In the Heart of the Heart of the Country

by William H. Gass

  Above the snow, through the branches, I could see the peak of Pedersen’s house, and nearer by, the roof of Pedersen’s barn. We were making for the barn. Once in a while Pa would stop and watch for smoke but there was nothing in the sky. Big Hans bumped into a bush and got a barb through his woolen glove. Pa motioned Hans to hush. I could feel my gun through my glove—heavy and cold. Where we went the ground was driven nearly bare. Mostly I kept my eyes on Big Hans’s heels because it hurt my neck so to look up. When I did, for smoke, the faint breeze caught my cheek and drew the skin across the bone. I didn’t think of much except how to follow Hans’s heels and how, even underneath my cap, my ears burned, and how my lips hurt and how just moving made me ache. Pa followed where a crazy wind had got in among the oaks and blown the snow bare from the ground in flat patches against their trunks. Sometimes we had to break through a small drift or we’d have gone in circles. The roof of Pedersen’s house grew above the banks as we went until finally we passed across one corner of it and I saw the chimney very black in the sun stick up from the steep bright pitch like a dead cigar rough-ashed with snow.

  I thought: the fire’s dead, they must be froze.

  Pa stopped and nodded at the chimney.

  You see, Hans said unhappily.

  Just then I saw a cloud of snow float from the crest of a drift and felt my eyes smart. Pa looked quick at the sky but it was clear. Hans stomped his feet, hung his head, swore in a whisper.

  Well, Pa said, it looks like we made this trip for nothing. Nobody’s to home.

  The Pedersens are all dead, Hans said, still looking down.

  Shut up. I saw Pa’s lips were chapped . . . a dry dry hole now. A muscle jumped along his jaw. Shut up, he said.

  A faint ribbon of snow suddenly shot from the top of the chimney and disappeared. I stood as still as I could in the tubes of my clothes, the snow shifting strangely in my eyes, alone, frightened by the space that was bowling up inside me, a white blank glittering waste like the waste outside, coldly burning, roughed with waves, and I wanted to curl up, face to my thighs, but I knew my tears would freeze my lashes together. My stomach began to growl.

  What’s the matter with you, Jorge? Pa said.

  Nothing. I giggled. I’m cold, Pa, I guess, I said. I belched.

  Jesus, Hans said loudly.

  Shut up.

  I poked at the snow with the toe of my boot. I wanted to sit down and if there’d been anything to sit on I would have. All I wanted was to go home or sit down. Hans had stopped stomping and was staring back through the trees toward the way we’d come.

  Anybody in that house, Pa said, would have a fire.

  He sniffed and rubbed his sleeve across his nose.

  Anybody—see? He began raising his voice. Anybody who was in that house now would have a fire. The Pedersens is all most likely out hunting that fool kid. They probably tore ass off without minding the furnace. Now it’s out. His voice got braver. Anybody who might have come along while they was gone, and gone in, would have started a fire someplace first thing, and we’d see the smoke. It’s too damn cold not to.

  Pa took the shotgun he’d carried broken over his left arm and turned the barrel over, slow and deliberate. Two shells fell out and he stuffed them in his coat pocket.

  That means there ain’t anybody to home. There ain’t no smoke, he said with emphasis, and that means there ain’t nobody.

  Big Hans sighed. Okay, he muttered from a way off. Let’s go home.

  I wanted to sit down. Here was the sofa, here the bed—mine—white and billowy. And the stairs, cold and snapping. And I had the dry cold toothaching mouth I always had at home, and the cold storm in my belly, and my pinched eyes. There was the print of the kid’s rear in the dough. I wanted to sit down. I wanted to go back where we’d tied up Horse Simon and sit numb in the sleigh.

  Yes yes yes, let’s, I said.

  Pa smiled—oh the bastard—the bastard—and he didn’t know half what I knew now, numb in the heart the way I felt, and with my burned-off ears.

  We could at least leave a note saying Big Hans saved their kid. Seems to me like the only neighborly thing to do. And after all the way we come. Don’t it you?

  What the hell do you know about what’s neighborly? Hans shouted.

  With a jerk he dumped his shotgun shells into the snow and kicked at them until one skidded into a drift and only the brass showed. The other sank in the snow before it broke. Black powder spilled out under his feet.

