Shelter (1994) (35 page)

Lenny let herself circle the curious arrangement of stones; turning, she saw the water, then the blur of the woods with the girls moving past. As though they all only flowed through, flowed past. She thought dimly of the summer Alma was born, when Alma was just "the baby," a creature Audrey rolled outside in the buggy. Lenny's first memories of Alma are indistinct shadows and textures, yet she remembers the buggy, a huge contraption that rocked on its springs like a boat, whose spoked wheels were as big as a bicycle's. She tried to think if she'd seen the buggy recently, some piece of it, entangled with other castoff relics in the basement. The hood had folded down like an accordion in the hot evenings, when the family ate supper outside on the picnic table. Audrey would cover the boat with sheer mosquito netting before she wheeled it over to the side of the yard and knelt down in the garden to weed. Lenny and Wes were supposed to stay occupied,
give me half an hour of quiet, I've had the two of them all day, and the house like a bake oven.
Her father Lenny remembers, so intensely, as though it were just the two of them and Audrey were lost to them both, huge with her pregnancy and then numb, gaunt, giggling with fatigue, or crying while the baby cried, or yelling about some mess Lenny had made. She drank pitchers of sun tea in the long afternoons to keep her milk up while Lenny sat on the steps of the front porch in a daze, worn out, refusing to nap, watching the two-lane down in the curve for a sign of Daddy's car. He would arrive and the day seemed to begin again, even though supper was cooking, and the long, dead August heat began to lift the moment he picked Lenny up and flung the screen door open for them, striding through the house to the icebox for a cold beer, two cold beers; Lenny carried one and Wes drank the first down fast. Supper made a splattering sound in the frying pan and Lenny saw it cooking from atop his shoulders, but they were always outside by the time he finished drinking his beer, crumpled the two cans and smashed them under his work boot. Those big boots. He took his shower and never wore them later, after supper, making fun of what Audrey called the garden, a few rows of tomatoes and beans, farmer Audrey. Lenny laughed at whatever he said and tried hard to play catch, she had a little fake-leather mitt, but she was only three and finally just chased balls into the field, what Wes called the ocean, and the hills across the stream were France, starred with dogwood in the spring that flung their frothy bursts out like popcorn. But now the trees were leaved and green and Daddy ran after Lenny into the field, all the dense twilight pushing him from behind; his girl had never seen the ocean, no, it was nothing like the stream beyond the field, where they caught tadpoles in the yellow bucket and Wes was persuaded to carry the mud-colored, darting creatures all the way back to the house for Lenny to watch in the bathtub. But what was France, and why was the field an ocean? Because the wind blew and the field swung, like soup, along its rim, the way the bath water sloshed, and that was waves on a beach, and then the tadpoles were back in their pail and Wes cleaned the tub with the big sponge. Lenny was in the water and his hand was the troopship, long and broad, bigger, bigger, steaming toward her with an engine sound, a wake like a tail along the surface, all of it up and down with the waves, and an ocean swallowed ships, lots of them. Like the submarines, hard cigar shapes that sunk and spied before the troops could land. That was a beach called Omaha, like Nebraska, and that was France, and the field was like the sea because it hid things, but it moved in the pull of the wind, not the moon.
The men hid in the dark and landed in waves on the beach,
Lenny knew that line, all its words, and the picture she'd thought to go with it, countless little men sitting motionless on burgeoning water like people in a theater.

"Lenny, Lenny, oh, Lenore," Cap whispered now, gliding suddenly close, rustling her voice at Lenny's ear, draping an arm across her shoulders. Then she pulled away as though inviting Lenny to follow.

But Lenny didn't; she turned toward the water instead.

Once she'd asked Cap if her father told stories. About what? About the war, or anything. No, and who cares. But Wes had told stories, talking to Lenny, stories Alma was too young to remember, stories he hadn't said anymore by the time Lenny was eight or nine, when he was gone, when he was home. He must have told her stories, stories she might have confused. He seemed to have told her things, given her things he'd thought she was too young to remember. She saw his dark forearms, furred with golden hair, his sleeves rolled up, the watchband on his wrist turning and darkening. She caught her breath and felt the rolling shift of the ground beneath the picture. That was in the field, when they were hiding in the grass. Or Lenny hid and he came to find her, lying down so the weeds closed over them.

