Jordan Smith stood in front of the stunned faces of her 5A class.
She’d scissor-chopped her midnight hair until it was a soldier’s buzz cut.
“So this is our last day of school,” she told her wide-eyed fifth graders.
“I don’t know what she’s going to do,” Dad’d told Lucas after The Important Phone Call the night before. “I just know what’s changed for you.”
The woman who’d chopped her hair stared at children she’d shepherded. “Things start. Things end. We got to figure out how to live with that.”
Brrring! clanged the last bell on that last day.
Joyous chaos ruled Blackhawk Elementary—
—except in Miss Smith’s 5A classroom. That cropped teacher’s twenty-eight students strained to hear her as the last bell died.
“Promise me something,” said Miss Smith. “Promise me you’ll think about our time together and remember one true thing.”
Everyone held their breath.
“Now go!” she told them.
Cheers erupted around Lucas.
His classmates swept Lucas out the door, past Miss Smith’s wistful eyes.
Donna shuffled next to him.
“Um,” he said, “thanks for the blackboard help.”
“Yeah. Sure.”
“Maybe we’ll be in the same class next year. And if the alphabet works out, maybe you’ll be behind me.”
“Behind you.” She humphed. “That’s the desk I always get.”
“What desk do you want?”
She said nothing. Limped away.
He found his three buddies on the playground.
Marin had his arms spread wide and his face arched to the clear blue sky.
Kurt said: “What was she talking about? ‘One true thing’?”
“Doesn’t matter,” said Wayne. “School’s over!”
Marin grinned. “Who wants to see a monster?”
Kurt shrugged. “We don’t have any around here.”
Far enough away to not be with Lucas’s crew but near enough to hear them stood Bobbi Jean. Habit kept Anna in Lucas’s vision, so he knew Bobbi Jean was eyeing her too as Anna laughed for ex-sixth grade girls Jane and Kay and Bonnie, who were officially cool plus now promoted to grown-up seventh grade.
Bobbi Jean wavered between her best friend Anna and the four boys. Told the guys: “My dad says that if people saw the dinosaurs who’d lived here, they’d think they were monsters and we got their genes inside us just like monkeys!”
Watch out for monkey shit, thought Lucas.
Wayne glared at Bobbi Jean. “Don’t you have to catch a bus?”
“Mom said that on the last day of school, I don’t have to go right home.”
“Well, go somewhere.”
Wayne led his buddies away from her.
Bobbi Jean saw the newly promoted seventh grade girls surf away from this schoolyard for “little kids.” Her best friend Anna rode their flow.
Bobbi Jean stood alone as those girls sailed off.
As those four boys drifted across the playground.
As brakes hissed and the last orange school bus pulled away.
As wind stung her bare legs with grains of sand.
“I don’t have to go anywhere!” she yelled to the boys’ backs.
Lucas started to turn back to her…
… but again Marin said: “So who wants to go see a monster?”
Lucas shouted: “Who wouldn’t?”
“No such thing,” said Wayne. “I’m not going looking for some no-such-thing.”
“Before we do stuff like that, our folks should say it’s OK,” said Kurt.
That’s right, thought Lucas. But something woke up inside him on this last day of school and he said: “What monster?”
“You have to come see to find out,” said Marin. “That’s just the way it is.”
Wayne argued: “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Then why are you scared?”
“I ain’t scared.” Wayne pitched a rock through the chain-link fence surrounding the town’s cement tennis court. “I’m not stupid. I won’t be a sucker.”
“What about you, Lucas?” said Marin.
“It’s the last day, so I suppose if I get home a little late…”
“So there’s you and me.” Marin looked at the other boys. “Come on, guys! It’s our chance.”
“Just because you get a chance doesn’t mean you should take it,” said Kurt.
Lucas remembered Laura and the trial: You lose something either way.
Wayne glared at Lucas, who he’d known since kindergarten, a whole five years longer than Marin had been around. “I’m with Kurt. You coming?”
“I’m going with Marin,” said Lucas.
“Suit yourself.” Wayne shook his head. “Monster. Hah!”
Kurt and Wayne trudged off.
