The porch sagged under the damp weight of rotting board-lumber and planks. Many times, Ruth had seen sweating, virile men insert fresh timbers, some still secreting sticky sap, to lift and support sagging porches. Sagging porches were a common feature among the rural cottages and shacks that still stood in her memories. This porch, the very porch of her fondest recollections, was presently far too putrefied for support by even the freshest of sticky timbers and the most virile of sweating men. The remnant proud paint and poor whitewash could cling only to the very edges of the decaying siding and soffit. Ruth surveyed the disintegrating structure from the tangled brier thicket that had once been the front yard, the bright flowers her mother had planted now throttled by hardier and more dangerous vegetation.
Ruth feared that her modest weight might represent the proverbial straw that fell the entire structure, and yet she decided that summoned souvenirs of childhood might justify the risk. She proceeded with an abundant caution.
The floor creaked, and perhaps even swayed, but didn’t collapse. The front door, though moisture swollen and stiff, opened with a strong shoulder shove. Ruth had always been a woman of strong shoulders. The opening door stirred thick dust that then floated in the rays that bore through the cracked and dirty windows of the front room. Though the scent and sights of decay and corruption were omnipresent, the home appeared much as it did when she had found her mother those three decades ago lying on her bed, cold and stiff, her hands folded across her chest as if preparing for an inevitable and endless slumber.
Ruth recalled the sadness of that morning and how the solemn men had wrapped her mother in a white sheet and slid her into the back of the long cream-colored hearse. She recalled how she had lingered for an hour or more among her mother’s pink and blue hydrangeas and wept. She recalled how she had driven by the homeplace many times and contemplated selling it or even burning to the ground. She finally decided that the lodging should pass into oblivion at its own pace, much as she had decided for herself, as if she and the structure shared a common senescence.
Ruth examined each room, its contents, and evocations. Finally, she came to her mother’s bedroom. She approached the large travel trunk that rested at the foot of the black iron bed frame. As a girl, Ruth had fancied that the trunk cloistered priceless treasures. A brass key still protruded from the lock and Ruth had but little trouble turning the key and opening the lid. Inside, she found neatly folded fine linens and bedcovers. At the bottom of the chest, as if purposely hidden, she discovered a most beautiful and colorful patchwork quilt with perfectly hand-sewn geometric figures forming perfectly aligned rows and columns. Her mother, and her mother before her, had faced, bated, and backed many quilts. Ruth kept and treasured those coverings, but she had never seen this one. It appeared new, as if it had been completed only a few weeks, or even days, before.
Ruth neatly folded and returned all of the other lines and bedding to the trunk, but kept the new quilt pulled close to her breast.
She then carefully placed the quilt on her mother’s bed, making certain that it was perfectly aligned. She stepped back to admire its craft and symmetry and decided that it was the most elegant quilt she had ever seen.
Ruth then noticed that she was unaccountably tired and that her shoulders sagged with fatigue. She decided to recline atop the quilt on her mother’s bed, and soon found herself in a state of what one could only describe as complete bliss, as if she had consumed a hypnotic potion of some sort. She lingered in this state for what must have been an hour or more before falling into a deep and absolute sleep. She began to dream of her childhood and of all the seasons and of all her revelry in all of those seasons. She saw all of these things through her very eyes, as if she were seeing them once more in actual time. Dreams and visions of her youth continued, and she could identify her lodging, its fresh white paint and level porch. She could see and touch the pink and blue petals of her mother’s flowers. She could detect the sweet scent of pound cake wafting through the open window. And finally, she could hear her mother humming soothing hymns from inside the kitchen.
Alan Caldwell has been teaching in Georgia since 1994 but only began submitting writing in May 2022. He has since been published in over two dozen journals and magazines. He is being nominated for the Pushcart this year.
