by Annie Proulx
Perley went straight to Lily’s place. He had not seen his daughter since he had married Maureen ten months earlier. Lily had kept her distance, letting him feel her disapproval over the two miles that separated the farms. He knocked at the door though he knew she had seen him pull in.
“Well, what in heaven’s name is wrong with you.” Lily stared at his red face, the face, she thought, of an old ginger tom with snowy whiskers.
“A little sunburn.”
“I should say!”
He didn’t know how to begin.
“Lily”
“Father,” she said, mocking his constrained tone. At last she had to say “I’n see things are not too good.”
He got it out. “I think them two are tryin’ to take over the farm. Want you to come up and stay a week or so, see what you think”
She narrowed her eyes, the cords in her neck tightened. “You know I can’t leave Sam on his own.”
Perley knew what she meant: made your bed, now lie in it.
He took the long way back on the old woods road and stopped in a place where he could look down on the south side of the farm. Here he was, he thought, hanging around in the woods, staring at the farm like a hired man who’d just been booted off the place.
“That’s it.” he said to the windshield, driving the truck straight down the hill, bumping and heaving over the rough ground. The muffler caught on a mound of earth thrown up around a woodchuck hole and dragged along, catching in the grass, until it hit a rock and tore away. He shot into the yard with a noise like a grader, ready to have it out with both of them, ready to hit Bobhot with the prybar he snatched up from behind the passenger seat.
The house was empty. Gone off again, probably down to Ashtony where Bobhot would drink beer and eat potato chips and Maureen would look over everything in the stores before she bought a dish or a plastic doormat. The color of the tomatoes had deepened to the somber red that precedes rot. He waited for half an hour, then went out to the shed and found the Sakrete.
He mixed a little of it up and carried it in an empty coffee can up to Netta’s broken stone. He troweled it onto the break and set the fallen stone in place. The excess Sakrete oozed out, and he wiped it away. “Netta,” he said in a low, embarrassed voice. He could hear the brainless rasp of cicadas, as irritating as burrs. What could he say to Netta? What had he ever said to Netta? He saw a fox scat on the grave and kicked it away. He pulled at the weeds.
When there was nothing more to do with Netta’s stone he went down and sorted the good tomatoes from the rotten. He got out the canning kettle, scalded the jars, rummaged under the stairs for the lids.
At dusk he ate supper alone. He used the first fork his hand touched. Shining jars of pulpy tomatoes cooled on the sideboard. The kettle was washed and put away, the counters wiped clean, the floor swept. It was after dark when he heard Bobhot’s truck drive in and a door slam.
Bobhot came in, his face as dark as a smoked ham, eyes like bird’s eyes, orange and inhuman. He started to climb the stairs.
“Where the hell do you think you’re goin’?” said Perley. “And where’s Maureen?”
Bobhot’s face swelled and he turned toward Perley as if his shirt had caught on a nail.
“Meow!” screamed Bobhot. “Meow! Old cat.” Spit flew out of his squared mouth. He stumbled against the yellow chair, slapped at it. Perley gripped the prybar.
Bobhot swung both his arms up grandly as though he were a conductor starting an orchestra on a stormy piece. The force whirled him to the left and he grasped the refrigerator, pressing his face to the cold white enamel. His dull voice mumbled, “Leave me be.” A thin streak of saliva crawled down the white refrigerator.
“Leave you be, all right.” said Perley. “In the mornin’ when you’re sober enough to stand up you get back down to your own place and slay there.”
Bobhot did not hear him. He sank lower and lower. His eyes were shut and his mouth open, like a crooked funnel.
Perley look the prybar and the flashlight and went out to the barn to sleep. He got the blanket from the truck on the way.
The hay in the loft was three years old, but the sweet dry perfume of grass flooded the room still. He went to the little window and shut off the flashlight. He could see the car headlights on the river road—quite a few these days—where only three or four years ago hardly anyone went by after sunset. The Mackie farm was down there somewhere in the darkness along the river.
On the southern skyline there was an orange tinge, light from the mercury lamps in Ashtony, and he pictured Maureen sitting in a bar letting an ugly troublemaker rub up against her. At last he broke apart some bales of hay and made a bed.