  Pa laughed.

  Come on, Pa, I’m cold, I said. Look, I ain’t brave. I ain’t. I don’t care. All I am is cold.

  Quit whimpering, we’re all cold. Big Hans here is awful cold.

  Sure, ain’t you?

  Hans was grinding the black grains under.

  Yeah, Pa said, grinning. Some. I’m some. He turned around. Think you can find your way back, Jorge?

  I got going and he laughed again, loud and ugly, damn his soul. I hated him. Jesus, how I did. But no more like a father. Like the burning space.

  I never did like that bastard Pedersen anyway, he said as we started. Pedersen’s one of them that’s always asking for trouble. On his knees for it all the time. Let him find out about his kid himself. He knows where we live. It ain’t neighborly but I never said I wanted him a neighbor.

  Yeah, Hans said. Let the old bastard find out himself.

  He should have kept his kid behind them fences. What business did he have, sending his kid to us to take care of? He went and asked for snow. He went on his knees for snow. Was he ready? Hey? Was he? For snow? Nobody’s ever ready for snow.

  The old bastard wouldn’t have come to tell you if it’d been me who’d been lost, I said, but I wasn’t minding my words at all, I was just talking. Neighbor all over him, I said, he has it coming. I was feeling the sleigh moving under me.

  Can’t tell about holy Pete, Hans said.

  I was going fast. I didn’t care about keeping low. I had my eyes on the spaces between trees. I was looking for the place where we’d left Simon and the sleigh. I thought I’d see Simon first, maybe his breath above a bank or beside the trunk of a tree. I slipped on a little snow the wind hadn’t blown from the path we’d took. I still had the gun in my right hand so I lost my balance. When I put out my left for support, it went into a drift to my elbow and into the barberry thorns. I jerked back and fell hard. Hans and Pa found it funny. But the legs that lay in front of me weren’t mine. I’d gone out in the blazing air. It was queer. Out of the snow I’d kicked away with my foot stuck a horse’s hoof and I didn’t feel the least terror or surprise.

  Looks like a hoof, I said.

  Hans and Pa were silent. I looked up at them, far away. Nothing now. Three men in the snow. A red scarf and some mittens . . . somebody’s ice and coal . . . the picture for January. But behind them on the blank hills? Then it rushed over me and I thought: this is as far as he rid him. I looked at the hoof and the shoe which didn’t belong in the picture. No dead horses for January. And on the snowhills there would be wild sled tracks and green trees and falling toboggans. This is as far. Or a glazed lake and rowdy skaters. Three men. On his ass: one. Dead horse and gun. And the question came to me very clearly, as if out of the calendar a girl had shouted: are you going to get up and walk on? Maybe it was the Christmas picture. The big log and the warm orange wood I was sprawled on in my flannel pajamas. I’d just been given a pistol that shot BBs. And the question was: was I going to get up and walk on? Hans’s shoes, and Pa’s, were as steady as the horse’s. Were they hammered on? Their bodies stolen? Who’d left them standing here? And Christmas cookies cut in the shape of the kid’s dead wet behind . . . with maybe a cherry to liven the pale dough . . . a coal from the stove. But I couldn’t just say that looks like a hoof or that looks like a shoe and go right on because Hans and Pa were waiting behind me in their wool hats and pounding mittens . . . like a picture for January. Smiling. I was learning to skate.

  Looks like this is as far as he rid him.
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  Finally Pa said in a flat voice: what are you talking about?

  You said he had a horse, Pa.

  What are you talking about?

  This here horse.

  Ain’t you never seen a shoe before?

  It’s just a horse’s hoof, Hans said. Let’s get on.

  What are you talking about? Pa said again.

  The man who scared the Pedersen kid. The man he saw.

  Manure, Pa said. It’s one of Pedersen’s horses. I recognize the shoe.

  That’s right, Big Hans said.

  Pedersen only has one horse.

  This here’s it, Big Hans said.

  This horse’s brown, ain’t it?

  Pedersen’s horse has got two brown hind feet. I remember, Big Hans said.

  His is black.

  It’s got two brown hind feet.

