Rose & Poe

by Jack Todd

  “How would you know?”

  Airmail rolls his eyes. “I know things. If something happens in this county, Airmail is always the first to know.”

  Thorne hasn’t the energy to dispute that statement. From what he knows of the man, Airmail has been around as long as the granite, yet he doesn’t look a day over twenty-five. He has a mop of curly reddish-blond hair, eyes that are an unreal shade of cobalt blue, and the build of a gymnast on a frame that is barely taller than four feet.

  Airmail gets his nickname from his occupation: he tears around the county on a silver-and-black Kawasaki Ninja, delivering things. He runs a courier service for which he is the one and only courier. There’s a number you call. No one answers, but you leave a message and Airmail comes zooming to your door at speeds that are illegal everywhere in the world, even on the German autobahn — and yet Airmail never seems to get caught. More than once, Thorne has been on the highway, cruising along in his Volvo at a safe fifty-five miles per hour, when suddenly there’s a sound like a jet plane bearing down on him and a flash in the rearview mirror, and Airmail on his Ninja goes shooting past, a gray streak on black asphalt. Yet somehow, Airmail seems equally immune to death and the constabulary.

  Despite his failing memory, Thorne is certain there have been times when he did not place a call and Airmail came roaring up anyway. He hears the distant roar of the Ninja, and then it occurs to him that he does indeed have something that urgently needs to be sent to Bunker’s Corner or Hartbury, or even as far away as Boston or New York. Before the thought has even crossed his mind, Airmail is there, ready and waiting.

  When he isn’t hurtling hither and yon, Airmail seems to make it his particular business to annoy Thorne. He drops in at all hours and makes himself at home, complaining when there’s no Sam Adams in the fridge, helping himself to double handfuls of the jellybeans Thorne keeps on his desk, propping his tiny cowboy boots on the furniture.

  Airmail plunges both hands into the jellybeans. “I have something for you,” he says.

  “A delivery? Where is it?”

  “Nothing you can hold in your hot little hand. I have intelligence.”

  “You could have fooled me.”

  Airmail ignores the crack. “I have information you want.”

  “Such as what?”

  “Got a beer?”

  “You know where to find it. You always do.”

  Airmail darts into the kitchen, returns with a Sam Adams for himself and one for Thorne. “Here’s mud in your eye,” he says. They touch bottles. Airmail drains his, greedily, and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “That is saintly beer.”

  “Yes, it is. You said you have something for me?”

  “What’s the rush, captain? What’s the rush? I need another beer. You know how it is — the first one doesn’t touch the sides.”

  Warily, Thorne follows Airmail back to the kitchen and out the door onto the veranda. As much as possible, he tries to keep Airmail out of the house. He’s like bad feng shui. Airmail sits without being asked, tilts his chair back, and puts his feet up on the table. “Here’s the deal. There’s a fella in town and he’s got eyes for your girl. Don’t think she’s eyeballed him yet, but he’s been following her around.”

  “Miranda is the loveliest young woman in Belle Coeur County. It’s hardly surprising that she would attract the attention of various males.”

  “Ah. She is a lovely thing, Miranda. Lovely. Hence the need to keep the old shotgun oiled and loaded. But this is rather a different case. One that you might find especially appalling.”

  “Why is that? A man is a man. I’m sure Miranda can sort out the wheat from the chaff without my help.”

  Airmail grins, his teeth a tiny row of sharpened fence stakes. “See if this rings a bell. Dirty-blond hair. Spectacles. Looks about thirty, give or take. Kind of your weedy type, but with money. Family money, I’m guessing. Not his. The appearance of a man who has never done an honest day’s work in his life.”

  “That doesn’t mean a thing to me.”

  “Oh, it will. It will. He goes by the name Sebastian. I checked the register at the Manitou Mountain Motel. Sebastian from Boston.”

  Thorne’s face clouds. His voice, when he speaks, is thick as cold molasses. “From Boston, you say? Sebastian from Boston? Sebastian Coyle from Boston?”

  ~

  Skeeter & Moses, on the trail

  In the heat of the afternoon, Skeeter and Moe follow Poe’s trail up to the goat pasture. Flies buzz over the wide saucer-shaped footprints where Poe had stepped at dawn. The sign left by his bare feet is plain as a freeway.

