The Obsidian Blade

by Pete Hautman

  Tucker wondered if Kosh was haunted by memories, too — maybe that was why he worked so hard. He never stopped doing stuff. His various projects included engine repair, mowing his field, working in his vegetable garden, putting a fresh coat of black paint on the barn with his power sprayer, remodeling the third floor, and cooking. Kosh worked as hard on his cooking skills as he did on all his other projects. One night it was lamb chops with wild rice, sweet corn and zucchini from the garden, and a salad of watercress gathered from the creek that ran through the property. The next day Kosh made individual chicken potpies and roasted potatoes, along with a salad composed from baby lettuce plants and nasturtium blossoms from his garden. Tucker watched the scowling, leather-clad biker arranging the blossoms on a china salad plate with his thick, permanently grease-stained fingers. It was like watching a gorilla assemble a watch.

  “How did you learn to cook?” he asked.

  “I used to cook for Adrian and me. And I worked at the Drop for a while.”

  “The Drop? You mean the Pigeon Drop Inn?”

  “Yeah. Flipping burgers.” He carefully placed a few raspberries around the rims of the salad plates and set them on the table. “’Course, nobody ever got food like this at the Drop.”

  “How come you left Hopewell?”

  “You kidding me? Why would anybody stay in Hopeless?”

  “What were you like when you were my age?” Tucker asked.

  Kosh thought for a moment. “I had a minibike. Later on I had a dirt bike. I mostly hung out with Ronnie Becker and some other kids.”

  “What was my dad like?”

  “When I was your age? Adrian must’ve been about twenty-four. Had his nose in a Bible most of the time.”

  “So he was always religious?”

  “Pretty much, especially after our dad died.”

  “Was Mom his girlfriend then?”

  “That came later.”

  “Were you, like, a juvenile delinquent?”

  “I got in my share of trouble. Why? You considering that as a career path?”

  “I heard Ronnie Becker got caught growing marijuana behind their barn. Were you guys, like, drug dealers?”

  Kosh laughed. “Ronnie was growing ditch weed and selling it to college students in Mankato. I had nothing to do with it.”

  “Did anything weird happen when you lived in Hopewell?”

  “Weird like what?”

  “I don’t know. Weird.” He was thinking about the disk, and the ghosts.

  “There was this one time. . . . I was seventeen.” Kosh put the salads on the table. “I was downtown when I heard this banging noise coming from the old boarded-up hotel, and all of a sudden this guy kicks his way out, right through the front door. Somehow he’d gotten stuck inside. He comes stumbling out onto the street, a big bearded guy dressed in a long black wool coat and a black hat even though it was about ninety degrees out, and he was talking really fast in some language I’d never heard before. I figured he was drunk. He runs right up to me and starts tugging at his beard and yelling gibberish, and I was like, Huh? Then he throws up his hands and takes off running down the road.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “He just ran off. I figured from the hat and coat that he was Amish or something, or maybe one of those Jews like they have in New York that dress like the Amish. Except the Friedmans were the only Jews in Hopewell, and they dressed just like everybody else, and the nearest Amish people lived way over in Harmony. Either way, nobody could figure out what the guy was doing in Hopewell, or how he’d got in the hotel.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “Chuck Beamon said he saw him running across his soybean field being chased by a pig, but you couldn’t trust anything Chuck said. As far as I know, nobody ever saw him again.” He looked at Tucker. “That weird enough for you?”

  “Mom told me she was once grabbed by a couple of guys dressed in black. They stuck something in her mouth, then ran off.”

  Kosh nodded. “She told me about that. She said it was a dream.”

  “What was it like when your dad died?”

  Kosh didn’t speak for a very long time, then he said, “I was ten. It was bad.”

  “What was he like?”

  “He was . . . well, he was my dad. What can you say about your dad at that age? He was the center of the universe. After he was gone . . . it was like somebody tore the heart right out of me.”

  Tucker didn’t know what to say to that. Kosh put the potpies on the table. They sat down. Kosh picked at his salad. Tucker tasted one of the nasturtium blossoms. Peppery.

  “I heard you ran off with Ronnie Becker,” he said.