Kurt turned around when they were half a block away. Waved.
Wayne kept his face pointed the same direction as his toes.
“Come on,” said Marin. “This way.”
We’re together! thought Lucas. Going somewhere!
The where didn’t matter as much as the going. The sidewalk under his shoes stretched forever smooth.
Three cars sat in the bright afternoon parking lot for the Buttrey’s grocery store three blocks away where his mom never shopped because.
Because, why? wondered Lucas. And why all the other becauses?
“Come on,” said Marin.
The grocery store’s glass doors slid open. Sucked them into its aisles of multicolored boxes and canned goods. The chill of machined air goose-bumped Lucas’s arms. His glasses carried his vision back to the refrigerated counter where the white-aproned man swung a cleaver into a child-sized slab of beef.
Thunk went the steel blade as it chopped through flesh and bone. Thunk.
The lone cashier had long black hair, copper skin, a red-lipstick smile, and gave off the kind of sly sass Lucas felt in his aunts, the Conner sisters.
Marin said: “Hi, Mom. You doing OK?”
“Honey,” she said, “stop worrying about me.”
The man who stood first in her line of customers drawled a leer.
“So, Ruby, this your kid?” He wore a fancy tan shirt and brown pants. Wore a sports jacket like a boss. Every strand in his slick hair was placed just so. “You’re a fine-looking cuss, boy. You a ballplayer?”
“No,” answered Marin, who starred in every playground game.
In line behind the fancy man, Mrs. Sweeny clung to the handle of her shopping cart, said: “Decent folks don’t hold up the line with jawing!”
“Hell,” said Mr. Fancy. “I didn’t know you was back there.”
“The sum total of what men don’t know would flood this store.”
“Come around me.” Mr. Fancy stepped aside so she could squeak her cart forward. “I’m just here considering switching cigarettes.”
He grinned at the cashier he called Ruby, not Mrs. Larson or ma’am.
“I ain’t particular about brands,” he told the world, his eyes on Ruby. “Old Gold, Chesterfield, Pall Malls, Lucky Strike, Winstons: They all got the same burn inside their papers. You just got to know how to light ’em up. And appreciate the taste. I ain’t so proud I won’t go with a good switch when I find one.”
“That’s mighty white of you.”
Those words from Marin’s Indian mom cut flat and cold with an edge Lucas couldn’t name. Somehow, he knew she didn’t mean whatever it was those words were supposed to mean. He’d never understood the “white of you” phrase when people used it in movies or books. Or said it in town. Made him feel… yucky.
And he realized Mr. Fancy also didn’t get whatever Marin’s mom meant because he said: “That’s the kind of guy I am. Hell, I’ll show you.”
He swaggered away from the cashier toward the back of the store.
Mrs. Sweeny put three cans of peas from her cart onto the checkout counter for the cashier to pull along past her like they were supposed to go.
Ruby rang up Mrs. Sweeny’s four cans of sardines.
In her mom voice, Ruby said: “You boys going to have fun?”
Her widowed customer frowned.
“Children’s fun can be ruin and damnation.” Mrs. Sweeny squinted at Ruby. “As I recollect, people ’round here don’t know about your boy’s father.”
“Really.” Ruby rang up a can of prunes.
“Seems like he’s never around.”
Ruby totaled the price of three cans of tomatoes.
“So did he die in the war? Korea or such?”
Ruby snapped open a fresh brown paper sack. “Not as I know.”
“So if he didn’t die in the war, then… you’re…?”
Steady tan hands sculpted the paper sack into the perfect shape. “I’m your cashier. I total up your bill.”
Mrs. Sweeny’s talons plucked a white paper packet from the cart. “If totaling is your lot, then you’re blessed to have it. God gives us what we deserve.
“Which is more than we can say for your butcher.” The crone waved the white packet. “This meat is thirty-three cents a pound, but he marked it forty-one cents.”
“That thirty-three was last week’s sale price.”
“This is just hamburger! My car needed gas last week. It’s not my fault I couldn’t get here, so you should fix the price.”
“Would you like me to ring for Zeb?”
