something the man did not want to remember but could not stop himself from talking about.
The boy wished Dubykky were there to explain. The old man’s evil seemed but a wisp. Hardly anything. It bothered no one but himself. So why the fussing?
When at last the old man paused to catch his breath, the boy smiled at him and said, “One story is good until another is told.”
To Hans the smile seemed hideous, veritably demonic. The words seemed a goodbye. He had done his best to placate this strange apparition of a boy with food, then with the one precious offering he had left in life, a confession. Although his degradation and sin had come out fast and hard and dry, at long last it was out. The boy, however, seemed mysteriously unmoved. Why? Was there nothing he could do for expiation?
Hans suddenly felt panicky again. The inexplicably bright sunlight intensified. It penetrated his body like a drumbeat.
Pounding-blinding.
His body seized up so he could not move. He struggled with himself, but his muscles would not obey. He couldn’t even close his eyes, still fixed on the smiling boy. “You are death,” he tried to say. Though all that came out were strangled sounds, the boy shook his head no as if he had heard clearly.
“Tisha. Tisha. We all fall down,” the boy mumbled around the sausage in his mouth.
A horrible pressure built in Berger’s head, as though it were inflating. Larger, larger, and impossibly larger it felt. He struggled again to move and couldn’t. He could not raise a hand to protect his left ear from the siren sound that had begun skirling there: no modulation, just a keening that steadily rose in pitch and volume until he felt he would burst.
He didn’t, though. Instead there came a sharp, short, steely twang, and the pressure disappeared. The drumroll of sunlight faded away. The perimeter of his vision shrank until only the boy’s face remained visible, a blurry round image. Fog blanched it, then obscured it, and finally conquered it. Junior watched the life go out of the old man’s eyes. All the bad memories, all the fear and resentment, went with it. Slowly the body slumped, as if some final defeat had ended Berger’s most cherished hopes. He toppled sideways when his good leg buckled. The impact with the ground did not even disturb the dirt.
It was no affair of Junior’s. He called to Jurgen. When the crow resumed his shoulder perch, they walked away from the body and the faded trailer and the smoldering dump. The sky gathered plump, white clouds.
MILDRED TIMED HER ARRIVAL PRECISELY. Matt Gans, Senior, was just stepping up to the cash register at the Five and Dime, a spool of medical tape in his hand, when she emerged from the toy aisle. He could not help but see her. At first he seemed unable to place her. They hadn’t been in each other’s company since Christmastime, after all, but then he did, made a lopsided grin, and waved. In return Mildred smiled broadly and dipped one shoulder just a little, an inch and no more, as she had seen pretty actresses do in the movies about the same time that they batted their eyes. As for that, Will Dubykky had absolutely forbidden it. He was vehement: eye fluttering was obvious, silly, ostentatious, affected, juvenile, and repulsive. In a word, cheap. Maybe so. She had discovered, anyway, that she didn’t need to bat, whatever the movies showed. It was enough for her to smile at a man. Such an attractive man! Matt Gans looked like a movie star, like Dana Andrews, except broader in the chest. When her smile inspired his grin to widen into a full show-the-teeth smile, she liked what she saw very much. It was the sort of smile that caused something in the pit of her stomach to warm up and her hips to feel agreeably loose.
Not all smiles, or all men, had that effect. The man whom Will had introduced to her last week, Cledge, the one invited to dinner the coming evening, had not produced such a sensation. Invited, she groused to herself parenthetically, by Will and her mother. Further, she could not imagine Cledge producing a deep sensation in her, however brilliant his smile or animated his eyes. Matt Gans was the handsomer. Definitely. An alluring man. Mildred’s mind unexpectedly produced the image of the other Matt Gans, the junior, the boy. How the boy could come from the man was impossible to perceive. Mildred thought of Misty Gans then and couldn’t derive the boy’s features from her clearly, either. She was a good-looking woman. Good-looking but somewhat sour and severe the only times Mildred had caught sight of her. Not really the woman to have a hold on a handsome man like Matt. Matty. Nice sounding. She might someday call him that.
But that odd boy—maybe he was not the son of Matt Gans. Maybe only Misty’s child. A love child. The delicious odor of hidden scandal, of marital betrayal and infelicity, made Mildred grin wickedly, but only inside. On the outside, her smile broadened, because if Matt was not exactly free, he might be free-able.
“Hi,” she said in the bright drawl that Will always frowned at. “Remember me from the Callahans’ Christmas party? Mildred Warden.” She held out her hand, fingers loose and on a downward bias. When he took the hand in his, she squared her shoulders and breathed in deep. Her breasts were not very big (more’s the pity, that) but big enough to cause men to glance down willy-nilly and then look glad that they did.
He shook her hand delicately, replying, “Callahans’ Christmas? Was that the name of the party?”
Mildred’s laugh was tinkling, although the remark struck her as peculiar rather than funny. He released her hand, and she held it across her tummy, grasping her other arm halfway between elbow and wrist. She dropped her eyes demurely and said, “Was it your son who was in my library last Saturday?” As she intended, that required her explaining exactly what her library was and where.
When she finished, Gans knitted his brows, puzzled. “My boys were at the track meet with Lowry High School.” After Mildred told him of making out a brand-new library card for a Matthew Gans, age six, his face showed nothing but amazement. There was no mistaking the sincerity.
He told her, “Can’t be. My youngest is eight. To think that another Gans family lives here in tiny Hawthorne! I had no idea.”
The “tiny” put Mildred off a little bit. Hawthorne was not that small. It was bigger than Yerington, Fallon, Fernley, and Winnemucca. Nearly the size of Ely. She was prepared to tell him so, yet didn’t. Telling off a man about facts introduced the wrong tone.
Anyhow, Mildred did not get the chance. The door to the Five and Dime swung open, its bell clanged, and Will Dubykky walked through. Mildred’s heart sank. Caught again. He came directly to them, greeting Gans politely. The two shook hands, and Mildred noted that they both shook firmly. There was nothing delicate about Matt Gans when dealing with another male. He was manly.
“What are you up to, Milly?” Dubykky asked. His manner was cordial, not a hint of censure in the tone, but Mildred recognized the look in his eye and was embarrassed. He read her so easily.
“Shopping,” she answered. The pout in her voice was obvious even to her. She was tempted to add, “for feminine napkins,” but decided not to. The moment to be naughty had passed. It would only sound vulgar. Besides, however Matt Gans might react to the risqué, Will was impossible to provoke. Gans paid for his tape, nodded goodbye, and left them at the counter.
“Milly, Milly,” began Dubykky and paused, squinting one eye. “Fifteen years older, married, three children—is there anything else you require before accepting that a man is not right for you?”
She folded her arms and pouted openly. The clerk behind the cash register, the widow Eschenbaugh, put her hand to her mouth, pretending to hide a smile. (The hag!) Mildred thrust her chin forward and walked away.
“See