  “We took off about the same time, if that’s what you mean. Hung out for a while, then went our separate ways.”

  “Did you and Dad have some kind of fight?”

  Kosh’s mouth tightened. “It was a long time ago. Let it go. I did.” He pointed his fork at Tucker’s plate. “Shut up and eat.”

  Tucker dug into his potpie. It was delicious. He set down his fork.

  “What’s the matter? You don’t like it?” Kosh said.

  Tucker’s eyes were burning; he set his jaw, willing himself not to cry.

  “It tastes just like my mom’s,” he said.

  Kosh looked away. Tucker picked up his fork.

  Kosh said, “Yeah, well, it ought to — she taught me how to make them.” He cleared his throat. “Emily was always a good cook.”

  THE NEXT MORNING, TUCKER REMINDED KOSH OF A promise he had made back in Hopewell.

  “I said what?” Kosh raised his eyebrows.

  “You said you had a dirt bike I could ride.”

  “And you’re, what, like, ten years old?”

  “You know how old I am.”

  “Hmm . . .” Kosh put a hand to his chin and stared, hard and long, at his nephew. Tucker stared back, silently daring him to go back on his word.

  An hour later, Tucker was racing full throttle down the driveway on a 125cc Honda with Kosh shouting after him to slow down. Slow down? What fun was that? Tucker throttled back, figuring that if he didn’t, Kosh might never let him ride again. He made a cautious U-turn where the driveway met the highway and rode back at a more sedate pace.

  Kosh stood with his arms crossed. “You got that out of your system?”

  Tucker nodded, grinning.

  Kosh snorted. “Like hell you do. Lesson over.”

  “I’ll be careful!”

  “You can be careful tomorrow. We got a storm coming in.” As if on cue, large raindrops began to fall. “Let’s see if you can put that thing away without busting anything.”

  They reached the barn just as the rain began in earnest. Kosh went to one of his benches and immediately went to work rebuilding a 1967 Triumph carburetor. With nothing else to do, Tucker sat on a stool and watched his uncle hand-cutting gaskets, filing invisible burrs, and swearing creatively and lengthily every time he dropped a screw, which was often. Aside from learning a few combinations of cuss words that otherwise might never have occurred to him, Tucker was bored.

  “How come you don’t work?” Tucker asked.

  “What does it look like I’m doing?”

  “I mean at a job. Don’t you need money?”

  “I sell a bike now and then.”

  “How did you afford to buy this place?”

  Kosh looked up from his work. “After the old man died, Adrian and I sold his barbershop to Janky, so we had a little money put aside. Eventually, Adrian got married and used his share to buy himself a pipe organ and a church. I bought this place.”

  “He never talks about you much.”

  “I don’t talk much about him, either.”

  “Yeah, but —”

  “Look, why don’t you go do something useful?”

  “It’s raining.”

  “It does that sometimes.”

  “Were you ever in jail?”

  Kosh set his jaw and fed a tiny screw into a countersunk
hole. Using a fine-tip screwdriver — in his big hands it looked like a toothpick — he carefully tightened the screw. He did not reply to Tucker’s question.

  “How come you’re not married?” Tucker asked.

  “Not your business.”

  “You got a girlfriend?”

  “Nope.”

  “Did you ever?”

  Kosh stabbed the screwdriver into the wooden workbench and gave Tucker a glare intended to be stern and scary. “Kid, if you don’t stop with the questions I’ll stuff an oil rag in your mouth.”

  Tucker grinned. “Was Ronnie Becker like, your boyfriend?”

  Kosh threw up his hands. “I know what this is. You’ve been sent by Satan to give me a preview of hell.”

  “Do you believe in God?”

  “I believe in the devil, that’s for damned sure — I got you to prove it.” He shook his fist at the ceiling. “Adrian, this is all your fault, you self-righteous Bible thumper!”

  This was much more interesting than watching him rebuild a carburetor, Tucker thought.

  “How come you’re working on the Triumph carburetor, anyways?” Tucker said. “You never ride it.”

  “I don’t ride it because it’s got a bad carbur —” Kosh stopped mid-word and shook his head violently.

  “I’m hungry,” Tucker said.

