The Best American Mystery Stories 2002

Fred Melton Counting

From Talking River Review

I toss the first shovelful of crumbling dirt into the grave. They say it’s an honor to be the first, like throwing out the first baseball of the new season.

Snow twirls and twists its way into the dark rectangle as if sucked into the earth’s gaping void. No one says a word. John Bouchard, the soul-bankrupt banker, Lucille Emerson, the widowed neighbor with fifteen hundred acres of slumbering wheat land, Orville Mansfield with his cheap toupee, and the two to three others stand with their hands clasped neatly in front, heads bowed. I’m the only family present.

I count the shovelfuls: twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty. I can’t quit. The shovel keeps digging. I keep counting. I swore I wouldn’t cry. A man should have learned not to cry by the age of twenty-four.

A couple of pats on the shoulder, several muttered “So sorry, Amp,” and I set the spade aside. I’ve lost count now. Even in the cold, sweat stings my eyes. The folding chair creaks beneath my weight as I sit. I pull the wool collar of my coat up against my neck, shove my tingling hands between my thighs, and stare directly into the pit. The silent snow swirls like pure white confetti.

He died alone.

When he was alive, my Uncle Keven stood yardstick straight, measuring just under five and half feet short. His round, flat face barely tolerated the tangle of hair wrestling across his head. He explained it away as “cowlicks gone awry, about as combable as a pack of pigs’ tails.” His blue-green eyes surveyed people, as a farmer judges distances. His thick upper body sat atop stubby, bowed legs. He was strong — stronger than any man I ever knew. He moved as if he were constantly under water. Slow. Deliberate.

He lived for baseball, but World War II killed his chances when it snatched him away from an imminent semipro career with Seattle’s newest team, the Rainiers. “Heck,” he’d say, “I was so short I could have caught behind the plate standing up.” But by the time he came back from the Philippines, he’d lost everything youth had ever loaned him. “You can lose it all,” he’d mutter, “but you’ll always have family.”

I grew up on a five-thousand-acre, third-generation wheat farm in eastern Washington, just outside of Endicott. The town boasted a population of more than seven hundred living on hills facing north across the Palouse, as if looking for a future that would never come its way.

My well-mannered mother and back-busting father raised me and my sister Sarah with the typical wheat farmers’ attitudes: trust no one but family; never depend on the weather to do anything except knock the stuffin’ out of you. My father ate, drank, and choked on that Palouse dirt. Home to him was standing knee-deep in a sea of waving, thick, green wheat. Dream wheat. Uncle Keven and I shared our own dreams. The Brooklyn Dodgers.

Uncle Keven lived three miles, as the crow flies, west of us on a wheat farm handed down to him by my grandfather. Most people found Uncle Keven stingy with conversation. I never did. We had talked baseball ever since I could catch one. “It’ll be your ticket out of Endicott, Amp,” he told me. “Maybe so,” I answered, “but the old man’ll tear up the ticket before I can ever get my hands on it.”

Sarah, on the other hand, flashed her ticket around with style and grace. Bouncing blond hair, batting eyelashes. Bobby socks. Soft words and sweet smiles. Endicott High’s Rodeo Queen and voted “Most Marry-able, Class of ’55” her senior year. She adored the title, as did mother and father. And I adored her, thinking the five years between us somehow afforded her the wisdom of kings. But even royalty suffers.

In the summer at the end of Sarah’s sophomore year a grumbling Greyhound Bus gave us Jake Fiess.

Uncle Keven and I were out tending his horses the evening Jake Fiess strolled down the gravel driveway. The horses’ ears twitched at the sound of the rocks crunching beneath his steps. Jake Fiess looked like a walking scarecrow. And he was missing an eve.

“Lookin’ for work,” he announced.

“Around here, a man introduces himself. I’m Keven Armstrong.”

“Jake.” He propped his foot on the fence.

“Got a last name?”

“Fiess.”

Purple veins sprawled across Jake’s sinewy forearms. A pack of Camels rode high on his left biceps beneath his tattered T-shirt. His Adam’s apple bobbed like a cork on the front of his willowy neck when he swallowed, and a crude mustache couldn’t hide the several missing teeth. Jake cocked his head to the side when he spoke, as if he’d heard something over his right shoulder.

“This is Amp. My nephew.”

Jake stared at me for a moment, then turned back to Uncle Keven. “Got any work?”