“Stringing Ristras” at El Rancho de las Golondrinas, Santa Fe, Photo by Larry Lamsa. No changes have been made to this photo. This photo is under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
It was the farthest north she had ever been, but it was nowhere near as far north as Clementina wanted to go. She had learned from maps that north was up. She had learned from lying on her back looking at clouds that the sky was up. She had learned in science class that the moon was in the sky up beyond the Earth’s atmosphere. She had learned in church that heaven was up somewhere beyond the moon—even beyond the stars.
Clementina wanted to go north to heaven and see her abuela; stand beside her again at the cracked Formica-topped kitchen counter and fold their Christmas tamales tight until they had made an even hundred. She wanted to go, but not yet.
She would settle for going north to the moon, but only if her friend Francisca could go with her. Francisca was Jicarilla Apache on her mother’s side and named after Francisco Chacon,
the Apache chief who kicked blue coat ass at the Battle of Cieneguilla in 1854. Clementina thought an ass-kicker would come in handy on the moon.
Clementina had been a little bit north before to Truth or Consequences with her mother for what her mother called a “girls’ spa weekend.” They had paid to sit in a hot spring pool and drink Coca-colas, the good ones from Mexico with real cane sugar. Her mother said she could have stayed all day soaking her bones, but they only had enough money for an hour. They saved enough to have carne adovada that night at La Cocina—with red chile, of course. Carne adovada requires red.
Clementina had traveled even farther north on a school trip to Socorro to see the Very Large Array of radio telescopes that listen for messages—greetings or jokes or recipes—from aliens in the north part of the universe. She laughed to herself to think of what an alien joke would be like. Would an alien recipe look anything like her tía Julia’s recipe for posole?
But now she was way up north in Albuquerque—the big city. It was an annual trip for her father, Miguel, a big man with a small chile farm who had been growing chiles forever. The harvest had been good, but it had been hard to find pickers. Miguel had picked along side the others from dawn to past dusk while Clementina helped feed them all. Miguel shipped most of his crop to the big processors, but he always saved the best of his chiles to bring himself to Albuquerque on his old flatbed truck with the removable sides. They were perfect chiles with just the right amount of heat.
Miguel loved having Clementina with him anytime, and she had finally been free to accompany him on his delivery to the Hatch Chile pop-up store in the South Valley that had been selling Miguel’s special chiles every year for over twenty years. Tiago, the proprietor, took time off from his regular job to sell chiles when the harvest came in. The site for his pop-up was a buddy’s vacant used car dealership, and Tiago depended on Miguel’s chiles. His customers knew they were the best.
Miguel sounded the horn when they pulled into the cracked asphalt parking lot next to the small shed where Tiago had his makeshift office. A small, black dog leapt up from under an outside table and barked a greeting. Tiago came from the shed wearing a green cap that read, “Chile Heaven.” It matched the chipped sign that hung over the shed. Tiago had used the same sign since the beginning.
The men hugged and slapped backs while Clementina patted Zoro, the grinning dog. Miguel brought his friend over and introduced him to his daughter, pride puffing his chest and widening his grin. “Bienvenida, señorita,” Tiago said, bowing low. “At last, I meet the famous Clementina. I have heard about you for 20 years!” Clementina laughed, “I’m only 13.” “Yes,” Tiago said, “But your papa has been talking about you for 20 years.”
Tiago had red chile ristras hanging across the front of the shed and roasting baskets ready to fill. It was mid afternoon, and Tiago knew it was the perfect time to begin roasting the chiles. Soon the distinct aroma would fill the neighborhood, and by the time people were getting off from work, the parking lot would be crowded with patrons carrying everything from burlap sacks to washtubs to fill with the seasonal staple they craved.
Clementina and Miguel pitched in to keep the chile roasting baskets full and turning and also to help serve customers. It was a fiesta atmosphere with mariachi music blasting from Tiago’s battered CD player. The site was crazy busy for a while, but by 7:30 p.m., the roasters were quiet. Tiago pulled a chain across the entrance.