  “Go make yourself something.”

  Tucker figured he’d pushed Kosh as far as he could, and besides, he was hungry. He climbed the stairway to the second floor and looked through the cupboards and refrigerator for something to eat. The problem was that Kosh didn’t have anything like cereal or peanut butter. He cooked everything from scratch. The simplest thing Tucker could think of was scrambled eggs. He had watched his mom make them. It looked easy. Just beat some eggs, throw them in a pan, and stir it around a bit. Everything went according to plan right up to the point where the kitchen towel caught on fire. While Tucker was beating out the towel, he managed to upend the pan, covering the stove burners with uncooked egg. He cleaned up as best he could, although he had a little trouble getting the gas burners put back together the right way.

  Kosh came upstairs just as Tucker finished putting the stove back together.

  “What did you burn?” he asked.

  “I was trying to make scrambled eggs and the towel caught on fire.”

  “All by itself?”

  “Um . . . I might have put it on the stove.” Tucker wasn’t sure what to expect.

  Kosh considered his nephew. “You still want eggs?”

  Tucker nodded.

  “I’ll show you how to make scrambled eggs.” Kosh put a sauté pan on the stove. “First, you use a pan, not a towel.” He turned on the burner. Nothing happened. He removed the pan and twisted the knob back and forth. He leaned close over the burner, trying to see what was wrong with it.

  “This doesn’t look right,” he said.

  In answer, a plume of sooty orange flame erupted from the stove and sent him staggering back with a howl.

  “What the hell did you do to my stove!” he yelled. Kosh appeared to be undamaged — except for his eyebrows, which had turned into curly white caterpillars.

  “Your eyebrows,” Tucker said.

  “What about them?” Kosh dragged his arm across his forehead. The singed eyebrow hairs disintegrated into ash.

  The loss of his eyebrows made Kosh understandably grumpy. His mood was not improved by Tucker’s apologies. Tucker hovered nearby, offering to help as Kosh set about repairing the stove.

  “Do you need me to get any tools?”

  “No.”

  “Do you want me to hold that?”

  “No.”

  “Can I —?”

  Kosh turned to him and scowled. “Listen, kid, I want you nowhere near this stove. The best thing you can do is make yourself scarce.” With two pale bald spots where his eyebrows used to be, Kosh was not his usual fearsome-looking self. Tucker bit his tongue, trying not to laugh, but could not hold back a smile.

  “Something funny?” Kosh asked.

  “Nope,” said Tucker.

  “Go do something.”

  “Do what?”

  “It’s not raining anymore. Go ride your bike around the field.”

  Tucker was more than happy to comply. He ran downstairs and started the bike, and rode out of the barn. The driveway was slick and muddy — he almost dumped the bike in the first ten seconds. He rode carefully out to the field and around the perimeter, but the grass was wet and slippery, and he couldn’t go very fast. He rode back to the driveway, then out to the road. He stopped next to the mailbox and glanced back at the barn. He felt guilty about messing up Kosh’s stove, but he was also a bit angry. It wasn’t his fault. He hadn’t asked to come live here, and he hadn’t broken the stove on purpose. He looked at the road. The asphalt surface was mostly dry. It would be nicer to ride on than the muddy field. Kosh would be busy with the stove for a while, and cops were few and far between in Trempealeau County. He revved the bike and pulled out onto the road. It felt great — smooth, dry, and solid. Tucker accelerated, leaning hard into the curves. The feeling of freedom and weightlessness reminded him of the rope swing.

  Each twist in the road came on a little faster. He loved how the tires clung to the pavement. As he headed into a particularly sharp curve, his rear wheel hit a patch of gravel. Tucker fought for control, the rear of the bike slewing back and forth. The rear wheel caught and sent Tucker flying off the bike into a patch of tall weeds. He rolled several yards through a soft mass of vegetation before coming to rest. His first thought was that he was very lucky to be alive. His second thought was that he had been attacked by ten million mosquitoes. The weed patch was solid nettles. His arms, his legs, his face — everything — itched like no itch he had ever experienced. He had landed so hard that the nettles stung him right through his T-shirt. He dragged himself out of the weeds, skin shrieking. After a few seconds of clawing at himself, Tucker realized that he was only making it worse. He forced his arms to stop moving and climbed out of the ditch to the road.

