Now, he wonders if he should announce himself, cough or holler; or maybe he should turn heel and get out of there fast. But he’s too interested to leave. Beside him, the dogs are jittery, so Hank holds up his hand as a signal, forbidding them to bark.
Down on the dirt road, Gwen paces back and forth while she smokes, so she won’t freeze. Beneath her T-shirt and the ski jacket she’s worn only twice before on trips to Big Bear, her arms are covered with goose bumps. She’s got on two pairs of wool socks, and some old boots she found in the hall closet, but it isn’t enough. She’s simply not used to the cold. And this is only October, it’s mild as far as people around here are concerned. Well then, in Gwen’s estimation, people around here are crazy. Let them live in New England and pull on long underwear and gloves and go about their business, all the while pretending they aren’t freezing their asses. Maybe there’s a reason for that. Maybe this kind of weather does something for you, if you ever get used to it—it purifies you and gets right down to the bone, leaving only the parts that can face up to hardship.
In spite of the cold, Gwen is relieved to be out of that dreadful old house. Since they’ve arrived, they don’t seem to be going anywhere fast. Gwen’s mother is spending all her time sorting through Mrs. Dale’s belongings, dividing them into what should be thrown out, given away, or kept. March doesn’t seem to be sleeping at night, a fact Gwen knows because she herself is sleeping in the little sewing room and can hear her mother searching around in the attic, or in the kitchen at odd hours, fixing tea. Only last night, Gwen woke to see her mother on the stairway landing, looking out the window, concentrating so hard you’d think the most important thing in the world was out there.
And then there’s the dog. Gwen’s mother waits on the dog, as if she’s doing some sort of penance for forgetting it in the first place. She feeds the raggedy thing canned tuna fish and cooked chicken, in spite of the fact that the dog has twice tried to bite. The stupid beast sits by the front door and howls, and when Gwen is forced to take it for a walk after supper, the awful creature will not follow unless Gwen tugs and curses and, finally, begs it to come along nicely.
Last night, when she called her friend Minnie to complain and decompress, Minnie wasn’t home. Her mother said she was sleeping at Pepita Anderson’s house, but that’s nothing more than a code all the girls use, a fake friend, a disembodied name given to parents when you want to be out all night. The old Pepita excuse, Gwen planned to tease Minnie, if she ever got to talk to her. Well, I hope you enjoyed yourself. I hope you had a whole bunch of fun, because I sure am not having any. If she were home, Gwen would probably be over at the Shopping Center; at least she could spend some money and feel better. Here, when she wants to get away from her mother there are only these silver fields, and the fading light, and the woods filled with things that are probably watching her—raccoons and weasels, and hopefully nothing more.
As she walks along this empty road, Gwen realizes that nobody knows her. No one could begin to imagine what it’s like to be her. Ever since she got here, she’s been desperate to get back to California, but if she’s really going to be honest, what is she going back to? She’s a loser, that’s the truth. She hates school, she hates all her friends, except for Minnie—who, when you come right down to it, is even more of a loser—she hates her last two boyfriends, both of whom she had sex with for reasons she can’t remember anymore. Admittedly, the sex was nothing. She’d heard so much about it, but it turned out she was floating outside her body while she did all those things. It wasn’t love, that’s for sure. It was all so nothing. If a nuclear bomb fell from the sky, would it really matter? Wouldn’t it be better to be blown away, completely and utterly, before she screws up the rest of her life?
She started to think like this at the funeral parlor, and she’s been morbid ever since, going over weird concepts. What, for instance, will she do with the rest of her life? Now that she’s here, with no outside stimulus—no TV, telephone, mall, pot, boy—who is she really? Why can’t she go back to being the way she was before she came here, when she barely thought at all?
Gwen puts out her cigarette on the road, crushing the embers beneath her boot. She leans on a rickety wooden fence, and reaches into her pocket for a scarf. But before she can loop the fabric around her throat, she begins to feel a tingling sensation on the back of her neck. It’s as if someone was breathing on her; either she’s going crazy, or someone is right there behind her. She might have turned and run home without stopping to see what sort of creature breathed out such warm air, if she hadn’t then heard a noise, one so small it resembled a question mark. Even before she turns and sees Tarot, Gwen feels as if she’s entered into a dream. This night, with its dark and silver edges, this horse on the other side of the fence who has come to her without being called. And perhaps that is why she has no second thoughts as she slips through the railings and goes into the pasture; it’s a dream, and it’s hers, and she’s desperate to see what happens next.
