The Blue Goose - Writings by Nedra Littlefield Culp

THE BLUE GOOSE

 by Nedra L. Culp

It was late at night and the moon was shining brilliant white through the large window and across her bed.  She wakened fretfully and moaned a little, and then she opened her eyes.  Her gaze wandered fitfully about the room and to the window and then she saw it.  It perched there on the white fence post and regarded her, and it was blue, a startling blue, like the blue of the mountain skies, only much deeper.  She closed her eyes involuntarily and then restlessly opened them again, and it was true, for there it sat, its head cocked pertly to one side, bright, beady eyes staring in at her.

Sarah had never seen a blue goose before; she had never even heard of a blue goose.  In the long ago she had seen many geese, winging their way through the autumn sky, their number in V-shaped formation, making a cloud overhead as they passed.  Frank used to hunt them, too.  There was the time when they had been on the old homestead with the lake, sparkling and crystal clear, and the marshes stretching as far as the eye could see.  When the cat tail were high, their heads brown and plump and fuzzy, he would take his gun, the old, spotted dog following close at his heels, and off he would go into the reeds.  She could almost see him now when he returned, walking briskly, so tall and proud, his game slung over his shoulder.  She would have a fire going in the old wood range and there would be roast goose soon, tender and with that indefinable wild flavor that could be compared with none other.  Frank always said that no one could cook goose like his Sarah.

A blue goose?  Perhaps it only appeared blue in the moonlight.  She would sleep and if he had not gone when daylight came, his true color would most likely appear.

She was wakened by Mary her only living daughter, fussing in her room. It wasn’t enough that she couldn’t sleep at night, but they had to come in at the break of dawn to feed her. 

“Good morning Mother.  My, but you had a nice sleep.  It’s nearly 9:30.  Here’s your breakfast.  Now help me like a good girl.”  She brought pillows and placed them at Sarah’s back.

It couldn’t be that late.  Mary was lying to her again; treating her like she was a child, as if she didn’t know anything.  And why did she have to talk so loud?  Everyone either screamed at her or they turned their backs and whispered so she couldn’t hear what they were saying.

She fussed peevishly as Mary fed her from a spoon, cereal that was thin and tasteless and toast, soaked in milk until it was soft and mushy.  She couldn’t bear to take another mouthful.

“No,” she protested loudly, and with her good hand she thrust the bowl aside, spilling the thin gruel which spread over the comforter making an ugly gray stain.  Now, she thought triumphantly, she’ll get angry.  She didn’t though.  She took a towel from the chair and wiped it up, all the while humming a little tune.

She tried to feed Sarah the toast again.  “Now, Mother,” she said, like she was talking to a child.  “You must cooperate with me.”

“My teeth.  My teeth.  I could eat the toast all right if you’d give me my teeth.  I can’t eat it all mush like that.”

“Mother, you know you can’t have your teeth.  You couldn’t chew with them if you did have them.  They don’t fit you anymore.”

They had taken her teeth and now they said they didn’t fit.  Of course they didn’t fit.  Leaving them out like that all these months her mouth had shrunken all up, but if she had them for a while she would be able to work them back in place.

They had taken her teeth away just like they had taken her house.  They came early one morning and removed her bodily, Mary and Lawrence, her husband.  They took her away from the house where she had borne three children and buried two of them and a husband.  They said she would have to live with them where they could care for her.  She knew what they wanted; it was her house, because it was nicer than their own.  It was not so large as the brick home they lived in, but it was pleasant and homey, something their house could never be.  She did not want to come and she had tried to fight them, only it seemed she was so weary and her arms would not move very well and after awhile one of them wouldn’t move at all. She was put on a long board and carried from her home.  She looked back and saw the stone pathway and the friendliness of the white paint and green shutters, and she tried desperately to get off the board and go back, but it was no use.  And then they stuck her with a needle and the next thing she knew she was in this ugly house.  They made her stay in this room all the time, with its stark, modern furniture, the bed so low and shapeless and no color to any of it, like it had never been varnished or even painted.  The few things of her own they let her have were the only good pieces in this room.

In her irritation with Mary she had forgotten the goose, but she waited for her to leave the room before she looked.  It wasn’t the night that had made it seem so sparkling blue.  Such a blue she had never seen before.  It never took its eyes off her as it perched on the post, bright and saucy.  She wouldn’t tell Mary about it.  If her daughter found out there was something she enjoyed, surely she would have it removed.  She would just lie there and look at it and never tell a soul about it, except maybe Jimmie.

