Chris Offutt - Kentucky Straight - Stories

“It’s me,” Fenton said.

“There’s a goddam coyote out here,” Connor said. “First I ever seen one. Big as a hound dog.”

“Need a hand?”

“I don’t need nothing.” He plunged the lever down, the jack clicking loud. “Cables won’t do any good. The block’s froze up.” He switched hands. “I never did see a truck that didn’t pick the worst time to break down. My whole life I’ve worked on cars at zero weather with no goddam gloves.”

The front bumper was two feet off the ground.

“Ought to do her,” Fenton said.

Connor twisted newspaper into rolls and placed them beneath the engine block. He laid a few twigs over the paper, built a tepee of bigger sticks. “Block the wind, will you,” he said.

Fenton squatted beside him, feeling the cold slice through his coat. Connor struck three matches until the paper caught. He worked the fire carefully, making air holes at the bottom and maneuvering sticks over the burning twigs. Snow turned to water on the front of his coat. He used the biggest branch to make a torch, which he moved in circles around the metal.

“She’ll start now,” he said.

He climbed into the cab. The pickup rocked but remained on the jack, and the engine caught on the second try. He swallowed two pills from a plastic bottle in the glove box.

“Give me a lift,” Fenton said.

The road led past his house and he wanted to make sure Connor went home. Connor had already served thirty days for assault and the county judge didn’t like him. He’d made it clear that Melungeons should stay where they belonged.

“You’d better walk,” Connor said. He patted the pistol beside him on the seat. “Could be I ain’t headed straight home.”

He eased the clutch until the jack fell and the front wheels bounced in the fire, scattering sparks. The pickup blurred into the gray air. Fenton stomped the fire, wondering if he should warn Duke. He didn’t much care for him but nobody deserved a bushwhack. Telling him betrayed Connor, but it might also stop him from killing a man. Fenton shuddered. He trudged to the old chimney and dug his bottle from the bricks. Connor was a lot of talk and maybe this was more of it.

Fenton capped his bottle, returned to the smokehouse, and opened the door. A wave of heat stung his face. W. and Duke were passing a flask.

“Game’s over,” Catfish said. “Want a drink?”

Fenton shook his head.

“Shut that damn pneumonia hole,” W. said. He placed a gnarled hand on Duke’s leg. “You know this pup’s part Melungeon on his mama’s side. By God, I knew it, by God.”

“Thought you’d be off counting your winnings,” Duke said to Fenton.

“I broke even.”

Duke laughed and patted W. on the back. “If old W. would loosen up and take a chance, he might be the big man.”

“Way I see it,” W. said, “you don’t have much bragging room.”

Duke smiled a hard, tight-lipped smile. “All I lost was money.” He poured whiskey into the flask lid and drank it, staring at Fenton. “I got all my teeth and nobody saw my wiener. I won what counted.”

The money felt heavy in Fenton’s pockets, like wet insulation that let weather in. He decided to give Connor’s back to him, but not tonight, when Connor was somewhere waiting on the road, trigger finger tucked in his armpit to keep it warm.

“Be leaving,” Fenton said. At the door, he turned to face Duke. “Watch your chimney.”

Tree limbs crackled in the woods, tightening in the frigid air. Pale breath clouded around him. He’d walked home a loser many times, feeling bad. The times he’d won felt just as bad for taking money from his friends. Tonight, breaking even was the worst of all.

He started downhill and his foot skidded on frozen moss. He grabbed a sapling and the wood broke, stiff and fragile from the cold. Fenton twisted, flailing his arms and falling backwards over the steep hill. He watched the snow-laden treetops give way to black sky. His head struck a rock.

He was not sure how long he’d been lying on his back but he was cold, very cold. Snow beaded on his face. His head hurt and he wondered if anything was broken. He turned his head to check his neck. It still worked. A coyote stood just beyond arm’s reach, shaggy fur ruffled around its head. Fenton lifted a stiff knee and the coyote growled, a low sound like a motor deep in a mine. It backstepped into shadows.

Fenton crawled to a tree farther up the slope and used it to stand. The wind was slower now and he wondered how long he’d been out. Neither knee worked well. He fell again, and realized that he couldn’t make it home.

He stood and began walking, unsure if he was lifting his feet because he could no longer feel them in his boots. Sweat turned to ice on his forehead. He left the woods and headed for the dark shadow of the smokehouse. Leafless trees threw gray shadows across the snow. A car engine sputtered twice before cranking loud along the ridge. Duke’s taillights flashed like animal eyes on the snowy road.

Fenton limped to the smokehouse and beat on the crossbar lock, surprised to see blood on his hand since nothing hurt. When the latch slid free, he stepped inside and closed the door. The fire was out.

He draped his body over the stove, pressing his hands against its warm underbelly, and stayed that way until the pain arrived and he could control his fingers. He banked the few glowing coals with a broken chair rung. He needed smaller kindling, but Catfish had given it all to Connor. Fenton dropped a playing card in. It burned feebly at the edges, the plastic coating releasing a black smoke until the tiny flame died. Fenton opened the bottle and sipped, hurting his chapped lips. He gasped as whiskey ran into the space where his bridge had been.

He searched his pockets for something to burn and found a used tissue matted into a frozen ball. He remembered his mother ironing his father’s handkerchief Sunday morning before church. When the iron hit a wrinkle of dried mucus, it crackled from the heat. Fenton emptied his pockets, finding nothing.

From the direction of the road came two quick pistol shots, sharp and clear in the night. There was no answering gunfire. Fenton touched the back of his head and found blood clotted over a wound. The cold had probably stopped the bleeding early, and he wondered if the shot man had been so lucky. Connor had never been much of a hunter, plus he was hopped up. Fenton decided he’d probably missed.

On the table, Fenton divided his winnings into piles of ones, fives, and tens, hoping the ones would be enough. Newer bills, folded lengthwise, worked the best. Twice he had to warm his hands against the fading heat of the stove. His fingers were black and smoking but didn’t hurt.

He blew on the embers and when they stayed orange he quickly arranged the folded dollars in the coals, laid two chair rungs like a grate, and placed a split log on top. The paper turned crisp and curly and finally flared. He could smell the old varnish burning off the rungs. Fire moved along the bark. There were four logs left, enough to get through the night.

He felt very old and realized that being forty-four meant knowing what not to do. Twenty years before he’d have waited with Connor. Maybe in another twenty, he’d warn Duke straight out. Fenton stretched on the floor, then curled on his side, facing the stove. His wife would call Catfish’s wife in the morning, just as their mothers had called each other when they were kids. He closed his eyes. Catfish would come for him.

The funny-talked lady gave me a ten-page test that like to drove me blind marking in little circles no bigger than a baby catfish eye. When I was done, she said I was precocious. Then she called me a poor dear and I got mad on account of Daddy telling me never to let nobody say we were poor. He said to fight them if they did. I put my fists up fast. She saw how mad I was and asked me whatever for in that funny-talked way of hers.