Fourmile (6 page)

“Run this back inside and tell her it was the best I’ve had in weeks. Then grab another bucket to sit on and meet me out front.”

13

The blacktop was still cool and wet and empty. Cicadas buzzed in the weeds of the ditch and a flock of crows made steady noise from the pecan orchard. Gary was already painting as I made my way down the fence with my bucket. Joe trotted up beside me and I reached down and stroked him behind his ears. I glanced at Gary and saw him watching us.

“I think he’s better now,” I called to him. “Watch this.”

I set down my supplies and picked up a stick. I placed the stick on top of a fence post and Joe eyed it and whined.

“Hold,” I said to him.

Joe trembled as I stepped back.

“Get it!” I said.

Joe whimpered and looked at me with shame.

“Usually he’ll jump up and grab it,” I said.

“Don’t push him,” Gary replied. “Give him a little more time.”

I took the stick from the post and held it out to him. Joe took it in his mouth and I gave him a reassuring pat on the back.

Once I got to work, the two dogs settled into the grass next to each other and began to soak up the morning sun. Gary knelt on the inside of the fence, facing the road, and I stood on the outside. We dipped our brushes and started wiping on the paint. By the time we’d finished one section and repositioned our bucket seats for another, we’d found our rhythm. Since Gary was faster he brushed his side as well as the underside and top of each rail. We kept the paint next to me since his arms were longer. These things were done without words and the work filled me with a sense of accomplishment I’d not felt in a long time.

“Where’d you grow up?” I asked him.

He kept painting and didn’t look at me. “Lots of places,” he said. “My dad was in the military. We moved around.”

“Where’s your family now?”

“My mom’s in Maryland. Dad’s in Virginia.”

“Do you ever call them?”

“It’s been a while.”

“How come?”

He stopped painting and dipped his brush into the bucket again. “I don’t know,” he finally said. “I’ve been meaning to.”

“Do you like being by yourself all the time?”

“I’ve got Kabo to keep me company.”

“Where’d you get him?”

We heard a car coming and Gary stopped his brush and looked up. He watched the car as it approached and didn’t look away until it passed. Then he dipped his brush again.

“I had a summer when I didn’t do much. Just before I went into the army. I got him from the kennel when he was a puppy.”

“Then you left?”

“That’s right.”

“I’ll bet he was glad to see you again.”

“Yeah. I thought maybe he wouldn’t recognize me.”

“But he did.”

Gary nodded and smiled. “Like I hadn’t been gone more than a day.”

“Does he know tricks?”

“Not much. He’s mostly just a friend.”

“I could teach him some.”

“What for?”

The question surprised me and I wasn’t sure how to answer it. “Just so he’d know some,” I said.

“You think he wants to know tricks?”

“I don’t know.”

Gary stopped painting. I could tell it was time to move the buckets. We picked them up and scooted down again. I thought I might have upset him and I was uneasy about it.

“Sometimes I wonder if Kabo wants to be on the road with me. The asphalt’s hard on his feet. Meals aren’t always regular. People can be selfish when it comes to dogs.”

“You think it was wrong to teach Joe tricks?”

Gary looked at me and seemed to realize what I was feeling. “No,” he said. “I didn’t mean that. I was sort of thinking out loud. I guess I just meant that I’ve already asked a lot of Kabo.”

I started painting again and breathed deep as a wave of relief passed over me.

“Kabo’s really all I’ve got left,” Gary said. “He’s my family now.”

The questions that hung in my head were ones I didn’t have the courage to ask. I said nothing.

“I don’t think I’ll ask more than that of him,” he said.

14

That evening Mother called me in to clean up and get my clothes out for school the next day. I said goodbye to Gary and the dogs and trudged toward the house. We’d painted almost the entire south section of fence. My back ached and my muscles were sore, but all of it in a way that felt good and healthy.

I was standing in the shower with my eyes closed, letting the warm water run over my face, when I heard a car horn. I opened my eyes and listened. Then I heard Joe barking and a bolt of panic shot through me. I swiped off the water, jumped out of the shower, and threw a towel around myself. The horn continued to blow, mixed with Joe’s frantic barking. By the time I got to the living room Mother was opening the front door.

