Pickard County Atlas

by Chris Harding Thornton

  “Suppose he’s washed out to sea by now,” Ziske said. That was what they’d settled on, that Rollie chucked Dell Junior in the Wakonda. There’d been a smear of blood on the pickup’s side, a pool of it in the fill dirt, a fresh set of tracks running to and from the direction of the creek. But they’d dredged it for miles. They’d settled on the Wakonda because they’d needed to settle.

  Harley finished making a jagged-edged mess of Doris’s obituary. He slid it across the table. “Wouldn’t have pegged you for a scrapbooker.”

  “What time’s the service? Can’t read the print.”

  “If you can’t read the print, what the hell do you care if it comes or not?”

  “I pay for the damn thing.”

  “The supplement’s free,” Harley said as he scanned the last paragraph. “Ten-thirty. Tomorrow at Zion.”

  “Quick turnaround.” Ziske sounded impressed for once. “Planting her up the road with the rest of them, I guess. Start up that way now, I’ll make it by the time she does.” He meant the Old German graveyard. “Ain’t been up there since the fire. Can’t imagine it, Jipp place gone. Granted, house was ramshackle the day it was built. Tell you what I regret—mowing down the Lucases’. Ole Braasch could build a hell of a house.”

  Ziske must’ve been getting dotty. “Ole Braasch built the Jensen place,” Harley corrected him.

  The old man scowled, then barked, “I know what goddamn places Ole Braasch built. Lucas hired him. Built Lucas the same place as your folks’. Same barn, same all of it. Right down to the nail for the outhouse paper. Might’ve only knew the one floor plan, Ole, but he could build it. Your folks’ place over there sitting empty—goddamn waste.”

  Harley studied Ziske’s milky blue irises beneath his wild brows, trying to read if he was hinting at what June Christiansen had been, the day before last. But no. Ziske wasn’t one for allusion. If he had something to say, you couldn’t pay him not to say it.

  “Wish to hell I hadn’t mowed that place over,” he said again. “Should’ve razed this one instead.”

  “You did what you had to.”

  “Did what was easy. Easier knocking it down than shampooing Rollie’s brains out of the rug.” As soon as he’d said it, Ziske stiffened and winced. “Ah, hell.”

  “None taken.”

  Ziske took a last swig of coffee. Harley used it as an excuse to stand, pour the old man another, and head out. Ziske took a sip and shook his head, looking disgusted. “Ramshackle or not,” he said, “burning down them houses is like spitting on graves. Most them places, built by folks didn’t have a pot to piss in. If they did, they wouldn’t have landed here. Old houses is all that’s left of them.” He was staring at the old wedding picture on the wall again. “Indians were smart, you know. Knew it weren’t no good for more than grazing out here. Or hunts. Seen arrowheads, up in that north pasture when the rain cut it up. What was it, eight years ago, we had all that rain?”

  Give or take, Harley said. He told the old man he needed to go.

  Ziske waved by way of raising the cup like a toast. “I’m still pressing charges, that supplement don’t come.”

  “Imagine you’ll try if it does,” Harley said and waved as he headed out.

  14

  THE LAST THING PAM REMEMBERED about the night before was the cusp of sleep. Rick had pinned her beneath an arm and a leg and lain hot against her back. But he never did that little spasm that told her he was asleep. His breaths never slowed to long and shallow. Not while she was awake, anyway.

  When she rolled her head, the pillowcase grazed her mouth. It was still a little raw from Harley’s bristles. She remembered last night, balancing her weight on the trunk of the Nova. She waited for a sinking guilt, a flu-like heaviness. It didn’t come.

  She got up and walked to the hall. In the next room, Anna had climbed down from the crib and sat on the floor. She’d spread out pieces of paper from a notepad. Drawings, scrawled letters. She was arranging them, putting them in some kind of order. Her hair was a rat’s nest, but she’d changed from her pajamas into a T-shirt and some patched-up jeans. Pam asked if she was hungry. Anna didn’t look at her. Just said in a minute.