“Suppose so.” Uncle Keven leaned around and glanced behind Jake’s shoulder. “That all you got? Just a knapsack?”

“Suppose so.”

“You’ll find a bunk out in the barn.”

Later that evening, I sat at Uncle Keven’s kitchen table with a glass of iced tea glistening in my hands. I poured in another heaping tablespoon of sugar and watched the crystals drift in the amber color.

“You’re gonna rot out those new teeth, Amp.”

I held the glass up to my face and mentally measured the sugary mound on the bottom. “I’ll get more.”

“Not at eleven years of age, you won’t.”

“Will too.”

Uncle Keven laughed. “Hand me another hanger.”

“Why do you like to iron so much, Uncle Keven? Even all your old overalls?”

“Thinkin’ time.”

“Thinking about what?” I sprinkled more sugar across the melting ice cubes and looked over at him.

“Thinking about people, generally.” The black iron hissed, then slid the length of the ironing board like a miniature tugboat. Uncle Keven’s fingertips traced the straight edges of the denim. “I mostly think about people. Their lives. How wrinkled they are. How I wish they could just be ironed out.”

“I iron sometimes, Uncle Kev. But mostly I just iron right over all the wrinkles. Makes ’em worse.”

“You don’t say.” He chuckled. “At least it shows you cared. That’s what I like about ironing — you get credit for trying.” He pressed the iron down so hard the ironing board’s metal legs squeaked. He lifted the iron, turned toward me, smiling, and said, “But, then again, wrinkles aren’t so bad, really.”

I watched him for a few more minutes.

“Do you like girls, Uncle Kev?”

“Sure.”

“How come you never married one?”

“Planned on it.” He folded the overalls against his waist, making sure the legs were equal length, then sat down with them in his lap and fumbled with the brass buttons. “But she made other plans when I went off to war. I got the letter a month before I was shipped home.” His fingertips stopped moving. “I thought goin’ off to war would be” — he sighed — “the hardest thing a man could do.” He stood back up, put the overalls neatly against the pile of folded wool socks, and reached for a cotton shirt. “Sometimes,” he nearly whispered, “coming home is worse than anything you’ll ever do.”

I watched him fiddle with the buttoned-down collar for what seemed like minutes. Uncle Keven finally turned around. “But, maybe...” He winked. “... ironing’s worse.”

“You think this Jake’s ever been married?”

“Can’t say.”

I stepped over to the sink and turned on the hot water. I scraped at the mound of sugar with my spoon, licked the end of it, and rinsed the glass. “He’s kind of scary. That one eye and all.”

Uncle Keven’s iron hissed again. “Ain’t a one of us that’s perfect, Amp.”

“Do you ever get scared, Uncle Keven?”

Uncle Keven smiled at me. “Count, Amp. Just count anything when you’re scared. Remember?”

“Like you said you did in the war, right?”

Uncle Keven’s smile faded. “Count the number of times you breathe if nothing else.” The iron stopped moving. “At least that way you’ll know you’re still alive.”

“S’pose he can see out of it? That one eye, I mean.”

“Can’t say, Amp.”

“I’m goin’ to bed.”

“See you bright and early.”

As I turned the corner, I stopped and said, “Can I sleep in your room tonight? Just tonight?”

Uncle Keven smiled. “Go ahead.”

I didn’t see a lot of Jake those first two weeks. I stuck to the side of Uncle Keven like a newborn foal to its mother. Nearly every morning Uncle Keven would let me make coffee while he fried up crackling bacon and the sun still slept. I’d beg for his homemade biscuits — tell him I’d do the dishes if he’d make them. “You’ll do them anyways,” he answered, shaking his head. “That’s our agreement for you staying here this summer. Remember? But first, go out there and fire up that old truck.” I bolted out the door, hearing him shout, “Hustle makes muscle.”

I sat in the idling flatbed Ford and pretended I was the sole owner of Uncle Keven’s farm. The sun’s rays gilded the three grain silos sitting up on the hill, just above the barn. They stood like monstrous metal paladins guarding the house. Each held more than 500,000 bushels when full, and rose stories high. Horizontal augers rested across the bottoms of the silos, waiting to corkscrew the tons of wheat into empty trucks come fall. Uncle Keven told me that his neighbor to the south, Forrest T. Manly, once had a distant cousin who accidentally fell into a half-empty silo and was buried there for over two years beneath the wheat before anybody suspected what had happened to him. “If the auger hadn’t spit out that flattened boot, he’d have never been found,” Uncle Keven told me.

