Daniel Woodrell - The Outlaw Album - Stories

That weather, that look, a forest in fog, a faint drizzle and no sky, always took him back to his foxhole in a place he couldn’t name. Such weather often lay over the mountain rivers where he and Jill went fishing, and the next time they went the sky spread low and gray over the bottoms and he could smell foreign mud and old fear. Jill stood knee-deep in the flow, facing upstream from Pelham all morning, silent and tense, then finally turned downstream and said, “No. No, I never did.”

For two days they received threats by telephone, and Pelham would listen to the harsh plans for his body parts and sorry soul and quietly say, “You might be right, man, come on over.” A car drove by a couple of times with young voices screaming something unintelligible but loud and angry. Then a long follow-up article in the town paper made the facts of the case obvious and nobody much blamed Pelham anymore. A day later there was an obituary of Randall Davies Jr.—a lifelong member of the Front Street Church of Christ, avid quail hunter, top rebounder on the West Table High basketball team, best buddy to his sisters Chrystal and Joy, a proud member of the First Marine Expeditionary Force in Iraq, where he attained the rank of corporal, beloved of many. Jill taped the obit to the refrigerator door so they might slowly come to understand something crucial from regularly looking into the kid’s face.

If they snacked at the small kitchen table, the face would be above and between them. It was his boot camp photograph, him wearing dress blues, the white hat and brass insignia, a blank, regimented expression. They’d watch the face as they sliced their food and chewed. Studying that face forced the conversation into certain directions. Pelham might ask yet again, “Why ever’d he leave his weapons outside?”

“And why come in here naked?”

“Why shit on Daddy’s chair? Why do that?”

“Contempt, hon. I think that means contempt.”

“He never even threw a punch.”

When Pelham cursed aloud in empty rooms, he knew he was talking to the marine he’d killed. He thought of him as Junior, and interrogated him in his mind, sometimes shook or slapped him. How’d you happen to pick my door? This road is not the route to anywhere special, Junior, ain’t no popular taverns, or skating rinks, or Lovers’ Lanes, or anything out this way—you’ve got to want to get here to get here. Junior never answered, and Jill was unnerved when she came upon Pelham standing in the living room addressing a closet door, “Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you!”

“Hon? Hon?”

“I’m after answers, that’s what.”

In the night Pelham would rise from bed and patrol the perimeter. He’d sneak through his house in his underwear, carrying an ax handle he’d brought in from the garage. He’d check doors, listen for sounds that might not be benign, creep to a window and peer between the blinds, stand at the empty spot where his father’s chair belonged, with the ax handle drawn back to swing. He’d repeat his patrol several times in succession before relaxing a bit, and at some point Jill usually joined him in the darkness.

“All clear?”

“Maybe.”

On a bright morning outside Kenny’s Walleye Restaurant, Pelham finally bumped into Randall Davies Sr. He stood in the parking lot and felt great relief. Randall and his wife stared a moment, then Randall said, “I thought you’d come by before now.”

The men started to shake hands, then stalled, averted their glances, let their hands fall to their sides. Mrs. Davies stepped forward, a tall and very thin woman who’d been several grades behind the men in school, and said, “I know you had the right—but I just can’t look at your face. I just can’t do it.” She walked to Kenny’s and went inside, and Randall raised his hand again, and this time they shook. He said, “She can’t stand knowin’ how wrong things got to be with him. How lost to us.”

“I didn’t know your son.”

“Me, neither, much. I guess that’s the awful part that’s got so clear now.”

“I’m sorry what happened happened.”

“You’n me need to talk. I’ll give you a call.”

The summer they’d been buddies fell between grades six and seven. They’d roamed the fields and deep woods, taunted bulls in green pastures, mocked girls on the town square, dawdled in the alleyways where interesting refuse might be found. The Davieses were new arrivals, moved down from Rolla, and Pelham’s mother told him to be nice to the freckled boy in thick glasses. Randall was not so hot at sports, but he was willing, and they joined other kids at the park for long, long games of corkball, Indian ball, 500, or, if their numbers swelled, double-headers of baseball with complete teams. They swam in Howl Creek, played slapjack on the screened porch when it rained, drank cream soda, and pegged rocks at pigeons in the empty railroad station. It was their last barefoot summer. Seventh grade brought many complications and new social concerns. Randall was of no help buttering up girls at the drive-in, or during a ritual scrap behind the school, more of a burden, really, a chronic liability, and before long, somehow, they didn’t hang around together anymore. Nothing angry happened, just a slow dwindling, and soon their friendship had shrunk to a glancing, rote exchange of greetings when passing: “How you doin’?”

“Not bad—you?”

“Can’t kick.”

Perfect weather pushed up from Arkansas, and all windows were open to the screen. Jill seemed buoyant and wore only a sheer light-blue nightie. The house breathed that night in the cadence of cicadas, drawing in the smells of honeysuckle and plowed dirt, dogwood and cattle in the distance. Pelham watched the final innings from St. Louis on the bedroom television, a tumbler of bourbon in his hand. Jill lay across the bed, face over the edge, book on the floor, the nightie smoothed to her skin. She snapped the book closed and sat up. “That one’s over.”

The announcer was praising the relief pitching, and Jill went to the bookcase, removed an aged hardback, and started moaning, then sniffling. “What?” he asked, and she pointed at the bookshelf where blood had flown and hidden behind the books, streaking the white paint. “Shit.” Pelham fetched a bucket of water and cleaning rags, the stiff brush that worked best, and they cleared the books from the shelf, stacked them on the floor. They scrubbed and scrubbed until the paint flaked and that streaking of blood was gone from sight. Pelham dropped the brush into the bucket and said, “I’ll be going to the river with his dad.”

They stood on big gray rocks and cast into the current. Shallows began just below the men, and the river murmured passing over the small stones and limestone gravel. Shadows covered the riverbed and halfway up the slope beyond. The current tugged the fishing line like there was a bite and made the rods bend, but the only things on the line were the river and the bait. Randall spoke with his back to Pelham. “What’d Randy say to you?”

“Not a word. He never spoke.”

“How is it you had a knife ready when he showed?”

“He only growled.”

“I can’t feature that part. I don’t get that. I guess I just don’t know what kind of shit really goes on over there.”

“It’s the same shit as always, Randall.”

Pelham broke from the stream and stepped to the riverbank. He reached into his knapsack and retrieved a bottle of bourbon, then hopped back onto the gray rocks. He held the bottle toward Randall. “You ever start drinkin’ whiskey?”

“Only had to start once.”

They sat on the rocks, listening to the river, drinking bourbon from the bottle, letting trout swim past. They sat in silence for ten minutes, twenty, slowly sharing the whiskey. Two kids in yellow kayaks whipped down the channel, racing each other and laughing, easily skirting boulders and skimming the shallows. Their young laughter could yet be heard when they’d floated from sight, far downriver.