A South Texas Winter Story
by
Jack Steele
Sonny got back late in the afternoon with six quail. He leaned the shotgun against the side of the cabin and dropped the quail and his heavy coat on a big wicker chair. Stepping out of muddy boots and pulling off the thick socks that were soaked through, he looked out across the lake at the mudhens bobbing up and down on the choppy water near the shore. The wind was fierce, blowing an icy mist all the way up to the porch. Until late in the morning a thick fog had covered the lake, but when the wind came up, it disappeared, leaving a low gray sky.
The lamp by the couch was on, casting shadows and deepening the gloom in the other corners of the cabin. Only a few live coals were left in the fireplace and the room was cold. On the coffee table lay a thick novel and a cup and saucer. Brenda was wearing skimpy yellow underwear. She was stretched out on the floor next to the table, her legs spread and her arms limp at her sides. Her head rested against the couch at a funny angle, like her neck was broken. After a moment’s hesitation, he went nearer and in almost a whisper, he said, “Brenda?” He leaned over and carefully pulled her shoulders up and saw the pool of blood on the floor and the gaping hole in the left side of her back.
Putting her down gently, he turned and walked toward the door. With his back to the room and his hand on the doorknob, he could see through the window the wind blowing the trees, and beyond the trees the gray lake. In the window glass he also saw the reflection of the lamp. He looked down at his bare feet and at the green throw rug with white fringe. He sniffed, the beginning of a cold maybe, and felt the draft from the door on his feet. In spite of everything, he thought of a steaming bowl of tomato soup.
In the dark corner by the window was a spinning reel, a Remington .22 pump and a sponge mop. On the window sill was a small plastic container of lead fishing weights and strung from it to a curtain rod was a spider web. He pulled a cigarette out of his pocket, managed to light it, and then slowly, following the knotty pine paneling that went from floor to ceiling all around the room, he turned until his eyes fell again on Brenda.
She had just put silver polish on her toenails. The door was opened, she stood up to rush to the bedroom for more clothes, and was shot just before she turned. The impact had thrown her back on the couch, which she’d slid off of and onto the floor. The book had been put down carefully, so she must have heard footsteps but assumed it was him. The coffee cup was half full, the magazine underneath covered with stains.
He stared at the narrow strip of yellow material that covered her between her legs, and that should have been it, what he walked out of the room with, but he couldn’t control his eyes. They moved up her body to the gaping mouth and glassy eyes, and worse, the ironic touch of the flowing black hair against the blue couch, the hair still shining with life in the lamplight.
She’d been getting ready for a special dinner, and he would now be holding a glass of whiskey as he warmed his feet and watched the quail cook slowly in the fireplace. And later, when they had their fill of quail and whiskey, they would warm each other, pressed up together naked on the floor with the yellow underwear flung away and forgotten. He put his hand on the doorknob and walked out.
It was nearly dark as he turned his back to the wind to pull on his boots, ignoring the wet socks. As he hurried down the steps he noticed that the mudhens were up and rooting around in the grass, and he glanced over at the opposite shore of the lake and saw only one light. Pushing his hands down into his jean pockets, the cold drizzle hitting his face, he walked as fast as he could and was halfway to the big house before he realized he’d forgotten his jacket. He cursed himself out loud and kept walking.
The big house was about two hundred feet from the cabin, down a straight path through a neglected field of high grass and cactus. In spite of its rundown condition, Brenda had wanted to live there. She had said it would make her feel safer, and after what she’d told him last night, he’d made up his mind to simply leave the farm altogether, whether or not they had the money.
They were in bed with the lights out, smoking a last cigarette as they watched the big liveoak outside their window sway in the wind. The norther had hit just a few hours before and the wind was high and cold. The tree’s long branches scraped against the window screen, and the fireplace in the other room had began a long steady moan. Brenda put a hand on his chest and told him what had happened that morning after he went into town to work. She’d been asleep about an hour when she woke up with the idea that someone had spoken her name. But there was no one in the room, and then she looked at the window, and standing there, looking “pale and mean,” was his sister. Their eyes met briefly and Linda went away.
All he said was “Okay,” and although her hand didn’t actually tighten on his chest, she left it there and he understood that something had to be done. That he had to get away, and get her away, from the grip of those Sunday afternoons that were not, after all, so long ago. The one that he would carry with him all his life was the first one, on a clear Sunday in January. It was a tool shed by the barn and the winter sun came through the cracks in the wall, laying thin strips of light across the dirt floor. They could see each other’s breath and smell the musty odor from years of rat shit and cobwebs. Linda leaned back against the wall, the half conscious expression on her face, amid the hoes and shovels and rakes. He was just barely fourteen and full of the Sunday funny papers and baked ham and the tile room in town where he listened once a week to a shoe salesman talk about the Bible. Linda was twenty then and would have been very pretty if she’d known how to take care of herself. She wore a blue high school letter jacket over a white Sunday dress, which she held up around her waist with no more excitement than if she were about to pee.
