Tucker’s Grove (13 page)

A pounding at the door. Loud shouts.

—
Angela! I k
now you
’
re in there! Get away from those people and come back home where you belong! Now!

Terror. She clutches her hands together, kneading them. Eyes wide. Her voice a high-pitched whisper.

—
Hide me! Please!

Mrs. Litch rushes her to a small bedroom and cl
oses the door. The pounding continues.

—
ANGELA!

The door bursts open. Clinton Tucker storms in, glares at the minister and his wife. Death in his eyes.

—
I
’
ve come for my wife.

Mrs. Litch drops the milk. Tucker looks around the room quickly. Nothing. Sees t
he closed door, starts toward it, pounds on it.

—
Angela! You
’
d best come out!
Now!
Before I get angry!

No answer. Pounds again. Tries to open it. Locked, from the i
n
side. Fury. Throws himself against the door. It cracks, splinters. He breaks in.

The room is empty. The window is open. Curtains float moc
k
ingly in the breeze. The night is dark, and he can
’
t see her. He clenches and unclenches his hands for several moments until he speaks again.

—
I hope to hell the wolves got her.

Some men have good
cause to bury their boyhood memories.

Young Clinton Tucker rode with his parents in the wagon, eyes drowsy after a hectic day
—
traveling for hours to reach neighboring Bartonville, then errand after errand, and now ma
k
ing ready for the long trip back. India
n summer had come and gone, leaving the mornings covered with frost and filled with white breath. Dusk came on quick and cold, and the stars shone like ice chips.

The wooden wheels of their wagon rattled on Bartonville
’
s main street, then grew muffled as t
he horse trotted onto the dirt road toward the forest. The end of October lit the trees in flaming colors, but darkness made the forest seem thicker, like the wide-open mouth of a monster. The air hung thin and chilly upon them, ready to trace patterns of
frost on the world. Clinton could see his white breath and pretended he was smoking a cigar, as Mr. Harrison the blacksmith did.

His parents sat in a comfortable silence next to each other on the driver
’
s board. Clinton took the seat blanket and crawled ba
ck into the wagon-bed. He huddled among the packages in the corner, trying to sleep. Overhead, the ominous branches passed by in the darkening forest. The rocking wagon along with the increasing warmth of his blanket lulled him to sleep. He smelled the mu
s
ty blanket, the wood and dust of the wagon, the cool dampness of the forest. Clinton lost his sense of time.

Then he heard his father shout something. The horse made a loud, frightened noise. Clinton looked up to see glinting eyes in the forest, moving sha
pes. “
Go on! Get!”
his father yelled into the trees, waving his hand. Then he cracked the whip to keep the horse moving. “
Can
’
t figure why they don
’
t run from us.”

Clinton heard a howling, and his wide eyes focused on the lurking forms, sleek gray fur, poi
nted muzzles. He had never seen a wolf before, but he knew about them from the stories his mother told him. Normal wolves shouldn
’
t be following so close to the wagon….

“
Are they sick?”
his mother said, frightened. “
Is it the r
a
bies?”

The horse rolled his
eyes and snorted in terror, trying to strain out of his harness. “
Jeesus!”
Clinton
’
s father said, wrestling with the reins. The horse charged ahead into the gloom, away from the smell of wolves in the air.

One of the wagon
’
s wheels smashed into a boulder,
breaking the spokes. Two wolves loped beside the wagon, barely visible in the trees and the dimness. The wagon bounced violently up and down on the broken wheel. Clinton jammed his legs against the corner, trying to keep his seat. Packages jostled around
h
im. His mother made no sound but scrambled to keep her hold on the driver
’
s board. Clinton
’
s father stood up, balanced precariously, and threw all his weight into controlling the horse.

One wolf, its fur patchy with tangles of cockleburs and mud, stepped o
ut of the trees onto the road directly ahead of them.

The horse reared. The wagon crashed into a tree at the side of the path, rode partway up the trunk on its broken wheel, then hung poised for an instant before toppling back, upside-down.

Clinton
’
s mothe
r tumbled on top of his father
—
and the hard and heavy edge of the wagon crunched down on both of them.

Dragged by the weight of the wagon and held in place by the rigid shafts on either side, the horse toppled sideways. The traces snapped, the shafts splin
tered and broke through into the horse
’
s ribcage. Bright blood splashed into the murky forest.

Clinton found himself buried in packages, flour and supplies, and trapped underneath the overturned wagon
—
in sudden and total silence. He waited and shivered, af
raid to whimper, afraid to move or to make a sound in the stifling darkness.

Finally, groping with his hands, he tried to find his parents. His mother
’
s skirt and torso were with him under the wagon, but her neck and one arm remained outside. He felt her c
hest, but the rhythm of breathing had ceased.

He found his father
’
s boot, then something wet. He could see nothing. Dirt and tears clung to his face.

Clinton waited, still silent and still shivering, wrapped in the blanket, but it gave him scant comfort. H
is ears burned as he li
s
tened to the quiet noise of the leaves, the settling of dust, unable to do more than breathe and blink his eyes. He wondered if the wolves were still out there. The air under the wagon bed was thick. He smelled the perfume of the pa
ckages, the oiled wood of the wagon, leather, blood. He thought he smelled wolves, but he wasn
’
t sure.

