Kenny's Back. Victor J. Banis

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      “Pity the poor rabbits,” I thought with a grin. “He’s sure to be out after them today.” The grin faded as I remembered that Kenny would be hunting something more serious than rabbits today.

      I don’t know when I had seen Olsen in such spirits. I’m sure she had not looked so young in a long while. Kenny had told some joke or funny story, and the two of them were rocking back and forth in their chairs, their shoulders shaking with laughter. They were eating already, I noticed. I must have been slower cleaning up than usual, I thought, and shrugged away the slight flash of resentment.

      “Good morning,” I greeted them, heading straight for the stove and the coffeepot. Olsen started to scramble up, but I shooed her back into her chair. “Sit. I’ll get it,” I said.

      “You’re up early,” Kenny said behind me. “I figured you’d sleep till noon.”

      It was an odd thing for him to say, odd even allowing for the time that had gone by. He couldn’t have forgotten all those mornings.

      “My habits haven’t changed much.” I answered. I turned away from the stove and met his eyes, dark and intense upon me. He looked puzzled and, for just a moment, confused. But he came back with one of his “Fooled you, didn’t I?” grins.

      “Haven’t they? You used to take sugar in your coffee and you’re drinking that without any,” he said.

      He was right. It was a habit that I had changed, for no particular reason. But fast as his answer was, it didn’t altogether satisfy. Something had begun to trouble me—nothing that I could put my finger on, but it was there like a vague ache in your teeth that you can’t quite find with your tongue. It came and went away and came back again during the days that followed, and with each return it had grown stronger, and more definite.

      For the moment, however, there was nothing more than a quick note of discord and then things were all right again and I was relaxing at the table. Olsen got up and fixed my breakfast, all the while keeping up with the conversation. It was easy talk, relaxed and friendly, and it skirted around the questions with which we were all still occupied.

      Kenny seemed to me more relaxed than he had been the night before. I found myself wondering how he had slept, what memories the sight of his room might have brought back to him. Had he, like I, remembered those nights when he had left his room and come to mine? But I pushed that thought back to where it had come from. It was one thing to remember, and even to be wishful, but I was not blind. However relaxed he might be, however friendly, it was plain that there was no intimacy between Kenny and me. He talked as he might talk to an acquaintance of the past, but there was nothing more, and I had to face that.

      I finished breakfast and lingered longer than usual over coffee. Finally, when it was well past time when I should have been at work, I stood up, hesitating slightly. Knowing Kenny, he was not the sort to loaf around or remain inactive. Even if he were, he had plenty of reasons for being interested in the farm and how it was coming along.

      “They’ve just finished with the hay,” I said, concentrating my attention on the last sip of coffee in my cup. “I’m going out there now to see how it’s going. Want to come along?”

      As soon as I had said it, I realized that he couldn’t come with me out to the fields, whether he wanted to or not. He was the son of the house by birth and by name, but it was a claim he had forfeited when he had gone, and it was a claim that right now was far from settled. His mother had yet to say whether he had any concern in how the farm was going or whether the hay was in.

      “Thanks,” he answered without any hesitation, like he had already thought all this out for himself. No doubt he had. “But I think I’ll stay around the house today, kind of get the feel of things again. It’s been a while.”

      I nodded and started for the door. “Does Pete still work the fields?” he asked after me.

      I was glad he had asked after the old man. I think that one question did more than anything else to restore Kenny to the spot he had always held in my affection, and I was even smiling when I looked back at him.

      “Not anymore,” I said. “He looks after the equipment and does chores for Olsen. You’ll probably find him in the barn if you go looking for him.”

      He seemed to understand the reason for my smile. He grinned back at me as though to say, “I want you to like me.” For a brief moment the years had fallen away from us.

      “I’ll track him down later, maybe,” he said.

      “He’ll want to talk with you. He must have a real store of yarns saved up by now.”

      I guess it sounded like I was criticizing him for having been gone, or at least reminding him of the fact. His grin faded, and our moment went with it.

      “See you later,” I finished lamely, and went out.

      “See that you’re back for dinner,” Olsen called as the screen door banged shut after me.

      I saw Pete myself, when I went to take the Jeep out of the barn. He was repairing a halter, and I found myself thinking that he must be repairing it for Kenny. We only had two horses now, Jezebel and Ladyship, and those two did little enough to earn their keep. No one rode them anymore and even if they had been suited for work, we had no need of them for that purpose. Jezebel could still be ridden, if she had a mind to let you, which was always in question, but Ladyship had a game leg, and it wouldn’t have been worth the risk to her. Kenny had always liked to ride, though, even if he hadn’t been very great at it, and he would probably be doing so, soon again. “I guess you’re glad to see Kenny back,” I said to Pete as I climbed into the Jeep and started it up.

      If he was, he didn’t show it. I suppose he was still sore over the greeting he had gotten. He continued to work at the halter, squinting to make up for his bad eyesight. “Has he seen her yet?” he asked. I knew who he meant, of course.

      “Not yet.” I backed out of the barn and turned the Jeep around in the yard. When I glanced up, Ingrid was standing at the window of her bedroom, staring out. She had been there the morning before, too. Then, she had been watching for Kenny to arrive. Now she was watching for…for what? I didn’t know, any more than I could explain my own mood of things “going to happen.”

      There was that meeting, of course, between Kenny and his mother, and we were all waiting for that. But there was something more, something I couldn’t understand but was sure the others felt too. The prodigal son had come home, the fatted calf had had her day on the table, but the electric atmosphere that had built up was still charging the air about the place with tension.

      Ingrid saw me and waved, and disappeared from the window, and I drove off toward the back fields. I was luckier than most, I suppose—certainly luckier than Kenny, who faced a day of waiting around the house for something that might not even happen. At least I could keep busy and lose myself in hard physical work, as I had been doing for five years. Farm hands and farm managers don’t as a rule need pills for their nerves, and today I was grateful for that fact.

      The farm year was almost over for us, and the work nearly done. We had even had a frost earlier, a light one, before the weather turned hot. But I was too well acquainted with the fickle nature of our weather, to think that it would continue to favor us for long. We had started the fall work early, for no better reason than that Olsen had informed me one morning, while rubbing a bothersome elbow, that she felt cold weather coming, and I had learned long СКАЧАТЬ