Strayed
Copyright Naomi Bell 2012
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Don't get me wrong, I hate cats. Sneaky little critters always looking for a handout. Only this one, well, this one ain't so bad.
So I got this farmhouse, see, way out the end of Hyde Road. It ain't mine, not really, but the owner's son gives me a break on the rent in return for taking care of the place. Steve just wants the rent money, no questions asked, and that's fine by me. It's his dad's farm but his dad don't know himself no more, so it's Steve I deal with. Me and Steve, we go back years. After highschool he left for the city and made himself into some bigshot, but this town has a way of reeling folk back in. When his dad took ill Steve had to come home to take over. In two days he'd moved his dad into town and put the farm up for sale.
It suits me better to rent, anyway. Can't have the ex thinking I got assets she can steal. I'm doing okay right now, what with the money the judge said she has to pay me for my half of the house. That pretty much covers my rent here. Serves her right. Let her pay me for a change.
So I stay out here, living cheap. I used to work sweeping up at the factory, but it was always Frank, do this and Frank, do that. To hell with that, not when I got this money coming in. And not with her waiting to haul me back into court for every penny I earn.
Only problem is, there's not much to do. No TV, just a scratchy old radio that the farmer left behind. Only furniture is a bed that smells like a hog slept in it, a kitchen table with a chipped white top, and a big black wood-stove. Now that the weather is turning cold, I spend half my day feeding that stove. I got six cords of wood delivered and it's sitting right where the trucker dropped it, in a pile on the front lawn. Chop wood, haul it inside, go back out into the cold and chop more. Novelty of that wears off pretty damn quick, I tell ya. That cat showing up this morning was the only spot of color I seen since the leaves went.
Five a.m I heard it, howling and yowling. So I rolled over and went back to sleep. But when I was making coffee it started up again, wailing like to raise the dead. I turned the radio up, but that sound gets to you, like fingernails on a blackboard. So finally I get the boots on and go looking.
Soon as I open the door, the cat leaps off the windowsill and scoots down the hill. Scrawny little white thing, with orange and black patches. It tears toward the barn like its tail's on fire. I figure it can't be in that bad shape if it can run like that.
But I got my boots on anyway, and that woodpile is sitting there waiting. I get my coat and hike down to the barn.
Back in the day, Steve's dad grew corn and kept a few head of horses. There's a barn and a drive-shed, and a couple of round hayfeeders sitting out in the field. But since the fall when Steve moved his dad into town the place has fallen apart. Twisted, bent over page-wire fences, posts sticking out at jagged angles. Everything that's metal is rusted, everything that's wood is gray and warped, and the whole place drips with the morning damp.
It won't be any warmer in the house until I get some wood inside. I yank open the door to the stone barn. The barn is dug into the hill. I've entered from the low side, going into the bank. The inside is divided into stalls, each about ten feet square. The stall doors have horseshoes fixed to them, with one arm of the U bent so that it sticks out. Hanging on the horseshoes are ropes and halters for leading horses around. The stall doors have metal plaques saying things like High Flying Jetsam (Flash).
The place smells of cold and rot and to be honest it gives me the creeps. There ain't no horses here now, and I don't want to know where old Flash ended his days. I'm about to head back to the woodpile when I see that damn cat again, perched on top of the ladder.
The ladder goes up into the loft, which is twice as high as the downstairs and half-filled with musty gray haybales. I clamber up, hand over hand. Daylight slices through chinks in the walls, bringing a cutting wind. We must be at ground-level to the top of the hill, as half the back wall is taken up by big sliding doors.
It's cold up here. The cat darts up the haybales, giving me the stink-eye. Good luck to it. But looking around the loft, I see all kinds of stuff. Pitchforks, and a shovel and a couple of wheelbarrows. Stuff that maybe could be worth a few bucks, if it was put in the right hands. So I figure, see, that Steve ain't going to miss it, and if he does, well, I can deal with him. We're not talking big bucks. Just beer money, that's all.