  The phone on the kitchen wall rang. It was Babe. Pam cradled the phone between her ear and shoulder, opened the bread box on the counter, and pulled two plates from the cabinet. She listened warily as Babe tried to make small talk for a sentence or two.

  “Then somebody went and drained the damn gas tank,” she said.

  Pam stopped cold, hand on the pull of the cabinet where the butter was. She acted as if she hadn’t heard. She asked what Babe had said and listened close.

  “Been telling your dad for years to move those tanks down by the barn.”

  Pam hadn’t stolen the gas, but she’d sure as hell tried, and now she listened for a hint of suspicion. There was none. It sounded more like Babe was a little proud to be proved right.

  “Did you call the cops about it?” Pam pictured Harley. She pictured his belt buckle, his shoulders, his rough palm. “You should,” she said, weirdly thrilled. “I would.”

  Babe made a raspberry noise. “Like they’d do anything about it.” Then she was quiet. Pam waited. “Went down to Gordon’s this morning,” Babe said. The surface of her voice was offhand but the underside was hardening like cooling metal.

  Pam stilled, saucer of butter in hand, and said nothing. She set the saucer on the counter and wound the phone cord’s coils around her finger.

  “Had to pick up some canning wax,” Babe said, like she was real angry at that canning wax. She waited, as if it were Pam’s turn to talk.

  The tip of Pam’s index finger throbbed purple at the end of the coils. When she listened close, she heard the line click with static. She unrolled the cord from her numb finger.

  “Had a chat with Helen Nelson.” Babe had sunk in her teeth and was about to shake Pam like an old sock. “Look, I don’t have all day to play cat-and-goddamn-mouse with you, so I’ll tell you right now. You’re lucky if Helen Nelson ain’t already told half the town what happened yesterday, and if you think she really thought you just accidentally left your three-year-old girl in that store, you’re a hell of a lot dumber than I even thought.”

  “What are you saying?” Pam bit back, though it came out higher than she wanted, and that goddamn morbid smile that happened whenever it shouldn’t cramped her cheeks. When she said it again, her voice practically whistled. “What are you even talking about?” She knew Babe could hear the smile. Babe had hated her for it since Aunt Sophia’s funeral when Pam was eight. Pam tried sarcasm and volume to mask it. “Yeah. You’re right. I left Anna in the racks of Gordon’s like some knocked-up teenager”—she searched for words—“dropping some bastard on a convent porch.” Convent porch? She’d never even seen a convent. She didn’t even know if convents had porches. Did convents have porches?

  Babe spoke slow and hard. “Listen. You need to simmer right the hell down, Sis, and get ready to listen.”

  The garish smile straightened without Pam having to chew her cheeks. Babe was quiet. Waiting for Pam to simmer right the hell down.

  She spoke again, even and low. “I’m gonna tell you this once, and I don’t expect to have to say it again.”

  Pam listened.

  “You made this bed. You did it.”

  Babe let that sit there and sink in, and it did. It sank through Pam’s insides like she’d swallowed sand.

  “You think you want out? By my math, you got about fifteen years before you even get to think about it.”

  The weight of it settled in Pam’s gut. Her head felt light.

  “Wish you’d done things different? Think you deserve something better?”

  “I didn’t—”

  “It was a rhetorical question, Pamela Jean.” She took a long breath. “You don’t deserve any better, Sis. You signed up for what you got. She didn’t. That’s the difference. That simple.”

  After Babe hung up, Pam slid down to sit in a kit
chen chair. She stared, unblinking. Across the table was the purse, the Singer sewing machine. She listened for Anna. She was silent in her room. Sorting those papers and whatever they held.

  Finally, Pam stood, unplugged the Singer, and wrapped the cord around the body of it. She carried it to the hall closet, thought of all the things crammed inside, and kept walking to their bedroom. She slid it between the legs of the bedside table.

