by D. M. Pulley
Later that afternoon, Jasper crept back into the house while Wayne headed to the pump. The chicken coop had left them both covered in black straw and stray feathers. Jasper was sticky with sweat and the stink of twenty hens, but he had to do something before washing up.
The book was stuck to his skin. Once behind the bedroom curtain, he pulled it out of the back of his pants. Flipping it open, he quickly checked to see if the writing had been ruined. The pages were slightly damp but still legible. He prayed it wouldn’t make all of his clean clothes stink like chicken shit as he shoved it under his long underwear and folded socks.
Shoving all the clothes he had over his buried treasure, something odd emerged from the bottom of the suitcase. A children’s Bible. Jasper picked up the bulky tome and frowned at the pastel face of Baby Jesus, wondering why in the world his mother had packed it for him. They didn’t go to church. They’d never even cracked the book open. It had just sat up on his bookshelf for years as her little private joke. Everybody’s a sinner, Jasper, she’d say. But as long as you have a Bible in the house, nobody seems to mind.
And now the joke was his.
“Jasper! What are you doing in here? You’re filthy!” It was Aunt Velma’s voice just inches over his shoulder. “You know you are going to ruin that lovely Bible.”
“Um . . .” Jasper spun to block her view. “I was just . . .”
“Didn’t your mother pack you any handkerchiefs?” She pointed to his running nose, then pulled one from the pocket of her apron. “Here.”
“Oh. Thanks.” He took the cloth from her hand and wiped his face, grateful for an excuse. “I was lookin’ for one.”
Aunt Velma looked old and rough compared to his mother. She had mostly gray hair and deep lines in her face. “I need to have a word with you, Jasper.” The lines grew deeper like they were mad. “I’m very disappointed in you.”
“I’m sorry.” Jasper dropped his eyes to the ground. “I didn’t mean to run off like that. I was just . . .”
“Change is never easy, we all understand that, but if you’re gonna live here and we’re gonna be a family, we got to trust each other, don’t you agree?” Her voice was soft, but that just made the anger behind it even more scary.
Jasper nodded, afraid to look at her.
“I won’t tolerate secrets.”
He nodded again. His heart began to pound, thinking about the book he’d taken from the burnt house. He didn’t want to show it to her. It had been his mother’s, and it was the only thing of hers he had left besides that stupid baby Bible. Aunt Velma couldn’t possibly know about the diary already. Could she?
“Is there something you want to tell me?” she demanded.
The room closed in around him as her icy blue eyes bored through him. He shook his head, knowing it wouldn’t do any good. She obviously knew something. His back was up against the bureau.
“You sure about that?” she insisted again.
His eyes circled the room. What could she possibly know about the book? His mouth opened to speak, but no words came out. Aunt Velma tapped her foot as he squirmed.
She sighed and pulled a wad of damp pajamas out from under his bed. “How ’bout now? You got somethin’ you want to tell me now?”
His breath caught in his throat. He’d forgotten all about his accident and hiding his pajamas. Tears of relief mixed with utter humiliation stung his eyes. “I—I’m sorry.”
“Dirty laundry ain’t nothin’ to be ashamed of, but I won’t suffer liars. Understand?”
He nodded.
She crouched down in front of him with a gentler voice. “Don’t nobody have to know about the laundry but me, okay? I won’t tell, but if you leave it balled up like that, it’s bound to stink and won’t come clean.”
The tenderness in her voice made him feel unbearably small. Part of him wanted to throw his arms around her neck and weep. The other part of him wanted to hit her. He just stood there and did nothing.
“If it happens again, you wait till after breakfast when everybody’s gone and you tell me. Got it?”
He nodded glumly.
“Now go and get wa—”
Wayne burst through the front door. “Come quick! Sally’s fallen into the well.”
“What?” Aunt Velma tore back the bedroom curtain.
“Who’s Sally?” asked Jasper, forgetting all about his humiliation.
“Pop’s best milker. Come on! We gotta get the tractor.” Wayne turned and ran back out the door.
Jasper dashed after him past Aunt Velma pulling the shotgun out from behind the door.