Smothered shouting woke him. His cheek was against a dusty floorboard. He could not find the flashlight. He felt his way to the window und looked down into the lighted kitchen. Maureen leaned over Bobhot, shaking him, yelling into his face. In a few minutes she went upstairs, turning on the lights, flushing the darkness from the stairwell, from the empty rooms.
“I’m not there,” whispered Perley.
Back down in the kitchen, she got Bobhot up. They swayed together as they climbed the stairs. Perley watched them go into the bedroom, watched them fall into the bed. The bedroom light went out, the one in the empty kitchen burned on. The embrace of Bobhot and Maureen was that of an old familiar couple.
Probably from the time they were kids, he thought. The Mackie kids, beaten, dressed in rags, fed on scraps he wouldn’t give to pigs, clinging together like little monkeys for warmth and affection. He remembered them, years ago, out in the field digging potatoes when they should have been in school, thin kids scraped raw by the wind off the river.
They must have seen him, too, in his warm woolen jacket, driving the shiny truck along the road with his little daughter beside him, must have seen the plump bags of grain in the back of the truck, or the new freezer. They stared at the house every time they went past the farm. And Netta had brought them down boxes of clothes that no longer fit Lily. “Dirty little things,” she had said.
A car went along the river road and dwindled into the muffling darkness. In the empty kitchen intermittent flashes of light showed in the rhythmic drops that fell from the leaking faucet.
How easily things happened. It was ten or more years, he thought, since this part of his life had been set in motion, the first warm day after a grinding winter. He had let the cows out and they capered in the damp pasture as though the rare sunlight stung their crusted hides. He strode over the farm, kicking at the banks of coarse snow, not knowing what chore to start next. Jags and geese followed one another, their iron, ringing cries stirring his feeling of an incomplete life. He was fifty-nine, his flesh was still firm. The wind filled his mouth, as thick and warm as milk.
He remembered how he had felt, cutting across his land into Trumbull’s woods, stumbling down toward the river. His boot heels left deep indentations in the mat of wet leaves. He came out in Mackie’s fields. The snow was gone here and he crossed the leached rows of rotted corn stubble. The cold smell of melted snow came off the river. Ice cakes tilted on the black waves.
A girl stood holding a length of muddy clothesline tied onto a grappling hook. She watched the water. Two or three wet planks lay on the shore nearby, and he could see the drag marks where she had pulled them out. A wooden box rode down the current. She threw the hook with supple grace, but the wet box broke apart under the impact. He breathed in the thick fragrance of soil and wet bark. He could feel the beat of his blood in his swollen fingers.
“Water’s pretty high, isn’t it?” he said. Willow pollen streaked the child’s face. Her eyes were some dark river color. She wore men’s boots, worn out and patched, a muddy jacket. Her hair hung down in a long, thick braid. He knew who she was, the dirty little thing, but he said. “Now, what’s your name?”
She made a short rush up the muddy bank on all fours, clawing at the dangling willow roots, her worn out boots gouging greasy scimitar-shap
ed marks in the clay. But when he pulled her down she was as slack and yielding in his grip as worn rope.
In the hayloft Perley folded his arms and leaned on the windowsill, waiting for morning. The empty illumination of the kitchen seemed to float in the darkness. He saw the yellow chair, stiff, awry, saw the iron sink as deep as an abyss. In the east the sky already showed a dull streak like a stony outcrop where the soil was washing away.
A Run of Bad Luck
CLOUDS of steam rose from the kettle of boiling potatoes and condensed on the windows. Mae slid the big frying pan onto the hot front lid and knocked in a spoonful of bacon fat. When the pan smoked she laid in thick pieces of pork side meat. “If they want somethin’ better, let them go out and get it,” she said to the dog. She nudged him with her foot. “Go on, Patrick.” He slouched away from the stove and fell under the table like an armful of wood. The meat curled at the edges and threw off a fine mist of grease.
Outside a truck door slammed. “Right on the button,” said Mae, turning the pork. She was tall and stooped with smooth, wood-colored skin that made Haylett say “Indian” to her. She sawed the loaf of bread into thick slices and stacked them on a plate, set out a pound of butter already hacked and scored by knife blades.
