The Auctioneer (26 page)

It grew dark, suppertime passed, Hildie was put to bed, and the heavy part of the night settled in for its long stay. The wind came up again. The branches on the trees in front of the house snapped free and thumped against the ground and the wind blew across the long vibrating reed of the pond, singing up and up to the pitch of sirens and screams. They listened, trying to block out the racket around them in order to detect sounds from town, or the whine of a car approaching, or the subtle rustle of footsteps in the yard.

John worked at a piece of kindling, whittling it away to nothing with his knife. Lassie snoozed on her blanket behind the stove. Ma sat wide awake in her chair. And Mim, at the table, gnawed on her fingers and did nothing.

“I keep wonderin’,” John said, “how far it spread. If they found the gloves.”

“Lassie’d bark if there was anyone about,” Mim said.

“You remember somethin’ about Gore?” John said. “True of all of them Gores. Dogs never bark at them. Never did.”

Ma picked at the fringe of her blanket.

At ten they let Lassie out, then in again, and, after some discussion, decided that the least suspicious thing they could do was go to bed. Hour after hour, John, so recently awakened, lay listening. All the tumult of the night outside the windows came to him as an echo of the smashing of dry woods around him in his long flight.

Suddenly, not knowing whether he’d been full awake, he sat up and shook Mim awake. “You hear sirens?”

She listened. He could feel her shivering, as much at being shaken out of her heavy nervous sleep as at anything. “I do,” she said.

But as they listened the sirens stopped and they were listening to the wind again in the tops of the bare maples.

“Sounded so close,” Mim said.

“Could it still be goin’?” John asked.

“Wrong direction for the Parade,” Mim said.

“The night twists things,” John said. “And the wind. Could of been Powlton fire engines on the way to the Parade—”

“Or Harlowe fire engines on the way to Powlton,” Mim said. “Just as like. Who knows what’s burnin’ where or why.”

The night passed and morning came again, with sunshine and Hildie. Curiosity grew as heavy on their shoulders as fear. At twelve o’clock, taking Hildie in case they came while she was gone, Mim went to Linden’s.

They rattled over the last familiar potholes in the dirt road and rolled onto the hardtop, sudden and smooth, starting abruptly in the middle of a stretch of unbroken woods like the hostile finger of the town probing the wilderness. In the blackness of the tar, she anticipated the charred ruins of the Parade. But the sunshine stretched in peaceful bands across the road, darkening the cracks and lighting up the bits of mica imbedded in it. Nothing could seem quite sinister in sunshine.

As she rounded the last clump of pines and found herself at the far corner of the Parade, she saw at once that there had been no fire. It was like waking up from a dream and finding everything the dream had upended settled back into place—restored. She tried to remember just how the dream had gone and found she couldn’t.

James’s house looked as empty as ever, the front blinds drawn as always and the dormers lopsided—one weathered to gray and one pink with new paint that was already peeling. Mudgett’s house sat unchanged in its clutter—the six-month-old pile of lath and plaster outside the parlor window, the same stock car in the front yard, missing fenders and wheels, the big 14 dripping white paint down the door. As she drove by, craning her neck, Mudgett’s wife paused with her mouth full of clothespins to peer back from her station behind the half-filled clothesline. Adeline Fayette herself stood under the American flag in front of the post office, chattering at some stranger. He was listening. He couldn’t have done much besides listen, since Adeline couldn’t hear.

Mim drove around the corner toward Linden’s. Her back set on the three solid houses, she glanced at the still green grass on her right, at the locked town hall, Stinson’s repair shop, the doctor’s house with its tidy sign, and the pair of greenhouses on her left, still caved in at the peaks like broken legs. The precise normality of the Parade fell over her like a dark blanket, and she tried to remember the story her husband had told her, the drama, the far-fetched sequence. Then she thought of Agnes Cogswell, of John pitching the money into the stove, of Ma banging her cane at the tale of her family name revenged.

At the far side of the Parade she backed into Linden’s parking lot and leaned on the steering wheel, gazing out across the green at the three untouched houses. No monsters, no armored tanks, no cross voices—only Harlowe Parade as she had known it ever since she could remember, glistening with sunshine at the time of year when autumn falls to winter. Hildie stood on the seat beside her, leaning on her shoulder, dreaming too, it seemed.

It was the Thursdays that were hard to come to grips with. People came to visit—familiar people, people whose mothers and children she remembered—and they smiled, and they never did so very much. The auctioneer came and looked at her and filled her with guilt.

