Every night last month, Mr. Crosie had come to Edna in what must have been dreams, his hair smoothed back unnaturally from his temples, the dull wool of his good blue suit brightly silvered in the moonlight. Alf? she would say softly, though she would be thinking Mr. Crosie, just as she had done all through their married life. Alf? But Mr. Crosie would just stand there in the space between the tall bureau and the window, his long arms dangling loose at his sides, palms turned strangely away from her. And each time he came, she thought with a certain wonder, How clean his hands are, right down to the fingernails. And she would try hard to think back: Had they been that way for the funeral? And thinking of that, thinking they might not have been, she felt guilty, as if some urgent and possibly distasteful task had been left undone. What is it, Alf? she would ask, edging herself up against the pillows and tugging the blanket higher over her chest, her breath pluming out in the air from the open window at Mr. Crosie’s elbow. What is it?
It happened that way each night for nearly the entire month of October, while the fields lay fallow and newly damp with frost and the leaves of the shelter belt slowly yellowed and thinned, and the hens in the yard chortled and shivered and plumped their fat white bodies against the growing cold. But then, the last Saturday of the month, Mr. Crosie did not come. Edna woke late in the morning with the sun already laid out heavily across the bed and, realizing he had not come, dropped to her knees and said out loud, half-relieved, half-alarmed, “Oh, Lord, oh, Lord, do not let the flood sweep over me, Lord, or the deep swallow me up, or the pit close its mouth over me.” She did not know why she said it, only that it felt like a thing that should be said. And feeling somehow better for having said it—and being a practical woman, a point upon which she took pride—she rose and fried herself a breakfast of eggs and sausages, which she ate in huge heavily peppered bites straight from the pan, slick with grease and still smoking.
In fact, Edna felt so much better that, for the first time in months, she did not really think anymore of Mr. Crosie. Instead, with a fierce energy she had not known in years, she threw open all the windows to the sharp, good air and began her fall cleaning, pulling down curtains and shaking out rugs to the sunlight with a snap of her wrist; rubbing walls, ceilings and floors briskly with water so hot her hands came away a raw, bright red. And she did not think of Mr. Crosie. She worked that way late into the evening, pegging up the last load of linens on the clothesline under a harvest moon with coyotes yapping their soulless yap from somewhere far beyond the circle of yard light and new frost faintly scenting the air, and she did not think of Mr. Crosie and she did not rest until she collapsed finally in an aching and satisfied heap beside the orange cat on the chesterfield and slept deeply under an afghan she had knitted herself shortly after her marriage; slept smelling the fine lemon smell of a clean house. And she did not think of Mr. Crosie—not until early the following morning, Sunday, when, just as the last batch of butter tarts for the church bake sale was browning nicely in her oven, the well went inexplicably dry. She did not know at first that the well had gone dry, assumed that it was some small thing wrong with the pipes that caused the kitchen faucet to choke and shudder and spit furiously.
“Isn’t that just the way,” she said to herself rather good-naturedly, “and Mr. Crosie gone not eight months.”
But when she checked the rest of the faucets in the house—first remembering to remove the tarts from the oven—and then the outside taps, only to find they all rasped dryly, she realized she might have a bigger problem on her hands. She frowned and propped her fists on her hips, surveying the farmyard through narrowed eyes, as if she might spot new misfortunes lurking among the neat red and white granaries.
“It doesn’t rain,” she said aloud, “but it pours.”
Much to Edna’s dismay, Heddy Kretsch said a similar thing that afternoon in the church basement as she watched Edna arrange butter tarts on a large paper doily the unseasonal shape of a snowflake. Edna was embarrassed about the doily and annoyed that Heddy, of all people, had seen it. But Heddy paid it no attention, interested as she was in the knowledge that Edna’s well had gone dry.
“There’s one thing you can count on sure,” Heddy said. “Trouble comes in threes.” And then, as if to confirm the fact, she lifted two spidery fingers in the shape of a V. “That’s two.”
Edna bit her lip. It would take Heddy to say something like that. Likely as not, she was drunk. No wonder most people wouldn’t give her the time of day. Just goes to show, Edna thought, just goes to show. She pointedly edged the Tupperware container of tarts away from Heddy, who, fingering them as she spoke, turned them slowly, like dials. It was a well-known fact that Heddy’s hands were never what you’d call clean.
“You better watch out,” Heddy said. “You got one more coming.”
“Oh, baloney,” Edna said. “Silliness. And superstition. I’ve got no truck with that nonsense.” Nor for you either, she wanted to add, but instead said, “No good Christian should.” This was a direct jab at the Kretsches, always the first to arrive and the last to leave, be it church or bar. She snapped the lid back on the Tupperware container and waved tightly to Leona Hilling two tables down, hoping she might take the hint and step over for a chat. She did not.
“I don’t know,” Heddy said. “Your well gone dry”—she shook her head slowly, sorrowfully—“and the grass not even grown over Alf’s grave.”
Edna flinched at the sound of Mr. Crosie’s name on those lips. She set her jaw and fixed her eyes firmly on a jumble of canvas banners rolled up and leaning against each other in the far corner. One had unravelled a bit and Edna could read, in faded purple lettering, hine is the kingdo.