“Linda!” I heard Dax yell.

She swung the door open and the headlights of Dax’s truck were on our faces. Joe was standing outside the driver’s door, snarling with the hair on his back standing up.

Dax shut off his headlights. After a second he leaned out the window. “Get this
damn
dog out of my face,” he said. I could tell he’d been drinking by the way his head swayed and his jaw hung slack after the words.

“Joe!” I heard Gary call from the corner of the house.

Joe took a step back, not wanting to leave.

Gary made the clicking sound with his mouth and Joe woofed and crabbed around the front of the truck, keeping his eyes on it the entire time.

“You didn’t tell me you were coming, Dax,” Mother said.

Dax watched Gary grab Joe by the collar and didn’t answer.

“I tried to catch him,” Gary said. “I’ll go tie him up.”

“Thank you,” Mother said.

Gary walked around the house, pulling Joe beside him. Dax got out of the truck and faced Mother. “So I got to make reservations now? I got to call ahead so you can put the mutt on a leash?”

“He doesn’t usually act like that, Dax. We’re not used to having to keep him tied up.”

“Well, if I got to call ahead every time I wanna come by, we’re gonna have to make some other arrangements.”

“Just come inside, Dax.”

He didn’t move. “What’s that guy still doin’ here?”

“Come inside, Dax.”

“Don’t dodge my question, Linda. What the hell’s he still doin’ here?”

“I’ve hired him to help fix the place up.”

“I thought we talked about that. You don’t know anything about him.”

Mother didn’t respond.

“Do I have to ask you again?”

“No, Dax. I answered your question already.”

“You tryin’ to get into it with me? I’ve had a long day, sweetheart. I ain’t up for it.”

“Dax,” Mother said wearily. “I’m not trying to start anything. I told you I hired him because I need the help. He’s staying out in the barn.”

“For how long?”

“I don’t know.”

Dax started to say something else but didn’t. “Where’d you get the money to hire somebody?” he finally said.

“None of your business,” I said.

He looked over at me. “What’d you say?”

“Foster, get inside!” Mother said.

I didn’t move and I didn’t take my eyes off him. “I said it’s none of your business. We need the help.”

Dax took a step toward me. “I’ll throw you over the hood of this truck and remind you what it’s like to have a daddy whip your ass.”

“Dax! I think you need to leave.”

He stared at me for a moment, then swung his eyes back to Mother. “You know, I came over here to apologize for the way things went down yesterday, but I can’t even get in your front door now without gettin’ dealt a bunch of crap.”

“I’ll call you tomorrow, Dax.”

He turned and started back for his truck. He took a couple of steps, then faced Mother again. “Don’t start actin’ like we’re married, Linda. That’s when it stops for me.”

He watched her like he expected an answer, but she didn’t respond. Finally, he turned and got into his truck. He cranked it and peeled out backward, swung it around in the yard, and tore across the gravel. Mother grabbed my shoulder and steered me inside. As I turned I caught a glimpse of a dark form beneath the big pecan tree. Something out of place. Gary standing quietly in the darkness, watching everything.

15

“Go to your room,” she said. “I taught you better manners than that.”

“I can’t keep him tied up all the time.”

“Foster, if he bites Dax we’re going to have to put him down.”

I felt anger boiling up into my throat.

“It’s a liability that I can’t afford,” she continued. “Now go on.”

I didn’t move. “I told you before that I hated him. And I won’t ever like him.”

She stared at me.

“Never,” I said.

*   *   *

The next morning I dressed for school and ate a quick breakfast of cereal. Through my window I saw Gary mowing far across the pasture. Mother and I didn’t say a word to each other until it was time to leave. Then I went and got into the car and waited for her. After a moment she came out of the house in her postal uniform and locked the front door and got into the driver’s seat.

“You never used to lock the door,” I said.

“Give me a break, will you, Foster?”

I looked at my lap and didn’t say anything as we pulled out onto the blacktop. We drove along in silence until we got to the fourway where the school bus picked me up. Mother shut off the car and rolled down her window. I heard birds chirping and the sound of another tractor rumbling away over a field to our left.

