by Sam Torode
After twenty minutes or so, I climbed back on shore and gathered up my clothes and boots. The sun was still shining through the trees on the other side, so I decided to climb onto a rock and bake till I was dry. I’d never seen rocks so big, and I felt like a mountain climber scaling them. I’ve always been afraid of heights, so when I reached the top I crouched down, afraid to stand and look over the edge. A ten-foot drop was more than enough to give me the shivers.
I stretched out on a slab of limestone, closed my eyes, and listened to the bubbling water and the buzz of cicadas. It was a strange feeling, being naked in the open air. For as long as I could remember, I’d been embarassed over my body and more than happy to keep it hidden. In fact, I’d only been naked out-of-doors once before—and that was in a desperate attempt to grow pubic hair. When I was fourteen, Eddie Quackenbush told me that cod liver oil was a magical hair-growth stimulant. “I put some on my sister when she was asleep,” he claimed, “and a patch of hair sprouted up right before my eyes. When she woke up, boy was she steamed.”
So I snuck out into the the woods with a bottle of Squibb’s Cod Liver Oil, laid naked on a pile of leaves, and slathered it on my chest, arms, and privates. Of course, nothing happened. But the next day, I told Eddie, “You’re sure right about that oil. Now I’ve got more hair between my legs than the Wild Man of Borneo.”
That got him back good—he went home and took a bath in the stuff.
Lying there above the Paluxy River, I looked down my chest at the scant patch of hair between my legs. At least I had something now. My chin was another story—I hadn’t shaved for two weeks, and I was just now getting a five o-clock shadow.
From body hair, my thoughts turned to home. I wondered what my parents were doing right now and how Mama was taking it. She probably thought I was dead. In just over a month, they’d be kicked out of their home and shipped off to the poorhouse. To save them, I needed to find Father’s money and bring it back—but after what Uncle Will had said, I was less sure than ever about returning home. My father didn’t lift a finger to help his own mother in her hour of need—why should I help him? But there was Mama, too … if I didn’t try to help her, how would I be any different from my father?
I dreamed of what I’d do with all that money, all to myself. First thing, I’d buy a long, black Rolls Royce. And I’d get some fancy duds to match—a pinstriped suit and patent leather Oxfords. When Emily Apple saw me cruising down the street, she’d curse the day she met Lars Lundgren. She’d beg me to take her away, but I’d brush her off and say, “I loved you before you had breasts; you should have loved me before I got money.” Then I’d leave her in a cloud of dust and go find the French Lady, whom I’d track down from the studio name on her postcard.
The dream was so vivid that, even when I was roused by the sound of an animal moving through the brush behind me, I swore it was the French Lady I saw scampering over another rock and making her way to the river. Maybe the sun was getting to me.
I squinted, blinked, and squeezed my eyes shut, but when I opened them again, she was still there—a real, flesh-and-blood girl in a long black dress, walking along the shore. I flipped over onto my belly and scooted around to get a better look. Good thing I was laying flat, or she would have seen me already.
The girl dipped her toes into the water and watched the ripples she made. I couldn’t see her face, but her hair was as black as her dress. She bent down to look at her reflection—or something under the water?—and then dropped to her knees. As the river lapped against her waist, she curled forward, pressing her face into her hands. Her shoulders started to shake—was she crying?
Next thing I knew, she was wailing and screaming and slashing at the water like a girl possessed. Finally, exhaused, she threw herself forward into the river. The water was only a foot deep, but that was enough to cover her almost entirely.
I wanted to call out, to ask if she was all right, but then I remembered that I was naked. More than that, my body was having its natural reaction to seeing a girl splashing in water. The flag pole was rising, completely oblivious to the possibility that she was in danger—and equally oblivious to the fact that I was lying flat on a slab of stone.
She floated face down in the water for what seemed like an eternity, the current tugging at her hair and dress. Then her head broke the surface, coughing and gasping, and she struggled up onto her hands and knees. When she rose to her feet, her whole body was shaking and her dress clung to her black and shiny as a seal’s skin. She yelled something that I couldn’t quite make out, but it sounded like, “Dammit—I am cursed!”
