Lamb

by Bonnie Nadzam

  “What’s her name?”

  “Emily.”

  “You and your Emilys.”

  “Linnie, it’s the same girl.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “I don’t get it.”

  “You stay out here two nights with me and see for yourself.”

  “She’s a ghost?”

  “Listen to the story.”

  “I thought you snatched her from some swing set.”

  “Hey,” he said. “I’m figuring this out as I go. Do you want to know the rest?”

  “Go, go.”

  “She’s a nice enough kid. Emily Rose. Soft swoop of pale hair and little stony blue eyes. Not particularly pretty, or smart, just a girl, right?”

  Linnie shook her head. “You are such a sexist.”

  “Oh, spare me, Linnie. She was just a dumb girl, okay? There are dumb boys too.”

  “Go on.”

  “Anyway, this kid turns ten or eleven, and around this time Calhoun decides he wants a shop. This shop. So of course he calls on Foster to help. They put the place up themselves—they’re hard workers and decent guys, good builders, they pay attention to the craft, right? First thing they do is they dig the foundation. They rent a backhoe and they make it a big project. An early summer project. They pour the footers, they tie the rebar, they pour the cement pad and place the bolts to secure the steel poles. They bolt the wall frames and use this truss-type design”—he looks at Linnie and points up again—“to erect the roof. All of this takes well over a month—much longer than it needed to. For the first ten days, everything goes fine. Every day the wife comes down to the cabin with the kid and they make big suppers. Fried chicken and early salad and potatoes and lemonade. Pork chops and macaroni salad. Then Foster helps his wife clean up and Calhoun piddles around outside while the kid scrambles over the rock and up into the old cottonwoods. This is how it goes, right? They’re digging the foundation and pouring the concrete and piling dirt here and the backhoe’s scooping earth from this side of the fence and dumping it on that side of the fence and they bring in a roll of corrugated steel, right?”

  Linnie adjusted the pillow and looked up at him.

  “All the while this kid is running dumb all over the place—up this pile of dirt and pounding on the sheet metal like a wild goat and up in the tree and hands in the concrete and then all of a sudden at lunch one day—she’s supposed to be bringing in the sun tea—they can’t find her. Just disappeared. They don’t know where or how, but of course the wife tells the sheriff and the sheriff’s posse comes out on horseback and for two weeks they run a comb of men and horses over this whole pasture and up into the skirt of the mountain looking for any sign of this kid. Dark birds of prey swinging against the hyperblue sky, men in their sweat-stained hats disappearing into the shimmering heat, into the tall columns of white trees. Week three they bring out the cadaver dogs and of course they don’t find anything. In their grief and in their frenzy Calhoun and Foster finish the shop. Very carefully, very deliberately, to keep them sane, right? They keep it empty and cold as a tomb all that first winter, but eventually—because the thing is so useful—Calhoun starts using it. Practically moves in. Lets the cabin go.”

  “That’s why it’s such a wreck?”

  “Exactly. And I’ll tell you something, Linnie. You feel watched in this place.”

  “Really?”

  “So many people have attested to seeing this girl that the first guy who was going to buy it—he’d put in a bid and everything—he found out after the offer was approved that the place is haunted and—get this—he legally got out of the bind.”

  “No shit.”

  “So.”

  “And this kid is still haunting the place?”

  “Not only. Foster comes down here every goddamned night with a flashlight.”

  “You’re shitting me.”

  “I’m serious, Linnie. We can wait for him tonight.”

  “Just looking for her?”

  “Whatever happened to her, I say either Calhoun or Foster knew. Kept it under his hat all the rest of his days.”

  “Can you imagine keeping that kind of thing from your own wife? Or sister?”

  “Foster’s a miserable old man, Linnie.”

  “And he’s just tortured by it.”

  “My thought is whatever happened, happened fast. And that old Smiley—let’s say it was Calhoun who did it. Or maybe he didn’t even kill her. He was just there when she fell—something like that, right? But he was implicated by his own guilt—who knows why, who knows what the guy’s story was. He was quicker or crazier than people gave him credit for.”

  “And you’ve seen this kid?” She grins. “This ghost?”

  “Linnie.” He bent over her in the dark, put his mouth to her ear. “I’ve talked to her.”

  “Uh-huh. Come here. My hands are like ice. What does she say?”

  “She’s in love with me.”

  “Of course she is.”

  “No, seriously. She wants to live with me forever. She wants me to marry her. She wants to bear me ghost babies. Here. Lift.”

  “I don’t know if I like the way this is going.”

  “This or the story?”

  “The story.”

  “The floor’s not too hard.”

  “No.”

  “Turn around. Here, take the pillow.”

  “Will you tell me another story?”

  “I’ll just tell you the next chapter. I’ll tell you what happened when I went into that bunk room and found her little dead self tucked in with the mice running all over her face.”

  “God! David that’s awful. I’m trying to kiss you here. Can it wait?”

  “It’s a better story in the dark, anyway.”

  Linnie looked up at our guy and grinned. “Oh, shut up.”