“Edna,” Heddy said sharply, rapping her knuckles three times against the table, “what you got is no ordinary well run dry. What you got,” she said, “is a haint.”
Edna, who at first thought Heddy’d said hate, stood there slightly surprised and disturbed at the word.
“I don’t hate,” she began distinctly.
“Haint,” Heddy stressed, taking pains to enunciate each letter, “you got a haint. And he drunk up all your water. Ghosts are thirsty—”
“Ghosts!” Edna could not think of anything to add. She was certain now: Heddy was drunk.
“Water’s the first thing they look for,” Heddy went on reasonably. “You get you some buckets of water and set them all around your bed in a kind of horseshoe shape.”
Edna shivered. Mr. Crosie standing silent in his funeral clothes each night by the cold blue light of the moon. Stupid, she thought then, don’t be stupid, Edna, you were dreaming. In a dream, she thought, anything is possible.
“Rod’s sister in Val Marie,” Heddy was saying. “She give her husband a real nice funeral and didn’t wear nothing but black and went to the cemetery every day to sit by his grave and cry like there was no tomorrow—more fool her because I known him all my life just about and he was worth maybe three tears at best. But she done everything she could so Marv, that’s her husband, didn’t have nothing to complain about, so to speak. But then she started finding her geese dead, necks broke, just laid out in the yard every morning. There wasn’t no blood, so she knew it wasn’t dogs or coyotes or skunks or nothing. It was a haint for sure. So she up and put out buckets of water like I said and goose feathers around her bed and sprinkled pepper around all the doors and windows—”
“Stop it,” Edna said.
“Your haint found its own water,” Heddy went on.
“Speak like a Christian, for heaven’s sake,” Edna snapped. “You’re in a church.”
They stared at each other across the table. Then Heddy pursed her lips, as if considering something.
“If you believe in God,” she said flatly, “you believe in ghosts.”
For a moment, Edna could not think of a reply, and so she just stood there, feeling the slow, hot beat of her pulse in her temples until Heddy shrugged and plucked a pastry crumb from the edge of the table, rolling it between her fingertips. “All I’m saying is it’s better to be prepared. Call it what you want.” Then she leaned in so close, Edna could feel sour breath against her face. “Acts of God,” she whispered. And popping the crumb in her mouth, she walked away, her thin legs moving sharp and precise as the blades of scissors.
Edna fumed. Heddy—how dare she. Her and that whole pack of dirty, drunken Kretsches and their scrawny, ragged, thieving kids and never a penny to their names—yes, they should be the ones to talk about God. Shouldn’t they just. Then, watching Heddy poke her way alone and ignored from table to table, hands jammed deep in the pockets of her dirty brown coat, not buying anything (of course not, how could she?), Edna relented a little. Judge not, lest ye be judged, she thought. There was a lot of truth in that. It was something Mr. Crosie had always said, and she’d almost always given her wholehearted assent. Yes, indeed, you said it, Mr. Crosie, that’s for sure. Judge not. It was a good motto to live by. Also, There but for the grace of God go I. That was a good one, too.
Edna watched Heddy slip something from the crafts table into the pocket of her coat, something glittery and round, a Christmas ornament perhaps. For a moment, Edna was delighted with the grace of the motion, with the way the silvery object had flashed briefly, then disappeared into that dark pocket like a falling star. But as soon as she’d thought it, the beauty was gone. Isn’t that just the way, she thought then. The minute you’re inclined to think charitably of someone, they go and do a thing like that. There but for the grace of God, indeed. How about, You reap what you sow? You reap what you sow (even Mr. Crosie would have agreed with her there), be it in this life or the next. And where would they be—people like the Kretsches—on that final day? Not burned up in hell-fire, Edna didn’t believe in that holy roller business—she was a Catholic, after all—but maybe just waiting, hands raised to the heavens for a mercy that would never come. Not even realizing they’d been missed. No, not missed, she corrected herself, passed over. That was the sad thing. Well, she sighed, it would all come out in the wash. She didn’t know why Heddy irritated her so much. Ghosts. No, what had she called them? Haints. What nonsense, and then she laughed a little. If Heddy Kretsch can get my goat, she thought, I’m a sorry case indeed.
The following morning, Edna phoned around about bringing someone out to the farm to drill a new well. The estimates they gave her were nothing short of shocking. And there was no guarantee, they said, they couldn’t make any promises. What did they mean by that? she asked them. They said, Chances are you got water out there somewhere, but how much drilling we do to find it, that’s another story. We’ll drill as many holes as it takes, they said, but we charge by the foot. I’ll have to think about it, she told them. You do that, the last fellow agreed, but don’t think too long. Once that ground’s froze, you won’t get anyone out there. Buggers up the drill bits.
So Edna thought about it. She thought about it as she loaded the half-ton with clean five-gallon pails, she thought about it as she drove the few miles over to Thaubergs’ to stock up on water, she thought about it as she filled the buckets from the hose by the barn and then, as he loaded them back into the truck for her, she asked Eulan Thauberg what he thought.
“Oh,” he said, heaving a pail up on the bed and sliding it back against the cab in one motion, “I don’t know, Edna. Seems like a shame, all this at once.”
