by John Smolens
“What about Roy Ferris? He said he would be back.”
Shelby just kept his eyes on the road.
Monday morning, Van Voorst’s garage called to say that our car would be ready at the end of the day. Shelby and I drove into town that evening. Claire stayed at the farm, packing. We had told Shelby and Vera that we would leave Tuesday morning. Vera only said that she would make us a nice chicken dinner.
When we reached the garage, Shelby said, “Before leaving town, I need to stop by the Elks Club to talk to a fellow.”
“We passed it on the way into town.”
“It would be better if you drove straight back to the farm.”
“Moose? Elk? Is everything here named after a four-legged animal?”
He considered this longer than I expected. “No, some places are named after fish.”
I got out of the truck and went into the garage. The brake job cost eighty-seven fifty, and as I drove back out to the farm I calculated that Claire and I had twenty-three dollars left.
When the farm came into view across the fields, I could see a car—Roy Ferris’s sedan—parked in front of the house. I pulled off the road, stopping next to a stand of trees alongside the south pasture, and walked toward the house, keeping close to the barbed-wire fence. Cows wandered over to see what I was up to, poking their big heads out between the wires. It was dark when I reached the barnyard. I went up to the kitchen windows. The kitchen was empty, but there was a pot on the stove, steam rising from beneath its iron lid. I walked around to the front door. There weren’t any lights on in the rest of the house.
It was not only dark, but quiet—only the sound of chickens, pecking at corn kernels on the ground. I walked out into the yard and saw Barney in the kennel, lying motionless on his side. As I approached I could see blood pooled in the dirt. He’d been shot in the head, the left side of his skull gone.
I walked toward the bunkhouse, but stopped when I heard a sound from inside the barn—something knocking on wood. I went quietly to the barn door, which was open just enough for me to slip inside. At the far end of the barn there was a dim, flickering light—a lantern, casting tall shadows on the wall. I could hear breathing, the sound of a struggle, and moaning.
Tools were kept inside the door and I picked up an axe. I moved toward the back of the barn, keeping close to the stalls on my right. One horse snorted, causing me to stop. The sound from the back of the barn paused, but then, after a moment, it resumed, seemingly more urgent than before—it was a persistent rhythm that I recognized now. I continued on, stepping carefully. The last stall had no gate and was used to store harness, rope, and other gear. When I was close enough to see over the half-wall, I stopped. Roy Ferris knelt behind Vera, who was down on all fours. With each thrust she let out a moan. There was no pleasure to the sound. It was agonized, painful. The front of her dress was torn and her breasts swung freely, jouncing as Ferris entered her harder, faster from behind.
I stepped into the stall and looked into the corners. There was no sign of Claire. Ferris gazed up at me with enormous, bulging eyes, and the word that came to mind was pazzo—crazy. He thrust frantically, hurrying now, unable to stop. Vera’s hair hung down over her face, which was covered with dirt and straw. For a woman she had a husky voice, but now she let out a long wail. I raised the axe and swung, hitting Ferris’s shoulder with the blunt side of the blade. He grunted as he was thrown off Vera, his head slamming into the barn wall. He lay still, crumpled in his overcoat, his trousers bunched around his bare legs.
“Where is she?” I said to Vera.
She was struggling to get to her feet. I reached out to help her, but she held out an arm as if to fend me off. When she was standing, she gathered up the front of her dress to cover herself as she staggered backwards.
“Claire,” I said. “What happened to her?”
Her eyes were streaming with tears and her mouth quivered as she tried to speak, but she could only stare at me, until she turned her head toward Ferris as he drew a revolver from the pocket of his overcoat. I swung the axe quickly, and the blade came down on his shoe and sank into the packed earth. Ferris’s gun went off and he released a scream that was high-pitched for such a big man. Throughout the barn horses stirred, some kicking at their stall gates. The toe of Ferris’s shoe was separated from his foot. He rolled over on his side and began to crawl away on all fours, until he fell on his side and stared up at me. He still held the gun and began to raise his arm. I tried to worry the axe out of the ground, but the blade had sunk very deep and wouldn’t release. He extended his arm, his hand shaking, and as he took aim there was a loud gunshot that seemed to go off in my right ear. The blast struck Ferris in the chest, thrusting him down into the dirt. His overcoat and shirt were shredded and soaked with blood.
