Excerpt From Welcome to Wildhorse, by Charles Dye
“Change in the air like something had to happen”
Fiction by Charles Dye
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Next morning, I woke up hungry and cold there on the couch. Woke up to the sounds of Dad and Sheena through that door that wouldn’t ever stay shut. Over-and-over scrape of wood on wood, legs of the bedframe against the hardwood. Sounds of their voices, but not in a way like to make words.
And like it always did, the door of Dad’s bedroom was drifted open about as wide as your fist. Through that door that wouldn’t ever stay shut, north-window sunlight off two pairs of legs all stood together there at the foot of Dad’s bed. Two pairs of bare feet on the worn, gritty hardwood.
Same as ever, even late summer then, the winter white of Dad’s back.
Same itch against my skin from that yellow fabric on the couch where I slept.
Sound in Dad’s voice of a dryness creeping into his throat. Same as I’d heard it before, the tone of it almost like he was hurt. Same way Sheena’s voice started up, over the top of those other sounds. All stretched out and reaching for something.
So much the same, but so different in the way I heard it all that morning. Different in the way it sounded to me after I’d heard those sounds in Sheena’s voice right into my ear, on quick breaths all close and hot.
Different in the way I’d gone that summer from not wanting anything to do with either one of them, to not wanting them to have anything to do with each other.
Same in the way I couldn’t remember a time before that tension just lived in the air around Dad’s house.
But different, in that now Dad wasn’t holding all the cards and I finally knew it.
And it’s not like I sat there and thought it through. But in that way you get to knowing something by feel even before you actually think on it. I just had a feeling then like something had to happen. Like it always did.
Man, I was out the front door faster than I don’t know what. Leaving behind the over-and-over sounds of wood on wood, and the voice sounds from Sheena over the voice sounds from Dad.
Out the front door of Dad’s house in those same clothes I’d slept in, same clothes from my day with Sheena down at the first bridge.
My bare feet over the gravel. Quick steps over the dry stab of the fieldgrass, all cured up with purple highlights and ready to burn. Out to the chickenhouse that used to be a truckshop, and into the back corner where the stacked cordwood met the wall where the tools kept.
Framing nails stubbed into the two-by-fours, pairs of nails side by side for hanging the cruiser axe and the splitting maul and the shovels. A lower nail with stained-up linseed rags for oiling the handles. Half-gallon tin of linseed oil there on the dirt floor next to the baseboard, metal cap speckled with tiny spots of rust.
Pressed a knee down to the dirt floor there at the backend of the stack of cordwood. Reached into that one gap in the stacked firewood, and brought out my two jars from where I kept them stashed. The last of my secrets.
In my one hand, the hornet jar heavier even at half the size. Heavier with the weight of that yellowjacket nest. Heavier than the money jar with my thin fold of cash and the picture of the Mom I never met. My money jar, always for another day and never for today, so I put it back into the gap of the woodpile where I kept it hid.
Both hands to the weight of the hornet jar then. The glass dusty and cold to the touch. My secret trophy from the day I was brave in Sheena’s eyes for that one moment.
Change in the air like something had to happen. Like it always did.
Turned the weight of the hornet jar in my hand. Those yellowjackets dried out and curled up, their crystalline wings all cracked and broken. The nest gone dark like grease-stained, and stuck to the glass. Nest still packed with eggs, but those eggs leaking black tar and gone to rot.
Something had to happen, I just didn’t know what.
Stood myself up and took the centerpoint shovel off the nails where Dad hung it. Moved to where I stood at the edge of the shade in the chickenhouse, where the morning sun pushed in.
Centerpoint shovel in one hand, and my hornet jar in the other. Barefoot, morning-cold and hungry, I started out across the fieldgrass down in front of Dad’s house. Out past the smoker and the firepit. Into the treeline. In through the veil of huckleberry and tanoak. Into the cool shade and still air under the oldgrowth canopy, and on up past the raintank.
