The Midnight Cool Read online

I don’t think it’s a good idea. Me feeling that skirt of yours.

  Why not? she asked.

  It just ain’t.

  She didn’t say anything to that. She turned back to the creek. Bats were looping and darting over the water. After a while she said she was cold. He gave her his coat. The horse sighed heavily. He rolled a cigarette. She watched him and asked if she could have one. This surprised him, but he took it from his lips and wordlessly gave it to her, then rolled a new one for himself. He took great care in the job, needing something to do with his hands. She drew up her knees and hooked one arm around them and watched him. Finally he was finished with it and they sat there smoking in silence, watching the bats work the water. Scattered sounds of the midway. The brass band at the dance pavilion, the bells of a game, a barker’s drawl.

  If he does lock me up—

  He wouldn’t do that.

  I can’t be so sure. Want to know where my brother is right now? Home, packing his bags. He’s leaving for the war, going over to drive an ambulance. In France! It’s too much to bear. My father signed him up. He got in trouble down at school this spring and Father had to go bail him out. This was the deal. Him going over to volunteer will save face, Father said, if it should ever get out what happened.

  What happened?

  I’m not supposed to know. Her eyes darkened. There’s a lot that I know that I’m not supposed to know. Well it was a girl, a woman—the wrong sort of woman, and Father saved him by the skin of his teeth. Went down there, talked to his cronies. They agreed to let him graduate after Father promised to switch sides on the temperance question. Now Ed’s at his mercy. But he’s always been at his mercy. When he comes back he’ll move right into the office across from Father’s up at the factory. Where Wad Taylor’s working now. That office has been Ed’s destiny all his life. On his twentieth birthday my father had the desk in there made to his exact specifications. It fits him perfectly.

  She shivered. My father has done so many terrible things. Things that I can’t forgive him for. This is just another. But I suppose I’m lucky to be his daughter and not his son. He doesn’t care a whit for me.

  She paused. Her voice was trembling with fury.

  Once I’m finished up at the college, I’ll be able to go wherever I please. New York. Chicago. Go down to the depot, get on the first train to wherever, and jump feetfirst into life. I think that’s what my mother would have done when she was my age, if she could. Set off on her own. But back then a girl couldn’t. Running off with my father was the closest she could come to it. I always think she was robbed of something she didn’t even know she had.

  Now hold on a minute there, Miss Hatcher. Go wherever you please? I thought you were gonna run away with me.

  She ground out her cigarette. Looked at the side of his face. He could feel her smiling coyly.

  Well maybe I’ll bring you along with me when I go.

  He turned and studied her face, trying to read her.

  My mother, he said, she got robbed too. If she hadn’t I’d be in a real different position than I am now. She’s dead.

  I’m sorry.

  He paused, gathered courage.

  She had a smile just like you.

  Catherine groaned. Her hand flew up to cover her mouth.

  Don’t talk about my smile. Cherry says it’s my downfall. Cherry says it’s why I’ll never be a true beauty.

  Don’t listen to Cherry. She don’t know nothing.

  After that, more silence. Catherine was staring at the water.

  What was her name? she said. Your mother?

  Maura, he said.

  Her head jerked up. She spun to look at him. Did you say Morning?

  No. Maura.

  That gave me a chill. She rubbed her bare legs. My mother’s name was Morning.

  Mourning? Pardon me for saying, but that’s an awful sorrowful name for a woman.

  No, she said. Morning. The dawn of the day.

  Oh. That’s real pretty.

  Maura’s a pretty name too.

  He put one hand in the cool grass, just beside her hip. He leaned over. He kissed her. She kissed him back, long and hard. Then he pulled away, worried by the thought of whoever it was who had taught her to do all those things with her tongue.

  Well, she said.

  I gotta tell you up front, he said in a rush. As of my present situation, I got no money. Not yet, anyway. I bet—I bet at your house you have steak for supper every day.

  Sure. We eat it off of solid gold plates.

  Charles whistled.

  She looked at him. Laughed.

  I get the feeling you believe everything I say, she said.

