Winter Birds

by Jim Grimsley

  From the couch you feel Grove’s gaze, and you bring him fresh ice for his arm. He thanks you without moving. He asks, “Are the doors locked?”

  Amy answers, “I pushed a chair against the door in the back bedroom.”

  Mama stands, holding the coffee listlessly. “I’ll check the windows,” she says. She pulls her sweater around her arms, letting the sleeves dangle free. She walks from window to window, watching the reflection of her face in the glass. You follow her from room to room. In her bedroom you press your face to the glass and smile at the lightened fields. The moon is a pure white shining in the clouds. “There’s so many drafts in this house it’s a wonder we don’t all blow away,” Mama says softly from the back bedroom. She stands in the middle of the floor shivering. “This room is so cold. How do you younguns stay warm enough?”

  In her bedroom you study the tangled blankets on her bed. You hear her soft step and follow her through the door. She watches the highway, holding the coffee cup so close to her face that the steam envelopes her eyes. The snow has slowed. The flakes are smaller now, points of light that hang in the air. High in the clouds, the moon’s patch is brighter than a moment ago. The clouds are breaking. On the highway you see tracks of tires.

  “Did we check the screen door on the porch?” Mama asks.

  “I locked it,” Allen says.

  “That little lock won’t stop Papa,” Duck says.

  Mama sits in the chair again and sips coffee. You take her place at the window. When you lay your head against the glass the cold cuts like a nail through your brain. You study the snow in the roots of a sycamore. Someone turns the television louder. The blue light colors the room, soft on your brothers’ still faces. Frail laughter bursts from the box, but your brothers don’t laugh.

  When you turn to the window it is as if you know he is coming.

  Lights on the highway wavering in the snow.

  “The truck is coming again,” you say.

  Amy turns off the television. When Mama lifts the curtains from the window you can smell the soap she used to wash her hands. Gently she pulls you back from the window. This time the truck goes slower than before. You become afraid when he approaches the driveway. But Mama merely watches, fingering the edges of the curtains. “He’s driving past,” she says calmly.

  He honks the horn in front of the house, and you count the regular bray, once every four heartbeats, echoing in the silent room. The sound surrounds you and you shiver. Mama lets the curtain fall shut and paces the center of the room. Amy and Allen go to her and make her stop, embracing her as high as they can reach, but you are afraid to go near her. She gazes at the tops of their heads, her face drawn and pale. She watches the red lights through the curtains.

  When Papa vanishes you watch the field of snow. The clouds have broken into rags and the snow has stopped falling altogether. Across the rain-eroded rows in the fields and the deep ditches dug in the dark clay banks lies the perfect whiteness. While you watch it part of you is dissolved in it, and you are not afraid, you are blank. But you know such absolute emptiness will never last.

  In My Religion There Are No Laws

  Amy tells Mama she should go back to bed again, and get some more rest. “It’s no telling how late he’ll keep you awake tonight,” Amy says. “Lay down and close your eyes.”

  From the chair Mama answers hoarsely she gets no more rest lying down than she does sitting up. “I hear noises in the dark,” she says. “Half the time I think he’s outside my window, listening.” But she stands from the chair, goes to Grove and touches her palm to his forehead. At last she says, “Call me if you hear the truck.”

  She checks to see if the door is locked. You watch her disappear into the bedroom, the door closing without a sound. As soon as she is gone, Amy gestures for everyone to come close. “Don’t sit there like fools,” she says. “Papa could come back any minute. We got to keep watch.”

  You boys look at each other. Amy hisses for you to pay attention. She assigns each of you to a different window. Grove is to watch from the living room where he can still lie on the couch. Allen gets the side window in the dark pantry. Duck gets the window over the kitchen sink. He can pull a chair up to it so he can see out, Amy says. She will take the window in the back bedroom. As for you, since you like to stay outside so much, you can keep a lookout from the back porch. You can see all the way to the river from there.

