Beast of the Field

by Peter Jordan Drake

  Tommy had been on a blanket with Millie and Junior. Tommy and she played gin rummy while Junior tapped his thigh to the tuba in the brass band. The September sun was still high but beginning to curve to the horizon when Tommy saw something in the distance. He dropped his cards on the blanket for her to see his hand, shot up from the blanket like he’d sat on a live wire, but then just stood staring with his trilby back on his head like some dope from a cartoon strip. Tommy could wake up talking, talk all day, talk through supper, go to bed talking and talk in his sleep, and here he was, deaf and dumb, slack-jawed and gawking as he followed something with his eyes. Junior saw her too and he stood up, both of them staring. At the time, Millie had had no idea what on earth could be doing this to them. All she saw was Mayor Greentree and Miss Flora, the new school teacher—what was the big hullaballoo?

  Without a word to anyone, Tommy left them, leapt into his buggy, snapped the reins against Othello’s sides, went home in a hurry. Junior and Millie were left there to wait for a ride from Pa.

  Millie stayed by Junior’s side but he was acting like a dope too. For the rest of the evening, Junior couldn’t take his eyes off Miss Flora, milling around in the crowd, his eyes always where she and the mayor were walking, no matter how near or far away they were. Strange enough, for sure, because Millie hadn’t seen Junior so interested in anything since coming home from the war, and here he was wandering the muddy grass in a daze, his eyes following around this hometown girl he’d known most his life, had seen a million times before.

  *

  That night was the dance. There was a band playing—a guitar, an accordion, a banjo, a fiddle, a saw, a tub bass and some kind of whistle she had never heard of before called a piccolo. Millie and Junior had come with Mother and Pa again: Tommy refused to come along with the rest of them. Once there, Millie sat at a table drinking punch and watching the dancers scuff up the floor. Next to her, Junior, who usually loved the music and the sight of the twirling dancers, sat staring into the table. Then in walked Tommy. In his trilby hat and that ridiculous red and white striped jacket he had ordered from Chicago he was pulled onto the dance floor, broke right into dance. It looked as though the old Tommy was back. The other girls waited for their turns with him, some dancing with other men until Tommy had a free hand, some just hovering near him and waiting. Millie noticed, however, that Tommy looked bored. No, bored wasn't the right word; what word would Tommy want her to use? Preoccupied, yes, preoccupied was how he looked. His eyes were never on whichever girl it was he was dancing with, not Cynthia Brenner with her bazooms nearly falling out of her dress, not Kathleen O'Dwyer with those eyelashes you could swat mosquitoes with; but all over the room. At last, while at the "Men’s" punch bowl, his eyes landed on something. Millie followed his gaze to the entranceway of the barn and dance hall to discover, again, Miss Flora.

  She was who Tommy broke off to greet, with a grand kiss to the hand that brought more laughs from the crowd of men. Miss Flora's escort was Geshen Neuwald. He came in to find his date having her hand kissed by a guy in a candy cane jacket. When they greeted one another, they both spoke loudly enough to be heard and laughed at by those around them.

  "Hiya, Tommy boy, nice coat you got there. You doing a number later?"

  "Hey there, Geshen, need some refreshin’? The table is over by the band."

  Geshen took Miss Flora to that very table, followed all the way by the Tommy's gleaming blue eyes.

  So it went throughout the night. Those eyes of his, like empty saucers, following Miss Flora around the dance. He danced with other girls, and even seemed to be having a good time, but his neck kept twisting around to see where Miss Flora had gone, or who was with her.

  "What in hell has got a hold a Tommy's britches, Junior?" she asked more than once. Junior ignored her. He would look up from the tabletop, only for a moment, before his gaze dropped back down again. "Well to hell with you both then," she decided finally.

  She was standing to leave the dance when the barn was shaken by a loud thump against one wall.

  The band stopped. The dancing, conversation, laughter stopped. No one moved.

  The thump came again—a big, hollow whump sound. The barn, as big as it was, rattled then swayed under the force of it. The folks inside stampeded out through the big bay doors to see what had caused the noise. Millie was the first one out.