So that's what I do: I toss the shovel and the pitchforks into the wheelbarrow. The shovel's got black crud stuck to it, but I scrape that off with a handful of hay. I don't got no car, on account of the ex-wife, so I hoof it out the lane and onto the road to town. Either side of the road the fields roll away, dry stubs of corn sticking up through the mud. The wind races across the open land and I'm fair chilled by the time rooftops come into view. I roll up to the hardware store and stand around defrosting while the guy pokes at my junk. He don't want nothing to do with it, but he tells me there's an auction today, like every Tuesday, out at the stockyard.
Well, I passed the stockyard coming in, so back we go, me and my wheelbarrow. By this time the wheelbarrow feels like it weighs a hundred pounds and I'm thinking if the stockyard don't want it the whole lot can go in the nearest ditch. But the guy at the desk gives me a lot number and says to put my stuff with the rest and the auctioneer will get to it when the horses are done.
Inside there's three rows of metal pens, each holding a couple of horses. Giant blonde horses with bulging muscles, skinny brown horses, ponies, mules. Farmer-types in cowboy hats poke and prod at the horses, peering at teeth and legs. They speak some jumbled up language that makes no sense: pinfire and ringbone and guaranteed sound. I turn up the collar of my jacket and try not to breath too deep.
At one end there's a square pen, a guy in a booth with a microphone, and tiers of wooden seats. I dump my wheelbarrow next to a pile of saddles and go pick a spot. Some kid leads in a black horse, and the auctioneer revs up his engine.
The black horse snorts and high-steps, the farmers lean on the rails, and the auctioneer rattles on, machine-gun style, with numbers popping out like shell casings. Two farmers keep nodding, one after the other, and the auctioneer just gets happier and happier.
The horses plod in and out, then the mules, and then finally we get to what they call the tack sale. By the time my stuff comes up half the farmers have left in search of coffee and I'm thinking this might be a day's work for nothing. But there's a fool girl with a pink horse on her sweatshirt and she gets bidding against one of the farmers. The farmer, he looks bored, but he ain't going let this girl take nothing away from him. He just keeps nodding like he's got all day, and in the end my wheelbarrow full of junk goes for a bit better than beer money.
Later, as I'm cashing out at the desk, the farmer is in line behind me. As I pass him, he says, "You're that guy renting from Steve and his dad, aren't you?"
I stop, thinking that the next question will be where I got the stuff. I'm sweating up a lie, but instead he says, "I'm at the next farm over."
"Hey."
"I saw you pushing that wheelbarrow into the yard. If you want, I can give you a ride back."
I fold the money into my wallet. "That'd be fine, so long as you don't mind stopping for beer on the way."
"Son, I don't mind at all."
#
When we pull into the yard, my farmer pal rests his hands on the wheel a moment, looking out. By now it's halfway dark and the shadows run together, smearing the shapes of the barn, the driveshed, the long mound of the manure pile. Up high on the barn, the yard-light flickers dull orange, trying to come on.
The farmer sticks out a hand. "I'm Norm, by the way."
"Frank." It's warm in the truck, and I'm not in a hurry to get out and slog up the hill to the cold empty house.
He points across the f
ield to a light. "That's my farm over there. Me and Steve's dad Wilf, we been neighbors sixty years."
He turns to look at me and the glow from the dashboard pockmarks his face. He says, "You want to take good care of this place."
Something in his voice makes the weather outside seem not so bad after all. I reach for the door handle.
"You understand me, Frank?"
"Yeah, okay." I open the door, get one boot out.
He reaches for the gear-stick. "Wilf, he's a hard man, but it's no wonder he went the way he did. There's only so much a man can bear."
#
The beer's gone by the weekend. Can't have that. I find another wheelbarrow in one of the stalls, and this time I fill it with horse stuff: the halters and lead ropes, and plastic bins full of brushes. I remember seeing an ax-head in the loft, so up I go, poking into the cobwebs. The cat watches me from a rafter.
The rattle makes me jump near out of my skin. It's the dry-wood scrape of the barn door below, shifting against its frame. I sidle over to the ladder and peer down. I can see the door flexing, like someone's shoving it back and forth.
