Winter Loon(23)
“Your things? So your daddy and Gip packed up all your crap and one or the other of them threw that knife into the box with your clothes. Neither one of those two cocksuckers thought to keep it for themselves? They give it to you without a word. That your story now?”
I sheathed the knife and put it in my back pocket, hoping I could lay claim to it just like that. I kicked the deformed wood into the street. “I’ll go get you those matches.”
“Yeah, you do that.”
I TURNED SIXTEEN YEARS OLD the day Bull Hightower was struck by lightning. We were in a rush to make hay ahead of forecast rain, which would ruin the crop if we didn’t get it in. The air was green and sweet with the scent of manure and cut alfalfa. Drew drove the baler along the windrows, and Bull the truck that pulled the hay skid. Lester and I took turns, one bucking bales from the field onto the hay wagon while the other stacked.
The sky turned plum and thunder rumbled in the distance as we got the last of it into the barn. While Lester and I pitched the bales off the wagon, Bull and Drew ran out to help his uncle bring the last few heifers in from the pasture. We could hear their shouts and whistles and claps, the yipping of Drew’s dog, Tadpole, over the mounting thunder. The crack almost knocked me off my feet. Lester and I cursed in unison, then raced from the barn. Drew and his uncle were running back to the pasture while a group of heifers crowded their heads together in the barnyard, their chestnut eyes rolling in the whites like biddies gossiping at a fence. Bull was staggering in the field, taking a step, dropping to a knee, trying to get up again. A cow was down next to him.
“Get those cows in. I’ll bring Bull’s truck around,” Lester yelled. I smacked the heifers to herd them into the barn, then ran to open the pasture gate. Lester pulled the two-toned Ford around the side of the barn. I jumped in the back, banging my head against the cab window. I righted myself only to get dropped again when Lester slid to a stop. Drew and his uncle lifted Bull up by the armpits. I hurtled out the back and opened the cab door. The smell of smoked meat hung in the air as Drew and his uncle slid Bull across the bench seat. He slumped next to Lester, who kept saying it was going to be okay as if he needed to reassure the both of them. Drew’s uncle grabbed a dirty horse blanket from behind the seat and wrapped it around Bull. I got a closer look at the electrocuted cow, smoldering next to a burned patch of grass. A whole side of it was blackened and singed down to open flesh.
“You boys get him to the hospital. Drew, get in there next to him and keep him warm. He’s in shock. I’ll call ahead to let them know you’re coming, and I’ll call Mona and Troy. Lester, put the hammer down, you hear? Ballot, you jump in the back and go with them. I’ll take care of the cows and meet you down there.”
I vaulted into the back of the truck and Lester took off, black mud spitting behind and all around us. The rain turned to hail by the time we hit pavement. It was five miles into town and the hailstones got bigger with each mile. I got as flat as I could against the cab and put my arms over my head. The hail felt like frozen buckshot against my bare arms, and I figured I was bound to watch another person die.
I was soaked and battered by the time Lester got to the hospital. I ran in before the truck even came to a stop, yelling for help the whole way. Orderlies were ready and wheeled a gurney up to the truck and lifted Bull onto it. He blinked his eyes like the light was too bright. His plaid shirt had fallen open, and welts like cigarette burns pocked his chest where the superheated metal snaps had seared his flesh. His jeans were burned along the seam and the toe of one of his boots was blown clean through. I half expected his black hair to be frazzled and wiry, but it lay flat against the white of the hospital sheet. They whisked him into the hospital, leaving me, Lester, and Drew standing in the steady rain.
Drew chewed the calloused skin on his thumb, spitting it onto the ground. I hung my head and shoved my hands into my pockets. “The fuck,” Lester said. He covered his mouth, like he was keeping the disbelief in. He took a faded blue bandana out of his back pocket, rolled it, and tied it around his forehead. The three of us stood for a second longer, staring at the door, wondering whether Bull would come back out of the hospital alive. “Fuck,” Lester said again, then turned toward the truck. “I’ll park and see you guys in there.”
We’d settled into seats in the waiting room when Drew’s uncle pushed through the door. He was soaking wet and covered in mud and manure. Troy Hightower, Bull’s father, was right behind him, followed by a woman wearing jeans and a man’s shirt, a dark braid dropped in a single rope down her back. I assumed she was Bull’s mother. With them was a girl I’d never seen before.
“Who’s the girl?” I whispered to Drew.
“Beats me.”
Lester stood to meet them and we followed, heads down, hands in our pockets. Troy was a big man with square shoulders, the kind of man they put in cigarette commercials. He ran the machine shop at the high school and wore a Western shirt with pearl snaps, cowboy boots, and jeans every day. His silver hair was pulled back in a ponytail that looked coarse and bristled like a paintbrush. The way he went to Lester—both hands up, then on Lester’s chest, then his shoulders, a single beat in each spot, then a palm on Lester’s face—said these two men knew each other, that there would be no apologies or blame, that there wouldn’t be a scene like there was that previous winter when it was me in the hospital bed. Ruby scoffed at men with long hair, calling them savages or sissies depending on whether they were Indian or not. I wondered what she would make of Troy Hightower and the silent way he and Lester acknowledged the bad place Bull was in.