There really was an ocean or a field that kept whatever happened, and nothing moved from where it first touched ground in the fluid grass.

Lenny stood still and looked up, searching the sky for the jagged movements of the bats.

"There were so many," Delia said, her voice soft with wonderment or disbelief. "They're all gone."

The others stopped in place as well. But the bats had vanished, they'd disappeared. Lenny watched Cap and Alma and Delia, their faces upturned in sifting dusk like so many flowers, and she turned away, deciding not to talk. Then no one talked, they were all in the water and they were laughing quietly, secretive, and the water was warm in long spaces, bath water tinged olive. Or Lenny was in the water alone and they were on the bank, the shore; they would remember it both ways, Lenny in the water, already swimming farther out, or the four of them splashing and shoving, but quietly, so they can hear the water, hear the water take them, pull them in, or they only walk in to their ankles and fall back, moving among the stones, because it's Lenny the water really wants, Lenny who swims deeper in, and they've discovered a stage set, a pastoral, Audrey would say, the stacked rocks spaced just so where the water meets the bank, stones stacked high enough to touch with their hands as they move, dipping and turning, the water stretched before them as they trace this path and that among the stones. They move, catch what remains of the light reflected in a glimmer along their arms, holding nearly still to see that effect in the water at their feet, in water to their knees, the water watching them, certainly a presence, heavy with time and forgetting, the long, rippling water Lenny swims through, turning to look at them, showing only her white shoulders and her opalescent face, her wet hair flat to her head and floating out around her, swirled like fabric when she turns.

The girls on shore, tall from her vantage point, move among the rocks like performers, wet to their thighs, laughing, posing for one another, and Lenny swims farther out. The water was colder, deeper in, she moved through stripes of cold, kicking hard, she wanted to move to the center of Turtle Hole and look back, stay afloat where the water was deepest and plummeted down, she wanted to look back to shore and see the girls dancing, pretending to dance, pretending to forget about her, knowing she was watching. She called out to them, she called but they didn't hear, not really, and she started to swim back, as though what she had to say was important, as though she wanted them to hear. Maybe she felt some movement in the water, felt the approach of some entity she nearly recognized, maybe she wanted to draw that power closer to shore, closer to the other girls, whose danger approached from behind. She began swimming back but she couldn't have seen Buddy yet, or Carmody, steering Buddy forward like some vestigial appendage he might at any moment detach from himself and hurl away. She had stopped and turned, treading water, to locate the sound behind her, the sound of Parson's limbs cutting the surface. She must have seen Parson first, swimming hard toward her. She saw him, close enough, his face, his eyes, saw he didn't look at her but past her, toward the shore, his focused gaze completely honed on some other object. Something bad, something wrong. Lenny moved quickly then, instinctually, toward Alma, toward the shore and the stones; then she saw Buddy. She saw his eyes, saw his mouth begin to open in some warning, some plea, and a force behind him, almost a blur, long and powerful and dark, came for her with its arms outstretched.

Lenny's eyes were wide open; wet, she looked smaller, her hair tight to her head. She seemed to crouch in the water, her shoulders white and ghostly in her wet white shirt, and Buddy wanted her to disappear, didn't she know to disappear, but her eyes came at Buddy, searching inside him as Mam's fierce eyes had searched the cave. He felt her search for a way through the dark crack Dad broke in the water, the crack that reached across to find her and hold her. She didn't back away or stop moving toward shore; she moved to the side as though to edge past what filled the water and the world above the water. As though the circle of clearing around Turtle Hole and the water that went so deep were one world, far from any other. She was in the water and Dad moved past Buddy like a lunging wall. He stepped into the water and Turtle Hole did crack apart; Buddy saw it crack jagged and black across its whole surface. The light cracked too, on and off, and lightning flashed so far up in the sky there was no thunder. For a moment Turtle Hole was ht up, silver, and in that silver instant Dad was in front of Buddy's face: he saw nothing but Dad's long back and Dad's shoulders, high and rounded, and the strip of Dad's belt, and he reached up and clung on. The silver lit a dusk that was not day and flashed off; Buddy felt himself dragged into water past his knees. Dad swung round and grabbed Buddy up with one powerful hand and held him dangling just above the surface. The water broke when Buddy moved, tried to stand, he felt his legs jerk as though he ran in place, trying to make the water hold him, lift him up.