Miguel went to Blakes for cheeseburgers, and they sat in lounge chairs eating and enjoying the evening air. They would soon drive back to Hatch, and it would be late when they got in. It had been a long, full day. Clementina felt good. Her papa had wanted her company, and she knew she had been a big help to him and Tiago.
Clementina lay back in the webbed, aluminum chair and looked up at the shifting clouds. She thought about being all the way north in Albuquerque from her little home in Hatch. Clementina knew she and Francisca may not make it to the moon, but maybe, when they were older, they could go as far north as Santa Fe. They may or may not have to kick ass when they got there. Clementina knew she would not be with her abuela for a while, but she also knew her abuela would have loved to be with her there that day under the big New Mexico sky in Chile Heaven.
David Cameron catches poems and stories half-formed from an off-hand comment or a surprising twist of phrase. His career was as a Presbyterian pastor in Virginia and New Mexico, and a Meals on Wheels director in western NC where he now lives with his wife and son.
There are strange visions in the
Bible Belt, where my grandmother
Witnessed Ezekiel's Wheel flaming
Over the north pasture, while a Fiery Cross
Awakened lonely sharecroppers from
Feverish and weary dreams. The Sunday
Morning Radio Gospel Hour would always
Explain everything to me while outside the whisper
Of a breeze was the Voice of God offering soft
Assurances to the Carolina pines. Truly, they
Were needed for as a youth I, too, expected
Ferocious miracles: maybe on a foggy night in
The bottom hollow there would appear a dark
Battalion of hooded horsemen bound for angry
Glory on some apocalyptic mission, chanting
War cries while their exhausted stallions seem to
Strangle in the haze of their own bloodstained breath.
I also thought I saw their quarry in retreat, a field
Of mist-shrouded tree stumps transformed by a
Night of shadows, smoke, and moonlight into a ghostly
Army of lost souls rendered immobile by the burning
Shields of the Heavenly Hosts; yet even these portents
Will yield to their own destiny for these nights, too,
Shall have their own death rattle where heavy morning
Showers will be a thousand silver coins sealing the
Eyes of darkness, the rain sounding like a falling of
Spikes, on the tin roof of my grandmother's house,
The last rites closing the coffins of the night.
Thomas White has a triple identity: speculative fiction writer, poet, and essayist. He blends horror, noir, gothic, satire and sci-fi with philosophical and theological themes. A Belgium-based magazine, the Sci-Phi Journal, honored by the European Science Fiction Society with its Hall of Fame Award for Best SF Magazine, published one of Mr. White’s stories.
His other poems, fiction, and essays have appeared in The Chamber Magazine, as well as in online and print literary journals and magazines in Australia, the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. He is also a Wiley-Blackwell Journal author who has contributed essays to various nonliterary journals on topics ranging from atheism, Artificial Intelligence, the meaning of evil, Plato, The Matrix, and reality as a computer simulation. In addition, he has presented his essays to the West Chester University Poetry Conference (West Chester, Pennsylvania), as well as read his poetry on Australian radio.
“I just feel for his folks, I do. Them good people. See them at church every Sunday. Well, at least did before it happened. Haven’t seen them since.
“But no, them just good solid townsfolk. Hope they get through this all right. Hope people don’t blame them for what David did.
“I’m sure they would have raised him right. I mean Culla, his older brother, he turned out fine. Granted, I ain’t had much to do with him now he’s moved out of town, though I ain’t never heard of anyone with an issue with him. But I guess sometimes good trees can bear bad fruit, right?
“That’s really the only way I can explain it. Now, was there anything I can get you while you in here? Tammy, my wife, she bakes the pies herself, best in the state I can tell you that much.”
Susan Knowles, former teacher at St Johns College (now retired)
“I’ve been thinking a lot about whether we should have seen it in him, about whether there was something we could have done to help him. I know not a lot of people will have any sympathy for him, but you don’t do something like that unless your seriously damaged.
