Beast of the Field

by Peter Jordan Drake

  The big fella kicked the bay doors open, letting the last burning, squealing mule out into the night—the mule ran in a straight line for a hundred yards then dropped into the grass. The big fella went straight for the hayloft, maybe to see if that girl was sleeping up in there again. She wasn’t, and the big fella was back down with the animals. He came tumbling out from the barn with two young pigs, carrying them like town poodles. On his next trip was another pig, a big, wriggling, smoldering sow which took both his arms.

  "Jesus please-us!" This was the old man, who came up next to the mother, buttoning his pants. He ran in after the big fella. The flames were coming from the lower windows already, showing brightly in the upper windows. Through the bay doors Jumpy saw the little fiery pieces of hay and straw buzzing around the heads of the two men. They ran back and forth hollering at one another. It took them both to get a cow out of her stall. The big fella pulled her and the old man threw canvas over the burning patch on her hide. The other cow was on her side, dead under burning bales.

  The big fella ran back inside. Jumpy saw him take the ladder to the hayloft again, almost as fast as he had the first time. Seconds later he leapt from the second-story hay door to the grass with a handful of burning paper. His hair and clothes were on fire too.

  The old man and the mother patted at him until the fires were out; smoke still smoldered from the live embers on his flannel shirt. They stood panting in front of the barn. There were many hundreds of bales of hay inside the barn, on three levels. Those bales were catching now, sending flame and brown smoke high into the night sky.

  The old man turned to the house. "Let's get to the well," he said. "We'll need some water to keep it off the house." He looked up at the flame again. "Won't be long till the whole town is out here, I reckon. Thank you God for no wind tonight. Come on, Junior."

  The big fella was not listening to him. He was not watching the fire either. He was looking all around the yard, and to the house, and to the yard again. Jumpy then saw what the big fella saw—the horse. She wore a bridle but had no rider, and coming from the gate, giving the burning barn a wide berth.

  The mother understood, and caught her breath. "Millie," she said.

  "H-y."

  Now the old man was looking around too.

  "She was not in her room," the mother said. "And she wasn't in the hayloft either, was she Junior?"

  "H-y!" the big fella boomed.

  "Hellfire! She went after that Pinkerton fella, didn't she?" the old man asked.

  They each knew the answer to this. Two of them stood thinking about it. One of them was already running. The old man tried like mad to call him back, even limped after him across the yard, pointing behind him to the barn, but there was nothing keeping the big fella here this time.

  *

  Unrest in the trees.

  Blood in the air tonight. Then the hanging meat—at last something for the teeth. The dogs had gone mad tearing at the feet and ankles of the hanging body, but the real meat was beyond their reach, and this was cause for frustration, for snapping, for fights and for more blood.

  One among them was the strongest. In brain and in brawn he led them. The pack's frustration tonight fell upon his shoulders. His nose was the strongest too, and it was he who smelled the fire first. There was no wind tonight, so he set out to follow the scent. His pack followed. He led them along the dry treefall to where the wood met the grassland. In the distance, over the windbreaks and barbed wire and fields, a tall flame licked at the bowl of night. It was far, far away, but close enough that after a few minutes of watching, the scent of hay and wood and burning hide came to all of them. As another snarling facedown unfolded behind him, his nose bobbed at the air; the smell of flesh was too powerful to ignore. They would leave the wood tonight.

  They heard it then. It was not in the flames in that distant field but close to the trees. Footfalls. Coming closer. Heavy legs and heavy feet moving at a quick and steady pace. Their ears told them it was not human, it couldn't be, but their noses could not place the smell of that smoking flesh as anything else but human. This confusion was reason enough to hang low in the bush, watch and measure, perhaps plan an attack, perhaps a retreat. All at once they saw it, black against the far off tower of flame.

