The Orchardist

         He came down off the mountain bearing apricots and early apples, and hitched up outside the feed and supply store. He watered the mule, speaking softly to him, and slowly moved around to the back of the wagon. He tugged forward each burlap-covered bushel and unveiled them and began to unload them. He moved deliberately between wagon and platform as if worn and weighed down by time. Upon turning he felt himself fixed in some steadfast gaze and looked over his shoulder. Two girls, raggedy, smudged-faced, peered at him from across the wide street. They stood conspiratorially, half turned towards each other. He glanced at them again, turning from the wagon, but they had turned their backs to him. There was no one else on the street.

         As he finished unloading the fruit, a woman gained the platform and came and bent over the up-tilted bushel of red deliciouses. Half her face was mottled and pink, as if burned, her mouth an angry pucker. She held defensively to her breast a burlap sack. She palmed an apple, sniffed it. This looks like a good’n here, she said. She glanced dubiously at a bushel of paler apples that he presently set beside the deliciouses. What’re those?

         He glanced down. Pinks. Sweethearts.

         She considered them. All right, she said. I’ll take a few of them as well. From the folds of her skirt she brought out a dull green change purse. How much?

         He told her. She pinched out the correct change and handed it to him. He nodded and took the money, put it in his pocket.

         He took the sack she held out and began filling it. As he handled the fruit the woman glanced over her shoulder. The two girls stood away under the awning of the hardware store now but still held the same posture.

         Look what the cat drug in, she commented. Those two looking over here like that, y’aren’t careful, they’ll come rob you. Hooligan-looking. She sniffed.

         He handed back to her the burlap sack, the bottom heavy and misshapen with fruit. He nodded at her, and she moved off down the street.

         He sat down on a wooden folding chair, next to the bushels. The girls stood with their shoulders pressed together looking into the window of the dry goods store. A gust of wind blew their dresses flat against their bare calves but they remained motionless. The air was sultry and strange, the sky overhead dirty and yellowish gray. Wind gusted again and threw sand onto the platform, and then it was quiet. He gazed again at the girls, who had not moved, and pulled his cap low and dozed beside the fruit stand. He woke to someone addressing him:

         That you, Talmadge? Those girls just robbed ye.

         He righted his cap. A slack-mouthed boy stood gaping at him. I saw them do it, he said. I watched them do it. You give me a nickel, said the boy, I’ll run them down and get yer apples back for ye.

         The girls had gotten farther than Talmadge would have expected. They made a grunting sound between them, in their effort at speed. The apples that dropped from their swooped-up dresses they crouched or bent awkwardly to retrieve. The awkwardness was due, he saw, to their grotesquely swollen bellies. He had not realized before that they were pregnant. The nearer one looked over her shoulder and cried out, let go the hem of her dress and lurched forward through the heavy thud of apples. The other girl swung her head around. She had black eyes, the hard startle of a hawk. She grabbed the other girl’s wrist roughly and yanked her along and they went down the empty road like that, panting, one crying, at a hobble-trot. He stopped and watched them go. The boy, at his side, looked wildly back and forth between the old man and the ragged duo. I can get ‘em, I can catch ‘em, Talmadge, he said. Wildly back and forth. Talmadge, the boy repeated.

         Talmadge watched the girls retreat.

         Two days later he saw them come over the hill. He was braced aloft in an apricot tree on the opposite hillside and he quit the shears and watched them. It was morning. They paused upon the hilltop and slowly came forward at an angle to the pasture, their dark hair like flags riding the grass. At the perimeter of the yard they hesitated, bending their bodies to see inside the small windows.

         He climbed down from the tree, the shears clamped in his armpit. When he walked up into the yard one girl turned her face to him, and froze. The other girl, who had been speaking quietly to the other, ceased. Both stood and watched him, their eyes swarming the shears. He stopped twenty feet from them.

         You all lost? he called. They glanced at each other, and then looked away at the trees. One held her mouth open and panted slightly. Their faces were filthy. Even from where he stood he saw their arms discolored with dirt.

