Pale Harvest. Braden Hepner

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СКАЧАТЬ component of his disposition. In these moments, with voices from the dead murmuring a susurrus through his mind, it seemed nothing less than fate speaking to him, some low piercing voice of vague origin, and he could not understand it. And so he only listened to the strange tongue speak in mutters and went on.

      He came to the park. In the soft obscurity between dusk and dark a girl was on the swing set. She made the chains of the swing groan and took them nearly to their horizontal limit. She looked to be his age, too old for the swings, but swung upward, her toes pointing to the sky, then tucked them back as she fell, and each time she reached the apex her dark hair lifted and fell. It startled him, and some strange hunger moved inside him. He slowed. His fingers found the knob to turn the radio off. She looked toward his truck through her flying hair. She was alone, and he didn’t dare watch for long, so he drove a little farther and turned into the grass-sprung parking lot and left his truck beneath the denuded basketball rims. The swings were no longer visible because of the pine trees and the pavilion in between.

      He found Heber under the trees regarding the evening generously and nursing a bottle of beer. The querulous moaning of the chains floated across the park to them, and when he told Heber what it was Heber rose and they went to find her out, to discover her mystery, to put to rest their slow thudding blood and their mad wonderings. When they rounded the pavilion she was gone. The swing still moved, and as they reached it Jack put a hand out to steady it and felt the seat still warm with the heat of her body. The two of them looked around. Jack gave the seat a push and it swung askew and they turned and walked back to the trees.

      Heber rubbed his blond red beard and said, Who was it?

      —Might of been Rebekah Rainsford.

      —No.

      —It’s what Woolums said.

      —The hell does he know?

      —Who else could it be?

      —How beautiful was she?

      —Hard to say.

      —That girl was always beautiful and would be now. Why’d you come to me first? You need someone to show you the way?

      —She’s too young for you. And she’s wholesome. You’d corrupt and defile her. You’d ruin her.

      Heber laughed from his belly.

      —How do you know she’s wholesome? She’s been gone a long time.

      —She always was. She was untouchable.

      —This is good for morale, said Heber.

      They sat together under the shivering stars, among the rubbing crickets. Heber sat against the tree and picked up the beer he’d left behind. He wore a strange shirt that fit his broad shoulders and soft gut well. It was garish and outrageous, intricate sketches of tiny pale flowers overlaying the white fabric. Down the middle of the front on both sides of the buttons ran vertical lines, some thin and some thick, of red, brown, yellow, and blue. Down either side of this lay heavily embroidered patterns of large blue flowers with small flowers filling in between.

      —You ever wear that shirt when you sold real estate? said Jack.

      —I bought it for that.

      —That’s probly why you never sold anything.

      —I wish I could blame it on the shirt. But I’ll redeem that failure and you’ll see a picture of me on my business card wearing this very shirt.

      —Get the picture taken from the neck up then.

      —Selvedge, if I die before you I promise you can have this shirt.

      —I could probly use it to wipe my butt.

      Heber drained the last of his beer and reached into the pack for another. He pried the lid off with his pocket knife and said, How’s your grandmother?

      —They couldn’t do anything else, said Jack. Said she’d be more comfortable at home.

      —You know, there are accounts of Eskimos sending their aged out to sea in a canoe. Shoving them off and that’s that. There comes a time when they’ve served their purpose, things get worn out, and death is the best thing for everyone. They’ve done you wrong to wait this long. What do you think you’ll get?

      —No idea.

      —They haven’t said anything?

      Jack shook his head.

      —And you haven’t asked?

      —It’s a hard thing to ask about.

      —How would you feel about taking a drive to town, refill on drinks? said Heber. I’ll fill up your tank.

      —What’ve you got there?

      Heber shook the box on the ground and five empty bottles rattled against one another. He stuck out a dry warm hand and Jack got up and pulled him to his feet. He walked tenderly to the truck, leaving the bottles beside the tree as if to save his place.

      —Feet hurt, he said. I don’t know how much longer I can lay brick of a day.

      The wind came to them across the desert and through the town like a clean hot exhalation and the trees sighed with it. As they got in a sudden gust rocked the truck on its springs.

      —Storm coming, said Heber. From the heat. Could be the real thing, bring us some rain.

      —Be only wind, said Jack. Heat lightning.

      Jack drove them through the derelict town square, the two of them the only life in it. Heber said, What built this place? And why didn’t whatever built it keep it going? My old man was going to set fire to this square. When he found he couldn’t resurrect it a little, revive a business or two, he wanted it all gone. Burned to the ground and leveled. Thought it would never be reborn otherwise. I was poking around in the back of his little vet shop the other day and found forty gallons of gasoline under some canvas tarps. The town knows he was a fine mayor, whatever other problems they had with him, but they would’ve lynched him for that.

      —That’s all the character the town has left, said Jack. You might see it come back.

      —When things leave here they don’t come back.

      —You did.

      —Because I was kicked out of college. And out of the world in general.

      —To hear you tell it.

      —How does it go. Let’s see if I can remember. Had it once… In this town the last house stands as lonely as if it were the last house in the world. The highway, which the tiny town is not able to stop, goes deeper—slowly goes deeper out into the night.

      He paused for a moment and thought.

      —The tiny town is only a passing-over place, worried and afraid, between two huge spaces—a path running past houses instead of a bridge. And those who leave the town wander a long way off and many perhaps die on the road.

      —Have you talked to her lately? said Jack.

      —This СКАЧАТЬ