In Wilderness

by Diane Thomas

  She is unnatural, cursed, has merely traded one disease in for another.

  She hurls the gun across the room.

  20

  Sin-Cleansed

  IT’S JUNE, JULY, SOME MONTH HE CAN’T KEEP TRACK OF. THE GARDEN near midday. He loves to watch her in the heat. The way she moves now, looser in the hips. And something about her eyes, how large they are, and moist. The hot temperatures expose things she kept under guard in colder weather. There she is, wiping her damp hair off her forehead with the back of her hand. Impatient, like she’s some little kid. Impatient for something—what?—to happen. If he was back in grammar school he’d let her be his girlfriend on the playground, stay by her through high school, let her wear his football jacket. Pick up some work, maybe do home repairs. Buy himself a car, take her out riding, to a movie. Afterwards to get a burger. Later to some dead-end road where they could park. With her around he’d never once have looked at old Janelle.

  If he was back in college, she could be his teacher. Teach him about Gatsby and Daisy, Lady Brett Ashley. Joanna Burden and Joe Christmas. Huck Finn. That Greek bitch with snakes for hair. Teach him other things as well. He’d take her out, even with her some older, spread a blanket by the river, watch the full moon in the water. Always they’d find some private place so nobody could see her, get her fired. Yeah, if she’d been his teacher he’d have never ended up in Nam. He’d still be in school, with one year left to graduation. There with her.

  Hiking back up the mountain after being with her through the night, passing through his orchard in the dawn, he’s struck again by how his peach trees need him. He’s who relieves them of their burden of ripe fruits. Each fruit’s a little rising sun, begging to get picked so its sweet gift won’t go rotten on the ground. Mounds and mounds of peaches, so many more than he can ever eat. Dog won’t eat them, even fed by Danny’s hand. Who’s to eat them?

  Who?

  NEXT MORNING, DANNY’S RUNNING flat out along the Elkmont highway. Him with far less beard and his hair cut best he could with a dull razor and a piece of shaving mirror. All the little birds and animals scattering to the four directions—Danny’s coming. Him not knowing the why for any of it, only that he badly needs something in town, and needs it now.

  He’s not at all sure what, just that it has somehow to do with all the peaches on his trees, his burnt-out house’s rotting books and partly sanded floor, the woman in the Old Man’s cabin. Yeah, her most of all.

  Pine needles crushed under his running feet smell like the woods in back of Memaw’s house, and he feels good about the world and all that’s in it. So good even glary, noonday Elkmont can’t bring him down.

  For he has willed it. Once upon a blue and waxing moon God lets him will such things.

  At the edge of town, he puts on his boots, starts walking like he knows exactly where he’s going, what he needs to do. In the hardware store he buys more finish nails, more sandpaper, a handsaw. But these aren’t the reasons why he’s here. Buys himself a pocketful of Slim Jims at the market. Cardboard box of cupcakes he eats sitting on the courthouse bench, wishing he was waiting for her, Katherine, to come get in her little car. But it’s not food brought him here either. He can live on weeds and squirrels, summer fruits from Gatsby’s orchard. No, food’s not the thing he’s after.

  He dumps the empty cupcake box, takes another walk around the square, goes down the side streets, all of them, a second time, looks in all the windows. His last chance. Third time, folks start to notice you. He’ll find out this time what he’s come to do. Or else it stays the fuck undone and that’s the way of it.

  In the Rexall the newspaper headlines all scream “Vietnam”; he looks away. Buys himself a new razor, little pack of refill blades, big double bar of soap. Coming out, that’s when he sees it. Right across the street. Next to some fancy restaurant, sharing the same rocking chairs on a narrow wooden porch. Little store with a classy three-side window, skinny little mullions like the Old Man might have made. “George Stockman and Sons,” sign hanging from a porch beam by a brass link chain like for some lawyer’s office—maybe Danny’s own law office someday ought to have a three-side window, little wooden sign, porch with some rocking chairs.

  He can’t quit looking at it. Under the “George Stockman” part, in such little-bitty letters you need to climb up on the porch to read them, it says “Men’s Clothiers Since 1926.” Since before his own mama and daddy were even born or Memaw’s hair turned white, this Stockman dude was selling clothes. He tries looking in the window but can’t see past his own reflection, a smiling, sunlit Danny gazing at him from the other side.

