Smith Henderson - Fourth of July Creek

They just need to anoint them with oil. She says God said to anoint them. They are as kings and queens each one. She says for Benjamin to go get oil from the Cloningers.

He looks at Papa.

She cuffs him suddenly, weakly, her arm has no power. Shouts, I said to go!

Papa waves helplessly for him to do it.

He returns with a Tupperware of olive oil, Ruth can’t walk right, can’t even hold a pencil, it slides out of her hand and she bawls, she wants to say something and she can’t and she can’t write either. So Mama anoints her first, pours oil into her hair and kisses her head, and Papa carries her to bed and sits with her and ministers to her. She just wants to say something.

Benjamin helps Mama anoint the others. Baby Ethan whose eyes only open, just. Mama carries the little sleeper to Jacob’s bed, she won’t let anyone have the baby, and Benjamin bears the oil.

Jacob isn’t himself. He can’t stop laughing. The joy , Mama says, you have the glory and the joy. He laughs and they wet his head with oil.

Esther won’t let them anoint her. She bows up like a tomcat, and then dashes through the house and tucks herself behind the stove, which has gone cold because everyone is boiled with fever. She hisses at them. She spits.

She’s just grumpy , Mama says, laughing, rocking the baby on the floor so her dress hikes up and bare red legs show, she’s never shown her legs before, how come they are so red. Esther’s just grumpy , Mama says, the oldest carries the most burden, you see.

Jacob cackles from his bed.

Paula sneezes again.

Ruth comes for a glass of water and she can’t grip the cup. She can’t walk right.

It’s the cartoon . The Seven Dwarfs. Ben says to Mama, Ethan is Sleepy and Paula is Sneezy and Ruth is Dopey and Jacob is Happy and Esther is Grumpy . He says, This is my fault, God is punishing me. He’s turned them into likenesses of cartoons, which are likenesses of people, it’s all inside out now, it’s all hell now.

Ben knows that this is his doing.

But what to do.

Papa wants the baby but she won’t let him. He says the baby Ethan is not alive. His open eyes are still and his arm won’t remain where Mama places it, it keeps spilling out and she keeps tucking it back.

They argue.

She scratches Papa with her free hand when he reaches.

They scream at one another and Ben covers his ears and faces the wall.

Jacob laughs.

Ruth cries. She cries for Papa, and Papa goes.

Now Mama hisses to him, Ben come here. He does and she tells him to go remove the battery from the truck.

He says he doesn’t know how.

She says to come here closer.

He’s afraid.

Come on, damnit, you’re afire.

He says, Mama I’m okay , and she says, get over here, so help me . He slips over to her and she slaps out the fire only she sees and says he’ll be okay. She straightens his shirt. Kisses his cheek. Her face is like a hot coal, like passing too near the stove.

She squints at him now, Why are you on fire?

Papa has the keys to the truck. At the sound of them dimly jangling she says to not do it, and she crawls toward him on one arm, the other with the baby tucked to her, but he just steps around her and jogs out to the truck.

He guns the engine, rattles down through the trees.

Mama leans against the cold black stove. She sets the baby by like a piece of firewood, sits there with her palms open in her lap. Head thrown back. Exhausted. It’s quiet. There’s peace.

Then she moves to her knees, pulls herself up, stands on knocking legs. She takes a rifle from the wall. The barrel swings down, pounds the floor like it weighs a hundred pounds. It takes all her strength to bear it.

Ben watches through the unfinished walls, through the two-by-fours, as she staggers to Esther’s bed. She coaxes her to sit up. Esther’s shivering as they head out together and Mama stumbles back for a blanket. Esther is working her jaw around something that she might say, but she doesn’t. Ben calls her name. Mama looks over, says, Shut up, Benjamin Pearl. Just shut the hell up.

Mama puts the blanket over her and together they go out.

She explains that they are already dead and she can’t let them fall into the hands of… she gestures down the mountain. Them , she says. Does he understand.

He says I let in the poison.

Yes yes you did.

The first time, the rifle spins her around and she lands on it like a crutch. Jacob is led out by the wrist, takes the steps like a baby colt. Jacob’s bare feet stepping in place in the moonlight. A hoot owl after Mama kills him. When it’s Ruth’s and Paula’s turn, they clasp hands. The afghan spread over Esther. Shells spill out of Mama’s pockets and she has trouble closing the bolt. She says for Ben to sit down next to the others.

She says, Waitaminute no. You’re chosen out. Go inside.

There’s one more shot and then no more shots.

What film played behind the boy’s eyes, Pete could not guess. But his eyes ranged across the bed and the walls as though he were witnessing everything afresh.

“What happened when your father came back with a doctor?”

It seemed it took a moment for the boy to even hear the question.

“He didn’t bring a doctor. He come back up to the house when he was stopped at the highway. Heard the rifle all the way down there. Didn’t make it back in time.” The boy’s eyes were tethered to some section of the blanket, that far-off night. “He went up and looked. And then come back and sat on the ground with me.”

“What did he say?”

“I don’t think we said nothing.”

“I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine how scary that was.”

“Naw. She did what God said to. Papa was wrong to go to the doctor. She’d put it in God’s hands and he and I’s what made her have to do it. It’s why we were chose out.”

“No.”

“Yes. We were chose out.”

“The ice,” Pete said.

“What?”

“The ice from the freezer. You didn’t have any. Neither did your father.”

He left the Libby hospital and drove to see Pinkerton. To explain. But because of the shooting, the headquarters was a slew of flashing squad cars, paramedics, and every stripe of law enforcement taking pictures and making notes or just standing around fuming. An officer in front of the command centered regarded Pete angrily. Glass spangled and crunched underfoot, and he could just make out a long brown bloodstain on the tile inside.

“This is a crime scene now,” the officer said. “You can’t stand here.”

Through a plywood gap Pete could see ATF agents giving interviews to FBI agents. A spot of hair on the floor that Pete only in his waiting realized must be part of someone’s skull.

“I need to see Agent Pinkerton.”

“You gotta clear out.”

“Look, I have information about Jeremiah Pearl.”

“Go to the police station, give your statement there.” The officer shoved Pete off the curb and took his position back in front of the building. Pete loitered, but then word got around that the shooter was holed up in a barn and the place cleared out in a mass. If Pinkerton left with them, Pete didn’t see him go.

He went back to the hospital, but visiting hours were over. He dozed in the lobby and paced and smoked outside and in the morning, the cop with the Billy Graham book was gone. And so was Benjamin.

The standoff at the barn failed to occur. If the shooter had been there at all, he slipped away just as quickly as they’d cornered him. The collective wisdom around the bar at the Ten High was that Pearl would never be caught either. It was surmised he’d left the boy and lit out for Canada or an unreachable remove deep in the Yaak, which was more like a rain forest, a jungle really, only partially known even to locals. He was long gone.