  They recognized it, from years past and from more recently, that day of the storm, when it came in after the calf. It had found the calf just as they were about to pounce. It kicked one of their pack, threw stones at the others until they scattered. The wind ended the battle for them. A tree bough swung down and knocked him from his feet. The calf bolted, further east and out of sight. They would have followed, but now this thing—much bigger than the calf—was on the ground and not getting up. It seemed an easier meal, but as they moved in the wind became too strong. Their numbers dwindled one at a time until there was not enough of them left to take the thing, which was starting to wake again. They had had to find shelter instead.

  Yes, some of them thought they recognized it, but they had never seen it move like this, never smelled it like this. Their ancestors might have thought it a bison, but these days those were gone from here. The way the smoke rolled from its shoulders and head, it reminded the oldest among them of the smoky black engines that used to pass through here with such frequency, just ten years earlier. It moved quick and steady, unafraid of predators, and this affected them. They respected it now. They even feared it. On the whole, they didn't know what to think of it. Some of them stood, ready for action; some rested on their bellies, already submitting. Perfectly still save their necks, they watched it pass them by, their gazes trained on its legs, following its progress in unison like the heads of the Hydra. It did not stop at the car in the weeds, though it turned its head that way; nor did it break stride at the meat hanging under the tree branch: it had someplace to go and nothing was stopping it from going there.

  When it had passed, and the smoke was fading over their heads, the strongest among them stepped out onto his trail. He sniffed the ground first, to determine once and for all it was a human. He sniffed the air then, the smoke, smelled human hair and human flesh and human clothing and grass and the scent of livestock. He decided by the way it moved it was hunting something, and decided to follow him. The others followed. Soon they were moving quietly alongside the human-like thing. The purpose in its steps infected their pack mind. They liked it. If it was hunting, it was silently agreed among them, then they were hunting too.

  So through the trees they went. The smoking giant and his trotting phalanx of rib-skinny mongrels.

  Hunting.

  39.

  In the Neuwalds’ kitchen, Geshen had emptied half of a mason jar of whisky. He had almost cried, he had cackled, he had talked to himself the entire time. He had gone silent. All of it terrified Millie. Now, he stared at Millie with wet, searching eyes. She didn't know what he was searching for, but she was scared he'd find it. He fell from his chair at one point, laughing, then swearing, and while on the floor called for out for Miss Flora as though she were his mother.

  Millie searched the windows for a sign of help. She listened for someone, something to come to her. She was too scared to know better than to not expect help to come. Behind her back she tried to unknot the twine. It was tight enough to pinch the air from her hands, fingers, feet and toes. She couldn't get it to loosen even the tiniest bit.

  Geshen saw her struggling against the twine. He wrapped his hand around the front of her neck, brought his forehead in to touch hers. His breath could almost be seen when he spoke.

  "Don't you.... You stop that now. I promise this aint going to hurt none."

  She did not what “this” was, and did not know whether to be relieved or not when she heard the dogs in the barn barking away again, then the sound of an engine and the popping and scrunching of gravel under the tires of a car. The pickup stopped directly in front of the kitchen door. In the headlamps' dusty light she saw the silhouette of Jonas and Gomer Neuwald. She heard Gomer speak but did
not hear what he said. The lights of the truck snapped off, leaving only the candle on the table in front of Millie. Geshen straightened up in his chair as his father took the steps. Mr. Neuwald opened the screen door, let it bang closed behind him.

  "I can smell you outside, boy."

  Geshen had nothing to say to this.

  Outside, Gomer yelled at the dogs to shut up, but they were barking too loudly to hear him. "Damn dogs," said Mr. Neuwald. "Well boy, I hope you're drunk enough to go get that Pink down from that tree and disappear him."

  "What about her?" Geshen said. His head swung over so his eyes could attempt to focus on her. He could barely find her face.

  Mr. Neuwald was sober. He stepped over to her chair. In his hand was the cloth mask he had been wearing; he now let this flop to the kitchen table. He then began to untie the twine around her middle. "Gal, why you always where you aint supposed to be?" he whispered to her. He did not look her in the eyes. The knot came undone. A large portion of the twine fell loose to her lap and around the back of the chair. "A little girl like you, snooping around." He got to one knee, loosened the twine around her feet, which came off easily. Lastly were her hands. The knots were tight, and he never did get them free; but he kept her company while he tried. "Trespassing on someone else's property is no small thing. I would of thought your pa would have taught you a thing or two. Maybe he aint as smart as we all thought, for all his land and fancy machines. Maybe all the smarts he got was for farming."