  For a moment you watch each other, feeling like grown-ups. You troop off to your positions. Amy leads you on tiptoe through Mama’s room. Light from the window outlines Mama’s still figure. Her smooth arm covers her face.

  Amy gets to the back bedroom ahead of you. She stands by the door to the porch with her hand on the knob, smiling softly. You put on your coat and she opens the door for you. She kisses you lightly on the forehead as you step out into the cold.

  You turn and face the darkness. The first stab of the freezing wind makes the bone of your shoulder cry out. You huddle in the corner beside the wall of the house, sitting atop an old stove in the shadow. The stove has rusted orange and stains your pants, but at least the seat is dry. You count the eerie shadows in the back yard: the shed full of rusted tools and pieces of wagon wheel, the light perched on the tall pole beside the cedar, the old truck chassis, the clothesline, the trash barrel. Now and then a snowflake drifts through the air near the light. You count the flakes. You peer out as far into the dark as you can, to see if your Papa is standing somewhere out there. It would be like Papa to stand in the dark fields and watch the house where no one can see him. The yard is empty. You can’t be still now that you have thought of that. You have to stand where you can see the whole sweep of the river.

  Queenie prowls in the snow beside the bottom of the steps. When you open the door she stands, tail thumping, as if she knew you would be coming. You step down carefully and scratch her behind the ears. She sticks her wet nose in your hands. The yard is silent and overcomes you: you stroke the dog to warm your fingers. You lead her around the corner of the house where Duck can’t see you both from his window. In the shadow you kneel to take her ears in your hand. You gaze across the fields.

  At first you see only a gulf of blackness. The moonlight shines behind a thickness of clouds now, so that you are only gradually able to distinguish the field from the woods beyond. If he is there you only have to be still and wait. The cold encloses you, your breath hangs close. Moments pass. Once you almost turn to go back to the porch, figuring Amy could see him from her window, if he should appear. But then, against those distant trees, a momentary small fire flares, far off in the corner of the field. Someone has struck a match and thrown it into the snow.

  Wherever he stands he blends into the trees. Even though you saw the light you cannot see him now, he is a shadow among shadows. But you know he is there somewhere and you freeze in your place, watching. You might see him if he moves. You back slowly to the wall of the house and kneel in the snow. It wets the knees of your jeans.

  You wait for a long time. Once you glimpse a gray rhythm like legs walking, but it disappears. Up the road you think you might see moonlight on the windows of the parked truck, but still the fields are bare.

  Then you see Queenie. Wagging her tail at the edge of the field, staring at a point in the darkness. She lopes across the white furrows, and after a while you see where she is running: toward Papa, far off in the snow, a tiny darkness.

  High on the wind you hear him whistling.

  His good arm arcs at his side as he walks, and he carries something that gleams.

  Queenie brushes against his leg. He stops and looks down at her. The bright thing becomes still, a simple curve, and you do not know what it is until a glimpse of star-whiteness on a polished edge tells you the thing is a blade, is a knife, is cold and wind and moonlight joined in his hand.

  He pets Queenie for a while. Lays the flat of the knife on her back. Says something that the wind garbles to nonsense. Has he seen you? You flatten yourself against the h
ouse. He is walking again now, and Queenie cocks her head when he leaves her.

  You have to tell them you have seen him.

  Papa can cover ground like a snake.

  You slide along the house staying in the shadow. You hook the screen. Inside when you shut the door Amy turns to you from the window.

  “Did you see him?”

  “Look out there in the fields,” you say softly. “Near where the back road is.”

  The light goes out of her eyes. She turns to the window. “Come show me where.”

  You press your face against the frozen glass. When you point you watch the slow tightening in her face. “He’s got something in his hand,” she says, and slips from the room like a shadow.

  You find her beside Mama’s bed. You stand by the windows peering through the curtains. When Amy whispers the news Mama rises from the bed in her nightgown. She puts on the housecoat and an old sweater. “Can you see him?” she asks you, standing above you. You answer, “He’s by the clothesline now.” Amy stands behind you both and stares at the floor. Her hands have tightened to white fists. Papa stands dark against the snow. He hides the knife behind him as if he knows he is being watched. As you raise your head to tell her what he carries, she says, “Go make sure all the doors are locked, Danny. And send Allen Ray and Duck to me, Amy. We’re going to put some furniture in front of the doors.”

