Straw House

by Daniel Nayeri

  The Growin’ Man looked the farmer’s daughter up and down, admiring every piece of her. He gave a solicitous nod to Sobrino, then turned to go, leaving his new homunculus to dry up along with the other one.

  From where Sunny was standing, he could see the creature he’d dropped. Its green eyes, the color of fresh basil, were starting to go brown. As he left the barn, the Growin’ Man said, “I’ll be out back, settin’ up camp. Real pretty eyes she’s got, eh, Sunny?”

  Sunny took his hand off Dot’s shoulder.

  SUNNY STAMPED ACROSS the pasture with his sleeve up to his teeth, gnawing the straw like he was grinding cud. He spat the pulp and every once in a while hollered out, “Cotton . . . Aw, hell, cotton!”

  The Growin’ Man’s camp had taken over the chicken coop, along with the entire dirt lot behind the red barn. All the livestock had scattered before the homuncular gang could dismember them like the three mice. The chickens, senseless, a few of them headless, still had wits enough to wheel around the barn to the farmhouse. They huddled under the porch, cooing to each other till the farmer’s daughter arrived to listen to their grief. By midday more and more toys had tucked themselves into the porch, as though it were the hem of a mother’s skirt. Dot, a true farmer’s daughter, wasn’t much for dresses or sympathizing and chose instead to settle the children down, then get back to work. But a few of the anxious toys were babies, just plucked from the rows last season. It would have been a sin to leave them alone, so Dot kept the three wind­up chicks, a rubber duckling, and a couple field mice shivering in her shirt pockets. She went out to the barn to search for any toys hiding in the hay bales, and Sunny went into the pasture, looking for the livestock. Neither of them had an answer for the Growin’ Man’s invasion, but if they lost the livestock, then there wasn’t any point to it anyhow.

  Sunny kicked at the tall grass, missing Pup by a few inches. Pup was weaving in and out of his stride, leaping up to see above the grass line. He’d sniff and point with his muzzle in a different direction every ten feet, doing a cartoon impression of a hunting dog. The noonday sun was so bright, it made the boiling air drone in his ears and everything else sound far off. Sunny’d heard a long time ago of days so hot, the haystacks would spontaneously combust — moisture packed inside them would just roil up and catch fire.

  Sunny tried not to think of himself as a pressure-packed straw house, bubbling inside with tears he wasn’t pansy enough to spill.

  Sometime in the previous night, the stick horse must have snapped its halter as the Growin’ Man’s gang approached. It had scrambled all the way past the fence into the edge of the woods. Sunny found it first, hopping up and down at the trunk of the old oak next to Sobrino’s camp. It might have figured a homunculus couldn’t climb trees — apparently neither could stick horses.

  Sunny held it for a while, whispering his apologies for tying the creature in the exact wrong spot. He knew the horse wanted to hear that the fright was over, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it. It’d be coddling and likely untrue. Instead, he led the horse through a hole in the fence, across the hundred-yard pasture, to the front porch. Pup ran behind with his own encouraging yaps. As they passed the post on the crest of the hill, the ornery crow squawked; it seemed for no reason other than to startle the stick horse. Then it ruffled its neck feathers, cocky as a wrangler that just roped a bronco. The stick horse clopped up to Sunny’s rocking chair and fell down beside it in exhaustion.

  Sunny wiped his forehead with a handkerchief he’d found in a magic set and headed back to round up the electric sheep. He hollered, “Cotton!” as he straddled the split-rail fence and crossed the dirt road. They were trained as best you can train sheep to come running at the sound of “Cotton.” Which is to say, not at all.

  Sunny stepped well clear of where Sobrino had lit the fire. The crow had swept down from the post, followed the line of the earth, and rose up in time to clear the fence. It scooped into an apple tree right behind Sunny, to see what he was up to and to hurl insults at his backside. Sunny paid him little mind. If he wanted to, he could skewer the bird with a dart, and maybe he would, after he’d penned up the last of the livestock.

  Sunny ducked into a crab-apple glade. From here, obscured by tree branches, the fence line was a brown per­forated music staff. The crow cussed at him, and Pup yelled back. Of all the toys, Sunny hated the sheep. Fool creatures, clouds of senseless cotton balls, filthier than folks would guess. Even the hens rolled away from them — annoyed and afraid of getting caught in their mindless grazing.