  "Maybe, Pa..."

  "Shut it, boy. Go get your brother." He turned back to Millie. He studied the handkerchief she had binding her mouth. He decided to leave it on. "I guess that's why his kids keep dying, 'cause the man don't teach 'em how to live." He gave up on the knot at her wrists. Instead helped himself to a shot of whisky. Both his sons returned to the kitchen, Gomer panting and standing at attention, Geshen propped up against the jamb of the open screen door. "Geshen, go get that Pinkerton man down before someone comes looking for him. Git! Gomer..." He was staring back at Millie, right into her eyes now. "You got you a job to do too."

  The dogs in the barn suddenly came out of their skin barking. Millie saw the huge shadow within the shadows before the Neuwalds did. She knew the walk, she knew the size. He stopped beside the pickup, bent to the ground, picked up Geshen's discarded torch. On it still there were writhing embers. With one powerful breath Junior gave it flame again, showing Millie a face that was her brother's—she could tell this—but had deep cut lines across the brow and a stony mouth and a shining darkness in the eyes she had never seen before.

  Now Mr. Neuwald saw the flame in the corner of his eye. He started, turned, dropped his whisky glass to the floor. "Sumbitch, it's Junior. Gomer!"

  It was too late. Junior kicked his arm back and sent that torch end over end into the window of the living room. It showered flame into the room as it broke through the window, and it was by the light of this quickly spreading flame in the next room that Millie watched the fight in the kitchen.

  At his father's command Gomer brought his rifle up to his shoulder. In the next second he fired, missing.

  "Goddamnit, Gomer. You almost shot me—!" his brother said, or started to say. In his drunkenness he was slow to see what was unfolding around him. Before he could get any answers, he was yanked back from the threshold, eyes wide in surprise. Junior had him by the back of his shirt. With another hand he took the back of Geshen's britches, threw him into the grill of the pickup with a sound like a flopping catfish into the well of a boat. Geshen fell in a heap to the dirt before the bumper. He stayed there, a heap, moaning to himself.

  The screen door was next, and went flying onto the dirt of the yard. Gomer tried to get off another shot, but this was no hare, no whelping bitch, and his hands were shaking too hard to chamber another round. Junior grabbed the barrel with both hands, pulled it from him. He swung it back behind him like Ty Cobb and brought it forward again. The heel corner of the wooden butt entered the side of Gomer's skull as it would a watermelon, leaving an impression true to its shape. Gomer Neuwald uttered one off-key, goat-like sound before he fell; but he had nothing to do with this sound. This was only the air leaving his lungs on its own.

  "Junior!" Millie cried through her bound mouth. Mr. Neuwald's pistol was up and firing, and landing shots in the big target.

  "H-y!"

  He did not stop though. His fist drew back and shot forward into the rib cage of the other man. The sound this contact issued was as loud as the gunshots still echoing in Millie's head. The pistol fell to the floor. Junior took Mr. Neuwald by the front of his neck then, lifted him until he almost touched the ceiling; then with one sideways step he threw the man into the kitchen wall. Mr. Neuwald was tough though, and already scrabbling for his pistol in the light of the spreading fire.

  Junior finished undoing the twine around Millie's hands, freeing her completely from the chair. He ripped the handkerchief from her mouth into two pieces. Then, as Mr. Neuwald crawled across the floor behind him, Junior's vocabulary doubled. He fell to his knees, panting. His mouth was filled with blood, his chin was streaked with it. He had dark spots on the shirt at his side and the upper part of his pant leg. He made eye contact with Millie, and though his eyes had regained some softness, his face was still framed in the madness that had been there when he did this to these men.

