And then there was Dessie. She must’ve seen him today at the school fence. Didn’t she want a ride home? What was she smiling about with that pissant Higgs? Where were his old teammates? Were they at practice? Last year it would have been him pitching, laying on the gas to see how much heat they could take. Now that was something to look back on, but not a part of him, not something to look forward to.
Lux shifted the jeep into first gear, then second. The sun was slanting lower in the west. He wondered if any girl was worth this trouble, but then again, he’d known Dessie all his life, she was as straight as an arrow, raised right, respected. Bertram wouldn’t let her get away with much. Lux popped open a can of beer. As the warm alcohol stung his lips, he remembered how he felt last night, his breath steaming in the cold air, the far-off barking of farm dogs and baying of coonhounds, the light of the full moon, the shadow of the bare branches; then later, staying up all night, how many times he tried to write that note, trying to figure out what he wanted to tell her, trying to get each goddamn word just goddamn right.
He guided the Jeep along the gravel road, stretching out his arms and fingers, missing the weight of his chainsaw, the way it ripped into oak and cherry, the sweet greasy smell of burnt sawdust mixed with chain oil. Most of all he missed the work, the task at hand, each felled tree its own kind of puzzle. Lux killed the Jeep’s engine beside a logging cut to listen for the distant whine of the saws, maybe to catch a glimpse of his crew, maybe say hey. But all he heard was the tick of the manifold cooling, the creak of trees in the wind, the cries of distant crows settling in to roost.
THE RISING moon lit the edges of clouds in the east when Lux parked on the wide shoulder of CR 57 and walked over the Prices’ footbridge. The golden retriever came out of the doghouse and halfway growled, but when she saw who it was, she yawned quietly and wagged her tail, watching from the end of her run. The house was dark downstairs, but upstairs light glowed in several windows. Bertram and Rose’s room, probably, was on the uphill side of the house, back from the road, where a single shaft of dim light slanted back toward the chicken pen. In the front, facing the road, could be the girls’ rooms, but where was Dessie? Lux picked up a small handful of gravel, then squinted, stood back in the shadows. He felt like a relief pitcher who’d been called to the mound but wasn’t sure which direction to throw the ball. One or two small stones could tap at the base of a window frame, but which window?
There was a way to get closer, and he pulled himself up into the lower branches of a large flowering crab apple tree between two shaded windows. He held onto a branch above his head, straining to listen to the noises in the house. From his perch in the tree, the moon dimmed behind dappled layers of clouds, the air around him was so fragrant he was almost dizzy. It smelled like girls. What was he thinking, he wondered. He was afraid to let go and rub his eyepatch, afraid he might take a sneezing fit. He wondered whether he should get down and leave, just cut his losses. He shifted his weight to get more comfortable, and the limb creaked under his feet.
Suddenly Billie’s shadowy profile appeared near one of the shaded windows. She said something to her sister somewhere in the house. Lux focused on the window frame, and even though Dessie was nowhere to be seen, he tossed a couple of small stones at Billie’s head, then winced as they clattered against glass. The shade flew up and the window lifted. Billie stared outside, craning her head toward the road. “Hey, Lux, is that you?” she called into the night air.
“Good God, girl,” said Lux, “You’re loud enough to be heard halfway to town! Where’s your sister? Did you give her that note?”
Billie gestured at the next window. “She’s a-waitin’ for you.” Billie’s overly loud whisper was like something from a school play. He turned to his left, inching out to get a better look. As he neared the slender end of the limb, the slick soles of his new boots began to slip, the limb bent, then it snapped. He slid down, his boots thudding into the soft dirt of the flower bed below. “Ah, shit!” he said, trying to keep his voice down but not succeeding.
Chickens begin to cackle and cluck from their pen, and a second window opened. A blonde head stretched out. “Lux?” Dessie said. “Where are you?” Lux waved his cap toward the light above his head. He was afraid to raise his head and see Bertram or Rose. He prayed that they would keep doing whatever nightly things they were doing. He wished the chickens would shut the hell up. He wished his blood would stop hammering at his forehead and temples. Standing there, he saw his pa’s face, darkly shaded, but somehow right before his eyes. “Now who’s the old fool?” his pa cackled.
“Go away!” he finally mumbled.
“Lux, I’m coming down!” Dessie said quietly. “Me too,” said Billie from the next window. “You just stay put up here and watch for Mom and Dad,” Dessie told her sister, and despite it all, Lux grinned.
A door opened at the rear of the house, and Dessie appeared around the corner. “Hey, lumberjack!” Dessie said as she stood beside Lux shining a flashlight into his good eye. “It looks like you fell out of your tree!” She motioned him away from the windows and toward the darkness.
“Worse than that,” Lux said. He shook his head and focused on Dessie, trying to see her eyes. Dessie’s face seemed scrubbed and bright, and the rest of her was too dark to see. He pointed her flashlight away from his face toward the crab apple. “I might have broke that bottom branch. And I flattened some of your ma’s flowers, and there’s some kind of prickly plant.” He held his hand under the beam of the flashlight. “Feels like I run my hand into a hill of red ants. I wanted to brush ’em off, and they latched onto my face.” The back of his hand motioned upward; fine gold cactus needles spread from his cheeks to his mouth and glinted on the dark of his eyepatch.
“Oh, for the love of Pete, Lux, you got into the prickly pear,” Dessie said. She scanned his face. Then she stepped back inside through the back door. As Lux waited, afraid to scratch or move in any direction, she returned with a washrag, a bottle of witch hazel, and a pair of tweezers. Under her arm, she had a can of beer. “Where’s your Jeep at?” she asked. “Never you mind,” said Lux. He poured the soothing witch hazel onto his hands and splashed at his face. “You just help me out here, and then I’ll be going. I’ll come back in the morning to help clean up.”
Dessie shone the fading flashlight up at Lux’s face; his good eye blinked. He wished he could see, he wished the pounding in his head would ease, he prayed that the next sound he heard would not be Bertram busting out the back door. He took a deep breath and instead heard Dessie’s hushed tones. “Quiet, Lux,” she said. “Set that beer under your shirt and stoop your head down. Hold this light right here. And be still, we better get these spines out first thing.” Her hands smelled like the nurse’s office. Lux tried to keep his arm from shaking as she worked with the tweezers. Hopefully, Billie was keeping watch. Dessie pulled at thin spines on his cheekbone and along his jaw. Recalling a trick that eased his nerves before a game, he began counting backward. “Ninety-nine . . . ninety-eight . . . ninety- seven,” he said, taking a breath between each number.
“What are you going on about, Lux?” Dessie asked, and then, “Can you please hold still?” she said again, holding his trembling hand firmly, for a couple of spines on his knuckles, easing them out. “Ninety-four . . . ninety-three . . . ninety-two . . .” Lux muttered, staring at the outline of the back door in the stark moonlight. Dessie turned off the flashlight, brushed off her slacks, and set the supplies behind the back door. “Let’s get going,” she said softly. “We can’t stay here,” she said. “We’ll have the whole family out here.”
Lux shook his head and started to speak, but Dessie put her index finger up to her mouth. She led the way down the walk to the doghouse beside the footbridge. The hammering in his temples became less noticeable with each stride. The cool dampness of the air near the creek washed over the skin on his arms and eased the sting on his cheekbones. The dog thumped her tail and then let out a whine, but Dessie stopped to quiet her, stroking her on the head. “Do you think we should take Lucy up into the woods with us?” she asked, looking up at him.
She