All the gaggling awakened the whittled rooster from its comatose sleep. It rolled on its track atop the chicken coop and coughed out a morning call, heedless of its uselessness at noon.
In the silence that followed, Sunny heard a scraping sound from inside the barn, punctuated by taps. Pup heard it too. Sunny remembered the gum-ball machine he’d stowed above the stalls. He scattered the last handful of seed and walked to the barn door. If the old man had trespassed onto their land, Sunny would have to fight him.
The front half of the barn was a wide-open hangar with three ten-foot bay doors, and the back half was made up of two rows of animal stalls. The second floor was the attic, with the chest for toys broken beyond what you could repair or love despite. The only access up was a pull-down staircase in the main bay that was always kept shut. Even Sunny spooked himself sometimes thinking about the bone yard above his head while he worked.
When Sunny opened the back door of the barn, a wedge of light cut into the space. The barn was hushed in a way it never was. The animals had gotten out the front bay door, which he could see was ajar. The feed troughs had been kicked over, but no animals had stopped to get at the spilled novelty foods.
Pup got himself worked up as he hustled from stall to stall. He sniffed at the troughs, yapped at them, did a backflip, and then sniffed them again.
Sunny followed the scratching sound to the last stall. He’d put the gum-ball machine on the crossbeam above it, but it was gone now. Maybe it had toppled backward, thought Sunny. He opened the stall door.
A stick horse leaned into the back wall, its face pressed into the corner. It had scraped down the straw bedding to the packed dirt floor and was still going, with frantic and exhausted hops on its one leg, like it was trying to get a good hold and push itself through the wall. The tapping sound was its left eye, a black button clacking against the side of the barn.
Sunny looked down at his own feet. The scattered remains of three blind mice filled the stick horse’s stall, a gory mess of springs, gears, and whiskers. Sunny lurched backward, falling against the facing stall. The windup keys on their backs had been ripped out and lay useless in the shape of wishbones. The mice had been cracked open like crab shells and looked almost inside-out.
At Sunny’s shock, the stick horse awoke from its stupor, then threw itself even harder at the wall. Pup came running, then skidded to a stop and slowly backed away.
Sunny opened his mouth to say, “Aw, hell,” but he clapped his hand over his mouth to catch a sob coming out instead.
He came down to his knees and picked up a tiny spoke and a gray felt ear. He whispered, “Shhh, baby, shhh,” to the stick horse as he started to gather the mutilated parts of the mice. Little by little the horse stilled itself out of its panic.
Sunny would need a rag to sop up the oil that’d spilled from the bellies of the mice. It had already soaked through the straw into the dirt, but it wouldn’t be decent to leave it. Sunny had a rag he’d used to stain the bookshelves in the main bay. He was about to go get it when it appeared next to his ear and he heard over his shoulder, “Take it, chacho.”
SUNNY STOOD UP. He didn’t take his eyes off Sobrino.
“This is no good,” said the old man, shaking his head. “I am sorry.”
“You’re sorry?” whispered Sunny. He stepped out of the stall. He didn’t want the old man looking at the mice, didn’t want him able to admire his own handiwork.
Sobrino backed up. He looked confused, like he wasn’t sure he’d said what he meant to in a language he wasn’t quite family with. He said, “Sorry for you, yes. I am sorry for what is happened.”
Sunny took another step toward Sobrino. “I believed you the first time.”
“Oh,” said Sobrino. “Good.” He stood up straight and patted his trousers. He was so tall he could look over the crossbeams. He could have reached up and plucked a whole gum-ball machine from its resting place.
“You’re real sorry,” said Sunny, picking up a rake that was leaning on a stall door.
“Sí,” said Sobrino, eyeing the rake.
“Yeah, I see.”
Sunny swung the rake overhead as hard as he could, like it was a pickax. It would have forked into the old man’s skull if Sobrino hadn’t leaped backward, pushing off with his elongated legs like a springboard. The old man flew twenty feet and landed on his back between the first and second stalls. The impact knocked the air out of his lungs. He grimaced and put a hand on his lower back while Sunny dashed forward, swinging the rake. He shouted like a war chief, flailing and weeping as he swiped at the old man on the ground.