  A small bell above the door tinkles when he enters. Inside, it’s cool and dark and quiet, smells of lemons. Lots of racks and shelves, all red cherry wood shiny as glass. Looks like right now he’s the only person in the place. He could just as easily swipe something, run. But he doesn’t need to, he’s got money. And anyhow you don’t swipe something from a place like this. You buy it.

  He checks his hands, makes sure his fingernails are clean, starts flipping through the racks. Suits. Suits everywhere. Last suit he had was some dumb short-pants thing Memaw made him wear to church. Only place he’s seen men wearing suits except in movies. Bought himself a sportcoat at the Goodwill when he got to college. Shit, maybe this is not the place he needs.

  Nonetheless, George Stockman and Sons, Men’s Clothiers, is some sight to see. He strolls up one aisle and down the next, pauses at a stack of silly sweater vests like he knows what he’s looking for but he’s not finding it.

  Whoa, wait just a minute. There’s stuff here on the back wall. Jeans, shirts, boots. Pair of leather mocs that fit his feet like they were made for him. And what’s this here? Some kind of weird shit nobody’d buy but gooks. Gook suits. Loose pants you tie up at the waist, long shirts that flap around your ass. All made out of cotton soft as peach skins. Yeah, here’s what he’s come to town for. Shirts, jeans, new boots, that pair of mocs. And, yeah, that gook shit, comes in black, white, khaki.

  That’s what he needs. The white one.

  “Young man, can I help you?”

  Old guy sneaked up so quiet on the carpet Danny jumps. Sneaked up on old Danny, not many can do that. White hair, thick white moustache, voice like he’s talking on the radio. Old George Stockman himself.

  “I want to buy this stuff.”

  Old guy eyes him up and down. Just that. Not like he’s scared of him or anything. More like he’s eyeballing his shirt size, inseam. “You’ll want to try it on.” Waves him toward a couple doors in the wall to his right. “To make sure the sizes fit.”

  Danny nods, goes. Needs to do this right. The old guy yanks open a door, ushers him into a little room with a big mirror, shuts him in. Little rooms freak Danny out. Mirrors too. He pulls on the pair of jeans, buttons the fly, throws on a shirt. Opens the door with a shaking hand.

  “Yeah, they’re fine. How much I owe you?”

  At the register, the old guy pushes aside Danny’s filthy camouflage and torn-up army boots. “Want to just leave these here?”

  Danny takes a long breath, lets it out slow, casual-like. “Naw, I’ll just keep hold of ’em. Never know what you might need.”

  He counts out upwards of ninety dollars, leaves the store. Yeah. Good to be outside, take off his new boots, head for home. He’s got what he came for.

  BACK UP THE MOUNTAIN, he stops at his rock overhang for one quick glance down at the cabin. Then in Gatsby’s house that smells now of new sawdust along with the old, sour fire smoke, he puts on the white gook suit, stows the rest of what he bought in a warped chifforobe. The gook shirt has little buttons carved out of some kind of tree wood he can’t recognize. He’s never worn anything so fine.

  When he goes outside, Dog wants to follow. He gives her a Slim Jim, shoves her in the opposite direction. Language she can understand. The afternoon’s warm with a breeze. Barefoot, he hikes to a noisy creek a half mile on the mountain’s other side, water that doesn’t
flow down to the cabin.

  There he takes off his new, white clothes, folds them carefully and leaves them on the bank. Naked, carrying nothing but his hunting knife to protect him, he wades out to where the creek cascades over a large, smooth rock and lies down in the middle of its flow. Spreads his arms, opens his legs, stares up at the angled sun till it blinds him.

  “Lord Jesus, I beseech thee, wash my sins away.”

  He says it over and over, right hand wrapped around his knife—Lord Jesus, Lord Jesus, Lord Jesus, Lord Jesus—for what seems like forever. Says it till it seems enough. Then he lays there, trying to feel what it’ll feel like having all his sins gone. Especially his sins in San Francisco, if that’s even possible, and sins he committed halfway across the world. But all he can think about is her.