“So, I suppose I’ve been trying to rack my mind to understand if that damage occurred when he was attending St Johns. If he was already on this path when he was with us, I didn’t notice, but maybe I should have. Maybe if I had noticed we could have gotten him the help he needed or done something. I don’t know. It’s hard to see a situation like this and not think someone could have intervened.
“But hard as I’ve been trying to remember, I don’t think David was too different to the other students I taught. I would have taught hundreds in my time at St Johns. Some of them you worry about. David wasn’t one of them, but he was… I don’t know.
“Maybe looking back with what I know now makes gives a sinister tone to my memories. He wasn’t a bad student, like I said, I’ve had far worse. But there were times when he seemed detached. Or maybe that’s not the right word. David was bright enough but sometimes he seemed apathetic. Not distracted, like a lot of kids are at that age, but just uncaring – not really concerned about anything academic or social, or anything really.
“Maybe that should have worried me more than it did. But he was never particularly difficult or disruptive or caused any trouble. Except, of course, for that one time with Dexter Martin.”
Walker Thomas, David’s friend
“Yeah, I never knew what Dexter did to piss David off so bad. David was always a target at school. The others knew I’d fight back, so when they said stuff about me, they did it behind my back. But with David they knew they could say and do just about anything to him and he wouldn’t retaliate. Course, they’re the same folk who are now saying David was always a bad kind. They’re full of it though, they were much worse – gave David all kind of grief.
“Dexter though, never saw him do anything towards David. He was a couple of years below us, and even though we were kind of the punching bags for a lot of the other kids, it tended to come from kids who were in our class or occasionally from the years above.
“Maybe Dexter said or did something fairly minor to David and that just happened to be the straw that broke the camel’s back. You can only keep absorbing that kind of crap for so long, sooner or later you’re going to snap. Maybe Dexter just happened to be there at the wrong time.
“I didn’t see it start, but I tell you what, it was no mean feat pulling David off Dexter. I was always a few inches taller than David, even back then, but he was surprisingly strong, at least, he was when he was angry, and when I hauled him off Dexter he was seething. It was lucky for Dexter I was there though, David seemed pretty keen on turning his face to jelly.
“He never told me what Dexter did to provoke him. I remember asking him point blank why he had been so hell bent on breaking his knuckles on Dexter’s face. He just told me to forget about it. I always wondered though if it was something to do with Maisie though. David always had a crush on her, and I think around then she and Dexter had a thing going. I remember David telling me he was planning to ask her out. I tried to talk him out of it without being as blunt as telling him she would laugh it his face then probably joke about it with all her friends. Pretty sure David never asked her, so I must’ve gotten the message across.
“We didn’t see each other much after school. I was working nights at the factory while he was working days at the abattoir, so we just kind of drifted apart a little. The odd time I did see him around town though he was still same old David. Still a friend. People might think I’m mad for saying that after all that’s happened, but screw them, they don’t know shit.”
Odette Wells, mother of Carson Wells (victim #1).
“Don’t listen to a word that Thomas boy said. He was always trouble. Once caught him slashing the tyres of a car near the corner store. Little devil didn’t even know whose car it was. That was just his idea of fun. I would have reported him to sheriff, but I didn’t out of sympathy to his mother. You know her husband died from an infection – was the result of some kind of accident he had in the factory. I didn’t want to create more trouble for her.
“That was some ten years ago now, but I sure don’t believe that Thomas boy has changed a jot, he’s just gotten bigger.
“What he said about David is a load of rubbish too. I always said he and David was trouble, didn’t I, Ron. Never liked Carson being round those boys, but in a small town like this you can’t really do much about that.
“You know, I wish David hadn’t killed himself before the police got there. Would have liked to see him cook on the electric chair. Don’t look at me like that, you heard what he did to my boy, the chair would have been the least he deserved, and you could have bet I would be there to see him fry.”