         He crossed the yard and went into the cabin. He laid the shears on the table and took his time stoking the fire in the woodstove. When he went outside again they had come closer, but feinted back when he came out onto the porch. He went down to the creek and filled a bucket with water, then came back to the cabin. As he mounted the rise in the orchard he saw the lawn was empty. Then he saw them; he tried not to fix them directly, where they lay now in the border between the cut lawn and the outer grass, peering out, thinking themselves hidden.

         In the cabin he made thick cakes out of meal and creek water, and fried them over the stove. He set all this on the table along with an uncapped jar of milk. Then he left the cabin, shears in hand, and walked to the apple orchard, a deeper section up the creek, leaving them to themselves.

         Late afternoon he walked back to the cabin. There was no sign of them. The food had been eaten. The plates were clean. They had even eaten the crud on the griddletop, the charred remains of the mealcakes. The bowl on the table was empty of fruit. He stood for a moment, and then checked the cold pantry. They had taken his eggs and milk. Backing out, he checked the cupboard by the stove. They had taken his cornmeal, his salt. He waited a moment, then went out onto the porch and looked across the lawn, at the trees. He felt that they were not there any longer, that they had gone. He looked at the trees. Dusk settled within the branches, touched the ground.

         Inside he took off his boots, and slept.

         The next morning he hitched the mule to the wagon and loaded a small supply of apples and apricots. Before stepping into the wagon he counted his money slowly and carefully. He fit the soiled bills into a leather wallet and gazed at the trees, sharpening in the blue light.

         Before he reached town the sun was high and rinsing the standing wheatfields, quiet but for their resplendent shushing. The heat warmed his face but was not oppressive, and blew a clean scent down the road. A few white wisps of clouds in the sky posed silently.

         He tied his wagon outside the feed and supply store and watered the mule. He walked down the platform to the café. Inside he took a seat at the counter and ordered coffee and fried eggs. The girl who took his order was maybe thirteen years old. He had never seen her before. He studied her from under his hatbrim as she wiped down the counter, carried a stack of dirty dishes to the kitchen. He guessed the girls he had seen were about the same age. When she came back out she had his eggs, and set them in front of him. Refilled his mug quickly. He watched her for a while longer, until she looked at him pointedly, unsmiling, and he looked away.

         A little while later she came to pour him more coffee and said, Your name’s not Talmadge, is it? He didn’t look at her face but rather at the brown arm held aloft over the mug. He cleared his throat. Nodded.

         Oh, she said. You stay right here then. My daddy’s got something to say to you. She withdrew her arm and disappeared into the kitchen. A moment later a tall man came out. He had a high forehead, long limbs, a russet mustache.

         Talmadge, he said.

         I tol’ you pa, said the girl, and floated past them down the counter.

         The man came around the counter and sat down. He looked after the girl. Shoot, he said. Been working here a week and thinks she owns the place. My youngest, he said, and nodded after the girl. Wants a job like the rest of ‘em. He grinned. That’s all my girls working here now, and all the boys but the two youngest working next door. It’s a regular family racket.

         Talmadge nodded.

         The man regarded Talmadge: I told her you only come Thursday to Sunday.

         Well, said Talmadge. Need supplies.

         The man motioned for coffee and peered past Talmadge, to the lot in front of the café. The day glaring now. D’you bring the wagon? he said. You plannin’ on doing some business?

         Talmadge cleared his throat. That’s what I came about.

         The man eyed him. With Sykes?

         With Sykes. Or you.

         After a moment the man said, Maybe, maybe. He squinted outside. But you’re just in here a few days ago. You got something new? He frowned. Not the late pinks. Not yet?

         Talmadge shook his head. Naw, he said, and rubbed his jaw. Just more of the same. And some ‘cots.

         The man was silent. Well I don’t know, he said. I just don’t know. Couldn’t give you money no way, he said.

         Talmadge nodded slowly. What about trade?

         The man said, Show me what you got, and we’ll talk. I’d like to see those ‘cots.

         On the way out the door the man said, Lord, I almost forgot. I had Jinny out there keeping an eye out for you, and I almost forgot. Someone’s looking for you.

         Talmadge frowned at the ground. Outside was a breath of hot air. Who’s that? he said.

         Don’t know exactly. Said he’s from north of Wenatchee. Hunting some girls.

         Talmadge looked up. Some girls? he said.

