Strayed Read online

  For grins, I toss a rind of meat at it. The meat lands halfway between us, but the ungrateful critter crouches half-hidden behind a log. We swap bug-eyed stares awhile, then I make a big show of looking away. In the corner of my eye I see it dart out and grab the meat.

  #

  Tuesday morning I'm up at the crack of noon, ready to roll the wheelbarrow down to the stockyard. Up in the loft, I take one last look around. The cat is a smudge of white, high on the bales. It chirps down at me, and near it I see long shapes tucked into the rafters. Brooms, rakes, but also pipes, some plastic and some I reckon might be metal.

  I climb, up the haybales like stairs. The bales are stacked in tiers, side by side but with gaps between. I go too fast, miss my step and drop a foot into a gap with a joint-twisting wrench. After that I climb on hands and feet, grasping the strings on the bales to keep upright. The cat scoots away, surefooted.

  When I get to the top layer of bales I lay on my back and reach up into the rafters. I pull out a fat plastic pipe as tall as me. There's a six-pack. I push it to the edge of the tier and let it bounce down to the floor. The next pipe I slide out is copper.

  I send the pipes raining down the bales, counting the cash as each one goes cha-ching on the boards below. When I've got all I can reach I roll onto my stomach and start backing down. Dignified this is not, but it's a long way to the floor. Once I'm low enough I stand up and sort of shuffle sideways from bale to bale. I'm clipping along when that damn cat shoots under my feet.

  I lose it. Knees, elbows, then bumping on my butt. I stick my legs out straight, and catch my heels on a bale. It tumbles free and falls. When I hit the space it left, something beneath gives a hollow thunk, and I slide, smooth as ice.

  The bale and I pile up on the next tier. Huffing for breath, I look back: where the bale came loose is a flat surface, dusted with hay but still showing a metallic gleam.

  I yank bales away. Roof, side-mirror, windscreen. A pickup truck.

  #

  Well, what was I supposed to do? A truck, walled up in the hay, keys still in the ignition. Just sitting there waiting. I wasn't to know, was I?

  #

  I drive to the stockyard. Drive with the heater on full-blast. Park, unload my pipes, ax-head and halters, wait until they've sold, and drive away. The truck has half a tank of gas, and I put it to good use. Drive by the factory and wave at the poor stiffs. Cruise by the ex's new place and honk the horn.

  All this hard work makes a man thirsty. I pull into the Lazy K's parking lot and leave the truck right where I can see it. Have a beer, play a little pool, sit by the fireplace feeling warm the whole day long.

  Dusk is closing in by the time I pour myself back into the truck. I roll through town, looking for the turnoff to the farm road, and somehow wind up at the railyard. Out the back there, that's where we hung out, between the rows of railcars. Long black corridors of darkness, with the bonfire at the center flashing on the metal hulls.

  I find the farm road and drive home through black fields. At the farm I pull open the big doors to the barn and park the truck inside. Up at the house I turn on the single light, put on two more sweaters and extra socks, and go to bed.

  #

  At first I thought it was the cat. A roiling wail, ragged, fading off. No man could sleep through that. I get up, scratch ice from the window and peer out.

  Blocky shapes of the barn and outbuildings, palely lit by the yard-light. Nothing moves, but the sound comes again, thin and tearing. It races up my spine, prickling.

  I don't mind saying I'm bone-scared. Coyote, maybe, after the cat. Let nature take its course, that's what I should do. But all the same, I get the poker out of the woodstove and pull on my boots.

  The frost crunches under my feet. The sound hangs like a mist in the air. It rises from the barn. I slip along the wall, uphill toward the back.

  The big doors stand open, wide and black. Inside, the hulk of the pickup truck, and a figure of jerky, twisted motion.

  I tremble so hard I nearly drop the poker. "Oh, for crying out loud! Wilf!"

  He paws at the truck, slapping the driver's window. He moans, a terrible sound like to scrape a man's soul raw.

  "Wilf, quit that!"

  In the slice of yard-light I see his face: shriveled, sunken, as if the frame beneath were giving way.

  I reach for his arm. "Come on, Pops, it's freezing out here."

  He jerks away, grabs onto the truck's side mirror.

  For good measure, I look around, and there's the cat: crouched up high on the rafters, watching. I tell the cat it's in charge and trudge back up to the house. I find Steve's number and phone.

  He answers on the second ring. "Wha . . ?"

  "Your dad's here."

  "What? Frank?"

  "Yeah. Your dad's in the barn screaming his head off."

  A rustle of blankets. "It's four a.m."

  "No kidding. You want to come get him or you want me to call the cops?"

  Sharply awake: "No, I'll be right there."

  I slam down the phone. Down at the barn Wilf keeps at it, howling like to wake the county. I stoke up the woodstove and wish I could ignore the old fool. But I toss the poker back in the scuttle and stomp out into the cold again.

  Wilf is hanging onto the truck. "Marnie, Marnie, where are you?"