“If you’re going to tell me trouble comes in threes …” Edna said, rather sharply. She needed no one’s pity, certainly not Eulan Thauberg’s. Truth be known, Mr. Crosie might have had many more good winters in him if he hadn’t run himself ragged after Eulan Thauberg. Eulan needs another hand with the seeding (or the harvesting or the butchering or Lord knows what all else), Mr. Crosie would say and off he’d go, never mind Thaubergs had two sons nearly grown. Never mind his own work at home, always a dollar short and a day late.
Eulan Thauberg frowned. “No,” he said, “I wasn’t thinking that.” He scratched his chin, heaved up another pail. “Just that,” he said, leaning over the side of the truck, “it’s a long winter out here, you know?”
Edna did know. Of course she did, she’d lived around these parts her entire life. Eulan knew that. What was he getting at?
“It’s just,” Eulan went on, hoisting up the last pail with a puff, “maybe you might think about moving to town now.”
“Town! Eulan, how can you even think it!” But she knew exactly how Eulan could think it; he had his eye on her land. That was like him. She was surprised he’d waited this long. “No,” Edna said firmly, “I won’t leave the place. I just need the well fixed up and I’ll be all set.” She considered. “How many holes will they have to drill, do you think?”
Eulan slammed the tailgate shut and leaned against it.
“Oh, they’re pretty good usually,” he said. “They hit the low spots first. You got a good one west of the barn there. Around here, they have to go down fifteen, twenty-five feet or so.”
Edna calculated the estimate they’d given her per foot. “If they have to drill more than once, that could get pretty costly,” she said, mostly to herself. And then, for some reason, a memory came upon her, of that hole she and Mr. Crosie had found beside the road allowance, out past the Sand Hills—when was it? Years ago. Pull over, he’d said suddenly as they bumped along. What for? she’d wanted to know. Just pull over, he said. So she did, and he unfolded his body from the cab of the truck and walked back along the road. She waited a while. Then, when she saw he was making no move to return, she followed him. He was standing at the side of the road, holding an old cream can lid, rusted and dented almost beyond recognition. There was a hole cut in the middle, roughly the size of a quart sealer or a little bigger. Mr. Crosie turned the lid slowly in his large hands. What in the world, Edna said, have you got that for? Mr. Crosie nudged the ground with the toe of his boot. It was over this hole here. Edna looked down. There was a hole in the ground, about the size of the hole in the lid. Mr. Crosie picked up a stone and dropped it down. Edna counted to herself. It was fifteen, no, almost twenty seconds before they heard it hit bottom. They blinked at each other. Mr. Crosie shook his head in disbelief, dropped another stone, and they waited again until it hit. Dry. By the size of it, looks like an old test hole. For a well, Mr. Crosie said, amazement in his voice. Then he shook his head again. What’s so strange about that? Edna asked. Mr. Crosie lifted his hands, looked around. There’s not a farm around here for three, four miles at least, he said, never has been that I know of. This is community pasture. Edna took the cream can lid. This has been here a while, she said. She ran her thumb around the rim, rusted to a thin, lacy edge. Mr. Crosie nodded. Rusted right into the ground there. Had to pry it up. He took his lighter from his pants pocket—the good silver-plated lighter she’d given him for Christmas a few years back, engraved with his initials—and bent over the hole, trying, quite foolishly Edna thought, to see by that small blue light. If you drop that, Edna warned, I can tell you you’ll be coming back here tonight with a shovel. After a moment, Mr. Crosie straightened and pocketed the lighter. He looked around again, removed his cap. I can’t figure it out, he said. Edna tossed the lid down; it landed partway over the hole with a soft plunk. Oh well, she said, we aren’t going to solve this mystery. And she started back for the truck. Come on, she hollered over her shoulder, I’ve got supper on. She stopped and looked back in time to see Mr. Crosie straighten the lid so it fit neatly over the hole, then step it gently into place.
He’d talked about that hole for weeks after, months. He’d pipe up suddenly, while thumbing through The Producer or in the middle of M*A*S*H, Who could have drilled it? Someone from around here? What for? When? It always took her a few seconds to clue in. Who cares? she’d say then. Forget about it already. But he couldn’t. In fact, she’d bet dollars to doughnuts he’d been back there with a flashlight more than once. Mr. Crosie was like that, couldn’t leave things alone. Silly things. Useless things. It annoyed her.
Edna blinked up into sunlight. Eulan stared at her.
“I said, have you had someone down there even? Might be you just need to dump a load of water in, get someone down to prime the pump. You should get someone down there once before you go and bring the drillers out.”
Edna took a long breath. “I hadn’t thought of that,” she said, exhaling. “You’d think they might’ve said something about that on the phone.”
“What have you got there anyway,” Eulan asked, “jet pump or submersible?”
“Submersible?” Edna asked.
“A down-hole submersible,” he said, then added, “Is your pump by the house or down the well?”
“Oh,” Edna said, “I really don’t know.” I should know that, she thought angrily. Why don’t I know that?
Eulan shrugged. “Either way, it’s worth a try, I guess,” he said. “Hell of a lot cheaper than drilling a new well. Betty’s brother had to go down sixty-five feet and she was dry as toast. Hell of a lot cheaper than that.”
“Yes,” Edna said absently, for she was still trying to think whether she’d seen anything like a pump near the house, “that’s for sure. You said it.”
