Bend

by Nancy Hedin

  “What about telling Sheriff Scrogrum?” I asked.

  Momma and Dad both rolled their eyes.

  “He won’t do anything,” Momma said. “He’s as useless as tits on a boar.”

  “So what do we do, just wait and hope?”

  “And pray,” Momma said.

  Days passed. Becky had been gone two weeks. I hadn’t heard much from Charity after the trip to the Raven’s Nest. Then she called me at home.

  “My parents aren’t home. Meet me at my apartment.”

  Dad dropped me off at Charity’s. Her door was open. I went inside and threw the knob on the dead bolt. A sweet instrumental piece played, the lights were dimmed, and I smelled vanilla-scented incense burning. Charity came out of the back room wearing a deep-purple robe. It clung to her body like the skin of an eggplant.

  “Hi,” I said. “Am I too early? Do you need time to dress?”

  “No. I have something for you to wish you luck at college, if you ever go to college.”

  “What?” I expected a day planner, notebooks, perhaps a backpack.

  “Well, I decorated a new camisole and panties for you. I wanted you to have something close to your skin to remember me by when we are away from each other.”

  Charity was already under my skin. I blushed at the very idea of Charity buying me underwear. I didn’t see any wrapped presents except Charity in that silky robe.

  “I hope you don’t mind that I’m giving your presents a test drive. You’ll need to unwrap them, claim them for yourself, but take your time. Jolene and my folks are out of town until tomorrow. You could call your dad and tell him that you are having a sleepover.” Charity smiled at me. I suppose she was waiting for my head to catch up. “Oh, you should know that I broke up with Kelly. I told her I want to be with you.” She reached her arms out to me.

  I had to pee. My heart valves chattered. I lost feeling in my legs, and my lips itched. I walked to Charity, brushed my hands against her robe, and rested my head against her collarbone. Either I could hear both of our hearts or I was having a brain aneurism.

  I looked at Charity’s face again. I could have looked at Charity forever. She dropped the tie on her robe, and it fell open just a bit. I fingered the slim lapel of her robe as she dipped her shoulder. The robe slid off. I let it fall to the floor. Charity stood before me in a white cotton camisole and bikini briefs. When I finally started breathing again, I laughed and read Charity’s underwear.

  Charity had copied a poem I’d sent to her. In purple fabric paint, she’d printed our names, places we’d made out and first kissed. Her art detailed every part of Charity’s body that I had touched and another dozen parts I wanted to touch. The printing was small, and there wasn’t much fabric. It would require some close-up work for me to read it properly.

  I traced the words with the tips of my fingers. The straps were slender, like straws looped over Charity’s tanned shoulders. I’d seen her bare shoulders before, but at that moment I marveled at the lovely way they followed from her neck.

  Charity reached her arms up to release her hair from the binder that held it. The act of raising her arms made me catch my breath. Charity’s upper arms had definition, and the skin under them was taut. Even her armpits were beautiful.

  Charity turned so I could read the back of her camisole. Her shoulder blades were pressing out against the straps. I put my hands on her waist. She shuddered and said how she loved my hands.

  It was like the first time we’d kissed. Electricity ran through my limbs and torso and buzzed back around again like the lights on a carnival ride.

  She turned to face me again and then breathed kisses onto my neck.

  Shit. I remembered that Charity could be my half sister. Shit. I stepped back. I couldn’t believe what I did next. “I can’t do this. I’m sorry. You don’t know how sorry I am.”

  “It’s okay, Raine, don’t be nervous.” She touched my face. “I know it’s your first time.”

  “I’m not nervous. I mean, I am nervous, but that’s not why we can’t—”

  Charity cut off my words with a slow, deep kiss that, if it was possible, made me feel even stupider. When I came up for air, I held her wrists so she couldn’t touch me anymore and pushed her out of lip range.

  “Charity, I can’t. We can’t. We should wait.”

  “Are you still mad about Kelly? It’s over.”

  I shook my head.

  “Is it Becky being missing? Are you just too worried?”