  Papa lifts the clothesline to walk beneath. The knife glistens with frost. Mama simply watches it and gives you both a push. “Do what I told you,” she says.

  You run to the back bedroom and bolt the door. Shadows move in the room. You feel a prickle on your neck. But only when you turn do you see the window, the curtains drawn, and Papa’s glittering face watching you from beyond the glass.

  You flatten against the door. You hear footsteps in the bathroom and call out, “Don’t come in here.”

  In the doorway Allen stops short. You pretend not to see him. You stare at your Papa through the window, and he sees you and doesn’t move. His harsh voice grates against the glass. He raps the pane with the handle of the knife and you look away. He sneers. A moment later Allen whispers, “He’s gone.”

  Together you and Allen pull the chest of drawers against the door. The work makes your shoulder throb.

  The chest of drawers had stood against an extra door that led directly to the kitchen. Mama had wanted to nail it shut. But now you unbolt it and beyond, in the kitchen, Amy nods her satisfaction.

  “Papa was at the window in here,” Allen whispers. “He saw Danny locking the door.”

  Outside, the sound muffled through the window and wall, something heavy lumbers against the porch screen.

  “I hooked it,” you say.

  “He can break the hook,” Amy answers.

  “But we put the chest of drawers right up against the back door.”

  “This house has too many doors,” she says

  You hear the screen give way like Amy said it would, and then you hear heavy footsteps on the porch. Papa curses when he bangs against the old stove where the snake plants and ice plants sit. But he cuts the noise short. Steps quietly. You can hear him breathing. Suddenly in the dark the paint and shadow form a good man’s face hanging in the air. Papa scratches the door softly. You picture the edge of the knife and Papa whispers something, and you touch the image of the man’s face and murmur words of your own, and just as the knife squeaks on the metal doorknob Allen whispers, “Don’t let him in.”

  A moment passes, another, and another. Papa lumbers down the porch and back into the yard. You take Allen’s hand and drag him into the living room. There you see Amy on her hands and knees. She glares up at you. “Don’t stand there, help me. Mama don’t remember where she left her shoes.”

  From the window Mama says, “He’s at the side of the house. He’s got that dog with him.”

  “Queenie?” Grove sits up straight.

  “I’ll beat her half to death for being with Papa,” Duck says.

  You run to the window yourself and gaze at the snow-covered yard where your Papa stands dark with the dog at his side wagging her whole body with delight. Now you can see Papa’s cool smile.

  Mama’s face washes white with moonlight.

  You hear the thump of Papa’s footsteps on the porch and then hear the rattle of the doorknob. He never makes a sound, till suddenly the door crashes with thunder. You see it jerk and bow in, the chair set against it bucking away. Mama steps to the doorway and watches.

  You think kitchen to bedroom to bedroom to living room to kitchen.

  Perfect circle of doors.

  You children all watch her and no one really sees when the door finally gives way. Cold wind whirls in. Papa lurches past the chair. His voice is low, almost a growl. You can see how drunk he is by the way he weaves as he stands. “Lock me out of my own goddamn house, will you?” He does not have to raise the knife, everyone watches it. When he lunges toward Mama she vanishes into the kitchen, and he is right behind her, the whole house trembling with his steps.

  The circle is a wheel, you are under the center, the hub is an eye looking down as you look up.

  You hold the curtain dumbly and hear your mother start to cry.

  When she rushes through the living room again her terrified gaze rakes all of you, and you see the slash in the arm of the sweater, though no blood on the gown inside. Papa follows after her, but smiles and turns to catch her in the other direction. Amy shouts, “He’s turned around, Mama,” in a clear falling voice. Amy ducks into the kitchen under the table when Papa turns to her. You can hardly breathe when he looks at you. But framed in the bedroom door you see your mother’s shadow, wrestling with the chest of drawers.