Mim shook herself, and suddenly, like the hidden picture in a puzzle, what she should have seen immediately jumped out at her. In the space between Mudgett’s place and James’s, the line between orchard and sky was drawn in angry charcoal. Where the pines had been were brittle black stalks, some broken over and some pointing to the sky, like the rubble in a cornfield stripped and darkened by frost. The black extended out across the cut hay in the orchard to include half a dozen apple trees. In several places the dark river lapped at the edges of Mudgett’s yard then ran away again into the woods.

Hildie pushed the door open and danced to the case which held the candy and plastic toys. She pressed her nose against it until her breath frosted up the glass and she couldn’t see. Then she pulled back and started to draw a face with her finger in the mist.

“Get away from that case, Hildie,” Fanny said, sitting on her high stool behind the counter, so still she seemed only a voice in the dark store.

Mim pulled the child away from the case. She had a comment planned, like the first line of a play. “Some weather for December,” she managed. “Can’t complain about this.” She moved shakily to the milk cabinet and took out a gallon in a glass bottle.
Pulvers Dairy.
Maybe milk from her own cows. She put the bottle on the worn pine counter.

“That be all?” Fanny asked.

“No. I’ll be needin’ some flour,” Mim said.

“Takin’ a trip?” Fanny asked, nodding at the roof over the truck.

“Just considerin’,” Mim said.

“Hard to say about the weather,” Fanny said, writing down $1.41 for the milk on the back of a paper bag. “A good snow’d put an end to them fires.”

Mim picked up a bag and found it was sugar instead of flour. She stooped to put it back.

“If
you want to put an end to them,” Fanny said.

Mim turned, frowning. “Fires?” she repeated, feeling the heaviness of her motions, sensing she had answered too slowly, wondering if she had already given John away.

“Ayyup,” Fanny said. “Some year for accidents, this one. Most beyond belief.”

“You say you had a fire?” Mim asked, standing at the counter holding out three crumpled dollar bills. Hildie was whining and pulling on her hand, trying to drag her toward the candy case.

“You mean you ain’t heard?” Fanny said.

Mim shook her head.

“Well, don’t know how you would, all alone up there. Guess you ain’t got no phone these days?”

Mim shook her head again.

“You stop that now, Hildie,” Fanny said, handing the child a Mars bar with a greasy wrapper. “These here are gettin’ kinda old. Now no more fussin’, hear?” She turned to Mim and took the money. “Comes of bein’ the only child. You always spare the rod when you got only the one. You put too high a value on them.”

“What about the fire?” Mim asked softlv.

✓

“Up to Gore’s.”

“Gore’s!”

“Yep. Funny thing. House burned to the ground. But that old barn ain’t touched. Got a charmed life, that barn of Toby’s.”

“Anyone hurt?”

“Hard to say at first.”

Mim took the change without counting it to see whether Fanny had charged her for the candy bar. She stared at Fanny.

Fanny chuckled. “They thought Bob was cooked, ’cause he weren’t nowhere to be found. Then they took note that that spiffy new truck with the sirene was gone too. And they found the old man in the barn. He just took a blanket and moved right in. His everlastin’ cows. All he ever cared about, his cows. That barn’s goin’ to collapse on him, first big snow. You wait.”

Mim tried to think of something to say. “He’s gettin’ on the old side to be livin’ all alone,” she said.

Fanny shrugged. “You don’t figure Bobby’ll be that eager to come back? Guess the old man’s goin’ to fall on the town after all. Nineteen kids and not a one worth a plugged nickel.”

Mim smiled uneasily.

“Or maybe that auctioneer there’ll do for him. Ought to, you ask me.

Trying to sort out the pieces, to think how John’s fire could have burned down Gore’s place, Mim stood at the counter holding her bag of flour, and let the silence stretch too far. “I guess so,” she murmured. “Tough luck.”

Fanny shoved the brown paper bag with the milk and flour across the counter toward Mim with a sharp look. “Breaks your heart, don’t it, dearie,” she said.

Mim’s heart somersaulted. She took the bag in one arm and crowded Hildie toward the door with the other.

“There’s a firebug loose, all right,” Fanny added. “Tried to set the whole Parade alight the night before.”

Mim looked back. “What?” she said.

“You heard me. Take a look up yonder past Mudgett’s. You mean that’s not what you was lookin’ at, sittin’ in the truck afore you come in?”

Mim threw another look over her shoulder at Fanny, unable to answer. Outside, she stood by the gas pump openly squinting once again at the charred spikes of trees clinging to the hill beyond Mudgett’s.

