He hustles to a cupboard and grabs up a rough brown sack and commences to rummaging around the house, filling the sack with whatall I ain’t seen, then ushers us outside on the porch. He hands me the sack and says “you’re true and true, and make no mistake. You all are welcome any time around these parts. Only make sure to yell real loud or sing something when you get close, otherwise I just might take a shot at you.”
He looks down at his mangled finger, “although now I gotta learn how to hold the gun now so my finger can pull the trigger the other way, haw haw!” He holds out his hand to me and I take it like how Cole showed us after the tussle, up the forearm to check for knives. He gives a solemn nod and shakes Jacob’s hand the same way and he says “you all know the way back to your house?” Jacob says no sir and Uncle says to describe it since he knows all the houses around here. Scouted them out the second he came up to live in these woods, quiet like in the night so he could get the lay of the land.
We describe it and he knows it and points in a direction and says to keep on thataway and we’ll hit our house sure enough. He turned to head back on inside but I ask “what all you going to do with Joe and Sam? I heard tell the nights out here can be real cold and Joe and Sam, they’s liars but they ain’t need to get too kilt for that.” Uncle turns and says that ain’t none of our business. He makes the rules on his land and they broke pretty much all of them and this here was the punishment.
Uncle says “I held up my part of the bargain and showed you hospitality, but now you’re treading on thin ice, boy. No one knows you’re out here and I can put you and your brother inside that cage just as easy as them if that’s what you want.” Jacob is tugging at my sleeve now and he’s been ready to go home pretty much since we even left the house this morning, but I remember Joe and Sam ain’t all bad and Joe give me that wood what looked like a gun so I could bang away at invisible enemies and Sam hit that tree with his stick and gave us all a flower parade on our heads and it was beautiful and bright and I forgot where I was for a time and that means something.
“No sir” I say and Uncle takes a step close to me and says “what no sir? No sir you don’t want to go in the cage, or no sir you’re not agreeing with my rules, or no sir you didn’t blow my finger off? Which is it?” I shift from foot to foot, nervous and not knowing what’s about to come out of my mouth. “That Joe and Sam, they’s not that bad and they ain’t need to go in no cage overnight.”
Uncle is changing now and says none of this is my fukkin’ business, and he’s now thinking about tearing off his finger again and sticking it up my fukkin’ ass where it belongs. Cole comes out of the house since he sensed a change and Uncle says what the fuck you want you fuckin’ lazy piece of shit? And Cole says he don’t want nothin’, just coming out to say goodbye to us and all and Uncle says “what the fuck you think about this happy horseshit?” He’s pacing all around and gesturing wildly. “These boys take what I have to give em’, and now they’re trying to tell me my own business on my own fukkin’ property that I’m able to do whatever I want on since this is my land!
No one tells me what to do on my own land, and those boys are staying right there in that cage until I let them the fuck out, and when I do let them out, they’re getting whipped, and no food, and all the worst chores! I’ll make them climb up on the roof with no ladder and throw the pine needles off one by one with a pair of tweezers! I’ll make them chop down every tree in this area and make em’ stand the trees right back up if I want to!”
Uncle’s fists are bunched and his knuckles is scarred white half moons and his sewed-on finger is poking out useless as a dead twig. Cole touches Uncle’s shoulder and Uncle turns on him “get your fukkin’ hands off me!” and shoves Cole hard so he hits the side of the house and sprawls on the porch. Uncle turns on us and his voice is dead.
“Now I changed my mind. Drop that fukkin’ sack and get off my property before I bury you deep.” We is speechless and I drop the sack and some things clank inside and my mouth waters on its own and I’m thinking about the cans of food what may be inside. Cole is still laying on the porch for he knows better than to get back up right away but he says “Catherine.”
Uncle says “don’t you fukkin’ say that name to me, Cole you little shit. Katy ain’t got nothin’ to do with this.” Cole says “you ain’t do this to Katy and Katy read us books and would tell us made up stories and she liked popcorn.”
“Catherine ain’t... Katy ain’t...”
Uncle makes a choking sound but turns it to a holler and he balls up his fist and punches the side of the house. Cole stands up and says to Uncle who’s covered his face with his hands “Katy would let them boys out of the cage and would give these here boys something what to bring home so they ain’t have to eat rotten animals from a fire for supper.”
Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.
Jacob and me is standing around and we’re all waiting for Uncle to go get his gun and drop us dead like deer and bury us in the mud where no one will find us, but he wipes his eyes instead and stands there with his hands at his sides, looking red eyed at Cole.
He takes deep breaths and Cole touches Uncle’s arm again and leaves it there and Uncle lets him this time. “alright” Uncle says “alright” and nods before heading into the house and shuts the door quietly behind him. I turn to run for I’m sure he’s going to come out with that rifle now, upside down finger or no but Cole says “Y’all can get that sack and head on home. Uncle will let them boys out of that cage soon enough.”
