it all as he tore it away. Occasionally he’d stop and take the bandanna off his head and wipe his face with it.

  For the first time I was able to study the tattoo as much as I wanted. It was a haunting image that spoke only of death. I couldn’t help but think it had to be connected to whatever it was Gary thought about when he grew distant with me.

  “Hammer,” he called down to me.

  I got the hammer out of the truck and tossed it up to him. He caught it and smirked like he was impressed.

  “That’s too good an arm to waste,” he said.

  “It was just an underhand toss,” I said. But I knew what he meant.

  He knelt and began using the hammer claw to pull up some stubborn roofing nails. I caught them as they rolled off the edge and tossed them into the truck bed with the other trash.

  Just before noon he came down the ladder and leaned against the truck. He took off the bandanna and wiped his face again and draped it over the side rail.

  “Must be a hundred ten degrees up there,” he said.

  “You need some more water?”

  He glanced out at the blacktop then looked at me. “Yep. A lot of it. You got a swimming hole around here?”

  “There’s Tillman’s bridge about five miles up the road. You can swim there.”

  He pushed himself away from the truck. “Sounds good. Go get your swimsuit on. Ask your mother if she wants to go. Lunch is on me.”

  “Mother?”

  “That’s right. I’m going to get a dry shirt and shorts out of the barn. I’ll meet you out here in ten.”

  20

  I knew Mother would be surprised about Gary’s invitation, but I never thought she’d accept it.

  “I don’t think I’ll swim,” she said, “but I could get out of this house for a spell.”

  She changed into a wide-brimmed straw hat and a sundress I hadn’t seen in a long time. Then she moved about the house gathering her sunglasses, three beach towels, and a John Grisham paperback. She held that same resolute expression I’d seen when she decided t
o hire Gary.

  We loaded the dogs into the farm truck and set out with the windows down, me sitting between the two of them. Gary pulled onto the blacktop and shifted through the gears, and the sound of the truck, the feel of the acceleration through the seat and the tires on the highway and the faint popping of the muffler were all familiar, things pulled from a dark closet. Gary smelled like tar and sweat, but in a good way. Mother held her hat in her lap and her hair swished about her face in the breeze. The heat brought a healthy flush to her cheeks. As muggy and hot as it was, a deep sense of contentment coursed through me and gave me chills. This time, I let my imagination have its way.

  The creek ran tea-colored over polished gravel and white sand. Bay trees and water oaks grew tall from the bank and shaded all but a sunlight-dappled area in the center. The effect was that of a cool tunnel with sparrows and thrushes calling from deep in the tangled walls. The dogs leaped in and waded in circles. After a moment they both turned and looked at us as if to tell us it was okay.

  “We’re coming,” I said.

  Satisfied, Joe lowered his head and started lapping up the cool water. Kabo headed upstream toward the dark shade of the bridge.

  Mother sat on a towel a few feet back from the bank and laid her book open beside her. Gary and I stepped to the creek edge and contemplated the water.

  “It’s cold,” I said.

  He stripped off his shirt and hung it on a branch. The tattoo was in full view. I glanced at Mother and she averted her eyes and placed a hand on her book. Gary waded into the shallows and fell backward and sat up on his elbows. He looked at me and grinned. “Man up, kid,” he said. “It’s worth it.”

  I hung my shirt beside his, backed up, and tackled the water. I fell into the shallows, the water so cold it burned. I rolled over and sat up and crossed my hands over my chest and gasped. Joe splashed up to me and began licking my face until I shooed him away. He didn’t seem to mind and crashed off upstream after Kabo.

  The creek licked my ribs and I felt the heat in my cheeks fade. My body slowly relaxed and I eased back onto my elbows into the coolness.

  “You’re missing out,” Gary called up to Mother.

  She smiled and finally picked up her book.

  “There’s bass in here,” I said to him. “If you walk downstream a little ways you can find some deep holes. They hang out in the cut banks.”