A quiet growling sound outside made him stiffen in terror. For just a moment, his mother
’
s body jerked rhythmically as if she were alive and struggling,
then she became motionless again.

Clinton crouched, not daring to whimper out loud. Tears ran down his cheeks. His heartbeat thudded in his ears.

He heard something sniffing around the wagon, pacing just on the other side of the wooden walls. The wolves co
uld smell him. Hear his breathing. Feel his trembling. They knew he was there, alone, helpless, trapped.

Seconds, minutes, hours.

Clinton couldn
’
t move. He sat on a sharp rock, trying to i
g
nore the cramping in his arms and legs, too terrified to shift to a
more comfortable position. He heard nothing…

The darkness of his shelter leached away into a soft glow. Faint light seeped through cracks and knotholes in the wood. The Hunter
’
s Moon, first full moon after the harvest, rose like a big eye into the night,
lifting itself over the edge of the forest.

Clinton held his breath. He hadn
’
t heard the wolves for hours. A knothole near his head let in just enough air to breathe. He wanted to see, but he couldn
’
t move his head. Something in him refused, until his neck
muscles felt like snapping. Finally, with painful slowness, he craned his neck to look through the tiny hole, searching for the night sky through the crowded trees. He wanted to find the bright moon, to see light again. Holding his breath, he peered out.

Straight into the eye of a wolf.

Clinton sat frozen, transfixed, unable to move. They stared at each other. Then the wolf howled, alone in the night. Clinton felt the wolf
’
s cry steal his soul
—

It was dawn. He didn
’
t know how the time had passed: the boy
’
s mind had refused to accept the night any longer. He heard the sound of horse hooves, a shout, a single shot. Clinton could hear the new horse snorting at the smell of blood and wolves. A deep voice exclaimed in horror and disgust. Footsteps traced a pat
h
around the overturned wagon, just as the wolves had done all night long. Clinton could not whimper, could not cry for help. He couldn
’
t.

He listened for a long time as the rescuer moved about; then finally the wagon lifted. Sunlight flooded into the shado
ws. He saw the silhouette of a large bearded man staring in.

“
Well, I
’
ll be damned!”

The man propped the wagon on its side, but still Clinton r
e
fused to move from his shelter. Outside, he saw one dead wolf, shot through the heart, whose glassy eye seemed s
till to stare at him….

He remembered nothing else until days later, when his older brother Gerald began taking care of him on the farm. But Gerald Tucker moved away from town to seek his fortune out in the Black Hills, leaving Clinton barely old enough to
tend the farm by himself. And Gerald never came back.

Now, years later, both Clinton Tucker and the Tucker farm were falling into decrepitude. He walked at night, hypnotized by the past and how it had cheated him, and imagined ways that he could get back a
t his own life.

Elizabeth Billings knew she would never make it home in time. Nightfall had come before she realized it. At fourteen years old, she claimed to be her own girl, but not too old
—
according to her father
—
to be taken across his knee and have he
r buttocks livened with a switch.

Her parents had left Tucker
’
s Grove in the morning, traveling to Bartonville to visit her Uncle Henry who had been jailed for assaulting a man. They refused to let her come along, even though Henry had always been her favo
rite uncle
—
it would be a bad experience for her, they said.
Be good. Take care of yourself. We
’
ll be back around nightfall.

There was a boy, Tim Miller, whose father
’
s farm lay half an hour
’
s walk outside of town. Tim had worked hard to finish his evening
chores early, so that he could meet her behind the barn. He and Elizabeth watched the sun slip under the horizon as they enjoyed a twilight stroll down the tree-bordered farm lane. The night was warm for late September. The crops stood ready for harvestin
g
, or so said the Harvest Moon rising above the eastern horizon. They hadn
’
t had the first frost of autumn yet, and the plants still looked healthy and green.

Elizabeth ran back home in darkness lit only by the full moon between patches of thin clouds. Her
pale green dress wrapped around her legs as she ran, and weeds lashed her bare calves. She was going to get a whipping tonight.

Dew spattered Elizabeth
’
s feet as she took a desperate shortcut across Clinton Tucker
’
s back fields, through his large and weedy
garden. She saw shadowy plants, blighted potatoes, beans, a huge mound of pumpkin vines. Something warned her to stop running, to move more quietly. She became uneasy, wo
n
dering if she might have been better off just to accept her pu
n
ishment…
. She had hea
rd stories about mean and crazy Clinton Tucker.

“
D
’
you know you
’
re trespassing?”

She whirled. He stood there, outlined by the light of the Ha
r
vest Moon, tall and gaunt, dressed in old clothes and clasping a wicked-looking pitchfork whose handle had been po
lished from years of palm-sweat.

He stepped toward her. Elizabeth tried to run, but he antic
i
pated it and reached forward to grab the shoulder of her dress, knotting his clawlike fingers into the material.