When Jasper caught up, Wayne mounted his pop’s great green tractor. It was a twenty-five horsepower John Deere Model B. Its back wheels were taller than him. “Grab that rope!” he ordered Jasper, pointing to a coil hanging from a peg on the wall.
Jasper had to jump to reach it but managed to get the heavy coil over his shoulder. He ran to the rear of the tractor and hopped up onto the hitch. “What’s a milker?”
“It’s a cow, dummy. Hang on!” shouted Wayne over the roar of the engine. The tractor lurched forward and tore down the two-track drive that led past the house and the chicken coop to the well in the back.
Uncle Leo was standing next to their neighbor Paul Sheldon, staring into a hole in the ground in deep discussion. Wayne rolled the tractor up next to them and cut the engine. Both boys hopped down to join the two men. An earsplitting wail boiled up out of the ground, making Jasper jump half out of his skin. The bleating call came again and was followed by a mad snorting. It was worse than the sound of Roy losing his nuts. Sally was being skinned alive by the devil himself.
Mr. Sheldon shined a lantern down into the well, and they all strained to see. There were two hooves and a tail and a long streak of blood.
“How you reckon we do this?” Mr. Sheldon asked Uncle Leo.
Leo lay down on his belly and reached into the well all the way to his shoulder. “Can’t quite reach her.”
He stood up again and studied the well. It was about three feet in diameter and lined with fieldstones. The large flagstone cover sat next to the hole. Someone had left the cover off the well, Jasper realized. It wasn’t me, he wanted to shout.
“If you hop down there, you’re liable to push her farther,” Mr. Sheldon said, then looked at the two boys. “We’ll have to lower in one of them.”
Uncle Leo nodded and turned to Jasper. “You’re the lightest. You remember how to tie that slipknot I taught you the other day?”
“I—I think so.” He gulped.
“Show me.” Uncle Leo held out his arm and handed Jasper a length of rope. The cow let out another death wail from down in the well.
With trembling hands, Jasper looped the rope around his uncle’s forearm and chased it around and pulled it through until a semblance of a slipknot formed.
“Not bad.” His uncle nodded and grabbed Jasper’s leg above the knee. “You’re gonna have to set it over the tarsal joint, or we’ll just pull the bones apart.”
“I’m going to have to disagree with you on that point, Leo,” Mr. Sheldon piped in. “The boy might get kicked in the head.”
Jasper’s mouth fell open, but nothing came out.
Leo paused, then nodded. “Okay, above each hoof then. Two ropes, and the knot’s gonna have to be tight, got it?”
Jasper could barely nod. They were going to lower him into the dark well to get kicked in the head by a mad cow. It bleated again like a dying steamboat. A line was being tied around Jasper’s feet, and before he could protest, the two men were lowering him headfirst into the darkness with a rope in each hand.
“Easy now,” Uncle Leo grunted from above. “Wayne, give him some light.”
A weak yellow beam followed Jasper down into the darkness. Blood glistened as the glow bounced from stone to stone down to the massive ass of the trapped cow. The smell of cow shit greeted him as Jasper got closer to Sally’s hooves. Blood rushed to his head, making everything pulse red. All he c
ould hear was the insane hiss of Sally’s breathing. A sharp hoof swung toward him, missing his arm by inches.
“Ho!” a voice called from above, and Jasper stopped moving. He hung there mere inches from the cow’s tail. It was swooshing frantically, throwing terrifying shadows. Jasper tied the first piece of rope around his waist for safekeeping, then, with trembling hands, looped the second rope around Sally’s right hoof.
She kicked wildly, slipping the loop. He tried again without success. His eyes stung with sweat and methane gas, making the hoof harder and harder to see.
“Come on, boy!” his uncle called from above. “We haven’t got all day. Grab ’er!”
“Maybe I should try,” Wayne asked in a low voice, probably thinking Jasper couldn’t hear him.
That did it. “Damn it, Sally!” Jasper growled, trapping her hoof with a loop of rope and pulling it tight. “Hold still!”
Two more loops and the hoof was knotted. He pulled the other rope free from his waist and made quick work of the other foot. He tugged them both as tight as he could manage while the hooves kicked wildly at his head. “Okay!” he shouted.
Two seconds later, Jasper was up and out of the well, blinking the big purple spots from his eyes.
