Fourmile (7 page)

“Where’d you get the tattoo?”

He didn’t answer me right away. He was using a hand towel to dry a metal cup I’d seen him drink and eat soup from. It reminded me of the way the priest had cleaned the chalice when we’d gone to church.

“Where? Or what does it mean?” he said.

“What does it mean?”

“Special Forces.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s part of the army … I got it in Iraq.”

I looked back at the stick I was whittling and shaved off another slice of bark. I was using a hunting knife Daddy gave me for my tenth birthday. I’d brought it out to the barn hoping that Gary would ask me about it, but so far he hadn’t seemed to notice. Now I wasn’t thinking about the knife and only moving it as something for my hands to do while the questions raced in my head.

“Have you killed people?” I asked the ground.

When he didn’t answer I glanced up just in time to see him nod. But he wasn’t looking at me. He was agreeing to something bigger and my question was only a small part of what he was answering.

“With that pistol?” I asked.

He placed the cup he was cleaning back into the pack and turned to me. “No,” he said. “Not with that pistol.”

I didn’t have the courage to ask him more. The way he studied me. There was something about him on the edge of somewhere, like a coiled spring that would release if I made the wrong move, said the wrong thing. I saw it in his breathing, in the muscles beneath his shirt. It was a frightening sensation that I’d never experienced. But I knew it had nothing to do with me. I knew that I was completely safe—safer than I’d ever been in my life. What I was frightened of I didn’t know.

“I saw you under the pecan tree,” I said. “When Dax was here.”

“I know you did,” he said.

“You would have beat him up.”

“It’s not my place to get in your mother’s business.”

“But you would have.”

“He’d had a lot to drink.”

“But that’s why you were there, wasn’t it? You would have beat him up?”

He looked at Kabo and rubbed his hand over the dog’s neck. “I would’ve stopped him if he’d taken things too far.”

I looked down at the stick I’d stopped whittling and took a deep breath and smiled to myself without meaning to.

“Foster,” he said.

I looked back at him and tried to get rid of the smile.

“I want you to be careful around him.”

I felt the smile go away.

“I don’t care what you think about him, don’t ever smart off to him again.”

I nodded.

“You understand?”

“Okay,” I said.

“Your mother’s a smart woman. Things with her boyfriend will work out.”

“I told her I didn’t like him.”

“And she heard you. I promise you that.”

17

When I came in the back door, Mother was standing in the kitchen. The lights were off and I couldn’t figure out what she was doing there in the darkness.

“I don’t want you getting too attached to him, Foster,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

She thought for a moment. “I mean like you are about Joe.”

“I’ve just been helping him.”

“I’ve seen you out there. And a mother can tell certain things.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“Grown men don’t decide to walk across the country unless they’re leaving some problems behind.”

“You mean he did something bad?”

“I mean he’s going to be gone soon and I don’t want you upset over it.”

“I just like to talk to him,” I said.

“I know it’s been a while since we’ve had a man take an interest in this place, but don’t forget that he’s only doing it for the money. Then he’s gone. Like we never knew him.”

I didn’t like what she was telling me, but I had no argument against it.

“So don’t get too attached to him,” she said again.

“I’m not,” I said.

*   *   *

I didn’t hear Mother talk about Dax that week and I wasn’t going to ask her about him. By Friday evening Gary had finished the south end of the front fence and moved on to the shorter north end. He said that with my help the next day he thought we could finish. Then we’d go into town and get supplies for re-roofing the house.

Saturday morning I met Gary in the barn after a quick breakfast of cereal. We had some time to kill until the dew burned off, so I helped him fix two fence rails that had come loose. Then we gathered our paint supplies and hauled them out to the road. Joe and Kabo raced across the field and I was happy to see my dog acting like his old self again.

“How do you like being out of school?” Gary asked me.

“Good.”

“It’ll be nice to have some full-time help.”

I smiled to myself and hefted my load a little higher.

We set our buckets where Gary had left off the day before and got to work.