  Why shouldn’t I?

  That seemed to surprise her. She considered him.

  Can I ask you something straight? Charles said quickly. That Wad Taylor, he used to be your boyfriend? Kissam Quick Taylor?

  She laughed, but then her face fell.

  Wad? Oh—poor Wad. It’s all ruined for him and he never even got started. No girl’s ever going to marry him now. Two years ago he had everything going for him and now it’s ruined. One bad collision on the football field.

  She was quiet for a while. She picked a blade of grass, let it drop.

  Ruined. He was so big and strong. A poet, too. You should have seen him in those days.

  Charles cleared his throat, wondering why the hell he had thought it was a good idea to bring up Wad Taylor.

  You sure looked pretty up there tonight.

  She plucked another blade of grass. Well if you want to know the whole truth, they wouldn’t let me be what I wanted to be. I didn’t want to be a Pilgrim and I didn’t want to be a squaw. I wanted to be a brave. I had it all planned. Use my brother’s old bow and quiver of arrows. Have Mary Clausen sew me up a pair of leggings. I would be cutting up a deer haunch at my feet, just back from the hunt. Blood on the knife.

  She got up on her knees, to demonstrate. Looked at him over her shoulder, braids swinging. Her hips were maddeningly close.

  Wouldn’t that have been something? But old Missus Dimwiddle wouldn’t even hear my argument. She said it was not appropriate. Instead I had to stand there with that dumb basket of fish.

  The horse got impatient and began to paw rhythmically at the dry bank, bringing up dust. Catherine said she ought to get back. He helped her up. Her hand was surprisingly strong, and when she gripped his, tight, it sent little waves up his arm and into his spine. When she took off his coat and handed it to him, the flash of her bare shoulders nearly knocked him over.

  He went over and untied the horse. She came close and looked up at him from under her lashes. He kissed her again, blood throbbing, but she pulled away quicker this time. Then she gave him another sly smile.

  So when are we getting married? she said.

  The throb cooled instantly. Married?

  Well sure. Isn’t that your intention, kissing me?

  He fumbled for a long moment before she threw back her head and laughed.

  I’m teasing you, she said. I could say anything, couldn’t I? I could say anything and you would believe it.

  They walked up towards the midway together, him leading the horse. She showed him the gap in the fence where she had snuck out, and they slipped back through it together, the horse hesitating before he too stepped through. They parted at the edge of the midway’s brightness. Charles tried to close his lips around his grin, but he couldn’t. He smashed his hat down over his eyes. Then he led the horse over to the Test Your Strength booth. The barker was looking at him over his crossed arms. Charles handed him a coin and the horse’s reins. Swung the mallet so hard the ball shot up and broke the clapper.

  Hey, buddy, the barker said. Easy. It’s just a game.

  Money Matters

  Money Matters

  by Leland Hatcher

  The Richfield Gazette

  I have long held to the belief that a young man’s soul can only be forged in the divine crucible of war. My generation,
born too late to fight in the conflict between the states, never had its great chance. This missed opportunity of my own makes me even prouder to announce that my son, Edmund, has bravely volunteered to serve with the Norton-Harjes Ambulance Corps. He has chosen to go forth to fight the great fight raging across the ocean, the fight for what is right, for what is good, the fight for freedom. The fight for nothing less than civilization itself.

  At the Depot

  Charles and Billy stood at the depot, where so many people had suddenly gathered you would have thought the president was pulling in. Bud Morgan was in the center of everything selling postcards, his goats jumpy from the excitement. Even the birds were worked up, reeling around, and beneath them boys laid out crossed nails on the rails for the train to flatten into crucifixes, and old ladies chattered, and the crowd heaved.

  Edmund Hatcher was departing, on his way to Nashville, then New York, then to drive an ambulance for the war. When he showed up with his father, a cheer rose up, but he hung back with his suitcase while Hatcher shook everybody’s hand.

  Where is she? Charles said, craning his neck. How could she not be here?

