Smith Henderson - Fourth of July Creek

Or did he bound into the night? Did he rend his shirt? Did he hear his own strangled sobs and sorrow echoing off the shallow mountainsides? Did the pine martens and hares flee his screams?

Did he run up a fallen log and squat there and hold his knees like he would explode if he let them go?

Did he search his heart and ask what he’d done? Did he wonder was the universe a cruelty?

And did he put the children in the cellar alone or did Benjamin help him?

Did they roll the stones and how long did it take?

Were they still doing it even now?

For this were they chose out?

Chose out for this?

For this?

This?

Pete’s brother stood some ways off, showing Jeremiah Pearl the teepee that he and the boy would live in. Pearl walked around the structure, looking off into the trees, the area around, warily. Luke beckoned him into the tent and he smiled back at Pete and the boy, and took Pearl inside.

“My brother’s a pretty nice guy,” Pete said.

Ben sat on the back porch next to him. The sky was heavy with dark clouds and it rained a lot here, but things could be gotten used to.

“Will you visit?”

“Of course.”

“When?”

“Sometimes. I’ll just come out.”

He put a piece of grass in his teeth.

“Papa looks weird.”

“You’ll get used to it.”

“I want him to grow it back.”

“Maybe he will. Think you’ll like it here?”

“I dunno.”

“I think you will.”

“Do you have to go right away?”

“Later. I got a long drive back to Montana.”

“Can we play checkers?”

“I think the board is still in the car,” Pete said.

The kid scampered around the house. Pete was alone a moment, the heel of his palm against his eye. The other heel, the other eye. Pete removed his hands and the gray sky shuddered in his vision, a dread pulsing of his blood, his ichor. He turned and there was the boy inside the back door, profoundly alive, saying the board was on the table. To come inside and play.

Pete drove by the camp twice before he spotted the car, the green tarp deep in the ninebark. An early spring cold front bore down, and when he walked off the main road above them and down through the brush to where they were parked they didn’t hear him in the wind. The man stood and then the woman when they saw him. Their unsmiling mouths looked like they’d been hacked into a flat and uncomplicated wariness by a dull knife. Their boy sat a few yards away in fine sand by the water, and a silent infant lay in a stroller held level by a stone where a wheel was missing. A tarp stretched out from the back of the station wagon and was tethered to a couple of trees. A thin fire in the fire pit burned clear and orange, and a pair of fishing poles against the tree suggested how they got by.

“Howdy,” Pete said.

“Howdy,” said the woman and the man both, and they looked at each other as if they’d already done something they hadn’t intended and needed to look at one another to remind the other of the plan or contingency.

“My name’s Pete. Just right up front, let me tell you I’m not a police officer or anything like that, and the last thing I want to do is cause you any trouble.”

They looked at each other again, and then the man said, “Okay.”

Pete took out his badge.

“This says I’m with the Department of Family Services for the State of Montana.”

At this the woman covered her mouth. The man set his hands on his hips as Pete came forward. Pete showed the badge to both of them and they looked at it and nodded, the woman still covering her mouth. The man and boy had upshot hair, and when he got closer they smelled of kerosene and trout. The woman uncovered her haggard downslung mouth and wiped her eyes.

“So we got a call that there might be some folks staying down here.”

“What call?” the man asked.

“Just someone who seen you down here,” Pete told him.

“Who was it?”

“It was anonymous. I just get the information to check out the situation.”

“Because we haven’t bothered anybody,” the woman said with a voice that crackled with shame. She had by now gotten close to her husband and wrapped her arm around his, and looked back at the boy who was sitting by the fire with a toy truck watching to see what would happen next.

“I’m sure you haven’t bothered anyone,” Pete said. “Looks to me like you are making out fine here. It’s just when there’s a call it means somebody’s concerned—”

“Why are they concerned?”

The man seemed genuinely surprised that someone would look upon this situation as odd.

“Mind if I have a look around?” Pete asked.

“Suit yourself.”

Pete stepped over to the fire. The boy watched him. The mother went nearby, which Pete took as a good sign. Protective. He squatted down. The boy had no marks other than an old scratch on his arm. It was cool, but he was in a vest, shoes and socks.

“Hi,” Pete said warmly, stirring the fire with a stick and then tossing the stick onto the coals.

The kid mutely stood and went to his mother and grabbed her leg.

“How old?” he asked the mother.

“This one’s four and the little one is eighteen months,” she answered. “Do we need to go somewhere else?”

Pete stood.

“No. Like I said, I’m not a police officer. Now, I’m not sure what the law is about staying right here, but I’m not telling you that you need to go.”

“It’s just if someone called, maybe someone else will call the police.”

Pete had worked his way over to the baby in the stroller and he leaned to have a look at her, and the mother came over with the boy. The baby’s blue eyes were in themselves an astonishment, as lovely as anything in creation. A too-big sweater enveloped her and there was a blanket over her. Her snot ran clear. No infection.

“She’s really lovely,” Pete said. “What’s her name?”

“Erin.”

He touched her on the nose and stood next to the car to see in back. Paper sacks of clothing. Playing cards. A ukulele. A box of cereal, hot dog buns, and a jar of peanut butter.

Pete stood away from the car to have a look at it.

“Is this a Buick Sport Wagon? They have a little something under the hood, don’t they?”

“She runs.”

The man had his hands in his jeans and was watching his wife when Pete turned to them.

“You were asking a question about the cops,” Pete said to her.

Her nod chopped the air. She shook. He tried to sigh warmly, nonchalantly, as though there was nothing to worry about, but couldn’t tell if it helped or not.

“I don’t know that someone won’t call the cops to come out here and give you a ticket or something. I don’t know if this is anybody’s property.”

The boy wanted up, and she lifted him onto her hip and how her skirt hiked down revealed the upper bones of her pelvis. She was pretty, overrun and weary, like a pet come in from the weather.

“So where you guys out of?” Pete asked.

“We don’t have to tell you anything, do we?” the man said. Pete turned full to him and the man was holding a stick. Pete glanced at it, and the man tossed the stick aside.

“Of course not. I’m just here to see that you’re okay. That’s all.”

“We’re okay.”

Pete put his hands together.

“Sure looks like it. Why don’t I go on and get out of your hair.”