  "Home," he said. If he had yelled it she would have argued, but he barely whispered it, and this scared the hell out of her.

  All that was left of her after that were the swinging leaves of some bushes at the edge of the yard, righting themselves in her wake as she passed.

  *

  They knew her and let her pass. Most of them did not even turn their heads to watch her. It was the fire that had their interest. They watched, sniffing, as it ate up the house to the roof. Another gunshot was heard from within, then another, followed by a human making a sound inhuman. Finally two figures fell through the doorway. One pushed the other before him, both of them toppling to the ground. The dogs approached, necks long, heads low, then skittered back a few feet when one of the men stood. He busied himself around one of the vehicles for a minute, dumping bodies into the bed of the pick-up and tying their hands. He then finally stomped by the dogs, a successful hunt all around.

  They let him pass too, of course. There was something cooking inside that house and it smelled delicious, and they had to be quick.

  *

  Millie sat in the hollow of the same fallen tree she knew from the winter nights spying on Tommy. Her breathing was just now returning to something close to normal. She had run at full speed toward home until she saw through the trees the distant fire in front of her. She lost her balance staring at it and stumbled to the ground. She knew how far it was to the farm; she knew there was nothing else out there but their hay barn that could make a fire that big. And now the fire behind her was big too, the dirty, sharp smell from it filling the woods. Tears were coming as Millie crawled on hand and knee to her fallen tree, but she didn't know why. She wrapped her arms around her knees and stared out from her hiding place. If she wanted to, she could put her hands out, flat out at her sides like Jesus on the cross, and have a fire at each fingertip like she and Tommy used to do with the stars, but she didn't do this. She was stuck there in the dark between two fires, staring straight ahead at the limp body of Mr. Sterno. His face was covered in dirty blood. His jaw looked like a wad of river clay stuck to his face. His hands were curled up at his sides and looked huge and boney to her. The dogs had torn up his feet to the bone. His clothes were ripped and dirty too. He hanged there without moving, facing her, his head tilted right at her, his eyes closed. Through the dry brown blood on his face she could make out something on his face that looked almost like a smile, if she didn’t know him better.

  The sounds of someone in the woods came from the direction of the burning Neuwalds' house. Millie held her breath, inched back into the tree. The figure came unsteadily through the branches.

&n
bsp; "H-y," Junior said, coughing blood.

  He stopped in front of Mr. Sterno. He looked at him for a full minute, swaying more from the ground than the hanging body did from the branch. From the bib pocket of his overalls he brought his pocketknife. He cut the rope leading from where it was tethered to a neighboring trunk to where it looped over the bough. Mr. Sterno came down into his arms. Junior took him gently, kneeled to the dry leaves. By now Millie was standing next to them. She took the knife from Junior so he could loosen the noose. When he had freed his neck, he pulled the body to his breast, grunted, and stood. He carried Mr. Sterno before him, Millie at his side, and like this the three of them went home.

  40.

  A fleet of Fords had amassed around the house. Men in fedoras and derbies stood around these cars and trucks, chewing tobacco and some of them smoking it in the breezy evening. Some of them cleaned their guns, others had the hoods of their cars open, oil cans in hand. A newspaper man from Wichita moved around with a camera and a three-legged stand, snapping smoky pictures of the men in threes and fours. The men did not smile for the camera, but did hold up their guns. Many of them stood near the barn, which was now only jagged, burnt planks, piled on top of each other like a giant's campfire. For nearly two days the barn had burned. For another day it had been smoldering. Something about this barn made the men glum, like it was a symbol of something to them.

  Millie was in the southeast field, away from the men, alone with her filly and her pa. Pa stood off by himself, his shotgun balanced in the fold of his elbow. He took slow steps through the hay as if grazing, looking down most of the time, sometimes gazing up, his eyes on something very far away—the mayor’s house, maybe, where the mayor was hiding with a small army of Klansmen outside just like the small army outside this one. Millie watched him carefully. She was worried about him: she had never seen him so quiet.