Red Ant House

by Ann Cummins

  “Shut up.”

  “But I can’t go with you.” He walked over to the sewing basket and picked up the dress. He shook it out. He took it to the doorway, where the light was still good, and he examined the tear. He held it close to his face. “This is a big job, Sadie. Even if she comes back, which she won’t, you think she wants to sit here all night in the dark—”

  “Maddy, you fix it.”

  “Me? I ain’t fixing it.”

  “You know how. You sewed before. Maddy—”

  “I ain’t no girl.” He dropped the dress in a heap and stepped outside. The sun had fallen from the branches and disappeared. From here he could smell the vinegar.

  “Toad,” Sadie said.

  Madison smiled.

  “Blow up like a toad,” Sadie said.

  He walked over to the beef. It had rolled in the dirt and was covered in dirt; fat, dirty meat bulged around the trussing string—she’d laced it up good, Katherine had, and the string was dirt-coated, too.

  “Blow up like a toad.” Sadie had followed him out. She was barefoot. Her nightgown dragged on the ground. She was grinning, and her eyes were shining.

  Madison shrugged. He picked the thing up by its string. It was studded in peppercorns. If he half closed his eyes, they looked like little baby flies. Sadie was screaming. She was screaming, “Blowuplikeatoad, blowuplikeatoad,” and she had her hands over her ears. He tossed the thing in the air, caught it like a football, made as if to toss it to his sister, but she didn’t flinch. She was coming toward him, and her hands were over her ears, and she was screaming.

  “Spook,” Madison said, but she was screaming. “Shut up,” he said. He hurled the thing away from him, into the weeds. Then he took off running toward the river.

  The hut was dark when Madison came back. He stood in the doorway. He could hear a ragged breathing, his sister’s sobbing, sleeping breath. He could not hear Katherine. He stood listening for her even though he knew she wasn’t there.

  He brought wood in. He opened the flue, lit kindling in the stove, blew on it. The dish pail by the stove had a funny smell. In the flickering light, he could see his soup bowl. He could not see Sadie’s. Sadie had not eaten. Her bowl was still full of soup there on the table. With his toe, he pushed the bucket back into the stove’s shadow. He blew the twigs. They flared, and he put a log on top. Smoke and bits of fire sparked around it. He put another log on crosswise over the first, and he felt the heat wash over his wrist and arm; it was a good, satisfying heat. He wanted to curl around it. He rolled back on his heels and watched the flame eat the under-log. He imagined Katherine standing in the darkness outside, watching him watch the fire. What would she think of him if she saw him sitting calmly, his face inches from the stove?

  She would think he was an idiot boy. A peanut-brained simpleton, waiting for her. That’s what she’d think. Well, he was not waiting for her. He didn’t care where she was. She could be dead in the river for all he cared, though he blinked quickly because the picture behind his eyes—Katherine floating in the river—made him shiver. He tossed another log in and closed the stove door.

  The pail stank. It would stink more tomorrow. There was a time when washing dishes had been his job. The old man would see to it. First the old man saw to it, and when he went missing, Mark saw to it. There was a time, after his mom died and before Katherine came, when washing dishes and washing clothes and washing every damn thing was Madison’s job, and if he put up a fight, if he said one little contrary word, they’d say Blow up like a toad, blow up like a toad.

  He began to take his clothes off. He tossed them in a heap at the bottom of his cot, kicked his boots beneath, and got under his own quilt. Moonlight from the quarter moon shone through the door opening. If she didn’t come soon they would have rats. River rats attracted by the heat and the stink. He wondered where she’d gone. She could’ve gone to the Harris’s, half a mile away. But what would she say? They are not my children. Madison grinned in the dark. Just like a little girl, stamping and throwing a tantrum: They are not my children. He ought to have put his arm around her and said, “There, there, honey.” He was taller than she now. Almost as tall as Mark. He ought to have put his arm around her, chucked her chin, and said . . .

  He stared at the wedge of moonlight on the dirt floor.