Haylett and the two boys filled the low-ceilinged room. They pulled off their muddy pacboots and set them on the newspaper behind the stove, hung up the wool jackets that held the shapes of their shoulders, the bend of their arms. Haylett lathered his hands and forearms in the sink. Mae dipped out a pan of hot water from the stove reservoir, ran in a little cold water, and poured it over his head while he rubbed his face with both hands and snorted.
“Ray’s not eatin’ here tonight, Ma,” said Phil.
“Where’s he eatin’, then?”
“Home. Says he’s goin’ out huntin’ alone tomorrow and wants to get ready. He’s not goin’ with Amando and us.”
“Thinks he’s goin’ to get one by himself,” said Clover.
I imagine he’ll try,” said Haylett and scraped the chair legs over the floor. Mae set out the platter of meat and potatoes, a bowl of succotash.
“Looks like everybody gets the day off but me,” she said. The three men leaned over their plates, shoving the food into their mouths. Phil shook pepper over everything.
“Don’t anybody notice they’re eatin’ pork for the third straight week?” she said. “Seems like you’d notice that.”
“Wait’ll tomorrow,” said Phil, “there’ll be four bucks hangin’ out there.”
“Shut up,” said Clover, “you ruin the luck talkin’ about it.” His slow glance went to the shelf where his buck lures stood, Dr. T’s Buck Urine, Hunter’s Moon Doe-In-Heat, and Rawhide Gel.
“Shut up yourself,” said Phil. Haylett scraped his chair back and forth for silence. Mae put a potato on his plate.
“What’s takin’ Amando so long? He didn’t go over to the trailer, did he, tryin’ to get back with Julia?”
“I imagine.” said Haylett, “I imagine it’s about the road. He’s had to go see about the road. I told him we ought not skid logs when it was that wet, wait until it froze up again, but no, Amando and Ray was in a hurry to get done.”
“When was this?”
“About two weeks ago, after all that rain. It was the last day on Warp’s lot if we pulled the logs out then. If we left ’em, we’d of had to come back with all the equipment, break into the setup we got now over on the Cold Key Road. Amando says, ‘Don’t worry about it. If anybody squawks I’ll take care of it. Let’s get these logs out now.’”
“Yeah,” said Mae, “I can just hear him sayin’ it.”
“So today here comes Benny, says, ‘Selectmen want to talk to you boys about what you done to town highway number six.’ I didn’t say a word, just waved him over to Amando. Let him talk his way out of it, he’s such a good talker.”
“Is it rutted up bad?”
Phil laughed, jerking his head back, a single hard noise that came out of his throat like a bird cry. “Rutted up bad? It’s a lake, a lake all filled up with brown water. Fish could live there. You could swim across.” He thrust up his arm to show the depth, and fragments of food fell from his fork into his hair.
“Well, there’s not much they can do about it, is there. Whyn’t they just fix it up and leave him alone,” said Mae. She made up a plate for Amando with an extra slice of meat, mashed his potato fine with her fork and shaped it into a cup to hold the gravy. She put the plate into the warming oven, made a cup of tea for Haylett.
The boys started in on opening day. Mae guessed they’d talked about it since morning, where they might go, whether to track or still hunt or drive, reviewing past seasons and deer sign they’d seen in the last few weeks.
“You make brown bread, Ma?” asked Clover.
“You know I didn’t. I been a workin’ girl since July, if you’d notice, and you’re lucky I get back here in time to make dinner. There’s a pie. Whyn’t you take pie? Apple or cherry.”
“Ma, I like to have the brown bread. You don’t know how good it is when you’re half froze and starved. And it don’t flash white like a sandwich or pie.”
“It takes three hours of slow steamin’ to cook brown bread, and I’m about ready to hit the hay right now.”
“I’ll stay up and watch it,” said Clover. “I don’t want to get shot by some flatlander thinks a white sandwich is a buck’s behind like that guy got killed over on Hawk Mountain. Brown bread brings me good luck.”