Stopped there, and I set the hornet jar down at my feet. Figured I ought to bury that too. Little jar of fury long dead, and so full of ugliness I couldn’t hardly stand to think about it. Full of a darkness that reached into the weight behind my heart. Weight that sat there so long I didn’t know what to call it. For so long I didn’t know how to feel it there until it was gone.
Gripped the long, straight handle of the shovel and I pushed the bare arch of my foot down against the back of the blade. Worked the point in past the duff and into the dirt. Pried up the first scoop of that forest soil, all rich and moist. Mineral smell of the dirt rose up and mixed with the old-growth smells of pollen and pitch.
And mixed in with it all, this heat all through my chest. My heartbeat, not running fast but surging hard enough to feel it. And of course, back behind my ears, the perfect match of my pulse and my bloodsound.
Leaned in at my knees and my waist, swinging the shovel down wide-grip overhand like you would with a pick axe. Stabbed the shovel point down into the duff and the dirt. Bent at the waist with my feet planted. Striking the blade downward, all arms and shoulders, over and over.
Not making much of a hole, just making a mess.
Sweat beads on my forehead. Sting in the ridge of callous along the base of my fingers, and heat in my chest. Burn in the muscles of my arms and shoulders and back.
Breathing so heavy, the first sign I heard was her voice there a few paces off behind me.
What? she said. Now you’re mad at the dirt?
I struck the shovel point down and let it stick. Looked around my one shoulder, and goddammit there was Sheena. Again. Of course.
And my breath came a little ragged, but my words didn’t come at all.
Sheena shifted her weight to one leg. Shortshort ponytail. Arms crossed in front of her, with her one hand up. Picking at the nail polish on her ring finger with the edge of her thumbnail. Through those crossed arms, the words of her band tour t-shirt read: Teriyaki Shark Stick.
Funny thing about muscle work and the way it hits you all at once, a few breaths after you let up. Sudden weight of my arms, to where they hung tired from my shoulders out to the shovel handle there in my grip. Shovel point stuck firm in the dirt. Sweat beads stinging at the corners of my eyes.
Sheena blew at her bangs where they crossed her nose down to one side. Teeth white through that one-sided, smartass smile she did sometimes. And that way she had about her like she enjoyed the feel of my eyes on her, even as out of place as she always looked out in those trees up the ridge from Wildhorse.
Waterstain eyes right at me through the shade of the old-growth. Eyes in that filtered light and shade. Eyes all the colors of looking from the deep water down into the gray and brown and black. The colors of that water so deep, to where you can feel it pulling you over some edge inside yourself. That edge where you have to remember not to let yourself look too long at the dark, or make yourself remember the choice to look to the light. Broad daylight, but it was deepwater midnight in Sheena’s eyes.
How come you’re up here diggin? she said.
And right then, I hated that she was the last little corner of my heart where Dad could still get to it.
How come the second you’re done with him you always come lookin' for me? I said, but not in a way that you’d answer.
Sheena’s little, one-sided smile faded in a way that ended with her lips together between her teeth. Held her mouth like that, and looked her waterstain eyes down at my feet for a few breaths before she spoke up again.
Then she said: You know I’d rather it was only with you Rex, but what choice do I have other than letting him take what he wants?
And she said: Not like I can give him some baby oil and a strip of vinyl to use instead.
Just a touch of that smartass smile come back up one side of her face. Sheena. Of course.
Lump in my throat that wouldn’t ever swallow. Flush in my face under the sweat, and a shake in my knees like my legs might just give out.
And I mean, what the fuck were we going to do. When Dad found out, he’d try to kill us both.
Right then, I wanted to get away as far off that mountain as I could get. Wanted to dig a hole big enough to hold all the fury on Wildhorse. But more than anything, I wanted to still my face into a stony mask. Didn’t dare move, to risk it falling apart.
One thing I’d learned by then was that you can’t help letting your feelings slip. But in a place like Wildhorse you can’t afford to slip the mask.
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Charles Dye is a professional Copywriter, award-winning Journalist and aspiring novelist honored to be among Tom Spanbauer's students in the Dangerous Writing community. His fiction credits include indie anthologies Artscape, The Frozen Moment, and The Class that Fell in Love With the Man.