  A sheep sees grass, and it eats grass. Figuring whether it was walking itself off a gorge or getting itself lost in a thicket was a little too taxing on its motor. Sunny imagined they’d trundled away from the Growin’ Man’s gang, bleating their terror, then stopped somewhere in the woods when they’d forgotten what they were bleating about. They looked down, saw grass, and hell if they could contribute a lonely cent to their own salvation.

  Sunny’d have to grab each one before it ran off, truss it up or flip the “Off” switch, and put it over his shoulder. No other way to get each mutton-headed one back to its own farm. Sunny grumbled, “Aw, hell,” just thinking about it.

  The crow shrieked again, Pup flipped, and a frightened ewe called out a slightly digitized bleat. Sunny jerked toward the sound. Over by a sapling grove, he could make out a grown man from behind, shirtless, with discolored spots along his back like the bruises on a banana. It was holding the sheep upside down in the air, shaking it as though it was one of the pigs. Instead of nickels, the sheep was frantically dropping pellets.

  Sunny hunkered down and sprinted toward the man, keeping upwind and out of sight. He dropped a dart into his palm. It had a gold runner with silver glitter. He dropped a raven-colored dart into his other hand. Sunny crossed the fifty yards of ground without a noise, snuck up behind the homunculus, and punched one dart down into the right shoulder and stuck the other one up through the right elbow. The homunculus bellowed, but before it could drop the sheep, Sunny sprang to its left and put another two darts into the shoulder and elbow joints. With its arms stapled in the locked-out position, the homunculus could only whirl around stiffly. Sunny leaped sideways and kept behind it, but only for so long as it took to drop a dart into each hand and stab them together through the plant’s neck. As he did so, he leaned forward and spoke in its ear. “You ain’t like her. You’re nothing but dead wood and timber.”

  The homunculus broke at the knees and toppled sideways. Sunny spat and reached up to bite another piece of straw.

  The ewe stared up at the sky, kicking its legs and fully expecting to start walking at any minute. Sunny picked it up, but it was struggling so hard to get away that he finally had to reach under its belly and flip the switch. Its low hum subsided, and the sheep’s head slumped.

  On the way back, Sunny looked up in the apple tree, but the crow had flown off. The fence, obscured by intermittent branches, looked like the stitches on a leather drum, holding the farm and the whole world together.

  Without warning, a spring rain started up, despite a mostly clear sky. Sunny let the droplets shower him, as well as the sheep on his shoulders. It was good growing rain, to make the crops hearty. The late-season planting would probably sprout by that very evening.

  Back when he was a hanging dummy, the rain would soak into his stuffing and make him heavy. His body would dangle, a wet lumpy sack, stretching his neck like taffy. But those were days he didn’t remember very well, like a childhood someone else told him about. Those were the days before the farmer had taken him off the scaffold and put life in his limbs. Now the rain was refreshing, plus it made Dot happy.

  Sunny was smiling by the time he entered the barn, everything damp and safe from kindling. His patience had been rewarded. And even though the farmer was yet to show his face, the kind rain was all the protection Sunny needed — or thought he needed — to go behind the barn and face the Growin’ Man’s fire. He set the ewe down in a stall and nodded to
Dot and Sobrino, who stood by the back door.

  The farmer’s daughter said, “Got one?”

  Sunny flipped the switch under the sheep’s belly and said, “This and the horse. Out on the porch.” The sheep took one look around and started to scuttle with held-over panic until Sunny pushed its head down. It saw a pile of alfalfa, lost the thought, and started eating. Sunny walked out and shut the stall.

  “Sunny. Sunny!” said Boy. He was dangling his legs from the crossbeam, looking down on Dot and Sobrino’s work. “Did you see me when you came in? I was up here, Sunny. Did you see?”

  “No, I didn’t see you, buddy.”

  “Sobrino put me up here. Sunny. Sunny.”

  Sunny was watching Sobrino lift a plank up to the back door while the farmer’s daughter hammered in nails. “What’re you doin’?” he said.

  “Have to bar it up,” said Dot. “They’re on the other side.”

  “Well, what good is that gonna do? They can just walk around.”

  “Well, then, they can walk around. This door ain’t open to ’em.”

  “Found one in the orchard already,” grumbled Sunny to no one in particular.

  Sobrino lifted another plank, and Dot hammered even harder.

