“I expect she’s hungry,” he said.
I sat at the table with Jenna in my lap and cooed at her while I shook the bottle. I was worried she wouldn’t trust me after that diaper scene, but she snapped the nipple right up and drank.
“There you go,” I whispered.
I watched her throat go up and down with the sucking and worried over how long she’d gone without.
“Go ahead then,” said Portis. “Eat that up, little Jenna.”
“She’s hungry,” I said. “That’s for sure.”
When she finally paused to breathe I wiped some runoff from her chin and for the first time she made a sound that wasn’t crying—gurgling as she reached out to me with her hand and brushed it lightly against my chin.
“Did you say something?” I said. “Are you making conversation, Jenna?”
Jenna said pthththth. I said pthththth back, and then a smile broke across her lips and I saw the tiny, jagged edges of two teeth. Jenna said, Ghuuuu.
“Well ghuuuu yourself,” said Portis, and leaned over the two of us.
“She’s beautiful,” I said.
“Generally,” he said. “I find most babies tip toward the ugly side. Most of them look like Winston Churchill, if you want to know the truth. But this one here is cute as a button.”
“As a button,” I said.
“She damn sure ain’t Shelton’s,” he said. “I can tell you that much right now.”
Jenna wanted another bottle after she cashed the first one, but I imagined it could be dangerous to overfeed a baby. Especially one so hungry. For all I knew, Jenna was starved half to death. Her face and cheeks were fleshy and rounded, but otherwise she was paper thin—with the same bony, jutted elbows and knees as the mother.
I held her and burped her and before long she fell asleep and Portis was putting on his snowmobile suit and snowshoes. He poured off some whiskey into a flask, then drank from the flask and refilled it. He was going to get my truck.
He pumped the lever of his rifle and told me to play the radio loud if anybody came by.
“Leave the door locked and let the radio drown the baby out. Whoever it is will think I’m passed out drunk like always.” He pointed to another rifle, hung from the far wall on nails. “They come in, it’s within your rights to shoot them on sight.”
“I’m not shooting anybody with this baby here in my arms,” I said.
“Suit yourself,” he said. “But I’ve always thought it better than being shot.”
“Hurry,” I said, and turned to look down at Jenna.
Chapter Four
Shelton Potter woke in the middle of the night, bothered by the smell of dead dog. Old Bo had passed a few days earlier and when Shelton sat up on the couch he quickly lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply, hoping the smoke would dilute the stink some.
Old Bo had died of natural causes, at least that was what Shelton assumed after he keeled over and died without providing much in the way of an explanation. Initially Shelton was too grief stricken to move the body, but now he wished he would have. Now the smell had found its way downstairs and he was frightened by the idea of what he might find in the room. Shelton did not like the thought of decaying dog flesh and wriggling maggots any more than he liked the idea of Old Bo being dead and gone forever.
The farmhouse was cold and drafty, but Shelton did not hurry to find a shirt. He preferred to flex his arm and give his triceps a little bounce. He’d been slacking on his workouts since prison, but generally Shelton was pleased with the progression of his triceps. His first love was the biceps, they would always hold the key to his heart, but that was no excuse to ignore the triceps entirely.
He dropped down to the floor, stretched his legs out, and planted his hands behind him on the edge of the couch. He knocked off twenty quick extensions, just to get the blood pumping.
Meanwhile, there was a Talking Heads song on the stereo. Shelton didn’t care for the Talking Heads, they just happened to be on his uncle Rick’s Hits of the 80s CD and that was what Kayla liked to listen to while they got wasted. The song was doubly irritating to Shelton now, but he didn’t know where the remote was and the stereo was all the way across the room.
We’ve got a wild, wild life, sang the man.
Shelton finished his exercises and sat back down on the couch. He knocked some ash into his palm and readied himself to problem-solve, to figure out this whole Old Bo situation.