  Billy patted his shoulder. Well that’s alright. Enough pretty girls here to float that fellow’s ship all the way over to France. And I imagine plenty of em would let you kiss them behind the fairgrounds too. More than kiss em, probably, if you picked one that wasn’t on such a high shelf.

  Billy was in a buoyant mood. He’d had a good morning with Hatcher’s mare, who had let him saddle and bridle her and work her on a long line. And he always did love a crowd. He had traded his penknife with the fellow to his left and then turned around and traded the new one with the fellow to his right.

  So there he is, Billy said. So that’s the famous Leland Hatcher. Littler than I expected. But I can see it in his face.

  See what? Charles kept looking. She had to be there somewhere.

  Ah, Charles. That horse. That poor beautiful confused creature. Ragtime, Charles! That just might be the secret to her. I played her ‘The Darktown Strutters’ Ball’ and the next minute she’s nearly eating out of my hand. Remarkable. Incredible. How about that? My maniac sweetheart is a ragtime fan. I should have known she was at heart a good-timing sort of gal . . .

  Billy kept rattling on and then Catherine came pushing through to join her father and brother. At the sight of her Charles grabbed Billy’s arm.

  There she is, he said. Billy. Jesus. Shut up a minute. There she is. Do you see her? That smile, Billy. It’s just like my mother’s—

  Just then she turned and saw him and flashed a sly secret smile. Made all the more sly by that wide dark gap.

  Do you see that, Billy? Sonofabitch. She just smiled at me.

  He looked at Billy, who was still looking at the Hatchers. But he had gone silent, his face slack.

  Hey, Billy. Billy.

  Huh?

  You OK? Billy?

  Sure. I’m OK, Charlie boy.

  Boom Boom

  That afternoon, Billy left Charles up in town and went straight back to Dillehay’s.

  Straight to the pasture.

  Enough of this nonsense already, he said to Hatcher’s mare. I’m tired of looking at you.

  He caught her and tied her to the fence next to the Edison machine and grabbed a cylinder out of the box and put it on. It was ‘Daisy Bell’ and he pulled it off immediately. Not that. He was too shaken for that now. He dug until he found a ragtime number, ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band.’ He cranked the machine and lowered the needle. The horse stood obediently while he ran his hands over her. Her black coat was hot with the day’s sun. They were something else, horses. Even one like her, who had suffered a terrible existence, was always here, now. Only here. Always now.

  Watching Leland Hatcher at the depot, he had seen in his face what he expected all along. Behind the mask of his smile, something warped and cold-blooded. He had recognized it instantly. Leland Hatcher was a dangerous man.

  When the song ended he went over and pulled off the cylinder. He knew there was another ragtime number in the box somewhere. Rummaging for it, his hand closed on the little accordion book that the bookseller has given him. The ribbon was untied, and when he pulled it out it fell open like a Jacob’s ladder toy, all the blurred and shadowed faces hanging there in the air. He tossed it back into the box and kept digging and found what he was looking for. Another ragtime tune. ‘Everybody’s Doin’ It Now.’ He put it on. The mare lowered her head and sighed.

  He saddled her up. No problem. When he went to put on the bridle she even dropped her head for it. He crossed himself and mounted up. She stood like a dream. Before he did anything he made the exchange he had with any horse, gently playing one rein, asking for submission or permission or comradeship or patience, he never really knew. Maybe just asking. She dropped her head and chewed the bit, swung her nose to touch his toe. Yes, this said. Yes.

  Look at you, he told her happily. Should have done this weeks ago.

  He asked her for a trot. Beautiful. Hooves snapping smart and high, like she was fixing to knock out her own front teeth. Moving out so calm and sure that he laughed at himself for having grown so afraid of her.

  Well it serves you right, Monday, he thought. Wasting all this time hanging around, when you were just being a yellow-bellied fool.

  His thoughts swung back to the depot and his heart heaved. It was not Leland Hatcher who had shaken him so badly, who made him want to get out of town quick as he could.

  It was the girl. That smile.