  Back in the kitchen, she didn’t feel her hands as she dumped the purse across the wood grain. She watched her own fingers gather up the bills she’d taken from the sugar canister, one by one, straightening them into a pile. She went to the cabinet and pulled down the canister for the flour. She lifted up the bag and dropped them in with the rest like she was dropping lot rent through the main-office mail slot. Another installment on a bill she’d never pay off.

  There’d be no new start. There’d be no house with a sturdy foundation and ceilings high enough to breathe beneath. There’d be no tanks of gas to take her away from any of it. There would be this and only this. In total.

  She burped the lid. She put the canister back on the shelf.

  15

  THE CARPET WAS COMING UP EASY. So was the pad. Whoever laid it used good pad—hadn’t glued it down to the plywood, either. Didn’t need it. Heavy-duty stuff. Came right up from the staples, just pop-pop-pop. In one ear, anyway. Rick’s other ear was plugged. He couldn’t clear it. He swallowed, gave his nose a few good farmer blows, but it was no use. It made everything in his head loud and everything outside his head hushed.

  Other than that, he felt good, for no sleep. He hadn’t slept back at home. He’d been too scared he wouldn’t wake early enough. But he felt pretty good. Real focused. And the carpet was coming up easy. They’d used real good pad.

  He squatted with the box cutter and slit the rug’s crosshatch backing into long strips he could roll and carry out. A sharp squeal cut through the deadness of his ear. Rick peeked up past the frame of the bedroom window screen. Paul’s pickup had pulled up. The squeal was the door. It squealed again when it shut. It was near eleven in the morning. That kid needed to get his shit together.

  Rick heard him climb up through the front door. There were no stairs outside. His ass or belly thudded against the floor. Rick called out, said he was in the back bedroom. He pulled another corner of the rug and tugged the pad beneath for the satisfying pop-pop-pop. He knelt down and ran the razor along the rug back. Paul’s boots pounded the hallway floor.

  Rick gave his nose another blow, trying to clear that plugged ear. It wouldn’t go. “Any luck? With Mom?” His voice sounded loud coming out of his head. He wondered if it sounded that loud to Paul.

  “You are like a goddamn broken record.” Paul walked past him. He reached down to the Styrofoam cooler in the corner of the room. It sat on the exposed plywood. He pulled out a beer and sat.

  “Ain’t even noon,” Rick pointed out.

  “Duly noted, Carry Nation.” Paul asked what the day’s plan was. Wanted to know if he should crawl under, solder the water lines.

  “Done already. That and the ductwork. Did it last night.”

  “Don’t say. Bet you could use a nap.”

  Rick kept his eyes on the blade, on the carpet. He didn’t know if Paul could tell about the speed. That Rick was on it. “Guessing you stayed away from the cop, given you’re here and not in jail.”

  Paul took a long drink, ran his eyes and fingers over the bared plywood next to the strip of carpet tacks. “Jensen? Tailed him a bit.” Paul said the wood looked decent. Water streaks was all.

  “You tailed a fucking cop?”

  He took another swallow and exhaled a low belch. “I was creeping around some old, rickety houses, he was creeping around some old, rickety houses.”

  Rick waited for more. “And? Anything? You even any closer to knowing where she is?”

  “Yeah. Renovating her vacation homes. Finished one already.”

  “You fucking high again?”

  “Nah. You?”

  The box cutter’s tip ran off track, out from between the straight lines. “Shit.” He was sweating. He nudged the shoulder of his T-shirt against his brow to keep the sweat from dripping in his eye.

  “I recall telling you to keep shit normal,” Paul said.

  “Think I’m tearing up carpet for shits and giggles?”

  “You drove into Madson last night.”

  How’d he know that? Rick focused on slitting the carpet backing. “Yeah? So? You got one real job, Paul, keep an eye on Mom. You don’t do it, it’s my problem, too.”

  Paul gave a half laugh. A thud of air. “You got problems enough, buddy.”

  “The fuck does that mean, I got—” He looked up at Paul and held the box cutter like a pointed index finger. He punctuated the air in front of him with the tip. “You’re the one needs to get his shit together. Find somebody like I did and settle the fuck down. Get your priorities straight.”