“When we move to Montgomery, he’ll have to stay in a pen,” I said. “You think he’ll hate it?”

“He’ll be fine as long as you’re with him,” Gary said.

“I don’t know what I’d do if he couldn’t come,” I said.

Gary kept painting and didn’t answer.

“I thought we’d always be here,” I said. “I didn’t think we’d ever leave.”

“There’s not much in life you can hold real tight to, Foster. I’m sure you’ve got a lot of good memories here. You’ll make some more in another place.”

His words triggered a white-hot flash of images from that day in the creek bottom. It came across me so suddenly that I made a strange noise from deep in my throat. Gary stopped painting and studied me for a second.

“Everything all right?” he asked.

I nodded and started moving my brush again, trying to suppress my thoughts. I could sense his eyes still on me.

“You want to tell me about it?”

“No,” I said suddenly. It had never seemed possible that I could talk about it with anyone.

I heard his brush swishing again. “I didn’t say that like I wanted to,” he finally said. “I lost my dad too.”

I didn’t answer him. I didn’t want to say or think about anything until I was sure the images were gone.

“Not in the same way, but the end result was no different.”

I looked at him again. “What do you mean?”

“I let him down.”

“How?”

“It doesn’t matter. But I have good memories. It wasn’t anything he did.”

I didn’t reply.

“Let’s move on down,” he said.

We worked silently for a while as the sun rose over the pasture and the shadows receded into the far trees.

“What do you like to do, Foster?” he asked.

“Like what?”

“That’s what I’m asking you.”

“I used to play baseball,” I said.

“But you quit?”

I nodded. He glanced at me and continued painting.

“I like
this
,” I said.

“Painting?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Working on the farm. I wouldn’t just do it for Dax.”

*   *   *

We heard the trucks approaching just after noon. As usual, Gary stopped what he was doing and grew tense and alert. He watched them through the shimmering vapor of the blacktop until they were close enough for me to recognize Dax’s truck. I felt my stomach turn.

“It’s Dax,” I said.

“I know,” Gary replied. “Remember what I told you.”

18

Dax slowed and stopped in the road before us. The other truck, a green Dodge dually with
HADLEY TRENCHING
on the door, stopped behind him pulling a large flatbed trailer. Mounted on the front of the truck was a black iron grille guard and a Warn winch. The pickup’s oversized knobby mud tires, chrome roll bar, and guttural, throbbing muffler were enough to tell me everything I needed to know about the two men inside. But I’d seen them before. They’d dropped Dax off at the house once. They were big and dirty and didn’t have anything to say to me or Mother.

Dax rolled his window down and looked us over. “You might get to the end of this thing yet,” he said with his friendly voice.

I glanced at Gary. I could tell he was studying the second truck. Then his eyes swung back to Dax.

“How you doin’, Foster?” Dax said to me.

“Okay.”

Then he looked at Gary. “I’m Dax,” he said. “Met you the other night.”

Gary nodded at him.

Dax motioned to his friends behind him. “Linda said that tractor was for sale. I brought my buddies by to pick it up. She said you got it runnin’.”

“It’s a good tractor,” Gary said.

“We got a deer camp we could use it at to plant green fields.”

“There’s a disk behind the back fence. I’m sure she’d sell that to you as well.”

“Really?” Dax said.

Gary nodded. “That and the Bush Hog hooked up to it.”

Dax smiled and winked at him. “I figured the implements came with it.”

Gary didn’t smile. “That’s about a thousand dollars’ worth of equipment you just threw into the deal.”

The smile left Dax’s face. “Well, I’ll talk to the owner about that.”

Gary didn’t reply. Dax looked across the pasture at Joe. He looked at me again. “I’m gonna get your momma some cash in her pocket, kid. That oughta make her happy.”

I didn’t respond. He smirked and looked back at Gary. I felt the tension between them like a rope stretched taut between their eyes.

“I don’t think I like the way you look at a fellow, mister.”

Gary didn’t answer him.

