Chris Offutt - The Good Brother

He rose at dawn. The rising lilt of birdsong surrounded the trailer and seemed to press against its walls. Virgil spread a mound of coffee grounds in an old handkerchief, twisted it into a tight ball, and dropped the knot into a cup. He poured boiling water in the cup and carried it outside. The morning sun bestowed a sweet light upon the hills. He wrapped a few of Boyd’s old weapons in a feedsack, put it in the trunk of his car, and drove to town.

Mist rose like smoke from the creek. In Rocksalt a patrol car waited at a light and Virgil had a quick panic but continued through town to the interstate. As he accelerated up the ramp, he felt as if he were leaving a creek for a river of tar and cement. He wondered if the government had foreseen the results of building the four-laner. The road provided escape, but nothing of merit had been brought in yet.

He exited at Mount Sterling and drank coffee in a diner. Montgomery County had legal bars, lots of money, and a new jail. Virgil recalled the time Boyd had gotten arrested on a drank charge in Rocksalt. It was late Friday night and the jail was full. The cop phoned the Mount Sterling police. By the time they arrived, Boyd was sober and the Montgomery County jail was full. The jailer kept him in his office until his shift ended, then took him home and locked Boyd in his son’s old room. In the morning Boyd woke to the smell of sizzling bacon. The jailer released him, gave him a clean towel, waited outside the bathroom until Boyd finished, and escorted him to the kitchen. After breakfast the jailer and his wife drove Boyd back to his mother’s house, and stayed for supper. Boyd liked to say that the only better jailing he ever did was with a boy who’d smuggled dope into the cell.

Virgil finished his coffee and found a gun store. He carried his bundle inside, where a large man stood behind a glass display case. His shoulders lay across his body like a bench. Behind him was a poster that said “American by Birth, Kentuckian by the Grace of God.”

The man jerked his chin to acknowledge Virgil. Razor burns marred his jaw. His right hand was out of sight and Virgil knew it held a pistol.

“He’p ye?” he said.

Virgil unwrapped the burlap feedsack to display two shotguns and an old semi-automatic.22 from Sears, Roebuck. He opened the breech of each weapon. The man inspected them slowly, working the action, squinting along the sights. His face showed no sign of his appraisal.

“You sure they’re yours?” he said.

Virgil nodded.

“I ain’t going to have the law in here looking to confiscate them, am I.”

“I can’t speak for the law,” Virgil said. “But those are my guns.”

The man kept his stare fastened to Virgil. His eyes were pale blue and separated by a space the width of three fingers.

“Sale or trade?” the man said.

“Little bit of both.”

“What are you wanting?”

“Depends on what they’re worth to you.”

“Well, that.22 ain’t worth more’n a few bucks.”

Virgil began wrapping the weapons in burlap. The man placed his empty right hand on the counter.

“I might could use them other two,” he said. “What are ye hunting?”

“Pistol.”

The man moved to a case fall of handguns. Virgil inspected a.45 automatic, a.357, and a nickel-plated.38. He bypassed an expensive Glock 9mm and returned to the 45. It was heavy but attractive, with handcrafted wooden grips. As he hefted it, he casually asked how much his own weapons were worth. The man named a high price, and Virgil knew it was relative to the cost of the pistol he was holding. He set it down and asked for a cheaper.22 revolver. The man’s lips tightened. Boyd would have liked to play against him in a poker game.

“If we swap straight up,” the man said, “we’ll just keep Uncle Sam out of it. No Brady, no tax. Nothing.”

Virgil traded for a box of cartridges, drove home, and cleaned the pistol. The sharp scent of gun oil filled the trailer’s kitchen. He reassembled the pistol and ate a sandwich of baloney on white bread. Everything was in place, there was nothing left to do. He wore a jacket so he could carry the pistol and ammunition in a pocket and entered the woods behind his trailer.

A chunk of cloud came over the hill and through the sky. He moved downslope, grabbing saplings to slow his pace. The woods held fall summer’s green and he crossed a dry rain branch and began to climb. The western sun had made tree leaves crinkle and drop. Virgil felt as if he’d moved from summer to autumn simply by crossing a creek. He walked deep into the mineral company’s land. No one would bother him there, and he’d not have to worry about trespassing. Company land was handy to have around. He wondered if city people had the same attitude toward a park.

He loaded the pistol and began firing. He was concerned with smooth action rather than accuracy, and after sixty rounds he felt satisfied. It was very loud. The problem with gunfire was that it sounded like gunfire. Many people recognized the differing sounds of pistol, shotgun, and rifle, and some could name caliber. Virgil let the revolver cool before slipping it in his pocket. He had never seen a silencer except on television, and he no more understood how one worked than he did an aspirin.

He returned to his trailer and watched dusk arrive. He wished his brother were alive to give him counsel. He’d be jealous that “Virgil got to have the fan of revenge. It was a task more suited to Boyd.

After work the next day, Virgil cashed his paycheck and closed out his bank account in Rocksalt, asking for the cash in hundreds. The teller had been skinny and old when he was a kid and now she looked the same. She never gossiped or misspoke.

“How’s your mother?” she said.

“Pretty fair.”

“And your sister?”

“Not much changes with her.”

“More kids?”

“Says she’s done.”

“How about Abigail?”

“Got herself a promotion.”

“I heard that.”

She counted a few thousand dollars onto the counter and slid it into an envelope.

“Here you are, Virgil,” she said. She smiled without showing her teeth, a sly expression that drained twenty years from her face. She winked. “Hope you young people luck.”

Virgil was astonished at the wink. She’d heard that he and Abigail were getting married. The story had probably gotten back to Abigail by now and he felt bad that he’d not seen her in a while.

He strolled the familiar sidewalk of Main Street, passing people whose faces he recognized — as Boyd put it, men he’d howdied but never shook. Teenage boys outside the pool hall stood very close to each other. As they got older, they would move farther apart. Old men in front of the courthouse owned a segment of space that surrounded them like a web. He tried to think of the changes since he was a kid coming to town once a week for groceries with his mother. The drugstore had moved across the street. A new theater had been built, its carpeted floor providing enough static electricity to create fingertip shocks. The small stores were still operated by the same families. There was absolutely nothing to miss.

At a realtor’s office, he transferred ownership of his land and trailer to Sara. He explained that it was a surprise gift, and the realtor promised to keep the transaction a secret.

He drove to his sister’s house at the head of Bobcat Hollow. The dirt road crossed the creek several times, and in spring the two mixed freely. At the top of the ridge, trees glowed with autumn colors, but near the creek, the leaves were still green. Two dogs loped around the house and barked. A young billy goat with one horn stared at him through a fence, the only penned animal on the place. Sara stood in the garden behind the house. Her legs were spread as she bent from the waist among the furrows. A lard bucket filled with stove ash sat beside her.