I looked at Shelby, who still held his rifle over the half-wall, prepared for Ferris to sit up at any moment. But Ferris didn’t move, except for his right leg, which twitched rhythmically. Blood issued from the open toe of his shoe.
We left the barn and entered the kitchen, which smelled of charred meat—the water in the pot had boiled away. Using a towel, Shelby removed it from the stove and then shut off the burner. Vera was wearing his jacket now, and she sat at the kitchen table, clutching it about her. She was shaking and she wouldn’t look up from the floor.
I sat across from her at the table. “Vera,” I said, this time speaking calmly. “You have to tell me. Where is Claire?”
She wouldn’t look at me.
Shelby went into the pantry, climbed up on a step stool, and reached behind some boxes and tins on the top shelf. He got down a pint bottle, and then came to the table with three glasses. He filled them with whiskey and held one up to Vera. “Come on, now,” he said. “Take this, and tell him what happened.”
Vera only stared at the floor, her eyes flooded with tears. If anything, her shivering had gotten worse.
Shelby sat down. “Ferris got to her years ago,” he said, and then he drank down the whiskey. “She lost it—the child. And he went off to work for the government, but then he came back a few years ago and he’s been sniffing around like they had unfinished business.”
“She’s got to tell me,” I said.
He nodded and leaned toward her. “What he do with her, Vera?”
Slowly she raised her head. Her eyes studied the tabletop, and then she glanced at me. “When he arrived she was over in the bunkhouse, packing. I was in here getting dinner ready. I heard the car, and then Barney. I thought it was your car. Then there was the first gunshot and he stopped barking.” She picked up the glass on the table and took a sip. Her hand wasn’t shaking too badly now, and she was breathing deeply. “When I got to the front door, I saw him in the open door of the bunkhouse. I could see Claire, running out into the pasture. She must have climbed out a back window. He went around the side of the bunkhouse, and he took his time. Pulled out his gun and took aim and fired two, three times.” She took another sip and then placed the glass on the table. “She went down in the field once, but she gets up. The next shot, she goes down and doesn’t move. Then he turns and sees me.”
I got up from the table and went to the door.
Shelby followed me. “We’ll need this.” He took a lantern from the peg on the wall.
He lit the lantern, and we went outside, crossing the yard to the pasture. It was pitch dark, and occasionally we could hear the cows lowing. We walked about a hundred yards, keeping well apart, and then Shelby said, “Over here.” I ran toward him across the wet, icy field and saw him kneel down next to Claire, who was lying on her side in a furrow. When I reached them, he said, “She’s alive.”
She didn’t move.
“It’s a long way to carry her,” Shelby said, getting to his feet. “I’ll fetch the truck.”
He gave me the lantern and started across the field. I could see that her jacket and blue jeans were soaked in blood, but I couldn’t tell where she’d been wounded. I took off my coat, and when I pu
t it over her she opened her eyes. I touched her hair, which was caked with cold mud.
By the time we got Claire in the house, Vera had changed—she was now wearing pants and a flannel shirt—and she had washed her face and tied her hair back. We put Claire on the couch in the den, and then Shelby insisted I come out into the kitchen. “Vera’s a nurse,” he said. “Let them be for now. We’ve got to get you ready to leave, and then I’ll take care of Ferris.”
Vera spent about a half hour with Claire before coming into the kitchen to explain to me what had happened. “The bullet passed through her right thigh,” she said. “Fortunately, it was a small-caliber bullet and it didn’t hit bone. A lot of blood, but only a flesh wound.” Vera went to the sink, worked the pump, and began to wash her hands. “She must have been running away and had turned back when she heard shots, and the bullet just caught her. An inch one way, it would have missed. The other way, it would have been much worse.” Vera seemed alert, if tired now.