         I think so. He come into town a few days ago asking around about his girls, run off or somethin’, and Willie Angell said there were some girls matched his description who’d run off with some of your apples not just last week.

         Talmadge hesitated beside the wagon. He tugged on his hatbrim while the man pulled a bushel of apricots toward him for inspection.

         Is that so? said the man, looking up. Some wild girls steal your fruit?

         Talmadge tugged his brim. Naw, he said. He could feel himself making a face of disgust. Nobody run off with anything, he said. The thought of town gossip involving him bothered him deeply.

         You saw them though? Those girls?

         Talmadge didn’t answer. He flicked his eyes over the man’s face. You going to buy these ‘cots or what, he said.

         All right, all right. He pulled the bushel forward in the wagon and hauled it up onto his shoulder and trudged with it back into the café. Talmadge waited a moment looking at the sky. The heat was fine and stunning and seemed to blow through him like a ring.

         That evening, after storing the wagon in the barn and feeding and watering the mule, he prepared a small meal and ate it on the porch. While he was eating movement sprung in the apricot orchard and something was born out of the dark trees. He stopped chewing. It was a doe. Her gait was neither quick nor slow but stilted and graceful. Another doe followed, and another, until it seemed the orchard was bleeding deer. Seven does came from the copse. As they moved to the hill above the creek, where space diluted the darkness to blue, their hides became brown and then gray in the moonlight. They stood sniffing the air with their delicate noses. Afterward they spilled over the hill to the creek, but for spanless moments they remained. One animal decided to head creekward and one by one they followed suit, a silent ripple ending in a final dissipating form.

         The next morning he made coffee and ate a bit of biscuit and bacon he saved from the night before. It was early yet, and cool, and he decided to chop wood. He walked through the apricot orchard and down the slope, through the shallow creek, and across the field. Long cuts of young evergreen lay stacked near the edge of the forest. He cut an entire tree into sections and stood sweating and looked over the broken length. He left his work and walked across the field to the creek. As he knelt and splashed water in his face he remembered the deer. He drank from the creek and then stood and returned to the edge of the woods where the broken tree lay. He placed each round block upon a mid-length stump and proceeded to strike the block for kindling. The sound of the creek was muffled by the line of gargantuan trees at his back. The crack of the axe splitting wood echoed and roamed the sky.

         In the afternoon he ate lunch and then walked in the apricot orchard. The deer had damaged some of the trees. Limbs were broken from where he imagined they reared up on their hindquarters to get at fruit. The damage was not great, but he would have to be more careful. Some men shot deer that ravaged crops but he was not one of them. Instead, he would tie bags of dried herbs around the lower limbs of every other tree—coreopsis, algamanum—to offend the deer’s olfactory senses. His mother had taught him this. She tied bags to limbs and lay in wait with him and his sister in the cabin, peering out at dusk when the herd came drifting in from the forest. He saw them stop short, some shaking their heads, pausing, making half-circles around the orchard. His mother had laughed and beside him he felt his sister’s silent disapproval.

         One badly damaged tree at the end of the row was a sapling he had planted the previous spring. He crouched down and touched the limbs.

         In the shed next to the barn he kept a collection of apple, pear, and apricot saplings. They grew incrementally in clay pots. Summer afternoons he set up a table under the eave of the cabin and worked on the saplings. He manipulated their shapes to networks he envisioned, performing multiple surgeries upon the tiny twig-like limbs. Youth had provided the advantage of better sight, much needed when he had begun the craft and relied upon sight as well as coordination; but now, though sight was not gone, it was nevertheless impaired, and for several years he had depended solely upon the feel and texture of the limbs between his fingers. The myriad operations and surgical implements were second nature to him now; each practice was fluid and exact.

         When the saplings were ready he planted them at the end of orchard rows. He kept constant watch over them, building wooden latticework to support them during their precarious adolescence. Some of his experiments failed, were decimated by weather or circumstance. Others, however, flourished.

         In the shed he surveyed the apricot saplings. He decided upon one and took hold of the clay pot in which it was secured and carried it outside, across the grass to the orchard. He knelt and studied the breadth and width of the broken limb and compared it to those limbs on the healthy sapling. Finally he chose one limb on the new sapling and cut into the bark with his pocketknife. Likewise he cut two inches above the ragged limb and fit the limbs together so they joined at complementary angles. He had chosen and cut well and was pleased. He returned to the shed and retrieved a jar of wax and twine and set to work setting a wax cast for the new limb.