  Skeeter and Moe are city boys staying at the Kids Kamp down by the river, the one run by Alf and Maeva Miller. Alf and Maeva solicit donations to send city kids out to the country for a little fresh air, then house them in a run-down motel. Most of the time, Alf and Maeva are too wasted to make them do actual camp things like hiking and canoeing, so the boys run wild over the countryside. Some of them get up to real mischief, but Skeeter and Moe have discovered tracking, and that’s how they spend their days. They amble along until they spot the trail of some wild beast, and then they follow it as far as they can, pretending that raccoons are bears, deer are buffalo, domestic cats are mountain lions.

  They’re out prowling for bear tracks when Skeeter spots the footprints in the mud, prints so vast he could line up both his size-seven sneakers inside one with six inches to spare. “Check it, Moe! Lookit this! It’s the Bigfoot, sure!”

  “Man, you’re foolish and dumb, Skeeter. That ain’t no Sasquatch track.”

  Skeeter bends to get a close-up squint at the footprint. “I didn’t say nothin about Squash-hatch. That’s Bigfoot. Got to be! Who else you ever seen has feet like that?”

  “I don’t know. You need to read up on things, Skeet. Bigfoot, Sasquatch, Yeti — that’s all the same thing, pretty much. The Abominable Snowman, too. But this ain’t no Sasquatch. You think somethin that big could live around here and nobody notice? C’mon, fool.”

  Skeeter points again at the tracks. “Count. Them. Toes. You know-nothin bastard, count them toes. Plain as day. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Six toes. Right foot. Left foot. Six toes. What kinda man you know got six toes? Anyhow, what kinda man goes around barefoot in rough country like this? Bigfoot, that’s what kind.”

  “A man can have six toes. I heard about it once.”

  “If you’re so smart, what else got feet that big? What?”

  “Poe, that’s what. Poe got feet like that.”

  “Poe? Even Poe ain’t got feet big as a manhole cover. Shut up, now. You’re gonna scare him off.”

  “Scare who?”

  “The Sasquank, that’s who. The Yechi.”

  “It’s Sasquatch and Yeti, Skeeter. Sasquank and Yechi. Don’t you never read no books?”

  “I read plenty books. Spiderman. Superman. The Insatiable Hulk.”

  “Them’s comic books, and all you done is look at the pictures. You can’t read, for a fact. Twelve years old and can’t read. I ain’t but eleven, and I been readin five years already.”

  Skeeter swats a wasp away and lets it go, intent on his tracking. A hundred yards farther on, he calls a halt to pee. “How big you think Poe is, anyhow?” he asks. “Maeva says he’s nine feet tall and he weigh seven hundred pounds.”

  Moe pauses to ruminate, peeing next to Skeeter the way boys do, in golden six-foot arcs that doused the milkweed.

  “That Maeva is crazy as a betsy bug. I seen Poe down by the bus station in Bunker’s Corner when we came in. He ain’t a inch over eight feet.”

  On the way back to the camp, Skeeter and Moe are passed by a man in a big black Cadillac, going real slow on the county road. He drives alongside them for a full minute, staring out the window. Moe thinks maybe the fellow is about to offer them a ride, and maybe he’
s the type who likes to prey on young boys, but then he stomps on the accelerator and the back tires of the Caddy spray the boys with gravel. Skeeter curses and flips the bird at taillights vanishing in the dust.

  “That man is up to no good,” Moe says.

  “No word of a lie. Rich white man, they all up to no good.”

  “Not like that. He’s up to some kind of special bad.”

  “Like what?”

  “How do I know what kind of bad? Special bad, that’s all I know. What else he doin up here?”

  Skeeter shrugs. “I dunno. I never seen him before.”

  “Nobody seen him before. He’s outta state. I couldn’t read the plate, but it ain’t local. How many strangers from outta state you see up here?”

  “Not many, I guess.”

  “Not none, is how many. Unless they’re out on the highway, hurryin from someplace to someplace. They don’t come nosin up this road. What’s up here? Nothin but goats and sasquatch tracks. That fella is up to industrial bad.”

