Walter shot another bullet into the side of the yellow truck.
The woman shouted, ‘Your life.’
‘Why?’ Walter yelled. But soft. Like he was afraid of the answer.
Paul the driver stepped from behind the red truck. Big. He was trying to pass for human but not making it. He cupped a black pistol in his hand. ‘Your blood,’ he shouted. ‘Your wife’s. Your—’
Walter shot at him. Paul’s pant leg twitched and a spray of blood came from his thigh. The bullet had grazed him. Stung him. He shouted, ‘Never wound a predator. Kill him or hide from him. If you wound him—’
Walter shot again. Missed. And Paul yelled and shot his pistol four times at the house. When I looked back outside he had ducked behind the truck. The woman and the bikers had also disappeared.
But then Paul laughed and ran into the open. He threw a jug of something burning which shattered in front of the porch. Exploded. The house groaned. The walls and floor and ceiling shifted and settled. In the kitchen a shelf broke and glass shattered. Flames licked from the dirt in the yard and then died.
Walter said, ‘Jesus Christ.’
Mom started crying.
Cristofer keened.
Oren sat in the green chair. Calm. Dabbed at the oil on his sleeve with his handkerchief. When he saw me watching he said, ‘I really could use some breakfast.’
‘Asshole,’ I said.
He frowned at the handkerchief. Spat on it. Dabbed the sleeve.
Walter seemed to notice him for the first time. Squinted through the hazy light and said, ‘What the hell are you doing here?’
‘Apparently not eating breakfast,’ Oren said.
Walter went to him with the rifle. ‘Did I or didn’t I tell you to leave yesterday?’
‘You did,’ Oren said. He dabbed the sleeve. ‘I found it insulting. Paul must have too. You read about this kind of thing. Guys getting kicked out of parties and then coming back and burning down a place. Until now I didn’t think it really happened.’
‘Did I or didn’t I say I would shoot you if you came into this house?’ Walter said.
Oren looked bored. ‘You did.’
Walter gripped the rifle barrel and swung the wooden stock so it hit Oren in the head. A crease of blood welled over his eyebrows. Walter tried to hit him again. But Oren grabbed the stock and twisted the gun from his hands. Oren stood.
Mom who was sitting in the kitchen doorway said, ‘No.’
And Cristofer stopped keening.
Walter backed away.
Oren sighted the gun at the floor. ‘How many rounds does it hold?’ he asked. No longer bored.
‘Go to hell,’ Walter said.
Oren chambered a bullet. Raised the gun. Pointed it at Walter’s head. ‘How many rounds?’
‘I modified it,’ Walter said. ‘Thirteen.’
‘Enough for everybody,’ Oren said. And lowered the rifle. He gripped the barrel and gave it to Walter. He said, ‘This isn’t the time to kick guests out.’
‘You aren’t a guest,’ Walter said, and grabbed the gun. ‘Why are you doing this?’
Oren looked surprised. ‘Me?’
‘You and your friends,’ Walter said.
‘What makes you think they’re my friends?’ Oren asked.
Walter pointed the gun at the floor. ‘You’re saying they aren’t?’
‘I’m inside with you,’ Oren said. ‘If they were my friends, wouldn’t I be out there with them?’
Walter aimed the rifle at him. ‘True enough,’ he said. ‘That’s where you belong.’
Oren went back to the chair and sat. ‘If I walked out the door, they would shoot me just as they would shoot you.’
‘Why did they come here?’ Walter asked. ‘Why is your driver with them?’
‘You treated Paul badly,’ Oren said. ‘As for the others, you’re an unpleasant man. I’m sure you’ve made unpleasant enemies.’
Walter pointed the rifle at Oren’s face. He said, ‘Why did all sorts of evil start happening when you came?’
‘Is that when it started?’ Oren asked.
‘Why did you come?’ Walter’s fear was gone.
Oren said, ‘Because I appreciate fine painting and have a special interest in portraiture.’ The crease of blood over his eyebrows had swollen into a half-moon.
‘Get out,’ Walter said.
Oren said, ‘As far as I’m concerned, right now this house is as much mine as it’s yours.’