  One night last week, Katherine had undressed by the light of the stove. She had put another log on the fire, but then she left the stove door open instead of closing it like usual, and she turned toward Madison’s cot. First she reached over her head. She pulled the dress up in back to undo the top buttons, then reached around from underneath for the lower ones. The dress hung loose—he had been able to see the white of her shoulders. She reached down and grabbed the skirt at its hem and pulled it over her head. She shook it once, then cocked her chin, as if listening. Her eyes were fixed on the shadow where he lay on his cot. He held very still. She draped the dress on the chair, then began to shimmy out of her shift, all the while watching him. She wore nothing under the shift. She left the shift on the floor.

  Then she began to rock. Forward and backwards, heel to toe. Madison could hear air whistling through her teeth, as if she were trying not to laugh—or cry. Her body turned at an angle so that, by the firelight, he could see her breast, the nipple tilting toward the roof, and her round little belly, and her white bottom. Then she started across the room toward him, and he closed his eyes, and he closed them now, remembering.

  Every bone in his body had ached with the effort to be still. He could hear the strange whistling of air through her teeth. He heard the scrape of a chair. He could not hear her bare feet on the dirt floor, but he could smell her as she neared, and he pressed into his cot. “Maddy?” she had whispered. He knew that if he were to put his hand in the air, he could have touched her. He wondered how it would have been if he had. Almost he wished he had, just to see what she would do. Mark’s wife, leaning over him, whispering. “You awake?” Air hissing through her teeth; she was laughing—or sobbing. Standing over him, inches away. He felt her breath on his face. Then she said, “Fat chance.” Said it loud, and he had opened his eyes, but she was walking away from him then, back toward the stove. She closed the stove door, and he listened to her get into bed.

  He listened for a long time after, until he heard her breath, smooth with sleep. All that night, he kept waking, thinking she would come back. But she didn’t.

  Well, when they asked him why he didn’t go look for her tonight, if they found her dead in the river, he would say, “She is not my wife.”

  He could hear a scratching in the straw roof over his head. Soon the scratching would be inside. Madison swung his feet to the floor, crossed the room to the stove, picked up the pail by its handle, put his sister’s untouched soup on top of the pile, and carried the dirty dishes outside.

  Something stood in the clearing. Someone. His heart started beating fast, but then he saw that it wasn’t Katherine. It was Sadie. “What are you doing out here?” he said.

  Sadie stood in the moonlight, staring off toward the river. “When did you go out?” He hadn’t heard her or seen her. He set the pail on the dirt next to the door. She wore just her nightgown and no warm covering. Her arms were stiff at her side, as if she were a soldier standing at attention. It was a peculiar way to stand.

  “You ought to come in,” Madison said. “It’s cold out here.”

  She laughed a barking laugh. Madison shivered.

  The ground between where he stood and the shed was moon blue. Sadie held her feet tight together, so rigid she might have been frozen.

  “What are you doing?” he whispered. She began weaving back and forth like the ticker on a clock. When had she gone out? He wondered if she was asleep, caught in a dream. “Sadie?” he said softly, but then thought he ought not wake her if she was caught in a dream. He didn’t know what happened if you woke a sleepwalker. Sadie had never walked in her sleep in her whole life. He was pretty sure. It was a funny, witchy kind
of a dance she was doing. It made Madison’s head prickle.

  He went back in. He opened the stove door, threw a log in, and left the door open, then went to his cot. He sat there, shivering. He watched his little sister’s shadow bob and weave on the hut floor. She didn’t come in for a long time, and when she did, she didn’t get in her bed. She stood at attention in front of the stove, swaying in the firelight, her back to him, then she turned toward his cot, and he could see her face, her brows, one dark line over her eyes, her eyes, half hidden under the lids—a dreamy, spooky look on her like he had never seen before. He dug his fingernails into his palms. She took a step toward him. Then she began to take her nightgown off in the light of the fire, reaching down for the hem, pulling it over her head, slow and deliberate, just like Katherine had, and he knew that she must’ve been awake that night, too, and that she was awake right now. When the nightgown was a pile at her feet, when she stood naked in the firelight and he could see the little swells where her breasts were coming in and her rounding hips, her hands rigid at her sides, she said, “Maddy?” Her voice low and throaty, like a thing possessed. “You awake? Fat chance!” she shrilled. She crossed her arms over her middle and stared hard at the shadow where he sat. He shut his eyes tight.