  Skeeter nods, taking it all in. “Well, shoot.”

  ~ II ~

  A Rose Is a Rose

  Girl on a swing

  Rose is doing the washing up when she gets to thinking about the old porch swing at her father’s house. It’s been years since the swing crossed her mind, but something nudges her memory, and it’s so real that she can feel the bottom-worn boards and the chipped paint under her bare thighs and hear the creaking of the chains as she swung back and forth.

  Roses’s daddy, Guy Didelot, had built the swing as a birthday present for her mother, Sharon. When Rose perched on it, her legs dangled because they were too short to reach the floor, so her father would use his long legs to rock them back and forth. Through the open window, they listened to Sharon hum the “Tennessee Waltz” as she washed the supper dishes, while Rose and her father sat outside counting the fireflies. They were up to thirty-six. Rose had only counted the first five because that was far as she knew how to count, and five was how old she would be in a week. He was trying to console her. Rose had cried a bit, and she was still pouting because her parents were going to a dance on the weekend, and she was going to have to spend the night with her grandmother, Huguette.

  “I don’t wanna stay with Grandma. I hate her.”

  “Why do you hate her, Rosie?”

  “Because she’s mean to me, and she only talks French.”

  “French is the only language she knows. How is she mean to you?”

  “She don’t let me play my games and she don’t give me nothin to eat but bread and water. She sets right there eatin roast beef and she won’t give me a single bite. Then she has apple pie all for herself, with ice cream, and she don’t give me none, and I got to set quiet and watch her eat, the mean old thing.”

  “She does that? Maybe it’s because she thinks you’re a big girl. And she doesn’t want you to get too big.”

  “You mean fat.”

  “No, honey. I don’t mean fat. You’re just a big girl. Big-boned, like your Grandpa, God rest his soul. My daddy. He was as big as they come. You’re gonna be a big strong gal some day, and you’re gonna be a real help to your daddy.”

  “You mean that?”

  “I mean it. You can come to work with me when you’re old enough.”

  “Is that tomorrow?”

  “No, honey. Tomorrow you’re staying with Grandma while your mama and I go to that dance in Rutland. You’ll be fine. I’ll tell her to feed you up and not to be mean to you, or else.”

  “Or else what?”

  “Daddy will come home and spank her, that’s what.”

  “You’d spank Grandma?”

  “I would if she was mean to my little Rosie.”

  Rose laughed. A tinkly laugh. The way she laughed when her father teased her and poked his big blunt fingers into her ribs. He smelled of Aqua Velva, which he splashed on after supper, because he said it made her mother randy. She couldn’t imagine why he’d want Mama to be randy, because Randy was a mean boy down the block who called her fat and threw dirt clods at her. Adults wanted funny things, like to go to a dance and leave their little girl behind.

  The dishes were done, and her father said he had to go because Mama was going to be randy, so Rose had to get to bed because they all had a big day tomorrow, with the dance and all. From her bedroom window upstairs she tried to count the fireflies again, but she got only as far as two and then she fell asleep.

  She cried when they dropped her at Huguette’s the next afternoon. Cried and kicked her legs and hung on to the car door so that Sharon and Guy had to drag her off it, with Huguette standing in the doorway saying they had spoiled the child rotten and she would never allow a kid to act that way.

  ~

  The syrup truck

  They said it was somewhere between two and three o’clock in the morning and it was raining like the twentieth day of Noah’s flood. Guy and Sharon left the dance around one o’clock, and Guy had been driving along the unfamiliar stretch of Highway 5 north of Ascutney, through darkness like the inside of a molasses barrel, for what seemed like forever. The left headlight was out in their old station wagon and he had only one slender beam to light the way through the downpour.

  The truck appeared directly in front of him as though it had been conjured there, straddling the white line on a downhill grade. It was carrying a heavy load of maple syrup from Quebec, the driver frantically downshifting to keep from burning his brakes. Guy saw it in time to brake hard, but it was maybe the worst thing he could have done. The wagon skidded sideways, hydroplaning in two inches of water on the blacktop. Sharon raised her head from his lap just as the undercarriage of the truck sheared off the top of the station wagon, peeling it open like a can of tuna.