‘I already shot your driver – your friend,’ Walter said. ‘You know I’ll shoot you.’
‘Once again,’ Oren said, ‘you’re calling him a friend.’
‘You say he isn’t? Let’s give it a try,’ Walter said. ‘Get up. Let’s see just how friendly you and those people are.’
Oren shook his head. Hardly tolerating him. And stood.
Walter poked him with the rifle. ‘Move.’
‘You do that again, I’ll break it over your back,’ Oren said.
Walter pointed the gun at him. ‘To the window,’ he said.
‘This is a bad idea,’ Oren said. But he lifted his hands over his head and moved in front of the window.
Bullets pelted the outside of the house like metal hail. Ricocheting off the chimney. Sinking into the walls.
Oren knocked the rifle from Walter’s hands and dropped to the floor. The guns outside stopped. ‘Satisfied?’ Oren asked.
‘Not hardly,’ Walter said. ‘They didn’t come close to hitting you.’ And he picked up his rifle and aimed it at Oren.
‘You’re wasting time,’ Oren said. ‘While these people are shooting at you and generally kicking your ass you’re chasing me around with a squirrel gun. You could be getting ready for a fight. These people look like they’re planning to stay awhile.’
If Walter pulled the trigger he would shoot Oren in the eye.
‘Don’t tell me that’s your biggest weapon,’ Oren said.
Walter only stared at him.
Oren laughed and said, ‘How about knives? Do you have rubbing alcohol? Peroxide? Bleach? You can improvise – a man like you with a modified rifle magazine. You must know how to make things and break them. The rules don’t apply to you. Right?’
I said to Walter, ‘Listen to him.’
‘Shut up,’ he said. ‘You brought this man into our house—’
Oren said to him, ‘You’re wasting time. I’ve never seen a man who acts more like he’s got it coming to him. You might as well walk out and get it over with.’ He went to Mom. She was weeping in the kitchen doorway. ‘And you,’ he said. ‘What’s wrong with you? What makes you give up so fast? What do you have to cry about?’
‘Shut up,’ I said to him.
He stared at me. The wound on his forehead was bright with blood. His eyes were flat.
I said, ‘Don’t do this.’
He turned back to Mom. ‘These people have restrained themselves so far. Do you want to take it to the next level?’
Mom wiped her chin with the back of her hand. ‘We’re not taking it to any level,’ she said. ‘They brought this to us. We’ve never seen them before.’
‘You must have done something to bring it on yourself,’ Oren said.
‘Stop it,’ I said.
He looked at me. ‘What?’
‘Stop this from happening,’ I said. ‘Tell them to stop. They’ll listen to you.’
He shook his head.
‘Tell them,’ I said.
Then from upstairs there came a grinding of metal on metal. And wood on wood. Old bed springs. The guns outside opened up. The front of the house clattered with bullets. The chimney stones pinged. The grinding got louder. I looked around the room. Cristofer was gone. A spray of bullets hit the house. High above the front porch.
I yelled, ‘Cristofer!’ And ran for the stairs.
Oren passed me before I reached the landing. Ran into Cristofer’s room. Cristofer was bouncing in a cloud of plaster dust. Twirling his fingers through the cloud. Bullets hit the walls outside o
f the window. One had come through and pocked the ceiling. Oren tackled Cristofer. Throwing him on to the mattress and falling with him on to the floor. Cristofer laughed and laughed. He ran his fingers through Oren’s hair. Like Oren was a dog.
Oren looked up at me.
Blood from his forehead had smeared across Cristofer’s face.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Oren
‘This will be a long day,’ I said to Lexi when we were out in the hallway. ‘I’ll need your help.’ Cristofer rocked on his feet as if the house was swaying.
‘Not my help,’ Lexi said. In Cristofer’s room the sun was glinting through a white haze. She asked, ‘Can you stop them?’
‘I don’t think so,’ I said. Now that we’d started, I would shake the boards of the house until the light shined through.
‘Why not?’ she said.
‘Are you sure you want me to?’ I asked.
She almost yelled. ‘Yes.’
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘The bubble’s in the vein. It’s just a matter of time.’
‘What bubble?’ she said. ‘Whose vein?’