         He sat in the grass bent over his work like a large child and the two girls watched him from the edge of the field where they also sat, quietly ruminating his form and occupation. They did not speak to each other but sat in the heat motionless. One girl absently clawed the ground with her fingers and brought a fistful of dirt to her mouth and ate it.

         He did not see them that day. But the next day he stood in the midsection of an apple tree and saw them come meandering down the orchard rows. He continued cutting and watched them indirectly. They stopped down the row from him and sat in the grass. They did not look up at him. One ran her hand up and down the stalks of grass and then desisted, and turned her head as if hearing a call. When he climbed down from the tree they sat up straight and held still. He pretended not to notice them and momentarily considered walking around the row to avoid passing them, but walked toward them instead. They stiffened. He approached them, passed. They looked after him. He walked out of the orchard and to the shed where he replaced the shears. They had followed him out of the trees and were hesitating on the edge of the lawn. As he neared them, one stepped back but the other remained. He passed her and went down to the creek. On the way back to the cabin he passed them again. They had not moved or changed attitudes: one was fixed, the other wary.

         In the house he set to frying trout he had caught that morning. As he turned from the stove he glanced out the door and saw that the nearer one had crept forward across the grass. The hesitant one stood on the edge of the lawn and looked over her shoulder as if gauging escape.

         Fish, tomatoes, eggs and onions, fried bread. His face flushed. He worked with possession. When he was finished the cabin was hot and pungent with the odor of fried fish and onions.

         The closer one hung back from the porch. Dusk had fallen across the grass and the other girl stood a shadow on the edge of the lawn. He set two plates of food on the porch. Then he turned and walked back into the cabin.

         He sat at the table with a plate of fish in front of him. A minute later he got up from his chair and blew out the lantern perched on the stove mantle. He walked to the door and looked out. They knelt in the grass and ate with their heads together silently.

         The next evening they sat at the edge of the lawn. He watched them from the window. Slowly he turned and walked to the pantry, regarded his supplies. He took a bag of cornmeal and set to making cakes and fried apples. Turning in the kitchen attending to various tasks he glanced out the window and noticed a girl moving slowly across the grass toward him. He stopped working and watched her. She held a plate clasped to her breast. The oil spit in the pan behind him and the room warmed with the odor of cornbread. She stopped at the edge of the porch. He wiped his hands on his pants and went to the door. She had black eyes and a black shapeless mouth. She held the plate tightly to her chest and stood outside the sphere of light the lantern cast. He stepped out onto the porch. She looked past him into the cabin. It was as if the food and the odor of the food was a body she had expected to greet her. Finally her eyes fluttered over his chest and she haltingly held out the plate, and then changed her mind and set it on the porch step, and stepped back. He bent down and took the plate and went inside, heaped food upon it. When he returned she was rushing back to him across the grass, with another plate. The other girl stood alone on the edge of the grass, watching. He held out the plate of food to the girl but she would not take it. When she reached out for it she pulled her hand back and shied to the side. He set the plate of food on the porch and took the other plate inside and filled it. When he returned to the porch her cheeks were filled with food and her eyes watered. It’s hot, he said. At the sound of his voice she blinked rapidly. She would not take the other plate so he set it on the porch and returned inside the cabin.

         From the window he watched her retreat across the grass, pausing to lower her face into the food. The other girl met her and seized the other plate. They sunk to their knees in the grass and ate as they had before.

         One hundred dollars apiece, the poster said, for the capture of two girls called Jane and Della. To be returned to James Michaelson of Omak, Washington.