  Backed up with its hindquarters against the side of the barn was a brown-black race horse with black legs, an ink black mane and a white diamond hidden by her forelock. A filly. More than fifteen hands easy, but she looked even taller in her fear. She stood braced, frozen for the moment, one eye quivering at the crowd.

  Millie smelled Tommy's cologne and looked up to see him right next to her. He rested a limp hand on her head and breathed, to her if to anybody at all, "Holy smokes, will you look at this beauty..."

  At last, Millie thought, something besides Miss Flora.

  "Whose is she?" Tommy called out.

  "Oh, she's mine, son. Though she's having trouble rememberin' it." The man who spoke had a long blue beard and wore a flat cap. Nobody knew him. He was coming at the horse with a whip in his hand and a potato sack over his shoulder.

  "You don't need to whip that animal, mister. Let me have a try at calming her, if you will."

  "I'd hate to see you muss your fine apparels there, son."

  Some men laughed behind Millie.

  "My clothes are my concern."

  "Well this filly is my concern."

  "Yes. Perhaps she ought to be mine."

  There was some sniffing in the night air. Millie had been around her brother enough to know this was a wager…and the men got right to it. It would be a race, the "Flint Hill Fool," they agreed, a race where each man rode or drove the other's animal. The wagers were the horses: if the stranger won he got Othello, Tommy’s five-year-old standardbred—a strong and fast horse, the stranger was assured—and got to keep his two-year-old thoroughbred filly. If Tommy won, he got that filly he wanted and a promise note for fifty dollars for Othello—because the stranger refused to go home without a horse. This was no small pot and Millie couldn't believe her ears.

  The crowd of ball-goers—all a-tizzy now there'd finally be a horse race on Mow Day—seemed to forget the mud their boots and skinny shoes sunk into with each step to travel the short distance to Upsen Downs, the track the folk of Price used for a race track. The track was named not after a person or a place, but after its general running condition--an old joke in town, but still a favorite.

  "You aint gonna give Othello away, are you Tommy? You aint gonna race against your own horse, are you?" Millie asked him.

  Tommy walked a few feet from the horse's flank, staying even with her, looking at the filly as the stranger fought her towards the track. When Millie yanked at his sleeve and asked him he pulled it away from her, still not so much as looking down at her.

  “Junior, aint you gonna do anything about this?” Mother and Pa were on the other side of the crowd with the Fitzmorrises, so Millie had only Junior to hear her pleas. But Junior wouldn’t answer her, or even really acknowledge that she’d spoken.

  “Goddamnit-all, since when is a horse race more important than loyalty? I ask you!”

  The horse was already lathering under her brisket, stamping her hind hooves and blowing hard from her nostrils. The smell of ammonia was everywhere on her. It looked like she might jump right out of the county in one bound. Tommy’s step did not falter. While two men readied the harness behind her, Tommy leaned forward, offered her an apple someone had given him. He allowed her to take it with her lips, tongue and even her teeth: I trust you, he was telling her—I trust you and very soon I want you to remember that I trusted you. He kissed the air and bird-whistled and spoke softly at the horse while her lips searched his hand for more of the sweet stuff.

  "Go soft, son," the bearded stranger said. "She aint even seen a dick on a horse yet, much less a barbershop core-tet."

  Tommy ignored
him. He was in a world where nothing existed but his new thoroughbred. A man handed him the potato sack; unfortunately, it was the same potato sack the bearded man had used on her tonight and probably many times before. As soon as she smelled it she reared and boxed at Tommy, but he was ready for this, and when she came down again, the potato sack came over her head and the men behind her took a few steps forward and let the light harness of a borrowed buggy fall to her back. Tommy held her halter under the sack with both hands, pulling down slightly with his body to keep her from rearing again while at the same time using his arms to lift the sack, allow her to breathe the open air. It was his smell she took in, his cologne, and it was too much for her—she reared again and kicked at him.