  His motorcycle was nowhere in sight. Tucker walked along the side of the road, peering into the dense woods, trying to not think about his prickling skin. Fifty yards away, he found the twisted ruin of the dirt bike wrapped around the trunk of a maple.

  Kosh would not be happy.

  He walked the three miles back to the barn, trying to come up with a good story. He failed. By the time he reached the driveway he had blisters on his heels, his neck was sunburned, and he still itched everywhere. As he walked up to the barn, something caught his eye just above the peak of the barn near the motorcycle weather vane. A wavering of the air like he had seen over their house in Hopewell. He moved toward the barn, keeping his eyes on the spot, waiting for it to move, or disappear. As he shifted to the side he could make out the shape of a disk.

  Could it be heat rising off the barn roof, somehow reflected by the shingles? He didn’t think so. It was something else, something unearthly.

  “Where have you been?” Kosh was standing in the doorway with his arms crossed.

  Tucker pointed to the top of the barn.

  Kosh stepped outside and looked up. “What?”

  “Can’t you see . . . ?” Tucker stopped talking. The disk was gone. “I thought I saw something up there. Like a disk.”

  Kosh shook his head slowly. “There’s nothing there,” he said.

  “I saw —”

  “Maybe you saw a cloud of gnats. Now tell me how you got all scratched up.”

  “I SWEAR YOU MUST HAVE A DEATH WISH,” KOSH SAID as he smeared a paste of baking soda and water on Tucker’s arms. “The only reason I don’t hang you up by your toes and beat you is because I used to be twice as dumb.”

  “What was the dumbest thing you ever did?”

  “Invited you to come live with me.”

  “Oh.” Tucker thought his uncle was kidding, but he wasn’t sure enough to press the matter.

  “I’m really s
orry,” Tucker said.

  “Me too, kid. That was a nice little bike.”

  “I mean about everything. Coming to live here, and the stove, and . . . everything.”

  “How’s that feel?”

  “Being sorry?”

  “No. The itching. You want some of this goop on your neck?”

  “That’s okay. It doesn’t itch so bad anymore.”

  Kosh stood up and wiped off his hands. “You don’t have to feel sorry about staying here,” he said. “I don’t mind so much.”

  For the next few days, Tucker kept a low profile and managed not to wreck anything. He checked the roof of the barn several times a day, but the disk did not reappear. Kosh’s eyebrows began to grow back — they looked like gray smudges. Every time Tucker looked at him, he had to suppress a laugh.

  One morning, as they were eating pancakes for breakfast, Kosh sat back in his chair and regarded Tucker.

  “What?” Tucker said.

  “You think if I leave you on your own today, you can try not to kill yourself?”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I got to ride up to Whitehall and pick up a license, then up to Eau Claire for some parts.”

  “Can I come?” Tucker asked.

  “No. I’ll be gone most of the day. During that time, you will not lay a hand on any tool or any piece of machinery, including my stove and my remaining motorcycles. Do not enter my workshop for any reason. Furthermore, do not run, climb, ride, kick, slide, throw, pry, hammer, or in any other way risk damage to yourself or, especially, any of my property. Do you understand?”

  Kosh’s missing eyebrows were no longer quite so amusing.

  “So what am I supposed to do?”

  “Sleep. Read. Contemplate the universe.”

  “Just sit here all day and do nothing?”

  “That would be ideal,” said Kosh.

  A few minutes later, sitting on his bed doing absolutely nothing, Tucker heard Kosh ride off. As the sound of the Harley faded into silence, a sense of loneliness and gloom settled upon him, soon to be replaced by irritation at Kosh, who seemed bent on eliminating his every source of entertainment. Doing nothing was hard. Tucker lay back on his bed and tried to read a book, but the words skittered back and forth on the page. If he didn’t get up and do something he would go crazy. He threw the book aside and went outside. He could poke around in the woods. He could weed the garden. He could walk to the end of the driveway and check the mailbox. None of those options seemed interesting. He looked up at the weather vane on top of the barn.