Percival Everett - Half an Inch of Water - Stories

“Tell Marty I’m in the house. Tell him to be ready.”

“Howard.”

“Tell him to hurry, Grace. I need him here now.”

He closed his phone. The house was freezing. He called out for Kate White, but no one answered. He looked out the front window just as Gilly White gained his feet and turned to start for the house.

Gunther ran up the stairs. He saw the boy first. He was lying on a round carpet in the hallway. There was no need to check for signs of life. There was blood everywhere. The rug was soaked. The small body was twisted in an angle that only death would allow. He walked past the boy and into the front bedroom. The woman was on her back on the bed, her light-blue pajama top soaked with blood. Gunther checked for a pulse while he looked out the window to see White some fifteen yards from the house. The woman was just alive, but wouldn’t be for long. She was wide open. Gunther pushed the sheet over and into her wound.

Gunther looked out the window and saw that Marty was just parking behind his rig on the road. He ran back down the stairs and into the kitchen. He sat at the table and tried to figure out what to do. He looked around the room for a weapon, but decided a big knife might just make things worse. He could not shake what he had just seen from his mind. He thought about his daughter. He thought about her baby, her decision, being a grandfather perhaps. His wife was home waiting for him, angry with him. He thought about driving to Denver with Sarah. Maybe they would talk about things. He could hear her voice, her saying that she was surprised at his reaction, her saying that for the first time she was not a little bit afraid of him. But then maybe they just wouldn’t talk at all. Just sitting side by side would be enough. He could smell the blood in the house. He knew he was freezing but he did not feel cold.

Gunther reminded himself to breathe as he heard White stomping off snow from his boots inside the front door.

“Sheriff?”

“I’m in here, Gilly.” When the man came into the room, Gunther said, “You didn’t tell me nobody was home. Cold in here.”

White didn’t say anything. He leaned against the jamb, as if to balance himself. The five-shot Smith & Wesson.38 seemed almost to dangle from his fingertips, then he pulled it back into a tight grip. His nails were dirty.

“What now?” White asked.

Gunther looked at him for a second. “Unfortunately, I have to drive my daughter to Denver. I hate driving in snow.”

“She okay? Your daughter?”

“She’s good.”

“Pretty girl.”

“Looks like her mother. Thank god.”

“Long drive. Denver.”

Gunther nodded. “Marty’s here with the gas.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Let’s go get that tractor going, so you can get back to work. The snow is falling pretty good now.” Gunther stepped toward him, but the man backed away. Gunther was looking for any opening, any chance at all to grab the man’s arm and control his gun hand, to do something. He stepped outside, White behind him. The snow was falling hard. The world was still, quiet.

Marty cautiously approached the house. There was no cover. He was hard to make out through the snow. He came on, his pistol out, walking slowly forward in a nervous crouch.

Gunther moved wide left, hoping to give Marty space to take a shot if he needed to. Marty yelled for White to put down the weapon.

“Your deputy is kinda upset,” White said.

“It’s your gun,” Gunther said. “He didn’t expect to see a gun. You know guns have a way of making people nervous. Especially cops.”

“He’s never seen a gun before?”

The snow fell.

“It’s just the way you’re holding it. Makes him think you might want to use it. Maybe if you put it in your pocket.”

“White, you drop that gun!” Marty shouted.

“I don’t think so, Deputy.” White’s voice was barely audible.

The snow fell. The world was so silent, Gunther thought. He thought about the drive to Denver.

Gunther watched Marty, his clean, hairless face, what he could see of it, his fear near ready to turn to panic. He watched as the young man froze, feet apart, shoulders square. Marty would never be the same. This was what Gunther thought. He saw the boy in the man’s face. The snow. The swirling snow. That was what he saw.

Oliver Campbell had never met Billy White Feather. He had never heard the name. But the note tacked to his back door had him out on the reservation at nine on a raw Sunday morning. Twin Appaloosa foals at Arapaho Ranch, the note said. To purchase, find Billy White Feather. The note was signed, Billy White Feather. He’d stepped out to find the note and no sign of anyone. He looked at his dog on the seat next to him. The twelve-year-old Lab’s big head hung over the edge of the seat.

“You’re not much of a watchdog, Tuck,” Oliver said. “You’re supposed to let me know when somebody’s in the yard.”

The dog said nothing.

Oliver didn’t want to make the drive all the way up to the reservation ranch just to find no one there, so he stopped at the flashing yellow traffic signal in Ethete. Ethete was a gas station/store and a flashing yellow light. He got out of his pickup and walked through the fresh spring snow and into the store. He stomped his feet on the mud-caked rubber mat. The young clerk didn’t look up. Oliver moved through one of the narrow aisles to the back and poured himself a large cup of coffee. He picked up a packaged blueberry muffin on his way back and set it on the counter.

“Three dollars.” The young woman yawned.

“Three dollars?” Oliver said in mock surprise.

“Okay, two fifty,” the woman said, without a pause or interest.

He gave her three dollars. “I’m looking for Billy White Feather.”

“Why?”

“He left me a note about a horse.”

“No. I mean why are you looking here?”

“I think he lives here. On the reservation, I mean.”

“Indians live on the reservation.”

Oliver tore open his muffin and pinched off a bite, looked outside at the snow that was falling again. “Do you know Billy White Feather?”

“I do.”

“But he’s not an Indian?”

She nodded.

“His name is White Feather?”

“That’s something you’re going to have to talk to him about. He ain’t no Arapaho and he ain’t no Shoshone and he ain’t no Crow and he ain’t no Cheyenne. That’s what I know.”

“So, he might be Sioux.”

“Ain’t no Sioux or Blackfoot or Gros Ventre or Paiute neither.”

“Okay.”

“He’s a tall, skinny white boy with blue eyes and a blond ponytail and he come up here a couple of years ago and started hanging around, acting like he was a full-blood or something.”

Oliver sipped his coffee.

“He liked on Indian girls and dated a bunch of them. Bought them all doughnuts till they got fat and then ran out on them. Now he’s in town liking on Mexican girls. That’s what I hear.”

“His note said there are some twin foals up at the ranch,” Oliver said. “Heard anything about that?”

“I heard. It’s big news. Twins. That means good luck.”

“So, what’s White Feather have to do with the horses?”

“I ain’t got no idea. I don’t care. Long as he don’t come in here I got no problem with Billy whatever-his-name-is.”

Oliver looked at her.

“Because it sure ain’t no White Feather.”

Oliver nodded. “Well, thanks for talking to me.”

“Good luck.”

The door opened and in with a shock of frigid air came Hiram Shakespeare. He was a big man with a soft voice that didn’t quite fit him.

“Hiram,” Oliver said.