As she trudged back to shore, I scooted to the far end of my rock and laid low. I kept my cheek pressed against the rough stone—breathing heavy, heart pounding—while she scurried between the rocks, up the hill, and out of sight.
Even after she was gone, an electrical charge hung in the air. Every hair on my body was tingling, and all my senses were buzzing. Or was it just the cicadas?
CHAPTER 19
I didn’t tell Craw about what I’d seen at the river—unlike him, I wasn’t one to talk about every woman I’d ever laid eyes on. But the image of that girl, floating in the water like a dark mermaid, stuck in my mind.
A couple days later, we were back at work in the field, whittling posts, digging holes, and stringing wire. It was the hottest one yet—not even June, and it must have been a hundred degrees. Sweat dripped off my hair and ran down my face, stinging my eyes, and my throat was as parched as the dirt under my feet.
About noon, when the sun was directly overhead, Craw threw down his hatchet. “Holy leaping lizards …”
It sounded like he’d cut himself, but I didn’t see any blood. “What’s wrong?”
“The dementia’s coming on,” he said. “I always wondered which would go first—my mind or my body. Thank God it’s my mind. At least I’ll be comforted by visions of virgins in my final days.”
“What the heck are you talking about?”
“You can’t see her,” he said. “She’s only a figment of my fancy.”
But when I turned around, there she was coming towards us—the mermaid girl, wearing the same black dress. “You aren’t the only one halucinating.” Against her hip, she carried a clay jug wrapped in white cloth. It was filled to the brim, and as she stepped water sloshed out and dripped down the hem of her dress.
“It ain’t real,” Craw said. “It’s one of those visions a dying man sees in a desert—a mirror—mira—oh, what the hell do you call it?”
Mirage or not, Craw rushed past me. “Old men first.” He grabbed the jug, tipped it back, and gurgled till the water ran down his chin.
“Better slow down,” the girl said, “or your friend will have to drink it off your shirt.”
Finally, Craw passed me the half-empty jug and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “It ain’t whiskey, but it ain’t bad.”
I was too nervous to look the girl in the face. As I took a sip, Craw removed his derby and gave a deep bow. “Are you an angel? Sent to comfort me in my dying hour?”
The girl laughed. “I’m no angel—I’m Sarah Hawthorn. Mister Henry sent me to keep you from dying of thirst.”
I was too stunned to take it all in. A girl about my age, living right there on the farm—why hadn’t Wilburn and Millie mentioned her before?
“I thank you mightily,” Craw said. “It’s hot enough to bake a horny toad. Of course, I can handle it fine—I have the endurance of a camel. But young Tobias here was on the verge of collapse.”
She turned to me. “You’re Mister Henry’s nephew, right?” But before I could answer, Craw cut in. “You’ll have to excuse my young friend. He’s a bit, shall we say, girl shy.”
Mortified, I stared down at the ground, hoping to find a hole into which to crawl and die. “Uncle Will—yes—that is, he’s my uncle.”
After an awkward silence, Sarah took the empty jug and turned to leave. “Well, I’d better get going. I’ve got to water the goats next
.”
Craw moaned like he’d been stabbed in the gut. “Now I see how it is. We’re just two more animals that need watering. Is that all we are to you?”
She smiled and kept walking.
Craw called after her. “Why don’t you fetch us some hay while you’re at it? And a bucket of slop, too?”
“Just don’t ask me to clean up after you,” Sarah yelled back over her shoulder. “You’ll have to shovel your own shit.”
Craw whistled. “Now there’s a girl.”
Craw poked me with the round side of his hook. “Don’t you feel it, boy?”
I was still wondering what she’d been doing at the river the day before. “Feel what?”
“What a girl can do—bring a ray of sunshine to the cloudiest day.”
I squinted up at the sun. “Cloudiest day? You are hallucinating.”
“It’s a figure of speech, my boy. What I mean is—look at that.” Craw pointed at Sarah in the distance, jug swinging against her hip.