“Well, then, you just hang on there once,” Eulan said, and thumped a fist against the truck. “You just hang on,” he said. “I know a fella.”
• • •
Edna drove home, the water slopping out on the truck bed with each bump in the road. Just as well, she thought, listening to it slosh and roll behind her. Full pails would be too heavy for her to lift anyway. You’d think Eulan could have figured that out for himself. You’d think, after all Mr. Crosie had done for him, he would have offered to haul some over for her, or at least have one of the boys do it. But that was Eulan. She’d noticed he hadn’t offered to check the pump for her either. Well, that was no real surprise; she’d known Eulan Thauberg too long to expect it of him. No, he had his eye on the land, all right. But he had another thing coming. Typical Eulan: greedy. Greedy and cheap. Lazy, too.
But this fellow Eulan mentioned sounded promising; a young fellow from near Golden Prairie—she didn’t recognize the name. She hoped he worked fast. That chill in the air even at midday promised a hard frost. Soon the ground would freeze; it would be too late to drill if she needed to. Besides, she couldn’t keep hauling water from Thaubergs’, she fretted as she pulled into the quiet yard and unloaded the wet, heavy buckets straight into the porch. It just didn’t make sense.
And, thinking about how things did not make sense, Edna pulled off her coat and boots and sat at the kitchen table far into the evening, waiting for the phone to ring, staring out the window as the sun slowly turned a dull, effortless red and sank beneath the horizon. In the dark, she rested her head on her arms and thought that sometimes, sometimes, it was all just too much.
When Edna woke the next morning, the muscles in her neck aching and the orange cat demanding to be let out and the water crusted over in the unheated porch (for she had forgotten to bring any into the house), she began to think Eulan Thauberg was right. Maybe she should leave the farm. She lugged one of the pails into the kitchen and chopped halfheartedly at the surface with the wooden handle of a butcher knife and thought, for some reason, of Heddy Kretsch, her lean, sharp face; she thought about trouble coming in threes. Maybe Heddy, too, was right. She put a kettle on to boil for coffee, then washed her face in the icy water and sat again at the kitchen table. Mr. Crosie, the well. Against all her prior reasoning, she began to suspect a connection between the two.
Then Monson appeared.
“It doesn’t rain,” Edna said to him, this time forcing a cheerful smile, as he stepped down from his truck, “but it sure does pour.” Now that Monson was here, she’d decided it wouldn’t do to mope around about things that couldn’t be helped. She smoothed her skirt and stepped back a little as he turned a slow circle, surveying the yard.
He was smaller, much smaller than she’d imagined, and even a little younger than Eulan had led her to believe, though it was hard to tell when a man kept his hair. And what hair he had, forking up all over his head in sharp black curls. As if reading her mind, Monson jammed his cap down low over his flat, rather pointed ears and stared at her from beneath the brim with bright, dark eyes. Edna peered back. She didn’t really like the looks of him. There was something gnomelike, something shifty, unclean. As though all his edges were blurred. He looked like a drinker. Finally, she thrust her hand forward and said, a little uneasily, “I’m Mrs. Crosie.”
“Monson.” He grinned, rather unexpectedly revealing a row of teeth, white and even and delicate as pearls. Edna wondered if they could be real.
“Eulan said he thought you had a submersible,” he said, “but that you weren’t sure.”
Submersible, Edna thought, there’s that word again. “I believe it is a submersible, Mr. Monson,” she said with authority. “There’s certainly no jet pump that I can see.” She said jet pump distinctly.
Monson gave her an odd look. “Okay,” he said, “I guess I’ll check the well then.”
“I’ll walk you over.” She wanted to ask how long all this might take. There had been flurries in the air yesterday, sailing past the kitchen window, though today it was slightly warmer, the sun beaming down on the yard as if heaven itself was sending her hope and goodwill.
“There it is,” Edna said, pointing to the three-foot-high wellhouse.
Monson walked over, unlatched the heavy wooden lid and peered inside with an enormous flashlight he’d unhooked from his belt.
“You got oak casings here,” he said, tapping the flashlight against the inside of the well. “Original, looks like.”
“Oh?” Edna followed him over, unsure what it meant to have oak casings. Surely not good, not if they were original. Would they need to be replaced, too?
“Don’t see that much anymore,” Monson said, leaning back and clicking off the flashlight. “This must be the genuine article.”
Edna blinked. “You mean the original well?”
“Must be. Don’t find oak casings these days.” He laughed. “Not a lot of oak trees around here.”
Edna nodded. She didn’t really like the fellow’s laugh.
Monson hooked the flashlight back on his belt the way Mr. Crosie used to knock the ashes from his cigarette without tapping it against anything, holding it backhand between his thumb and pointer fingers, flicking it with his index. A quick, smooth motion as natural as breathing. One of the things she’d first noticed about Mr. Crosie. Funny to remember that still, thirty, no, nearly forty years later.
Monson patted the wellhouse. “She’s dry,” he said, “that’s for sure.”
Well, I already knew that, Edna thought.
“I’ll go down and check the pump.”
Edna peeked over the side of the well. “How will you get down?”
