Little Wolves

THESE THINGS TO BE DONE





Grizz woke to a sound that made him sit up in the recliner where he’d last fallen asleep—hoofs click-clattering on wood. “The hell,” he said. The sagging porch outside his open window groaned under an immense weight.

His head throbbed from downing an entire bottle of Seagram’s. Sometime in the night he’d torn kitchen towels into strips and wrapped his wounded hands in these rags. The muscles in his legs felt watery when he stood to work the kink out of his neck.

Staring him eye to eye through the living room window was the bull, named Ferdinand by the boy, though he’d warned Seth time and again about naming livestock. The bull’s huge head filled up the frame, one dark eye milky with cataracts, as he leaned inside the open window and sniffed at the sun-faded curtains Jo had handmade years ago. “You son of a bitch,” Grizz shouted hoarsely, thinking the bull meant to eat his wife’s curtains.

At the sound of his voice the bull snorted “Whuff,” blowing mucus from his nostrils before ambling down the creaking porch stairs.

Grizz kicked the empty bottle of whiskey and sent it spinning across the hardwood floor. He was barefoot, and his feet were dirty, as if he’d been wandering all night long, and God knows he felt like he’d been on a long journey. Before he even reached the window he knew what he would see.

The fifty-odd head of Belted Galloway cattle the Fallons kept pastured behind electric fences were spread out on the front lawn and in the far alfalfa fields where they would gorge themselves sick unto death if he let them. They milled in the apple orchard, eating the small brown fruit that had fallen early. They lazed in the shade under the big oak where Seth had built his fort. The boy had not been there to feed them these last few nights, and Grizz had lacked the strength and will, so the cattle had busted down the fence to reach what grass remained in the yard.

The bull must have sensed him eyeing them because he turned toward Grizz now. He stood bandy-legged, a great mop top of clownish curly hair on his head. Long past his prime, almost half a head shorter than the heifers, the bull was kept because he was a pure-bred Beltie and because Grizz loved the spunk in him. The bull turned his rump toward him and lifted his tail to drop some steaming turds on the lawn.

Grizz’s blood went hot and all the aches in his body burned away when he spotted the ax he used to cut kindling for the stove. He picked it up and felt in his bones the thunk it would make cracking open the bull’s skull. He walked out on the porch, all raw inside, like someone had scraped out his guts with a spoon, and he looked at the chaos the cattle had wrought in the night, how they spread out all over creation. Some might wander toward the county road and be killed by the semis passing there. They were senseless, stupid beasts, and they had made a mess of his yard, and he was going to kill the bull for it and leave his carcass for the rendering truck.

He let the porch door slap shut behind him. A few of the cows and calves lifted their heads when they saw him coming, but the bull kept his back to him. It would be a hell of a time getting them back inside the fence. One man couldn’t do it alone. Seth. He was remembering now, and it stopped him in his tracks. Grizz had been on a bender the last couple of days. Every few hours the phone would ring, an angry buzz in his ears that he ignored, knowing it was the pastor or the funeral home or the sheriff or some goddamn newspaper calling for a statement. Finally, after a night of it, he ripped the jack from the wall and pulped the phone on the floor, blue wires spilling out like innards.

Wild thoughts moved in him when he was liquored. He had not seen the body, and as long as he had not he could believe whatever he wanted. Seth, his clever child. When he had been coming through the corn it was to the mountain he had been running. There were secret limestone caves that only the boy knew, places so deep beneath the earth that had he gone there maybe even men with hounds would not have been able to track him. Seth, who studied survival magazines and planned on joining the army when he graduated, could live out there a long time, until even the story of the man he murdered bled into daylight and was forgotten. If there was anything Seth knew and loved it was the wild. Grizz tended this idea of his boy, a guttering flame cupped in his hands. Seth living in a cave, hunting geese and pheasants in the fall, tracking deer with thin, bony ribs through birchwood bogs in winter. Seth alone, no longer troubled by his demons. Seth alive, knowing his dad had not failed him.

He gripped the ax as he approached the bull. The bull did not run; a Beltie bull is not as aggressive as other breeds and maybe not as clever as Grizz had given him credit for. The bull lowered his head and kept cropping the lawn, watching Grizz with his doleful eye.

They both looked up when they heard the sound of tires crunching on gravel. A long tongue of dust billowed up from the half-mile driveway as a gleaming red sedan rolled closer. Whoever was approaching now was someone Grizz did not want to see. As his anger against the bull ebbed, he became aware of how he hurt and resented whoever was approaching for making him feel anything again.