The day wore on and now and then someone would come in and exclaim over her solicitously in a loud voice.  They must think she was deaf.  But she wasn’t the deaf one; something must be wrong with all their ears.  She had to strain her voice and shout at them until her heat hurt.

“What time is it?” she asked Mary.

“Mary put the pitcher of water down.  “Why, other, the clock is right by your bed, can’t you see it?”

“Yes, I can see it,” Sarah replied irritably, “but it’s stopped.  No one ever winds it for me.  It’s said two o’clock for the last three hours.”

“And that’s just what time it is,” Mary told her.

“Well, when will Jimmie be home?  I want to talk to him.”

“Jimmie doesn’t get out of school until four, Mother.  Here, let me put another pillow under you so you can sit up higher.”

She let Mary fix her so she sat up quite high and then she could see the goose much better.  It was a large goose, twice the size of the ones Frank had brought home.  Maybe they were growing them larger now.  It had been a long time.

She dozed and in her dreams she could see Frank.  Only he didn’t seem old like he was when he died ten years ago in December.  He was like he was when they were first married; so tall and handsome.  She didn’t seem old either.  They walked together, hand in hand, Frank smiling down at her his slow, warm smile and she looking up at him, worshipping him.  It seemed they walked and walked and they were never tired.  They followed an endless pathway and the sun shone warm and it was spring.  The birds sang and the perfume of apple blossoms was in the air.  The petals fell upon her golden hair and Frank said that they were rain, a special rain for his beloved.

She knew with annoyance that Mary was shaking her gently, taking her away from her beautiful dream.  She pretended sleep.  She would not see any more of those gabby people who exclaimed over her and shouted at her.

“All right,” Mary said, “if you don’t want to freshen up before Jimmie comes, I don’t mind.”

She roused quickly then and let Mary comb out her hair and didn’t even complain when she pulled and hurt her head.  Her hair was her pride and joy and Mary combed it for her once each morning and again in the afternoon before Jimmie came home.  She could sit on her hair it was so long.  Frank said it was indecent for a woman to cut her hair and she never had.  It coiled about her head in a heavy white braid.

It was the high point of the day for her, getting ready for her grandson, Jimmie to arrive home from school.  Jimmie was fourteen and already a fine, handsome boy.  He was such a good boy too.  He was patient and loving with her.  In the evening he read the newspaper or a story to her and he told her about school and his friends.

“How’s my favorite girl friend?”  Jimmie kissed her lightly on the forehead.  She didn’t mid when he kissed her, but anyone else tried it, she pushed them away in short order with her good hand, the one that wasn’t tied to her side so she couldn’t use it.

“Come closer,” she whispered, “I’ve got a secret Jimmie.  Between you and me, Jimmie.  Promise not to tell.  Word of honor.”

“I promised, Gran, what is it?”

She motioned for his mother to leave the room.  “See,” she pointed, “you’ve never seen one, nor have i.  Never heard tell of a blue goose, but there he is, big as life, perched there on the post.” 

“Where Gran?  I don’t – oh, yes, I see it now.”

“You do, Jimmie boy?  You do?”

“Why sure I do, Gran.  Sure,” he replied heartily, but not shouting.  Jimmie never shouted at her.  “He sure is a beat.  I never knew there was such a thing.”

“No one does, just you and I; our secret.”

Mary fed her then, something tasteless and all mashed up.  She ate listlessly, too tired to protest.  When Jimmie came in later to read, she couldn’t concentrate on his words.

She must have slept along time for when she woke it was dark and the house was silent.  The moonlight fell across her bed and shone on her face.  She looked at the blue goose and at first she did not know what it was doing and then it seemed to be beckoning her, saying with its wing, come.  The wing went out, like a hand, motioning, slowly.  But of course, she could not come.  How could she leave this bed?  This was where they had put her and she had been there so long that she could not move.  She tried to let the blue goose know that, shaking her head no, but it seemed so insistent, beckoning, beckoning to her.  Finally she closed her eyes, impatiently, and then she drifted off to sleep.

When she looked out the next morning, it was as though it had never ceased motioning to her.  Its wing curved out to her, asking, begging her to come.  It made her suddenly angry.  That blue goose sat there teasing, coaxing and tantalizing her.  It made her head hurt.  She would not look at it again and if she ignored it maybe it would go away. 

She slept fitfully most of the day and in every dream she was with Frank again.  They were eating at the long, polished table in the dining room of their home.  In the center of the table was a roast goose, done to perfection and surrounded by small baked apples.  There were all the things on the table she liked most, hot rolls and butter, corn on the cob, and for dessert, huge wedges of blackberry pie.  Frank carved the goose and passed the plates.  All three of the children were there, Mary and the two who had died in childhood, little Joey and Susan.  They ate long and heartily.  Frank told her that no one in the world could cook like she.  They were both so young.