Sonny scraped his boots on the mat and walked in without knocking. The rocking chair by the old Dearborn stove was empty, but the gas was on and the house was warm. A box of chocolate covered cherries and a small red dictionary lay on the table next to the rocker. No light was on and the shades were pulled. Darkness lay on the rickety furniture: the sagging quilt-covered couch, the faded lampshades and the chipped and scarred hardwood tables, all rooted to their old places and slowly crumbling. He figured that Grace must be asleep. All he could hear was the refrigerator.
He tiptoed down the hall to Linda’s room and cautiously peered around the door. The bed was made and the lights were out. He stepped inside and looked around. Grace picked up for her or the room would be a pigpen. On a bedside table was a picture of himself when he was six years old, in a round dime store frame, and at the foot of the bed was a stuffed elephant he’d given her one Christmas. That was all that made it Linda’s room. He stepped to the window and pulled back the curtain just enough to look out. Same gray wind and nothing moving but the grass and the trees.
He had to walk back through the hall to get to the kitchen. The hall light, a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling, was the only one on in the house. It had been like that for as long as he could remember. The hall light on all day and all night. The wall paper, red roses on pink, was faded and peeling now, the floors squeaked more than they used to, and the little table for the telephone looked like it should have collapsed years ago. Nevertheless, he had to stop for a moment as he passed through because days like this, cold and rainy, when he was very young, suddenly rushed up at him and he thought he smelled cabbage. He and Linda would sometimes just lie around in the hall all afternoon and do nothing but listen to Grace and his mother move around in the kitchen and talk until his father came in for supper.
In the kitchen he got a glass of water from the faucet and stood at the sink, hands resting on the counter as he looked out the window. He could see the cabin light, and the thought of it made his knees go weak. He heard something and looked around. Grace was sitting at the kitchen table, looking at him. She’d been asleep, and her head was still resting against the wall.
Her gray hair was pinned up on top of her head and her neck was a patchwork of wrinkles. She never put in her teeth except to eat. Her eyes were puffy from sleep but they were wide open and fixed on him. Sonny looked away, and for a long time they said nothing. The refrigerator had shut off, and they could faintly hear the wind, but all else was quiet. She folded her hands on her lap.
That day, that first Sunday, which did not seem so long ago now, she had sat in the same chair with pecans in her lap. The sun was streaming through the window, but it was cold, and he went over to warm his hands on the oven. She was baking pies. And that day, too, he could not look at her for long because one quick glance at her face told him she knew.
But neither of them said anything, and Sonny went back outside and began playing with an old football. It was a long time before Grace came out, the sun so low in the sky that he had to shade his eyes to see the barn. Linda was sitting on the roof. She sat there every afternoon, rain or shine, and looked at the lake.
He could hear Grace talking, but he could not understand her. For a long time, Linda ignored her, but then Grace started waving her hands and stomping her feet, and Sonny heard a few isolated words like “bitch” and “whore” and “white trash.” Linda never did look at her, but she finally climbed down and Grace made her stand facing the barn with her hands up against the siding. Sonny had not noticed the belt. She’d had it wrapped around her hand. When she lifted Linda’s skirt, the belt uncoiled like a snake.
The old lady staring at him from the kitchen chair, in the quiet gloom amid the smell of apples and old bacon grease, was almost a skeleton. She’d lived a year now since her stroke, but for the last month or so she’d looked like she might drop dead any minute. It was the only way Brenda had ever seen her, sitting in her rocker in the dark living room with the little red dictionary in her lap and the box of chocolate covered cherries on the table beside her. The day they first met she talked to Brenda about the word ‘noggin.’ It amused Grace that it was in the dictionary. She spoke very slowly now, in a barely audible whine. Brenda was polite but she couldn’t think of anything to say. As they were leaving, Linda walked in eating an apple, and in the middle of Sonny’s introduction, she turned around and walked out, without even so much as a glance at Brenda. Grace didn’t seem to notice.
But Grace always seemed to know everything, even if she was half dead.
“Where is she?” he asked her.
“Gone.”
He started to walk out, but she held out a hand as if to stop him.
“Let her go Sonny. Let the law get her.”
He stopped for a second but then went on. He heard her try to call him as he walked down the hall.
“Sonny, be careful.”
