Chris Offutt - Kentucky Straight - Stories

Drops of rain rustled leaves outside, thudding against the sheet metal roof. Water dripped through the ceiling and landed in a bucket, loud as a pistol shot. Cody stood sideways in the door, not wanting to look at the bed, afraid to turn his back on the corpse. Everything was wrong. He ran to the yard and placed the tape on an oak chopping block. A hickory-handled ax leaned against it.

“The wicked shall be cut off in darkness,” Cody muttered.

He raised the ax and brought it down hard, scattering shards of plastic. He chopped and chopped until his arms were weary and the noise of the ax died away in the drizzling rain. Thunder rumbled low along the hilltops. He lifted his chin, panting, the ax dangling from his hand. He’d never felt so full of God’s glory.

A breeze brought Tar’s smell from the open door. Cody covered his nose. If he waited in the house while the storm passed, the low pressure and humidity would make the smell unbearable. He hurried along the dark path, his flashlight a dull gleam against the woods.

Halfway out the ridge, lightning hit a tree above his head. After a few seconds the lightning shot from the ground in front of him, having followed the tree to a root and struck a buried rock. Cody dropped the ax and began running down the steep hill. Branches tore at his face and he fell, tumbling in the dark. The flashlight shattered. He crawled to a hickory and crouched in its shelter.

Lightning cracked again, and in the sudden light Cody thought he saw movement in the woods. When the next quick flash came, he realized he’d gone down the back side of the hill and was hiding in the shadow of Shawnee Rock. He shivered, jaw tight. He pulled the small red Bible from his pocket and opened it. Rain began dissolving the glue that bound the pages to the spine. Wet paper flew like tissue in the wind. Cody trembled on his knees, watching the pages vanish in the darkness.

Wind and thunder bellowed above him. He curled his body around the tree trunk. The top was jerking wildly, and he could feel the roots pull from the earth. The ground was lifting beneath his body. A gust yanked the hickory from the soil, tipping Cody along the slope. He rolled onto his back and saw the heavy trunk falling toward him. A Bible page was plastered to the bark. Cody closed his eyes. He wished he had some whiskey and a gun.

Fenton leaned against the icy wind that rushed up the hollow, trapped by the steep hillsides. He clamped his teeth, trying not to shiver. Blown snow lay like a shawl across his shoulders. His right molars were throbbing and he wondered if the gold bridge in his mouth contracted with the cold.

The wind slid away, replaced by the eerie cry of a coyote. After the mines shut down and people left, the coyotes had begun coming home. There’d been several sightings and two shot dead last fall. Fenton had never seen one, though he’d heard they were scruffy wild dogs, not good for much. Wind followed him into the bam, swirling hay in tiny funnels, that slowly settled as he closed the heavy door. He sank his arm into a crib full of knobby feed corn so cold it crabbed his knuckles. Buried in a corner was a pint bottle and a rusted coffee can full of money.

His wife forbade his keeping whiskey in the house since her Melungeon blood made her willful. Melungeons lived deepest in the hills, were the finest trackers and hunters. They were already there when the European settlers arrived. Melungeons weren’t black, white, or Indian, and they didn’t know where they’d come from.

Fenton slipped the thick roll of money into his pocket. It was carefully garnered from autumn dealing at the Rocksalt Trade Day. He’d taken an ancient well pulley, claimed it an antique, and worked several swaps that included a wheelbarrow, two pistols, a VCR, fifteen railroad ties, a minibike with no seat, and a pair of billy goats. He’d turned it all to cash.

Fenton moved into the night that was paled by snow, and took a shortcut through the woods to Catfish’s smokehouse. He’d made the trip hundreds of times, first as a kid, then as a young man, and now, he realized, as a man not quite old yet. Forty-four was a peculiar age. He didn’t receive the respect of age but was denied the excuses of youth. Mainly he was better at doing things he’d always done, such as walking to the smokehouse for a night of fun. Winters seemed colder now and he wondered if that was a sign of getting old. He’d ask Catfish.

Dim light glowed through the tree line at the end of the ridge, then was gone. Someone had opened the smokehouse door. Fenton passed the rock chimney, all that remained of the old Gerald place, long since burned down. Instead of rebuilding. Catfish had moved into his in-laws’ house. Fenton tucked the bottle in the chimney’s hearth and walked to the smokehouse.

He knocked twice, said his name, and the door opened. Snow skittered inside, disappearing in the heat. Catfish stood grinning, a big man with a beard that didn’t quite cover four scars on his right cheek. He’d smashed through a windshield at fifteen, but let people think he’d been cut by a knife. Fenton had spent more time with him than with his wife. They had mined together, hunted and fished year-round, and dragged each other home drunk in the old days. Catfish’s beard was four years long.

“By God, boys,” Catfish said. “Fenton must’ve shot his wife for her to let him out.”

The other men laughed. Fenton removed his coat and leaned over the stove, converted from a fifty-gallon drum. The faint smell of pork still lingered in the smokehouse air. As kids, he and Catfish had nailed cardboard to the rough, ax-hewn stud walls. Over that they’d glued Wishbook pages that were now peeling away. Fenton nodded to the men sitting around a table lit by a Coleman lantern.

W. Power winked. He was a World War II veteran who raised hogs up Bobcat Hollow. He had been the square dance caller until TV reached the hills and people stayed home on Saturday nights. As oldest, he sat closest to the fire. Beside him slouched Connor. Once a month Connor went to Rocksalt with the purpose of going to jail. He’d been married and divorced three times, and now slept with other men’s wives. Connor’s features marked him pure Melungeon: high cheekbones, black hair, brown skin, and pale blue eyes. He was rat-tail skinny from eating diet pills.

Fenton was surprised to see Duke hunched at the table, his head low to his shoulders like a dog. Tonight was the first time he’d sat in their game. Many years ago there’d been trouble in the coalfields and Duke was arrested for defending his brother. The law gave Duke a choice: join the army or go to jail. He put in twenty-five years, and returned with a Vietnamese wife and no children. Duke was the same age as Fenton, and he wondered if Duke felt old or young.

“It’s time, boys,” Catfish said. “Dealer’s choice. No wild cards. All bets of property have got to go by the players in the pot. First jack deals. Any guff?”

“Just one,” said Connor. “You ever catch that guy?”

“Who?”

“Guy that stole your razor.” He laughed until noticing that everyone was silent, then ducked his head and rubbed his hands rapidly together. “Cold as a well digger’s ass, ain’t it.”

Fenton took the empty seat, two concrete blocks topped with a plank. Catfish flicked the cards face-up around the table. A jack showed at W.’s seat. He called seven-stud, and began to shuffle, his ancient, labor-thickened fingers awkward with the deck.

With an ace showing, Connor led the betting. Fenton folded after three cards to avoid the early enthusiasm that sent money across the table fast and loose. Duke peeked at his hole cards once and followed the deal with his eyes. Connor bet high, and Catfish and W. dropped out. Duke raised. After a minute of eyeballing, Connor called the raise.