Sobrino struggled to push himself up, into a crab walk. He scurried on all fours, with his belly facing the ceiling, dodging Sunny’s rake just as if he was a daddy longlegs.
Using his fingernails to get a grip, he wrapped his stilted legs around posts. Like a spider, he crawled up the stalls and over the crossbeams. All the while Sunny chased him, punching the rake into the wood and screaming cuss.
Sobrino leaped into the main bay and disappeared over the tops of the bookshelves Sunny had been building. Sunny charged after him, overturning three of the unfinished shelves. Then finally, Sobrino reappeared on the side wall, scrambling toward the bay door. Sunny dropped a few darts into his hand from up his sleeve and hurled them. One dart flew end over end, hit the wall backward, and fell to the floor. The next one flew straight and stabbed into the wall, just behind Sobrino’s heel. Sunny finally aimed with the third one and pinned Sobrino’s shoe to the side of the barn. Sobrino didn’t notice. He scurried toward the door, but his foot stayed pegged to the wall and yanked him backward. Sobrino fell to the dirt.
As Sobrino hung upside down, prying his foot loose, Sunny came running up with the rake for his kill shot. Just in time, the old man slipped his foot out of the shoe and turned around to block the handle of Sunny’s rake, but not before the tines cut three neat lines into his shoulder.
Sobrino groaned. He grabbed Sunny’s hand and squeezed it till Sunny heard his knuckles clack into each other like marbles. Sunny cried out and tried to wrest free, but he couldn’t. And he couldn’t figure how the haggard old man with pockmarks all over him could have a grip like a noose.
It surprised him that there was a kind of strength that came with muscles and a kind that came with living a long time.
Sobrino bent over to stare the kid right in the eye. He forced Sunny to extend his arm and hold the rake out sideways. Sunny tried not to wince. Both of them breathed hard. Sobrino dragged the sharp nails of his other hand over the rake as though he was playing a piano riff across the handle. It fell to pieces like a chopped carrot.
Sunny stopped struggling, and Sobrino finally let him loose.
Sunny rubbed his knuckles. Sobrino pressed his shoulder where the rake had grazed him. The cuts didn’t bleed, maybe because the old man didn’t have any blood to spare. He looked like the sun had shriveled him up into jerky, made him tawny and kinda mangled already. Sunny couldn’t imagine a country of men like him, picking oranges from the top boughs and singing songs only they could understand. He figured Sobrino must have been a stranger every place he’d been.
The back door of the barn slammed open. Pup leaped out from the corner he’d been hiding in, and ran for shelter under Sunny’s leg. They heard the stick horse stamp into the wall, thrash a few times, and then fall down.
The farmer’s daughter rushed in, followed by Boy and a trail of windup chickens. They came running toward the main bay but stopped short when Dot saw the mice in the last stall. Boy stopped and stared. Slowly, he raised a hand and gripped the back of Dot’s pant leg.
The gaggling chickens wheeled around hysterically, gabbing at each other. Some of them were racing so fast that they ran out a whole day’s worth of winding and fell over in a terrified faint. Others ran headlong into the first wall, or foot, or chicken they came across. They crunched like soda cans and sent up dust where their wheels ground little ditches in the dirt floor.
/> “What happened?” said Boy.
“He killed them,” said Sunny, lathering up for more fight.
“Why?” said Sobrino. “Why I kill them?”
“’Cause you’re old and you’re weird,” said Sunny.
“Maybe a cat did it,” said Boy, trying to make sense of the ugly sight.
“A cat can’t bend metal like that, Boy,” said the farmer’s daughter.
“A metal cat,” said Sobrino.
“We ain’t grown a toy cat in years,” said the farmer’s daughter. “They’re too complicated.”
Sobrino glanced at Boy and the seam line that ran along the crown of his head, cadet’s hat included, and down each cheek. The brads were either flesh colored or uniform red and looked like mosquito bites or various other bumps little boys acquire in the woods. The farmer’s daughter put a protective hand on Boy’s shoulder. Sobrino looked into her eyes the color of fresh basil and recognized something in them from a long time ago. “Your name is Dot,” he said.
