by Watt Key
Mother lowered her hands. “Hi, Dax.”
“Where you been?”
“Joe!” she snapped. “Stop that!”
Joe stopped barking, but he didn’t move, and I heard rage vibrating in his throat.
“Visiting my parents,” she said.
“That dog’s gonna eat me yet,” Dax said in a joking tone of voice.
“What do you want, Dax?”
“I just wanted to say I was sorry about everything. I got out of hand the other night. I was just worried about you.”
Mother didn’t say anything.
“How’s Foster doin’? I thought I’d take him fishin’ this weekend.”
“I don’t want to see you again, Dax,” she said.
There was a period of silence.
“I don’t want you to come over anymore,” she continued. “And I don’t want you calling me.”
I heard his truck door creak and then Joe started barking.
“Damn,” he said, shutting the door again. “Can’t you at least get the dog out of my face?”
“Leave, Dax,” she said.
“You’re serious, aren’t you?”
She didn’t answer him.
“Who you got in there with you?”
“None of your business.”
“He’s in there, ain’t he?”
She didn’t answer him. I heard him spit.
“Fine,” he said.
The truck cranked again. “That’s fine, Linda,” he continued. “Like I said, we ain’t married. You go ahead and get him out of your system. You know where I live.”
The headlights came on and moved across the wall then stopped. “And don’t be surprised if I got company when you come over.”
* * *
Once Dax was gone we returned to the table and tried to finish our meal. No one spoke. Gary was the only one eating while Mother and I picked at our food. Finally, Mother stood and excused herself. Gary nodded and watched her walk away. Then he turned to me. “Go ahead and finish,” he said.
“You think that’s it?”
“I hope so.”
“She told him.”
“I don’t think he listens real good. It’s late. Go ahead and eat and we’ll walk out to the barn for a little bit.”
31
I sat on a hay bale that he’d saved as a bench to set his things on. The dogs were sleeping at my feet and Gary was cleaning the pistol.
“Dax thinks you’re Mother’s boyfriend.”
“Dax has got a drinking problem.”
“Would you have shot him?”
“If what?”
“If he tried to hurt Mother.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“It’d be enough just to show it to him.”
“How come you have bullets in it?”
“I told you that already.”
“Because you always have bullets in it?”
“That’s right. And I’m not real comfortable with you being so curious over it.”
“I won’t touch it unless you tell me I can.”
He glanced at me. “Good.”
I wasn’t sure how to take his tone of voice and I grew silent for a moment.
“Gary?” I said.
“Yeah.”
“We’ve got a lot more to do, don’t we?”
He kept wiping the pistol and didn’t look up. “It’ll take us a while to paint the cabinets and touch up some other places.”
I took a deep breath. “What’s after that?”
I noticed his hand stop for just a moment, then continue. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’ll have to ask your mother.”
“Why do you have to go to Texas?”
He smiled like the thought reminded him of something. Whether it had to do with my question or with that other thing he was always thinking of, I didn’t know. He stopped wiping and wrapped the pistol in its cloth and set it into the pack. He dug around for a moment and pulled out a book and laid it before me. It was called Coronado’s Children and I thought I recognized the general pattern of its cover as the one I’d seen him reading. I reached down and picked it up.
“My grandfather gave me this book when I was about your age,” he said. “It’s about lost treasure in the Southwest by a man named J. Frank Dobie. The way he tells the stories a person gets to thinking that maybe if they had enough time they could find the stuff. I’ve read everything he’s written.”
I looked up at him and his eyes were still on the book. His tone had softened and it immediately set me at ease.
“It’s a foolish kind of thing to do,” he said. “But I’ve got the time.”
“Like gold?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Spanish gold. Indian gold and silver.”
“And you’re going to go find it?”
He reached out and took the book from me. I was sorry I hadn’t at least opened it to show I was interested. He dropped it back into the pack. “I figure I’m mostly going for a long walk into the desert,” he said.
The way he said it—the distance it implied—the finality of it all filled me with a sudden rush of panic. “I don’t want you to leave, Gary,” I said.
He swallowed dry and looked away and didn’t say anything.
“I want you to stay here,” I said. “I want to stay here too. I didn’t know before, now I do.”
He stood and looked at the house and then down at Kabo. “I know, Foster … but it won’t work.”
Those words were everything I’d feared—everything I knew he’d say—the reason I never wanted to ask.
“She likes you,” I blurted out. “I know she does!”
He looked at me and his lips were tight and for the first time he was completely removed from that other place in his head and entirely with me. “Foster,” he said, “I know it seems to you like this thing has a simple answer, but it doesn’t. I can’t stay.”
“Why!”
“I know it’s not what you want to hear, but you won’t appreciate it until you’re older.”
Suddenly I wished I’d never met him. Everything good he’d brought wasn’t worth the hurt of what I was left with. “But you stayed this long,” I said. “Why’d you do it? Why’d you come?”