Up on the hill, Hank grabs one of the youngest dogs, who’s begun to yelp, and gives it a shake. He wants to see this, and he doesn’t want some idiot dog to announce his presence. Hank tries to be responsible in most things, and usually he is. He knows he should climb down the hill, fast, and stop this girl. If she stays in the pasture, she could get hurt. Tarot has charged at much lesser things—at the wind, for instance, at butterflies and bees. But Tarot seems completely hypnotized, maybe because the girl is so beautiful against the blue-black sky, or maybe Hank is the one who’s been hypnotized. In fact, the only time Gwen has even seen a real live horse has been at county fairs. She doesn’t even think to be afraid. She’s comfortable enough to stand beside Tarot and talk to him when most grown men would run. That’s what she’s doing down there in the field, where frost coats the soles of her borrowed boots. She’s telling this evil old horse that he’s gorgeous, and he seems to like what he’s hearing. He steps closer to Gwen, carefully, slowly, as if to hear more of whatever she has to say.
It is very odd, indeed, to see the horse everyone called a killer trail along, mild as can be, as the girl heads toward the rotten stump Hank should have pulled last spring. It had been a huge maple tree, before lightning split it in two. Ken Helm took it down, in exchange for the wood, and Hank was supposed to come here with some dynamite and get rid of what was left. Now, he’s glad he forgot. What remains of that old maple is the perfect height for this girl to get onto so she can throw herself onto Tarot’s back. When she nearly falls off, she gives Tarot a little slap, which, in other circumstances, would have sent him racing.
“Stand still,” she tells him. “You big cutie.”
Although Gwen knows nothing about horses, she’s right about his size. Tarot is sixteen hands high, which is even bigger when you’re up on his back, looking down at the ground.
“Be a good boy,” she tells him.
For his part, Tarot seems too shocked to move. If this girl does get hurt, Hank will have to live with it. A broken leg, a crumpled spine would be his fault. And yet, he does nothing to stop her. The muscles in his arm have tightened; his pulse is going fast. He keeps a hand on the yelpy dog, willing to shake it like a dust mop if the dog dares to bark and startle Tarot.
Gwen is leaning forward, her hands holding on to the horse’s mane. She’s afraid that if she blinks this will all disappear and she’ll wake in her bed to find she never even left the house; she never borrowed these boots, or walked along the road, or found this beautiful horse. If this is a dream, she wants to go on sleeping. She doesn’t make a sound; that’s how much she wants this to be real. And as he watches from the highest point on Fox Hill, Hank wants it for her just as badly. In this pasture, in the dark, Gwen’s life has made a major turn, something as rare as planets leaving their orbits to crash into each other and fill up the night. In a place she never wanted to be, on a night that will be cold enough to freeze the apples on the trees, she is no longer alone.
8
The Coward
sits on a hard-backed chair, wearing gloves and boots, since the old house where he lives hasn’t got a bit of heat. He does not deserve heat, he knows that. He deserves exactly what he’s got, which is nothing, in spades. He’s not quite fifty, but most people would guess he’s twenty years older than that. His skin is sallow and pockmarked. His long hair and beard are gray. He’s thin as a twig, and as crooked as one too. When he happens to catch sight of himself in the reflection of his battered coffeepot, he always gets a good laugh. He is what he appears to be, there’s no hiding that. His inside is affecting his outside, like a rotten piece of fruit.
Years ago, when the Coward was a boy, he was on the debating team at the local high school. He had a slick quality, which always helps in an argument, and was often applauded for his speaking voice. Words, however, are nothing to him now. There are weeks when he doesn’t talk to anyone. He doesn’t complain to the fleas who live in his mattress; he doesn’t bother to shoo the flies away from his morning cereal—that is, when he remembers to eat. He has ruined his life, and although he can’t blame it all on drink, drinking has become his whole universe. Sometimes, he doesn’t bother to get out of bed before he starts. It’s just as easy to lie there and reach for the bottle; he doesn’t even have to open his eyes.
