The Hunter

Trey says, “Didja wear gloves?”

Sheila shakes her head. “I wasn’t bothered,” she says.

Trey sees the shed blazing up with evidence like marsh fire: fingerprints on the hammer, the wheelbarrow, on the door, the shelves, in blood, footprints tangled on the floor. Rushborough’s body is nothing; the danger is here.

“The clothes you were wearing,” she says. “D’you remember what ones?”

Sheila looks at her, the strange look in her eyes strengthening to a half-smile. “I do,” she says.

“D’you still have ’em?”

“I do, o’ course. I gave them a wash. They needed it.”

Trey sees her mother’s familiar faded T-shirts and jeans alight with tiny incandescent trails, Rushborough’s hairs, wisps of shirt cotton, spatters of blood, matted deep into the fabric. Once Sheila had set this in motion, she never even tried to move out of its way; she just stood still and waited for it to hit her or miss her. Trey can’t tell whether this was exhaustion or a defiance deeper than any she’s known before.

“Get ’em anyway,” she says. “And the shoes.”

Sheila pushes her chair back and stands up. She’s smiling full-on at Trey, her head going up like a wild proud girl’s. “Now,” she says. “Like I said: we do what needs doing.”

—

The sun is sinking. Out in the fields, the light still turns the grass gold, but here at the foot of the mountains the shadow is deep as dusk. The heat is different, not the naked blaze from the sky, but the thick accumulated heat of the day seeping up from the earth. The men stand silent, waiting. Sonny and Con are shoulder to shoulder. P.J. shifts from foot to foot, rustling the dry brush; Francie smokes; Dessie whistles a shapeless tune between his teeth, and then stops. Mart leans on a spade. Francie has a hurley tucked under his arm, and P.J. is absently swinging a pickaxe handle. Cal watches them without seeming to, and tries to gauge what they’ve come here aiming or willing to do.

The sound of Senan’s station wagon comes to them faintly from far around the bend. It pulls up away on the road next to the other cars, and Francie crushes out his smoke underfoot. Johnny gets out of the car and picks his way through the grass and weeds towards them, with Senan and Bobby at his back like guards.

When he gets close enough, Johnny glances from one face to another and half-laughs. “What’s all this, lads?” he asks. “God almighty, ye’re looking awful serious.”

Mart holds out the spade. “Dig,” he says.

Johnny looks at it in disbelief, grinning. Cal can see his mind skittering for escape routes. “Ah, now,” he says. “I’m not dressed for—”

“You said there was gold,” Sonny says. “Let’s see it.”

“Jesus, lads, I never said ’twas on this spot. Your man Rushborough never pinned down the places that close. And sure, I told ye from the start, the whole thing coulda been—”

“Here’ll do,” Francie says.

“Ah, lads,” Johnny says. “Is this my penance, is it, for bringing Rushborough here? Sure, I’ve lost more than any of ye, but I’m not—”

Mart says, “Dig.”

After a moment Johnny shakes his head like he’s humoring them, steps forward and takes the spade. For a second his eyes catch Cal’s. Cal looks back at him.

He strikes the spade into the earth, with a small gritty scrape, and drives it home with his foot. The ground is dried hard; it sinks only a couple of inches. Johnny glances up wryly, inviting the other men to share the absurdity. “We’ll be here all night,” he says.

“Then you’d better get moving,” Con says.

Johnny looks around their faces again. None of them change. He bends back to the digging.

—

Nobody wants to get in the car. Somehow they’ve all picked up something in the air, something they don’t understand but don’t like, and they all turn defiant against it. Liam shouts, demanding to know where they’re going and why and where Daddy is, till Sheila shoves him, still yelling and kicking out at her, into the back seat. Alanna, sobbing piteously, attaches herself to Trey’s legs and has to be peeled off, while Sheila retrieves Liam from halfway across the yard and throws him back into the car with a slap to keep him there. Even Banjo hides under Trey’s bed; Trey has to drag him out, while he howls tragically and tries to burrow into the floor, and carry him to the car. The catch of the boot is broken; with so much stuff jammed into it, it keeps flying open, and every time it does, Banjo tries to make a break for it over the back seat.

Maeve gets into bed, pulls the sheet over her head, and refuses to move. Trey tries dragging her and tries hitting her, but she just kicks and stays put. Sheila, battling the others, can’t help. Trey doesn’t have time for this shit. Nealon could drive up any minute.

She kneels by Maeve’s bed. She can tell by the shape under the sheet that Maeve has her hands over her ears, so she pinches a fold of arm and digs her nails in. Maeve squeals and kicks out.

“Listen to me,” Trey says.

“Fuck off.”

“Listen or I’ll do it again.”

After a second Maeve takes her hands off her ears. “I’m not going,” she informs Trey.