  • • • • •

  Tommie stood for a long time in her nightgown facing the closed door to the shop and breathing, listening, holding her breath, listening: nothing. Wood hissing and snapping in the hot stove. Eight o’clock and dark as midnight. Their voices would have stopped humming some time ago. But she’d know they hadn’t gone inside, or washed the dishes.

  She held her breath tight in her little freckled chest when she opened the door, just three inches and without a sound, and remained still and looking into the shop as her eyes adjusted to the light. Moonlight drenched the concrete floor and the pile of blankets where the two adults lay moving together before the stove. The white shape of Lamb’s face looked up at her, over the crown of Linnie’s head. So much light in the room Tommie could see where it made a white shining stripe in Linnie’s dark hair. Lamb’s eyes were blue-white in the silver dark. His face was at first twisted up in concentration but then it fell open, his eyes fell open, and a little smile. Tommie didn’t back away. She didn’t catch her breath or cry. She stood watching. Ten seconds, twenty seconds, thirty seconds. He loved her for it. Her mouth a little open, her eyes open, stunned, transfixed. Lamb paused only a moment and Linnie lifted her head, reached up, and put her hands on the sides of his face so he moved again, smiling down at Linnie and lifting his face toward Tommie, their eyes deadlocked. He remained silent as he moved, watching Tommie, and when he finally shut his eyes and lifted his chin, teeth clenched, Tommie closed the door and stepped back into her room and crawled into the sleeping bag where she fell asleep, face pasted to the vinyl with tears and snot until Lamb came in and very gently, very carefully, woke her saying now, my dear, you know all my secrets. You are practically living inside of my heart.

  “You’re wearing your nightgown.”

  She nodded.

  “You still love me, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “Do you have to go the bathroom? Come. Come outside.” He opened the side door of the bunk room that opened to the old horse tank. “Go ahead. Pull up your nightgown.”

  She hesitated. Looked at him and down at the dead grass and back up.

  “Come on,” he
said. “You’re going back in that room in twenty minutes. We don’t have all night.”

  When she finished he put his jacket over her and they hiked out a small distance from the shop and sat on the cold grass beside the dark rivulets of water running off the river and into the beds of brown pigweed and dead goldenrod.

  “What do I call you now? David?”

  Lamb kept his head down. His eyes filled. “Come here,” he said. He took her between his legs, her back against his chest. “It’s like you’re Emily.” He brushed her hair back off her face and tucked it into the hood of his jacket.

  “That was a game.”

  “No it wasn’t,” he said quickly. He turned her face to him. “Take it back. It’s not a game. Everything I do in my life from here on out is to protect us, to protect this thing we’ve discovered. Do you understand? You’re braver than I am, Tom. I haven’t always had nice people in my life. It makes me behave a little erratically sometimes, right? I didn’t exactly know what was going on when we met. I didn’t know where this was headed. Do you believe me?”

  Nod.

  “It doesn’t matter what we call each other, does it? That’s just names.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Whatever you call me—John, or retard, or son of a bitch …” She smiled at this. “… you would still know my true heart, wouldn’t you? You know me, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I know you do. It’s extraordinary. Come here. Closer. Yes. It’s cold, isn’t it? No one’s ever known me as you do. You smell like a healthy little animal.” His face was very serious now. “We’ve seen each other, haven’t we, Tom. Do you understand that this doesn’t happen with other people? I don’t know what to say about it. I know what other people might say.” He pressed his thumb hard into the little plate of bones where her ribs gathered just beneath her breasts. She blinked and watched him. “The body doesn’t lie, Tom. It doesn’t know how.”

  “Are you and that lady?”

  “It wasn’t what you’re thinking. I will tell you what it was—I’ll tell you every detail. But when the situation is reversed, Tom”—his eyes filled and his voice cracked—“I don’t want to know, okay?” He was whispering now, fat tears coming down his old wrinkled face. “Don’t tell me, okay? Swear you won’t tell me.”

  “Does she still like you?”

  “She’s in love with me, yes.”

  “Do you like her?”

  “Look at me, Tom. Look me right in the eye. No. I don’t like her even a little bit. I sort of hate her, even. And I don’t use that word lightly. She’s spoiled and selfish.”

  “Sounds like Sidney.”

  “That’s a good way to think of her. Like a grown-up Sidney.”

  “Does she want to marry you?”

  “I think she might. Is this okay? Can I hold you like that?”

  Nod. “How long is she staying?”

  “One more day. Maybe two. I’m going to stay with her for us, do you understand?”

  “I should stay in the bunk room.”

  “You should?”

  “I should stay there until she leaves. She won’t even know I’m here.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “What else will we do?”

  “No,” he said. “You’re right. You’re sort of a step ahead of me.” He grinned at her.

  She ran her palm up against her nose and sniffled. “It’s no big deal,” she said. “It’ll be like camping.”

  “In the bunk room?”

  “Yes.”

  “And I’ll come visit you when it’s safe, right?”

  “Okay.”

  “And you can go out this side door to pee. Right?”

  “Okay.”

  “And when you know we’re out in the cabin—you’ll know because I’ll leave that little desk light on as a signal. You know the desk light on the workbench? I’ll leave it on when it’s safe for you to come out and raid the fridge, by which I mean the cooler, right?”

