A Portion for Foxes

by Daniel Mitchell

  I’d been gone only eight months, but she had aged years. The pain came again, and I fought down another case of the sniffles. Every time I took a drink of tea, she hurried to refill my glass. I wanted to tell her everything but remembered Dad's warning. Sometimes, when I was growing up, she’d seemed so strong, then she would suddenly crumble. It always started over something unexpected and snowballed into Dad cooking supper for a week with Mom barely leaving her bed. Once, she kept her door locked for two weeks after she hit a dog on the way home from church, but when she came out, she acted as though nothing had happened. Right then, she looked happy, and Mom looking happy was what I needed more than anything even if we both knew it wouldn't last.

  She talked without ceasing, filling me in on all the details of family and town gossip I’d missed and some that I hadn’t. I had a sudden suspicion she was afraid if she stopped talking, I'd start, and she wouldn't like what I had to say.

  “Will took a job at Michelin. They bought out the tire plant this spring, you know, and he’s taking online classes in law enforcement, of all things! He says he wants to be something this town has never seen: an honest cop.” She laughed at that and shook her head.

  “Your Daddy finally accepted a foreman position even though it changes his pay from wage to salary. The benefits are better, and he doesn’t work as much overtime. He doesn’t like all the responsibility and says his boss is an idiot, because he made some changes that just don’t make sense, and...”

  Next, I got a thirty-minute rendition of the antics of her sisters’ families up in Kansas, including who was married, who had gotten pregnant suspiciously quickly after the ceremony, who was divorced, how Cousin Timmy was still single at thirty-five and just a bit too pretty for a man, my grandmother’s failing health, what the Democrats were up to, the new sales tax in town, and how the summer baseball season was going at school. I eventually gave up trying to make sense of everything and just nodded politely, acting properly impressed or shocked by each new tidbit.

  She finally slowed down when the sound of Dad’s truck rumbled in through the open window. Mom pretended to busy herself at the stove, but we both knew she was fairly itching to see his reaction.

  The back door opened, and I heard the familiar thump of his steel toes hitting the washroom floor. He trudged tiredly into the kitchen in sock feet and reached for the glass of sweet tea Mom was holding. It was a ritual they had. After a long drink with his eyes closed, he pulled her close and started to kiss her cheek before noticing the look on her face. She was near breathless with anticipation he couldn’t miss even after a twelve-hour shift.

  “What’s got you all—” he started. His gaze halted on me at the end of the table. He didn’t smile, but his eyes caught fire.

  “Well,” he said, “the prodigal returns."

  "Is it okay?" I asked.

  "Yes, boy. It's more than okay. Come here."

  I walked over to him slowly and stopped with a few feet left between us. He reached his hand out for mine, and when I took it, he pulled me into a fierce hug. It only lasted a few seconds, but it was enough. I could only remember getting a handful of hugs from him in my entire life. He reached up and ruffled my shaggy hair.

  "I’m so sorry, boy. So glad you’re home. But that hair has got to go. Next, you'll be picking flowers and wanting an earring."

  "Whatever you say,” I replied, grinning so hard my cheeks hurt. Something inside me was aching too.

  Mom made her earlier movements seem lazy as she rushed dinner onto the table and practically pushed us into our seats. After lettuce and tomatoes fresh from the garden, we gorged on our own beef and lumpy mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, green beans, and homemade bread slathered in real butter—none of that margarine crap at my father’s table. Mom heated up leftover apple pie with a generous scoop of vanilla ice cream for dessert when I refused thirds, fussing again over how thin I was and how desperately I needed fattening up. I used to think my mother’s cooking was boring, but after months without it, I’d have sworn angels had blessed her hands.

  Later, I dozed on the couch, my bulging stomach aching, while my father pretended to watch Gunsmoke and Mom went through the motions of stitching at her quilting frame. Each time I looked up, she was beaming at me or humming hymns as she quickly looked away. After the ten o’clock news ended, she woke me with a good-night kiss and went to freshen my sheets.