  “No. Yeah. Sort of. It’s lots of things.” I listed things—things that didn’t even make sense to me and probably sounded crazy. “I finally called Twitch, and I’m starting work with him tomorrow, and you know what they say about boxers keeping their legs strong before a fight. The time just isn’t right. I’m sorry.”

  There was no possible way on earth to express how sorry I was that I couldn’t read the underwear until I went blind and crawled all over that girl kissing her until my lips fell off.

  “Fine.” Her tone didn’t sound fine. “You at least have to take this camisole home with you.” She pulled it off over her head and stood naked except for the bikini briefs.

  “Christ Almighty.” I thought I’d wet my pants. Here was a chance for sex, and I’d said no. I’d obviously lost my mind. I cursed Momma under my breath. If she hadn’t screwed Allister Grind, I could have been making love to Charity.

  “I know what will cheer you up. Let me get some clothes on.” She talked to me from the bedroom as she dressed. “My timing is all wrong. I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m sorry. You’re probably still so worried about your sister. Can we just forget about tonight and the underwear? You tell me when you’re ready.”

  Who could forget the underwear?

  She sounded all logical and extremely understanding, but anybody could tell she was angry and hurt. Hurting Charity was the last thing I wanted to do. At the same time, I wasn’t ready to tell her that we might have the same father. I needed to ask Momma before I put another family into a spin. Pastor Grind might have two queer daughters. Wouldn’t that put his underwear in a knot?

  “I’m so sorry, Charity.”

  “Forget about it. Let’s go.” Dressed, Charity headed out the door, and led me to the garage. Months ago, we’d retrieved four hard plastic garden gnomes and a trio of ceramic mushrooms that Momma had pilfered from Dad’s lawn collection and discarded in the garbage bin behind the Quick Mart. Luckily, the lawn litter had fallen on stuffed trash bags. One mushroom was chipped and two gnomes had smears of dried salsa, but otherwise they were just as god-awful as when Dad put them in their yard.

  Charity gave a devilish grin and wiggled her eyebrows. “Remember our stash? Let’s get them back where they belong. It won’t bring Becky home, but it’ll make your dad smile. Maybe you’ll smile too.”

  It would be our third time reinstalling lawn art. The beauty of it was that Momma couldn’t complain about the reappearing lawn bobbles because then she would have to confess that she had disappeared them. Few things silenced Momma, and the risk of this operation was worth the spectacle.

  It was dark. Charity killed the headlights a mile from the driveway and drove by moonlight. We coasted to a stop so the brake lights didn’t show. Charity left the engine idling, shifted into park, and switched the dome light off before we opened our doors.

  I could negotiate our farm drunk and blind, so I led Charity by the hand. She brought doll clothes. We dressed the gnomes and lined them up along the edge of the snowy driveway with a small suitcase next to the tallest one. We put the mushrooms under a sugar maple out of range of the yard light.

  I crashed through the thin ice that covered the puddles in the driveway and splashed cold water into my boots. My dogs must have been in the barn or house, because they didn’t bark at the racket we made.

  Back in the truck, Charity put the car in gear and accelerated onto the darkened road until we were over the rise and out of sight. She put on the headlights, and we laughed.
It felt so good to laugh.

  At the edge of Hollisters’ place, I saw a truck that looked like Kenny’s bucket of bolts. It was pulled over in a gated approach on the wooded edge of their farm. I asked Charity to slow down so I could see what he was doing. The headlights swept across Kenny and his truck.

  Satan and Buck tumbled out of the truck bed tethered to a long rope that Kenny was pulling and jerking. He had the rope in one hand and a rifle in the other. In the time it took Charity and I to come even with the approach, Kenny had led the dogs through the gate.

  It had been too dark to see where we were putting lawn gnomes. What kind of fool would be out in the dark with a rifle? Charity did a U-turn on the blacktop and we passed by the approach again. I couldn’t see Kenny anymore, but heard two quick gunshots, and another shot a heartbeat later.

  “Jesus, what’s he doing?” I twisted to look back to where the shots had come from. Charity floored it away from the gunfire.

  “I don’t know much about hunting, Lorraine, but to me it would be awfully quick for him or the dogs to find something to shoot. Do people hunt deer like that?”