I shook my head. “What are you staring at?”
“Nothing refreshes the spirit like a pretty girl with nice jugs.”
“That’s enough.” I waved him off and started back to our fence.
“What? It was very nice of her to bring us a jug of water, that’s all.”
I bent down and picked up my post-hole digger. “You know—you could be that girl’s father.”
“If she takes after her mother, I surely could be.”
I spun around, digger in hand. “You’re a disgrace. Practically throwing yourself at a girl half your age. No—a quarter of your age, if that.”
“Me? You actually thought that I—?” Craw gave me the same wounded look he’d given Sarah. “Believe me, son—I have no interest in her for myself. I was only trying to help you.”
I jammed my blade against the ground. “Well, for your future reference, I don’t need any help. I can do a fine job of embarrassing myself.”
“You certainly can,” Craw spat. “A boy your age letting a pretty girl pass unnoticed—now that’s disgraceful. You didn’t even look at her face.”
“Neither did you. You leered at all of her but her face.”
Craw picked up his hatchet. “Tobias, my boy, a woman is the crown of creation. Remember—Adam was only God’s rough draft, but Eve was his masterpiece. And if you don’t appreciate God’s masterpiece—why, that’s what I call blasphemy.”
+ + +
Later that afternoon, Wilburn drove out to inspect our work. Cigarette hanging from his lip, he squinted at our ragtag assemblage of wire and posts. “The bad news is, that fence couldn’t hold a blind bull with no legs. The worse news is, I’ve got three healthy bulls arriving in four weeks.”
My jaw dropped to the ground. Craw lowered his head and clasped his derby over his heart. We’d been doing our best—could it really be that bad?
Uncle Will came up from behind and put his hand on our shoulders. “What’s wrong? You two look like you’re standing over a grave.”
“We are,” Craw said. “Mine.”
Wilburn laughed. “Chin up! Moping never got nobody nowhere. Besides—ain’t nothing a beer can’t fix.” He walked back to his truck door, rummaged around inside, and returned with three brown bottles.
Craw’s face lit up and he snapped his derby back on his head. “Friends, Texans, countrymen—lend me a beer!” When Wilburn tossed him a bottle, he popped off the cap with his bare teeth.
Uncle Will started to hand me a bottle, then pulled back. “I suppose you won’t want one of these, being a good Baptist and all.”
Truth was, I’d never tasted beer. But at the challenge, I grabbed the bottle out of his hand, put the cap in my mouth, and chomped down. My two front teeth about cracked in half. Thankfully, Uncle Will had a bottle opener in his bib pocket, and he popped it for me.
I was thirsty as the devil, so I pressed the cold bottle to my lips and took a great swig. It smelled like moldy bread, but it went down fine. Then, somewhere between my throat and my stomach, it started foaming up. I felt it foaming higher and higher, till it exploded out of my nose in a shower of suds.
Uncle Will slapped my back. “Easy there, pardner!”
Craw held up his bottle to toast. “You know what our nation’s great founding father, Benjamin Franklin, said? ‘Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.’”
“Amen to that,” Wilburn said. “But if God made beer, why don’t preachers drink it?”
“Good question.” Craw rubbed his chin. “They ought to—it’s a very spiritual beverage. One of the saints said that, in the middle of heaven, there’s a great lake of beer where Jesus and the redeemed drink for all eternity.”
Uncle Will leaned in closer. “Who said that?”
“Saint Brigid of Ireland.”
Wilburn laughed. “Irish—that explains it.”
My head felt tired and fuzzy, in a good way. For someone as skinny as me, I thought, it must take only a few drinks to get sloshed. I had to concentrate to make sure my words came out straight. “Why would God want us to be happy? According to my father, he wants us to be miserable.”
Craw took another swig. “Imagine if you were God—a stretch, I know. But would you want your creatures to grovel around your feet all day, or enjoy all the gifts you’ve given them? Jesus himself drank wine—it’s right there in the Bible. Hell, he couldn’t stand the taste of water. When they brought him a barrel of the stuff, he turned it into wine. He spent so much time in taverns that the Pharisees called him a drunk.”