  As soon as she was out of the room, Dad sat up straight and looked dead at me. I knew he was waiting for me to break the silence.

  "I should have called you first, but are you sure it's safe, my being here?"

  "I think it's safe now," he said. "Never heard a peep from the sheriff. Used to see this ugly green truck coming by a couple of times a week. Sometimes a blue Chevy I didn't recognize either. Haven't seen either one in a while, though. If somebody is still looking for you, they ain't looking here. You rest easy, but mind what you say to your mother. You know she doesn't take bad news well."

  "Where did you tell her I've been?"

  "I didn't, and she didn't ask. I think she knows almost everything, but she spread it around to her friends down at the church that you had bronchitis and had gone to stay with her cousin Shelby out in Arizona until your lungs cleared up. Says it like she really believes it too." He turned to look out the window as a truck passed in the darkness.

  "For now, just leave it at that. If she decides she's ready, she'll grill us all. Until she does, if she does, just let it lie."

  “Dad, I just... I thought...” All the things I couldn’t explain got tangled in my teeth.

  “I know you thought you were doing right, and hell, maybe you were," he said. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked you to leave."

  It hadn't been a request, but I didn't see the point in calling him a liar.

  "Get some sleep. I got work tomorrow, and if you're up to it, I need your help. Got a hay meadow to mow. The back pasture is ready for cutting, and we need to bale it before another storm rolls in. Don't lay in bed too late.”

  I stood as he rose from the recliner, and he gave me the longest hug he ever had.

  "Maybe it's over now. If not, we'll face it together. No more running away," he said. “I haven’t smiled since you left.” With a last squeeze, he pulled away and ruffled my hair before walking down the dark hall to his bedroom.

  I knew he'd eventually want a full accounting of where I'd been, but for the moment, all I could think of was the beauty of my own bed with the familiar lumps of my old mattress, my heels settled in the circular grooves of the springs, and the cheap, worn pillow bunched under my neck perfectly. It was almost as good as I remembered.

  #########

  I was up by seven-thirty, dressed, and raiding the kitchen. Mom had pancakes with fresh butter and our cracked yellow gravy boat full of syrup waiting beside a platter piled high with sausage. I smiled at the two-percent milk as she filled my glass. That was her one concession to health-conscious food. She seemed to think it balanced out a plate full of grease and sugar, especially if I had several glasses of it.

  Again, she tried to stuff me, but I begged off after the first plate, knowing how hot it was going to be on the old tractor by noon. She argued that I didn’t need to get to chores so soon, that I could surely sit and talk with my one and only mother. Knowing she had too many questions I didn't want to answer and she didn't know how to ask, I convinced her that chatting in the long heat of the afternoon would be better, so she let me cut the meadow first.

  The brush hog was already hooked up to Dad’s pride and joy, a battered John Deere. The thing had been old when I was barely a dirty thought in his mind, but Dad wouldn’t let it go despite my endless begging for something with a cab and air conditioning. He always replied that such newfangled things as tractors with air conditioning were for guys with more trousers than pants. I couldn't see why it mattered what you called them, but as with many of my father's sayings, it mattered to him. I found a grease gun and put a
few squirts in all the fittings before firing her up. The tractor rumbled to life on the first crank, as always. Maybe he had a point after all.

  By ten, the sun was showing no mercy. The meager shade of the once-red umbrella-style sunshade arching up behind me was more joke than relief. Even with my Beats covering my ears, I could barely hear Black Sabbath over the roar of the tractor. Mom would never have approved of music from a band with such a Satanic name, but then I'd done more than a few things Mom would never approve of. A little Sabbath on the tractor didn't mean much after that.

  Dust soon caked my sweat-soaked clothes and made muddy tracks on my face and neck. The foam-rubber lump Dad had duct-taped to the metal seat in imitation of a cushion was pretty pointless, and the pounding my poor cheeks were taking had surely cost me at least one vertebra already.