  Katherine struggling up the trail that first day in her Sunday coat, a dung beetle dragging everything she owned behind her and reeking of Dead Lady sick. Katherine out every morning chopping wood, tending her garden, mending her fence. Katherine toting her little gun around. Katherine stretched out naked on that rock that time, how bad she needed him. How bad she needs him now.

  Sweet Lord Jesus.

  Water’s for-shit cold. Numbs every part of him, but he’ll stay in it till he can’t stand it, till he’s all but too far gone to rise. That’s the kind of time and water it’ll take to cleanse his sins.

  Still, Lord Jesus ought to send him down a sign, pure white dove or some such, for when he’s laid here long enough that he can stop. His arms and legs are tingling from the cold, starting to ache. Parts of him shiver on their own now and again. He lays quiet as he can, his burning eyes still staring at the sun. Then tears run down his face and he is singing.

  “With arms wide open, He’ll pardon you.

  It is no secret what God can do.”

  Knows it for what it is, his prayed-for sign. Sings it over and over, till he’s hoarse and can’t sing anymore and it’s enough.

  Still clutching his knife, Danny staggers off the rock, picks up his folded clothes and puts them on and climbs back to the house under a sky the color of his peaches. Cutting through the orchard, he picks a windfall fruit up off the ground, holds it high and sees it all but disappear against the heavens. God’s gift, to let him see a peach that way. He brings the fruit close to his face, touches its soft skin to his lips. Then smashes it against his open mouth, grinds its wet flesh into his teeth. He clamps down hard on the porous seed, sucks out all its sweet juice. Oh, how much the good Lord loves him. To give him such a precious gift.

  All Danny needs to do is take it.

  This night he rushes to lie on his bed, hardly waiting for the dark. Rushes to his Long Dream. In it, he crashes through the underbrush, runs all the way. From his moldy mattress in the partly sanded library of his burnt-out house to the center of his old home town, he runs. Thin branches whip his ankles, calves.

  It’s first dawn when he gets there, streets all still in shadow. He runs like a thief. Past the courthouse parking meters, past his law office with its three-side window and porch rocking chairs, little brass-link-chain sign. Past the fat brick houses with familiar mailbox names, the little strip of woods. Rounds the curve, unlatches the white picket gate, dashes up the walk between the green grass and the beds of purple flowers, takes the porch steps two at a time.

  Door’s stuck. He barrels into it with his shoulder. It flings open and he lurches in.

  Inside, it’s not the house he’s used to, with its long, dark passageway. It’s the Old Man’s cabin, heart-pine floors and huge stone hearth. Her sleeping bag’s spread out in the same corner he embraces every night. God’s gift. God’s sign.

  She stands beside it in the dim light, barefoot in her white nightgown with all its tiny flowers. Her gaze is steady, unsurprised, as if she’s been expecting him. He moves toward her till he’s just arm’s length away. This close, her eyes are gold, a thing he did not know. He reaches out and grabs her wrist with his left hand.

  Danny shudders and can’t stop. Won’t. Has to finish what’s begun.

  He bites down hard on his left wrist, but even that can’t choke his arcing cry that spirals into the dark and echoes down the mountain.

  21

  The Gift

  DREAMING, KATHERINE GIVES DANNY’S CRY TO A HUGE BIRD CIRCLING high overhead. In the morning she opens the cabin door to find her porch is covered with ripe peaches. And, at her feet, a moldering copy of A Room with a View.

  She picks up a fruit wedged against her left foot, bites into it. Can’t remember tasting any peach so thoroughly. Someone besides herself is in this forest. Another person. Someone who brought gifts and disappeared.

  She should be frightened, of course. Sucks the rough seed dry and slips it in her pocket, picks up the book, heads down the privy path. She has again begun leaving the door open so she can see the mountain, leaves it open still. Because nothing’s changed; on some level she knows this. Whatever’s here has simply been made manifest. She’s in no more danger than she’s ever been. Who left them? A young girl? An old woman? Who would she like this other one to be? A man would not announce himself that way. Men are straightforward; he’d just knock on her door.