He called his three silos “The Holy Trinity.” Said they were the Father, the Son, and the Holy Mother of God watching over him. Over us. Years later, he’d tell me, “Don’t ever empty the Holy Mother. She keeps us out of the jailhouse.”

After the last chipped coffee cup was set upside down in the drainer, we’d drive the miles of dusty roads cutting past the fields. Uncle Keven would often stop and point out the whitetail deer. They always turned their proud heads our way, their ears flickering, their tails at attention, for one last look before trotting over the horizon. We’d listen to the radio man’s scratchy voice read the latest weather forecast as we bounced along in the Ford. Most days Uncle Keven would let me ride in the back as long as I promised two things: to hold on like my life depended on it and to never tell my mother. I’d close my eyes and fill my nostrils with the sweet summer air as we topped the hill coming home. This was how I wanted to live my life forever, with my Uncle Keven.

One cool evening after a light summer rain, when the damp wheat smelled of wet rope and the scent hovered like an invisible mist, Jake found me feeding the chickens out in the corrals. I sat on the top rail, perched above the busy feathered heads, and scattered the seed like rice at a wedding, then watched the pointy beaks bobbing and pecking, beady eyes darting. I had a couple of favorites I saved bread for while the scrawnier chickens scratched furiously at the soft dirt for their meal.

“What the hell kind of name is ‘Amp,’ anyways?”

“Huh?” I nearly dropped the bread. Jake came and stood beside me, his head near my waist. “Uh... they’re my initials,” I said.

“Hmm. Got names for any of them banties?”

“Huh?”

“Names. Chickens like names.”

“Uh-uh,” I said. “Not these. They’re way too dumb.”

“Don’t kid yourself.” Jake reached for the top board and climbed up beside me. “They know how the world works. ’Specially the banties.”

“The little ones?” I tossed a balled up piece of bread at one. Several of the other chickens raced toward it but the banty charged them and they scattered like marbles dropped on a tile floor. Jake laughed.

“See that? That’s what I’m talking about.” Jake elbowed me. “Look at all the others. How they cower to that little banty. Know why?” Jake waited for my answer, but I didn’t offer one. “ ’Cause he just thinks he’s tough. Look at him, chest all punched out like a bullfrog on a hot night.”

I did have a name for the one bird Jake admired. But, I didn’t say so.

“People’s the same way.” Jake spat between his knees, a mean spit, not the kind men squirt between puckered lips when they’re just chatting an afternoon away. “My old man was a banty rooster. Cock of the walk.”

I shifted my weight, slid an inch away from Jake, pretending to scratch an itch on my side. Jake kept his eye on the chickens.

“ ‘Only room enough for one rooster in this barn,’ that old shit told me.” Jake spat again. “That was the last thing he said to me as I was packing up.”

“How long ago was that?” I asked, as I flipped more seed into the corral.

“Too long to remember, boy.”

Jake got quiet. His hands gripped the rail as he leaned forward and stared at the scrambling chickens. “See how fast that one is?” He jutted his pointy chin at the one Uncle Keven and I had secretly named Jake Jr. “You gotta be fast in this world, boy. Just like that banty. Walk tough. Look ’em in the eye. Keep movin’. Always keep moving.” Jake spat at the chickens. “They can’t hurt you as long as you’re moving.” He shook his head.

The chickens continued their squabbling. Jake Jr., however, stood stock still, broadside to Jake and me. His yellow beak sat half open and his black, glassy eye blinked calmly. Watching him made me think of Jake — as if the both of them had only one good eye.

“See the spurs on him?” Jake asked.

I looked at the scaly heels on the rooster. “Yeah.”

“Them’s equalizers. Know what an equalizer is, boy?”

“No.”

“Something to even things out.” He leaned back and reached into his pants pocket. Out came what looked like a polished black handle with a raised silver button near the end. I must have frowned because Jake chuckled and said, “Never seen one, have you?”

I just shook my head.

“Here. Get a closer look for yourself.” His hand floated up to my face and his thumb slid down toward the button.

FLICK!

I jerked back as a flash of silver exploded out the side of the handle. It was like snapping fingers — the thumb stopping ahead of the sound — it was so fast. It took me a second to realize what I’d just seen.