And when she looked out the window there was the blue goose, tirelessly beckoning to her.  She shook her head violently, but it just stared back intently with its sharp, beady eyes, its wing motioning, motioning.  She had to close her eyes; she could not bear to watch it any more.

Mary combed her hair and when the comb pulled her head it made it ache so.  She felt very tired.

Jimmie came then and she felt better.  He told her a funny story about something that had happened at school and her head did not hurt so much.

“Mother, here’s some nice fish, all mashed up so you can eat it.” Mary said.

“What kind is it?” Sarah demanded peevishly.

“It’s perch.  Perch just like Dad used to catch,” Mary answered.

“Where did you get it?” Sarah asked suspiciously.

“At the grocery store, Mother.  We couldn’t go and catch them, you know.  They’re not in season.”

Sarah knew they were not in season.  Why did Mary always have to explain everything in that simpering, humoring voice?

“I don’t want any,” she said flatly.

“Mother, you know you like perch, and you have to eat something.  You’ve scarcely had a mouthful all day.” 

“I don’t like store-bought perch and I don’t like them cooked that way.  I never mashed them up like that.  You’re getting to be an awful sloven, Mary.  Take them away,” she ordered.

Lawrence came into her room.  “What’s the matter, Grandma?” he boomed cheerfully, “Aren’t you hungry?”

She didn’t like Lawrence and she didn’t want him in her room.  He knew that and seldom came, but there he was blustering and pretending to be concerned about her.  He always acted like he liked her, trying to make everyone think he was a good, generous man.

“I don’t like to be fed scraps, Lawrence,” she said, her voice quivering.  “Mary says she mashed the fish for me, but I know what she did.  She gave the little bits broken off the ones you had, to me.  I won’t eat leavings.  I have money and can afford to eat good food like the rest of you.”  She was crying weakly when she finished.

“There now, Grandma.”  He patted her hand and she jerked it swiftly away.  “Mary mashed up the fish so you could eat it better.  You couldn’t chew it very well if she didn’t.”

“I could if I had my teeth.  If you hadn’t taken my teeth like you took everything else I own.  You’re both alike.  Trying to grab everything - selfish and greedy.  The only one cares about me is Jimmie.  I want Jimmie.”

“You’re a naughty girl, Grand,” Jimmie reproved her.  “You’ve got Mother crying and Dad all upset.  They do try so hard to be good to you.”

“No, they don’t.  The only one who cares is you.  You wouldn’t give me scraps to eat when I’m so hungry.”

“What would you like, Grand?  I’ll get you anything,” he told her.

She thought of what she would like to eat and then she looked out the window and there the blue goose sat, and it had never stopped motioning, slowly, beckoning her to come.  She couldn’t stand to lie there and watch it any more.  She’d get rid of it.  She’d have Jimmie….

“I know what I’d like, Jimmie.  Come closer and I’ll tell you.  Get your gun and go out and shoot that blue goose and have Mary roast it for me.  That’s what I want.  Have her roast it good and brown and bring me a great big piece.”

“But Gran,” he protested, “you wouldn’t want to kill the goose.  It’s probably the only blue goose there is.”

“I hate it,” she said hotly.  “It’s got to go.  It sits there begging, pleading for me to come and I can’t, so you’ve to kill it.

She saw the goose in the late afternoon sunshine, motioning, motioning with its wing, and then she heard the shot, and for a moment it gazed at her and then it fell over and she could not see it any more.  Jimmie ran by the window and grinned at her. 

It didn’t take long to roast the goose, but then Mary had every new-fangled appliance known in her kitchen, and she soon carried in a plate with bits of goose cut up fine and mashed potatoes.  Sarah ate the pieces Mary held out to her slowly, working them against her gums to chew them.  It was very good, even though it tasted slightly like fish.  Just like Mary to roast it in the same pan in which she had done the fish.  She even ate all the mashed potatoes.  Her stomach was full to bursting and she settled back contentedly and slept.

She could hear a pounding beating sound that began and rose and rose to a sudden crescendo and she wakened and tried to sit up.  She felt her head spinning wildly and there was a loud, buzzing noise somewhere nearby.  It reverberated inside her until it seemed her head would burst wide open.  In her memory she could recall having felt like this before, and the next morning Mary and Lawrence had come and taken her to their home.  She had lain on the bathroom floor all night when they found her. The clamor got louder and louder and then gradually, gently subsided.