  She can’t get out of the house because of the chest. Now he is chasing her again, and she runs, and you run behind them both through the bedrooms, holding your breath. In the back bedroom you silently struggle with the chest of drawers till you have it far enough away from the door to get it open. Your shoulder throbs. Steps sound behind you, and frightened cries. You unbolt the door and turn the cold knob at the same moment that you hear your mother in the other bedroom, and when you open the door he has shoved her against the bathroom wall and laughs because he thinks he has caught her. But she sees the open doorway and the light from outside and runs toward it.

  Papa blinks as if he doesn’t know what happened. Then, before you can think to move, Amy is there, grabbing your arm and you and the rest gather blankets from the bed, pull on shoes and coats, spilling out into the moonlight and the snow.

  The cold bursts against your face. Ahead of you Grove runs across the snow, with Duck at his side to catch him if he falls. Grove frowns at every step and cradles his elbow tenderly. Amy and Allen wait under the last of the sycamores, blankets across their shoulders and hair tangled by the wind that sweeps in from the fields. Amy wraps a blanket around Duck and Grove, and Allen hands one to you that you clutch against your shoulders. The wind almost tugs it out of your hands.

  From the porch you hear the sound of cursing and footsteps.

  “Hide behind the tree trunks,” Allen whispers.

  “Where is Mama?” Duck asks.

  The wind rushes through the fanned branches overhead, a crying in the dark nets of shadow, the moon broken through the clouds and riding a clear black sky.

  Papa hawks and spits.

  Has Mama gone under the house again? No. A thrill runs through you. Only turn your head. There in the snow-planed field Mama runs through the stubble corn toward the swaying shadows of the pines.

  You hear Papa start to run and then you see him, and something cold rises up in your throat.

  The silver flashing up and down.

  You step away from the tree and so do your brothers, but Amy is the first into the field. You run and run and then, far off, Mama sees you and stops still. She waves you back, but cannot wait to see if you will do as she says. In the deep snow her steps falter. Papa’s longer legs carry him faster; he is a flattened sha
dow along the ground. He closes the gap between them and you think he will catch her if she can’t go faster. Amy calls out for her, and then so do you all, and Papa stumbles in the snow. Cursing, he rises, glittering white, and runs again, but Mama vanishes into the dark forest, her white gown dissolving into shadow.

  Ahead, Papa kicks free of another cornstalk and crashes to the ground.

  Amy calls you all to her side. “We better not get no closer,” she says. “Mama can’t hide with five younguns to look after.”

  “Is he going to kill Mama?” Grove asks, but no one answers.

  Papa roams the snow back and forth in front of the place where Mama disappeared. His steps wear a dark path in the snow. Over the wind his deep shouts carry clearly. “I’ll find you, you goddamn bitch. I’ll find you if I have to look behind every tree that ever grew!”

  Allen moves closer to Amy.

  “I know you hear me,” Papa shouts. “You better run if you want to get away.” He stretches out his good arm and the silver shines. “But don’t think your children will get away. I got them right out here in the field with me. You see them, don’t you? You ain’t going nowhere as long as they’re here, don’t you think I know it? You always would have traded ten of me for one of them.”

  A stirring in the bushes, a flash of white. You feel your heart rise.

  Papa sees the movement and rushes toward it.

  But when you see the wagging tail you know it isn’t Mama, it’s Queenie. She breaks free of the bushes and trots toward him.

  When Papa sees her he stiffens.

  He speaks more softly but you still hear. “You are a bitch just like this dog,” he says. Queenie sniffs his ankle, watching him talk. He lays his knife against her head. “You are exactly like this dog, do you hear me?” His arm rises with that gleaming at the end. From far away the motion is only a tiny arc of silver, but to Queenie it must seem like thunder when that silver blade descends. Again, again, again. Only after a moment do you understand what he has done. By then you can feel it all through you.