“Wow!”

“Wow’s right. With this,” Jake said, chuckling, “I can be the banty rooster of any goddamned barn I want.”

My eyes stayed fixed on the shining blade. My tingling fingers drifted toward the knife.

“Don’t even think about it, boy,” Jake said. “It’ll cut your gizzard out ’fore you can yell ‘Daddy!’.” He folded the knife and slipped it back into his pants pocket. Jake spat again, this time with less meanness.

“Who’s doing all the yellin’ at night?”

“Huh?” I was still thinking about the switchblade, what it’d take to get my hands on one. “Oh,” I said as I looked up at the house and shifted my weight. “Uncle Keven... he has real bad dreams some nights. Says it’s the war.”

“Hmm. Hates them Japs, I bet.”

“He... he doesn’t talk to me about it. Says he can’t.”

“Well, what the hell do you two talk about all day? I seen you out there on the front porch. Him whittling away. You smilin’ like a kid on Christmas morning.”

“Baseball. Uncle Keven was good.” I could feel the excitement building in me. It always started when I talked baseball. “Real good.”

“Could swing the stick, huh?”

“Boy, could he. And catch, too.”

“Shit,” Jake said as he hopped down from the fence. The chickens scattered, wings flapping, throats clucking at one another. Jake turned around, leaned against the fence with his arms crossed, and stared at the house. He worked up a hard spit, the kind that puffed his cheeks out and growled as it came up. He coughed it out, then kicked at it with his boot. “Baseball,” he said as he walked off, “is for sissies.”

June sprinted by us as if we were standing still. During the hot days, I’d walk the fields pulling rye, getting rid of it to avoid dockage come harvest. On other days, my job was to clean out the trucks, check the oil, the radiators, and get them ready for the beginning of harvest in mid-July. When Uncle Keven wasn’t looking, I’d climb the red International Harvester combine, grab the huge black steering wheel, and pretend I was driving. Nearly every morning I begged him to let me start up the green John Deere just to hear it. I thought the smell of gasoline would forever be my cologne.

Jake helped Uncle Keven replace sickle blades. From there, they’d move to the discs, always thinking ahead, even though some years Uncle Keven didn’t disc the fields because the soil was already turning into brown talcum powder. Harvesting Uncle Keven’s four thousand acres would take the last half of July and nearly all of August. Jake did nothing but complain about how hot and dry the Pa-louse was. I tried to stay away from him as much as possible. I even looked forward to the hotter days of late August, when Uncle Keven would be sending me out into the fallow fields with nothing but a hoe and a canteen to pull up the thistle and the tumbleweeds. Jake always said he had some other place to be. Somewhere else more important.

My father tended to his own crew, his own five thousand acres of rolling, undulating dream wheat. Mother didn’t see him from before dawn to after dusk, so she visited with Uncle Keven and me every other day around lunchtime. She’d pile out of the Pontiac with crunchy fried chicken, cold mashed potatoes with a slab of butter punched into the center, and coleslaw. She and her brother mostly talked about the weather — and me.

“As long as the boy’s eating,” she said as she nodded toward me.

“He is, Katie,” Uncle Keven answered. “Just look at him.”

“I just wish you’d get yourself a phone, Keven,” she said as she started the car.

“Haven’t the need for one, Katie. I got Amp.”

Sarah, I saw little of that summer. She’d come by on occasion — mostly in the evenings on her way into town — with mother’s car. “Two more years, Uncle Keven,” she’d remind him. “Just two more and I’m out of here.”

That one Friday, that one nearly all of Endicott would remember as being the hottest Friday they could ever remember, Sarah drove down the gravel driveway to find Uncle Keven listening to the radio on the front porch. He was bent over, whittling away at time and a crooked pine bough, shaking his head at the Yankees’ latest home run. I was trotting his roan mare between the house and the corrals when Jake came out of the barn all duded up. Payday made him walk taller than he really was. A slicked up banty rooster.

Sarah pulled to a stop when Jake walked in front of the car. He moved to the driver’s side, opened the door, and offered her a hand. Sarah didn’t get out. I trotted over.

“Hey, Sis,” I said. “Whatcha doin’?”

“Looks to be going to town,” Jake answered. “Nice skirt and fancy shoes.” He nodded as if in agreement with himself. I slid down off the mare.