  When the state police arrived, the truck driver was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the road, trembling and weeping. Hundreds of bottles of maple syrup had been smashed on the wet asphalt, and the runoff from the rain sluiced away gallons of the sweet sticky stuff, mingled with blood and water and fragments of broken glass, all that was left of Guy and Sharon. They were buried side by side in the Hartbury cemetery on Rose’s birthday. When she and her grandmother got back to the house after the funeral, Huguette stuck a candle in a cupcake and said that was her birthday present and told her never to expect another present for the rest of her life because her parents were in holes in the ground and they weren’t coming back and Rose was lucky to have a grandmother to look after her so she wouldn’t end up in an orphanage.

  A couple of years later, an older boy at school told Rose that her parents had been decaptivated when that big old truck hit their station wagon. Rose had no idea what the word “decaptivated” meant. By the time she figured it out, she was twelve. After that, night after night, she dreamed that her headless parents had come to fetch her and take her back to the house with the porch swing. They were amiable folk who looked exactly like their photographs, except that they carried their heads tucked under their arms.

  ~

  The hayloft

  The loft smelled of hay. It was the scent of Friday nights, always the same. Rose was fifteen years old, and she was in love for the first time in her life. First Rose watched the football game from the very back row, sitting alone with a blanket wrapped around her legs, her eyes on number seventy-two, Rafe Skilling, then they went on to the hayloft.

  Rafe was a doctor’s son and a star football player. He was a senior and she was a sophomore, two grades behind him. In her high school, he was a god, untouchable, far beyond the reach of the likes of the orphan girl Rose. But one rainy afternoon, she was walking home after school and a car pulled over beside her. It was Rafe Skilling, asking if she wanted a lift. A quarter mile from her house, he pulled into a wooded area where they couldn’t be seen from the road. Rose looked at him, wondering.

  “Why are we stopping here?”


  “’Cause I want to talk to you,” Rafe said. “I’ve seen you around school. I think you’re beautiful.”

  Rose blushed. “I ain’t beautiful. Nobody thinks I’m beautiful. I’m a big-boned gal. That don’t bother me none. I am what I am.”

  “Well, I think you’re beautiful just the way you are. You have gorgeous red hair and green eyes and skin like fresh cream and you’re beautiful, and I like that there’s a whole lot of you. Anyhow, I’m a big-boned fella, myself.”

  She giggled. “I expect you are at that.”

  They sat and talked for an hour. Rose couldn’t say why, but they seemed to hit it off. And she could see that Rafe was mesmerized by her breasts, which were much larger than any other girl in school. He kept staring, and finally she smiled at him and undid the buttons on her sweater. “You can touch my titties if you want, Rafe. Suck ’em, too, ’cause I like you.”

  One thing led to another. They could never be seen anywhere together because Rafe was afraid his parents would find out, so Rafe picked her up from out back of the high school or behind the football stadium after games, which was when they started going to the hayloft. First he went by the drive-in and Rose crouched low with her head in his lap while he ordered hamburgers and cherry Cokes. Then they drove out to his grandfather’s farm because the old man was deaf as a post and never heard a thing, and they climbed up into the hayloft, where Rose couldn’t wait to finish eating and get her clothes off. She would rub the places where he was bruised up from football, then she would take him inside her, his big strong shoulders over her, his mouth on hers, and the sweet smell of hay and Rafe all mixed up while the moonlight streamed through the cracks between the weathered shingles of the old barn.

  Halloween night was the sweetest. Rafe buried his face in her neck and she opened her thighs to him, her body fertile as the sea. He made her feel so good her foot started to tremble, then the trembling went up her leg and seemed to explode where he was inside her, and it went on and on like an earthquake, gripping her with such power that she lifted her weight and his with the strength in her hips and legs, driving up into him and shuddering from head to toe. It had never happened to her before, but she knew that it was a climax like at the movies because she had heard girls talking about it, and she was pretty sure it was the most wonderful thing that could happen to a person. When they were done, Rafe drove her home, taking the back roads so they wouldn’t be seen.