  Paul stared back. Those floating silver irises were halfway lidded. His mouth bent in a slight smile but stayed silent, like he was holding something back. Their whole lives, Rick wished Paul would be quiet. Now that he was, the shit was nerve-racking.

  God, Rick’s pits were wet. He scratched his scalp.

  Paul rested his head against the wall behind him. But he kept looking. Rick felt like he was being peered at through a rifle sight. “You’re real good at seeing what you want to, you know that? Always have been. Like Mom and those picnics. Her wandering off with Dell Junior’s shit.”

  “Don’t start that. She don’t know where he is, Paul. She tried doing something nice, tried making shit normal, and you turn it into something else.”

  The picnics she’d taken them on after Dell Junior was gone were about the last good times Rick remembered with Mom, and Paul wouldn’t even let him have that. In the tall grass of some dilapidated house in the country, she’d lay out an afghan and Tupperware and talk about buying the place. Fixing it up. The place was in rough shape, the front porch roof coming loose, but it was still nice, her saying what colors she’d paint the rooms, what drapes she’d hang in the windows. All Paul harped on was how she’d tell the boys to stay put and go off by herself a bit. “She probably wanted some quiet. Hell, she probably had to pee.”

  “And all the toys? That silver rocket?”

  It’d been Dell Junior’s. Paul insisted on bringing it once. Mom got sick of him and Rick bickering over it and snatched it away before she wandered off. Rick didn’t know what she’d done with it. Probably put it in her purse. On the way home, Paul sifted through the wadded-up mound of afghan and Tupperware, and it was gone. After, Paul noticed other stuff that’d disappeared. An old iron locomotive. A ball and jacks. A spinning top with a plunger you pulled and sank to make it turn. Baseball cards and comics.

  “You probably took it. You probably took his shit to school and traded it.”

  “God, I admire that,” Paul said. “The way you see things. The way you don’t. That’s a goddamn gift, friend.”

  Rick wanted Paul to stop talking. “Help me tear up this floor.”

  “You don’t look too good,” Paul said. “You feel all right?”

  “What?” Rick’s chest gave two, three loud knocks. “I’m fine,” he said. “It’s just this thing with Mom. We need to keep our heads. Stick together right now.” He changed the subject. “Be good to get out of here early today.” He told Paul to measure and cut the new plywood.

  Paul said the wood looked fine. Didn’t need to replace the plywood.

  Rick supposed. He supposed the wood was fine. He gave his nose a good snort. The plugged ear popped with a loud rush of air.

  “Out of sight, out of mind, anyway,” Paul said, voice piercing, it was so clear.

  They worked in silence. The silence made time slow. Not like last night at the trailer, when Rick was waiting on Pam. This time was like sludge. Like sludge needing to be snaked from a pipe. The only sound was the boom of his knee hitting th
e carpet stretcher. When Paul went outside to take a leak, Rick fished two more pills from his pocket. He downed them with half a watery beer. He needed to stay awake just a few more hours.

  * * *

  THEY DECIDED THEY’D meet back up at Dad’s, hopefully get paid on the Wilton job. Rick showed first, of course. Rick brought the receipts. Five pieces of crinkled paper. Dad eyed them through the bifocals. His skinny mustache rode high, like the receipts smelled bad. Rick wondered if he smelled bad. He needed to change his shirt. The pits were soaked and they felt too small. They were pinching his armpit hairs.

  Dad typed on his adding machine. The machine sounded like it was chewing as it spit out the roll of figures. “No motel,” he said. “Sleep in the van like a couple hippies? Van’s got my name on it, you know.”

  “I had to drive back. Pam—” Rick stopped and thought. He thought for something Pam might’ve needed him to drive back for. All he could think was the timing needed adjusting on the Nova. He hadn’t done it, and that wasn’t enough to justify driving back.

  Dad was already talking again anyway. “That accounts for all the gas. Next time that van needs service, it’s on you. Company vehicle. Think I pay insurance and maintenance so you can joyride?”