Marvel and a Wonder (14 page)

“We come to take a look at that fence,” Jim told her. “And to get rid of those coyotes. I have my daughter’s boy Quentin here with me.”

“I know Quentin. I had him in Sunday school three years ago,” Lucy said, turning a gleaming smile toward the boy. “Hello there, Quentin. You look taller every time I see you.”

The boy uttered some intelligible word or sound that would have to do as a reply. He mumbled a little more and then said, slowly reaching his hand forward, “I like your cat. Does he bite?”

“No. He’s just bashful is all.”

The boy put his hand tentatively near the animal’s face, then scratched behind its ears. The creature gave a soft purr, arching its neck against Quentin’s hand.

“It looks like you made a friend,” Lucy laughed. “Here. You can hold him if you like.”

The boy gently took the cat in his arms, carefully rubbing it beneath the neck. “He’s a good cat,” the boy muttered. “We had a cat once, but then he was killed by a rooster.” He handed the cat back to Lucy and stared down at his feet.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that happening before,” Lucy said with bemusement.

“It definitely happened. I saw it. It was pretty awesome.”

Jim shook his head and rolled his eyes at the boy. “Well, I guess we should go take a look. I was thinking we would poke around the fence line and try to find where they’ve been sneaking in. We’ll set a few traps and see if maybe that doesn’t do the trick.”

“I don’t know how to thank you.” Lucy paused for a moment, glancing down at the cat in her arms. “Only if one of them does get caught, a coyote, would I have to go out there and kill it? Because I don’t believe I could. I have Burt’s gun upstairs but I don’t know, if something was caught . . .”

Jim smiled at her, nodding seriously, and glanced over at the boy. “Well, we don’t mind waiting around a little while to see what turns up, do we?”

The boy did not answer, only gave a grunt, then pulled his Walkman over his ears. He started heading back toward the pickup truck, karate-chopping at the air with a soundless scream.

Alone with the widow for a moment, Jim immediately grew awkward. He was like a cigar-store Indian, standing there too stiffly. He peered down at his shoes, then hers, then reset the hat upon his head and tried to look for an exit.

“Well, ma’am, I guess we oughta get to it.”

“Let me get you a cup of coffee first . . . I’ll put on a new pot before you get started.”

“Thank you, ma’am, but we brought a thermos with us.”

“Okay. Well, how about I put some supper on for you then? For when you get finished? I got a few steaks and a leg of lamb in the deep freeze. You just tell me what time you’d like to eat.”

“Deirdre will be expecting us back home,” the grandfather stammered, glancing away, the lie coming out slow and easy.

“I see.”

“Well, we oughta get to it then. We’ll come around back when we’re all done. How’s that sound?”

“Okay. I’ll be here,” Lucy said, her eyes cast down, her voice sounding a little disappointed. All of that was more than enough to get him to hurry back to the truck, his weak left leg moving faster than it had in weeks.

* * *

Together, the grandfather and boy set to work mending the fence, which, in Jim’s estimation, was the real problem, even worse than the coyotes. He dragged the fence stretcher from the pickup while the boy carried the roll of wire. There were eight spans that needed to be replaced. As soon as they had set to work on the first one, Jim noticed the boy had his Walkman turned up as loud as it could go. He heard what sounded like a failing tractor’s engine. He finished stapling the edge of the new wire in place and then stood staring over at the boy beside him. “What type of noise is that you’re listening to? God almighty, I can see why your brains are no good.”

“What?” the boy asked.

Jim just shook his head, dragging the fence stretcher toward the next slack span.

“I was thinking,” the boy mumbled. “About Mrs. Hale. Maybe she should sell this place if she can’t take care of it.”

“Well, I’m sure she’d be obliged to take advice from a financial wizard like you. When your way to get rich is by asking me for a loan.”

“I just don’t know why we have to come out here.”

“Because she lost her husband. And she don’t know how to run this place. You think I want to be out here on a Sunday? No sir. But here we are. Because there are things you do because they’re the right thing to do whether you want to do them or not. That’s what the Lord calls life. I can see from your expression that you don’t have the foggiest idea what I’m talking, so you can go on back to your headphones now if you like.”

