The man was huge. Sterno got in the car.
15.
Twice on Sunday Millie tried to sneak away from the farm to check on her Pinkerton, twice she was pinched before making it out of sight of the house—once at the gate, by Junior, then down the road a piece, by Pa in his pick-up. “Heck, you might a made it if you’d ever put some grease on that bicycle a yours,” he said. When he pulled the pick-up up to the house Millie leapt from the wood-slatted bed before Pa had even set the brake, and was chased to the barn by the sounds of the screen door of the house slamming open and Mother hollering at her. She followed Millie all the way to the ladder, but stopped short of setting so much as a foot on the bottommost rung. Not after last time. Millie waited until she left before scanning the horizon, the roads, for any sign of a car, any sign her Pinkerton was coming to check in with her, but saw nothing. She might have to wait till dark, or a workday, when Mother couldn’t be so…so vigilant, to go into to town and see what he has found out. Tomorrow morning, maybe.
“When the hell are you gonna get a shit-blasted telephone?” she yelled down through the hay door, then said quietly to herself as she turned to her letters, “Couple a hayseeds if ever saw one.”
In the meantime, she was getting to the hairy part of her story, the dark and confusing part, and she needed to figure some things out, so like or not, it was probably best that she got to work right here in the barn instead of chasing her Pinkerton around.
*
Last winter, it had only gotten colder and colder as the weeks passed—the coldest winter Millie had ever known. Maybe it was the cold that had been getting to the lovey-dovers, she didn’t know. Something had been having an effect on them. When she looked over the letters from January and the first part of February there was a feeling of pressure, and of fear (and this was before Valentine’s Day). They were worrying a lot, and warning each other, all in their letters. The world seemed to be creeping in on them—that’s how Millie pictured it, like cold coming in, taking over a house.
My Sweet Love, Jan 15, 1922
I write in segments, for my house is full of angry men. Something is happening between Daddy and that McMurray Oil Company from Oklahoma. These men, who I do not know, are here to help him “handle” it. None of it means anything to me. Daddy clomps around the house, looking for things to rant and rave about. He’s worse than he’s ever been. He’s worse than he was when I was a girl. He keeps coming in to my room to check on me, walking right inside like he’s going to surprise me doing something wrong. I am considering putting a lock on the door. I am twenty-one-years-old, a grown woman, am I not allowed some privacy?
Maybe I should have never gone to the college. I would not have seen a different world and would not hate Price as I do now. Maybe if I had stayed home, as Mommy and Daddy wanted, then I would not be so miserable here. But then what, my Sweet Love? Then I would not have seen you in the park that day, would not have sat down despite my fears, and would not know happiness. Then I would be on my way to marrying Geshen Neuwald, as was always the grand plan for me. A plan made by persons who are not me. Can you imagine that? Geshen and me married, living on his horrible moonshine farm with that brother of his?
Oh how I long to be away from here, my Sweet Love. Away from this sad, angry house and away from this town. I am only happy when I am with you, in our cabin, fighting off the cold with the heat from our love. Is it possible, Tommy, that we can get away from here someday, where we can love each other and not have to keep it a secret? Or is it just a dream we dream out loud.
Oh, here he comes. I love you, Tommy. I cannot wait to see you again.
Flora
Millie read this letter a few times in a row. She was sitting over by the west-facing hay door now the sun was starting to go down. After each reading, she would stare off into the corn of Pa’s bottom field, blinking.
Secrets, secrets, secrets, to hell with all these sneaks and their secrets. What happens to you when you become an adult that makes you so dishonest? What do adults do that is so shameful that they have to run around doing it, doing it…deceptively? Tommy and Miss Flora, Junior with that letter of his from the war he had squirreled away somewhere like a written confession, Mother and Pa with all the things they never say to each other. Seems like all grown-ups do is go around lying to each other. Made no sense to Millie. And by the way, what kind of “grown woman” called her parents Mommy and Daddy?
Not her business, she guessed, what she called her parents. And besides she had more important questions. About Tommy and Flora. About love. Maybe the most important of them all: if you love someone, really love someone, why wouldn’t you want the whole world to know about it? If falling in love is so damn great, then folks should be going to the top of a mountain to yodel about it at the top of their lungs, not slithering around in the woods in the dark. What kind of life can you expect to have with someone if it starts out on lies and sneaking? How could Tommy ever trust a girl who had to deceive her father to be with him? The mayor and probably the nicest man in Hope County.
Millie remembered that it was about at this time last winter—towards the end of January—that she had begun to worry. These suspicions and doubts she had the time now to consider had at the time been just feelings, small feelings itching at her insides. Only now, these months later, did she really know they had been there at all, these feelings, and that they had most likely centered on Miss Flora and how desperate she seemed to get away from her home. Something about that didn’t seem right.
And Tommy was sneaking around behind Junior’s back to see her; and that definitely wasn’t right.