That night after Hildie was in bed, Mim sat at the table turning and turning a mug of birch tea. “We’ve got to go now,” she said. “Tomorrow’s Thursday.”

“All my life, livin’ near forests, I never saw a forest fire,” John said. “Remember the fires in Bar Harbor? The 4H was ever after us about fire, like they figured we’d be trippin’ over fires every load of wood we cut.” He had his knife out and the bark peeled off a new maple stick, but he was stabbing at the table, leaving a circle of small raw marks. “A forest fire. I figured a forest fire ate up houses like kindlin’ sticks. I figured a forest fire went—”

“John!” Mim cried. “Tomorrow’s Thursday. At the very least, they’ll be comin’ after the truck. Will you set your mind to that?” John looked at her absently and went on talking. “They got no dogs at Gore’s these days. No dogs to warn them...”

Lassie, thinking she was summoned, struggled to her feet and waddled to the table wagging her tail. John ignored her.

“John,” Mim asked suddenly, lowering her voice and leaning closer to him. “Was it you set that one too?”

“What a question, Miriam,” Ma snapped. “Wasn’t you up there sleepin’ with him the whole night through?”

“But, John,” Mim cried, “if they figure out you set the one, they’ll lay the blame on you for Gore’s as well. They’re like to come for
you
tomorrow, let alone the truck.”

John got up, paced to the door and looked out into the darkness. “I didn’t set but one fire, and that one fizzled,” he said. “But, could be I set a good idea goin’. There’s plenty have the same reason’s us to want trouble for Gore.”

“Sit down, for the love of God,” Mim cried, springing up herself, then sitting down again. “You make a perfect target there.” She pressed her palms to her eyes. “I wish we had some shades.”

“Well, for myself, I’d rather burn up in my bed than be turned out like a tramp,” Ma said.

“We plan to
take
your bed, Ma,” Mim said, “or at least the cushions. John, why can’t we go? Now. Tonight.”

But John wasn’t listening. His eyes were bright. He was carving away at the kindling now.

“John!” Mim cried. “Lord sake. You’re actin’ both of you like you lost your wits. Tomorrow they’ll take the truck for sure. And then we
will
be stuck. Stuck! And you keep settin’ like we had a world of time to kill.”

John threw his knife on the table and stood up again. “We go and he’ll say, ‘Look, the Moores are runnin’. Must be them.’ Perly don’t give a damn who done it really. All he needs is a body to crucify.”

“But if we go...” Mim started.

“How far do you reckon we’d get with the truck lookin’ the way it looks? Lucky to make it to Powlton.”

“If he’s goin’ to crucify a Moore,” Ma said, “I’d sooner he found us at home than runnin’ like so many hippies.”

Mim slammed down her cup so that the tea leaped out and spattered on the table. “What about Hildie?” she cried. “You just sit here and wait when you know sooner or later... It’s her they’ll come for.” She dropped her forehead on the table. “At least in the truck, we’d stand a chance.”

The wind blew hard all night, and John, listening as the hours passed, kept thinking he heard sirens and alarm bells, even the crackling of fire. Hildie, Mim, and Ma. He kept counting them over. He listened to Hildie’s labored mouth breathing and felt Mim’s warm foot resting against his knee as she slept. Ma, sleeping alone downstairs, made him uneasy. He wanted to bring her up into the little room with the rest of them so that he could count her life over too in the sound of her breath. He kept hearing cars in the dooryard, footsteps in the gravel, the sound of rifles being cocked. He remembered stories of people held prisoner in farmhouses—torture, rape, children tossed on bayonets. In the cities they shot people walking down the streets. In Vietnam they had shot whole villages.

At some point, lying in his own sweat, he pulled Mim to him and said, “We’ll go, Mim. We’ll go. You’re right. We’ll go first thing tomorrow before thev come.”

But in the brave light of morning, he stood at the door watching the wind feathering the needles across the tops of the enormous white pines lining the pond. They were twisted and scarred and halfway ruined, yet Ma always called them the “virgin pines.” A bunch of them had gone over like dominoes in the 1938 hurricane. He had climbed on a chair when he was smaller than Hildie and watched through the window. And even after that, the ones that still stood they called “virgin pines.” Maybe the point was that if you stood through enough you would come back to something like what you started from. If you lost everything but the main trunk itself, there was some mysterious return to sweetness. Hildie was telling Ma a story about tree frogs. That was sweetness—Hildie and the spring erupting every year the same, fed by the earth that had always kept them. He had always planned to die on his land, sooner or later.