I make the turn at the crest, the pinnacle suddenly revealed, Harky is sitting calmly on a large slab rock watching the flames in the valley. That fog of hair drapes past where his ass meets the slab and dangles. The bat stood upright between his legs, black end down.
He said, “Think he’ll be happy now?”
“You didn’t get far.”
“I knew they’d send you—bring any whisky?”
The seal hadn’t been cracked on the bottle I handed to him. He busted the whisky open and swallowed a big peaty breakfast, released a deep groan of appreciation, and dropped the cap into his pocket. I sat on the slab beside him. The mess of smoke below had grown. Deputies were standing in the road, and the volunteer fire department was arriving in pickups, little cars, dusty vans, and the one official fire truck they kept ready at Bing Plimmer’s gas station.
“Is that house fully involved?”
Two men in waders dragged a hose toward the river, hunching away from the jumping heat. The deputies in the street seemed excited and were gathering around our mother, but she’s an old hand at this and stands still, with her arms folded, and listens without argument. Harky’s parole would be violated any minute now.
“I think that’s what they call it.”
“Then it might still burn down flat.”
“The man’ll only build it back again with insurance money. Maybe bigger.”
“But not in time.”
“He might live longer than you think.”
“No. He’ll die seein’ the river where it’s supposed to be again.”
Those distant faces so tiny in the valley turned together and stared roughly in our direction. Harky laughed at them, pointed with his fist, and thumped the ball bat to ground. The fire seemed to be winning. Gordon Mather Adams looked to be weeping. Mother had been angry since the foundation was poured, the first nail driven, and clapped her hands with gusto as the hot ruin spread. A sheriff’s car began to roll down the sloped road alongside the field. I swatted my brother on the knee and stood.
“Let’s get deeper into the woods,” I said. “Make it harder for them.”
“You want to run with me?”
He passed the bottle, and I said, “You’ll be gone a long time this time, Harky.”
“Ahh, I have friends in the slams, baby brother, so don’t worry.” He raised from the slab and shuffled his feet, then sat again and pulled the boot and sock from his wet foot. The skin looked red. He wrung the sock until droplets fell, then pulled it on damp and laced up. He stood, happy with himself and smiling at the smoke in the sky, the voices all excited in the distance. “I could use a new little TV. With better color. And headphones.”
Two walls were coming down. They folded inward and smashed across smoldering furniture and seared appliances, sparks bursting and riding the heat. The flames were renewed by the falling and frolicked. One more wall to fall and father could die upstairs with the river back in his eyes.
I gave Harky the bottle, wiped my lips dry. “Today’s got to be worth a party.”
The sheriff’s car had stopped on the road and the deputy stood in the opened door talking into the radio, calling for help. He was studying the woods, looking for paths he might follow to give chase, but we remembered them all from before we were born and walked on laughing, down the spiraled path to low ground and away through a rough patch of scrub, into a small stand of pine trees and the knowing shadow they laid over us, our history, our trespassing boots.
About the Author
DANIEL WOODRELL was born in the Missouri Ozarks, left school and enlisted in the marines the week he turned seventeen, received his bachelor’s degree at age twenty-seven, graduated from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and spent a year on a Michener Fellowship.