Dax finally turned away and started rolling up the window. “Make sure that dog stays out of my way, kid,” he said.

The trucks pulled off and we watched them turn in to the driveway.

“She should have asked me about it,” Gary mumbled.

“The tractor?”

“All of it,” he said.

*   *   *

Dax’s friends left with the tractor, Bush Hog, and disk chained to the flatbed. Gary didn’t look up from painting, but I watched them until they were out of sight. Then I looked back at the house and a sick feeling crawled over me when I saw Dax’s truck still there.

“He didn’t leave,” I said.

“I know,” Gary replied. “Keep painting and get your mind off it.”

*   *   *

Late that afternoon we came to the end of the fence. Gary finished his part and waited until I’d brushed my last strokes. Then he stood and backed away and stared down the long line we’d painted over the last two weeks.

“Proud of it?” he asked.

I stood and turned over my bucket and dropped my brush into it. I looked down the fence and I
was
proud to see what we’d done together. Then my eyes wandered over to Dax’s truck.

“Come on,” Gary said. “Let’s wrap up.”

Joe and Kabo were far across the pasture, chasing something. I picked up my bucket and walked with Gary to the barn. I took my time putting the supplies away in the equipment room while he stood next to me rubbing paint off his hands with a rag and gasoline. When he was done he tossed the rag to me and I caught it and wiped my arm and fingers. He leaned against the workbench and watched me until I was done.

“I’ll come see you after supper,” I said. “Will you tie up Joe for me?”

He came away from the counter and I followed him out of the equipment room. He sat down against his pack and put his hands behind his head. “Have a seat,” he said. “Why don’t we hang out until she calls you.”

I was happy to stay. I couldn’t help smiling to myself as I sat across from him.

“Let me see your knife,” he said.

I dug into my pocket and pulled out the Barlow and passed it to him. He opened the blade and studied it and scraped the pad of his thumb across the edge. Then he leaned forward and turned to get something out of his pack. He reached deep inside and dug about until he had what he was looking for. His hand came back with a rectangular leather case with a necklace of dog tags tangled around it.

“Is that what you wore around your neck in the army?” I asked.

He untangled the ball chain from the case and tossed it to me. “Yeah,” he said. “Sometimes. Depended on what we were doing.”

I studied one of the metal tabs.

CONWAY

GARY L

423-27-9646

0 POS

EPISCOPAL

“Your last name’s Conway.”

“Yeah.”

“What’s the number?”

“It’s my social security number. Right under that’s my blood type. O positive. Then my religion.”

“Why do they need to know the religion?”

“In case I got killed. They’d know how to bury me.”

The tags felt warm in my hands. Gary opened the leather case and pulled out a whetstone. He spit on it and rubbed my knife blade in a flat, circular motion. “You want them?” he said without looking up.

I nodded. He continued working the blade. “They’re yours,” he said.

19

It was past our usual suppertime when Mother appeared at the back door. She called me and I came out of the barn so that she could see me. She looked tired and guilty and the spirit I’d seen in her lately was gone. I heard Dax’s truck start and drive away.

“Foster, come inside,” she called.

I shoved the dog tags in my pocket and turned back to tell Gary I’d see him later, but he had come up behind me. “I’ll walk over there with you,” he said.

Mother waited for us. “I’m so sorry, Foster. I just lost track of time.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “We finished the fence.”

She started to turn like she might be able to see it, then realized her mistake and faced us again. “That’s wonderful, Foster.”

“You mind if I have a word with you, Linda?” Gary said.

She looked at him with a little surprise. “No,” she finally said. “Come inside.”

We all started for the back door.

“It’ll just take a minute,” he said.

I stood in the kitchen with the two of them, waiting to hear what he had to say.

“Foster, go to your room and wash up,” she told me.

I frowned and turned to go. I walked into my room and stood in the center of the floor and listened.

“I don’t want to overstep my bounds,” he said, “but I can help you out when it comes to what some of the farm equipment’s worth.”

“I just want it gone,” she said. “I’m past trying to get a good deal.”