This morning some woman was knocking at his door. She must not have known that the Coward’s philosophy of life makes him temperamentally unfit for human contact, although he did appreciate Judith Dale’s visits. When he heard the stranger out on his porch, the Coward knew it wasn’t Judith, since she is dead, and there’s no one else he allows to visit. He crawled to the window on his belly so he could peek outside. The woman out there had long, dark hair; in spite of a heavy, woolen coat, she looked as if she were freezing. She was ill at ease, and kept glancing over her shoulder. She knocked several times, and when there was no answer she called out “Alan” in a clear, pretty voice which startled the Coward. That name—which he never uses anymore and would never sign on a piece of paper, even if offered a hundred dollars cash—made him cover his ears and count to a thousand. Luckily, by the time he was done, the woman had left.
If she’d really wanted to see him, of course, she could have merely pushed the door open, since the Coward never bothers to lock it. Probably, his caller had heard his dreadful history. Not even the charlatan at last summer’s circus fair outside Town Hall would read his fortune. That’s how bad his past has been, and his future looks no better. People used to say the Coward fed his dog gunpowder, to make it more vicious, and this was the reason everyone avoided the Marshes. But that dog died years ago, of arthritis and old age, and the Marshes are still unknown territory for most local residents. Anyone who goes there goes at his own risk.
Of course, twelve-year-old boys are always looking for trouble, and teenagers need their thrills. Sometimes there are groups daring enough to make their way through the muck and the reeds. They pitch winter apples and stones at the roof of his house, defying the Coward to come chase them away, but he never does, and he never will. Even on nights when stones are thrown, the Marshes are silent, and that silence is scary enough to chase off most unwanted visitors.
To the children in the village, who whisper the Coward’s story at slumber parties, his is a cautionary tale about what can happen to spoiled boys who think they have everything. Greedy, thoughtless habits take you down a road you can’t get off, even when you’ve seen the error of your ways. Before you know it, you’ve grown up to be a man who doesn’t give a damn about anyone but himself, and then your fortune is your own affair, and hopeless is probably the best you can ask for.
The Coward knows all this—it’s the reason he has never fought for his son. He doesn’t deserve the boy any more than he deserves heat or light or hope. If the Coward happens to be out wandering on a starless night, he avoids Fox Hill, and if he ever comes within a mile of Guardian Farm’s property lines he begins to shake and he’s unable to stop until he’s safe in his house with a drink halfway down his throat.
Although he can barely remember it now—his memory is foggy, and he’s thankful for that—there was an occasion when he went to search out his son. One look, that was all he wanted. A minute; a single word. It was pathetic, really, and he knew it even at the time. He crept up to the schoolyard for a peek at Hank, but five years had passed since he’d last seen the boy and among all those children out for recess, the Coward could not tell which one was his. Unlike the common duck, which can distinguish its young from another’s in a crowded pond or stream, unlike a swan, who will kill for the sake of its hatchling, the Coward had forgotten his own son’s features. This, of course, only made him despise himself more. He is, after all, called the Coward for good reason.
In the past years, his single companion was his old dog, whom he still misses—a wretched boxer someone had set out to drown in a burlap bag. The drowning was somehow bungled, and when the Coward dragged the bag out of the marsh at low tide, there was one dead puppy inside, and another live one who was, from that moment on, forever grateful. Not that the Coward didn’t try to dissuade the misguided beast. He could throw a frying pan at the poor dog’s head, and it would insist upon licking his hand. He wishes he still had that dog, although he is convinced it was the stupidest creature on earth, foolish enough to misjudge its own master and believe him worthy of loyalty.