  I started to brush away some snow. I knew Pedersen’s horse was black.

  What the hell, Hans said. Come on. It’s too cold to stand here and argue about the color of Pedersen’s god damn horse.

  Pedersen’s horse is black, Pa said. He don’t have any brown on him at all.

  Big Hans turned angrily on Pa. You said you recognized his shoe.

  I thought I did. It ain’t.

  I kept scraping snow away. Hans leaned down and pushed me. The horse was white where frozen snow clung to his hide.

  He’s brown, Hans. Pedersen’s horse is black. This one’s brown.

  Hans kept pushing at me. God damn you, he was saying over and over in a funny high voice.

  You knew all along it wasn’t Pedersen’s horse.

  It went on like singing. I got up carefully, taking the safety off. Later in the winter maybe somebody would stumble on his shoes sticking out of the snow. Shooting Hans seemed like something I’d done already. I knew where he kept his gun—under those magazines in his drawer—and though I’d really never thought of it before, the whole thing moved before me now so naturally it must have happened that way. Of course I shot them all—Pa in his bed, ma in her kitchen, Hans when he came in from his rounds. They wouldn’t look much different dead than alive only they wouldn’t be so loud.

  Jorge, now—look out with that thing, Jorge. Jorge.

  His shotgun had fallen in the snow. He was holding both hands in front of him. Afterwards I stood alone in every room.

  You’re yellow, Hans.

  He was backing slowly, fending me off—fending—fending—

  Jorge . . . Jorge . . . hey now . . . Jorge . . . Like singing.

  Afterwards I looked through his magazines, my hand on my pecker, hot from head to foot.

  I’ve shot you, yellow Hans. You can’t shout or push no more or goose me in the barn.

  Hey now wait, Jorge—listen—What? Jorge . . . wait . . . Like singing.

  Afterwards only the wind and the warm stove. Shivering I rose on my toes. Pa came up and I moved the gun to take him in. I kept it moving back and forth . . . Hans and Pa . . . Pa and Hans. Gone. Snow piling in the window corners. In the spring I’d shit with the door open, watching the blackbirds.

  Don’t be a damn fool, Jorge, Pa said. I know you’re cold. We’ll be going home.

  . . . yellow yellow yellow yellow . . . Like singing.

  Now Jorge, I ain’t yellow, Pa said, smiling pleasantly.

  I’ve shot you both with bullets.

  Don’t be a fool.

  The whole house with bullets. You too.

  Funny I don’t feel it.

  They never does, do they? Do rabbits?

  He’s crazy, jesus, Mag, he’s crazy—

  I never did want to. I never hid it like you did, I said. I never believed him. I ain’t the yellow one but you you made me made me come but you’re the yellow yellow ones, you were all along the yellow ones.

  You’re cold is all.

  Cold or crazy—jesus—it’s the same.

  He’s cold is all.

  Then Pa took the gun away, putting it in his pocket. He had his shotgun hanging easy over his left arm but he slapped me and I bit my tongue. Pa was spitting. I turned and ran down the path we’d come, putting one arm over my face to ease the stinging.

  You little shit, Big Hans called after me.

  3

  Pa came back to the sleigh where I was sitting hunched up under the blanket and got a shovel out of the back.

  Feeling better?

  Some.

  Why don’t you drink some of that coffee?

  It’s cold by now. I don’t want to anyhow.

  How about them sandwiches?

  I ain’t hungry. I don’t want anything.

  Pa started back with the shovel.

  What are you going to do with that? I said.

  Dig a tunnel, he said, and he went around a drift out of sight, the sun flashing from the blade.

  I almost called him back but I remembered the grin in his face so I didn’t. Simon stamped. I pulled the blanket closer. I didn’t believe him. Just for a second, when he said it, I had. It was a joke. Well I was too cold for jokes. What did he want a shovel for? There’d be no point in digging for the horse. They could see it wasn’t Pedersen’s.

  Poor Simon. He was better than they were. They’d left us in the cold.