She was aware of people in the room, but when she tried to open her eyes they were stuck shut and she could not see.  She moved her mouth to speak but heard no sound.  Maybe she was deaf like they thought, but she could hear them talking.  At first their voices were whispers and then they came closer and closer.  A hand held her wrist for what seemed a long time.  When someone spoke she knew the voice.

“She will likely go tonight,” he said.

“Go?  Go where?  You know they won’t let me out of this room.  They keep me here all the time; like a prisoner,” she moved her lips but no sound came forth.

“Oh no!  No!” Mary cried.

“Gran, Gran,” it was Jimmie speaking.

“Poor Mother,” Lawrence said, “She was a wonderful woman.”

There was a strange noise now, like someone crying.

“You must remember, Mary, that your mother is eighty-six years of age.  It was to be expected and though it’s hard to bear, she will be so much happier,” Doctor Dugan said.

“I tried to be so good to her, but she hated me and Lawrence.  She thought that Lawrence wanted her money and that we were trying to steal everything she owned.  How I wish she could have been happy with us.”

“You mustn’t blame yourself.  She didn’t know.”

“Oh, Mother, Mother,” Mary cried.

Sarah tried desperately to raise her good hand and then someone took it and she knew her daughter’s firm fingers encircled it.

“You’re a good girl, Mary, a good girl.”  She moved her lips but could not hear the words she spoke.

When she wakened again everything was still.  The noise was gone and her eyes were open and she could see.  A light burned dimly in the hallway and she could hear low voices.  It was night but the moon shown brightly and when she looked out the window, there on the post sat the blue goose.  The same blue goose that Jimmie had shot and she had ate.  He was different somehow, though, for she could see right through him; he was a sparkling, transparent blue.  And he motioned to her again, slowly.  She’d have to show him she couldn’t go with him; that she couldn’t leave her bed.  She tried to raise herself with her good arm and then she knew that the arm that had lain by her side helplessly for so long was alive.  She left the bed effortlessly.  She passed through the window and then she turned and looked back.  There in the bed lay an old woman, wrinkled and wasted by months of illness, but there was a peaceful expression on her face.  Sarah’s body was not old like that, not any more; she was light, so light and free.

She heard the rustle of the feathers of the blue goose and it was leading the way, and she ran after it, lightly, gaily skipping through the air.  They traveled down a long road and everything was soft and green and lovely, and then somewhere in the distance she could see a man, tall and straight, and she could hear him calling, Sarah, Sarah Darling…….

This was submitted to Woman’s Day Magazine

Thanks for reading my mother's fictional stories.  It has been a delight to get to know her a little better through her writings!

I will be posting with
Pink Saturday - Anything Goes

Yellow Shoes Shining In The Sun - by Nedra L. Culp

Here is another fictional story written by my mother

in the 1950's.  She wrote a lot about post WWII life, but she also wrote stories about small town life. 

Enjoy!

YELLOW SHOES SHINING IN THE SUN

                                                                       by Nedra L. Culp

                                                                                               

They had great times that summer, hiking, fishing and swimming, and after they had their new rifles, hunting jack rabbits in the greasewood and sagebrush.  David Short and Butch Jackson were fifteen years old.  They left Canyon City and hiked out through the greasewood to where it merged with the scrub oak and jack pines, which clustered at the foot of Red Mountain.  When they reached the stream of sparkling water, they dropped to their stomachs and drank, long, gulping swallows.

It was nice lying in the shade.  The locusts skipped and hummed in the thicket lending a drowsy air of contentment to the warm day.  David felt for the waxed paper that held the huge chunks of bread with corned beef.  He drew himself up on one elbow and took a bite, chewing slowly, savoring it.  Butch was fooling with his rifle, his dark head bent over it, unloading and reloading it.  Butch loved that gun.  It was something to fondle and caress.  David was proud of his rifle, too, but it was just a gun, something to have fun with.

He liked being with Butch – they understood each other.  It was enough to be with him, talking when he felt the need, respecting his moods and silences and knowing he could expect the same from Butch.  He knew that it was better to be with Butch than with the gang.  They had wanted he and Butch to come along with them that morning, but they stuck to their decision to go hunting.  He didn’t much like the things the gang did anymore.  It had been fun at first, and kind of exciting, going into old, deserted houses, breaking windows and scattering things about, but breaking in houses where the people were away temporarily and stealing – that was something different.