         They might be somebody’s, Talmadge thought. It could be true. It could be child foolishness, their running away. He stood looking at the notice nailed to the wall outside the feed and supply store and thought of the poster he had drawn up those years ago, the notary at the bank saying, How do you spell that—Nadine? And Talmadge looked at him blankly and the notary sighed and wagged his pen and bent and wrote: To those persons with information regarding the whereabouts of Ms. Nadine Talmadge please contact William Talmadge—What’s your address, son? Again the blank stare. How do you expect them to get ahold of you? Talmadge stared desperately. The notary said, almost angrily, How about if they leave word at the P.O. How’s that? Talmadge nodded and the notary wrote the rest of the notice and looked up and said, There. Talmadge cleared his throat. There’s a reward, he said. Did you put that in? How much? the notary said. Talmadge said, Five dollars. Five dollars? Incredulous. Talmadge said, No, a hundred dollars. The notary sat back in his chair. Son, do you even have a hundred dollars? Talmadge didn’t see what it mattered; five dollars, a hundred dollars. If Nadine returned the money wouldn’t matter. If they had to pay a hundred dollars then they would pay a hundred dollars.

         Talmadge would meet James Michaelson and see what was to be done.

         The desert was cold. The foothills were the color of old bone, smooth, rimed with sagebrush. There were canyon walls in the distance with insides stained pink. A trick of light. Riding upon the wagon drawn by the lone mule Talmadge felt large and empty.

         In Omak he inquired at a dry feed store the whereabouts of Michaelson. The storekeeper told him that the Michaelson outfit was just north of Omak. He gave Talmadge directions and then fixed him in one long compassionless stare. Talmadge thanked him and moved out of the store to the street.

         He passed out of Omak and the homesteads beyond and then he came upon a town that appeared to be a ghost town. The buildings were ramshackle and squat and looked as if they had weathered a thousand storms but would not survive another. Inexplicably a goat was tied by a rope to a post outside a hovel which looked to be unoccupied. Talmadge rode slowly along the main street surveying the shacks and the dry grass and the firepits that had been squelched and were now rings of ash with bits of rubble in them.

         A dog ambled around the corner of a house and halted when it saw Talmadge and the mule, and backed up a little ways and began to snarl. Talmadge slowed the mule, speaking to it, and reached forward to touch its neck. A child came around the side of the house the way the dog had come and drew close to the dog and squatted down and put his arms around the dog’s neck. The dog struggled and whined as the child spoke in its ear. The dog gave one long creaking moan and then remained still as the child stood and gazed at Talmadge. He was a long-haired, gaunt boy, with brown eyes the size of half-dollars.

         Morning, said Talmadge. He gripped the reins in his hands. I was looking for the Michaelson place.

         The boy stared at him. He turned slightly and lifted his arm and pointed to a stand of evergreens in the distance.

         Talmadge thanked him and was about to leave when he noticed the boy still staring at him, as if he had something to say.

         Talmadge waited.

         The boy came forward. The dog rocked on its tailbone and scratched frantically behind its ear. The boy stopped next to the mule and stood looking up at Talmadge until Talmadge said, What?

         The boy said: Usually they give me something for it.

         Talmadge gazed at him for a moment and then seemed to understand. He reached into his pocket and retrieved the drawstring bag where he kept his change and pinched out a penny and leaned down and put it into the boy’s outstretched palm. The boy glanced at the penny and then turned and walked back to the corner from which he had appeared. When he passed the dog it rose and followed him.

         Talmadge waited looking in the direction the boy had gone before urging the mule forward. The stillness was unlike any he had known. But it was not just the stillness. He realized there was no birdsong.

         The house was a blend of pulpwood and cedar and poorly built. The porch sagged in the middle. Two lanterns hung on hooks next to the door, the glass oily with soot. As soon as Talmadge entered the clearing a boy came from the narrow barn behind the house. This boy too was gaunt, but pale and red-haired. As he came closer Talmadge saw the strong jaw and the hardness around the eyes. The boy walked with his elbows slightly held out, his stride long and purposeful. Talmadge guessed him to be about fifteen years old. He lifted his chin at Talmadge and said in a husky voice, Your mule, mister, and Talmadge sat the mule for a moment taking in the land and the situation of the house and barn before getting down and giving the reins to the boy.

         I’m here for Michaelson, he said, and the boy nodded towards the house and then turned and headed with the mule to the barn.