Darling, Jan 29, '22
Yes, Darling, I have heard about your father’s troubles with the oil men. I've heard they have pulled out, and that your father has been left holding a lot of land. Darling, be careful around your father; do not mention me, ever. You never know how a man under so much pressure might react. Yet, there is another reason to be careful, not just your father, but my brother:
He stood outside my bedroom door last night, again. Just standing there, breathing. He was waiting for me to try to leave…at least I think he was. To be honest, he is scaring me a little. His night terrors shake the house sometimes. He still doesn’t speak out loud while he dreams, not words, just the “hay” or the “hey” or whatever it is he’s saying, and he screams the most terrifying, childlike screams, and he growls, and sometimes he flings himself from the bed, throws himself against the wall or tries to hide under the bed. Pa won’t let Mother go to him while he’s like this, none of us, so we have to wait outside his door until it is over to see what he has done to his room this time, or see if he has hurt himself.
I don’t know what to do, Flora, I just don’t know what to do. If he is awake at night when I am here, then he is surely awake when I am not here. He must wonder where I am in the middle of the night, or perhaps he knows already. Millie following me out doesn’t help either, because he’s always two steps behind her. He feels like he has to protect her, just like he was with you when we were kids. He’s bound to find us out. My God I would hate for him to come into that shack while you and I are in there. I hate to even think what would happen.
Love, Tommy
Millie got a cold feeling down the inside of her spine, reading the way Tommy described the nightmares. She had heard the noises, often, but had never set foot out of her bed to stand in the hallway with everyone else. She was frozen to her bed every time. In the daylight hours, Junior was Junior again, working, throwing her the football from clear across the east field, and she could forget what he turned into at night.
Then came Valentine’s Day, and she finally saw what that bad thing inside him, whatever it was, could do to him. The way it could run through him from the inside out, and land on his face, and deform it.
She had known there was nothing in the world that could keep the king and queen of the lovey-dovers apart on the holiday of sappy, sickening lovey-dovers. So on the night of Valen
tine's Day she donned layers of clothes she had heated at the stove, wrapped a piping hot brick in a pillowcase to carry before her and set off into a wind chill below zero. Her only solace as she battled the freezing wind from the east was that it would be at her back on the way home; still it took all her will and strength to get to those woods that night.
In her nook on the lee side of the fallen tree, with her warm clothes and hot brick, she felt almost comfortable. Before she knew it, she was asleep. She gasped awake soon thereafter, her clothes cold and the hot brick was now just barely warmer than her skin. It was not the cold that woke her though, but the sound of an engine. Teeth chattering, she leaned forward, took the blanket from her head, looked toward the sound.
Headlamps from a car, no, two cars, bounced through the trees, swept side to side, swiped up to flare like bottomlit lightning on the underside of the bare branches, then down into the dead underbrush. They were coming right at her.
"Who in hot and cold hell would--?"
Before she could react, several smaller shadows bubbled up before her. She ducked back into her nook as wild dogs, ten, twelve, fifteen of them, flew by her—black streaks against the black woods. One of the dogs, the largest of them, stopped in front of her to look back at the lights before racing after the rest of them. Eyes wide, jaw hanging, Millie watched them disappear into the woods opposite the clearing. When she turned back the legs of a man were directly in front of her.
She leapt back into the hollow, but the man reached down after her, pulled her out by the arm. She came fighting, until she saw it was Junior. “Junior! Let me go—“ But he was looking towards the lights too, and the look on his face was enough to quiet Millie. There was another shadow moving in front of the cars, silhouetted in their headlamps’ beams. A horse.
Tommy reined Sonnet to a stop just feet from them; she circled twice under his hand, then finally went still. Her breathing was louder than the engines of the car. “We got to get out of here Junior.”
Junior just looked at him.
It took Tommy a few seconds to understand something Millie, these months later, still didn’t understand. “Not now, Junior,” he said. “This is not the time right now.”
Junior lowered Millie to the ground. He kept his eyes on Tommy.
“I was going to tell you, Junior.”
Junior took off his coat, rolled up the sleeves of his flannel.
“She’ll be safe with me, Junior. She will. As soon as we leave town.”
With one hand Junior pulled Tommy from the horse by his wrist. Spun him around and sent him flailing to the ground. Stood over him waiting for him to get up.
“What in all of hell’s gotten into you, Junior? Have you gone crazy?” Millie said, pulling at his arm.
Junior flicked her free of his wrist like a grasshopper, turned and gave Tommy a goading push with the inside of his boot, egging him to get up. On his hands and feet. Tommy backed up until he reached the trunk of a tree. “I’m not going to fight you tonight,” he said. “Junior, listen to me. Those cars are coming here, to this pond! Here! You have to get Millie out of here. We can’t talk about this now.” He stood to his feet, panted as he and Junior locked eyes.
It was the mention of her name that finally snapped Junior’s spell. The car and truck had turned from their course, their headlights now moving to the east of the clearing.
“They’re going around something,” Tommy said. “But they’re coming here—there’s nowhere else for them to go.”
“H-y,” Junior said to Millie. He grabbed her wrist, pulled her alongside him.