Earl Bailey, On the Road Automotive Repairs owner
“Yeah, David had been apprenticing here for a couple of months. Quick learner you know, would’ve been a solid mechanic.
“He told me he couldn’t stand the smell of the abattoir, said the stench of pig carcass lingered in his nose even after he got home. Guess after that, going home with the smell of oil in your nose ain’t too bad.
“I wasn’t sure of him when I first took him on. There was times when I would tell him something and I wasn’t really sure it was getting through to him. Had that kind of zoned out stare that some people have – usually older folk mind you. But after a couple of weeks, I realised that what I was telling him was getting through, so I started giving him a few more responsibilities, even let him lock up at the end of the day a couple of times that final week.
“What can I say? I just didn’t see it in him. Maybe I’m an old fool, but I… I don’t know. David could sometimes get peoples hackles up. He would sometimes say things that most normal folk would see but would have the good sense not to say anything about. I don’t think it was David was intentionally being impolite, but some people took it that way.
“Still, even if he was, it’s a hell of a long way to go from being impolite to skinning folk and whatever other heinous stuff he supposedly did. You know I heard he hung’em on meat hooks he stole from the abattoir. Hooked ‘em just below the collar bone and left them their hanging in that old barn whilst they was still alive.
“That’s what I heard anyway. Me, I’m not too sure of it. That just doesn’t line up with the David I knew. Given, there were folk who knew him better, but the last three months I would have seen him as much as anyone, and I’m meant to believe during that time he’s going off at the end of the day and cutting strips of skin off some poor innocent folks hangin’ in his uncle’s old barn.
“I should probably stop runnin’ my mouth before it gets me in any trouble. Wouldn’t be the first time that happened and it won’t be the last. I’m just saying, I didn’t see it in him.”
Kip Driscoll, Royal’s Service Station attendant
“I’m sorry sir, I don’t know if I got a lot to say. All I know I already told the sheriff. Helped him as much as I could, but I don’t think I that was all that much.
“Yeah, I guess I was the last one to see David alive. That’s what the sheriff said anyways. Kind of makes me feel a little uncomfortable if I’m honest with you sir.
“Can’t say I really knew him all that well, although my sister, Maisie, she was in the same class as him at school, maybe you should talk to her about him. Actually, she probably would rather you not. Forget I mentioned it.
“I could always tell when it was David drivin’ in to get some fuel though. His truck always made this coughing sound when it rumbled in. He said he was going to get Mr. Bailey to have a look at it now he was apprenticing for him. Said he reckoned it was something wrong with the exhaust. Guess he never got around to it though.
“Yeah, he came in here on Sunday. Didn’t have much to say. He almost always got some licorice with his fuel, but this time he just paid for the fuel. Paid over actually. Told me to keep the change for myself. Guess he knew what he was going to do, knew he didn’t need no money where he was going.
“The sheriff was saying that he probably used the truck to cart the victims off to the barn. They didn’t find any blood or nothin’ in the back, but they reckon he might have wrapped ‘em in a tarp and driven them off there while they were unconscious or bound. Gives me the creeps to think there could have been times when he came in and filled up here with someone lying in the back. Sheriff said I should try not to think about that, but it’s hard not to.
“One thing I have been wonderin’ is why I wasn’t one of them. The people he did all those things to, the sheriff was saying he seemed to just take people at random, that he just had passing connections to the victims and that they hadn’t actually wronged him in anyway.
“And that gets me thinking. There was nights when he came in here to fill up and it was just me manning the station. If he wanted to grab someone without being seen than I would have been the perfect target – late at night, on the edge of town, certainly wouldn’t have been any witnesses. But I guess there isn’t really anyway to know what someone who does something like that is thinking, is there?
“There isn’t really a lot more I can say though. I should probably get back to the counter sir.”
Lyall Beckett, Harris Meats Abattoir manager
“We get a lot of boys come through here. Most only last a few months, if that. This generation doesn’t really have the stomach for hard work. They think showing up is enough. They never had that work ethic knocked into them like we did.