         Talmadge crossed the clearing and gained the porch steps. The porch groaned nauseously beneath him. He hesitated and then rapped twice on the doorframe. The door was open but screened. He could see inside the house, into a room like a parlor and then beyond that into another room, the kitchen maybe, with a window of dull light. From the bowels of the house there was movement and Talmadge drew himself up and listened. There was someone clearing their throat and muffled steps and then a man appeared behind the screen. He was tall—a whole foot taller than Talmadge—with a large head, dun-colored pate, a wide mouth and brown eyes. Talmadge looked at him and then looked away. A feeling had seized him with the man’s glance. The man simultaneously opened the screen door and rolled up the cuffs of his worn white shirt. Come in, he said. There was nothing to do but to come inside and then after it was done, leave. Talmadge stepped inside.

         The screen door thwapped shut.

         The man absently splayed his hand to indicate the wealth of seating—several sofas covered in crushed velvet, musty smelling, and three chairs in the same velvet in different colors—emerald, ruby, mustard. Have a seat, he said, and cleared his throat again and coughed and then sat down on the edge of the emerald chair and leaned forward and opened a cigar box on the low table and lifted his eyes to Talmadge in what could be perceived as mock deliberation, in offering—Talmadge raised his hand to decline—and then the man took a cigar himself and lit it and took one puff and leaned back in his chair, one leg over the other, foot propped on knee, and lifted his eyebrows and said, The girls are sleeping. You’ll have to wait. He smoked and studied Talmadge. Unless, he said, with the same mock-appreciative glance, you want me to wake someone up. He smoked and then smiled. You understand, he said.

         Talmadge understood he was referring to money. By this time he understood much. He did not answer. For a minute Talmadge felt anxiety leave him—he gave no thought of how he was to escape or what he was going to say to this man—but he listened to the sounds of the house, aware now that it was filled with girls. But there was no sound. He thought of the two girls in the orchard and looked up to see Michaelson watching him curiously. There was a faint wheezing as he puffed on his cigar.

         Michaelson smiled ironically. He stood and went to the screen door and looked out and said, Is that your wagon out there? He glanced at Talmadge when he didn’t answer, then turned back to the screen. Where’re you from, friend?

         Talmadge looked at Michaelson’s back, then looked away. Oregon, he said.

         Michaelson smoked. Long way from home, he mused. You a mining inspector?

         There was silence before Talmadge answered. No.

         Michaelson looked over his shoulder at Talmadge. You don’t look it, he said. His eyes traveled over Talmadge’s clothes as if he didn’t approve of, or pitied, what he saw: coveralls, plaid workshirt, worn calfskin cap sitting now on his knee. I don’t believe you’ve been here before have you, friend. Now he didn’t seem to care for an answer, and Talmadge didn’t give one. Michaelson turned back to the screen and stood looking out.

         Talmadge finally stood. I have to be going, he said. Then wringing once the cap in his hands: I was looking for another Michaelson and the folks in town sent me to the wrong place.

         Michaelson smoked and looked out the window. I’m the only Michaelson around here and everybody knows it. Weary. He turned his head to look at Talmadge. What are you, a goddamn bounty hunter? You don’t look that more than you do a mining inspector.

         When Talmadge didn’t answer, he said, They send you to hunt me? You going to shoot me?

         It took Talmadge a moment to realize the man’s sarcasm. He held the man’s eye and said, No.

         Michaelson stared at him, part of his face lit up by the light coming in the window. The smoke clouded around his face and vaporized. He seemed ready to say something when the floorboards whined softly and a child appeared in the doorway between parlor and kitchen. Talmadge turned quickly. She was small, maybe nine years old, with limp black hair and black eyes, a child’s pouting mouth. She rubbed her eyes. She was wearing a man’s cotton t-shirt and nothing else. Pa, she said. A gentle croak.

         Go back to bed, Michaelson said, regressing to weariness. With the heel of one hand he deliberately rubbed his eye and then turned again to the window.

         The girl glanced at Talmadge and then turned and went back to wherever she had come from. Talmadge strained to hear where she retreated to but could not.

         That’s Mary Elizabeth, the man said, his back to Talmadge. He puffed vigorously on the cigar and then turned and crushed it on a saucer on one of the tables and cleared his throat. His gaze when he focused on Talmadge was suddenly clear and appreciative. Two dollars, he said. For twenty minutes.

         Talmadge gripped his hatbrim. I have to be going, he said.

         I’ll clean her up, put her dress on. It won’t take long. If she’s up the others will be up, he said, again, more to himself than to Talmadge. You can have your pick. What do you like, he said.