  The bluestem was tall and thick that year thanks to the regular rains in the spring and early summer, and I had to take my time, making sure the aging brush hog could keep up. Despite the heat, dust, and growing misery in my lower back, I was enjoying myself as much as I had the first time he let me take the tractor out alone. I was far from sight of the road in case anyone happened to be snooping around, and I felt safe, at least for the time being. Even filthy and sore as I was, it was good to be home.

  Running down one half-mile row after another, ball cap pulled low, with a faded blue bandana firmly tied over my nose and mouth to keep out the worst of the dust, I plodded along with my butt getting steadily number. I finally finished and parked the tractor and brush hog back in the barn.

  After rinsing off at the faucet by the feedlot, I decided to go for a walk around the place. I called Useless to join me, but he just gave a low groan, clearly saying he preferred to hold down his spot of shade rather than traipsing along behind me in the heat. I gave him a good hard petting while he stretched in appreciation. Then I had to scrub the black film off my fingers from his rarely washed hide, realizing how much I’d missed him.

  Finally, back among the oaks and cedars of home, I broke into a jog down old deer trails. The peace of being in a place where I knew every turn of the path so well, I could run them in the dark without losing an eye to low limbs was bittersweet. I knew the Stanglers would find me eventually. I couldn’t hide on the farm forever, and that constant threat, real or imagined, would have to be dealt with before we were safe—or at least as safe as we could be in a world where best friends could get their throats cut for going fishing on a favorite beach.

  One particular leaning oak caught my eye. It angled so gently to one side I could almost run up its trunk to the fork where I used to hide myself away with a good book and a ham sandwich while “hunting.” I climbed up and settled in the spreading branches, wondering how I could possibly have spent so many long hours reading Louis L’Amour and Robert Jordan books with the rough bark digging into my spine and tailbone. I’d been a foot shorter and fifty pounds lighter then, but still.

  I looked across a field and noticed the sun was maybe three-quarters of the way across the sky. Dad would be pulling in soon. Mom was already hard at work in the kitchen, and both would be worried if I disappeared again, even for a short time. I waited in the hot shade for another half an hour then slipped over the side of the limb, hanging from fingers grasping the crumbling bark and doing ten quick chin-ups before dropping to the old leaves below.

  Instead of catching my weight on bent knees, I did one of the paratrooper hit-shift-and-rotate moves Dad had taught me when I was five, rolling my weight down the side of my calf, thigh, hip, and ribs before allowing momentum to spin me across the back of my shoulders and outspread arms, coming up running from a dusty sideways cartwheel. It was a little more painful than I remembered.

  Halfway home, I found Useless trotting down the trail and looking for me, suddenly game for a run now that his nap was done. He gave a short woof and spun around, kicking up dust with all four feet as he sprinted away. We raced back to the house, twisting around tree trunks and jumping ditches and briars. Despite his ten years and graying muzzle, he still managed to beat me back to the yard, but we were both panting by the time I tackled him just short of the porch steps.

  I ended up with a face full of dog slobber and my back covered in stickers, but I figured feeling twelve again for at least a few minutes was worth it. Useless fake-snarled in agreement.

  Chapter 9

  “Well, would you look at the hippie,” Will said. “Where the hell have you been?” He hadn't changed much while I was gone. He was my height, just short of six feet, but was wirier and whipcord lean than me. Fat just melted off him and turned to lean muscle in a way I'd always envied. He had the same laughing brown eyes and dark buzz cut as always. His Wranglers were faded but clean under a T-shirt with the sleeves cut off.

  On Friday evening, Will had just come home from working a twelve-hour night-shift job and slept during the day—four on and four off. Mom told me he didn’t come home every morning. She thought he had a girlfriend someplace but said Will refused to talk about it.

  “Chillin’,” I replied with a fake-casual shrug.

  “Really? Months without a word, and that’s the best you can come up with?"

  I looked down for what seemed a long time. “Remember when we used to talk about moving to the quarry if things got bad or we had to hide for a while?”

  "No crap? Dad hinted that he kicked you out but wouldn't tell me squat. What did you do?"