He hesitated for a moment. “I didn’t want this to happen,” he said. “I should’ve left before now.”
I jumped up and ran at him and hit him in the stomach as hard as I could. “Then why didn’t you leave!” I yelled. I swung at him again and he stood there and took the blow, barely flinching. I was crying now and I felt sick. I swung at him again, weaker this time, and he grabbed my wrist lightly and held it there. I jerked it free and turned and ran out into the night. I kept on until I came to the pasture fence. I climbed over it and kept running for a few more yards until I stopped and collapsed and lay there sobbing with my cheek pressed to the wet grass and my eyes locked on the dark line of trees where my father was killed. Joe trotted up next to me and licked my face and I reached up and pulled him down and hugged him tight.
* * *
It seemed like I was lying there for a long time. A whip-poor-will called from the far tree line. As I listened for it, I thought I heard the lowing of a cow from some place far away. Suddenly his feet were before my face and it startled me enough to roll over. He sat beside me and put his hand on my shoulder.
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” I said.
He nodded. “You want to walk back to the house with me?”
I stood and wiped my face with the back of my hand. “I just want to walk back with Joe.”
32
I woke the next morning and looked out my window. The farm truck was still there. Then I looked at the barn and caught a glimpse of him walking past the bay doors with Kabo following.
He didn’t come for breakfast and I saw Mother occasionally glancing at the back door.
“Gary must not be hungry,” she finally said.
She looked across the table at me when I didn’t
answer.
“Are you two painting today?”
I looked at my cereal. “I guess.”
I could tell her eyes stayed on me. She knew something was wrong, but she didn’t ask me about it. She took a deep breath and stood and grabbed her purse off the counter. “I’ve got to get to work,” she said.
“Don’t forget the dog food for Joe,” I reminded her.
“Foster, just try the stuff I bought for him. The Champion Mix is really expensive.”
“It’s not good for him,” I said flatly.
“Okay,” she sighed. “I’ll see if I can get some.”
I waited until she was gone and got up with my cereal bowl and went to the sink. I dumped out what was left and couldn’t help looking out the window. He was kneeling just outside the barn, stirring the paint.
* * *
“Good morning,” he said.
“Morning.”
“Could use some help today if you’re up for it.”
I looked at Joe. Back at Gary’s hand stirring. I was ashamed he’d seen me crying. I was ashamed of everything. “Okay,” I said.
Gary told me stories from the J. Frank Dobie book while we painted. Sometimes I asked him a question about something I didn’t understand, but I mostly just listened, glad not to have to talk about what happened the night before. I knew everything was different now. And there was nothing either of us could say to change it.
He was ready to stop working earlier than usual that afternoon. Mother had not even returned from work by the time we took the brushes to the barn to clean them.
“I’m going to leave for a while tonight,” he said.
“Why?”
“I have some things I need to do.”
“But you’ll come back?”
Gary smiled. “If I don’t, they’ll arrest me for stealing a truck.”
I looked at the ground.
He put his hand on my shoulder. “Foster,” he said.
I didn’t answer him.
“I’ve been trying to think of a way to tell you some things.”
I swallowed against the knot in my throat.
“I just need a little more time,” he said.
“Okay,” I said.
* * *
Gary drove off just after Mother returned from work. We ate alone that evening and then she went to her bedroom early. I walked out to the barn to check on Joe and saw that Gary had already fed him. I knelt and the two dogs came to me and I patted both of them while I studied the pack. After a few seconds I stood and walked over to it. I was scared to touch it. I knew he would know if I did. He knew exactly how he’d left it and how everything inside was arranged. Even though I’d heard him leave, just looking at it sent waves of fear up my back. Something told me he could be out there in the darkness watching me. Suddenly just appearing without a sound like he was able to do. I backed away from it and returned to the house.
I opened my eyes that night, not knowing what woke me. Then I heard Joe barking. I jumped out of bed and went to my window. The back of my neck tingled when I saw the farm truck missing. I ran to my bedroom door and found Mother in the hall.
“Stay in your room,” she said, buttoning the top of her nightgown.
“He’s not here,” I said. “Gary’s not here.”
She swallowed and crossed her arms over her chest and started for the living room. Joe was still barking out front. I followed her to the end of the hall and stopped and watched her standing in the middle of the room. Headlights swiped across the wall and I heard the truck turn around in the yard and caught a glimpse of taillights headed out the driveway. Joe suddenly stopped barking.
“What’s he doing?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she said.
I went past her to the window and looked out. Dax’s truck turned onto the highway and sped off. I saw Joe trotting away.
“Why’d he do that, Mother?”
She turned to me. “I don’t know, Foster … But he’s gone.”
“I wish Gary was here.”
She looked out the window again then back at me. Then she went over to the sideboard and opened the top drawer and pulled out Daddy’s pistol, which I hadn’t seen in a long time. She studied it.
“Do you know how to shoot it?” I asked.
She turned and looked at me like she’d forgotten I was standing there. Then she put the pistol back into the drawer and shut it. “I told you to stay in your room,” she said.