He used the knife, a switchblade, for nearly everything, even for cleaning birds and fish. He’d bought it off the street in Mexico when he was sixteen, and it still tried to jump out of his hand when he opened the blade. Brenda had loved it, had spent hours fooling around with it. She used to say with a teasing grin that if she ever caught him with another woman she’d cut his heart out with it.
He held it, the blade closed, in his right hand as he approached the shed. It was dark now. Coming out the front door he had cut a wide circle to his left in order to get an angle on the door. He hardly felt the cold air, even without his coat. He half crouched and measured each step, but his boots kept slipping in the mud, and at one point he nearly landed on his back. In spite of the darkness, and there was no moon, he knew where the door was and could just about see it.
He was less than fifty feet away when the door swung open and Linda darted out on a dead run toward the lake. He moved too fast and wound up on his knees. When he got up, he saw her running in the high grass along the shore, and when she reached the barbed wire fence, she hurdled it. By the time he got to the fence, she was out of sight. He listened but heard nothing. Not even a slight rustle in the brush, or the sound of heavy breathing.
He went all the way back to the old cabin to get his coat and a flashlight. He saw Grace standing in the lighted kitchen window, watching him. He went on, ignoring her and promising himself to ignore Brenda when he got to the cabin. That was easier said than done, but he did it.
He used the flashlight to follow Linda’s tracks just far enough to guess what she was up to, then left it behind and went on with the knife. He moved in quick spurts, then waited patiently for the slightest unnatural sound, always crouched and ready. It was so dark that he couldn’t see more than three feet ahead, and the wind made listening difficult, but he knew every tree and bush and their sounds, just as Linda did. It wasn’t raining, but his clothes were soaked through and muddy from the brush and grass. He didn’t feel the cold, not much, but he knew his hands were stiff and red, and he kept flexing his right hand to keep it primed.
Years ago they had played this game. She pretended to be a deer and he was the hunter. It was often cold on those nights, but clear and still with a bright moon. He’d carried a BB gun and had every intention of using it, and Linda knew it, but that sort of thing never bothered her. She was better than him in the brush in those days. He’d stalked her for over an hour with no success, had no idea where she was. He’d about given up and was walking upright and carelessly under one of the white oaks near a creek bed when she jumped down from an overhanging branch and landed on his back. He got so mad that he started hitting her. He gave her two black eyes and a bad cut on her lip.
When his anger ebbed, he felt ashamed of himself and rolled away from her and started crying. She came over to comfort him, and had only touched his shoulder at first, but sensing that he would no longer hurt her, she leaned over him and put her arms around his neck.
It was different this time. She’d taken more than his pride. He didn’t know whether she understood that or not, and he didn’t care.
Crouched low, his feet wet and his face stinging with cold, he could almost smell her. He heard her breathing, as if she were right beside him, and it made him jump. He’d been cold and still in the dark for so long that he was beginning to drift. Did he really hear her or had he fallen asleep and dreamed it? He was at the edge of a small clearing, he knew, even though he couldn’t see it, not far from the lake but down the shore at least a mile.
He took two quick steps and the breathing stopped. He waited several minutes, hearing nothing and making no sound himself. Then the breathing started again, and he moved cautiously until he was halfway around the clearing. She was asleep in a bed of high grass, surrounded by mesquite trees and the low bushes that bordered the clearing. She was on her side, curled up with her knees touching her chin. She wore blue jeans and an old corduroy shirt.
He bent down on one knee and touched her shoulder. She opened her eyes and went rigid. Then she was gone. He heard the brush break toward the lake and took off after her. If he brushed against any thorns or prickly pear, he didn’t feel it. He saw her through an opening in the brush as she stepped into the lake. She had unbuttoned the shirt and was about to pull it off when she heard him crash out of the brush and open the knife. She ran down the shore.
He had to run hard to keep up. He could hear his boots sloshing in the mud and his own hard breathing. She could just barely be seen about fifty feet ahead. At one point she darted back into the brush and he followed, stopping suddenly when he realized that she’d outfoxed him. He turned back, and when he got to the shoreline he saw her in the water. She had taken off her clothes and was wading out.
She was up to her knees when he got to her. He pulled her back to the shore by her hair and at the edge of the water she lost her balance and fell on her back in the mud. He stood over her, knife in hand, trying to catch his breath. He couldn’t see her face, only the outline of her hair and shoulders. And she made no sound.
When he dropped to his knees, she rolled out from under him and tried to scramble to her feet. He grabbed her by the ankle and jumped on top of her. She was wet and cold and covered with mud and sand, and she thrashed and wiggled, but he got the knife up and plunged it as far as it would go into her heart.
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