But Monson was already uncoiling a long, thick length of rope, the kind Mr. Crosie had used for bridles back when he’d still kept horses, before she’d finally convinced him they weren’t worth the cost of feed. Pets, they were; useless. The cat, now, at least it was good for something.
“It’s wide enough,” Monson said, “so I don’t have to go down headfirst. I can climb back out.”
“Headfirst!” Edna said. “Surely not.”
“Usually not enough room for a man to turn around.” He glanced at her with another of those brilliant smiles. “Even a man my size.”
Edna blushed, looked away. Could he read her mind?
“If you don’t go down headfirst …” he said, and shrugged.
Edna tried to imagine being lowered down a well headfirst, into the earth, like a worm. She shivered and rubbed her arms.
Monson tied a fat knot to the outside of the wellhouse, tested it by throwing all his weight into it, then clipped the end of the rope to a kind of leather harness he wore around his hips. As he climbed over the edge, Edna barely suppressed an urge to shout, Don’t! Instead she asked nervously, “Won’t you just drop … straight down?” She eyed the loose coil of rope on the ground. “It’s all slack.”
Monson grinned. “Just watch.”
So Edna watched as he braced his compact shoulders and back against one side of the well, his feet firmly against the other, and began to edge himself slowly down, feet then shoulders, feet then shoulders. It looked so effortless. Still, she was uneasy. She didn’t relish the thought of a dead man tied to a rope at the bottom of her well.
“You got a good wide one here,” Monson said as his black curls disappeared into the well. “Hand-dug most likely, considering that casing.”
There was a sound of earth falling, and Edna pressed her hands to her mouth.
“It’s okay,” Monson called up, though his voice had a strange, ghostly echo now. “Just dirt behind the casings.”
Edna peered over the edge. Even with the sunlight beaming down into the mouth of the well, she could not see Monson, just a shadow, the suggestion of something moving. And the shh-shh sound as he edged his way deeper. Soon even that stopped. Edna waited, feeling her skin crawl. It disturbed her that she could no longer see him.
“All right down there?” she called, knowing her palms had begun to sweat.
“All right,” he called. And then the flashlight clicked on and Edna could see all the way to the bottom. Oh, she thought, that’s not so deep. She leaned over the side and breathed the cold smell of earth, like root cellars, like digging potatoes.
Below, Monson moved in the yellow light, twisting around and clanging something against the metal pump. She could see his boots sticking and sucking against the muddy bottom. It was a strange sensation, looking down on him that way, his small shadow moving over and across the light, as though she had captured some elf and held him in a pit for safekeeping. Peter, Peter, pumpkin-eater, she thought, and laughed to herself, even though she knew the rhyme didn’t really make sense. Still, there was something funny about it. Had a wife and couldn’t keep her, put her in a dried-up well…
Monson looked up then, his face lit from below, yellow and awful, seeming to leer at her with undisguised malice. Edna stepped quickly back, repressed an impulse to slam the lid shut and run.
“Your pump’s done for,” he hollered up.
What’s the matter with me, Edna thought, trying to breathe evenly, slowly, to calm her thumping heart. I’m so nervous these days. Stupid, she thought, don’t be stupid. She approached the well again, but did not look down.
“What’s wrong with it?” she called.
“Nothing,” he yelled, “everything. It’s just done for. Old. Worn out.”
Edna heard the click of the flashlight being turned off, saw the rope move against the lip of the well, like something crawling in. She peeked over the side but could see nothing. Staring into the darkness, she breathed in the good earth smell and listened to the thump-shh sound of him climbing up, a different sound from when he went down. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness and the man grew nearer, she could make out his shape coming slowly toward her, and she was overcome by an awful terror, as if everything evil in the world was about to climb up out of that pit. Slam the lid, she thought, slam it quick and lock it. There’s still time. But then Monson’s face hit the light and she saw that he was, after all, only a man.
• • •
“She’s pretty much run dry,” Monson said, as they walked up the rise back to the house. He carried the old pump. “You can try and get this fixed,” he said, “but it looks done to me.”
“But there was mud,” Edna said. “I saw it.”
Monson shrugged. “Couple days that’ll be gone, too. Trouble is, she’s not filling back up. Wells are ground-fed. She should have filled back up some by now.”
“So I’ll have to drill then,” Edna said, not quite believing him. If there was water before, why should the well run dry all of a sudden? Why now? She wondered if she shouldn’t get a second opinion.
Monson spat. “Looks like.”
They stood near the porch, staring back down at the old wellhouse.
“Look on the bright side,” he said. “At least you can get it drilled. At least you don’t have to do it by hand. With shovels.”
Edna did not, at that moment, wish to look on the bright side. She fixed her gaze on the treasonous wellhouse, its metal sides glinting with infuriating cheer in the sun. Funny—she didn’t think she’d ever noticed before today that it was metal.
“They used to be wood,” Monson said.
Edna started. She did not turn to look at him as he continued.
“Prairie fires’d come through in the summer, burn ‘em to the ground. Men would come back exhausted at night after fighting a fire all day, maybe longer.” He spat again. “It was dark. They couldn’t see.”
Edna shivered. What a terrible thing to say. Why would he say that?
“That’s why they’re metal now.”