“I didn’t have a whole heap to do with David, which probably means he was one of the better workers. Have you spoken to Earl? He could probably tell you more.
“You have? Well, I wouldn’t really have much to add.
“Only thing of note was one time we did think he was stealing from us. Yeah, we thought he had taken a bunch of the meat hooks. When I asked him about it, he looked guilty as hell. At first, he said he didn’t know anything about what happened to them. He wasn’t a good liar, but he was determined to avoid telling the truth until I let him know we’d have to fire him if he didn’t own up. That’s when he let it slip that Walker Thomas had stolen them. David didn’t want to tell me because Walker was his friend. I suggested he should find some better friends, but I don’t think he ever took my advice. “No, we never reported Walker for it. Pretty sure he just climbed in though one of the windows, it’s not exactly Fort Knox here. But I didn’t think reporting it would do much good, you know, not with Walker’s uncle being the sheriff and all.”
Klaus Nannestad is a media advisor living in Victoria, Australia. He has previously had short stories feature in Theme of Absence, Defenestration, Little Old Lady Comedy and Darkfire Magazine.
“I commend you, my dear Ida, to almighty God, and entrust you to your Creator. May you rest in the arms of the Lord who formed you from the dust of the Earth. May Holy Mary, the Angels and all the Saints welcome you now that you have gone forth from this life. Amen.”
Clarence traced a cross in front of his chest with bony fingers marred by dirt. He stood. Silent. His youngest son Thomas broke the silence with his spade. It pierced the exposed earth, freshly removed from its resting spot. The shovel’s contents dropped onto the makeshift coffin tucked snugly in the shallow grave.
Once the grave had been filled, Anne positioned a wooden cross where the perturbed soil met snow which shielded the remaining desolate farmland from the harsh Dakota winds. Once satisfied with its placement, Anne firmly grasped at the base of where the planks intersected and nodded to Matthew. The eldest child gingerly tapped the underside of his spade atop the cross. His pace and power increased as the cross’s position stabilized. Suddenly, the upper portion of the cross creaked and splintered, shearing off a chunk of wood that tumbled carelessly through the air, landing at Clarence’s feet.
He glanced down at the fragmented wood, his faded blue eyes lingering on it with a look of longing, “We’ll make another tomorrow, the sun is setting.”
His three remaining children began trudging back towards the house. Clarence paused, brushing the hefty coating of snow off the two crosses atop the mounds neighboring his mother’s hastily formed grave.
Otto’s eyes narrowed at the page before him. Satisfied, he clasped the little black notebook closed and returned it to his coat’s inner pocket. He shuddered as his bare, wintry hand stung his stomach.
He glanced at the wagon, speckled with mud clinging desperately to the wood as it sought to unburden itself of the moisture that could prevent its escape from the bleak landscape it had called home for centuries.
Inside was the greatest haul he had seen to date.
Working for the old man who offered loans to those most in need had appealed to him after the war. An opportunity to mend his damaged standing with his Maker. However, collecting payment rarely went as seamlessly as Mr. Vonleigh had advertised.
Now, nearly nine years later, he was no longer concerned with self-preservation. The only thing he prayed for now was the absence of the God to which he directed the prayers. He knew it didn’t make sense. It doesn’t fucking matter, he thought.
He had barely slept since crossing into Dakota. Though whether that was due to his thoughts of escaping to a new life with Mr. Vonleigh’s money or the breath-taking brick wall of a cold front that he had slammed into four days ago, he was unsure.
His maps showed that the Reilly’s house wasn’t far from the Northwest Territories. He could also retrace his steps south to any of the train stations he had passed. East and west were options too, he supposed. For whatever reason, he couldn’t decide. But the money would be sufficient to get him far enough from Mr. Vonleigh to never again hear the name. No matter the direction.