  "Aw, come on, Pops. Don't start that again. I told you she aint here."

  "I told you to be careful, driving at night like that."

  "Yeah, and you also told her to hurry home on Flash." I stop, the pieces tumbling into place like a child's blocks. "Hey, there's no way I coulda known this was Marnie's truck!"

  From behind, headlights rake across the haybales. Steve. He drives right up to the barn and parks with the car's nose filling the open door. He climbs out, stands behind the light.

  I hold up a hand against the glare. "Steve, your dad . . ."

  His head is a solid black shape moving in jerks from the truck to Wilf to me, to a pile of old tools stashed inside the door. With a one-two quickness he steps into the light, seizes an ax-handle from the junk pile and swings, high and crisp, and then I am falling, back, into Wilf, into the bales.

  #

  I smell earth. Mold and rot, years hidden.

  Hard surfaces blocking me in, murky black against my eyes. Rubber and vinyl. I kick out, feel space below my legs.

  I am in the truck. I am half-lying on the floor on the passenger side, my legs draped over the gear box. I grab at the dashboard, the steering-wheel, haul myself up onto the seat.

  The space is inky dark: I can't see the headlights from Steve's car, can't see the yard-light through the chinks in the walls. It takes me a minute to figure out why: both side windows and most of the windscreen are blocked by something solid, something that smells of dust. Only a narrow rectangle remains clear. I stare, openmouthed, as a shape steps in and hefts a haybale onto the hood.

  I yell, "Steve!"

  He stops. Rests the haybale on the hood, his hands folded together. He looks away and down.

  I holler, "What do you think you're doing?"

  He must see, must know. His lips move, but I can't hear.

  "What? Let me out of here!"

  His hands on the bale-strings tighten. For a moment he's old Steve, the kid from the railyard. Then he swings the bale onto the windscreen, and blocks me in.

  #

  Bales thud against the truck's sides. A bale weighs what? Forty pounds? I can move forty pounds. I wrench the door handle, get my shoulder into it, brace my feet against the opposite side, but it's not one bale, it's a wall, three or four bales thick, interlocked like bricks.

  I thump at the windscreen, but I don't got nothing to break it with except my hands.

  The ignition keys, on the kitchen counter.

  I yell, pound the glass, gulp great lumps of breath. Air . . . All I got is what's in the cab.

  I roll down the window, claw at the hay stalk by stalk.

  #

  Memori
es, scattered: smoke, and rust, sharp taste of the beer. The railcars, high and dark, their flanks marked by graffiti from thousands of miles away. Us shaking cans of spray paint, adding our layer. Marnie coming into the light, crying, telling Steve she wants to go home.

  The hay I'm pulling out stabs at my fingers, sticks to my sleeves. I yank hand over hand, but it's tight, and when I've torn into the bale the length of my arm, there's more, still.

  Sandpaper in my lungs. Hay shards like needles, stitching my throat closed.

  #

  Then, a shift, and light returning. The bale, lifting.

  The bales tumble away, a gloved hand opens the door, reaches in and hauls me out by the collar.

  I sprawl on the barn floor, coughing like to spit up my guts. My rescuer stands with his back to me: Norm.

  He looms over Steve. "You damn fool boy, what have you done?"

  Steve barely flicks a glance my way. "It was an accident."

  What? That weren't no accident. I sputter, but no one pays any mind. Even Wilf climbs over me to hang onto the truck's side mirror. He presses his forehead against the glass, quiet now.

  Norm steps in close to Steve. "What happened?"

  "I told you."

  I thought it pretty clear what just happened, but Norm aint interested in me either. "No, you told me she took off. You told everyone that. But here . . ." He gestures. "I saw the truck, at the Lazy K. I couldn't believe it. I came this morning to be sure."

  Steve scans the haybales. "She left. I told you."

  Norm, in full voice, roaring, "You tell me true, boy!"

  Steve looks to him now, and his face has the clear emptiness of lake ice. "You know how she was. Always chasing after guys."

  Norm falters, looks down. "Don't talk about her like that. She's your sister."

  "The whole town knew what she wanted."

  "No . . ." He pulls off his gloves, folds them over. "My wife and I, we used to see her out on Flash, always by herself. She never had friends. The girls treated her like dirt and the boys -" He aims a kick at me - "were only after her for one thing. She didn't know how else to be.

  "My wife found her crying once, out on the back forty. She wouldn't tell me what Marnie said, but it was bad. Marnie couldn't tell her dad. Wilf, he wanted a perfect daughter, his princess. Wilf'd buy her anything she wanted, but she couldn't talk to him."

  He looks up, his face crumbling. "She came to us, the day before she left. Told us she was getting out, going to the city to start over. She asked us to take care of Flash. My wife gave her some money."

  Norm looks to where Wilf is stroking hay off the truck's windscreen. "All these years, when we never heard from her we thought she'd started a new life. But her truck . . ."

