Fourmile (9 page)

“And that?” she said.

He looked at her. “I’ll bet I get more use out of this rag than anything else I own.”

“You don’t seem the type to be into fashion.”

He grinned and started the truck and pulled out from under the bridge. “I don’t want you to take it the wrong way, Linda, but whether you’re into it or not, I think
you
look real nice today.”

I stared straight ahead, not wanting to look at either one of them.

“Thank you,” she said again.

I couldn’t help glancing at her. She looked out the window and smiled to herself. She hadn’t taken it wrong at all.

The sun was setting and the air coming through the truck was cool on my sunburned skin. The sound of crickets played from the forest at the edge of the road and the smell of pine sap and dust flowed into my nose. I felt like I could have ridden that way forever, between the two of them.

“We got a little behind today, Foster,” Gary said. “We’ll finish stripping the roof in the morning and head into town to get the shingles before lunch.”

Mother turned to me. “You know I have to work tomorrow,” she said. “You think you’ll be okay by yourself?”

“I’ll be okay,” I blurted out.

“I’ll keep him busy,” Gary said. “He won’t have time for mischief.”

It was the best day I’d had in a year. Every bit of it down to the sunburn and the sand in my damp shorts. And the thought of spending the days ahead with Gary made my heart swell.

But the feeling didn’t last long. The house came into view and the sight of Dax’s truck parked in our yard yanked it from my chest.

22

When we turned in to the driveway Dax was coming around the side of the house. He saw the truck and all of us in it and stopped and stared. I could tell he was upset.

“Great,” Mother said wearily.

We were halfway up the drive when Joe started growling from the truck bed and Gary stopped and got out.

“Get Joe and take him around back,” he told me.

I slid across the seat and dropped to the ground. “Tell him to leave, Gary,” I said.

“Just do what I told you. I’ll meet you back there.”

I frowned and walked around the truck. I dropped the tailgate and got Joe by the collar and pulled him out. “Easy, boy,” I said.

Gary climbed back into the truck and started it toward the house. I tugged on Joe’s collar and got him moving after them.

Gary pulled the truck sideways before the front door and parked it and looked out the window at Dax. I was angling around the house but close enough to hear them.

“Where the hell you been?” Dax said.

“You talking to me?” Gary said.

Dax craned his head to see past him into the cab. “No, I ain’t talkin’ to you,” he said. “I’m talkin’ to her.”

“Then you talk nice to her.”

I stopped and squeezed Joe’s collar tight in my fist.

Dax straightened and looked at Gary again. “What’d you just say to me?”

Mother got out of the truck in a hurry. “It’s okay, Gary,” she said. She started walking around the hood with Dax’s eyes on her the whole time.

“What is this, Linda?” he said.

She fingered her hair over her ear and I could see her hands shaking. “It’s nothing, Dax. Gary and Foster wanted to go cool off at Tillman’s bridge and I rode with them.”

“Since when have you done anything like that?”

She stopped and looked him in the eyes for the first time. “Come on, Dax. We just went for a ride.”

“I get here and your car’s in the driveway and nobody’s around. What the hell you expect me to think? Been lookin’ all over the place for you.”

“I told you to call first, Dax,” she said.

“Call first! I’m supposed to be your damn boyfriend! I got to call to come check on you?”

She said it softly, but I heard it. “You’re not my boyfriend, Dax.”

Dax started to say something but didn’t. He glanced at Gary then back at Mother. “I see,” he finally said. “This is what you do when old Dax ain’t around.”

Gary opened his door and got out and stood there with one hand holding the window frame.

Dax turned and faced him. “Partner, I’m about to step over there and accept your invitation.”

“You want him to leave, Linda?” Gary said.

Mother looked at the ground and nodded.

Dax stared at her in disbelief. After a second he began chuckling and shaking his head. Finally he spit at the ground. “I’ll be damned, Linda. The hired help. I never—”

Gary took a step toward him. “Get in your truck.”

The smile left Dax’s face as he looked at Gary again. “Yeah, bud,” he said. “Me and you’ll talk again when the woman and kid aren’t around.”