"No!" he said. "No!" He kept shouting it, grabbing at Dad, grabbing at the arm that held him.

Dad howled a sound without words. Lenny had come toward them, not away, or they had reached Lenny and found her, and Dad had Lenny by the neck.

"You got to come with me!" Buddy heard himself screaming. He twisted his body, kicking at Dad with his feet. "They're at the campfire now, you got to come with me—"

There was a roaring above the water, blowing along the top of the water and billowing up. Dad made a sound in his throat, an answer, and he threw Buddy at Lenny, like Buddy was a stone to crack her open, a rock to crash a way inside. Buddy felt Lenny stagger, trying to stay on her feet. Dad had pulled her round in the water by her hair and turned them both so they saw the tilted shore, the forms of the other girls frozen, all of it silent, like a scream too high-pitched to hear.

Then it broke open and Lenny grasped Buddy with both arms; she was pulling and tugging his body away, and he heard her yell, in a clinched, bitterly defeated scream, "Give him to me!" She had turned a little away, trying to stand straight enough to throw Buddy out from her, farther into the shallow water they all seemed to struggle toward. Buddy was turned round too, slipping deeper in, his head nearly submerged, and he looked up to see Lenny, her eyes closed and her face contorted, and Dad's face above her, behind her. Buddy felt some shift in their locked embrace and Dad half lifted Lenny, pulling both her arms behind her so she had to let Buddy go. Beyond Dad and Lenny appeared another face, dimly recognized, the dark eyes starkly fixed: he arched from behind and above them as though descended, but water sprayed round him like an aureole. He rose out of Turtle Hole and hung suspended above them: Buddy saw him for a long moment, a slow whirling when all else seemed to move in a spiral circling from him, fierce and clear. Then there was another crack and Dad pushed Buddy under.

He was under water and there were sounds, globular and far away: something fell on Dad and Dad pressed down on Buddy, fallen and scrambling. Buddy was under Dad and he couldn't move. He opened his eyes and saw Lenny's legs moving above him, slowly, in a bicycling motion, bubbles all around her like a glow that was all he could see of the air. There was a kind of music as he moved deeper into the water, deeply beyond Lenny and Dad, and he saw that it was the stranger who had pushed Dad down. The two men grappled, sinking, heavy and dumb, and Buddy felt the whole world drop with a thud, with the same rippling pulse he remembered from the cave. He was trapped in the dark water and he saw the dappled bottom of Turtle Hole, all spotted with light circles and soft with dust that stirred. He let himself drift down as the others struggled above him. Something turned in the depths, curved and pale as a shell, and he looked deeply after that object, trying to follow it with his eyes. Suddenly, as though emerged from what fell away, a white owl flew straight up at his face, wings flared in the water, talons outspread. The hooked bill opened, and the white ruff around the staring eyes became the lined, miniature features of the creature in the cave. Wavering, unmistakable, rolling with the motion of the underwater world. The little man's odd, drawn-down face looked at Buddy hard, reprovingly, and the short little hand made a lifting motion. Instantly, Buddy felt himself forcefully buoyed up as Dad and the stranger plunged into the water past him, beneath him, locked and rolling. Then Buddy was breathing, long, ragged gasps, and the water was too deep and Lenny had him by his shirt, pulling him behind her, and he felt her stumbling, knew she was walking, pulling him out, but the men had come after them; Buddy felt them just near, a tumult falling haphazardly closer.

Buddy was coughing, standing on his feet, trying to walk, and he heard Lenny yelling at him, at the other girls who were milling toward them. He couldn't really hear, his ears were so stopped with water, but he felt the muffled explosions of her words pushing him along.

They were on the shore, on the rocky dirt that bordered Turtle Hole, and the earth itself seemed to move and slide, and the stranger had hold of Dad, had dragged him out of the water and fallen beneath him, and Dad had got a rock from one of the stacked piles fixed along the water.