CHAPTER

22

THE TEMPERATURE on Thanksgiving Day was an unseasonably warm forty degrees. It was sunny. Sixbury had gone wild in the kitchen, a turkey too large for a family of five, a small ham, dressing, potatoes, acorn squash, green beans, and an apple pie, which she had set at the window to cool. David was out by the shed, splitting wood. The sun was directly overhead and he had worked up enough of a sweat to remove his windbreaker.

Sixbury opened the window. “Some day, eh?” she called out.

David dropped the axe and stepped across the yard toward her, pulling perspiration from his forehead. “I could get used to it,” he said. “That pie looks serious.”

“Where’s Butch?”

David turned, looking about. “I guess she went into the barn.”

“Dinner’s about ready.”

“I’ll round her up.”

He walked to the barn, hopped the corral fence, stepped around back, and entered. Butch was standing by the feeding bins. He startled her and she screamed, trembled where she stood.

David knelt beside her. “It’s just me.”

She was still shaking.

“What is it?” He grabbed her shoulders and squared them to his. “Butch? What is it?” He picked her up and walked through the barn. The horses were nervous. He put down the child. “Go to the house.” When she was gone, he climbed slowly up the ladder into the loft, walked around a stack of bails. Nothing.

Later, after dinner, after squeezing in a second wedge of pie, while Sixbury was down for a nap, David and Butch were sitting at the kitchen table. On the table, a bottle of bourbon and a half-gallon carton of milk. David had poured the child’s milk into a shot glass. He had already had a couple.

“How you doing?” he asked.

“Fine.”

“You love Sixbury, don’t you?”

She nodded.

David pulled a pack of cigarettes from the breast pocket of his shirt. “Yep, me too.” He lit up and held the cigarette away, looked at it. “Kill myself,” he mumbled. “I don’t suppose you understand death. What am I saying? You’ve probably seen more than I have.”

No response.

“Death is what happened to the old refrigerator. Death is being broken.” He sipped his whiskey. “Yep.”

The child just looked at him.

“Here, you need another shot.” He refilled her glass, then his.

“Where did she go?”

David bit at the inside of his lower lip and looked at her. “She thought that you’d be better off here with us.”

Butch was silent.

“She wanted—wants what’s best for you.”

“Where is your mother?”

“Broken.” He sat up straight and stretched. “You’re pretty lucky. I mean, you could have done a lot worse than Six bury.” He knocked back the rest of his bourbon. “Me, I may leave at some point.”

“Where are you going?”

He stubbed his butt out in the ashtray. “Just away. I won’t be far off, though. I’ll never be far away.”

Butch drank her milk. “You know what you are?” she asked.

“No, what am I?”

“You’re a funny man who doesn’t want to be a liar.”

David didn’t believe his ears. Whether she was merely repeating words she’d heard somewhere or stringing words together was not important. Her words were weighted.

“I’ll be here,” he said. “I promise.”

They sat silently then until Sixbury awoke and came to collect the child for her bath. David sat in the kitchen for a few minutes, then followed the woman and child upstairs. He stood outside the bathroom door and listened to the splashing water, then opened the door a crack and watched Sixbury’s spotted hands wash the smooth tan skin of the child.

The afternoon of the following day was cooler and clouds were blowing in from the west. David walked across the yard with a load of wood for the fireplace, stopped and turned at the sound of the sheep trotting to form a bunch in the middle of the south pasture. He went on into the house and put the wood by the hearth, swept ashes from the fireplace and dumped them into a pail.

Sixbury came in from the kitchen. “Where’s Butch?”

David shrugged.

“I sent her out to tell you dinner’s ready.”

“I haven’t seen her.”

Sixbury called out. She called again. Then a third time, with an edge on her voice.

“I’ll check around outside,” said David.

He went out and walked around the house, looked out over the pastures. In the barn, things were unusually still. The horses were stepping forward and back, snorting. He called out, searched the barn, the loft, the tack room. A chill ran over his body; his hands shook.