“I ain’t got a name,” said the farmer’s daughter, running a hand up to put a stray hair behind her ear.
Sobrino chuckled and it sounded like eh-eh-eh. “The farmer’s daughter, that is your name,” he said.
“That too, I guess,” said Dot.
“How’d you know her name?” said Sunny. He stepped closer, wagging another dart.
“How you know my name?” said Sobrino.
“You told me.”
“That’s right. Sobrino del Mago, at your service, no mouse killer. Majeecian. Farmer friend and nice to mice.”
“When’d I tell you my name?” said Dot.
Sobrino went eh-eh-eh but didn’t answer Dot’s question.
He leaned over, very slow, and pulled up one of the bookshelves. He took a broken piece of a shelf and put it on the woodworking bench. “I help, yes?”
“No,” said Sunny. “You leave. Or I cut you open.”
Sobrino tried to chuckle, but it died in his throat, like suddenly it embarrassed him to beg for their welcome. His sheepish smile did nothing but showcase his rotten teeth. Everyone stood around looking at each other. Then Dot said, “He ain’t the murderer, Sunny.”
“Don’t matter. Maybe he’s a murderer.”
“That’s a dumb way of thinking.”
“You’re dumb,” said Sunny. Immediately, he felt silly for it. He put the hand holding the dart down to his side.
“Dumb, dumb,” said Boy, absently kicking up straw.
The farmer’s daughter patted Boy forward so he’d go stand by Sunny, away from the stall. She helped the stick horse up and let it go hopping out of the barn to run out its fear. Then she took off a boot and started gathering the body parts in it.
Sunny looked at the one booted foot and the one pistachio sock sticking out of the stall where the farmer’s daughter kneeled on all fours to pick up the mess. Dot ushered the mice into the warm boot. Sunny felt guilty for taking advantage of the intimate moment to gawk at her.
Dot stood up and back into the main bay, cradling the boot with both arms. Sunny, Boy, and Sobrino stepped aside as she reached for the pull-down staircase. She climbed into the attic. Pup followed her up to the foot of the stairs and then caught a smell from up there he didn’t like. Sunny, Boy, and Sobrino stood in a semicircle, looking up at the floorboards, which were spaced just enough apart to see Dot’s shadow moving above. The singular footfall of Dot’s lone boot walked above their heads. The toy chest creaked open, followed by sounds that may have been Dot crying for her friends before she buried them.
Sunny paid his respects as best he could, hoping the mice’d be comforted somehow by his silence. Sobrino had covered his face with grimy hands and was speaking muffled words without so much meaning as rhythm, like a canticle no toy would ever know. Even the hens were wheeling around quietly.
When Dot came down from the attic, her green eyes were red and her red hair seemed brown, as if she’d wilted a little. She picked Pup off the floor and let him lick her cheeks. Then she walked out and turned toward the vegetable garden.
Boy started to run after her, but Sunny put a hand on his head and held him in place. “She don’t need help today. You can make yourself useful around here.”
Sobrino didn’t talk for the rest of the morning, smart enough to know it’d only start a fight. Sunny opened the barn doors wide and let the light evaporate the dew inside the main bay. He and Sobrino picked up pieces of the bookshelves and cleared the workbench for repairs. Boy talked to himself, having a volcano adventure, poking into every stall for magma pits and narrating as he went. He never saw any toys that had fallen into the pit and died, but he was mindful that he might and assured himself that it’d be okay if he did, ’cause of lava being so hot it’d melt you quick and painless.
The pall of the morning stretched over into the afternoon. The chickens wouldn’t circle farther than five feet from Sunny, clucking to tell each other how speechless they were over the whole ordeal.
Something continued to rustle in the attic, like the rattling stones of a graveyard shifting to find beds for those that were new.
When they’d finished picking up the busted planks, it became apparent that Sunny’s library was a bramble of piss-poor workmanship. Corners weren’t butted up to each other, baseboards were uneven, and he’d beveled edges for no reason at angles that didn’t match. Sobrino couldn’t help but grin when he saw some finishing work Sunny had done on one shelf. It looked like he’d tried to carve an undersea pattern with turtles and kelp. He said, “You carve this?”
“Yeah,” said Sunny. “This is gonna be Dot’s library.”
