Ben Soul

by Richard George

Surely the Court can be lenient.”

  “What say you, the Jurors?” the Owl inquired of the assembled frogs. As one, each frog put on a mask, a mask of Vanna’s face. The vole cackled with glee.

  “Sorry, old chum,” the weasel said to Dickon. The frogs exchanged the Vanna mask for Vin Decatur’s face. The vole laughed shrilly. The weasel shook its downcast head.

  The frogs took off Vin’s face and put on a Ray Sincaine face. The weasel groaned. The vole chortled. The Great Owl turned sad, wise eyes on Dickon.

  “Condemned,” it said. “It is the judgment of this Court that you be sentenced to the outer cold.”

  “Can this court show no mercy?” a booming voice came from above.

  “None,” the Owl replied.

  “Then I must do it,” the voice boomed, and a great eagle swept in to knock the owl from the branch. The weasel and the vole hastened into the darkness where the weasel ate the vole, and choked to death on the rodent’s glasses. The frogs leaped as one into the nighttime abyss and croaked away.

  The eagle put a sheltering wing around the shivering Dickon. Dickon looked up at the eagle. The eagle had Ben’s round face and slightly crooked smile. Dickon snuggled closer to the warm feathers and listened to the strong beating of the eagle’s heart.

  In the morning, Dickon did not remember returning to bed or moving Butter over so he had room to lie beside Ben. He did remember the owl’s coming to him, to judge him, and the eagle’s rescuing him, and took this dream as an omen. He thought about telling Ben about his dream, but pulled back. He didn’t want to seem as dependent on Ben as the dream suggested he was.

  Ben wasn’t in bed. Butter, too, was gone. Dickon got up, put on his robe, and went to the kitchen. Two notes stood on the table propped against the saltshaker. The first, from Ben, was short:

  Dickon—I’ve gone to Wong’s for dog biscuits for Butter. This note for you was on the door. I’ll get my mail while I’m there. Be back some time this morning.—Ben.

  The second note was in Elke Hall’s formal handwriting. It read:

  Mr. Shayne:

  La Señora requests you come to tea today at 3:00 o’clock. She has matters of business to discuss with you. She also regrets her health is sufficiently poor today that she cannot offer you a more substantial meal than tea.

  Elke Hall

  Dickon frowned. Ben had put him off when he inquired what had transpired when Ben went to La Señora’s for lunch. Maybe La Señora would explain it all this afternoon. She had been conspiratorial before when she thought it necessary.

  Dickon made himself some toast and took down a jar of apricot preserves. He had just finished his breakfast and was dressing when Ben and Butter came back.

  A Note from Home

  Ben’s eyes were red-rimmed when Dickon let him in. Butter was subdued.

  “Good morning,” Dickon said. Ben nodded. His round face was drawn and gray. “What’s the matter?” Dickon asked.

  Ben held out a letter. “This,” he said. “Go ahead, read it.”

  Uncle Ben,

  I’m sorry to write this news to you. I can’t get hold of you by telephone, so paper and ink will have to do. Mama is too stressed out to write you about Dad. He’s in a bad way. Last Thursday he passed out driving the tractor in the east forty, and ran into the trees at the Coleman Corner piece. He got pretty banged up.

  Worse news, when the docs got through poking and prying at him, they discovered he has the big C, in his lungs and several other vital organs. Mama needs some support right now. Can you come?

  Your nephew,

  Lawson Soul

  “Oh, Ben,” Dickon said, “I didn’t know you had a brother.”

  “Hardin and I don’t communicate much. Too different. We were close as boys, but our lives have gone separate ways.” Ben rubbed his temples with both hands. “He never really understood why I didn’t want to settle down, get married, do something like farm the land.”

  “Do you know his wife very well?”

  “Enna was my senior prom date.” Ben tried to grin, and gave up. Tears started to pool in his eyes. “Enna Pinch, she was then. Hardin always seemed a little guilty that he wound up marrying her after I had dated her.”

  “Did he cut you off because you’re gay?”

  “Pretty much. We exchange Christmas cards. That’s about all.”

  “Are you going to go back?”

  “Yes. One thing I learned from Len’s passing. It’s important to say goodbye to people and events from the past. I’ll drive into the City today, and get a plane for Denver. I can rent a car there and drive to Berthoud.”

  “Do you need someone to go with you?”

  “No, but I do need someone to take care of Butter. Can you do that?”