Butch sat up quickly.  “Watch it,” he whispered.  From the thicket beyond the stream a huge jack rabbit emerged, sniffing and testing the air.  And then he spotted the boys, but not before Butch had a bead on him, and by that time, David was getting him in his sight too, but their shots, fired in rapid succession, did not deter the rabbit in his hasty exit into the undergrowth.

Butch aimed and fired and a branch splintered from the oak.  David tried on the other side, and they kept that up, trying to outshoot each other, but it was so far away, sometimes they didn’t know if they hit or missed.  The only thing that stopped their target practice was that they ran out of ammunition, and then David remembered what Dad had said about wasting expensive shells.

“Come on,” Butch sprang to his feet and laid down his gun with loving care.  “Let’s see how many hits we got.”

They went along the red dirt road and circled into the oak thicket, looking for the marks their bullets made on the gray oak bark, tallying up their score, but not knowing which gun had made the hit.  They came to a small clearing, back of the trees, and David was walking along, whistling merrily and thinking about the fine time they had had shooting, when he saw the man.  First he saw the shoes, yellow and shining in the sun.  The man wore bright green trousers of some fine soft goods, and a purple plaid jacket.  He lay face downward, his warms thrust outward, drawing purple jacket sleeves up to reveal yellow silk shirt cuffs, fastened with glittering gold cuff links.  His white fingers, on which the dark hair stood out sharply, were dug into the dirt.

A part of David’s brain that could reason wanted to feel for his pulse.  He could see no blood.  He moved closer to the body and reached down to touch it, when the smell strangled him.  It was the death smell.  It permeated his nostrils and went into his throat, gagging him, and he ran, hand over his mouth into the bushes and was sick.  He looked back at the man and he could still see those yellow shoes shining in the sun.

He saw Butch running and he followed, weak in the knees and in the stomach.  Butch drew his gun strap over his shoulder and picked up the remains of their lunch.  He looked at David for the first time since it had happened and their eyes held terror.

“I don’t guess we’ll be eating the rest of this?”  It was a fearful question.  David clutched his stomach and shook his head.

“What’re we gonna do?” he cried, looking to Butch for help.

“We’re gonna get out of here and fast.”

They cut through the woods and down across the flat, running as though some enemy was nipping at their heels.  Often, when they came up this way, they would go the mile and a half down the dirt road to the highway where they could hitch a ride back to Canyon City.  Today they skirted the road, keeping hidden behind the high brush.  David’s throat was burning and raw, and his heart was near to bursting, but he would not stop until Butch gave the word.  At last they dropped to the ground, panting, their clothes wet and clinging to their bodies.

“I didn’t see any blood.  I s’pose he fell on his stomach when we hit him.”

“Yeah.  But that smell - that awful death smell.  You smelled it too, didn’t you Butch?”

“It was the death smell, all right.  You never can mistake that.”

“Who could he be?” David asked.  “I never saw a man who wore clothes like that.  He didn’t have no business sneaking around behind those oaks.  He must have known we were there.  We couldn’t help it, Butch.  We couldn’t.”  Dry sobs choked him as terror rolled over him in fresh waves.  “What’ll they do to us?  Butch, what’ll they do?”

Butch sat up, his face grimy and sweat-streaked.  “What d’you mean, Dave?  They’re not gonna find out who shot him.  We keep our mouths shut and nobody will ever know we was up this way.  You didn’t tell your Mom where we was going did you?”  He looked anxiously at David.

“No, I told her we was going out on Ising-Glass Hill ‘cause she always fusses when we come up this way.”

“That’s what I told my Mom.  So we stick together and don’t say nothin’ and who’s gonna be the wiser.”  Butch seemed to shed some of the fear that gripped him.  “Yeah.  Why they might not find his body for weeks.  Hardly anybody goes up that old road.”

David tried to absorb some of Butch’s new-found confidence, but he kept thinking of the man in the clearing, lying face down in the dirt.  “We should’ve looked to see who he was.  I’ll never forget the way he looked and those yellow shoes.”

“Neither will I,” Butch said, “But you gotta look at it reasonable like and think how we never meant to do it.  It was an accident, and not like it was pre – premeditated or nothing like that.”

They sat until the shadows dropped down from the mountain and covered them and a crisp coolness replaced the blazing rays of the sun.  They tried to talk natural, normally, but fear kept crowding in, gripping their senses and forcing them to turn to one another for support.

“It’s like being in a firing squad,” David said.  “D’you know some of the guys have blanks and some have live ammo and no one knows who kills the prisoner.  Not even the warden, probably.  That’s why we got to stick together.”

“Yeah, we got to stick together, sure.  We better go home now, though,” Butch said.