  “It’s not deer hunting season. I suppose Kenny could be hunting out of season. If any dogs could sniff something out quick, it’s Satan and Buck.”

  “Nice names. It still seems like he fired pretty quick if he was hunting anything but his own dogs.”

  “Oh God, no. Kenny might shoot anything for fun I guess, but Buck and Satan are hunting dogs. Kenny keeps them for their nose and endurance. It doesn’t make sense that he wouldn’t want them anymore.”

  “I know this is horrid to say, but what if Kenny did kill Becky? Maybe he’s worried the dogs will find her when the ground is soft.”

  It was like the way geniuses came up with solutions to intricate math problems while they showered or jogged. Charity had stumbled onto something that might explain where Becky was, and I hoped to hell she was wrong.

  “We have to find out what Kenny was doing tonight, but I’m sure as hell not going into the woods when he’s there with his gun. He’d shoot me and say he thought I was a deer. Hell, he’d likely hang me from a tree to bleed out, and gut me too.”

  A light glowed through the dusty barn windows when Charity dropped me off at the farm. Charity said she’d stay with me to figure things out, but I told her I needed to talk to Dad alone. He’d know what to do. She kissed me sisterly and left.

  I found Dad in the barn. A newly painted birdhouse was drying on the workbench as Dad drank a beer and smoked a cigarette. The end of his cigarette glowed more brightly when he drew on the filterless stub.

  “Hi, Dad.”

  “Hey, I thought you were with Charity?”

  “Change of plans. Hard to explain. Hey, how good are Kenny’s dogs?”

  “How good? What do you mean?”

  “I saw Kenny had the dogs out in those woods on the west side of their farm. I think he might have shot them.”

  “Why would Kenny shoot his dogs? That seems mean and wasteful even for Kenny.” He snubbed out the last half inch of his cigarette and dropped it in a coffee can he had filled with water. The butts looked like grubs floating on the surface.

  “You think if Becky was somewhere on that farm, and if those dogs had her scent, they could find her?”

  “Jesus Christ, Lorraine! What are you saying?” He drained the last bit of beer from his bottle and put the empty in the case with another row of dead soldiers.

  “Sorry, it’s probably just my imagination getting the best of me.”

  “Come with me!”

  I thought Dad had shut down the conversation and the idea, but instead of retreating to the house he got in the pickup. I hustled to the passenger side. “Where’re we going?”

  “Let’s just see if Buck and Satan are up this time of night.”

  Dad drove to Kenny’s place and pulled up the long drive. The headlights of the truck splashed onto Kenny’s folks’ house first. His mother’s silhouette showed against the kitchen window drapes. She scuttled to the door, flipped on a yard light, and peered out. She didn’t come outside. She doused the light, and I couldn’t tell if she was watching from the window or not. The yard light was on by Kenny’s trailer, and the changing picture on the TV glowed through the sheer living room curtains. Kenny’s truck was parked next to his mom’s old Plymouth Duster. No dogs were barking and jumping at the truck like usual, but they could have been in the house.

  “Wait here, kiddo.” Dad eased out of the truck and left it running with the headlights shining on Kenny’s trailer door. He knocked. Kenny answered the door. There was lots of head shaking and gesturing, but I couldn’t tell what they said. Kenny backed inside and flipped off the porch light before Dad made it down the steps. Asshole.

  “Well, the dogs aren’t in the trailer, and I just learned a few things about what is and isn’t my goddamned business.” He closed the truck door. Before we left the yard, Kenny had the light on again and ran over to the driver’s side of the truck and knocked on Dad’s window.

  “Mr. Tyler, damn it, I was short with you and now you’re gonna—I’m sorry. Goddamn it!” He kicked at the ground and ran his fingers through his overgrown hair.

  Dad got right to it. “I know you two fought. I got to ask you, son, did you hurt my girl?”

  Kenny stared off in the distance and didn’t make eye contact with Dad. I could see he was crying.

  “No, sir, I didn’t hurt Becky.” Then he looked down at his feet, turned back to his trailer, and went inside.