  Pa’d forgot about the shovel in the sleigh. I could have used it hunting for his bottle. That had been a joke too. Pa’d sat there thinking how funny Jorge is out there beating away at the snow, I’ll just wait and see if he remembers about that shovel. It’d be funny if Jorge forgot, he’d thought, sitting there in the blanket and bobbing his head here and there like a chicken. I’d hear about it when we got home till I was sick. I put my head down and closed my eyes. All right. I didn’t care. I’d put up with it to be warm. But that couldn’t be right. Pa must have forgot the same as me. He wanted that bottle too bad. Now it was all gone. It was colder with my eyes closed. I tried to think about all that underwear and the girls in the pictures. I had a crick in my neck.

  Whose horse was it then?

  I decided to keep my eyes closed a while longer, to see if I could do it. Then I decided not to. There was a stream of light in my eyes. It was brighter than snow, and as white. I opened them and straightened up. Keeping my head down made me dizzy. Everything was blurry. There were a lot of blue lines that moved.

  Did they know the horse even so? Maybe it was Carlson’s horse, or even Schmidt’s. Maybe he was Carlson in yellow gloves, or Schmidt, and the kid, because he came in sudden from the barn and didn’t know Carlson had come, saw him in the kitchen holding a gun like he might of if it’d been Schmidt, and the kid got scared and run, because he didn’t understand and it’d been snowing lots, and how did Schmidt get there, or Carlson get there, if it was one of them, so the kid got scared and run and came to our crib where the snow grew around him and then in the morning Hans found him.

  And we’d been god damn fools. Especially Hans. I shivered. The cold had settled in my belly. The sun had bent around to the west. Near it the sky was hazy. The troughs of some of the drifts were turning blue.

  He wouldn’t have been that scared. Why’d Carlson or Schmidt be out in a storm like that? If somebody was sick, they were closer to town than either the Pedersens or us. It was a long way for them in this weather. They wouldn’t get caught out. But if the horse was stole, who was there but Carlson and Schmidt or maybe Hansen to steal it from?

  He goes to the barn before the snow, most likely in the night, and knows horses. Oats or hay lead it out. He’s running away. The blizzard sets down. He drives himself and the horse hard, bending in the wind, leaning over far to see fences, any marks, a road. He makes the grove. He might not know it. The horse runs into the barberry, rears, goes to its knees; or a low branch of a mossycup he doesn’t see knocks him into a drift; or he slides off when the horse rears as the barbs go in. The horse wanders a little way, not far. Then it stops—finished. And he—he’s stunned, windburned, worn like a stone in a stream. He’s frozen and tired, for snow’s cold water. The wind’s
howling. He’s blind. He’s hungry, frozen, and scared. The snow is stinging his face, wearing him smooth. Standing still, all alone, it blows by him. Then the snow hides him. The wind blows a crust over him. Only a shovel poking in the drifts or a warm rain will find him lying by the horse.

  I threw off the blanket and jumped down and ran up the path we’d made between the drifts and trees, slipping, cutting sharply back and forth, working against my stiffness, but all the time keeping my head up, looking out carefully ahead.

  They weren’t by the horse. A hoof and part of the leg I’d uncovered lay by the path like nothing more went with them. Seeing them like that, like they might have blown down from one of the trees in a good wind, gave me a fright. Now there was a slight breeze and I discovered my tongue was sore. Hans’s and Pa’s tracks went farther on—toward Pedersen’s barn. I wasn’t excited any more. I remembered I’d left the blanket on the seat instead of putting it on Simon. I thought about going back. Pa’d said a tunnel. That had to be a joke. But what were they doing with the shovel? Maybe they’d found him by the barn. What if it really was Schmidt or Carlson? I thought about which I wanted it to be. I went more slowly in Pa’s tracks. Now I kept down. The roof of Pedersen’s barn got bigger; the sky was hazier; here and there little clouds of snow leaped up from the top of a drift like they’d been pinched off, and sailed swiftly away.

  They were digging a tunnel. They didn’t hear me come up. They were really digging a tunnel.

  Hans was digging in the great drift. It ran from the grove in a high curve against the barn. It met the roof where it went lowest and flowed onto it like there wasn’t a barn underneath. It seemed like the whole snow of winter was gathered there. If the drift hadn’t ended in the grove it would have been swell for sledding. You could put a ladder on the edge of the roof and go off from there. The crust looked hard enough.