The long driveway was lined by ancient bur-oak trees and cottonwoods, so the car passed in and out of the sun. The driver kept slowing, either to stare at the mossy concrete statues underneath the trees or because they were afraid. They must not have been from around here, because everyone in town knew this stretch of woods along the Fallon driveway and had named it the Frozen Garden.

Most of the statues were figures from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha that Grizz had fashioned from river stones, concrete, and mesh wire over the years. The forms were layered with cowrie shells and old glass bottles so that they caught and held what light made it through the trees. They crouched behind hewn stumps and were half hidden by bramble. Wenonah, impregnated and then abandoned by the West-Wind, lifted her arms to the branches above her. Megissogwon, the magician, a caped figure with a long beard, craned his neck as though watching the road. Close by, the beaver king, Ahmeek, squatted atop a weedy knoll.

Keeping one eye on the bull, Grizz walked over to the machinery shed, opened the door, leaned the ax against the wall, and shut it behind him. He would wait out the stranger here. He watched through a greasy window as the sedan coasted in. The windows were tinted, but he could see the driver was young and female, her straw-colored hair tied back in a ponytail. She stepped out, dressed in a long burgundy skirt and creamy blouse, her uniform from the pool hall, and eyed the cattle milling on the lawn nervously.

He knew who she was, though he had never met her. Leah. Leah Meyers, Seth’s girlfriend. Seth was secretive about such things, but Grizz knew he’d been taking her down to Aden’s Landing, where all the teenagers went to drink and make mischief, because he’d come back late one night when Grizz was waiting up for him, and the smell of the river had been on Seth’s skin. He had forgiven his boy the worry he caused, because it’d been a long time since he’d seen him so happy.

“Tell me about her,” he had said that night, and Seth did. She was a niece of the sheriff’s. She had come from the Cities and didn’t know enough to avoid a boy with a reputation like Seth’s. Her family was trying to make a go of it in town, her dad keeping books at the co-op. She didn’t like talking about what had brought them here to the “boondocks,” but there’d been some trouble, both with her and her father. She was entranced by the stretch of woods where the statues were, by the Longfellow lore, and the curse Seth told her the family was living under, the bloody history of the property. And yet she had broken up with Seth a couple of weeks ago, so Grizz sure as hell didn’t want her on his land now.

Leah went up to the porch and knocked on the door and then peeked in the same open window the bull had looked in. Then she came out to the edge of the porch and surveyed the property. He moved away from his window and immediately felt ashamed. Moments before he’d been ready to crack the bull’s skull with an ax, and now here he was hiding from a girl.

Though the room was swept bare, he noticed a faint musky odor. The smell of gun oil, of a boy sweating in the heat while he sawed down the shotgun barrel. Like his son had just come and gone a few minutes before and if he rushed out he might catch him in time on the road to town and stop him from what he was about to do.

Seth. There are these things to be done. Grizz busied himself gathering his tools, the wire for the fence, a few staves, an old shovel. He repeated his mantra. There are these things. Seth was dead. He could not deny it. He was going to have to bury his boy and do so honorably. To be done. With a church service, because his mother would have wanted it that way. Jo. He would bury the boy beside his wife, in the plot he had purchased for himself at Eden Acres. This thought loosened some tightness in his chest. Even if Grizz had stopped going to church a long time ago he couldn’t shake loose from his childhood faith, its attendant hopes and fears. Then he hurried out into the sunshine before the smell could conjure Seth’s ghost fully. Before he lost himself once more.

With fence wire looped around his shoulder, shovel and staves in one hand, he opened the door. Only a few minutes had passed, but the girl was still waiting for him next to her car, keeping her distance from the cattle. “Mr. Fallon?” she said in a soft but firm voice. “I knew you’d be around here somewhere.”

“What do you want?” His voice had a harsher edge than he meant to give it. If there were forces that unsettled Seth, she was one of them. Grizz set his tools on the ground before he approached her.

“I haven’t been able to sleep,” she said. “I had to come see you.” She glanced up at him, her chin trembling. “Today’s the first day I’ve been back to work. I quit in the middle of my shift. I couldn’t stand the way they were all looking at me, the gossiping.”

“This what you came to tell me?” It seemed she had come here hoping for some kind of absolution, and he’d be damned if he was going to give it to her. Grizz glanced toward the plain white clapboard house where Seth had spent most of his life. “They didn’t know him. Nobody knew him.”