“Knowin’ what you’re doin’ brings the luck, mister man,” said Haylett.
“That guy on Hawk Mountain,” said Phil. “Like this.” He leaned back, put one foot on the chair, whistled carelessly and bit an imaginary sandwich. He bit again, the imaginary sandwich flew away, the teeth thrust from the contorted mouth and his hand jerked up as though to stop a hot spray of blood jetting out of his throat.
They heard Amando’s truck outside, heard the door to the shed slam. Amando came into the kitchen on a wedge of raw air, stamping his feet. They watched him pull the knitted cap off his sand-colored hair, tight round curls like a drawing; like a drawing too, his heavy eyelids and amber irises so pale they seemed the color of bog water. The narrow, handsome face was marked with fine lines. Mae took his heavy jacket and hung it with the others behind the stove.
“Turnin’ colder out?” said Haylett. A sense of unease seeped into the kitchen with the bitter air, a feeling that it was necessary to watch out for something. Phil put his head down and ate pie.
“Snow. Smells like snow. I kept lookin’ for snow on the windshield all the way here, And the damn heater in the truck don’t work.” Amando jerked his chair out and sat at the table.
“Trackin’ snow,” said Clover. “I hope we get three or four inches of good trackin’ snow.”
Phil dragged his fork across his plate. “What’d the selectmen say, Amando. what’d little bowlegged Benny and the selectmen say?”
Mae set Amando’s plate in front of him. He looked directly at her, something her other sons rarely did. Haylett, never. Amando ate without answering.
“Clover,” said Mae, “you’re so eager for brown bread, how about you get a start on the dishes while I mix it up?” Amando looked up.
“You ain’t goin’ to start makin’ brown bread now, are you?”
“I wouldn’t, only Clover wants it bad enough to set up while it steams. I’m goin’ to bed just as soon as I get it on the stove.” She began mixing the molasses and eggs in a heavy yellow bowl. Clover slid the plates through the greasy water and Phil sang made-up words nobody knew.
Something made Haylett look up. He was writing his daily lines on the weather in his pocket notebook, sun a.m. wet sharp wind out of sw, cloudy by 4, shower, dark by 5. His pencil stopped. “Is that sleet or snow,” he said, hearing the scattered ticks on the window glass. Phil pressed his hot face against the window. “Sleet,” he said, watching the spicules of ice slide down the pane. Haylett’s pencil wrote.
Haylett was down the next morning at three-thirty to get the stoves going, He liked turning the dark chill away, enjoyed the little solitude, the resinous odor of kindling catching fire. The shovel squeaked as he drew out the ashes.
Mae yawned into the kitchen in her old pink chenille wrapper, the back shiny where she’d sat it flat, held her hands over the crackling stove in the ritual gesture to catch the first comforting warmth. There was Haylett with his billets of wood and chunking damper balancing chimney draft against the quick need for heat.
The brown bread was still faintly warm. She sliced it and wrapped the pieces in foil, cut the remains of a pork roast, leaving the white rim of fat on the meat, making the deer-hunt lunches the way she’d made them for thirty years, packing in the sweet, fatty foods they liked. Clover would have nothing pale nor white, nothing that cracked when bitten, nothing too juicy. “Too bad they don’t make black cheese,” she murmured.
Haylett put the coffee on, an electric plug-in pot Amando and Julia had given them at Christmas a year ago. The novelty was still on it; they thought it a luxury to drink the fresh hot coffee before the kettle on the wood-fired kitchen range boiled. She slid the big frying pan onto the hot spot and knocked in a spoon of bacon grease. She had saved the coffeepot wrapping paper, dark green with silver bells on it. Something Julia picked out.
Clover galloped through the kitchen and out into the dark in his bare feet, hand clamped over his groin, eyes blind with sleep. He came back salted with fine, hard crystals. “Still comin’ down. If it stops pretty soon we’ll be okay. Put the radio on, Pa, let’s see if we can get the forecast.” He poured a cup of coffee and took it upstairs with him. They heard him kick Phil’s door, say, “Get up or get left.” The radio crackled and blurred, snatches of music whirled past as Haylett twisted the dial.