Though it now seems ridiculous, the Coward once considered himself lucky. He had inherited all his father owned, and was free to do as he pleased. The only dark spot in his life had been Hollis, and he always resented his father for bringing this false brother home. But Hollis, who had recently returned to the village, was nothing to Alan anymore. Why, Alan could pass him on the street and not even feel compelled to acknowledge Hollis’s existence. He had, after all, far better things to think about. His marriage, for one. Julie, the woman who had become his wife, was said to be the sweetest girl in town. There was something peaceful about her, as if snow had settled inside her soul. Often, she slept fourteen hours straight, and when she woke there was a smile on her lips. Their son took after her—Hank rarely cried as an infant, and as a toddler he put himself to bed when he was tired, climbing into his own crib.
On the day the fire started, the Coward was out in a hammock beneath the chestnut tree. It was Mrs. Dale’s day off, so Julie was fixing dinner, which, like all her meals, would surely turn out to be a well-intentioned disaster. Hank, who was three. was sitting on the floor, playing with measuring cups. The child was there when the Coward walked through the kitchen on his way to the yard, and he was probably still there when the fire leapt from the rear burner of the stove, attaching itself to the curtains, and then to the wood countertop, and finally to the pink dress that Julie was wearing, a pretty cotton shift the Coward had bought her in Boston.
In minutes, the smoke was so thick that people standing on the steps of the library in the village could see it; by the time the lirefighters arrived, sparks were shooting into the sky. The firefighters worked like mad that day, desperate to stop the flames before they spread through the woods; they were far too busy to notice Alan Murray standing at the gate, so close to the blaze that he was covered with soot. The air was brutal, a burning, black soup, and yet Alan had been standing there long enough to have his eyebrows singed off. He was crying tears that were so scalding they burned little holes in his face, the scars of which, like pinpricks or small pox, have never faded away.
The heat and the flames had paralyzed Alan. His wife and his child were trapped in that house, but he could no more go inside and search for them than he could jump up and land on the moon. Ken Helm, who was one of the volunteers, was the first to notice Alan, and it was Ken who realized there were still people left inside. Alan was crying beside the purple clematis, which had grown by the garden gate for as long as anyone could remember, but had now burned to ashes, and he didn’t stop crying when they brought Hank out. Someone had been left behind in that burning house, and although it was Julie’s body that was taken
from the wreckage, that someone who’d been lost turned out to be Alan himself.
People in town started talking about him at the funeral, as he tore out his hair and called for his wife. They whispered when he lost his money, spending wildly—rebuilding the house, conned into dreadful business deals, practically giving it away. They talked when night after night he had to be carried out of the Lyon Cafe, and when he had to sell Fox Hill to pay off all he had borrowed. Some people say that Hollis bailed him out by covering his debts and buying the hill at a fair price, but Alan knows Hollis never intended to be kind. He bought Fox Hill anonymously, through his lawyer, well aware that Alan would never have sold to him. At any rate, due to extreme carelessness, the money from the sale of Fox Hill disappeared fast. Alan and his boy were often tossed out of rented apartments; Alan tended to fall asleep while smoking, and once he would have burned himself alive, and perhaps been glad of it, if Hank, then four, hadn’t thrown water on the smoldering easy chair where his father slept.
At last, Alan took his son to live in the Marshes, to this house people say the Founder built, a shack really, nothing more. Hank was often discovered wandering alone, his clothes filthy and coated with mud. People who didn’t even know him would insist on taking the child to the Bluebird Coffee Shop, where they’d buy him big bowls of macaroni and cheese or thick tomato soup. Hank always ate each meal as though it were his last, wolfing down his food, even when it was hot enough to burn his tongue. Clearly, if the board of the library hadn’t appropriated clothes for him at every flea market and rummage sale, this child would have gone around town naked. That’s how drunk Alan was by then; that’s how pathetic he’d become.
Hollis went out to the Marshes for the first and last time on a Sunday afternoon that year when Hank was four, plowing through the mud in Mr. Cooper’s old pickup, which he continues to drive to this day. Now that Hollis was married to Belinda, he owned more acreage than any other man in the county; he must have wanted to gloat over his victory, but he never got the chance. He found Alan passed out on the floor. That day he brought Hank with him when he returned to Guardian Farm, and the boy has been with him ever since. People say Hollis is good to Hank, or so the Coward has heard, and that makes perfect sense. No doubt Hollis has some idea of the pain his mercy causes the Coward. No doubt at all.
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