“Thank you,” I said. “How are you?”
She wiped her hands on a dishtowel and didn’t look at me. “It’s too dangerous to send her to a doctor. The wound is clean, but you will have to change the dressing often.” She went to the kitchen table and picked up the glass of whiskey that Shelby had poured for her. “You must go immediately, while it’s dark.”
I felt extremely weary all of a sudden, unable to think. “Where will we go now?”
“Can’t help you much there.” Shelby tugged on his earlobe a moment. “Weren’t you headed south, toward Detroit?”
I nodded.
“It’s your best bet now,” Shelby said. “The bigger the city the better.”
Vera picked up the pint of whiskey and handed it to him. “I have told you this is not to be in this house.”
He took the bottle and tucked it in the pocket of his coat. He opened the door, and I followed him across the barnyard.
“I’m sorry for this,” I said. “Vera is angry that we ever stopped here.”
“Nope. She’s more upset about me hiding whiskey in the house,” he said. “As far as Ferris goes—I should have put that dog down years ago.”
“What will you do with him?”
“I’ll take care of that after you leave.” He took the pint bottle from his coat pocket, opened it, and tipped it up to his mouth. When he handed the bottle to me, he said, “Hogs, they eat anything. His car, I’ll put it in the barn and deal with it piece by piece.”
14.
When I was a boy, my family visited Rome one Palm Sunday. We stood in Vatican Square for over three hours while the pope performed Mass. There were tens of thousands of people there, and my mother insisted that my sister and I hold hands and stand between her and Papa. “Otherwise someone might steal you,” Papa said, and I couldn’t tell whether or not he was joking. “Right during the Offertory, when everyone has their heads bowed and their eyes closed, a gypsy will grab a child, and take him away and sell him. So while we’re in the city, you two hold hands and stay between Momma and Papa.”
I remember the look of fear in my sister’s eyes, and how damp her small hand became in mine, and that’s how I felt when we approached Detroit. Claire was exhausted, and we had pulled off the road and slept in the car several times, so we didn’t arrive in the city until late the next afternoon.
“How is it?” I asked.
“Sore,” she said from the back seat, where she’d been lying down.
“Should we stop again to change the bandage?”
“You keep driving. I can do it. Vera gave me what I need. You might turn the heat up, though. We want to continue south until we reach downtown.”
I had never seen such traffic. It was stop and go, a traffic light at almost every intersection. Finally, we found a parking space on a busy street. We got out of the car, and I said, “I won’t play a mute here.”
“All right, and now it’s my turn to limp.”
As we walked away from the car I held her arm. Though it was painful to walk, she smiled, glad to be out of the car. We passed by stores, and at the end of the block, she asked, “So, what do you think?”
“Non é Roma o Milano.” When she looked at me, she seemed angry, and I added, “Rome and Milan are the only other cities I’ve been to, and this looks nothing like them.”
“Frank, listen: no more Italian. Your English is accented enough as it is. Otherwise, I’ll make you a mute again.”
“Okay,” I said. The sidewalk was crowded and everyone seemed in a hurry. “Do you know anyone here?” Claire shook her head. “I do,” I said, which caused her to stop walking. “We’ve never met, of course, but—” I pointed toward a bar and restaurant called Jake’s Pub. “Would they have a telephone in there?”
The place was dimly lit and we went up to a polished wooden bar. I ordered a draft beer called Stroh’s, and Claire asked for a Coca-Cola. We went to a phone booth in back, and it took several calls, but finally I reached Professor June Stillman, at Wayne University. At first she didn’t understand me at all, and then, after a pause, she said, startled, “You’re the Italian soldier—the one taking the correspondence course?” In our correspondence I imagined that she was an elderly woman, but her voice was young, perhaps in her early thirties. “Where are you calling from?”
“Detroit. Near downtown, I think.”