Gary didn’t answer him.

“You sure this is what you want, Linda? Don’t be callin’ me up tomorrow.”

“Get in your truck,” Gary said again.

Dax smiled and backed away, watching Gary. Finally he looked at Mother one last time before turning and getting into the S10. He cranked it and tore out of the driveway.

“You all right?” Gary asked her.

She nodded to herself and hurried into the house. Gary turned to me and motioned to the barn with his chin.

*   *   *

Gary heated two cans of soup for us and we sat in the hay with the dogs and ate out of paper cups.

“You think he’ll come back?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“How do you know?”

“I know the type.”

“But you’ll beat him up?”

“I hope I can just talk to him.”

“But you could beat him up. I know you could. You could, couldn’t you?”

“Maybe.”

“Why’d she ever like him?”

“You can’t always tell about a person right away.”

“But you knew. You knew the first time you saw him.”

Gary lifted another spoonful of soup and didn’t respond.

“How’d you know?” I asked.

“Your dog told me.”

I looked at Joe. Gary reached over and petted him and Joe’s ears twitched and I heard him sigh. “They have a sense we don’t have,” he said. “They can tell about a person. I don’t know what it is.”

“Joe growled the first time he saw him.”

Gary didn’t answer.

“You think I should go inside?” I asked.

He dipped his spoon into the soup again. “In a little while,” he said. “Let your mother have some time to herself.”

“What about the fish?”

“I’ll clean them later and put them in the refrigerator.”

“Maybe for tomorrow night?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Maybe so.”

“I had a good day,” I said. “The best time in a long time.”

He was distant again. “Good,” he said.

“Gary?”

He wasn’t looking at me. “Yeah?”

I knew what I wanted to ask. I had the words for it this time, but as soon as they built in my throat fear made me swallow them away. I didn’t think I could take the answer. He finally looked at me.

“What?” he said.

I turned away and shook my head like it no longer mattered. He kept his eyes on me and I felt that he’d come back to me from wherever he’d been in his mind.

“I had a good time too,” he said.

23

When I stepped into the house it was dark and quiet. I passed through the kitchen and down the hall and stopped before Mother’s bedroom door. I listened for a moment and heard nothing. Then I knocked and she told me to come in.

She was lying in bed reading the book she’d taken to the creek that afternoon. I expected her hair to be unkempt and her eyes to be red from crying, but she was composed and you never would have known anything unusual had happened. She placed the book in her lap and raised her eyebrows at me.

“Good night,” I said.

“Good night, Foster.”

I started to go, then turned back. “Gary says Dax’ll come back.”

“Then I’ll tell him to leave again.”

“You said he wasn’t your boyfriend.”

“That’s right. I don’t want to see him anymore.”

I breathed deep and smiled to myself.

“I didn’t use good judgment, Foster. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” I said.

“Did you eat?”

I nodded. “Gary had some soup.”

“What else did he say?”

“He said you can’t always tell about a person right away. He said Joe knew Dax was mean the first time he saw him.”

Mother looked down at her book, but she didn’t pick it up.

“Gary could beat him up,” I said.

She looked at me again. “Did he say that?”

“No. But I know he could. He was in the army. He’s the strongest person I’ve ever seen. He’s not scared of anything.”

She started to say something but didn’t. “I know you’re having fun working with Gary, but I told your grandfather we’d come to Montgomery on Friday and spend the weekend. I want you to look at the school you’ll be going to. I also have a meeting with a real estate agent to look at houses.”

It surprised me to feel a rush of panic. Just a few weeks before I would have given anything to get off the farm and go see Granddaddy. But now all I wanted was to stay at Fourmile and work with Gary.

“But we haven’t even sold the house yet,” I said.

“I know. But I’ve got a good sense about things and we need to keep moving forward. And your granddad has a surprise for you.”

“What is it?”

“A surprise.”

“We’ll be back Sunday?”

“That’s right. And there’ll be work left to do.”

“Like what?”

“The barn needs to be cleaned out. There’s a lot of touch-up painting to do inside the house.”