“Thought you could total things yourself.” The crone gave a sigh for all the martyrs of her Lord. “Don’t bother. I won’t pinch pennies.”
“No, ma’am,” said Ruby as she rang up the meat doomed to sizzle in Mrs. Sweeny’s black frying pan. “Not if you can get me to do it for you.”
The grocery store’s glass doors slid shut after Mrs. Sweeny’s departure.
Mr. Fancy boomed: “Here you go, boys!”
He stood in the cashier’s line, a cold can of soda pop in each fist, his eyes on Ruby. He winked. “A real man knows kids.”
Put coins for the cans on the counter.
“My boy knows not to take anything from strangers. Or handouts.”
“We ought to fix that ‘stranger’ thing.”
Marin grabbed the two cold cans from the counter in front of Mr. Fancy.
“Wow!” he said. “Gosh, thanks!”
That’s not your real voice, thought Lucas.
“Here.” Marin turned to give an orange soda to his buddy. His other hand gripped a grape soda near his chest so the adults behind him couldn’t see him violently shaking the can. He hooked a finger under the newfangled pull tab. “You want some, mister?”
Marin whirled so the grape soda was inches from that gift giver.
Popped the tab.
Purple mist sprayed the fancy man like a blast from a shotgun.
“You son-of-a—”
“Sorry, mister!” yelled Marin. “Must be something wrong with the can!”
“Something wrong with you! Somebody needs to learn you what—”
Ruby snapped: “The boy said his polites.”
She scooped the two coins off the counter. Dinged! them into the cash register. Looked at Mr. Fancy with eyes like rifle barrels.
Mr. Fancy glared at his purple-spotted tan shirt. Stormed from the store.
Ruby’s eyes drilled her son. “That’s a new one.”
“It was an accident, Mom!”
“Oh yeah.”
She turned a smile to her son’s friend.
“You must be Lucas. Marin talks about you.”
A grin stretched Lucas’s face. He talks about me!
“You two better get going,” said Marin’s mom. “Zeb’s a decent man, but boys hanging around having ‘accidents’ aren’t good for his business or my job.”
In the safety of outside sunlight, Lucas said: “Why’d you do that?”
Marin trash-canned the unopened orange pop. “He was just another jerk.”
“All he wanted was to buy some cigarettes.”
“No he didn’t.”
Marin led them west through blocks of homes.
Lucas saw the housewife who used to be Fran Marshall. She wore her white blouse outside black slacks as she rolled a chaise lounge into the shade of her front yard tree. Fran waved at the boy she’d known since he was born.
Lucas waved back.
Spotted Fran’s new husband sitting on the front porch.
Ben Owens held a beer bottle in his hand. Held the bespectacled kid across the street in his unblinking eyes. Ben Owens tilted his beer bottle for a drink.
How come, middle of the day, you’re here drinking beer, not working at Dad’s office? thought Lucas.
Marin said: “Who are they?”
“Her father owns the trucking business my dad runs. That guy, her husband, he works there now. I used to, but Dad doesn’t think it’s best for me to be around his office anymore, so after last night’s trouble—”
“What trouble?”
As they walked, Lucas told Marin about Why Jordan Smith Cut Her Hair.
“Will Garth go to jail?” said Marin.
“He didn’t do anything wrong. He just is wrong.”
Lucas flashed on what Gramma Meg liked to tell the world about him.
“So nothing’s going to happen to anybody?” said Marin.
“Except me. I got a new job. One besides passing out flyers every couple of weeks for the Roxy. Since it’s not a good idea for me to work at the truck shop anymore, when Mr. Dylan called to explain about the trouble, Dad got him to use me on his summer painting jobs. Plus, he needs help watching his baby Rachel. Plus help him and Miss Smith with teaching Hal at the jail.”
A dog panted at them from the lawn beyond a chain-link fence.
“I leave for the ranch after the fair,” said Marin. “I run with kids on the rez. Feed the chickens. Gather eggs. The hen house is an oven. Itchy straw. And, man, those chickens peck when you slide your hand under them! I weed the garden. Shovel horse stalls. The brown bay is who I get to use, so I ride him lots.”
Lucas frowned. “What’s the rez?”