“That I am, Jake, thank you.” Sarah reached up and adjusted the bright yellow bow behind her head. “Came by to see if you needed anything.”

“That I do,” Jake said.

“I was meaning Uncle Keven and Amp,” she said.

“Well, it is Friday night. And it is a long walk into town for a man my age.”

“I think we’re okay, Sis. Uncle Keven and I don’t need anything.” I moved behind Jake and looked into the car. Sarah was gorgeous. Hair pulled back in a ponytail. Ironed beige blouse and saddle shoes. Pleated white skirt. Even bright red lipstick. She looked like a Grace Kelly sitting in my mother’s car.

“Come on, princess. Step down from your carriage.” Jake made a wide sweeping motion, curtsied, and turned his good eye on my sister.

“Thank you, no, Jake.” Sarah’s hands gripped the steering wheel. She barely turned her head toward us. “But, I do have to go. I have someone waiting for me.”

“Well, let’s go then,” Jake said as he raced around to the other side of the car. I glanced up at the porch. Uncle Keven was gone. The radio sports announcer’s voice hooted and howled. I turned back to my sister.

“I think it’s okay, Sis.” I shrugged my shoulders, leaned over, looked past my sister, and saw Jake reaching for the door handle. Before Sarah could say anything, Jake had the door open. “Uncle Keven trusts him,” I said.

“Sure he does,” Jake said, drawing out the first word as he sat down. “He hired me, didn’t he?” He slammed the door. “Besides, Sarah. It’s only a ten-minute drive into town. Surely you can spare that much of your precious time.”

Two months later, I found Jake sitting on the bumper of the Ford, trimming his fingernails with his knife — the equalizer.

“Hey,” I muttered. Jake didn’t raise his head. “Can you take me and my stuff over to my parents’ house a little later?” The rehearsed words spilled out of my mouth.

“Why don’t you have your cute little uncle drive you over in the morning?” He chewed on his left index finger, then spat at the ground.

“Well, he’s gone. Uncle Keven’s gone up to Spokane with my parents. Remember?”

“And you?” Jake’s head swiveled toward me. I looked into that cloudy gray eye, the one that rarely blinked.

“Well, Sarah wanted me to come to the house and stay with her. She gets scared, you know. You know how girls are.” I watched Jake nibble on his ring finger.

“I thought she’d gone into town for a couple of days. Heard she wasn’t feelin’ so good.” Jake drew those last words into an accusation. A smirk peeked from the corner of his mouth as he lifted his chin and glared at me.

How, I thought, could he talk like that after what he did to my sister? My eyes felt like they were on fire. I looked away.

I shuffled my feet and stuffed my hands in my pockets. “Well, that’s why she stayed home and Uncle Keven and everybody went up to Aunt Roberta’s,” I lied, “to see about Sarah staying with her for a while.” My mouth was as dry as sawdust.

“You know, boy, I haven’t seen you talk this much in a week’s time. Somethin’ going on here you want to tell me about?” He folded the equalizer and stood up. “ ’Sides, you can drive. Why don’t you drive your little ol’ ass on out there?”

I felt caught. Cornered. My stomach twisted itself into a knot.

“I said,” Jake growled, “why—”

“Uh, because... because—”

“Oh, hells-bells. I’ll do it, boy. Let’s go right now.”

“Right now? You sure?”

“Shut up, boy.” Jake’s mouth warped itself into half-smile, half-grimace. “You ain’t afraid to go with me, are you?”

“No, sir, it’s just that...” The knot twisted on itself. Would Uncle Keven be ready?

“What? It’s just what, little boy?” Jake leaned over and put both hands on his knees.

“Nothin’.”

“Damned straight, nothin’.” He stood back up and puffed his chest out. “’Sides,” he added, “I like visiting with your sister.” He winked at me with his good eye. “Now go on and get your stuff.”

The Ford screeched up the driveway toward the three silos, The Holy Trinity. I said a prayer to the Holy Mother of God as Jake drove past.

Jake turned onto Highway 16 and the blacktop began snaking its way past more grain silos lining the six miles of winding road toward home. I loved to count the silos every time we drove the highway between home and Uncle Keven’s. There were sixteen total, the same number as the state highway’s.

I counted the first five silos before Jake said a word to me.