I’m still fearful but I pick up the sack and before Jacob and me hustle on out of there I have to know why Uncle acted like he done just now and I ask who Katy is and Cole says “Katy was Uncle’s little girl and therefore my cousin. He loved on her like nobody else. He would give her rides on his back and gallop through the woods sometimes and her eyes sure shined bright. He fussed over her and gived her anything she wanted but she weren’t no spoiled brat and was as kind to all of us as Uncle was to her. She got sick a while back and it ain’t go away and was puking up green even though she ain’t eat nothing green. Uncle ain’t want to take her to the hospital on account of how she ain’t have no birth records for she was born right here in this house, and Uncle was afraid they would take her from him and he couldn’t stand the thought.
Uncle done read in one of his books that she may have something bad going on inside her what needed taking out and he tried by himself once Katy got so she couldn’t even talk no more with the pain and only moaned in the corner while Uncle paced and begged God to leave her be.
He done wrong in the war but she never done no wrong.
We begged him not to but he done it anyway since he couldn’t give her up. Catherine died with Uncle’s red hands inside her and he buried her over there under that tree after sitting next to her body on the kitchen table for three days, and he ain’t never got over that I guess.” Cole cracks his knuckles and looks around. “You all get on out now and maybe we’ll see you again.”
Along the way home we took turns carrying the sack over our shoulders and we stopped every once in a while and discussed going through it for we were terrible curious about what Uncle put inside but we stood strong since we wanted Momma to share the surprise.
I’m carrying the sack now and we get close enough that we can start to recognize where we was and we see the house which is good, since it’s getting dusky out and the sack was sneaky heavy. I’m searching but I ain’t see Daddy’s truck on the drive or anywhere else but Daddy probably got held up, what with getting the corn and all. Mommas on the porch now and she says “where y’all been! I been looking out for you for a good long time and I thought you was ate by bears or moose or fell into a pit and was impaled by sticks and bitten by snakes or got caught in a snowy landslide and got your heads busted open with rocks!” she runs to us and checks us up and down for maybe bear bites or busted heads but she ain’t seen none so she puts her hands on her hips and says “I done sent you out to fetch wood and you ain’t bring none so I had to break apart that table for it and I ain’t good like your Daddy at making fire so it’s just sitting there all broken up.”
I chime in before she gets more riled up “but look what we done got!” and I hold up the sack with a triumph and she’s narrowing her eyes now. “Where you get that sack?” Jacob starts to blabber in but I cut him off since I know he’s about to tell the whole story what with our neighbors, and I say “It was hangin’ in a tree! In the woods!” She looks at Jacob “that true? Found it hangin’ on a tree in the woods?”
Jacob looks at me and I shake my head a little and Momma darts her head over my way and she ain’t see the head shake and Jacob says “we sure did! We almost ain’t seen it because it was brown and so was the tree but we did and here it is!” Momma says “well. Let’s bring it on inside and see what we got here.” and shes crossed her arms around her since the sun is all the way gone and it’s a freezer out here now. We get inside and I upend the sack on the floor next to the wood stove and we go through it.
There’s a small clown lamp and a kids book about bears and I snag this quick for I like to look at picture books. There’s also a can of creamed corn and fruit cocktail and a plastic grocery bag about half full of something leathery and wet what smells tangy. Momma is oohing and awwing at each thing like it’s Christmas and there’s a solid heavy thing what was made out of metal I think. Momma exclaims that it’s a clothes iron what you can put on the fire and make your clothes straight.
“What a haul!” She’s holding the clown lamp to her chest and starts looking all around for a place to plug it in. She finally finds the holes and plugs it in but it ain’t work since we ain’t got no power in here yet, but it makes her happy anyway so that’s ok. “where’s Daddy at?” I ask and Momma says, “oh, Daddy probably ain’t going to be back for a while, he has a lot of big business in town and I expect it ain’t too easy to fill up a whole truck with corns, so I expect he’ll be gone for a while longer.” She stands there looking at the clown lamp for a while then turns to us “well, let’s get to eating!”
We grub up the food from the sack and we ain’t have no can opener, but we had that clothes iron so we was able to bang them open ok and any juice that got spilled we licked off the floor and nothing tasted quite so sweet. I took a nibble of what was tangy in the bag and it wasn’t so bad and tasted like sweet bark but Momma says it was jerky and I guess it was called that since you had to gnaw and jerk on it some to tear it up enough so you could swallow.
We was all exhausted and cold so we all piled up again on the mattresses and I don’t know about Jacob or Momma, but I went right out like snapping fingers and when I opened my eyes, it was daylight and Daddy was standing in the doorway.