“The reservation. The Rocky Boy. You know. For us Gros Ventres.”
“Oh. Yeah.” Lucas took a step. “Those kids, are they, um, your best friends?”
“About like here. Hey! I got a great idea!” Marin took off running, three steps gone before Lucas realized it. “This is better than the monster!”
“Wait up!” Half a block and Lucas felt his wind start to go. “Where are—”
“You said her house was trashed!” Marin darted into a graveled alley. “Let’s help her clean it up. And we can see what Garth did.”
“I already saw.” Lucas slowed his pace.
Marin stayed beside Lucas as they walked down the alley.
An old green car nestled between a shed and a garage, tucked out of sight of passing traffic. Lucas had unloaded a million cans of paint from that car. And if you punched the dashboard…
“What’s the matter?” said Marin.
“Nothing.”
“Come on, then. Just up ahead there: Isn’t that her brown house?”
“Shh!” hissed Lucas. “This isn’t a good idea.”
“Sure it is. We can see monsters anytime.”
Lucas grabbed Marin’s shoulder to stop him. They saw the back of the brown house. The wooden door inside the screen closed with a quiet clunk.
“Let’s go!” whispered Lucas.
“Around to the front door?” said Marin.
But Lucas hurried down the alley. “You said we’d see a monster.”
“Yeah, but she was good to us.” Marin stopped. “She could use our help.”
“Yeah, but… not now. Feels like a bad time.” Change the topic! “That guy you sprayed in the store: Why didn’t he want cigarettes?”
Marin snapped: “You want to see a monster?”
“Ah, yeah, I—”
“Then come on!”
Marin stormed out of the alley. Turned right to where a slope of a vacant lot rose toward blue sky from a dead-end street. Scrambled up the scrub hill.
“Wait up!” Lucas slipped on a rock. “Slow down, Marin!”
Who whirled like a boxer.
“Another guy, that son-of-a-bitch, he didn’t want cigarettes!” Marin leaned so close Lucas felt his hot breath. “He… he wanted to sex my mother!”
“No!”
“Don’t you tell anybody!”
Lucas expected fire in his friend’s eyes, but Marin’s gaze was soft, pleading.
“Promise me you won’t tell anybody!”
“I won’t! I promise!”
Marin nodded. Trudged up the hill.
“Sorry, Marin. I didn’t know.” Lucas sensed the other boy’s forgiving shrug as prairie grass crunched under their sneakers. “I swear I won’t tell anyone.”
Three steps later, he said: “Um, Marin: Does your mom know?”
“Yeah.”
“Can I help?”
“No.” Marin looked at the horizon. Said: “Thanks.”
They had ten yards of hill left to climb when Lucas said: “What’s sex?”
Marin stopped.
Looked out over the dozens of square blocks of trees and towns spread out in the dusty valley below them. The cobalt peaks of the Three Buffaloes poked up from the northern horizon. White clouds sailed the breeze across deep blue sky.
Marin said: “You don’t know what sex is?”
Lucas shrugged.
“Don’t you think about my mother!”
“I won’t! I swear!”
“And don’t tell your folks that I told you. They might get mad.”
“Why? It can’t be like the secret to the atom bomb.”
“You can never figure grown-ups.” Marin looked left. Looked right. Whispered: “Sex is what men and women do!”
“When?”
“Whenever!” Marin whispered to Lucas. “The man sticks his dick in where the woman goes pee and she lets him!”
“Nuh-unh!”
“Un-huh!”
“That’s… so weird.”
“I know. But that’s what it is.”
“Why do they do that?”
“That’s how you make babies.”
“That guy wanted to make a baby with—”
“You promised you wouldn’t!”
“I wasn’t!” swore Lucas. “It just slipped out!”
And then it hit him:
The man puts his dick in a woman.
Gramma Meg says my dick needs to be cut. Is broken. Ugly.
Why would any woman want my ugly broken dick in her?
Marin said: “Let’s just not talk about it, OK?”
“Yeah,” mumbled Lucas.
“My mother, I mean.”
“Nobody’s mother,” said Lucas. “Nothing is about nobody’s mother.”