“She like, what you say, squeeds?”
“Huh?”
Sobrino pointed to the tentacle shapes. “Arms like branches — squeed.”
Sunny said, “Those are grapevines.”
Sobrino had never heard of ocean grapes. “This is a tortle.”
“That’s a daisy.”
Sobrino said, “Oh,” then sputtered, opened his mouth, and laughed. Sunny couldn’t figure how a man with teeth like Sobrino’s could bring himself to laugh at the sorry state of anything else.
“You can leave now,” said Sunny. He turned to the workbench and picked up a few tools. When he couldn’t think of anything else to do with them, he put them back down. Sobrino quieted himself down to a chuckle. “Eh-eh-eh, leave.” Then he pointed at a turtle foot and exclaimed, “Leaves!” He had to hold his stomach as he burst out laughing again. This time Sunny whirled around and dropped a couple darts from his sleeve between his fingers, ready to let them fly. Sobrino put a palm out. “Wokay, chacho. Just the carving is fonny. Like the chickans do it.”
The old man turned his attention back to the botched carving. He leaned down low to get a good look and dug his fingernail into the wood. The jagged nail seemed like it could break off at any second. But instead of breaking, his fingernail cut into the wood, easier than if he were painting each stroke. The white pine curled under his fingernail as if it was white chocolate.
Sunny half expected to come around and see a scrub of claw marks cross-hatching over his work. But the old man had rescued the floral pattern, and the squids were now ivy, as they were supposed to be. The tortle daisy could have fooled a bumblebee. And under it sat a little turtle, real as a picture, wearing a magician’s cap.
Boy giggled at a crow, its wings carved deep with black shade, perched on a tall stalk of corn, looking out defiantly and never flying off. “You carve tons better than Sunny,” he said, squeezing himself between the legs of the two men to look. “Don’t you think so, Sunny? Tons better. And he doesn’t cuss so much while he’s doing it.” Sunny took a side step toward Sobrino to block Boy’s vision, but Boy wouldn’t be silenced. “Did you see the turtle, Sunny? He’s smiling at you. And the wood didn’t split. And he didn’t cut himself, or get splinters behind his ear somehow, or kick Pup ten feet into the air.” Pup yapped from whatever corner he was sniffing to affirm the claim.
/>
Sobrino leaned down and lifted Boy by his underarms. Boy made an automated wheeee! The old man said, “Look up there, chacho,” and he sat the kid up on a crossbeam.
Sunny looked at the old man. The old man was looking at him, so he looked down. He gripped some straw with his bare toes. He said, “You running from the hangin’ judge?”
“He’s no good,” said Sobrino.
“No good for you.”
“For anybody.”
Sobrino grimaced as he kneeled near a bookshelf. He gestured for Sunny to lift a shelf while he fixed the pegs that held it in place. “I asked you a question,” said Sunny, lifting the board.
“I just look for work,” said Sobrino.
“What does a ‘majeecian’ do, huh? You a magic outlaw?”
Sobrino set the pegs right and took the board back from Sunny. He motioned for Sunny to lean down.
“What?” said Sunny, bending close.
“Shhh, chacho, shhh.” said Sobrino. Then in the hush he placed the shelf on its right pegs, set it straight, and whispered, “Majeek.”
Sunny straightened up. From the rafters Boy said, “Ooooh, there’s a gum ball up here.” A lone red gum ball sat on the beam above the stick horse’s stall, all the way across the barn. Boy started crawling toward it. As far as Sunny could tell, there wasn’t any other sign of the gum-ball machine. He’d search the fence line for droppings later on — maybe a bobcat had carried it away in frustration after the mice had proven meatless. Sunny brought his sleeve up to his mouth and grated on a mouthful of straw. Then he lifted the next shelf and let Sobrino get back to work.
Boy reached the gum, popped it in his mouth, and started blowing bubbles. In all the farm, only Boy had a feature like that. He laughed and kicked his legs out. Pup stood below him on the ground, flipping around and sharing in the excitement.
“If he hung you,” Sunny told Sobrino, “you’d have just stood up through the trapdoor anyhow. The gallows ain’t that tall.”
Straw House Page 3