  “We’re scared!” said Boy, bouncing.

  “Seems like it,” said Sunny. “He’s got us good.”

  Dot wheeled around and pointed her hammer at him. “You finished cleaning your mess yet? ’Cause you got sheep halfway to town.”

  “That ain’t my fault,” said Sunny.

  “Oh, ain’t nothin’ Sunny’s fault. If you only had a brain, right . . . Sheriff?”

  Sobrino kept busy pushing the nails into the plank with his thumb. Boy shouted, “Tell the farmer; they can’t harm us!”

  “Why didn’t you tell us?” said Sunny, staring her in her basil eyes.

  “I don’t know him, if that’s what you’re askin’. The farmer found me in town and grew me up.”

  “Why aren’t you like them?” said Sunny.

  “Why aren’t you?” said Dot.

  “They’re grown men; we’re grown boys!” shouted Boy. He was fixing to topple off the crossbeam. If Sunny had asked her again why she hadn’t told him, Sunny knew she’d have said ’cause he wouldn’t have understood, the implication being that he wasn’t old enough to understand.

  Sunny looked over her shoulder at the barred back door. It was a coward thing to do, by Sunny’s estimation, surrendering the chicken coop. He decided the whole lot of ’em was scared witless. Down to the one-legged horse, they were past hysterics, shivering in woolly-brained fear. They were hoping the farmer would show up and save them. Sobrino turned to look at him — an expression like realizing sheep won’t ever be shepherds. Sunny saw nothing but a broken old Mexican.

  If it weren’t for Sunny, they’d’ve all just let the rancher squat wherever he pleased. In fact, if it wasn’t for Sunny, thought Sunny, the Growin’ Man would be sitting on the farmer’s porch right now, with his gang running around lawless, busting up the toys for whatever pleasure they got out of it.

  Every gunslinger understood the principle. Any man who ever met another on the range, with nothing around to keep ’em civilized. They’d decide the law between themselves, with their two guns. And whoever was alive would be right. Whoever was right could have the can of baked beans.

  The other one could well die or hobble to town for somebody else to hold up the law on his behalf for his remaining days. Sunny knew that’s all a lawman did, really: win fights no one else could. Sunny squeezed his fists till they crinkled.

  He walked out of the barn. If either Sobrino or Dot said anything, he didn’t hear it. He dropped a dart into his hand and turned toward the chicken coop.

  PUP CAME BARRELING around the corner of the barn. When he reached Sunny, he was running so hard he went ten feet farther. Then he turned around, scrambled back to Sunny, and trotted beside him toward the chicken coop. He walked with his chest out, like a police dog. Sunny swung one foot out to push Pup away. Pup was lifted into the air, then landed and kept walking alongside his partner. This wasn’t no time to squabble with your deputy. Sunny stopped. Pup took a few more steps, stopped, then scampered back. “You ain’t coming along,” said Sunny. Pup wagged his tail. He was excited about coming along.

  Sunny shook his head no. Pup opened his mouth and let his tongue hang. “They’ll take you apart. Go on, git.”

  Pup yapped again and backflipped.

  “Sorry, Pup,” Sunny said. “I know you mean well.” Then he booted the dog ten feet into a grass bed.

  Sunny cussed at himself and put a sleeve up to his mouth. He dragged out a piece of straw and tried to rev himself up again. The encouraging rain had already passed over. There wasn’t even a straggling cloud to remember it by. He looked up at the infinite flare and had to shield his eyes.

  He said, “Aw, hell,” and walked on toward the coop. When he turned the corner onto the dirt lot, it looked more like a mining camp. The Growin’ Man was standing with his back to him, watching a homunculus digging in the dirt at his feet. Two others were pulling out the side walls of the chicken coop and propping up the roof on stilts to make a lean-to. One of them had ears like a cat, the other a snout. “Saw you comin’ a mile off,” said the Growin’ Man. He turned around, hands in his denim jacket, bubble-gum chaw dribbling down his chins.

  “Then you saw me chop down your boy,” said Sunny. He felt the rainwater coursing through his in-between spaces. The Growin’ Man chuckled at the idea. “A tree falls in tha woods, and not a real person there to hear it.”