  He brought the mare down to a walk and spun her around and tried her in the other direction, bringing her up through her paces, the green of the world framed between her perfect ears. But he could not shake the girl out of his head.

  Now that he had seen her, he understood. It was no wonder Charles had been such a fool about her.

  It was high time they got out of here. Start moving again.

  Time had crashed in on him, up at the depot, and he did not like the feeling at all. It was just like that old snapshot book. Time was no arrow, no straight line. If you kept moving it stayed stretched out neatly behind you. But time could just as easily fold and collapse like an accordion, just like that album when you closed it. In his mind as in the photographs, faces pressed on faces, distance crumpled, crushed.

  Maybe because he was distracted, or maybe simply because she hit a stone or a hole, the horse stumbled. It made her mad. She tossed her head and wrung her tail.

  Steady now, he said. He had lost his stirrup. He groped for it with his foot. The loose stirrup iron knocked against her side. She didn’t like that. She threw a buck. He gathered her back in and she settled down.

  The girl’s smile had done it, collapsed time, just like that. Charles was right. It was a smile just exactly like his mother’s.

  The mare bucked again. Pitched herself good.

  Easy, Billy said. His heart was pounding.

  Another buck. This time she spun herself so that her belly and her back swapped places. Wrung herself like a rag until she unseated him. He sailed over her head and landed hard in the grass. It knocked the wind out of him and when he got it back he sat up and grabbed his hat and as the shock waves passed through him and he became dimly aware that his ribs and perhaps his left shoulder had not made out alright the mare came at him in a fury. Screaming. Front legs striking. He clutched his head and tried to roll away, but a hoof caught him in the back, another in the side. He felt the blow of an iron shoe against his skull. The last thing he saw before the world went black was her face. Not the girl’s. But Maura’s.

  Foxy little Maura McLaughlin. Oh, how he had loved her.

  In the Dead Leaves

  Bristol, Tennessee-Virginia

  July 1897

  Someday I will buy you a bed, Billy tells her.

  Solid brass, Maura says. The best one they make.

  Anything you want, he says. I promise. Anything at all.

  They fuck like animals, in the woods. T
hey don’t have anywhere else to go. Afterwards, there are tiny twigs caught in her hair. Bits of moss, decaying bark, a black slippery-looking beetle. She reaches up and plucks this out, crushes it between her fingernails, laughing.

  She is afraid of nothing. Cunning, quick, and ravenous. There is an insatiable gleam in her green eyes.

  Anything you want at all, he tells her again. The woods are quiet. There is a faint, musky smell of deer shit on the air, and rotting blackberries, and rain.

  Afterwards, they walk up to Solar Hill, as they sometimes do, to look at the big houses. Maura lingers, despite the suspicious looks from people in passing carriages. She makes him wait until dusk, the moment just after the lights are lit and just before the curtains are drawn, so that she can see in the windows to the riches inside.

  He watches her eyes take it all in. Seeing that insatiable green gleam fills him with desire too. He feels himself rising, wanting her again.

  He’ll buy her that bed. He’ll buy her one of these houses. He’ll do something as crazy as marry her, little Maura McLaughlin. He’ll do anything she asks him to do, so long as she’ll always stick with him.

  The New Suit

  Bristol

  This is how it all begins, with a suit of clothes. If not for the suit, he never would have found her. He would have left Bristol when the roads dried out, never knowing a girl like her could even exist.

  It is a very good suit, dark blue serge, a coat with padded shoulders, shirt, studs, collar, toothpick shoes. He took it for boot in a trade for a horse, and though he’s got no use for finery, it is all folded up in paper and stowed away in his saddlebag until he runs into someone who does.

  He is twenty-five years old, and traveling alone with his string of horses in the hazy blue mountains of southwest Virginia. He has been in America for eleven years, out of the honeycombed hell of the Neversink mine for one, though sometimes he still can’t believe he made it out at all. Working in the mine had been to live under a tyranny worse than the sea’s. At least a broken fisherman could just lie down and die. The joke in the mines was that if you lay down and died the company would make you get up and work until you had paid off your coffin.