‘Walter’s,’ I said. ‘Your mother’s.’ I would shake the house until the nails popped out.
‘You mean our mother’s?’ she said.
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Why not?’ I would shake Kay and Walter until their bones pulled from their joints.
‘Stop it,’ Lexi said. ‘Tell those people to go away.’
‘I can’t,’ I said. I was an honorable man, I told myself. I wanted to believe it.
‘I’ll tell Mom and Walter who you are,’ Lexi said.
‘Then we’re all screwed,’ I said.
‘As opposed to now?’ she said.
‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘As opposed to now.’
We went downstairs. Kay was bringing her kitchen knives into the front room. She already had put a half-gallon bottle of Crisco by the green chair.
When Walter brought in a long extension cord, I said, ‘Good man.’
‘For what?’ Lexi asked.
I said, ‘Walter is an innovator, a creative thinker – isn’t that right, Walter? Don’t you have more guns?’
Walter ignored me but said to Lexi, ‘Fill the bathtub.’
‘This isn’t a hurricane,’ she said, and sat on the bottom stair.
‘Could be worse than one,’ I said. ‘I admire your thinking, Walter, and I’ll be happy to help.’ I went back upstairs and turned on the water in the bathroom. ‘Tell me if I can do anything else,’ I shouted.
Walter yelled up the stairs, ‘Bring down the mattresses.’
‘Don’t be a fool,’ Lexi said to him.
‘That’s one thing I’ve never been,’ Walter said.
Outside, Jimmy fired up his motorcycle and started circling the house. Then he opened the throttle and roared up the hill toward the gate, turned, and roared back. Carol whooped.
I dragged a mattress down the stairs and asked Walter, ‘Where do you want it, chief?’
He eyed me but said, ‘Cover the window.’
‘Good thinking,’ I said. I leaned it so that a couple of inches of light came in at the top.
‘Because this will keep them out?’ Lexi asked.
I said – for Walter’s sake – ‘It might make them think twice about coming in since they won’t know what’s waiting for them.’
‘They could’ve broken through the door any time they wanted,’ she said. ‘They still can.’
‘But now if they do, we’ll have surprises waiting for them,’ I said. ‘Isn’t that right, Walter? You have more than the squirrel gun, don’t you?’
‘No other guns,’ he said.
I stared at him. He stared at me. ‘What the hell,’ I said, and I grinned.
‘Get the other mattresses,’ he said.
‘Yes, sir,’ I said.
Walter said, ‘Is this all a joke to you?’
‘It’s what they call deep play, sir,’ I said. ‘A high-stakes game.’
‘I can’t say I know what you’re talking about,’ he said. He sat down on the green chair with a kitchen knife and the extension cord. He sliced off one end, separated the strands, and scraped the insulation off the wires.
I stopped on the stairs. ‘I think you do,’ I said. ‘I would never underestimate you. I think you’ve known this has been coming for a long time.’
The engine on Robert’s motorcycle roared outside, and soon both motorcycles were racing around the house. Then one of the trucks joined them. The house shook with the noise, and Cristofer started keening.
I would shake the house until Kay’s and Walter’s sinews ripped into threads that blew out through the window and fell like snow in the yard.
After I brought the other mattresses and put them on the floor by the bookshelves, Walter asked me to get a hammer and a screwdriver from one of the kitchen drawers. Then he and I went upstairs, unhooked Cristofer’s door from the hinges, carried it down, and propped it against the mattress covering the window.
‘I’m impressed by your thinking, chief,’ I said.
‘Shut up,’ he said.
As we came down with the second bedroom door, the motorcycles and truck stopped racing around the house, but Paul’s German shepherds barked and whined like they’d found meat. Lexi shoved the mattress away and looked out. Carol was lying on the ground by her truck, laughing, playing, rolling in the dirt with Cereb and Flip. Carol wore knee-high black boots, and Cereb bit at her ankles.
Walter said to Lexi, ‘Don’t blame me if they put a bullet in your head.’ We carried the door into the kitchen and set it by the window to the side yard. Then we went back upstairs and brought down the third door, which we set against the wall by the shelves.