         But Talmadge had stepped outside onto the porch and down into the stunning light. He walked quickly across the clearing, his eyes on the mule and wagon standing astride the barn in the sun. His foolishness overwhelmed him. The boy scrambled up from where he had been sitting with his back against the barn wall and hurried to unfasten the reins from the post. That was fast, he said to Talmadge, grinning.

         Talmadge did not own a gun. Something in his personality precluded him from ever appearing natural with a firearm. Even so he stopped in Wenatchee before heading up the mountain to purchase a rifle and ammunition. The man working at the counter was the owner of the store. He showed Talmadge how to clean and load the gun, as well as how to cock it and how to collapse the magazine and realign the barrel.

         In the morning the girls sat on the edge of lawn. The two plates were stacked neatly on the porch. He made eggs. He left the steaming plates on the porch and walked past them down to the creek. He washed his face. They had finished eating by the time he passed the cabin again, and the plates were stacked as before. They sat at the mouth of the apricot orchard, waiting.

         He loaded down the mule with supplies and led him out of the barn and across the grass. He crossed the creek. A moment later he heard the small splashes of their crossing behind him. He walked slowly so they would not fall too far behind. He led the mule abreast of the apple orchard, up the short incline where it veered away into a band of aspen. The ground was hardened ash and clay and covered with a dull confetti of mulch. He slowed, gauging their stride, and kept on.

         For their beds he would fill burlap bags with leaves. He had one quilt besides his own which had been his sister’s, and his mother’s before that, which he packed. He brought a lantern, and worried as he led the mule up the hill. What if they were unfamiliar with lanterns and burned down the cabin in the middle of the night? He thought he would try to explain the mechanics of the lantern but could not imagine such a conversation. Sun winked through the tall trees. He anticipated the small rent in the forest to the right. Soon he discovered it and waited to make sure they saw him, then stepped off the road and guided the mule up the embankment. He heard them struggle behind him, and hesitated. The mule looked over his shoulder.

         Soon he came to a small clearing, to a narrow, clattering creek. Beyond the creek a small picker cabin stood backed by two massive overhanging evergreens. The cabin and trees sat on a small rise overlooking the valley. He crossed the creek, the water numbing his ankles, and came to stand on the stair of the cabin. The orchards glowed dull green below. He saw his own cabin, and the elbow of the creek.

         They sat on the creekbank and watched him. The mule splashed through the water and moved over to them and they arranged their postures to accommodate his grazing.

         Talmadge swept out most of the leaves with his boot. It was one room, dank and cold but solidly built, with a large square paneless window that overlooked the valley. He constructed their beds and draped the quilt atop the plump and shapeless leaf-filled sacks.

         Outside the cabin he hailed the mule and unstrapped his fishing pole. He followed the creek up for a half-mile, to where the water collected in a small pool. They followed him and sat on a dry rock table jutting out into the water a few dozen feet away. He scouted the ground and found pale larvae on the underside of a log, and baited the hook and cast into the water. In an hour he caught three fish.

         At the picker cabin he started a fire. The girls crossed the creek and resumed their previous positions. They watched as he gutted the fish and threw the entrails into the water. By the time he cooked the fish it was late afternoon. He put the fish on plates and set the plates on the porch. From the saddle bags he removed apples and apricots and biscuits wrapped several times in a cloth and set these deliberately on the porch as well. He went around the side of the cabin where the mule had gone to warm his rump in the sun and gathered the reins and led the mule across the creek. As he passed the girls they gathered their legs close to them and looked in opposite directions. He continued down the slope and listened for their footsteps but did not hear them.

         When he made his own dinner it was dusk. He ate cornbread, an apple. He did not light a lantern. The flesh of the apple shone moonwhite and he ate it and chucked the core into the orchard. He sat on the darkened porch and rolled a cigarette. A ceremony he saved for Clee but for this one time, and he did not bother to question the impulse. He sat smoking. After awhile he saw, like twin phantoms, the girls come down the avenue between apple orchard and canyon. They momentarily disappeared and then came up over the ridge of the nearest hill and alighted at the edge of the apricot orchard, and settled into the grass. Awaiting, with their peculiar and indifferent curiosity, what he would do next.

Amanda Coplin