His body convulsed in a shiver, dragging his mind from endless possibilities. He gazed at the vast, never-ending plains coated by a windswept snow shawl. The constant breeze whipped up a fierce, two-foot high drift that nipped between the seams of his too-thin, faded black corduroys. He had become accustomed to it.
After reattaching the horse-cart to Caesar, he stepped into the stirrups and took his position atop the saddle. Gently guiding his white mare, he scanned the plains for signs of the ever-elusive road forward.
Clarence pictured his mother’s body, dead well before its inhabitant. Frail and fragile, he remembered the chill of her touch. It was the same chill he had noticed from Grace as life fled her body. And Arthur. His newborn hands like the paws of a sled dog.
Grace died shortly after Arthur’s birth. Weak from hunger and cold, disease had coursed through her body in hours. Arthur wilted and faded shortly thereafter.
If they could make it to spring, he thought, he could sell everything and move west. He would accept any kind of work. Anything to get his family far from this godforsaken wasteland.
He heard footsteps shuffling towards him. Stopping on the other side of the door, he recognized Thomas’s voice. “Father, there’s a visitor outside.”
Otto approached the hitch out front of the weary house. It’s weathered brown shade looked out of place amidst the endless gray and white separated only where the land kissed the sky. He pressed his gloved hand beneath his ribs and felt the gun’s icy metal shell against his bare side. A reassuring discomfort.
“Clarence Reilly?” he inquired to the young man standing puzzled and beaten at the door.
“He’s coming,” the boy replied.
“Well, what do ya say we wait inside?”
Descending the stairs, Clarence could hear the kitchen floor groan under two sets of footsteps. A weathered man, one with the environment came into view. The skin on his face was raw and red from the prevailing winds. There wasn’t an inch of him left unscathed by the plains’ brutal winter.
“Mornin’,” said the man. He quickly pulled out a golden pocket watch lodged under his coat.
“Oh hell, doesn’t work anyhow,” he said with a chuckle and tossed it, still ajar, on the table beside him.
“Clarence, right? Otto,” he said.
He revealed from beneath his jacket the holstered revolver, stained auburn in places, and dropped it carelessly on the table alongside the watch. He dug deeper under his coat, now pulling out the little black notebook from what seemed to Clarence an abyss in which this gruff, gnarled man stored his life.
Otto opened the notebook, “Clarence, my good man, go ‘head and read those lines at the bottom of the page.”
He turned the book in his gloved hands and pushed it across the table.
“Clarence Reilly. 2 Sturbridge Road, Emerson.”
“Keep goin’.”
“Four thousand and five hundred dollars.”
Otto sat back satisfied, “Got it or no?”
Clarence shook his head no.
Otto screeched the legs of his chair back, ignoring the protesting wood floor, and rose. He wandered slowly around the kitchen like a zoo animal new to its cage.
“Children, go upstairs,” he heard Clarence say, “go on run along.” They left.
“Were you in the war Clarence?”
This time Clarence nodded his head in the affirmative.
“Me too. That fightin’ was bad business.”
Clarence repeated his previous response.
Otto pressed his rear end against the counter in front of the sink, “I’m here on account of Mr. Vonleigh. Your payment is overdue and I’m here to collect. Now, you got any money we can work with?”
“’Fraid not.”
“Says here you needed it to start a cattle farm,” Otto said, his tone sharp now. Having removed one glove, he pointed with his middle finger at the notebook, nubs where his index finger and thumb should have been.
He turned back and pointed out the small window above the sink, “I don’t see any goddamn—” his suddenly bellowing voice cut off. Otto’s head pointed in the direction of the three makeshift crosses stuck into slightly raised mounds. The snow there was not as plentiful, “—cattle,” he finished, in nearly a whisper.
Otto’s arm lingered outstretched, his remaining index finger pointing to the vast swathe of land, plain and uneventful, outside of the house. Clarence’s eyes darted to the gun. His right hand instinctively jumped off his knee and lunged forward. But he stopped. He gazed down, his own hand unrecognizable. He stood. Approaching Otto, he pretended not to realize what the man was looking at.