  "Aint exactly no peaceful sonnet, is she there, Shakespeare?" someone shouted, cackling as Tommy wrestled the filly back down. After rearing twice and jolting forward, the horse stayed still. Still breathing hard, trembling, but not moving anymore. Some of the crowd oohed and aahed, but Millie had seen Tommy take a horse from bucking to bridle in an afternoon—and this was no wild horse, just a young one. When he had her in a calmer pant, the men hurried with the straps as Tommy clambered into the seat of the buggy. The buggy jerked forward. The horse squealed. Tommy nodded at a man standing near them.

  They gave Tommy time to talk to the horse; they gave those in the crowd time to show money to each other; they gave time for the word to spread back to the dance barn and into town so more bets could be made. Finally it was race time.

  Tommy removed his trilby, his striped jacket. He walked over to where Geshen Neuwald held Miss Flora's elbow. He handed her his trilby and his jacket and whispered something into her ear too. After he had finished speaking, she accepted the hat and jacket with a smile, holding it close to her dress.

  Tommy mounted the sulky.

  "Alack and alas," he said, turning grandly to face the bearded stranger, who sat ready to race in Tommy's buggy behind Othello, "the time has now come, good sir, for you to bid adieu to this fine young lass."

  10.

  Looking for the place in the wood.

  There is sunshine there, but I cannot find this light. She is there waiting. Waiting there for me to find this place in the wood. No, it is not in the dark wood, but on the other side of it. I must first go through the trees.

  In my arms is the bundle, wet within the wet sheets, small in my arms and not moving. She wants me to bring it to her. It is hers now. She wants us both there with her, but I cannot find her. I cannot find her! I’ve lost her for the trees.

  Looking for a river, listening for a river. It is the river that will lead me to this other place, this bright. But in these trees there is nothing to do but continue forward to the next tree, then beyond that through the darkness to the next tree.

  Maybe if I go far enough into the darkness, the river will find me.

  The light may just find me.

  *

  Sterno sat up in his hotel bed. His head ached and his belly squirmed. Before anything he tried again to remember the dream. The same dream. Something to do with her, the living her, and with a river, he thought. He looked down at his hands, his empty arms. The Negro woman had tried to wrap it before he saw it, but he saw it. He had been next to her face as the life passed from it, his cheek wet from her sweat and his tears mingled. When she was gone he looked down, saw the woman wrapping it in the fouled sheets. He saw one filmed arm fall limp from the bundle and he saw the oblong head, pulled out of shape by the woman’s hands and before she covered it he saw the face too.

  Sterno let his legs fall over the side of the mattress, sat up in the bed. On the floor next to the bed was the flask he had brought with him to last the entire investigation. It was empty. The bottle from his grip was empty too; it sat on the dresser top with no glass next to it. He checked his watch: almost nine. He bent over against the ache behind his eyes, retrieved the flask, tipped it bottom end up to let the last tea-colored drops wiggle to the floor between his bare feet.

  Yes, it was starting again.

  *

  The Helmcamp woman's Treasury man remark from the night before made good sense to Sterno once he’d arrived at the Neuwald farm. Surrounding it were flat fields of hay and corn, but a large stand of trees hid the barn and the house. Barbed wire ran along the tree line where it met the open fields. A slapped together gate blocked the dirt road that led back into the woods, to the house. Sterno had seen enough of this in Missouri since Volstead, and before, to know what he was looking at: they had sold off the fields but kept the timber claim to hide their stills. These days there was more money in the fluid crop.

  He would need soft shoes as he approached the property. These kettle-humpers slept, shit and sang spirituals with their scatterguns.

  He pulled in on the dirt road about halfway to the barbed wire and tree-pole gate, sounded his horn. He sounded it again. He waited. He rolled and smoked two cigarettes. He sounded his horn one more time. No signs of life came from the dark opening where the road met the woods. Sterno was about to go in uninvited before he saw a pair of faces emerge from the bushes about a hundred feet from the gate.

  "I'm Charlie!" Sterno offered up right away, withholding his last name, in case it had gotten around town. "I talked to your father!" This was true. This was not: "He told me I could come on by and see you!"