  The homunculus fidgeting in the dirt behind him stood up. Its eyes were open, or rather its eyelids had been pruned so they never shut. They were Dot’s color, but five sizes bigger from constant use. That’s how come they’d seen him coming. Sunny glanced again at the builders with the inhuman snout and ears. They’d been grafted on from an early age. Sunny imagined that one could hear a wolf walking on snow and the other could smell the blood inside a human heart.

  The Growin’ Man made a chup-chup sound, a self-satisfied smacking. “You can breed ’em into any which size and shape. Tie a branch to they fo’heads, and they’ll spit up cherries.”

  “My dog can smell, too,” said Sunny.

  “Can’t make ’em quite like you, though. With feelin’s an’ such. Like how scared you ah, that’s sweetah than a nectarine.”

  The Growin’ Man licked his lips. He put a hand in his pocket. The same one he’d pulled the lighter from last time. Sunny took a step back. The Growin’ Man pulled his hand out. Sunny flinched. The Growin’ Man grinned and opened his hand to show a fistful of birdseed. He mused, “Thought I’d help you feed those hens’a yours,” and tossed some in the dirt.

  “Then you stole the wrong seed,” said Sunny. “Those aren’t for the birds. They are the birds. Left from the late planting. Give it.” The Growin’ Man shut his fist around the remaining seeds and shoved them back in his pocket.

  “You can’t grow ’em, anyway,” said Sunny. “You don’t know how.”

  “But ah will,” said the Growin’ Man. “Tell me, how come the farmah chose you of all those hangin’ dummies to bring to life? You special? He feed you somethin’ to make you walk and talk, and tell him how stupid he is?”

  Sunny cleared his throat and declared, “You’re all trespassing our land. This is your last warning.”

  The Growin’ Man was tickled. “A warnin’,” he said. “Well, ain’t that a decent jestchah.” Then he laughed and stepped aside. Behind him, where the wide-eyed homunculus had been working, was one of the sheep, its innards scattered from its belly. Sunny recoiled. The dirt was muddy with spilled oil.

  “A warnin’ seems real kind of you, Sheriff,” the Growin’ Man said, pacing. “A real do-right thing to do. Is that what you always aw? A do-right man?” Then he leaned toward Sunny, close enough to kiss him if he wanted, and whispered, “No, course not. You’re nuthin’ but do-right straw.”
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br />   Sunny couldn’t take his eyes off the gutted sheep. He squeezed his ducts with a thumb and forefinger to keep from crying. The pig-faced homunculus caught the briny scent and sniffed at the air.

  The Growin’ Man spread his arms as he expounded on his thoughts. “Ah imagine you’re feelin’ guilty, with this heah clockwork sheep remindin’ you that you aw yo’self a killah of mah peculiah brand of livestock.”

  That wasn’t what Sunny was feeling.

  “But ah would alleviate any of yo moral compunctions by informin’ you that my unfortunate herd heah is not quite alive, just half alive, so you go on feelin’ superior an’ whatnot to a degenerate such as mahself. For these toys of yours are very much living creations, an’ ah intend to dissect as many as ah I need to figure out why.”

  “You’re the only killer here,” Sunny said.

  “Don’t be hasty now, son. They’re still toys. You’re still just straw. Whatever that farmah has done, it’s cured you of bein’ inanimate, tha’s all.”

  Sunny wanted to cut every one of them down. He glared at the obese rancher, talking down to him for not being flesh, something better than a half-alive homunculus but not human either. The Growin’ Man just wanted better toys. He wanted them to imagine their own ways of hurting people. And he seemed to think that if he could give his cattle brains, then they wouldn’t be so mindless.

  Sunny nodded at the electric sheep. “You can’t eat it,” said Sunny, although he knew full well the Growin’ Man didn’t intend to. “It ain’t meat. It ain’t real.”

  “Then, why do you care?” said the Growin’ Man. He came so close that Sunny could smell the hot candy odor from his mouth. He was himself an overgrowth of flesh. “You ain’t real eithah, Sunny boy. You ’fraid ah won’t eat you when ah’m done?”

  He made that chup-chup sound, like he had mint jelly on the roof of his mouth. Sunny wouldn’t be able to hold off any longer. He was breathing like he’d run from clear on the other side of the vegetable garden. He looked at the sheep one last time and clenched the dart in his hand. He couldn’t do anything but leave it to them. For now, he’d have to run off, as though he was the thief. He’d have to tie off this part of the farm and gather all the toys to the porch before the men could get ahold of any more.