Oren
When Kay called dinner, Walter was sunk in his green chair as if no enticements of any kind would move him. She started to tell him again but thought better of it. She went out on the porch, called to Cristofer and Paul, and went back to the kitchen.
I had gone out to watch them chopping wood and had pulled Paul aside. ‘Were the chickens necessary?’ I asked.
‘Close your eyes if you can’t watch,’ he said. ‘But let it happen.’
‘I’m just asking,’ I said.
‘Go inside,’ he said.
So I went inside.
Now Cristofer, sweaty and grunting, came in with the axe.
Walter said, ‘Leave it outside, you fool.’
But Cristofer gripped the axe handle like it was a baseball bat and swung it through the air.
‘Goddamn it,’ Walter said.
Cristofer’s eyes lit up, he raised the axe above his head, and he bull-charged him. He swung the axe at Walter’s head. Walter hollered and ducked and the axe handle bounced off the chair back.
Paul came through the door and took the axe from Cristofer. He carried it back out to the porch and threw it across the yard.
Then Walter went after Cristofer. He cornered him by the bookshelves, seemed to rise up, and said, ‘I’ll kill you, you goddamned—’ He couldn’t decide goddamned what. Or there was no word for it, he was so mad. He said again, ‘I’ll kill you.’ He might have done it or at least broken him, and Cristofer howled like he knew what was coming. But I moved between them. Paul had said, Close your eyes. Let it happen. But I wouldn’t let this happen. I said to Walter, ‘It was an accident.’
He stared at me, like Who the hell are you? He said, ‘An accident? The boy tried to kill me.’
‘Not very hard,’ I said.
Walter said, ‘Get out of the way or—’ Again he had no word for it.
I grinned at him. Like I’d lost my mind. I said, ‘Go ahead. But you won’t touch him.’
Maybe he would have tried.
But Paul came in again. His face was red, as if he’d been choking on his own happiness. He grinned at me and asked Walter, ‘What do you think of that?’
Cristofer looked at him and Paul opened his arms. Cristofer ran across the room and Paul pulled him to his chest, whispering, ‘It’s all right, it’s OK.’ Then Paul laughed a roar of a laugh.