She looked at him, standing not two feet from her, the heavy iron pump in his hand, and she thought, He could strike me down with that right now, it would take just one blow …
“Thank you for your time, Mr. Monson,” she said quickly. “What do I owe you?”
He squinted for a moment out at the horizon. Edna waited. She wasn’t really afraid, she knew that. It was the strain. She was tired.
“You gonna drill a new well?” he asked.
Now what? she thought. “I guess I have to.”
He worked his mouth, as if he were about to spit again, but he didn’t. “I can witch it for you,” he said finally, “if you want.”
Edna shook her head, was about to say, Certainly not, Mr. Monson, I don’t believe in that nonsense. Instead she stopped, considered the cost of digging more than one hole. Witching. What could it hurt?
“How much?” she asked.
Monson speculated. “Oh, let’s say fifty, for everything.”
Edna pursed her lips. That sounded pretty steep. Of course, she thought, I’m a widow. It wouldn’t surprise her if this fellow were in cahoots with Eulan Thauberg. She’d have to keep her eye on him, that was for sure.
“All right,” she said. “Go ahead.”
They turned to walk back to the house.
“Might take a while,” he said, “what with the cold.”
“What’s that got to do with it? Surely the ground’s not frozen yet.” She stopped to chop at the earth with the heel of her boot. Monson looked at her as though she were simple-minded.
“Not the ground,” he said, “currents.”
Currents were frozen? What currents? She watched suspiciously as he walked to his truck and lifted something out through the open window.
“Energy currents,” he said over his shoulder.
“Mr. Monson,” she began firmly, but then she saw that he held an old box, brown and peeling, tied shut with a fraying loop of cord. He noticed her stare.
“Tools of the trade,” he said, giving the box a pat and tucking it up under his arm.
“I hope you know,” Edna said, resuming her firm tone, “I don’t ordinarily take up with this nonsense.”
Monson shrugged. “Desperate measures,” he said. And he grinned.
So he did think she was desperate, Edna mused with a considerable degree of dissatisfaction, watching from the kitchen window as Monson paced the yard, still carrying that box tucked up under one arm. From this distance, he looked like a child, a boy, scuffing his boots through the dirt. She wondered what she’d seen threatening in him. Edna glanced at the clock over the stove. He’d been stalking around the yard for the better part of an hour. When would he get to business? She had to admit she was curious. She wondered what Mr. Crosie would think. Probably that it was a fine idea. She sighed and shook her head. That had always been the difference between the two of them. Even back before they’d married, Edna could see that Mr. Crosie was gullible, easily taken in. His naïveté had appealed to her then, in a way. But it soon became tiresome. She’d told him as much on several occasions, as recently as that past spring, just weeks before he died. Mr. Crosie had come in late again from helping Eulan seed.
“People take advantage,” she’d called out to the porch when she heard him come in. She set a plate of ham and boiled potatoes she’d been keeping warm sharply down on the table and poured a cup of coffee. “You believe any sob story going around. But you wait and see if any of them are there when you need a hand. You wait and see.”
She had peeked around the corner. Mr. Crosie was seated on the darkened stairs leading up from the porch, pulling off a boot in one long, tired motion. He had his back to her, and Edna thought for a moment that he could have been his own father, gone but five years that winter. He looked that old, that hunched, his thin shadow curled on the wall behind him. And for a moment, Edna felt inexplicably sad. She had been about to say, You’re no spring chicken, a phrase that always made Mr. Crosie cluck and flap his arms, high-stepping his lanky body in an absurd parody—an action that, against her will, always made her laugh. She’d been about to say it and then caught herself, aware all at once of the evidence of his age written on every bone, every hard curve of his body. Aware that he felt it, too. And for a moment, for the first time in years, she’d wanted to drop right down on her knees and hold him tightly, so tightly he would say, “Easy now, you’ll squeeze the life clean out of me,” just as he used to, and she would know—they’d both know—it was only a joke.
But then, as quickly as it had come, the feeling had gone. What good did all that silly mooning about do anyway? she had wondered. She spooned creamed corn on his plate, shook salt and pepper liberally over everything and sat down, waiting for him to join her. It seemed to take him a long time to remove his other boot. “You don’t give them enough credit,” he said at last, coming stiffly to the table.
“Aren’t you going to wash up?” she demanded as he pulled his chair out.
Mr. Crosie looked slowly down at his hands and forearms, grey and powdery with dust caught between the coarse hairs, looked at them as if he’d never seen them before. “Yes,” he said, turning his big palms to the light. “Yes, I guess I forgot.”
“I guess you did,” Edna said as Mr. Crosie headed for the bathroom. “You see how tired you get, all this extra work?” And then, “Who?” she called, as if just remembering. “Don’t give who enough credit?”
“Anybody,” he’d said, and closed the door behind him.
It wasn’t so long ago, but it felt like years. Mr. Crosie’d say things like that to her now and then, odd things. Things Edna felt weren’t entirely justified. She was the first to give credit. Where credit was due.
And now there was Monson, stooped down over the box that he’d set on the ground. He untied the cord and opened the lid. Edna craned her neck to see, but Monson had his back to her, blocking her view. In a moment, he rose and turned toward the house. Edna stepped away from the window.
“Mrs. Crosie,” he called shortly.
Edna thought, How rude, can’t even come to the door. She opened the window a few inches.