“I’ve got some concerns about Dax too,” she said.

I didn’t respond, but I was surprised to hear it.

“But that doesn’t give you an excuse to act like you did toward him.”

“I can’t help it,” I said.

She turned to me. “Foster, at least make me feel like I’m doing okay at this by myself. At least give me that.”

“It’d be a lot easier if Dax was gone. It was fine before he came around.”

“No, it wasn’t fine. But I’m not saying he’s made things any easier.”

I didn’t have anything to say.

“And surely you’ve thought about how a dog like Joe’s going to move to Montgomery with us.”

I looked at her. “What do you mean?”

“He can’t just roam around there like he does here. He’ll have to stay penned up.”

“I know.”

“Maybe he ought to start getting used to it.”

It was something I’d thought about but kept putting out of my head. Joe had been a free roamer all his life. It was hard to imagine him penned up anywhere. But it was even harder to imagine life without him.

“Foster?”

“Ma’am?”

“It’s going to be a change for the better, but all of it won’t be easy.”

“I know,” I said again. But I didn’t. I just wanted her to stop talking about it.

*   *   *

I used to like school, but now I hated it. It seemed useless to like it anymore since I’d be leaving it and everything I’d known to move away and never see the places and people again. I quit the baseball team after Daddy died. I just stopped going to practice and Mother wasn’t in any shape to notice. When she finally did ask about it, I told her I didn’t want to do it anymore and she didn’t argue with me. He used to come watch. I couldn’t bear the thought of being on the field and looking in the stands and not seeing him there. Everybody was moving on while I was stopped. School was only a place I went to and came back from. I was glad I only had a week left before summer break. But Gary’s words about making things right with my old friend hung in my head, and I had to do it because he’d told me to and he was the only person who knew about anything. Even if I didn’t fully understand what he told me, I knew I could do it without having to think about it and it would be the right thing just because he’d said it was.

I approached Carter on the playground during recess. He stood under the cedar tree where we used to sit and scratch tic-tac-toe in the dirt. He had his back to me, talking to some other boys.

“Hey, Carter,” I said to him.

He turned and looked at me.

“I’m sorry about the fight,” I said.

He nodded. I could tell it was awkward for him. Something he didn’t expect and didn’t have words for. The other boys were watching and listening.

“I like your dad,” I said. “I got jealous.”

He swallowed. “I thought you were moving,” he said.

“I am. We’re still trying to sell the house.”

I knew he wouldn’t tell me to join them. I was too far outside their circle now. But I didn’t expect or want him to.

“Okay,” he said. The pressure of the other boys watching us was pulling him away from me. But I’d done it. And something
did
ease inside me, even if I didn’t give the feeling any value.

16

Gary finished mowing the pasture and continued painting the fence while I was at school. In the afternoons I hurried home, ate a quick dinner, and went out to help him as the sun dropped over the pasture trees and the frogs cheeped in the roadside ditch. The wet, hot air of summer grew heavier each day as spring trailed behind us. Even the rattling of the cicadas was sluggish and the air smelled of wilted lettuce.

Gary went into town and supplied himself with food, a box fan, and a few new items of clothing. There was an old refrigerator in the shop that Daddy had used to store beer in the bottom and wild game in the freezer on top. We cleaned it out and plugged it in so that he would have a place to keep sandwich meat and milk and other things that would spoil.

In the evenings I sat in the barn with the moths darting about the single bulb overhead and the fan blowing gently over us. The smell of the freshly mown pasture was so strong and thick it seemed you could chew it. The humming of the refrigerator condenser was something I hadn’t realized I’d missed. It brought the barn back to life in a way that I remembered too well. But as long as Gary was with me, I wasn’t afraid.

He didn’t seem to mind me watching him. I held my questions until he finished feeding himself and Kabo. Then he washed his face and changed his shirt. Finally, he sat in his usual place, leaning against the pack like it was something to protect. He would sharpen his hunting knife or clean his fingernails or repair a tear in his clothes with a small sewing kit. Quiet, simple things. And I finally let my thoughts fall carefully in that air of subtle tension that hung about him.