“Lay down till your blood comes back around,” Uncle Leo ordered him and patted him on the head in approval. He’d done it. All by himself, he’d done something right.
By the time Jasper’s blood had equalized again, the two men had constructed a crude structure over the well. A large log lay across the hole and was tied back to two large trees to keep it from rolling off the hay bales they’d stacked on either side. Jasper’s ropes were threaded up out of the well, over the log, and back to the tractor hitch.
“Okay, Wayne. Let’s see how we did.” Uncle Leo winked at Jasper, then gave the signal.
The tractor jumped to life. The ropes Jasper had tied to old Sally creaked as they rolled over the log, but they held. Tree bark cracked and crumbled as the two ropes slid forward inch by agonizing inch. The tractor roared louder than Jasper had ever heard it as the machine fought its way forward, but it couldn’t drown out the sounds of the cow as it screamed.
Jasper stood shaking like a leaf as two bleeding hooves and a tail emerged from the ground. A gentle arm fell on his shoulder. It was Aunt Velma. He buried his face in her waist as the cow’s bloody flank scraped free. She held him firmly to her side.
The tractor engine cut off. Voices shouted all around. “Clear! Back! Get back!”
Pounding hooves shook the ground. Jasper was jerked up off his feet. His chest crushed into Aunt Velma’s ribs as she ran with him, her legs thumping against his. He lifted his head from her shoulder to see a blood-covered cow charging his uncle. Leo jumped out of the way just in time. The two men scrambled to the tractor. Jasper squeezed his eyes shut.
Then there was a gunshot. Then another.
Aunt Velma stopped running and set Jasper down. He didn’t want to look but found he couldn’t help himself. Sally had landed on her side in a pool of blood, her flank heaving up and down. The men climbed down from their embattlements and approached her slowly. Uncle Leo raised his shotgun as he circled around her.
“Back,” he ordered the others. Then, without a prayer or apology, he shot her in the head.
CHAPTER 7
So what did your father do for a living?
Jasper’s father finally came to see him the next day. The first thing Jasper said was, “Uncle Leo shot a cow.” Then he crumpled into tears.
“Whoa. Take it easy there, slugger.” His father grabbed his chin and gave it a little shake. “These things happen on a farm. You know that.”
Jasper wiped the snot from his nose with the back of his hand. “Can we go home?”
“And miss all the fun?” His father gave him a weak smile. “Tell me more about this cow. What happened?”
Jasper filled his father in on his role in rescuing poor Sally, but he didn’t tell him what happened next. Uncle Leo, Wayne, and Mr. Sheldon had spent hours cutting her up into meat. It still made him sick. Jasper had been told to fetch knives and hacksaws and had to stand there, watching a nightmare play out in the hot sun.
Wipe that green look off your face. Where do you think steak comes from, boy? Uncle Leo had chuckled as he sawed through her chest.
Come on, Jas! If you get on this side, you can see her guts come out. Cow’s got four stomachs, you know. Wayne had waved him over to look, but Jasper just shook his head. It was different than looking at rat guts. Maybe it was because he’d tried to save old Sally. Maybe it was because of what Uncle Leo had said about his mother. Either way, Jasper worried he’d never stop hearing the sound of Sally screaming.
His father’s voice broke in. “Well ain’t that somethin’! Now let me take a look at ya. Did she try and kick ya?” Wendell spun him around, scanning him from head to toe like a doctor.
Jasper nodded. “But I still got the rope around her hoof. Are you proud of me, Dad?”
His father’s eyes twinkled a bit as he chucked the boy’s chin. “I sure am, but don’t go and get yourself a big head about it. Everybody’s gotta pitch in on the farm. You were just doin’ your part. So, you been good? Doin’ what your uncle asks?”
Jasper nodded again. “I cleaned the barn stalls, the chicken coop. Wayne even taught me how to hook up the milkers.”
“That’s my boy.” His father straightened back up. “Where’s your uncle?”
“I think he’s out in the shed, working on the tractor.”
“You go find your cousin for a bit. We’ll play some catch before supper.”
Playing catch was Jasper’s father’s answer to any problem that didn’t have an answer. If one of his parents stormed out after a fight, the next day his dad would be oiling up his glove. Jasper frowned as his dad hobbled toward the shed. “But, Dad?”