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to stay up until Gary gets back. Now go. I don’t want to tell you again.”
* * *
I lay awake until I heard the farm truck pull around the house. I jumped out of bed and ran to the window as Gary parked under the equipment shed. Kabo was already out of the barn and racing around the truck. I heard the back door shut and saw Mother walking across the yard, dangling the pistol in her hand.
Gary knelt behind the truck and petted Kabo, then stood and waited for her. Then I saw them talking and he took the pistol from her and looked at it and gave it back. They talked some more until Mother finally turned and headed for the house.
Gary watched after her until I heard the door shut. Then he started for the barn with Kabo beside him. I left the window and went to my bedroom door and opened it just as Mother was passing. She no longer had the pistol in her hand and she seemed more relaxed.
“What’s he going to do?” I asked.
“He’s going to talk to him if he comes by again.”
“What if he’s not here like tonight?”
“Then I’ll call the police. Everything’s going to be fine. Go on to bed.”
“I want to go see him.”
“It’s two o’clock in the morning. No.”
I frowned and went back to my room. I got my knife and lay in bed, staring at the ceiling fan, squeezing the hilt in my palm, imagining the terror of Dax’s goat face pressed against my window. I heard Mother’s bedroom door close and I squeezed the knife and it didn’t comfort me like I wanted it to. I got out of bed and walked quietly into the living room and opened the top drawer of the sideboard. The pistol was there looking heavy and deadly. I lifted it out and closed the drawer.
33
I woke to the sound of Mother talking in the kitchen. I slowly pulled myself from a groggy sleep and realized that the sunlight was strong through the window. I’d slept later than usual.
I sat up and rubbed my eyes and listened. I heard Gary’s voice.
“Go on to work,” he said. “I’ll handle it.”
“Oh God, Gary. I can’t leave.”
“You’re late already. There’s nothing you can do.”
“Can’t we take him somewhere?”
“No. I’ve seen it before. You’ll spend a lot of money with the same result.”
“It’s going to crush him, Gary.”
He didn’t answer. I still didn’t know what they were talking about.
“Go on, Linda,” he said.
“Oh God,” she said again. “Okay. Oh God.”
I got out of bed and walked to the center of the floor. I heard the front door shut and I wanted to go out and see Gary, but not so fast that they might know I was listening. I heard him get a glass from the kitchen cabinet and then the sink came on. I walked slowly into the hall and down it until I could see into the kitchen. The glass of water was beside him and he was leaning over with his elbows on the counter and his forehead in his hands.
“Hey, Gary,” I said.
He straightened and faced me. His eyes were red like he hadn’t been sleeping. “Hey, Foster.”
“What are you doing?”
He swallowed against something he didn’t want to say. “I need your help in the barn this morning,” he said. “Joe’s sick.”
Everything I’d heard came suddenly rushing over me and all the pieces fell into place. Buzzing rose in my ears and my breathing went shallow.
“He ate something bad last night.”
There was only one question that sat in my head. “Is he going to die?”
Gary studied me for what seemed like forever. “Yes,” he said. “I think so.”
I started for the back door and felt the tears coming. I wiped my face and kept on across the yard toward the barn door, a big, dark, open mouth before me. I couldn’t hear anything, taste anything, smell anything. My senses were numb to the world.
I found Joe lying on Gary’s blanket, his tongue protruding and clamped between his teeth, bared ugly and mean like it wasn’t him inside at all. His stomach rose and fell in quick bursts. Yellow bile was puddled around his face and the blanket was stained with a dark, bloody substance behind his legs. I sat beside him and put my hand on his head. The one eye facing up stared at some place in the beams overhead.
“Joe?” I said.
I leaned over to get into his line of sight and thought I saw the pupil twitch the slightest bit. I fell across him and sobbed into his neck fur. “No,” I cried. “Don’t die, Joe. Please don’t die.”
I felt Gary’s hand on my back.
I squeezed Joe tighter and felt the small convulsions passing through him like electricity. “We have to help him!” I said. “We have to do something!”
“He’s poisoned, Foster. His liver’s shut down.”
I sat up, pried his teeth open, and tried to get his tongue back in. It was cold and thick and limp. It kept falling out until I held it against the base of his mouth and let the jaws snap shut.
“We need to take him to the vet, Gary!”
“He’s going to die, Foster. Probably before we can get there.”
Joe spasmed and gagged and the tongue flopped out again. I started trying to stuff it back into his mouth, but Joe kept gagging and it kept falling out. Gary grabbed my arm. “Stop, Foster.”
“Make his tongue stop doing that, Gary!”
“You’re not helping him!”
I fought against him. “You’re not either!” I yelled.
“If we could make it to a vet, he’d die alone in a back room. I think you’d regret not being with him.”
I stopped struggling and relaxed. Gary let go of my arm and put his hand on my shoulder. I lay across my dog again and squeezed him and cried.