Leah smelled of fried grease from the pool hall, a faint odor of cigarettes in her hair. She stepped back as if suddenly conscious of where she was. Her mascara was a black smear under her eyes. She looked almost as much of a wreck as him, but now she was wary of her situation, way out in the middle of nowhere with a man who had done time over in Sauk County. Still, she asked, “Do you think it was my fault, because I broke up with him?”

Grizz felt so tired, undone by her wariness. He didn’t know what to do with such questions. “No. You aren’t to blame.” There. Now go away.

“I didn’t want to break up with him. Will Gunderson came to see my daddy and told him how he’d seen Seth and me down at the landing, swimming together.” She fidgeted, reaching down into the purse she carried and fumbling out a cigarette and lighter. Her hand shook as she lit it. She was clear eyed now, any tears gone. “He made it sound dirty. He told my dad all about your son.”

He didn’t want to hear any of this. What was he supposed to do with this information? Had Seth died a virgin? The girl drew on her cigarette, and the end flared red, and she tapped out her ash into the dry grass.

“There’s things you don’t know,” she said.

Now the air was going thin in his chest and down in his belly as though a hot wind blew inside him. There are these things to be done. Bury the boy. Get on with what must be. The sound of a car passing on the county road above drew both their attention, Leah turning nervously to take it in. It was the sheriff’s car, the lights dormant on top, the vehicle slowing to make out who was in the yard.

“Oh shit,” Leah said. “I shouldn’t have come.”

She stepped toward her sedan, and he knew when she left again his thoughts would turn wild once more, trying to fill the space between her words. Before she could climb inside, he closed the distance and took hold of her arm.

“Not yet. You were about to say something.”

“Let go. You’re hurting me.”

The sheriff’s car pulled into the driveway, heading down between the oaks and statues. His hand tightened hard enough around her arm to paint a bruise, but she stopped trying to pull away. “Please,” she begged.

He did as she asked, embarrassed by his own desperation. She turned toward him, her head lowered, and spoke in a low breath. “That day Seth got in trouble for busting the aquarium, Mr. Berman had been egging him on. He didn’t like it when he caught Seth flirting with me out in the hallways. He called him ‘Seth Felon,’ said some other things. Said the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. I’ve never seen Seth so angry. That’s when he turned over the aquarium.”

He shook his head. That was it? The sheriff’s car pulled into the last stretch.

Leah dropped her cigarette in the gravel and held herself, one hand kneading the place he had hurt. “I hadn’t stopped seeing your son, even though my daddy made me promise. I think I caused Seth to get punished that way. You know that Will Gunderson kept a hunting shack back in those woods near the landing?”

The sheriff’s car rolled to a rest.

Leah rushed on before he could climb out, her voice barely above a whisper. “Kids at schools say he took people there to punish them. Burnouts and stoners. He cuffs you to chair and does things to put a scare into you. After school, that’s where I think he took Seth.”

Steve was walking toward them, his hands on his hips. “Everything all right here? Horace Greeley called to say your cattle were loose near the county road.”

Leah didn’t look back as she went to her car. “I was only here to pay my respects,” she said to Steve in a shaky voice. She opened the door and ducked inside. Safe behind tinted windows, she didn’t look at either man as she drove away.

When she was gone, he told Steve everything was about as fine as expected. “Unless the sheriff has gotten into the fence-repair business.”

Behind him, Grizz heard the cattle calling to one another as the bull led his harem and calves back inside the fence he’d wrecked. He turned in wonder. It didn’t make sense, and Grizz had never seen such a thing in all his life, but with the sun burning off the clouds, it was hot and already dry by early afternoon, the land drinking in what modest rain had fallen in the night. The pond in the lower pasture had dried up during the summer drought, but with fresh rain there’d be mud where the cows could cool themselves awhile. His cattle, which could have run free all day, were leading themselves back into captivity.

“I’ll help,” Steve said, surprising him. The two men fanned out on either side and raised their arms and shouted at the stragglers in the yard, “Get along, girl,” and “move along, Bessie,” until the rest were inside the damaged fence.

Grizz went to get his tools, the girl’s words churning in his head. Seth had been hurt. He had been scared, but he hadn’t come to his father for help.

Steve touched his mustache, ran his hands over his chin. Beads of sweat stood out on the fat man’s forehead from the little effort it had taken to corral the cattle. “Look, Grizz,” he began, “the other night I said some terrible things.”