  When he opened his eyes, she was in her bed, her nightgown still piled by the stove. He got under his quilt and didn’t get up to close the stove door.

  Later, he startled from sleep, as if someone had clapped in his ear.

  Madison awoke to the sound of his brother’s and Katherine’s voices outside. It was the dark of early morning. He got up and found Mark digging holes around the edge of the clearing. “Look what I brought—just guess,” Mark said, and Katherine said, “Look who I found?” She’d found him on the road, coming home last night.

  Mark had a two weeks’ beard on his face. He had brought poplar saplings up from New Mexico. He’d been all the way to Santa Fe and had brought back a cart of saplings, and now he was planting them. He’d planted two already. One leaned south toward the river but the other stood erect, its baby branches reaching up to God. “We’ll have us a natural fence, just like you wanted,” he said to Katherine. Katherine stood watching, her arms clamped over her middle, pressing her lips together, but a smile kept breaking through. Mark spanked the earth near the sapling’s trunk, got up, and threw his arms around Katherine, picked her up and swung her—she stiff as a sapling herself, but grinning. “You’ll see,” Mark sang. “I’m hungry!” he said.

  “Look like finger bones to me,” Sadie said. Madison jumped. She stood behind him in the doorway, a little ghost.

  Mark laughed. “Sadie!”

  “Like finger bones sticking out of the earth,” she said.

  While Katherine got breakfast, Mark dogged her, being entertaining. He told them ugly things, like about the little skinny children he saw living in railroad cars. And he told them he was going to resurrect this farm. Katherine rolled her eyes at that.

  Sadie sat at the table. She was a shadow in her torn dress, her face quiet and spooked. Mark sat next to her. He said, “What’s a matter with you?” He nudged her. “Want to see an angel?” He took off his hat to show his head, a little bald halo of skin in the middle of his pate. “You’ve got an angel for a brother,” he said.

  Madison laughed. He rolled his eyes at Sadie, but she wouldn’t look at him. He said, “Fat chance, huh, Sadie.” Sadie stared off at something past his shoulder.

  Katherine put a plate of scrambled eggs in the middle of the table, and Mark reached for them. She said, “Maddy will be bald, too, don’t you think?”

  “Nah,” Mark said. He started spooning up eggs. “Mad’s got Mama’s hair.”

  “You think?” She cocked her head and gazed at Madison. He dead-eyed her.

  “Now this one,” Mark said, reaching for Sadie’s head and pulling her braid. “This one will be bald. She’s got the old man’s hair, doesn’t she, Mad?” He tugged the braid again.

  Sadie’s chin puckered, and her eyes filled with tears.

  “Hey,” Mark said. “That’s a funny way to laugh.” Sadie dropped her head and dug her chin into her chest. “What’d I do?” Mark said.

  No one spoke. Katherine stood looking at Madison, and she was smiling. She walked around the table and stood behind him. Madison sat rigidly in his chair. He could feel the heat of her at his back, and when she touched his head he flinched. She put her fingers in his hair, and she ran them over his scalp.

  “Yes,” she said, “Maddy will be bald.” She let her fingers trail through his hair and down his neck, and she rested her hands on his shoulders. Under her hands, Madison was cold. She began to rub his shoulders. Madison glared at Mark.

  “Sadie,” Katherine said, “which way did you come yesterday?” Sadie studied her plate and didn’t speak. Katherine was pinching him. She said, “I’ll sew that dress on Saturday when I do the wash.” She dug her thumbs into the soft spots between the bones, and then she put her cheek next to his. Madison could smell her. “If you came through the field, Maddy, I hold you responsible. Sadie’s just a little girl.”

  The dawn sky was the color of gruel. Thick black clouds capped the crown of Cedar Hill, and the smell of rain was in the air. Madison was walking. Sadie was walking and running but mostly running and she was calling, “Maddy, wait,” but Madison didn’t wait. Madison stormed up the trail through the sage and the goatheads and the tall wild grass, and Sadie had to run with the hem of her skirt in her hands because she would surely fall and rip the dress again, and she was wet. The morning dew on the tall grass soaked her legs.