“I’ll try that low spot west of the barn,” he said, “and over by the shelter belt.”
Well, she thought, what are you waiting for? But she said, “Fine, fine, go right ahead.”
“Can’t make any promises,” he said.
No, of course you can’t, she thought grimly, closing the window. Now, if Mr. Crosie were here, he’d be out there at Monson’s heels, toting that box for him, asking all kinds of silly questions, fascinated by what he would think was some sort of magical gift, a gift from God. Monson himself had said currents. There was no magic in that, just science pure and simple. Or so Monson thought. Edna knew better. It wasn’t God and it wasn’t science. It wasn’t anything. She should know. She’d often thought she would have made a good scientist, if she’d had the opportunity. She had that kind of a mind. Not Mr. Crosie, though. Maybe, she thought, chuckling to herself, Mr. Crosie had sent Monson her way, just to rile her up. That would be like him, thinking he was having one over on her. Testing her. Seeing if she could be spooked with all this witching business, all this talk of ghosts. She chuckled again and poured herself a fresh cup of coffee.
Yes, indeed, she thought, watching Monson cross the yard and disappear behind the shelter belt, that’s a fine joke. That’s a good one.
When Monson had still not reappeared, by noon, Edna told herself, Enough is enough, and pulled on her rubber boots and the old jacket she used for doing chores. For all she knew, he could be having a nap back there. Or worse. Heaven only knew what he carried around in that box. And he did look like a drinker. Lord, Edna thought, that’s all I need. That was one thing about Mr. Crosie, he was never a drinker. And she was thankful for it every day of their married life. No, he was never a drinker and he never kept things from her. He’d always said, “Edna, I couldn’t keep a thing from you if I tried.” Edna always felt a certain satisfaction listening to other women complain about their husbands in that way. She would just sit back and listen and at the right moment say, “Mine, I can read him like an open book.” And she could, too. Problem was, Mr. Crosie was never really all that interesting; it was like reading the same page over and over.
This Monson, now, she thought, zipping her jacket and stepping outside, this Monson was another story. He was cut from a different cloth. Oh, he was easy enough to read in one way, that was clear. He was an opportunist. But he was also the kind you needed to keep your eye on, liable to shift at any second. Edna bent to pet the orange cat that wound itself between her ankles. Yes, she decided, he was a slippery one. Straightening, she noticed the sky had lost the wide open blue of that morning, had greyed over in one long sheet. The bland look of a snow sky. The temperature, too, had dropped. She turned up her collar and headed for the shelter belt, the orange cat darting ahead of her, tail twitching.
“Mr. Monson,” Edna called, not too loudly, as she neared the trees. Her boots cracked across dead branches. “Mr. Monson?” she repeated, poking through to the other side. But he was nowhere to be seen. The yard stretched out into the edge of the nearby stubble field. Everything had that odd flatness that came with a snow sky, like a picture. All depth sucked out.
“Hello?” she called softly. But the air settled around her as still as the landscape. She puffed out a long cloud of breath and turned south along the shelter belt. Maybe Monson had gone around back already, by the barn.
Edna had almost reached the far end of the yard when she noticed the box. She nearly missed it, really, settled as it was there in the trees, the same dull brown as the dirt and leaves, the cord coiled loosely on top of the lid. She stepped toward it across a rotting stump. “Mr. Monson?” she said again. The orange cat minced along ahead of her, sniffing at the edge of the box, then bounding away into the trees as Edna moved closer, hands stuffed into the pockets of her coat. She stopped and looked slowly up and down the shelter belt. There was no sign of Monson anywhere. Maybe I should just take this along with me, Edna thought. He might be needing it wherever he’s got to. Save him the trip back. She looked down the narrow row of trees once more, then bent forward and pushed the cord to one side. The initials A.M. had been carved roughly into the lid. It looked like a homemade job, she thought, probably did it himself. She poked the box with her boot. Really, it wouldn’t hurt to have a quick peek. It was on her property, after all, and if there was something inside she should know about, something that shouldn’t be there … Edna had not really formed any clear notion of what that something might be, only that she wouldn’t abide any ill doings on her property. And with that certainty in mind, she lifted the cord and opened the lid.
She stood a moment, breathing the cold afternoon air, the cord dangling loosely from her fingertips.
“Why,” she said finally, “it’s empty.”
She blinked her eyes a couple of times, just to make sure. Then she straightened, her lips pressed firmly together. Empty. Yes, of course it was. The man was no fool, wouldn’t leave anything lying around. The place she should have looked was his truck. And she’d had the perfect opportunity, too.
Then, just as she let the lid fall shut and was replacing the cord, Monson appeared through the trees. Before he could speak, she said, “I was just thinking I’d bring you your box.” She guessed that he thought he was pretty clever, leaving it sitting there in the open for her to find, to throw her off her guard.
She stared him straight in the face. He looked smaller in the trees, as if the very air was slowly shrinking him. He lifted his hands then, and Edna saw he held a long metal rod in each one. She sucked in her breath and stepped quickly back.
“Brazing rods,” he said, “get pretty cold on the hands. Might have to switch to willow.”