“I don’t understand. You’re a prisoner of war.”
“Yes.” I hesitated. “But, you see, I’m free now.” I thought she would hang up.
“Where are you?” she asked.
When I gave Professor June Stillman the address of Jake’s Pub, she said she would meet us at six o’clock. Claire was tiring, so we went back to the car, and she slept in the back seat while I sat behind the steering wheel. It was early evening and people were getting out of work, hurrying along the sidewalks. At the corner they stood in line to board trolley cars, and I envied them—I wanted to ride such a trolley car; I wanted to take one to a place I thought of as home.
I was having second thoughts. I told Claire we had to be careful about June Stillman. It was possible that she had been contacted by the authorities and she would lead them to us. Professor Stillman must have understood my hesitancy, because on the phone she’d said, “I’m short—four-foot-ten. Everybody looks at me twice, and then they try not to stare.”
The bar in Jake’s Pub was crowded when we returned, but some of the booths were empty. There was a jukebox—I’d never seen one of these new contraptions and I was fascinated by it. Patrons frequently played big band tunes, particularly numbers by Glenn Miller’s orchestra. Claire suggested that she would make contact with the woman first. There were two booths near the back; Claire sat in the first one, facing the front door, while I sat with my back to her in the next booth. She ordered a Coca-Cola and I got another Stroh’s.
Ten minutes after six, I said over my shoulder, “I don’t think she’s coming.”
“That clock is on bar time. It’s fast. Give her a bit longer.” Then she paused, and said, “Wait. This must be her.”
I was afraid to turn around, so I sipped my beer. I could hear her footsteps—short and quick—as she came down the bar. Claire said, “Professor Stillman?”
“Yes?”
“You’re here to meet Mr. Verdi?”
“Yes, I am.” She sounded confused.
“Won’t you please sit down?” Claire said. “He’ll join us in a moment.”
I could hear the woman slide into the other side of the booth. “I thought he was alone,” she said.
I got out of my booth and turned around. “I’m afraid I wasn’t very clear over the phone.”
She wore a gray suit and everything about her was tiny. Her straight black hair was chopped off at the shoulders, and she wore thick glasses. She looked like she could have been fourteen just last week, and now she was at least thirty. She seemed startled and confused as she glanced back and forth between us. “What’s going on here?”
If I had been there alon
e, I would have simply walked out of the pub. But Claire seemed unable to move from her side of the booth.
Professor Stillman had a double chin, and her teeth were large and rather crooked. Her eyes were curious, intelligent, and she seemed delighted. “You escaped,” she said to me.
I sat down next to Claire. “That’s right.”
“Wonderful. Did you tunnel out?”
“No, I ran off into the woods.”
“He had no choice,” Claire added.
“Of course you didn’t. In war, the only choice is to survive.” She looked at Claire. “And you helped him?”
We both stared at this small woman in a gray suit who sat across from us. Behind those glasses, her eyes turned solemn and sincere. I felt desperate to make our situation clear. “We have not eloped.”
At first I didn’t think she understood what the word meant, but then she said, “The thought never crossed my mind.” She paused, and then with great patience explained, “It’s not eloped, it’s elopt. The ed sounds like a t. It’s called syncopation, and—” A waitress came to the booth, and the professor ordered a drink called a Manhattan and asked if she could buy us another round, a term I’d never heard before. After the waitress went to the bar, Professor Stillman leaned toward Claire. “Honey, are you all right?”
“She should be in ta doctor,” I said.
From the professor’s expression, I could tell that I had not spoken correctly again. “See the doctor,” she said.
“Ta doctor.”
Shaking her head, she said, “You must work on the th. It’s hard, just as it’s hard for English speakers to learn to roll their r’s when they try to speak Italian or Spanish—it takes a lot of practice.” She studied Claire a moment. “What, you’re pregnant?”
“No. I’ve been shot,” Claire said softly.
“What?” She glanced over her shoulder and then leaned toward us. “Shot, with a gun?”