  Steve stares, unblinking. Norm asks, "Where is she?"

  "She left."

  "She was afraid of disappointing you, did you know that? She kept saying it'd be all right, you'd protect her."

  Steve flinches. Half to himself, he says, "It was an accident."

  Something in his voice quietens Norm. Gentler now, as if to an injured animal, he says, "What was?"

  "She was drunk." Steve talks fast now. "She came back from the railyard that night drunk and she got Flash out and started yahooing, yelling that she was getting out and leaving us all behind. She was racing Flash around the yard, whipping at him. I only meant to stop the horse. I stepped out in front, waving my arms, but Flash spooked, and she fell, she went right into a fence post."

  Steve sort of crumples from the inside, like a tire with the air let out. He takes a step back, bumps into a haybale and sits, his face in his hands.

  Norm sags, the anger washed out of him. "All this time, you never said."

  "All the guys," His voice tears, "You, Frank and the others, you only let me hang around because of her. It was always Marnie, never me."

  "But your father . . . You saw what it did to him."

  "I wanted . . ." He looks to Wilf. "I wanted him to listen to me, to want me. But he never did. It was always her, all the time. Then she left . . . went away . . . I thought it would get better, but he held on to her. I couldn't bear it."

  We stand a moment, in a hush broken only by the sound of Wilf's hand sliding over the glass. So that's what happened to old Marnie. Kinda liked it better when I thought she'd run off to the city.

  Norm moves to Wilf, pries him off the truck. "Come on," he says roughly. "Let's get you home."

  Steve watches. "Are you going to tell?"

  Norm sighs. Takes Wilf's thin frail hand in both of his. The old man has his eyes tight closed. Norm says, "And take his other child away? No . . . What good would it do now?"

  Steve nods at me. "He knows."

  Norm swings his hard stare onto me. "He's an idiot. He doesn't know anything."

  Sounds good to me. I don't want to know nothing. Call it quits and we'll all go home. The little procession heads for the door. I scramble up, brush the hay off my jeans. Words rattle out of me, unstoppable. "Buddy, you had me scared, I never knew you had it in you, so that's where Marnie got to, always wondered about that."

  Steve turns his back on me. Norm shakes his head, as if casting off a fly. "Frank, shut up."

  "I mean, not that Marnie was really part of the group ever, I didn't know her hardly at all, but I remember someone saying, think it was Joanne, Dave's sister, do you remember her? saying it was weird Marnie never came back for the horse."

  Norm grinds to a halt. He says slowly, "That horse was the only friend she had. She might have left him, might not have had a choice, but she'd never have whipped him."

  A tremor runs through Steve, like frost cracking a dry branch. He doesn't turn around, doesn't glance at us. Norm looks sick, and I wish now I'd kept my mouth shut.

  In a low voice, Steve says, "You don't know what she was like."

  I shuffle a few paces to the left, trying to get a clear line to outside. But Steve's car is still parked in the doorway.

  Steve walks a few steps and comes back, his hands up to grasp his head. "You shouldn't have come here."

  He scoops up the ax-handle and walks, swinging it. "I told her not to leave."

  Norm lets go of Wilf. "Now, son, put that down."

  Behind me in the shadows is the ladder to the ground floor and the stalls. But the door down there is locked from the outside and Steve is swinging that ax-handle - bam - against the haybales - bam - against the truck.

  "You, Frank, you wouldn't let me in" - bam - "only for her, all you wanted was her" - bam - "and then she left, and you shut me out, you never wanted nothing to do with me."

  He smashes the ax-handle onto the hood of his car, and in one wild action brings it up and around, swinging at Wilf, at me, blind. But out from under the car comes a streak of white: the cat, bolting under Steve's feet and up into the haybales. Steve startles, slips on the loose hay and comes down hard on his knee.

  In a heartbeat the years roll back and he's skinny Stevie Gamlon again, the kid we only let hang around because he brought his sister along. Norm steps in and pulls the ax-handle out of his grasp.

  Looking at the ax-handle he clocked me with, I reckon it's a good thing I sold the ax-head.

  #

  The cops found Marnie six feet down in the manure pile. What's left of her, anyway: bones, and a belt buckle in the shape of a horse. The cop took the belt buckle over to where Wilf stood with a blanket draped over his shoulders. The old man held the buckle in his twisted hands as tears ran in the furrows of his face.

  As for the cat, it got spooked by the commotion of the cop cars and back-hoe and took off up the hill to the woodpile. After all that, well, maybe this cat isn't so bad. I goosed it out of the woodpile with a broom and sack and chased it into the house. I found an old milk crate and padded it with one of my sweaters, and now the cat is sitting by the wood-stove, purring like it just won the stray cat jackpot.

  ** The End **

  Acknowledgements

  The author would li
ke to thank Alex Bell for formatting the document, and Sarah Carless and Jennifer Warren for their invaluable insights into the story's development.