  When they were just out of sight of the house, Madison stopped and turned to his little sister. “Take off your dress,” he hissed.

  Sadie stared at him.

  “Take it off!”

  From his coat pocket, he took a small cloth pouch. He opened the pouch and pulled out a spool of thread. His hands were shaking. He squatted, pulled a needle from the pouch, unwound thread from the spool, and tore it with his teeth. He began to jab the thread at the needle’s eye.

  Slowly, Sadie unbuttoned her dress and let it fall to her feet. She stood shivering in her shift and watched her brother sew. Because his fingers were stiff and cold and would not move, he jabbed them again and again, and when the blood came he sucked it until it was gone. The stitches were jagged, some tiny dots, some long lines. When Sadie put the dress on again the sleeve tucked a bit too far in so that the sleeve cuffed her high above the wrist, and the material bunched at her neck, giving her a little bit of a hump. She had a lopsided look to her, but she did not look like an urchin, and she smiled at what her brother had done.

  All that morning Madison watched his little sister where she sat with the younger children, her sleeve a bump on her shoulder. He thought of how it used to be, before Katherine came, when they still lived in town with their old man. A lot of the time, it was just Madison and Sadie alone in the house. Mark’d go off to get money, and their dad’d go off on a drunk. Mornings back then, the sun rose behind Sadie’s eyes. She’d come to his bed and open his lids and say, “Maddy, you’re hungry,” and he’d say, “What time is it?” and she’d say, “Time to go huntin’.” Sometimes they did. Went off hunting and didn’t go to school, just the two of them.

  In the afternoon, he sat half sleeping in the warm schoolroom. He began to play it out in his mind: how Katherine would look when they came home that day. How she would look surprised.

  They took the shortcut home. Madison entertained Sadie with stories about the Mexican goatherds he’d seen down Knott’s Gulch.

  “You never seen one of them Mexican goats with a little puppy tied to its leg? You ever see them she-goats with their teats hanging and the little puppies jumping for ‘em? The nannies can’t tell a dog from a goat. What she’ll do, she’ll lay down when the puppy starts jumping. Right there in the sand, she’ll roll over on her side and the pup’ll suckle up to her, and I can’t say if the dog knows she’s a goat but she don
’t know he’s a dog. She thinks she’s his mama. But I’ll tell you who’s smart. Mexicans. You ever seen them goat-herding dogs? Mexicans sleep all day ‘cuz they got experienced dogs to do their work. Goat herders suckled on their nannies’ teats.” Madison laughed. Every time he thought of the Mexican dirty trick on those dogs, he had to laugh, and Sadie laughed, too.

  “I’ll tell you something else,” Madison said. “If you ever see a dappled gray like the kind they have in circuses, spit in your hand and holler, ‘Good luck!’ You know who told me that?”

  “Mama?”

  “That’s right.”

  Sadie nodded once. Madison watched her tuck that one away in her little pea-brain. Everything Sadie knew about her mother, Madison had told her.

  The morning rain had blown over and the fields steamed in the afternoon heat. Yellow dandelions dotted the sagebrush, and the moist earth gently sucked their shoes. Maddy couldn’t help but grin thinking about what Katherine would say when she saw what he had done. She’d say, “Maddy, did you do this?”

  He’d say, “Yes I did.”

  But as they got closer to home, the back of his scalp began to prickle. He saw a thread of smoke lazing into the sky where the soddy would be. They had built the fire already. She and Mark had.

  Sadie was walking ahead. Madison looked at the drunken line of stitches on her sleeve, the crooked child’s seam, and the knot of material that rode her shoulder like a hump. The air began to feel thick, like water. “Wait,” he whispered. “Wait!”

  He grabbed her arm, began picking at the stitches he had made. Sadie tried to wrench away, but he held her hard, picking frantically at her sleeve, and the dark fury, that new look that made him shiver and was not his sister, came into her eyes. But he didn’t let go. He said, “This is no good. Don’t worry. This is no good.” Madison picked and tore the thread until it all came loose, and the blue fly witch could not tell what he had done.