“I think you just want to bone her.”

Jim stared at his grandson’s face, then knocked the oversize headphones off the boy’s ears. “If you don’t got anything intelligent to say then don’t say anything. And that’s a rule you can think on.”

The boy was quiet for a long time after that.

* * *

Edward had not slept in days. How many he did not know. Probably since he had come back. The way the moon and sun worked here, it was different, like they were on strings, like night and day were part of a pageant at a children’s hospital; none of it was real. California was real. Derek was real. Even the old black-and-white movies they watched together while tweaking on homemade crystal seemed more real than the people back here. This was not even his old room. One of his half-retarded brothers had taken his room over. Now he was forced to sleep on the closed-off back porch, which smelled of turpentine and rust.

From his knapsack he pulled out a ball of tinfoil and found a few specks of meth or angel dust; he didn’t know which, couldn’t be sure. He licked his finger and rubbed the powder against his bloody gums, the inside of his cheeks. Everything began to burn and it made him wonder if it was maybe just bleach or cleaning powder. He looked out through the slanted blinds and saw the sky turning from violet to the color of a bruise. He scraped the remaining white powder up with his long pinky nail and snorted it with his left nostril. Then he bit nervously at the cuticle; he began to pace again. That’s when it happened: the small fingernail came loose, dropping to the floor. He held out his hand, horrified, shaking his fingers, his arm trembling. He pulled on the nail of his index finger and it came loose too, with a sickening ease. He cried out and then crept up noisily to his brother’s room, eyes wild with panic.

Gilby was still asleep, beatific as a young girl. His longish hair, his pockmarked face, the length of his dark eyelashes. Edward shoved him with his left hand, shaking him awake. He sat up and blinked, glancing around, asking, “What time is it?”

“Time? Who cares what fucking time it is? Look at this fucking thing. Look!”

Gilby held up the clock radio, saw that it was past nine a.m. He yawned, wiped at his eyes, as his brother pushed his hand right in his face.

“Jesus. What is it? Get your fucking hand out of my eye.”

“Look,” Edward whispered, face wet with tears. “Will you just fucking look? I knew it. I just fucking knew it.” Edward stretched his fingers out before his brother. Two of his fingernails from his right hand—the first and the last—were gone.

“What’s happening to you?” Gilby asked.

Edward let out a soft sob. “I’m changing. I’m turning into something else. Look. I got the black mark on the palm of my hand.”

Gilby nodded though did not see it.

The older brother stopped crying long enough to announce, “We got to come up with a plan. I don’t have much time before I do something terrible.”

* * *

After they had finished the first three spans, the grandfather noticed his left arm had begun to shake. For a few seconds he felt as if he would fall over. Trembling, he leaned uncertainly against a fence post, his ears ringing. The noise was like a far-off song, something hesitant. He put his hand out for his grandson, stumbling a little against the boy’s shoulder, startling him from his own reverie.

“Grandpa? You all right?” the boy asked.

The grandfather did not utter a word, fighting to catch his breath. Finally, the feeling returned to his arm, to the left side of his face, and he found that he could speak again. “I got winded is all. Too much sugar in my coffee.”

“You sure?”

For a few moments the grandfather leaned against the boy. Something—some sort of ancient pact, some sort of affinity—glowed in their faces for a moment, and then, just as soon as it had appeared, it was gone.

* * *

The grandfather and grandson each took long sips of water from the green hose that had been left unwound along the side of one of the outbuildings. The water was warm at first, then got deliciously cold, the tang of the metal nozzle making it taste like it had come from a well. The grandfather watched the boy drink, the boy’s face sweaty, rosy-cheeked, the boy giggling to himself, accidentally spraying his own feet. It was not that he did not love him.
No,
the grandfather thought.
No, it’s only the things that make us so different. How far apart we are. That’s all.

By the time they had finished mending the fence line, the sun had disappeared, leaving a smudgy cloud of orange in the western edges of the sky. From the cab of the pickup, Jim retrieved a large paper sack. They walked along the outside of the fence and squatted down beside one of the spans they had just fixed—having found a breech in the wire marked by a half-dozen sets of coyote tracks. A few sheep, curious, yellow-eyed, came up to watch them work. Their wool smelled wet like winter. Jim made a few high-pitched noises in their direction and then knelt down, studying the problem at hand.

