Faraway Places (5 page)

Mother
, he was calling out to her.

Mother
is what the nigger was screaming out to Sugar Babe, to that woman.
Mother, Mother
.

THAT NIGHT, LYING
in bed, I couldn't stop thinking about the hellhounds, and about Harold P. Endicott, and about that woman Sugar Babe and the nigger; couldn't stop hearing the nigger calling out to her, calling out
Mother
like that.

I tried praying the rosary again but I was too nervous to keep track of the beads.

But more than anything, what I was thinking was that I had run away.

NOBODY WAS ALLOWED
to read the newspaper before my father read the newspaper, and that night, two days after I saw the three of them together—Harold P. Endicott, that woman Sugar Babe, and the nigger—when I came in for supper that night, my mother had put the newspaper on the coffee table next to my father's chair like usual. I looked over and this was the headline: “
BODY OF WOMAN FOUND IN PORTNEUF RIVER
.”

I picked up the newspaper without thinking and then put it back down because nobody was allowed to read the newspaper before my father read the newspaper. My father always read
the newspaper after supper with his coffee, usually in the front room or, when it was hot, on the front porch.

“What's wrong?” my mother said when she saw me. She had been asking me that for two days.

“Nothing,” I told her as I had all along.

“Something's bothering you,” my mother said. “Has been for two days now.”

“Nothing's bothering me.” But I was acting bothered and lied again.

My mother just looked at me and put the tuna casserole on the supper table—it was Friday again—but that Friday my father wouldn't eat the tuna casserole because my mother had tried something new and put potato chips in it, so my mother scrambled him up some eggs and spuds, which he did eat.

All through supper she watched me with that look on her face—that same look she had that first night of the chinook when she swept past the bathroom door.

There's not much you can do when my mother turns that eye on you but let yourself be watched, so I concentrated on my tuna casserole and had part of a second helping. I didn't like tuna casserole much either, and my mother knew it, so I took part of a second helping to let her know that I knew she was watching me and also to let her know that the potato chips helped out some.

I watched as my father left the supper table when he got done eating his spuds and eggs. I saw in my head how he walked down the hallway of the butterflies and the dice, and into the front room, where he picked up the newspaper that my mother had folded for him and placed on the coffee table, and, because the evening was so hot, how my father went out onto the front porch. There was no screen on the front door, and no screen door spring to make any kind of sound. My mother poured my father's coffee for him, stirred the two sugars in, cut him a piece of rhubarb pie, and took them out to him on the front porch. When my mother came back into the kitchen, she
unplugged the percolator and poured herself a cup of coffee and set the cup on the table. Then she went back to the stove and cut me a piece of rhubarb pie and asked me again what was wrong. I didn't say anything until after I finished my pie; then I just shrugged my shoulders and still didn't say anything because how do you start telling your mother something that begins with one thing that led to another? Just where do you start with something like that?

The only way that you can begin is at the beginning. And so I finally began: “I have been swimming in the Portneuf pretty near all summer now,” I said, and looked at her. My mother looked back at me.

And then my father walked in the door with the newspaper in his hand and said this, all at once, “That woman, that Injun woman cross the river, the one they call Sugar Babe, who lives with that nigger over there, well, they found her naked and floating in the river, dead. Been there a couple of days, it says here. Says there wasn't much left of her, that some dogs or coyotes probably got to her in the river. And it says the nigger she lives with over there in that lean-to is missing. They got a posse out right now looking for that nigger. Says here they think the nigger probably killed her.” And then he said what he always said. “Always trouble with those kind of people. They just got a nose for it.”

My father then looked at my mother and my mother looked at my father and then my mother looked back at me, her eye way off somewhere else, and then she crossed herself. I looked at my father and then we all looked at each other.

“Your son's been swimming in the Portneuf,” my mother said to my father. “And one thing always leads to another.” Then she said, “Forevermore,” and she crossed herself again.

“Harold P. Endicott killed her, killed that woman Sugar Babe,” I said.

“What were you doing in that river?” my father said. He dropped the paper on the floor.

“Endicott hit her and she fell down and then the nigger jumped on top of Endicott and then Endicott whistled for his dogs, and his dogs attacked that woman and the nigger,” I said.

“Didn't I tell you to stay out of that river?” my father said.

“The nigger didn't kill her, Endicott killed her, his hellhounds killed her.”

“What were you doing in the Portneuf ?” my father said. “I told you not to go in the river.”

“The nigger didn't kill her, I know it. It was Endicott who did it. She was his mother.”

“Who was his mother?” my mother said.

“That woman, Sugar Babe,” I said.

“Whose mother?” my mother said.

“The nigger's! He wouldn't kill his mother.” My mother's left eye started to drift.

“How do you know she was his mother?” my father asked.

“That's what the nigger called her when the dogs was on them.” I said.

“Forevermore!” my mother said, and crossed herself.

“None of this would have happened if you'd stayed out of the river,” my father said.

“Nigger's probably dead too,” I said, and then there was a silence and my father looked at the floor, at the headlines on the newspaper lying there. My mother was looking too. Those words seemed like they were bigger than even my father in the room right then; bigger than all of us:
WOMAN DEAD
. It was quiet for a while longer and then my father told my mother to leave us alone.

“What you going to do?” my mother asked my father. My father looked at her strange and he leaned back a little, like I'd seen him lean back when his own mother, Grandma Ruth, talked to him, and he got a hurt look on his face that my mother could ask such a question. My mother was standing up and we were both sitting down, my father and I, looking at my mother.

