HE REMEMBERED THE FIRST TIME HE SAW HIM. He must have been five, near on to six. It was dusk. Summer. The hens were roosting and he was tacking up an extra skein of wire at the base of the hutch. There’d been a fox or a weasel taking hens. They’d lost three already and the old man was angered by it. So the kid had asked how they could fix it. It was a small task and the old man wasn’t prone to babying. Instead, he listened when the kid asked questions and he took time to show him how to do things. Then, rather than hover over his shoulder, he left the kid to whichever chore he’d shown interest in. If he needed a hand or the chore needed fixing once he was done, the old man would help him through it so he could learn. But for the jobs themselves, he was left to work. So the kid was hunkered down at the base of the hen hutch busy with arranging the wire. He’d dug down a good foot or so and set the wire in the ground before covering it and getting to the task of tacking staples around the upper section to the wood frame. He liked the hens. He liked their bobbing, pecking scurry and the old lady sort of attitude they took about their roosts. He liked eggs too, so it didn’t feel like a chore to him.
He was aware of the man before he saw him. When he turned his head there was the shadowed outline of a man in the doorway. The kid never moved. He squinted against the light and then turned back to the hutch.
“Varmint?” the man said.
“Yeah. Got three hens already,” the kid said.
“Shame. You could shoot it.”
“Have to be up all night waitin’.”
“Suppose. You all right there?”
“I just got to tack up this wire.”
“See you up to the house then.”
The kid focused on the frame and tapped in a staple. When he turned his head again the man was gone. When he had the wire up he headed for the house with his tools.
He heard them as soon as he entered. Man talk. Deep, rumbled voices that had no pitch or sway, just a long rollout of words that left him knowing that what they discussed had weight to it. The kid put the smaller tools on the metal toolbox by the back door and hung the wire snips and the hammer on hooks set in a peg board nailed to the mudroom wall. He banged the hammer some when he hung it and then stomped his feet on the rubber mat to let them know he was there and the talk dropped off then started in again as he hung his jacket.
They sat at the kitchen table. The old man eyed him as he walked to the refrigerator. He was pouring whisky into mugs. When the kid turned with a glass of milk the old man nodded to him and he pulled a chair up to the table and sat.
“This here’s Eldon,” the old man told him.
“Sir,” the kid said and nodded. He spat on his hand, slid it along the thigh of his pants to dry it and then reached it out across the table.
Eldon shook hands with him. “You get that wire hung good?”
“That varmint’ll let me know how good I done.”
Eldon laughed. “Ain’t that a fact,” he said. “Them varmints are a smart bunch.”
“Not near as smart as me.”
The old man reached out and rubbed his hair. The kid beamed at him. The three of them sat through a moment of silence and the kid looked back and forth at the men and sipped at his milk.
“You look up Seth Minor like I told ya?” the old man asked.
Eldon swallowed some of the whisky and sat back in his chair with his hands folded around the mug. They were pale and the kid could see the blue veins clearly like tiny rivers through his skin. He fished a smoke out of the chest pocket of his shirt and fumbled with a lighter. When he got it going he took a draw and then exhaled across the table and the kid had to wave the cloud of smoke away from his face. Eldon coughed and shot back another hit of the whisky. “I did,” he said finally. “It never amounted to much. Seasonal is all.”
“It’s a season,” the old man said. “You get four seasonals, you get a year.”
“Sure. Easy enough for you to say. Ain’t much call for bush-trained men no more. The tree toppers and the trucks took away the work.”
“They still got call for fallers.”
“Had to pawn the saw,” Eldon said and coughed again.
The old man shook his head and took a sip from his mug. “Man don’t put his tools in hock,” he said.
Eldon stared hard at him. The kid could see red veins in his eyes and a pale yellow cloud behind them. “Yeah, well, seasonal jobs’ll put you places you didn’t plan on.”
“Gonna blame it on the work, are ya?”
“Shit luck,” Eldon said. “All’s I’m saying.”
“We don’t cuss around here.” The old man tilted his head toward the kid.
Eldon flicked a look at him too. “Cuss’ll say it plain sometimes.”
“Plain says it plain around here.”
“Yeah. Okay. Your house and all,” Eldon said. He tipped back his mug and swallowed and then held it out to the old man, who shook his head, sighed, and plopped a shot into it. Eldon tilted his head at it and the old man poured more. “But it’s all gonna pan out. Got me on at the mill regular. Got in a couple months already and I figure the goose is hanging pretty high.”
“That goose’s been hung before,” the old man said.
“Different friggin’ goose,” Eldon said and laughed. “Frig’s no cuss word, is it?”
“Not so’s I’d notice, I suppose.”
“Good friggin’ thing then,” Eldon said. His face was ruddy now and he smiled more. He looked at the kid and winked.
The old man got up and began to rattle around at the stove and the kid and Eldon took turns looking at each other without speaking. There was the smell of stew, peppery and tangy with garlic and onions, and the old man set biscuits to warm in the oven. Eldon reached over and snuck the bottle across the table while the kid watched and poured himself a large dollop. He held a finger to his lips and winked again and the kid wanted to say something, but he didn’t. He just sat there and watched while Eldon drank off more of the whisky and settled back in his chair and flopped one leg over the other and smoked and exhaled clouds at the ceiling.
They ate. The men mostly talked about the farm. When he was finished the kid gathered all the plates and cleared the table. Eldon was the only one with the whisky now. The old man sipped at black tea. The kid washed the dishes and set everything back in the cupboard. He caught Eldon staring at him every now and then but there were never any words. The looks felt odd, like there were words hung off them, but Eldon never said a thing to him. When he was finished he said good night and went to his bedroom, where he coloured in a book until he was tired enough to get into bed. He heard the rumble of their talk. He thought he heard a sob and the old man’s voice rise some then it got quieter but he could still hear them talking.
“Who is he?” the kid asked while they were milking in the morning. Eldon slept on the couch near the woodstove. The kid had looked at him when he got up. His arms and legs were flung wide and his head was tilted back with his mouth wide open.
The old man pulled at the cow’s teats and the kid watched his shoulders work. “Someone I known years ago,” he said without looking back at him. “Different fella now but I knew him good at one time. Least I thought I did.”
“He smells funny,” the kid said.
“He’s been rinsed through pretty good.”
“With that whisky?” the kid asked.
“Yes, sir. Some men take to it. I never did.”
“Why not? Does it do bad things?”