Marin ran up the hill. Lucas hurried after him. The two boys charged over the crest. Bulled through a tangle of bushes.
Lucas pushed his glasses back up his nose. Blinked.
An army of stone slabs surrounded the two boys.
“Cemetery!” hissed Lucas. “We’re in the—”
A motor rumbled closer. Tires crunched gravel. A rusted station wagon spewed a cloud of dust behind it as it roared into the cemetery.
Marin and Lucas scrambled behind a marble slab.
“Is it the monster?” whispered Lucas.
“Don’t be stupid! Monsters don’t drive!”
The rusted vehicle’s engine shut off.
Lucas and Marin peered around the gravestone.
A woman loomed ten graves beyond where the boys hid. Her rusted ride waited for her. A bird sang. A freshly grassed mound of earth trapped her eyes.
“Mrs. Klise!” hissed Lucas. “That grave must be…”
The boys retreated behind the marble slab.
The grass around them smelled of summer.
Metal clinked.
Lucas spotted the chain slapping the white metal flagpole of the Veterans’ Memorial—a white stone pedestal supporting a painted-black, tripod machine gun from World War I. He’d stood there on Memorial Day with his Cub Scout pack. Saluted with two fingers pressed against his forehead as the high school band teacher raised his trumpet and played taps.
“Marin!” he whispered. “The sex thing: How do they do it?”
“They get on top of each other.”
“Who’s on top—the man or the woman?”
“How should I know!”
A seagull gliding above them blinked away the sun.
“We gotta get out of here,” said Marin. “This place gives me the creeps.”
Marin led Lucas through a gap in the windbreak row of bushes.
“Did she see us?” said Marin.
“I don’t think she sees anything,” said Lucas.
They slid down the long ditch of the barrow pit. Marched up the other side and across a county gravel road. Crossed the next barrow pit…
… and were over the border. Out of town.
Brown earth stretched in front of them. Parched grass. Tumbleweeds. The boys moved toward where the blue sky curved down to meet the shadowed land. They grinned because they knew they weren’t scared.
“It’s OK,” said Marin. “Long as we can see houses behind us.”
“How far?”
“Just a little ways. Getting stuck in the cemetery is why we aren’t already there. Course, we could turn back now, if you want to.”
“I’m OK if you are.” Lucas shrugged. “Wish we’d kept that orange soda.”
They walked maybe twenty steps.
Marin said: “There’s one more thing about sex.”
“What?” asked Lucas.
“People don’t just do it to make babies.”
“Why else would you do something like that?”
“Beats me. Somebody said for fun. Or ’cause you’re love crazy.”
“Love won’t ever make me that crazy!”
Marin walked backward to watch Lucas as they walked, which kept his eyes on the town. Marin told Lucas ’bout one time on the ranch when a black stallion got loose. ’Bout one time drivin’ in a blizzard when the world outside his mom’s car swirled up in a whiteout. How cool it was that when they came back to school next fall, there’d be an ‘experiment’ to let sixth grade boys play football.
Came the buzz of the first fly.
Marin was saying: “… probably hunkered down in its cave while we were stuck in the cemetery. We might as well head home so you’ll make it to dinner—”
Lucas froze.
“—even if we didn’t see a monster.”
“Too late.”
Marin turned—jumped back shoulder to shoulder with his friend.
“I just said all that about a monster to see who’d follow me!” whispered Marin. “I’ve never been out here before. I only wanted you guys to not leave me.”
Lucas couldn’t turn his eyes away from what they saw.
Whoever strung up the coyote on the barbwire fence did a damn fine job.
The animal’s rear legs were spread wide. Bound to the fence’s bottom strand of barbwire with scraps of the same. On the top wire, barbwire bent from the fence post held the coyote’s forepaws out like a crucifixion. A red and white bandana knotted under the coyote’s jaw kept his rigor-bared grin level and locked his fly-emptied eye sockets straight at Lucas and Marin.
They knew what hung on this fence. Knew it for a gunman’s trophy. A warning to any other lone runners and vermin who challenged civilization.
And as they ran home, Lucas knew one true thing:
We got monsters.