  “Of course.” They were silent together for several minutes. Butter lay between them, quiet as well.

  “Come,” Dickon said, and pulled Ben to him. “Let it out, Ben. I’m here, for now, to share your trouble.” Ben wept against Dickon’s shoulder. He drank in the warm male smell of Dickon and his flannel shirt.

  Ben carried the memory Dickon’s smell with him to the airport. He was able to get a flight from the City to Denver without difficulty, though a snowstorm over the Rockies delayed the plane’s arrival. It was not snowing, then, in Denver, for which Ben was glad. He hadn’t driven on icy roads for many years, and didn’t want to re-learn those skills with an unfamiliar rental car.

  He found his way through the maze of freeways Denver had added since his college days and took Interstate 25 north toward Berthoud. He took the Colorado 44 exit west toward Berthoud, and just east of town turned off toward Bacon Lake. The Soul family farm lay on the west side of the road. In Ben’s childhood, it had been well out of town. Now subdivision homes stood just to the west of the boundary line. Ben turned in at the lane, and drove toward the old house he’d grown up in. It was two stories, still white, though it needed a coat of paint. A newer looking barn and other outbuildings stood behind it. A very bright night light lit the yard brighter than day.

  Ben pulled to a stop before the front door and cut the engine. Now that he was here, he was strangely reluctant to go up the wooden steps onto the porch. Memories flashed through his mind in a wild kaleidoscope. The time he fell off the porch as a toddler, sitting with his mother snapping string beans, sitting with his father of an evening as his father lectured him about honesty. Dark things and light things, jumbled together, memories Ben didn’t want to encounter. He considered starting the engine and retreating to the Denver airport.

  Before he could do it, a light went on behind the lace curtains at the window on the right side of the house. Then the porch light went on. A man, too young to be Hardin, but very like him, opened the front door and rolled out in his wheelchair. Ben sighed, and got out of the car.

  “Hi,” Ben said. “Sorry to come at such an awkward hour. Are you Laws?”

  “Uncle Ben?” the young man asked.

  “Yes,” Ben said. “When did you get the wheelchair?”

  “A couple of years ago. I argued with a tractor. The tractor won. Come on in. I’d help with your luggage, but, as you can see, I’m in no shape to carry bags.”

  “I can carry my own.” Ben went to the trunk and got his suitcase, a small black, soft-sided bag, closed the trunk, and walked up the steps. They creaked under his feet, just as they had the last time he’d walked up them.

  Laws opened the door for him, and rolled the wheelchair back in a smooth curve.

  “Fancy footwork with that,” Ben said. He went through the door. Laws followed him.

  “First door on the left,” Laws said.

  “The guest room?”

  “You’re a guest. Officially.” Laws spoke in low tones. “I’d offer you something to drink, but Mama doesn’t allow liquor here.”

  “That’s fine. I don’t drink very often, anyway.”

  “Uncl
e Ben?”

  Ben put the suitcases on the guest bedroom bed and turned to his nephew in the doorway. “Yes?”

  “Mama doesn’t know I wrote to you. Dad was the one who wanted me to write. Sleep in tomorrow morning, will you, until some time after nine? Give me a chance to tell her you’re here.”

  “Is she going to be upset that I’m here? I never quarreled with her, or your Dad, you know.”

  “I don’t think so. For his own reasons, which he won’t share with me, Dad didn’t want her to know, until you got here.” Laws shrugged. “Who can figure? It’s all about something that happened before my time. It’ll mean a lot to Dad that you’ve come. He’s not got much time left.” Laws brushed tears from his eyes. “He’s suffered enough, I guess. It’s time for him to go.” He started to back out the door. “Thanks for coming, Uncle Ben.”

  “Goodnight, Laws.”

  “Goodnight.” The wheelchair turned down the hall toward the back of the house.

  Snow Falls on Berthoud

  Ben turned on the light beside the bed, and shut off the overhead fixture. A midnight quiet wrapped the house in tiny noises. Toward the back of the house, he heard an electric motor whine briefly, and then he heard the upstairs hall boards creak as something, presumably Laws’s wheelchair, crossed them. He took off his clothes, carefully hanging them over the back of a rocking chair. The old house had no closets, and over the years since he had lived here the wardrobe had disappeared.

  The old guest bed, high off the floor, with a too-soft mattress and great pillows remained. He hadn’t slept in it since his childhood,