“Let me go, goddamnit, you crazy nut!” This time he swept her up and threw her onto his shoulder like a sack of feed. She swatted and punched at him, but it was no use. When she looked to Tommy for help she saw him mounting Sonnet. He was right: the cars had turned back—following a path, probably—and were headed right for the clearing. And they were close.
Junior started up in a jog that turned into a sprint when they hit the freezing winds of the fields. He ran the whole way home. Millie kept expecting to see Tommy riding up behind them but he never came.
When they reached the house, Junior, now sweating despite the cold, dropped her to her feet, then bent over with his hands on his knees, huffing steam into the dry, cold air like a horse. Millie stood facing the wind. She heard a gunshot, then another, then two more quick ones. The wind carried the tiny reports to them across this long distance, but there was no mistaking the sound. Junior looked up from his panting, but only for an instant.
“Junior…” Millie said. “Where’s Tommy, Junior?” She faced the wind, searching, until her nose hurt from the cold. It was then she was picked up from behind, carried to the house and inside.
*
Millie pulled a chair up to the window in the dark living room, waited while Junior sat in his chair behind her. Something was happening in those woods and if she needed proof that something was happening it came to her as she gazed across the night. Every now and then, when the wind was right, a swell of orange light flickered dully from within the woods. A fire. But it would have to be a big one to see all this way.
At last she saw the horse, and at last she could breathe. Tommy finally came through the twin elms, went directly to the barn. Sonnet was sweating, lathering, but she and he both looked to be okay. Millie met them in the stables. He was hanging the saddle while Sonnet drank.
“Who were the men in those cars? What were they doing in the woods?”
Tommy was breathing hard too. He searched her face before answering. “Just men.”
“What was that big fire all about? What were they doing in the woods?”
“They were…they were shooting dogs.”
“Shooting those wild dogs again. On the coldest night of the year? That’s horseshit if I ever heard it. What’d they need such a big fire for just for shooting dogs?”
“I don’t know, Millie!”
He had never spoken to her this way in her life; it caused her to jolt in her shoes. Her need to lash back at him rose quickly, but was kept inside by the look on Tommy’s face—lines across his forehead, mouth flat and tight on his face. He was thinking real hard about something; he was holding something big inside too. He unbuckled Sonnet’s halter, smoothed down her nose and cheeks.
And besides, she had other questions. She gave him a few seconds to calm down before she asked him this one: “You gonna tell me what’s going on with you and Junior or what?”
He didn’t want to answer her, but finally did. "It isn't your business, Mil," he said. He snapped the saddle pad free of dirt, sweat and frost, hung it over the stall wall.
"Oh, aint my business, is that what you say? My brothers, fighting over a girl?”
“We’re not fighting over a girl. We’re not fighting.”
“One of you was fighting.”
“Junior’s mad at me, that’s all. I haven’t been honest with him.”
“Over some silly girl. Of all things, some damn, silly girl. Since when does Junior have it for Miss Flora too?”
Tommy was wiping Sonnet down. He sighed deeply through his nose. “Since we were kids, younger than you.”
“And you, gallivanting around in the woods in the middle of the night with...well, with some goddamn silly girl!"
"Would you stop that, please? She isn't just some girl," Tommy said. His hands dropped to his sides, his neck went limp, his head drooped to one side and his gaze traveled across great distances. “I’m going to marry her.”
“Marry Miss Flora…my teacher?”
Tommy whispered to Sonnet. He gave her an oat cake, combed her, whispering to her the whole time.
Millie grew calmer too. “Tommy,” she said, “how do you think Junior knew I was there?”
“He was probably following you out, just like you were following me out.”
“What makes you think I was following you out?”
He smiled a tad. He was checking Sonnet’s front hoof when he said,
“Well, first of all, you sound like a herd of elephants in those brogans of yours.”
“You heard me?”
He chuckled.
“Then why didn’t you tell me?”
“It was only a few days ago I was sure it was you. I saw your clothes by the stove one night before I left, and they weren’t there the next morning. Also, Flora thinks it’s cute.”
“Cute?”
“And me? Well, I don’t know. I used to sneak out and run around at night when I was kid. It’s what kids do, so I let you do it. Hell, there’s nothing else to do around here.”
“You still sneak around, mister, if you haven’t noticed. And I want to know why. I ask you, why all the sneaking around?”
He ignored her.
“It don’t make no sense. If you love someone, why wouldn’t you want the whole world to know about it? Folks who love each other don’t go sneaking around like this.”
“Sometimes they do,” he said.
“Like when. She aint married, is she?”
He picked something out of Sonnet's rear left shoe, gave her one last pat on the rump. “It’s more complicated than a girl who doesn’t wear a brassier yet would understand.”
“Horseshit.”
“Or here’s an idea. If you really want to know the answer, maybe you should finally read Romeo and Juliet. Learn a little something about the world.”
“Horseshit.”
He was finished with the horse. He looked at her with a smiling look, not a smile, exactly, but almost. “Come with me, soldier,” he said shaking his head a little. “There’s something we have to do.”
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