“Yes, Son?”
The words I want to go home, I want my mom caught in his throat. They were the words of a baby.
Wendell nodded as if he’d heard each one. “We all do what we can, Son. You’re lucky to have so many good people lookin’ after you. Do your best to be grateful. Now go find Wayne.”
He wasn’t going to take him home.
Wendell Leary walked slightly bent at the waist, limping a little on his left side all the way to the shed. He’d been wounded in the First World War. He’d lied about his age and enlisted when he was only sixteen. Jasper only knew about it because he’d found a picture of his father in a military uniform tucked in an old book called The Sun Also Rises. The blurry young man in the photo didn’t quite look like his father, but the words written on the back read, “Wendell I. Leary, 1917.”
You don’t want to hear about all that, his father had said. But Jasper had protested that he really did. Don’t go pokin’ through other people’s closets, Son. Them skeletons can be real mean. And that was all he’d say.
His father’s advice hadn’t stopped him from snooping through drawers and bookshelves, looking for war souvenirs.
Instead of going to find Wayne, Jasper sneaked around to the back side of the tractor shed. Wayne liked to smoke cigarettes back there. He’d even let Jasper try one after Sally was shot, thinking it might calm his nerves. All it did was make him sicker than he already felt. But he had noticed that there was a good view into the shed through the siding boards back there. Mr. Sheldon and Uncle Leo had been inside sipping corn liquor after their hard-earned steak supper. That was how Jasper had learned that it was Uncle Leo who had forgotten to put the lid back on the well. That mistake would likely cost him over five hundred dollars in milk. He would only get fifty dollars for Sally’s meat over in Burtchville.
Through a knothole in the shed siding, Jasper watched Uncle Leo climb out from under the tractor, covered in grease. He walked over and shook Wendell’s hand. His uncle was taller than his father and had fewer gray hairs. “Nice to see you, Wendell. Feelin’ any better?”
“Fair to middling. How’s i
t been?”
“Can’t complain.” Leo shrugged.
“I heard you had some trouble with a cow?”
“My poor ol’ Sally took a fall. It’s a damn shame too. Her meat’s tougher than an old shoe.” He chuckled.
His father laughed back, while Jasper scowled at the both of them from behind the shed. He didn’t really think it was all that funny. The ground where Sally had been butchered was still red with blood. He could still smell it on his hands from holding the knives.
“I hear the boy was some help to ya?”
“Yep. He ain’t a bad boy. Not real used to this sort of life, though, is he?”
“I’m afraid he’ll have to manage for a while . . . if that’s alright. A boy his age needs a mother around, and I’ve been workin’ all these extra shifts. I can’t ask the landlady to do more than she already has. I can’t in good conscience just leave him alone . . .”
“Still no word from Althea?” Leo went to the tool rack to grab a larger wrench, then climbed back under the tractor.
“Nope . . . She was by the bank the other day, I do know that. She withdrew every last cent we had. Must be one hell of a vacation she’s takin’.” He forced a laugh.
Uncle Leo’s wrench stopped cranking. “What are you gonna do?”
“What’s there to do? Half that money was hers, right? I just can’t wait to hear her excuse . . .” His father shook his head and sat down on the rear axle next to where Leo was working. “What’s the trouble? Drivetrain?”
“Oh, the old jalopy’s got a bad gasket here somewhere. She’s been droppin’ oil like grease through a goose.”
“John Deere’s been known to have a bad crankshaft seal. Didya look there?”
The two men talked tractors and engines for the next ten minutes while Jasper sat there aghast. His mother had taken a bunch of money from the bank, and his father had no idea where she’d gone. And there he was talking about gaskets like it was nothing.
Jasper slumped down against the side of the shed with his head to his knees. He had to find her. He frowned and tried to think. She didn’t have friends, none that he’d met anyway. All she did was work, and when she came home, she hated to sit still. She’d sit for just a few minutes before she’d leap up and start moving again. Once she painted the kitchen bright yellow in a single afternoon. Once she’d dragged him over the bridge to Canada just to buy a soda. Jasper could picture her standing at the kitchen sink with that look in her eye like she had to go. But where?