“This boy's too old to give a licking to, but I'm going to,” my father said.

“The boy didn't do nothing,” my mother said.

“He jumped in the river!” my father said, and stood up fast, kicking the chair back, “and I told him to stay clear of that river and those people. Now, just look at this mess!” my father said, moving his face right up against hers.

They stood there like that, the two of them, my mother and my father, squared off, my father's hands becoming fists.

“You're going to lose that boy,” my mother said. “You can't beat that boy for this.”

“Mary,” my father said. I had never heard my father call my mother that. “Leave us alone now. This is not a woman's concern.”

The way my father said “Mary” like that and “woman” like that, did it. My mother turned and walked over to where she kept the silverware and got the paring knife out of the drawer. Then she walked outside through the kitchen door, and the way she looked walking out, the way the kitchen door opened, reminded me again of the night of the chinook.

My father took his belt off and told me to drop my pants; told me to bend over and hold on to the edge of the supper table and drop my pants, just like he had told me to do other times.

I wanted to say something big then. I wanted to use those words he used when my mother wasn't around—use them to say something big.

But I held my breath, like I had all those other times in the past, and dropped my pants and my shorts, my back to him, and leaned over and grabbed on to the edge of the supper table.

Other times, my father would have hit me three or four times right off and I would have had my pants back up in nothing flat and neither of us would have said anything for a bit. Then he'd say something like
don't ever do that again
, or
shape up or ship out
, but that was when I was younger.

This time, as I stood there like that, waiting, nothing happened. I turned to see what was up, and saw in my father's face
something I had never seen there before. I don't know what it was, but his face was red and he was blinking, and when he saw me turn, he hit me twice—harder than other times, harder than ever before—and I felt awful enough to puke.

“I'm ashamed of you,” my father said. “Pull your pants up!” he said.

I didn't want to move because it hurt, but I did what he told me to do. I turned around, faced him, and pulled up my shorts, and then my pants. His face got redder and he was still blinking and he did something else then too. Something new. His upper lip quivered a little, though you could tell he was trying to act like his lip wasn't doing that.

It was then that I realized my awful feeling was a feeling for him, not for me, and that
I'm ashamed of you
, is what I should have been saying then to him. So I looked him straight in the eye, and I did say it:
I'm ashamed of you
, not out loud, but in my head, and even though I didn't say it right out, I got my point across.

“Let me educate you about this mother stuff,” my father said. “Even though you should know things like this already by now,” he said. “Those people, them niggers, got a way of talking. They use that word ‘mother' different from how we use it. When they say ‘mother' what they're really saying is ‘mother
fucker
.' That's just their way.”

My father's face wasn't red anymore. He wasn't blinking and his lip was back to normal. “Now, I don't have to tell you what ‘motherfucker' means, do I?” my father said.

We were still eye to eye, my father and me. “No,” I said, “you don't have to tell me. I know what it means.”

My father told me to go to my room and not to come back out until he told me to. I walked out of the kitchen into the hall of butterflies and dice and went upstairs. I closed the door to my room hard, but I didn't slam it. A temper wasn't allowed in the house, or anywhere near my parents. I went straight for my window and opened it up all the way. I was going to slide down the
eave to the trellis with the Seven Sisters rose hanging on it, and climb down and get right out of there, get away from him, get away from my father. I was thinking about going to California or Broadway—any place faraway—but deep down I knew I'd probably settle for my swing up in the cottonwoods.

Just then the sheriff drove his Jeep into the yard, and not long after the sheriff drove in, the Matisse County Mounted Posse rode in on their horses—no shiny shirts this time, no American flag, and no Harold P. Endicott. The sheriff shut off his Jeep and the men on horses gathered around.

My mother got up quick-like from the lawn where she had been digging dandelions up by their roots, and walked into the house. I heard the screen door slam, then the murmur of my mother and father talking downstairs. The screen door slammed again, and from my window I saw my father walking toward those men.

“'Evening, Joe!” the sheriff said loud and friendly so everyone could hear. “How's everything?”

“Can't complain, Bill,” my father said. “That is, if the wind don't blow us away!”

“Yup, she's as dry as a bone,” the sheriff said.

“Don't look good,” my father said.

A couple of men in the posse said hello to my father and my father said hello back.
Hello, Clyde. Hello, Sam. Hello, Jeff. Hello, Jay. Hello, Eric. Hello, J.D
.

“What you guys up to? Looking for trouble?” my father said.

“Yeah, trouble,” the sheriff said. “We're looking for the nigger. You seen this evening's paper?”

“Yeah, I saw it,” my father said. “Was just reading about it. Those people got a nose for trouble.”

“Hell, Joe, you know that ain't the part of them that gets them into trouble!” the sheriff said, and all the men laughed and my father laughed too.

“You seen him around here?” the sheriff asked.

“Nope,” my father said.

“How about the rest of your family, your wife, Mary, she seen him?” the sheriff asked.

“Nope,” my father said.

“How about that strapping son of yours, he seen him?” the sheriff asked.

“Nope,” my father said. “He ain't seen him neither.”

AUGUST THAT YEAR
was like the toolshed at noon. There was no wind, just the sun hot overhead, too bright, drying out everything, burning up shadows. Even at night, it was never really dark; things still had that sun in them and they glowed like stars, like those kinds of rosaries and statues of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph that glow in the dark. Once in a while there was thunder and lightning, but never rain. The dogs would howl and those hawks just kept flying, even in the dark.