“What else?”

“We’ll see. That’s plenty for now.”

“But what if the house doesn’t sell?”

“Foster, we’re not staying here through the fall. I don’t care if we have to sleep on Granddaddy’s floor.”

I looked down and nodded.

“So we both need to prepare for that.”

“I know,” I said. But I didn’t really know at all.

*   *   *

The next day we finished taking off the old shingles and hauled our truckload of debris to the county landfill. Before heading into town for more supplies we stopped at a gas station and fueled up the truck and bought hamburgers and Cokes from a snack shop next door. We took our lunch with us and Gary pulled off the road at a public boat launch on the river and we ate on the tailgate.

“What’s on your mind?” he asked me.

“Nothing.”

He took another bite. “Okay,” he said.

“I gotta go to Montgomery this weekend.”

“Your mother told me.”

I looked at him. “When?”

“This morning while you were out playing with Joe.”

“But I’ll be back Sunday.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“You could stop working and wait for me to get back.”

Gary smiled. “I think I can manage for a couple of days.”

“I don’t want you to finish.”

He looked out across the parking lot.

I didn’t take my eyes off him. “There’s still a lot to do, isn’t there?” I said.

“I’ll keep working as long as your mother needs me,” he said.

“We could paint the rest of the fence. That would take a while, wouldn’t it?”

He nodded. “That would take a while.”

“I don’t want to go to Montgomery.”

He looked at me. “You need to go, Foster. I told your mother I thought it was a good idea.”

“Why?”

“Remember when I said I thought that Dax would come back?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t think you need to be around until he’s had some time to cool off. This is a good weekend for the two of you to get out of town. There’s things you need to do anyway.”

I felt better, knowing my weekend away helped solve the Dax problem.

*   *   *

That evening Mother and I played checkers at the dining room table. It seemed neither of us could concentrate. It was hard not to glance at the kitchen window and wonder what he was doing. After a while we heard the truck crank and saw the headlights swing across the yard. We both watched until he was gone.

“Where do you think he goes at night?” I asked her.

Mother looked at the checkerboard again. “Maybe he goes to the store.”

“It doesn’t seem like he buys much.”

“Maybe he doesn’t need much.”

I studied the board. “I’m kind of tired of checkers,” I said.

She sighed and stood. “Me too. Let’s finish another night.”

“Mother?”

She turned back to me. “Yes?”

“Do you ever feel like Dad’s here?”

A concerned look came over her. “I don’t know what you mean, Foster.”

“Sometimes I think I should be able to feel him. I’ve tried to, but I don’t.”

She shook her head like she wanted to say something but couldn’t think of the words.

“I don’t see how somebody can just go away like that.”

“He’s always with us in spirit, Foster.”

“But that’s just something people say. I don’t know what it means.”

“It means he’s thinking about us.”

“But I think he would want to tell me some things. Like he’d find a way.”

“Like what things, Foster?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. Anything.”

“Some things you just have to believe, even though they’re hard to imagine.”

I nodded.

24

Tuesday morning, I found Gary under the equipment shed, pouring oil in the truck. I held out a biscuit Mother had wrapped in aluminum foil. He set the oil on the ground, straightened up, and took it.

“Sausage biscuit,” I said.

He leaned against the support timber and began to unwrap it. Joe trotted over and rubbed against my leg and I reached down and scratched him behind the ears.

“Check the dipstick,” he said.

I walked to the truck and pulled the stick. I wiped the tip with a rag and slid it back into the tube. I pulled the stick again and noted the oil in the
FULL
zone. “Looks good,” I said.

“Why don’t you take it across the field?”

I turned to him. He was chewing, watching me. “Drive it?” I asked.

He nodded.

I glanced at the house.

“I already asked her about it,” he said. “She’s okay.”

“She is?”

He nodded again.

“When?”

“What’s it matter, when? Get in there.”

I couldn’t help but smile as I climbed into the driver’s seat. My mind raced, trying to remember the sequence of events as I’d seen Daddy work them; depress the clutch, shift into first gear, turn the key to start it … But he had to be kidding me.