  I thought of Eades’s body settling in the dust, and my throat went all tight. "I can't tell you. Not yet."

  Will laughed and started to say something but took another look at my face and seemed to change his mind. "You're really not going to tell me?"

  "Not anytime soon," I said. "But someday when we're old and really drunk. Maybe then."

  Surprisingly, he just nodded and seemed to accept it, but I knew he didn’t plan to let it go that easily.

  "Why didn't you tell me where you were going, at least? I'd have gone with you. You're my brother."

  I thought about that for a minute. How different it would have been if I hadn’t been alone.

  "So you’ve been living in some railroad shack for six months? What did you eat, wild man? You never could hunt for crap.”

  “You’d be surprised,” I said, “what a man can do and what he’ll eat when he’s hungry enough. I set traps, hunted, ran your lines."

  Will laughed. “A man, did you say? Horse crap! You’ve been playing Jeremiah Johnson in a cave for six months? You got to be kidding. I mean, you smell like it, but seriously?”

  “Ate pretty much whatever I could find at first, and I didn’t live in some shack. Remember that cave we always talked about? I found it and spent the winter there. Then I met a guy in the woods, and he took me in. Taught me some stuff.”

  “I bet he did, with that long, pretty hair of yours." He smiled at that in a way I hadn't seen from him since I was little. "Don't do it again,” he said quietly. Suddenly, Will reached out and pulled my hair. “But this shaggy-dog look has to go, and what are those? Whiskers? Puberty finally came, huh?”

  “Think fast,” I said and punched him in the short ribs.

  He used his grip on my hair to throw me onto the couch and rained down punches on my arms and legs until I got a hold of him and rolled us both onto the floor. He wasn’t as strong as I remembered but was still too quick for me. We wrestled and punched for several minutes before Will grabbed me by the crotch and twisted, then he got a foot between us and kicked me over the coffee table.

  “Looks like your boyfriend put some muscle on you, at least. You’re stronger, but old age and treachery will defeat youth and vigor every time. You can’t take your big brother yet,” he said between breaths.

  “Not as long as he’s a cheating punk,” I said, my voice strained and my left hand cupping what he'd twisted. “You never could fight fair.”

  “Fair?” he said. “The only fair fight is one you win, Samantha. You always were too worried about the rules.” He
smiled and threw one of Mom’s needlepoint pillows at me. “We need to fix that.”

  #########

  That night was too hot, and I couldn’t sleep. Around eleven, I walked to the porch and found Dad creaking quietly in the porch swing. He motioned me over, patting the faded cushion beside him.

  I walked closer but sat on the porch rail instead, turning my back on the darkness. He didn't say anything but just sat there in the dim light from the living room window. So I told him everything. I didn’t mean to, but once I started, everything came boiling out: the cave, hunting, roots and wild onions, the filth that soon came to seem normal, the grave, the diarrhea, and my strange savior, Joseph.

  "Got pretty hungry sometimes," I finished lamely. "Pretty lonesome too."

  "Imagine so. Not many boys your age could have lived that way. Even off stolen groceries."

  "Dad, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have taken that stuff."

  He grunted and shrugged. "Your mom said all you took was ravioli and canned vegetables. We survived just fine without that bargain-brand corn she buys."

  I'd never heard that tone from Dad before. If he’d been anyone else, I would’ve thought his feelings were hurt, but this was Dad. I would’ve bet almost anything that wasn't even possible.

  "Can you forgive me?" I asked.

  "Forgive you? Ah, Sam. I should never have made you leave like that. Been cursing myself for it ever since. I let you down, Son. You did something terrible, but you were trying to do right. Just no way for a daddy to act." His voice cracked when he said daddy.

  "My life used to be boring. Normal," I said. Tears were running down my cheeks, and I was grateful for the darkness. "I don't even feel like myself anymore." I expected a response, but when he stayed silent, I said, "If not for Joseph, I wouldn't have made it. I'm still not sure I should have."