“There was cattle. See that splintered fence there?” now directing Otto’s gaze with his own finger, “that used to circle ‘round that tree and back to the barn.”
His hand pointed to a patch of emptiness, “Had to use the wood for fire.”
Clarence moved his finger to the right, “Over there was corn, then back behind that was barley and lentils. On this side of the house,” he continued, shifting his extended arm towards the wall further to his right “was sugar beets and peas.”
Finally his hand dropped down beside him, “and out front was a whole bunch of wheat,” he finished.
“Well what happened?” Otto asked, finally finding his voice.
“The goddamned bugs,” replied Clarence.
Otto had heard about them. Swarms of locusts had invaded towns in Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, and apparently, the Dakota Territory. A white blanket would descend suddenly, blackening the sunlight and destroying every crop in its path.
A man he had fought in the war beside once paid him to fetch ingredients to create a poison that would kill the bugs. So he said, at least. The man couldn’t do it himself on account of having both his legs blown off during the second battle of Bull Run, so Otto did it. The bugs never came.
Clarence went on, “It was only our second harvest year. They destroyed everything.”
The two men were back in their original positions at the table. Clarence seemed more animated now. Less pitiful, Otto thought.
“Soil’s completely ruined. We ate all the cattle already,” Clarence paused before adding “should’ve held off a bit longer.”
Again, they sat in silence. Eventually, Otto pointed to the window above the sink, “Wife and kids?” he asked.
“Wife and kid. Mother was just yesterday.”
“Shit.”
“Drink, Mr. Reilly?” Otto asked, pulling a beaming silver flask from his jacket. It was the only thing on him untouched by the elements.
Clarence shook his head no.
Otto shrugged and put it to his lips. He drank. When he had upended the flask he let out an audible exhale. Tucking it back into the jacket’s void he looked to Clarence, “Well, best be off,” he said simply.
Clarence watched in awe, as one by one the pocket watch, the notebook, and finally the revolver were returned beneath the coat.
Otto looked at him, “Take care of what’s left of ya’ll.”
Clarence could only nod.
Otto paused at the door, “Hey, which side you fight for?” he asked.
Clarence hesitated, “Ya know what? Don’t answer that,” Otto said suddenly, “doesn’t fucking matter.” He chuckled grimly and left.
Clarence ran to the stairs and called to the children. They scurried down anxiously, relieved that the intruder had gone.
“It’s alright. We’re lucky this time. First time in a while, eh?” he smiled. His children returned the grin. Clarence couldn’t remember the last time he had seen them smile. He instructed his eldest to gather wood from the front.
Suddenly he heard Anne’s voice coming from the window, “Father, the man left his wagon.”
Clarence and his children ran out the front door and down the sloppy path leading to the horse-cart that lay on the ground. Matthew threw open the cover, revealing bills stacked nearly to the top.
The children scrambled and gathered pile upon pile, but Clarence walked further down the path, as if uninterested in the bills in danger of being whisked away by the wind. He could make out the stranger as a fading spec atop his white mare. He watched for minutes until that spec became engulfed by the vast sea of nothing.
“Father,” Matthew’s touch startled Clarence. He wasn’t sure how long he had been standing there. Tears streamed down Matthew’s face, “It’s twenty thousand dollars.” His voice was quivering so severely that he could hardly get the words out.
Clarence looked back and watched the other children dance, waving their emaciated bodies rhythmically beside the carriage. Clarence felt a wave of emotion hit him. He closed his eyes. The three crosses atop the mounds out back seared his mind. Otto’s right, he thought, it doesn’t fucking matter.
Patrick Clancy-Geske is a writer for a market research firm based in Massachusetts, where he lives with his partner Emma, their dog Korra, and cat Miel. You can find other pieces of Patrick’s work here https://vocal.media/authors/patrick-clancy-geske.