  The two faces turned in to one another for a few seconds. The two figures stepped out over a sagging length of the fence. One of them held a small rifle and kept his brim shaded eyes beaded on Sterno. The other one waved Sterno in, pointed toward the gate.

  Sterno had to pick up the gate and swing it to the side himself; he did not replace it behind him. The dirt road cutting through the trees and leading to the house was grown over, dry, brittle and grasshopper-ridden. The yard was comprised mostly of dirt, but the weeds were thick and high around the house and barn. Lining the edge of the woods on the longest side of the yard were steel barrels overflowing with copper and lead piping, various machine parts, car parts, wagon parts, old lumber, old bottles, empty bean cans, broken mason jars, trash from the house and the like. Vehicles were lined up on one side of the barn: broken down old wagons, a motorcycle from the Army, a Model T roadster and a Chevrolet. Chickens of all colors and stages of life ran amuck on the grounds. A nanny was tied to a tree. From a pen inside the open bay door of the barn two brown, breedless, toothy dogs were losing their heads over the stranger walking into their lives. The house was a two-story farmhouse, bigger than the Donnan house, but made the same, white on peeling white. It too seemed in good enough shape, except for the sagging roof and porch, as though there was a rule somewhere that no matter how hard a man tries, a farmhouse won't survive without the breath of a woman to keep it full sail.

  "You’re the Pinkerton."

  The voice came from inside the house. One of the Neuwald boys stood inside the screen door, looking out at him. The other could not be seen, but Sterno could feel him watching him. Sterno removed his hat. "That's me."

  There was a pause. The one inside the screen door said, "Pa didn't say anything to me about a Pinkerton detective coming out here. What is it we can do for you, Mister Pinkerton?"

  Sterno could now make out the shape of a man in the upstairs window, half hidden by the window frame, half by a bed sheet hung as a curtain.

  "A drink of whisky, to start off with. Then maybe another one or two of them after that."

  Another pause followed.

  "I don't mean any trouble, boys. Just thirsty as hell," Sterno offered, but the door was opening before he finished speaking. The talker of the two stood in the opening.

  "You know it's a day of rest, don't you?"

  *

  Gomer and Geshen Neuwald were twins, alright, but something had happened in their mother's belly to misshape Gomer. He had the same long eyelashes and proud curved nose that marked the family men, but his mouth was shaped in a bad way, too wide, too low on his face. His eyes were close together and positioned to point
straight ahead as though stuck to a wall and not the roundly receding shape of a human face. From the shoulders down he looked as though he had been rung out like a washcloth and left to dry in a twist. He wore coveralls to cover the deformities, but Sterno could see how the calico of one shoulder and arm hung on him like a cape. He dragged a foot on that same side of his body when he walked. Geshen was taller by half a foot than his brother, taller than his father or his uncle. He was prettier in the face than any of them, but had let an ink-black beard start on his chin. Everything he knew about how to speak to a man he’d learned from his too-tough-talking pa and his uncle, Sheriff Jake.

  They sat at the kitchen table. Gomer fidgeted in his seat like a child. His eyes kept searching the windows. His chair scooted back and forth on the tile floor beneath him. It was Geshen did the talking.

  "A dollar a jar."

  "That’s steep," Sterno said.

  "Well, Mister Pinkerton, that's the out-of-state lawman price. Besides that, it's the only corn in Hope County, save whatever those niggers have going on down by the coal mines."

  "And half of them come up here to get theirn," Gomer said.

  Geshen nodded at this.

  Sterno took a shot. He could taste the burnt corks and sorghum they used to flavor it.

  Sterno cleared his throat. "Fine. I'll take two, if you make it seventy-five cents."

  Geshen nodded to Gomer, who was none too happy to spring from his chair and vacate the room.

  When he was gone Sterno stretched to his feet. He wandered over to a window and stared out at two young cocks hopping up and down at each other in a fight. The dogs were still barking like mad. Sterno turned in and rested his back on the window sill. "I didn't just come out here for your business," he said.