  “Okay.”

  He lifted her chin and kissed her mouth. “You’ll still call me Gary, won’t you? Promise me you will. Promise me you always always will.”

  “Why?”

  “Because no one else in the world calls me Gary. You’re the only one who knows me this way. Like I’m the only one who knows you as Emily. They’re our true names. If you could see through my flesh”—he took her hand and put it on his chest—“Gary would be the name written across my heart.” He kissed her on the temple and the forehead and the mouth. “You were wonderful.” He kissed. “You saved us, do you know that? Just like you said you would. And we have luck on our side. I want to tell you something, okay? Something I’ve never told anyone in my life.”

  “What?” She sat up a little and looked at him.

  “I’m telling you this so you’ll understand how precious you are to me. It’s about my brother.”

  “You have a brother?”

  “Three brothers.”

  “Oh.”

  “You won’t tell anybody about this, will you, Tom? You’ll give me your word?”

  She nodded.

  “My littlest brother, Tommie. He disappeared.”

  “Where?”

  “Nobody knows. He was just your age, just a little bit older. He was twelve.”

  “He was kidnapped?”

  Lamb was whispering now. “I don’t know, we never knew. He used to sleep behind the gas station, in his sleeping bag.”

  “Why?”

  “Our house was kind of a sad place. I think you know how that can be. And one morning he just … didn’t show up. Didn’t come back.”

  “Not ever?”

  “Not ever.”

  She was quiet a moment.

  And look. The two days that Lamb and Linnie and Tom spent arranged in this way—the dark early mornings with Tommie in the bunk room, she in her beautiful nightgown and he in his big sheepskin coat; breakfast with Linnie back in the cabin, back in the fold-out couch—the AM radio and eating canned sausages and mandarin oranges with their fingers; the evenings of sitting with Linnie beside the fire in the cold, sharing a cigarette in the dark, the smell of snow and cold dirt and dead grass in the wind; running a piece of chocolate or a kiss or a surprising mouthful of whiskey to the girl in her snug little sleeping bag nest. So much love all over everyone—they were sweet days for everybody. Any one of them would tell you so.

  • • • • •

  It was late afternoon and already dark when Linnie and Lamb woke on the fold-out couch under piles of blankets and the heavy throw rug he’d pulled over the top of all of it. She sat up and looked out the window behind them.

  “Hey,” Lamb said, “why don’t you lie still and let a man sleep.”

  “There’s someone out there on your road. Actually, two someones.”

  David sat up beside her and they watched a white suburban follow a black jeep.

  “They’re going to Foster’s.”

  “The old man?”

  “His wife is dying down there.”

  “Oh. How sad.”

  “She’s all hooked up to machines and in the same bed all the time. I’ve seen him wash her face with a bowl of soapy water and a washcloth.”

  “So sad.”

  “Sometimes the caretaker goes first. Know what that means?”

  “What?”

  “I’m going to have to find some backup girls to assist me on my deathbed.”

  “Oh, please, you act like you’re an old man.”

  “I am an old man.”

  “You are not.”

  Lamb got up and poured some of the steel-cold river water outside the door into the enamel coffeepot and set it on the woodstove. He opened the door and turned the wood, added another piece.

  “Do you think they need help with something? Seems like a lot of activity, doesn’t it?” She was up on her knees looking out at the road, the blankets pulled up around her shoulders.

  “What I think,” he said, and
tore off the rug and the blankets one at a time to reveal her, bare and shivering on the dusty threadbare couch, “is that there’s a cold front moving in.”

  “Yeah, you think?” She reached across the couch for one of the blankets in his hand.

  “We’ll get the first big snow. It’s time,” he said and appraised the sky. “Maybe they’re just stocking up down there, having the visiting nurse come in and straighten up camp and make sure everything’s in working order before the snow falls.”

  Clouds drooped and condensed and there was a wet white circle of vapor around the sun.

  “Think we’ll get snowed in?”

  “Maybe, if it drifts. It’s covered up the windows before.”

  “Snow cave.”

  “We’ll gather up all the blankets on the property and load them up on our bed, and board up the bathroom window, right?”

  “Okay.”

  “I have a lot of stock in the shop. We’ll bring in piles of it so we don’t have to move from the stove here.”

  Lamb and Linnie watched the front come in, the clouds sagging and seeming to fall between them and on top of the cabin and shop. While they ate their canned stew and pan-fried biscuits in the cabin, the wind finally stopped. The tree outside the window went completely still. The constant rush and clatter of the wind went dead, and the snow came. It came light and gently and fell straight down like gauzy curtains and it was thick and heavy and wet—odd snow for fall in the mountains. A low groan rumbled around them. Thunder and snow. Lamb shook his head and held Linnie on the pull-out couch before the window.

  “It’s wonderful. It looks like the lightning is going to touch the ground.”

  “Because we’re so high up.”

  “Can’t I come live with you and be your love?”

  “You’d get tired of it out here. There’s nothing to do.”

  “You’d be here.”

  “Oh, you. Come here.”