  In the garden, her hands are sure among the plants, pulling peppers and cucumbers, yellow summer squashes, picking beans off their vines with two swift fingers, cradling ripe tomatoes on their stems until they fall into her hands. A book! Something to read in the long summer evenings. She fills the lopsided basket rescued from behind the woodpile, pulls the army of small, tender weeds that every day encroaches. Then she rubs a couple radishes against her jeans to get the dirt off, pops them in her mouth; their heat’s a wake-up call. Next she eats a tomato, then a small green pepper. Breakfast. It’s all so simple and yet not. She is part of everything and everything is part of her; how can she not have known this all along?

  Perhaps that’s why, when she looks up and sees him standing there under the chestnut oak, clad all in white and staring at her like some fierce blond angel, she is startled but is not afraid, simply gazes back at him for what her eyes can know. Much as, a few days earlier, she gazed at an exotic luna moth, pale greenish white, large as her open hand, that pressed itself against her window screen.

  “Hello,” he says in a voice too deep for a boy so thin and doubtless barely out of high school. “I live over the mountain. I’m the one brought you the peaches. And the book.”

  He sounds so serious, perhaps afraid.

  “Thank you. I ate a peach, it was delicious.” She smiles. “You’re sure you didn’t bring too many?”

  “I got lots,” he says, still staring. He looks like he hasn’t eaten in a year.

  “You could sell them in Elkmont, you know. I could pay you what you’d get there.”

  Something, fury, flashes in his eyes.

  “I didn’t bring you them for pay.”

  “Well … thank you again. Thank you so very much.” She gestures awkwardly. “Please. Take some vegetables. I’ve got more than enough.”

  “I don’t eat vegetables much.” He shifts his weight, looks around at all the garden beds, turns back with a faint smile as if from some pleasant memory. “But I might trouble you for one of those bright red tomatoes.”

  “Of course. Come in and pick one. Pick all you want.”

  Her voice sounds schoolmarmish, patronizing, to her ears. She takes a step toward the gate to undo its wooden bolt.

  “No!”

  He barks it like a wild thing, startles even himself. Takes a ragged breath, tries to smile.

  “You got to pick me one yourself. One you want me to have, and put it by the fence there. Then go back to where you are, smack in the middle. I’ll come get it.”

  “Oh. Yes. I can do that.”

  He looks so frightened standing there, as if she’d threatened to strike him. She picks the largest, ripest tomato she can see and lays the red fruit gently on the ground outside the fence. Then she returns to the center of the garden, s
tands there motionless. The young man dashes up, grabs the tomato, scuttles back to the meadow’s edge, a feral dog too watchful to eat. He runs his hands over the red fruit, eyes it like some hard-won prize, then looks back at her with that strange fervor.

  “I come by here sometimes on my way out to the highway. Come up along that ridge yonder.”

  Was he the shadow that she saw that first day hiking in? Did he see her?

  “Sometimes I stop awhile and watch you in the garden.” His words rush from his mouth. “It brings me peace, seeing you working with those growing things. You mind?”

  She shakes her head quickly, feels uncomfortably warm. “I don’t mind.”

  “I’m glad for that. Can I stop by again sometime? Stand out here and watch you work? I won’t come any closer. I swear I won’t.”

  Why not? Why won’t he come close enough to touch her? “Yes. I mean … it’s all right. And you’re welcome to come into the garden if you want.”

  He looks at her, nods once, slightly but with significance, as if some understanding of which she is as yet unaware has passed between them. Then he turns on his heel and strides into the trees.

  So young and alone, holding his head so high. She tries to bring her mind back to the plants around her, but her concentration has been shattered. All she can think of are the sharp wings of his shoulder blades inside that soft white shirt, when he turned his back on her and walked away.

  22

  “It’s. All. Right.”

  STUPID. STUPID. STUPID.

  He hadn’t meant to do it, any of it. He’d got out of the creek water, put his clothes back on, started for home so cold he couldn’t feel his own skin. And everywhere he looked was ringed in rainbows.

  When he got close to Gatsby’s house, none of the burnt parts showed. From this side it looked whole and perfect. And he, Danny, looked perfect, too, in his loose white clothes. So perfect he imagined Katherine standing on the other side of that enormous lawn, alone and staring at him, a light breeze playing in her hair.