  As Dad drove away from the Hollister farm, he scanned the barnyard with the headlights as best he could. No dogs.

  “Do you believe him?” I asked.

  “The place where you saw Kenny earlier, can you see it if you were looking out the window from the trailer?”

  “No, it’s where the road dips down before Hickman’s place.”

  “Get the flashlight from the glove box.”

  Dad pulled into the approach where Charity and I had seen Kenny’s truck. Dad put on the leather gloves he used for fencing. He started to order me to stay in the truck, but I shouldered open the stubborn passenger-side door and hit the ground running. I shone the light into the trees beyond the gate.

  I saw Satan. He was growling, limping, and snaking circles around a black lump at the base of a jack pine. The deep red of the blood was out of place on the snow and drab dead grasses where the snow was already gone.

  “Jesus H. Christ! That boy may have shot his dogs, but didn’t kill them both. Get the canvas tarp from the back of the truck.” He walked slowly toward the dogs. “Here, boy,” he called to Satan.

  Dad talked quietly to Satan as Satan circled Buck and licked the wound on his own paw. I brought Dad the tarp.

  “I’m gonna try to catch Satan and wrap him in the tarp and get him home. After I got him, pick up Buck and put him in the back of the truck and drive us all back to the barn.”

  Dad wooed and wrestled the snarling, crying dog. When Satan was calmer and close enough, Dad grabbed his collar and wrapped him in the tarp and placed him in the truck bed while I hefted Buck’s body in alongside Satan. Satan seemed to calm once Buck’s body was in the truck with him. Satan sniffed and licked Buck. He made brief eye contact with me. I could swear I saw tears in the dog’s eyes.

  I drove home. Once I had maneuvered the truck into the big barn, I closed the barn doors. Dad lifted Buck’s stiffening body out of the truck bed and called after Satan to come with him. He lowered Buck into some loose straw, and Satan plopped down next to him. Buck’s fur was blue-black from the blood soak. Dad sat down in the hay next to the dogs.

  “I’ll get him some water. Dad, you got anything left in your lunch pail so that we don’t have to go into the house?”

  I put the water and meat down by Satan. After it looked like he’d had his fill, Dad talked to him some more while I examined the foot where the dog had been shot. Satan didn’t bite me. He just listened and tilted his head.

&n
bsp; “You’re amazing, Lorraine. I don’t think even Twitch could have done that.”

  “Shot clean through. He’ll be okay if we can get it clean and wrapped. Bring me that medicine box and then we better get inside before Momma comes investigating.”

  “You’re right, she doesn’t need to know about the dogs.”

  It was a rare day for Dad to agree to keep secrets from Momma. These were special circumstances.

  The house was quiet when we entered. Little Man was in bed. Momma was watching TV. She wore her uniform from the diner, but her shoes were off and she had her feet soaking in a dish pan of Epsom salts and water. She barely looked up.

  “I’m not even forty years old and tonight my feet and legs feel like I could be a hundred.”

  “I’m sorry for your pain, Momma. Good night.”

  All that next week I worked with Twitch. I helped spay and neuter as many pets as the owners would allow and as many strays as I could catch and cage. On the drive back to the farm, I confided in Twitch about Becky having been at the women’s shelter. I told him Kenny shot his dogs and that one survived. Dad and I were going to use that dog to track Becky. Twitch offered to beat Kenny for us, but I asked him to wait for further instructions when the search day came.

  I was bone-tired when I got home, and it was after dark. I had liked to think that no one could ever catch me the way he did, but the truth was, I didn’t see or hear him before he jumped out from the bushes, held me by the front of my shirt, and clamped his hand over my mouth.

  Goddamn, Kenny Hollister.

  “Don’t you dare scream. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  The damned overgrown arborvitae bushes! I’d have cut them down myself right then and there if he’d have let me go. Sniff and Pants hadn’t warned me. They knew him after seeing him so often. Plus, sly Kenny had brought a mess of frozen pork neck bones. The dogs were happy as ticks.

  “I got to talk to you. If you promise not to scream, I’ll let you go.” His eyes were wide and spit flew when he talked.