Table of Contents
WINNERS OF THE MILKWEED NATIONAL FICTION PRIZE
For James, who adds to whatever he touches
CROSS FAMILY TREE
“Dry Roots” appeared in the June 1999 issue of The Sun.
The author would like to thank the following individuals for their advice, help, and encouragement: Lauren Myracle, Jack Martin, Rose Stehno Brinks, James S. Brinks, Judy Woodward, Lillie Fisher, Rita Rud, Tammy Minks, and most especially, James Pritchett.
HELL’S BOTTOM
RENNY STANDS IN THE gravel driveway between the house and barn, her hands jammed into the pockets of a blood-splattered jacket. From there, she has a good view of the county road that runs parallel to the snow-covered foothills behind it, and she sees, at last, her husband’s blue truck barreling down it toward the ranch.
The snow swirls around her in cyclones and drafts, crisscrossing in front of her eyes. She has to blink hard in order to see the outline of gray mountains, another ridge of foothills below, and the square blue block that contains Ben. When the truck takes the ranch’s turnoff and heads toward her, she begins to take the pink plastic curlers from her hair. She tilts her head as she does so, and runs her fingers through the intended curls, through the segments of hair now wet with snow. She drops each curler into the pocket of her jacket before removing the next, all the time watching the truck approaching through the white flurry.
As Ben steps out of it, she wipes her dirty sleeve across her face before he can see her tears. “You’re never around when I need you,” she says as he approaches. “If I remember right, we’re still running this place together.”
He brushes past her, toward the barn. “Chains?”
“By the cow.”
Sparrows gust out above their heads as they walk through the barn door. She watches Ben scan the shelves, his eyes adjusting to the dimness.
“Where’s the plastic gloves?”
“Ran out.”
“Damnit, Renny.” But it is a quiet statement, more resignation than anger.
“Here,” she says apologetically. She grabs a bottle of iodine from a shelf littered with cans full of horseshoe nails and screws, bottles of leaking ointments and medicines, piles of orange baling twine. She pours half the bottle over Ben’s hands and arms, up to the elbow where he’s rolled up his sleeves. He rubs the iodine in his hands like soap, tries to push the liquid under his fingernails before it seeps away and dribbles onto the cement floor. The iodine turns his hands a dull orange, the same color as her own.
This is the color, Renny thinks, of her daughter’s fingernails the day she died. Rachel’s nails were painted a burnt orange with drops of white polish on top of each nail to create a flower. The extravagance of those fingernails makes her crazy even now. The whole night makes her crazy. Stupid Rachel, peeling her truck into the driveway, running into the farmhouse, only to be followed, moments later, by Ray. Ben was the only one who had any sense. He got his shotgun, he pinned Ray. And Rachel, feeling safe, perhaps, or humiliated or furious or brave, had said, “You will never see me again. You will never have me.” Which gave Ray just enough strength to break free, pull out his pistol, and shoot her. Shot by the husband she finally had sense to leave, Rachel was buried with small white flowers on her orange fingernails.
Ray has been sending letters of apology from the Cañon City Prison. Renny, for reasons she has not yet clarified with herself, posts these letters on the corkboard in the grocery store, alongside the notices for free barn cats and hay for sale. Maybe she hopes they serve as an invitation, one to everyone in town. To stop by and talk about this thing that is crushing her.
Even Ben would do, if he’d ever stop just to talk. She’d ask him in for coffee, and maybe she’d tell him what she’s been meaning to. Ben, she would say, I know what everyone thinks. That we’ve been pulled apart, cut into pieces, and that I blame you. But I don’t fault you for a thing. You can be slow to act and slow to stand up for anything, but not on that particular night. I saw you shoot above Ray’s head to distract him, throw down the gun and tackle him. My God, how you tried. It would have been enough, had Rachel not spouted off. And this orneriness, this ability to fling out words was something I nurtured. Because Rachel was the only child like me. I wanted to see a part of me alive in someone else. Tough and mouthy and even a little mean. No, I don’t blame you. I blame Ray. I blame the police, who took their sweet time in getting here. And a little part blames me.
Then, perhaps, he would hold her.
Ben strides out the barn’s back door, which opens into the corral. “Tell me, please, that you’ve called Andrews.”
“Hours ago, that idiot,” Renny says, coming up behind him. Then, more quietly, “He may be avoiding me. I complained about the last bill so much.”
Ben stops so he can look into her eyes and sighs quietly. She raises her eyebrows and shrugs, but he stares at her a moment longer. “Lord almighty, Renny,” he says, turning away at last. “You damn well know better than to mess with the vet.”
What he sees when he lets himself through the old wooden gate makes him wince. The cow is lying in the trampled, dirty snow, her belly towering into the air. A coarse rope halter