They circled around town and came in so that it would appear to the eye of a casual observer that they were returning from a hunting expedition out on Ising-Glass Hill.  They started down the tree-arched street that led to Butch’s white house when David saw the black car with the gold star on the side.  He didn’t have to look twice to know that it was the sheriff, and impulsively, not thinking how it would look, started to run and Butch followed him.  The black car cruised slowly by and when it got to the end of the block, turned and came back, slowly again and by that time they were in Butch’s yard concealed behind a pine tree.  David could see the sheriff and the man who road with him looking hard in their direction, and the car came to a near stop, and then picked up speed and disappeared down the street.

“You dope  You shouldn’t’a run,” Butch said angrily.

“I couldn’t help it,” David defended.  “I couldn’t think of nothing except getting away.  D’you think they were looking for us?”

“They couldnt’a been.  ‘Course they couldn’t.”  He looked anxiously toward his house.  “I’d better go in.”  He took David’s hand and gripped it hard.  “remember we’re pals.  Right?”

“Right,” David replied and tried to give the saucy wink and smart toss of his tow-head that was his trademark, but it came of rather sickly.

“Davey, is that you?” Mom called as he came in the front door.  “Get washed up now for dinner will soon be on the table.  Did you have a good day?  Shoot anything?”

David stood in the kitchen door, trying to remember that this was like any other night when he had come home from hunting with Butch.  “Oh, nothing much.  Saw a jack or two.  What’s for dinner?”

“You just get washed up Davey, and you’ll see.  A surprise for dessert, just for you.”  She passed by him with a covered dish on her way to the dining room.  She reached out and ruffled his tousled, sun-bleached hair and she drew back her hand in mock horror.  “You march right to the bath room and wash that hair.  You have time for a quick bath and you sure need it.”

He scrubbed himself hard, and then he stood before the mirror combing his unruly hair.  He looked at himself, fully expecting to see the guilt that he felt like a hard knot in the pit of his stomach, imprinted on his face.  He looked the same, though, from his wide blue eyes to the freckles that were scattered generously over his round face.  He looked okay and if he didn’t try to talk much, he’d be able to hide it and soon it would be better.  Things always get better with time, don’t they?

It wasn’t really any different from any other night.  Dad was in a sports shirt into which he changed at night after a day on the road in his business suit.  Dirk, his brother who was eighteen, ate wolfishly of the succulent roast beef and vegetables, and for once in his life, David was glad that Dirk didn’t care much about him and seldom paid any attention to him.  Baby Angela, who was three, was the pride and joy of the family, sat in her high chair and kept Mom and Dad entranced with her charming baby ways.  Mom passed the food around, looking nice and fresh as always, knowing that she pleased her family exceedingly well with her fine cooking.

It was just like any other night, except that he couldn’t eat.  The food stuck in his throat like glue and gagged him.  He hoped Mom wouldn’t notice and start questioning him as to what was wrong.  He didn’t think he could take much of that.  But of course, Mom would notice, for all her boys ate heartily, and if they did not, she knew that something was amiss.

“Davey, you’ve scarcely touched a bite.  You didn’t walk so far today you’re sick, did you?  I thought you told me you were only going to Ising-Glass Hill.”  She got up and came to him and put her cool, firm hand upon his forehead  “Why you’ve a fever.  You’re hot as fire.”

“Oh, Mom, it’s just a little sunburn, that’s all.  Quit fussing, will you?  Can’t a guy not be hungry once in a while?”  He drew his head angrily from beneath her probing fingers.

“Not my guy,” Mom said.  “But then I think I know what will perk you up.”  She went to the kitchen and returned carrying a plate with a huge wedge of thick yellow custard pie.

Well, there was nothing David liked better than custard pie, but he looked at it, at the shaky yellowness of it, and he sprang from his chair and bolted for the bathroom.

“I knew something was wrong.  Oh, land, they play so hard and walk so far when they get out with those rifles.  I wonder if I should call the doctor?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Dad said.  “He’s just got a little touch of the sun.  Make him go right to bed and he’ll be all right.”

“Characters!” Dirk said sarcastically.  “Walking miles to shoot at a few mangy jack rabbits.  Boy, I don’t see how anyone could be so dumb.”

“Well, you’re not fifteen, Dirk, but you were once,” Dad said.

He did have a fever.  He was burning up and the sheets that felt so cool and soothing to his tired, aching body when he first crawled between them, were soon limp and warm.  Mom and Dad came in and he told them he was all right.  Just a little weak in the stomach.  Too much sun.  He just wanted to be alone, that was all.