The cat bolts for the shadows. I'm halfway tempted to follow it, but I don't want to get trapped up here. So I pull open the doors at the back of the barn and slip outside. I follow the wall around until I get to the lowside corner and sneak a look.
There's a old man standing at the door, grasping at the handle. The door isn't locked, but he can't make his fingers work the latch. He's dressed in a sweatsuit, but it hangs on him wrong, like he's a man who never wore leisure clothes before.
He pounds the door, croaking, "Marnie!"
I step up beside him. "Hey!"
He doesn't seem to hear me, starts rattling the door-handle. "Marnie, you in there?"
His old skin is furrowed and pitted, and the damp air beads the cracks. I lean in close and yell, "There's no Marnie here!"
He turns his head, but looks right through me. "She took Flash out, but she should be back by now."
"I'm telling you, she aint here!"
"It'll be dark soon."
Like having a conversation with a TV set. I wonder if my new pal Norm will take this geezer off my hands, but just as I'm figuring out how to get him there, a battered sedan bobs down the laneway.
The driver sees us and swings toward the barn. A woman climbs out, her mouth open, crying. She is young, blonde and rail-thin in black jeans and bangles.
She runs toward us. "Oh, oh, Dad, where have you been?"
Dad runs through his routine: Marnie, Flash, shove at the door-handle. The woman lights up a cigarette, her hands shaking. She looks at me for the first time. "Who are you?"
She should be asking me? "I live here."
"Oh, right. That Frank guy."
That Frank guy stands up straight and takes a step towards her. "What about you?"
She sidles backwards, glances at the car. "Sue. I'm Steve's wife."
Ah. So this is what Steve bought back from the city. As I size her up, she pulls out her keys and fingers the ignition key.
I jerk a thumb at the old man. "And him?"
"Steve's dad, Wilf."
"What's he doing out here?"
She takes a long drag of the cigarette, drops it in the mud and lights another. "I've been driving around looking for him. Old fool snuck out on me."
Give me strength, we're dealing with a big-haired woman. "Don't he lived in town now?"
"He does, he lives with Steve and me. I thought he was watching TV. I can't watch him twenty-four seven."
"He walked all the way out here from town?" I notice now that Wilf's sneakers and sweatpants are soaked from the knee down.
"He always comes here, I knew he'd come here."
If Wilf had been on the lam all the way out here from town, Sue hadn't been on his tail for long. "What's Steve going to say when he finds out?"
She flinches. She grabs at Wilf's arm, trying to turn him. "C'mon, Dad, we gotta go home."
The old man takes no notice. His voice is mulish, sour: "I have to wait for Marnie."
Sue sighs, like she's heard this before. "Marnie's gone, Dad."
I ask, "Who's Marnie?"
"Steve's sister. Hey, a little help here?"
What am I going to do? Frog-march him? I say, "Let's go, Pops."
Sue tries to catch his hands, but he yanks them up to his chest, jabbering. "Marnie, Marnie!"
She pleads with him, the two of them whining like a couple of kids. Wilf might be a hundred years old, but he still has twenty pounds on Sue. She tries threats, bribes, begging, but he won't budge.
I say, "Look, we have to call Steve."
She snaps, "No!"
"This Marnie, then."
"We can't."
"Why the hell not?"
"Because she's gone." Sue pries Wilf's fingers from the handle, but he latches onto the doorframe instead. "Marnie disappeared, six years ago."
#
Sue calls Steve. She walks off a few steps but I still hear her side of it: "No, I know . . . I'm sorry, okay . . . But . . . I know . . ."
She snaps the phone shut and drifts back. "Dad, please."
Wilf is intent on the handle. Sue glares. "Stupid old fool. I don't know why Steve puts up with him."
If she don't know why, I don't see no point in telling her. She calls to him, jeering, "You wait 'til Steve gets here." To me she says, "He never had time for Steve when he was growing up. It was always Marnie, always about her. Now she's gone and who's looking after him?"
I ask, "So the old guy is right about Marnie and Flash?"
"What? No, not on the horse." Sue taps out a cigarette. "He's confused. She wasn't riding Flash. She ditched Wilf, ditched this whole town and took off."