“Willow?” Edna puffed, eager to hide her momentary start at the appearance of the rods. Now that she saw them clearly, they weren’t threatening at all, rather fine and delicate, like kitchen utensils. Almost pretty, really.
“Willow’s more accurate anyway,” he said, opening the box and laying the rods gently inside, “in cold weather.”
Edna stepped forward, “You mean you haven’t found water yet?”
Monson closed the lid and tied it shut with the cord. “Might take a while. Like I said.” He leaned back on his haunches and looked up at her. Edna was reminded, briefly, of those garden gnomes Mr. Crosie had been fond of.
“Mr. Monson,” she said, “you can see for yourself this ground’s going to freeze solid any minute now.”
“What difference does that make?”
“As I’m sure you know,” she snapped, “once the ground freezes, you can’t drill.”
Monson scowled. “Who told you that?”
Edna could not remember. Had it been Eulan?
“Makes no difference,” Monson went on. “They use the same drills to dig oil and gas wells. Up north. In Alaska. Around here, ground freezes maybe six feet, that on a bad year. You can wait till January if you want.”
Edna felt the blood rush to her temples as Monson spoke. How dare he lie to her that way? Did he think she was stupid? He was a liar, that’s all. A liar and a drinker.
“You think,” she began, “you can come out here and have one over on me. Because I’m a widow. A farm widow.” Here she paused, as if the significance of this had only just sunk in. And in that second, everything changed. “If Mr. Crosie were here,” she said, “if Mr. Crosie were here …”
But she didn’t know how to finish, and for some reason that she did not understand, tears sprang hotly to her eyes. Mortified, she turned slightly away, looking upward at that grey sheet of sky to keep the tears, oh hateful, from edging down her face. Of all the ridiculous things, she thought, both angry and surprised at herself. And what would this Monson think now?
After a moment, she heard him say quietly, “I’m sorry. Alf Crosie was a good man.”
“I beg your pardon?” she said without turning around. “Did you say you knew my husband?”
“Why, sure,” he said, sounding surprised.
Of all the lowdown, disgusting things, Edna thought. To lie about this, to pretend he’d ever known Mr. Crosie.
“How?” she demanded, turning slowly to face him. “How did you know him? From where? Tell me.”
“I’ve known Alf for years,” he said, “since … I guess since that summer he took me and Eulan over to check out an old test well site, out at the Sand Hills there. That’s the first time I met him, anyways. Through Eulan.”
Edna blinked.
“Alf had a notion there might be more to it. That hole, I mean. Exactly what, he wouldn’t ever say. Geez, that was years ago.”
But Edna was no longer looking at him. She’d turned away again when she felt the tears come.
“I’m sorry,” Monson said quietly behind her. “I’ll just go hunt down some willow.” And he turned and headed back up the shelter belt, toward the house.
When he disappeared through the trees, Edna wiped her eyes and let out an enormous puff of breath. The man was a liar. A liar and a cheat. And a drinker. And Heddy Kretsch had been right after all. “That’s three,” she said, “and it won’t get the best of me.” She’d catch up to him, pay him his money and send him on his way. She imagined what Heddy’s reaction would be when she told the story. Oh, trouble comes in threes all right, Edna would say generously, but it’s the weak who let it stay. And then she would tell how she’d sent this shyster packing. Good riddance to bad rubbish, she’d say. And she wiped her eyes and congratulated herself again as she looked toward the spot in the trees where Monson had disappeared. And then, thinking of that, thinking of Monson disappearing into the trees, Edna had a terrible thought. She’d left the house unlocked. And everything, her jewellery, her wallet, the new television, oh, it was all there. How could I have been so stupid, she thought as she started to run along the shelter belt, her body heaving against its own weight. How could I have been so stupid? Already she was huffing to catch her breath in the cold. She’d never make it back to the house in time. He’d take it all, he’d take everything, her wedding ring sitting where she always left it by the sink.
Edna ran faster, rubber boots clomping loosely over rocks and twigs. She thought for a moment that she might make it after all, but just as she was nearing the break in the trees, something small and fast darted between her legs. Edna shrieked and stumbled, one boot pulling free as she twisted an ankle across a fallen branch. She hit the ground hard, harder than she thought possible, her hip catching the sharp end of a stone. She lay dazed as the orange cat bounded back toward her, stopping to sniff wetly at her ear. She pushed it away and rolled over, struggling to pull into a sitting position, but she felt a tremendous weight on her chest. And a hard, shooting pain ran from her hip to her ankle. She looked down at her feet, noticing that one of her socks had pulled off with the rubber boot. How white and foolish her foot looked sticking up that way against the dark line of trees. She began to laugh, in short, painful gasps.
Good riddance, Edna thought again as she laid her head back, still puffing to catch her breath. But this time there was no satisfaction in the phrase, no sense of justice. “Good riddance,” she said out loud, testing the words on her tongue. They were flimsy, could have been any words at all. She stared up at the sky, now the dull, hard colour of iron, and noticed the snow had started, just barely, the flakes so fine they could have been dust. So fine they could have passed over someone else unnoticed, someone who didn’t happen to be looking up. And much to her dismay, Edna felt the tears start again. She opened her eyes wide as the cold, still air settled around her. “What is it, Alf?” she whispered, snowflakes dissolving in the palms of her hands. “What is it?”