Although we had blocked most of the openings to the front, when Robert pulled a cooler out of the bed of the red pickup and lit a fire, the smell of cooking meat came into the house. We hadn’t eaten since the day before, and hunger twisted in my belly.
It must have twisted in Lexi too. She brought a bunch of cans from the kitchen cabinet, opened some kidney beans, and ate the food cold with a spoon. Afterward she went upstairs and got her Bible, brought it back to the dinner table, and told Cristofer to sit with her so she could read to him.
Walter smiled grimly at her as if reading the Bible was the first sensible thing she’d done in her life. But she pulled out Great American Stories and read out loud, ‘Here comes a raging rush of people with torches, and an awful whooping and yelling, and banging tin pans and blowing horns; and we jumped to one side to let them go by; and as they went by I see they had the king and the duke astraddle of a rail – that is, I knowed it was the king and the duke, though they was all over tar and feathers, and didn’t look like nothing in the world that was human – just looked like a couple of monstrous big soldier-plumes. Well, it made me sick to see it; and I was sorry for them poor pitiful rascals, it seemed like I couldn’t ever feel any hardness against them any more in the world. It was a dreadful thing to see. Human beings can be awful cruel to one another.’
I said, ‘No one will ever buy it.’
‘It’s a great American story,’ Lexi said.
‘They just say that to sell books,’ I said. ‘It’s trash.’
Then Walter said, ‘Listen.’ And when we didn’t, he said it again – ‘Listen!’
A diesel engine sounded from outside, different from the generator or the motorcycles and trucks. It made a musical rattle and hum.
‘Lane Charles’s tractor,’ Walter said.
He pushed the mattress from the window and crouched so he could see. Carol and the others were standing behind her yellow truck, cooking over the fire. Lane Charles’s tractor rolled out of his field and into the yard.
Walter laughed. ‘That sonofabitch is coming. First thing he’s ever done. About time.’
Lane Charles wore black pants and a white button-up shirt as if he’d been away on business or at church. His glasses reflected the sun.
I wanted
to yell at him to stay out of it, but now Paul, Carol, Jimmy, and Robert stepped into the open and watched him come. Paul’s biggest dog, Flip, ran to greet him, whapping his tail like he was swatting flies.
‘That nosy sonofabitch, God bless him,’ Walter said, and he yelled, ‘Hey.’
The tractor engine drowned out Walter’s voice or else Lane Charles just ignored it. The tractor drove toward my friends.
Walter stood up at the window. ‘Hey,’ he yelled again, ‘Over here, you sonofabitch.’
The tractor bee-lined at Carol’s pickup, black smoke hiccupping from the exhaust stack. When it reached the truck, Lane Charles climbed down, leaving the engine running. Paul talked with him. He shook his hand. Paul pointed at the house and then at the back-acre pine woods and explained something we couldn’t hear.
‘Goddamn it,’ Walter yelled. ‘Don’t listen to him. Get help.’
Lane Charles nodded at something Paul said.
Since Lane Charles had gotten into the middle, it seemed like a good time to show Walter how helpless he was. I said to him, ‘Get the man’s attention.’
‘I’m trying, damn it,’ Walter said.
‘No, get his attention. Let him know you’re here,’ I said.
Walter got an idea. ‘You’re OK,’ he said, and he pointed his .22 at the sky and fired.
Paul looked at the house, but Lane Charles didn’t seem to notice.
Walter chambered another bullet.
‘That’s enough,’ I said.
But Walter lowered the rifle barrel and shot again. A flower of yellow paint burst from the hood of Carol’s truck. Now Lane Charles stared at the house. Walter waved at him and yelled again, ‘Get help.’
Lane Charles scrambled on to the tractor. Paul spoke to him, but he shifted and opened the throttle. The tractor jerked and bumped and then rolled across the yard. Lane Charles sat tall in his seat, his back straight, as if he was too proud to bend. But he ran the tractor full.
‘Goddamn it,’ Walter muttered, and chambered a bullet.
‘No more,’ I said.
‘One shot into the engine casing,’ Walter said. ‘He’ll come back.’
I said, ‘You’ve done enough.’
But Walter sighted the gun and shot. The bullet went low.
‘Don’t,’ I said.
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