The Homecoming of Samuel Lake. Jenny Wingfield

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      “I killed a lot of men,” Toy said. Flat. “I was in the war.”

      “I don’t mean in the war. I mean did you kill Yam Ferguson deader’n a doornail, for messing with Aunt Bernice.”

      Toy had started whittling again, and now he raised his eyes to hers. Swan thought suddenly that she had never seen eyes so piercingly green. Toy’s shaggy, rust-colored brows were rearing up a little. She had touched a raw nerve, and wished she had not. But she knew the answer to her question all right.

      “You watch how you talk about your aunt Bernice,” Toy said. His voice sounded tight, like his throat was parched. “Now, get your fuzzy butt out of here.”

      “I didn’t mean anything,” Swan said.

      Toy didn’t answer. He got a dingy old rag from behind the cash register and started polishing the countertop. The countertop did not need polishing.

      “I was just making conversation.”

      Toy didn’t even look up. Just kept rubbing at some imaginary stain. Swan didn’t exist for him anymore.

      Swan turned her attention to the window. She was not about to leave the store just because Uncle Toy had ordered her to. Leaving in disgrace was not her style. Outside, a shiny red Chevrolet Apache pickup truck was stopping beside the gas pump. The driver—a sharp-featured, raven-haired man—was bearing down on the horn. There was a woman in the front seat beside him. A plump, blondish woman, holding a baby. Another, bigger baby stood in the seat between the woman and her husband. And in the back of the truck, there were two little boys, about four and eight years old. The sharp-featured man laid on the horn again. Louder.

      Swan cast an uneasy glance at Uncle Toy, who was putting the cleaning rag back behind the cash register. Taking his time about it.

      “Well, damn!” the man outside hollered, and he swung out of the truck. He was little bitty. Maybe five-two or five-three. He looked strong, though. Wiry and tough-muscled. He was walking toward the store. Walking fast, hunched forward, like he intended to drag everybody inside outside and stomp them good. He reached the door and started in at the precise same moment that Toy was starting out, so they ran smack into each other, the little man’s head slamming into Toy’s diaphragm. It should have knocked him down, but all it did was stop him in his tracks. He backed up a step, and tipped his head back, and glared up at Toy.

      Swan had slid down off the ice cream box by now and sidled over near the door. For a second, she thought the little man was going to spit in Uncle Toy’s face. He must not have heard the story about Yam Ferguson.

      “Anything I can do for you, Mr. Ballenger?” Toy asked, easy-sounding.

      “You can pump me some damn gas, if it’s not too damn much trouble,” Mr. Ballenger snapped. His eyes—which were so black you couldn’t tell where the pupils left off and the irises started—those were snapping, too.

      “No trouble,” Toy said easily. He stepped past Ballenger, out into the sunlight. Swan followed, hanging back a little, staying out of her uncle’s line of vision. While Toy was pumping the gas, the two little boys in the back of the truck watched him silently. Their hair and eyes were as black as their father’s. Their features had the softness of childhood, but the man’s stamp was on them, no doubt about that.

      “How you fellers doin’?” Toy asked them. They sat as stiff as tin soldiers, staring back at him. The woman holding the baby turned a little in the seat, and smiled, just slightly. Toy must not have noticed, which was a good thing, because her husband did. Swan could tell by the way the keen black eyes flicked back and forth, from his wife’s face to Toy’s. The woman turned back around in the seat. Toy finished pumping the gas and hung up the hose.

      “How much I owe you?” Ballenger asked. He had his chest pooched out and was fooling with his belt. Running his fingers over the buckle. Sort of half smiling, as if he might be anticipating something nobody else knew about.

      “No charge today,” Toy said.

      Ballenger eyeballed Toy narrowly, then glanced into the truck, at his wife. She was busy wiping the baby’s nose on the hem of her dress. Wiping it raw, she was being so diligent. Swan could see now that this “woman” was barely more than a girl. Must have started having babies about the same time she found out where they came from.

      “You got a reason for doing me favors, Mr. Moses?”

      Toy’s jaw tightened.

      “They’re burying my daddy today, Mr. Ballenger. Mama wanted the store kept open, just in case anybody needed anything, but she drawed the line at charging money.”

      Ballenger’s expression became carefully, properly sorrowful.

      “You give my condolences to Miz Calla,” he said, and swung up into the cab. In the back of the truck, the older boy had gotten more trusting and was inching toward the side. Toward Toy. Ballenger caught the movement in the rearview mirror. Reached one hand out and back, and slapped at the boy, carelessly. He could have been swatting a fly. His palm caught the kid across the face, hard.

      “How many times do I have to tell you not to move around back there?” Ballenger yelled over his shoulder. And to Toy, he said, “Sometimes you gotta help ’em remember.”

      Toy glared at Ballenger the way you look at something you’d just like to step on. The kid’s lips were quivering, and he had a dazed look on his face, but he refused to cry. That little, and already he knew that, if you don’t cry, you’re not licked.

      Swan had gasped loudly and was standing there now with her hand over her mouth, wishing she could take back the sound. She had a feeling that drawing Ballenger’s attention to your existence was like prodding a cottonmouth moccasin with your bare foot. A cottonmouth is deadly poisonous, and it will come after you. It will strike from behind.

      Ballenger cut his glance in her direction. His black eyes widened, and he grinned. Swan wanted to shrink up inside herself and disappear, but it was too late.

      “Where’d you come from, little pretty?” he asked.

      Toy looked at her. Hard. “I thought I told you to git.”

      She got. Turned and hustled into the store. There was another car pulling up, but she didn’t look to see who it was. She wouldn’t know them anyway. She leaned against the ice cream box and peeked through the bug-specked window. The new customer was a middle-aged woman in a flowery cotton dress. Some farmer’s wife. She was chattering to Toy as she started toward the store, and Toy was answering her. His voice was a deep, low rumble. Swan wasn’t paying any attention to them, though.

      She was watching the red pickup truck as it peeled out onto the road. The two little boys were sitting like soldiers again. Straight as arrows. Two little boys. But Swan was focused on just one. The one who’d gotten struck by the cottonmouth. That kid. The way he was sitting there, with his head cocked to one side—looking like he didn’t care, like it was nothing. That kid’s face was burning a hole in Swan’s mind.

      She watched until the truck made the bend in the road and was blotted out by a bank of sweet gums and pin oaks. Until the whine of the tires and the chug of the motor faded down to a whisper that hung in the air for the longest time, unwilling to die.

      Chapter 5

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