“Why you acting so strange, boy? One minute you’re babblin’ like a schoolgirl. Next minute you’re all clammed up.” Jake had to turn his head all the way around in order to see me with his good eye. “You don’t think I like little boys, do you? Is that what’s bothering you?” He turned his head back toward the highway. “Shit, boy, I like girls. I’m not like that uncle of yours, Uncle Keven.” Jake cooed my uncle’s name, then tilted his head back and kissed the air in front of him. “No sirree bob, I ain’t nothin’ like that little queer.”

I kept counting the silos, hoping that concentrating on them would keep my head clear, focused.

Farther down the highway, Jake leaned into the door, cocking his head ever so slightly, like a man listening to his girlfriend whispering secrets over his shoulder. His cigarette dangled from his bottom lip and he draped his right arm across the steering wheel.

“Turn here,” I blurted out at the sixteenth silo. My hands shot up and cupped my mouth as if I’d just burped at the dinner table.

Jake’s right hand slapped my thigh. “Don’t you think I know that, boy? I know where your sister lives,” he said with a laugh as the Ford’s wheels left the pavement and started up the gravel road.

We topped the last hill and coasted down the driveway to the front of my parents’ house. Jake cut the engine before the truck came to a stop.

Bill and Will, our two Labs, didn’t sprint out to greet the truck as they usually did. I heard them barking from inside the barn off to the right of the house.

“Why are them mutts put up?” Jake asked.

I kept staring at the house, wondering if Uncle Keven had heard the truck.

Jake’s hand slapped my shoulder. “Hey,” he snorted. “I asked you a question.”

I pulled my hands out from under my bottom — I’d been sitting on them trying to warm them up. “Uh... uh... sometimes Sarah just puts them up. I don’t know why.” I kept searching the windows of the house, looking for a clue of Uncle Keven’s presence.

“Hold on, boy.” Jake snatched at my shirtsleeve as I leaned into the door to push it open. “I got us an idea.”

I froze. I could feel my chin start to jiggle.

“I got us a proposition, boy.” My shirtsleeve fell free. I heard Jake’s Zippo lighter click open. I pulled my stare from the floorboard and watched him suck on another cigarette, his head slightly turned to the right, that gray eye peering at nothing. His lips pinched the cigarette and the flame flickered. The Zippo clinked shut and his brown hands moved away from his face. “Why don’t you hustle on over there to that barn, saddle up one of them ol’ swaybacks your old man calls a horse, and take yourself and them dogs out for a evenin’ ride?” He took another drag on the cigarette. “A real... long... ride. That away,” he blew a cloud of smoke toward the roof of the truck, “I can help your sister Sarah around the house.”

My legs felt like icicles. I thought they’d snap if I tried to stand on them.

“Damn, boy. You’re shakin’ like a dog shittin’ a peach seed.” He snickered, slapped me on the arm again and said, “You ain’t afraid of the dark, are you? Now, go on, boy.” He turned and glared at me with his one good eye. “I’m tellin’ you, you don’t want to be around here while I visit with your sister.”

Tears welled up in my eyes. The dashboard, the windshield, the house — everything — went blurry. I blinked and blinked but I did not make a sound. I refused to make a sound.

I bolted through the open door and sprinted toward the barn.

“That’s right, gingerbread boy!” Jake shouted at me. “Run, run as fast as you can.”

I collapsed into a ball when I reached the side of the barn. I squeezed my fists and pressed them into my cheeks. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t breathe. My mind swirled and spun and coiled back in on itself. Don’t you dare cry, I thought. Don V you dare cry. I crawled my way back onto my feet and slid along the barn until I made it to the corner. I leaned my head back against the wall, drew in a deep breath, and then eased my nose around to see Jake stop on the front porch. He reached for the doorknob. Will and Bill howled furiously.

Jake twisted the knob, calling, “S-a-r-a-h.” He kicked the door open. The dogs fell silent. I held my breath. Just as Jake stepped through the doorway, it hit.

The baseball bat struck mid-thigh. I heard the big bone snap. Jake squealed. He hunched over, frantically groping at the bent leg. The bat fell again, this time across his back.

“He’s got a knife, Uncle Keven!” I shouted, racing toward the house. “A knife!”

By the time I jumped onto the porch, Jake lay face-down on the doorstep. Uncle Keven didn’t take his eyes off him. He lifted Jake’s right shoulder with the toe of his boot and rolled Jake onto his back, like flipping over a rusted sheet of tin. Jake’s hands rose and fluttered in front of his face. They moved back and forth as if trying to shoo invisible demons.