He turned and rolled, searching every inch of the bed for a place that would be right for his threshing body, but none would do.  He kept going back to the man, lying face downward, his yellow shoes shining in the sun.  Deep burnished yellow they were and thrust out at right angles to the heavy body of the black-haired man.

Mom got out her mending and Dad settled down to read the evening paper.  Dirk went out the door and soon they heard his old jalopy roar off down the street.  The minutes ticked slowly by and became hours.  Mom began to yawn and talk about going to bed and then the doorbell’s peal shattered the stillness of the night.  Mom went to answer it and when she opened it, there stood Sheriff Marshall and his deputy, Pete Allen.  She knew both of the men to speak to and she wondered what they could want here at this time of night, but she felt no need for alarm.  Dad got up and shook hands with the men and they all sat down.  The sheriff cleared his throat and started to speak.  He kept his eyes downcast for he found that it was easier to impart unpleasant news if he did that.

“It’s not a pleasant errand I’m on, Fred Short.  I never is when it concerns the young ones.”

Dad looked at the sheriff, puzzled.  “Well, get on with it, Sheriff.”

“There’s been a lot of hoodlumism going on in Canyon City these past months and this afternoon some boys broke into a house and took forty dollars in cash and nearly five hundred dollars of sterling silver.”

“But surely you don’t think….” Dad trailed off, watching the sheriff anxiously.

“I’m sorry, Fred, but when Deputy Allen and I were patrolling we saw a couple of boys sneaking along, kind of suspicious like and when they saw us, they broke into a run and hid.  It was your boy David and that Butch Jackson.”  It pained the sheriff to see the anxious, frightened expressions on the faces of these good people and he dropped his eyes to the floor.

“No.  No.” Mom cried out, tense and leaning forward in her chair.  “Not our David.  He and Butch Jackson were hunting out on Ising-Glass Hill all day.”

“That’s right, “ Dad corroborated.  “You must be mistaken.”

“I ain’t saying for positive.  I just know they was acting suspicious and we’re questioning anybody we saw doing anything out of the way.”  He cleared his throat painfully and asked, “Could we see your boy?”

David thought he would never sleep and that he must have tossed for hours, but actually it was only a matter of an hour or so before his anguished body relaxed and his brain gave in reluctantly and he slept.  He dreamed and he and Butch were back in the clearing behind the oaks and they went forward to the body, steeling themselves against the awful death smell that rose to meet them and smothered them.  Together they reached down and rolled him over and the face that revealed itself covered with red dirt, was that of his father.  David screamed, “No! No!”

Dad was holding him and shaking him.  David opened his eyes and looked at him, realizing that the other was a dream and this was real.

“Son,” Dad said in a strange voice.  “The sheriff is downstairs.  He wants to see you.  Son, I want to ask you just one thing.  Did you do it?”

Somehow, he guessed, he had known they would come for him, but not this soon.  Not this soon.  David got out of bed and began to dress.  He heard Dad asking his question again in a low, strained voice and he answered “Yes,” not looking at him, not daring to face the hurt that would be there.

David stood in the doorway and saw his mother, face drawn and anxious.  He saw the sheriff and Deputy Allen.  He walked right over to them and said, “We did it, Butch and I.  If you’ll get Butch, we’ll take you there.”

The sheriff blinked in surprise.  “Take us where?” he asked.

“David’s voice trembled, his courage sliding away.  “well, you’ll want to see it again, won’t you?”

“Huh?” the sheriff seemed puzzled.  “Why, yes, I reckon so.  Didn’t figure you had it hid already.”  He stood up, his hat in hand.

“Oh, we didn’t hide it,” David said.  “We just left it there.”

“Oh.”  The sheriff didn’t’ seem to be able to think coherently.  “well, I reckon then you’d better take us there.”

Dad went down the pathway to Jackson’s house and Tom Jackson opened the door in his bathrobe and Dad went in.  Soon they came out and Tom was fully dressed and Butch was with them.  Butch climbed into the front seat with Dad and David, and Tom Jackson got in the back with the sheriff.  They sat in silence for a moment or two and then Dad asked in a strained voice, “Where to, Son?”  David told him where to go.

David could feel Butch’s eyes on him in the dark and he whispered, “How do you s’pose they found out?”

“I can’t imagine, unless someone happened along right behind us and saw us leave.”

“They’ve got the goods on us, no question of it.”

“What d’you s’pose they’ll do to us?”

“I don’t know.” 

“Whatever happens, we’re in it together.”

“I know.”