#
Sue tells the story, pausing to suck on the cigarette and shoot daggers at Wilf: "That Marnie, she was never any good. Always following the boys around with her tongue hanging out."
Now I remember: all us guys had fond memories of Marnie. When we were hanging out behind the railyard, we'd be sure to invite Steve along 'cos he'd bring Marnie.
Sue flicks her cigarette into the mud, lights another. "Since we moved here we never had no peace. Wilf's been driving us all mad harping after her."
I scratch my head and dredge up the memory, a bit hazy with beer fumes. "Didn't she take off to wait tables in the city?"
"That's what she said." Sue settles into the telling. "Steve told her not to go. What kind of life is that? They had it out down at the railyard, Marnie giving him lip about leaving, Steve yelling at her to shut up. Finally, Marnie says so long, pal. Just like that, in front of everyone. Then she gets in the big fancy truck Wilf bought her, and off she drives. And no one lays eyes on her again."
#
Memories float up, washed-out snapshots: all of us around the bonfire, Steve stepping into the circle, pushing Marnie in front of him. She sure weren't no looker, all gawky elbows and tangled words. No one ever wanted her for the conversation.
Sue keeps on, "That Marnie, she had Wilf fooled. She was always chasing after trouble."
Sue don't fit into my memory. "How do you know? You weren't there."
She looks surprised. "Everyone says so."
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Steve rolls up in a silver sports car. Driving slow to dodge the puddles, he weaves around Sue's old beater and nudges as close to us as he can. He opens the door and eases out, placing his feet with care. He wears a dark suit and a belted raincoat. Leather gloves, earpiece.
Sue scuttles over. "I been trying to get him home, but he won't listen."
Next to him, she looks like a scarecrow. Steve steps past her, studies his father.
Wilf finally figures out the handle and pulls the door open. Before he can get inside, I duck between him and the door, pressing it closed with my back. Can't have Steve seeing that wheelbarrow full of goodies.
Wilf shoves at me. Steve watches. "How long has he been here?"
That question sets Sue o
ff on a round of excuses. Steve glares at her. "You were supposed to be minding him."
"I was, but he's so . . ."
Steve ignores her, takes Wilf's sleeve. The old man yanks away, calling, "Marnie!"
Steve stills. He says flatly, "Let's go home, Dad."
"I have to find Marnie."
"She's at home, waiting for you."
Slowly, Wilf swivels his head to Steve. The lines in his face unravel, smooth out. "You found her?"
Steve says softly, "Yeah, Dad, I found her."
The old man smiles, like a window wiped clean. "My shining princess."
He trails after Steve, puppy-eager. Sue follows, twittering. Steve tows Wilf to her car, opens the rear door, and stands back. He cuts off Sue: "Just get him home."
Sue folds Wilf into her car. As she backs out, we can see her talking up a storm to the rearview mirror.
Steve heads for his car. I call after him, "Good thing you showed up."
Opening the door, Steve throws over his shoulder, "Frank."
As he climbs in, I amble over and put a hand on the doorframe. Old Steve, he thinks he's a bigshot now. I say, "He weren't no trouble, but we didn't know what we were going to do."
Steve puts the key in the ignition. "I've got to go."
"That's too bad about Marnie. Figured she woulda shown up by now."
Steve keeps his hand on the key, but doesn't turn the engine over. I add, "Good times we had, down at the railyard with Marnie."
Steve looks up at the dark shape of the barn, at the gray and brown smears on the land. His jaw works.
I step back, releasing him. That Steve couldn't even keep his sister in line. We didn't see much of him after she left. No point, without Marnie around.
#
That night freezes hard. I drag the bed into the kitchen, close off all the rooms and nail blankets over the open doorways. I burrow into the bedding in socks and a sweater.
Next morning the frost has traced ghost patterns on the windows and grown white spikes around the doorframe. I stay indoors 'til the last stick of wood. By afternoon the sun's out, so I rug up like a polar bear and get the ax.
I chop, I stack. I take a break, sit on a log with coffee and a sandwich. Then I notice the cat, sneaking around the woodpile, on the lookout for its next meal.