Uncle Keven stood above Jake’s head. He watched the hands tremble, stared at the broken, bent leg, then frowned at Jake’s hands.

“Hold ’em down, Amp,” Uncle Keven said, still not looking at me. “You have to hold his hands down.”

“He’s... he’s got a—”

“I don’t want them touching my face.” The icy words just fell from my uncle’s mouth, like they weren’t his own.

I looked down at Jake. His head was tilted back as if he were trying to see inside the house, past Uncle Keven, but his eyes were pinched shut. His mouth opened and closed like a suffocating fish on land, sucking at the air. But the mouth made no sounds. His coarse Adam’s apple bobbed beneath the stretched skin.

Uncle Keven stepped to the side of Jake. He propped the baseball bat against the door, knelt alongside the trembling hands, then grabbed the left wrist and slammed it to the floor. Jake’s right hand still fluttered, as if unaware of what the other was doing.

“There can’t be any blood.”

“Wh... what?”

“Here. Step right here.” I placed my boot heel on Jake’s left wrist. It felt rubbery. I reached and held the doorjamb tight with both hands.

“Now, this one.” Uncle Keven moved my other foot into place.

I obeyed, trapping Jake’s right wrist under my other boot. Jake started to moan. I kept looking forward, down the hall, into the kitchen. My eyes searched my own home as if I’d never seen it before. I stared at the fireplace. The pink plastic flowers decorating the mantel. The white candles standing like frozen fingers. I counted them, over and over, and then started again. I saw the wood-framed photos of Sarah. Of me. My mother. Of Uncle Keven in his Marine uniform.

“There can’t be,” Uncle Keven whispered, “any blood.”

I couldn’t speak. I stood in the doorway like some cocky cowboy with his legs spread wide, towering over two grown men. My feet burned. My uncle moved silently, as if under water.

I glanced down just as Uncle Keven lay the wooden baseball bat across Jake’s throat. He shifted his weight on his knees and slid both hands down to the ends of the bat. He looked like a hunched-over baker with a huge, misshapen rolling pin getting ready to knead dough.

I closed my eyes, tilted my head back, and squeezed the doorjamb with all my might, trying to hold on to a world that couldn’t stop spinning. I kept counting.

Jake’s mouth made no noise.

The seconds twisted into years as my Uncle Keven bore down. He finally stopped. But the crackling, the crunching, never have.

The Palouse snow slants across Highway 16, tossing shadows into an already gray January afternoon. My windshield wipers cake up with ice and screech across the glass. I pull off the highway, head up the gravel driveway, and stop at the top of the hill. There they are. The Holy Trinity sitting one, two, three. Pointed heads. Wide silver bellies.

I’m cold. Colder than I can ever remember being.

Uncle Keven’s house is hollow. Empty. The bantam chickens are long gone.

I sit in the car with the engine idling. The wipers rest. I count the years since I saw Jake walk down this road. Thirteen. Still counting, I think, after all these years. My hands curl up into fists.

Sarah and my parents never visited this house, the one over the rise, sitting beneath the Holy Trinity. None of them could ever forgive Uncle Keven for disappearing off the front porch that evening. Sarah would turn her head at the sight of her uncle, my uncle. She’d call him “him.” “Are you going over to visit ‘him,’ again?” she’d ask me. “I saw ‘him’ in town today.” But, she never heard “him” asking her teachers how she was doing in school, if her grades were good, if she needed anything. She never saw “him” sneak out at her wedding after she said “I do” to some pig farmer’s fat son who muttered the same words but didn’t mean them. But I saw “him.”

After that summer, Uncle Keven and I rarely discussed my “ticket” out of Endicott — baseball. I lost every ounce of interest I’d ever had in baseball. I helped him seed his winter wheat each fall but never stayed the night with him again. That year, Mother moved my bedroom downstairs, complaining, “You moan too much at night.”

Uncle Keven never uttered a word about what took place that evening after Jake’s fingers-quit twitching beneath my boot heels. “Get on back to Sarah, Amp,” is all he said. His voice never sounded the same to me after that.

I got my boyhood wish. Uncle Keven willed me the farm.

And I’ve never emptied the Holy Mother of God — and I never will.