The parked the car by the highway and climbed out to walk down the dirt road that was rutted and tree-strewn and impassable by automobile.  A thread of moon hung high in the west and its light cast eerie shadows over the trees and undergrowth. Creatures of the night started and fled before the onslaught of the grim and silent party, whose way was lighted by the powerful beam of a flashlight, in the sheriff’s hand.  After what seemed an eternity, a silent eternity, in which no words were spoken, but heavy thoughts hung in the air, they reached the spot where in that carefree long ago of early afternoon, David and Butch had partaken of their lunch.  The boys led the way around the oaks and into the clearing.  David saw him again and in the beam of the flashlight, the shoes did not seem so yellow.

“There he is,” David said in a low voice with respect for the man who lay in death.

The sheriff gasped, as did Fred Short and Tom Jackson.  “Why, it’s a man.  He’s dead.”  He held the light up to peer into the faces of the frightened and trembling boys.

“Yes, he’s dead,” David choked.  “We killed him, but we didn’t mean to.  Honest, we didn’t.  We was just over there target practicing and when we came around to see what we had hit, there he was dead already.  We didn’t mean to kill him, though.  Honest, we didn’t.”

“That’s right, Sheriff,” Butch cried.  “We just shot and when we came around here we found him.  It wasn’t our fault.”

The sheriff went to the body and then he stopped and took out a handkerchief and held it to his nose.  Deputy Allen, also holding a handkerchief, helped to turn the man over.  In the beam of light fro the flashlight they aw the face, and it was hardly a face after all, for it was pitted and eaten out.  David was afraid he would be sick right there, but he couldn’t take his eyes from that awful face.

The sheriff straightened up and looked searchingly at the two boys who stood quaking in fear before him.  “When was you boys up here?  When did this happen?”

“We was hunting jacks up here this afternoon.  And we was just target-practicing.  Honest, we was,” David tried to keep his voice from trembling.

“You spent the whole afternoon up here?” the sheriff asked.

“Well, we was up here before noon.  We ate our lunch over by the stream.  It was after that we was target practicing.” Butch replied.

“Well, boys,” the sheriff said, “This man’s been dead a long time.”

“Much longer than this afternoon, I judge,” said Fred Short, gasping for air.

“Four or five days, I’d say,” Tom Jackson stated.

“Maybe a week,” said the sheriff.  He went back to the body and emptied the pockets, giving the contents to Deputy Allen.  “No robbery.  This guy was loaded.  Might tie in with the gang killings over in Monoca City.”  He came back to the boys.  “If you’d looked, you’d known your bullets didn’t touch this man.”

“But he was dead, Sheriff.  We could smell the death smell.”  David did not understand what the sheriff was trying to tell them.

“You smelled a man decaying and I’m surprised you didn’t know it.”  He looked around at the pale faces that were beginning to relax in happy relief.  “Well, I guess we got the goods on the boys, but it was the wrong goods.  For the life of me, I couldn’t figure how they could’ve gotten that sterling silver up here and hid it after we saw them running away this afternoon.”  The sheriff began to chuckle and Fred Short and Tom Jackson joined in happily, eagerly.

“What sterling silver?” Butch asked.

“Boys, I guess we’ve all been kind of mixed up.  We thought you had broken into a house and stole some money and sterling silver and you thought you’d killed a man.  I guess we both jumped to hasty conclusions and that’s bad in any game, especially in the sheriff’s game.”  He stopped and looked at them searchingly.  “What I’d like to know is why didn’t you tell someone right off.  It’d been straightened out in a few minutes.

“We was scared,” Butch said, grinning sheepishly.

“I can’t figure out how you could’ve thought you might’ve done it.  This guy was shot with a pistol close-up.  There was no blood showing and if you’d turned him over you’d’ve seen he’d begun to decompose.”  He slapped them on the shoulder heartily.

“Well, no harm done, unless it was the bad time you boys must’ve went through.”  He laughed.  “I’ll get the coroner out and we’ll get this man in to the city and then we’ll look around for someone else to pin the burglary on.  I’m afraid, though, our next suspects won’t be so eager to confess.”

“Race you to the car,” David cried and set off like the wind, wild and free, running in it, drinking it into his long-stifled lungs.  They ran until their throats were swollen and their breath came in gasps and then they sat down on some rocks to wait for their fathers and the sheriff and his deputy.

David felt exhilarated and he laughed even as his lungs sought for breath.  Then they both were laughing and they rolled in the dirt in their merriment.  David stopped and so did Butch.  David could see the yellow shoes shining in the sun.  He’d forget about it soon.  Things always get better with time, don’t they?