“Damned if that don’t beat all,” Uncle Will said. “I never heard that in any church.”
“The problem with a lot of church people,” Craw said, “is that they’re trying to be holier than Jesus.”
Why did alcohol help Wilburn and Craw relax, but it drove my father crazy? Maybe it was because Father saw it as a temptation from the devil, instead of a gift from God. Anyhow, the beer was working wonders for Uncle Will and Craw—they’d never gotten along so well.
“Say, Cornelius,” Wilburn said, “what did you say your family name was?”
“The great Scottish clan of McGraw.”
“Funny—you don’t look Scottish.”
Craw slurped the last drop of foam from his bottle. “You’ve never seen me in my kilt.”
Wilburn laughed and put his arm around Craw’s shoulder. “Well, Brother McGraw, you ought to be a preacher. Cause the way you talk about Jesus, he sounds like somebody I’d like to have a drink with.”
CHAPTER 20
THE next Saturday was market day in Glen Rose, and Wilburn gave Craw and me a new assignment that not even we could mess up—or so he hoped. We loaded up the Ford wagon with eggs and butter, Millie’s fresh-baked bread and pies, canned jams and fruit preserves, and several barrels of the season’s first apples. At the last minute, though, Uncle Will thought twice about sending us alone. Maybe he didn’t trust Craw with his money, or maybe he didn’t trust me to keep all the prices straight, or maybe he didn’t trust either of us to find our way to the courthouse square. Whatever his reasons, I was glad—because a few minutes later, Sarah came walking up the dusty path.
Craw greeted her with a flurry of bows, prostrations, and kisses of the hand, while I held back, stealing glances out of the corner of my eye. I wasn’t smitten by Sarah, but I was intrigued by her. This was the third time I’d seen her, and once again she was wearing that same tattered black dress. Had someone died, or was it just the only thing she owned?
Uncle Will had given me the key, but I was out of practice; Father never let me behind the wheel of his new Plymouth. To avoid making a fool of myself, I passed the key to Craw and the three of us crammed onto the hard seat, with Sarah in the middle. “Off we go,” Craw said, jamming the key into the ignition and pumping the pedals. When nothing happened, he started throwing switches and pulling levers.
“Are you sure you’ve driven before?” Sarah asked.
“Course I have!” Craw
jiggled the steering wheel with his hook. “I’m not used to these newfangled models, that’s all.”
Sarah crossed her arms and looked out my window. “This thing’s at least ten years old. That may be new by your standards, but—”
Craw pounded his fist on the dashboard. “And I suppose you could do better, little lady?”
“As a matter of fact—I could.” With that, Sarah shoved against Craw and the door burst open; out he tumbled, sprawling in the dirt. She turned the key and pushed a pedal, and the engine then roared to life.
Craw walked around the truck and climbed in through the passenger door, cursing and muttering. “Girls these days, I swear …”
“Can’t handle the newfangled ones, eh?” Sarah beamed triumphantly and stomped on the gas.
+ + +
We peeled out of the drive and onto the dirt road, Wilburn’s old truck rocking and teetering. There was no roof on the cab, so the wind and dust whipped against our faces. Every time we rounded a curve, I took a deep breath and hoped that Millie’s pies wouldn’t go airborne.
A couple miles down the road, Sarah slammed on the brakes and sent all the produce and baked goods—and me and Craw—jolting forward. Being the tallest, Craw’s head slammed against the glass. “Shit! What the hell are you trying to do—kill me?”
“Quiet,” Sarah said. “You’ll startle him.”
Craw rubbed his forehead. “Him—?”
When the dust cleared, we saw a strange creature sitting in the middle of the road. It looked like a possum wearing a suit of armor. “What is it?” I asked.
“I’ll be damned,” Craw said. “A Hoover hog!”
Sarah hopped out, bent down, and picked up the beast. She brought it back to show me, cradling and stroking it like a baby. “You’ve never seen an armadillo before?”