Grizz picked up his shovel and the staves and wire clamps he’d left lying in the grass. “There’s things I have to do,” he told him as he went to the barn to shut off the fence’s electricity so he could make repairs. This new Steve, his voice slick with concern, scared him. He preferred the one who came to his house two nights before and spit in his drink. If he said anything else, if he said what he was truly feeling in that moment, it would reveal all Leah had confided. Because if Will Gunderson kept a shack in those woods, then Steve, his predecessor, surely knew about it. Seemed like everyone knew but Grizz.

“You’re a hard man to reach,” Steve said when Grizz came back outside. He licked his lips. “Church council met last night. It was decided your son would be buried in the suicide corner of the cemetery.”

“No,” Grizz said. How could he have forgotten? This town and its sick traditions. “You wait just a goddamn minute. I want him buried next to his mother. I own the plot.”

“And you signed a contract that spells out what happens in the event of a suicide. The rules are very clear on this. He’ll have to be buried in the corner with the other suicides.”

Grizz felt the heat of the sun on the back of his neck, filling him up. His fists tightened around the shovel. “I intend to speak to the pastor about all of this.”

“Pastor Logan has already been informed of the council’s decision.”

Was it his imagination, or did Steve’s mouth curve in a small smile under the mustache? He turned his back on the sheriff and headed for the broken fence. Steve followed just as he knew he would. When Grizz heard his footsteps behind him, he turned and swung the shovel with all his might. He pivoted, planting his feet and throwing his entire body into the swing. The clamps and staves fell away in a clatter. In his mind’s eye, he saw the fanged edge of that old shovel cleave into Steve’s neck, saw the first bright geyser of red erupt, saw him fall, his mouth opening in surprise.

But Steve was a cunning man and knew what Grizz was about, so where he thought the man’s head or neck might be instead there was only air, and the violence of that swing twisted him badly on his hips, and he felt something tear inside when he fell.

Steve stood over him. “It’s not a good idea to try assaulting an officer of the law,” he said. “But I’m going to forget this happened. I don’t know what that girl told you. I can understand your anger, why you might try to hurt me in the heat of the moment.” He paused, made a sound in his throat, and spit to the side. “What I don’t understand is your boy. I mean his pockets were full of ammunition, Grizz. Took his time sawing down that shotgun. I can’t imagine such coldness.”

Even if Grizz wanted to rise, he couldn’t. It felt like there was a saw working in his gut, an old hernia tear he had torn again. He breathed in the dust where he had fallen and tried not to cry. How had he not seen this moment coming? Of course they would do this. They couldn’t just let Seth be dead. They had to find some further way to punish him, send him on to hell.

“This town’s had a terrible shock. They don’t feel safe. The world is changing, and they don’t know their place in it. Let go of your anger. If you want to be angry, be angry with your son.”

Grizz put one hand over his eyes. It was good advice. He should have been furious with Seth, but when he searched himself all he felt was the shock of his boy’s death. An emptiness, chaff in his palm.

Grizz didn’t answer. He didn’t trust his voice. Steve knelt in the grass beside him. “A group of us will come this fall and combine your crop. No charge.”

“I’ll pay for it.”

“We both know you don’t have the money. Probably don’t have enough for Seth’s funeral services. You’re going to need help to get through this.” Steve extended his hand, but Grizz didn’t take it.

Grunting, Grizz climbed to his feet and picked up his shovel and the rest of his things. Steve shrugged and walked away. A moment later his car started. Only after the sheriff’s car disappeared up the driveway did Grizz allow himself to lean over and vomit up what he’d drank last night. He let the sick come up, all liquid and no solids, until he was scoured out.

Then he walked to the broken place in the fence line where one post had been shattered in half. The bull must have been shocked by the electricity, enraged. The fence repelled him once, but the next time he charged it he must have hit the old post at full speed, splintering it. Grizz admired how the bent wires twisted and curled into space.

Grizz drove the staves into the ground and wound wire around the makeshift post, clamping it in place. The bull lifted his head from the dusty grazing pasture and studied his work. It was a jerry-rigged operation, and they both knew it. Just this small effort sapped Grizz’s remaining energy, and he had to sit for a moment in the waving grasses to catch his breath. And even as the work drained him, it also renewed him, quenched his ache for a spell.

A boisterous cloud of blackbirds burst from the oaks as the sheriff drove away. The flock gathered into a swirling pinwheel that carried them high above the pasture, the line breaking and re-forming before arrowing toward the mountain, where they landed in the waving grasses and went silent as though they had never been. Grizz was left alone again in the hot sun with the cows chewing their cud.

In this year of drought the leaves fell early, small and brown and skeletal. The canary grasses were tawny in the light, bending under a hot wind, and the woods stretched toward town, dry as kindling.