“What’s in the bag?” the boy asked, but the grandfather didn’t answer. He opened the sack and lifted out four No. 3 coil-spring traps, the jaws six inches in length. He wound the end of a short length of chain through the eye of one trap, closed the end of the chain with a rusty pair of pliers, and connected the chain to the nearest post, a few paces away. All of a sudden he got winded again and had to lean against the fence, looking over his shoulder toward his grandson. He pointed with his chin down at the muddy earth.

“Dig there,” he mumbled, and the boy set a spade against the dirt and commenced to dig, his face wracked with sweat. Once a shallow hole had been made, Jim leaned over and set the trap carefully inside.

“What about the smell?” Quentin asked.

“Smell?”

“The smell of our hands. Won’t they get scared off?”

“They ain’t afraid of the smell. If they’re coming this close to the house, and they know they gonna find a meal here, the smell of us ain’t gonna spook ’em any.”

Jim took a handful of twigs and leaves and camouflaged both the trap and chain before moving to the next one, a few paces on. Again, they chained the trap to a post, dug a hole, buried both the trap and chain, and then carried on, setting four traps altogether.

Past seven o’clock and the grandfather and the boy had finished the last of their work. They could hear the familiar commotion of crickets and locusts. Together the two of them marched up to the front door of the farmhouse, Jim taking off his hat to murmur his respects, once again turning down Lucy’s offer for dinner, his grandson shyly saying goodnight. They climbed back into the pickup, tired, salt-faced, worn-through. The grandfather did not start the engine up right away. Instead, he sat there in silence, staring out at the field, a few stars so distant they might as well be imaginary. The grandfather leaned over and, out of habit, switched the CB on. The voices—fragile, full of static—interrupted the quiet for a moment before the grandson decided to speak.

“What are we waiting for?”

“We’re waiting to see if any of them try to come in. Why? You got somewhere to be?”

“No,” the boy said glumly.

“You did good today.”

“What about my money?”

Jim dug out the worn leather wallet from his back pocket and searched for a ten and a twenty; his grandson had worked as hard as he knew how, and although he did not show any kind of initiative, he also did not once complain or try to disappear the way he would have a year before. Jim lifted the bills from his wallet and placed them solemnly in his grandson’s hand. “This is only an advance.”

“A what?”

“We got plenty left to do around the house. You want this money, you got to promise me you’ll help before you go back to school.”

The boy considered the proposition, staring down at the money in his hand.

“Do we have a deal or not?” the grandfather asked.

The boy nodded and folded the money into the front pocket of his shirt.

“Glad to hear it.” The grandfather stared at the boy for a moment and said, “Now lean back there and get my shotgun.”

The boy reached over the backseat and lifted his grandfather’s gun from its mount—a Winchester Model 12—and passed it across the front seat. Jim switched off the CB, took the rifle in his hands, and checked the magazine to be sure it was loaded.

“What are we doing?” the boy asked.

“We’ll go shoot off a couple slugs.”

“What for?”

“So she thinks we scared them off. It’ll give her peace of mind. Go on. Grab the flashlight.”

“Right,” the boy said with a wise-looking smile.

Jim was surprised at how happy the boy seemed to be a part of some secret. He stared at the boy’s face and then said, without much of a thought, “Anything ever happens to me . . .”

At those words, the grandson’s eyes went wild with doubt. “What?”

“Anything ever happens, that horse is yours. I want you to know that. I’m going to tell Jim Northfield to put it in writing.”

“But . . .”

“But nothing.”

“But . . .”

“We can talk about it later. I just thought you oughta know.” He patted the boy on the shoulder and opened the driver’s-side door. “Come on now. Let’s go finish up.”

Once more they trampled through the mud, back along the fence line, careful of their own traps, the air still warm in their lungs and noses. Vapor from the heat of their breath rose between them like apparitions. Jim lifted the gun into the air and fired, shooting twice. Their reports crackled in the air like a storm hovering off in the distance. They walked on a little more. As they approached the third or fourth fencepost, something gave a scream, the sound of which was like a spirit being skinned.