My Abandonment(27)

"Varmints," he says, pulling the empty traps out by their chains and holding them up.

"Empty again?" Mr. Walters says. "Look at these holes in the pasture. They're out here, all right."

"Outsmarted again," Father says.

"Horse's hoof gets caught in a gopher hole," Mr. Walters says with his short arms in the air. He doesn't finish what he's saying. He calls them gophers and prairie dogs and ground squirrels. Things and even people can have different names. All that matters is that someone understands what you're talking about.

Mr. Walters is a friendly person and he is curious about us. Father says he watches us with binoculars. It's true that he likes to check on us where we are working and to ask questions. He can do this since he owns the whole farm and pays Father a wage. On his covered back porch he has a washer and dryer that we can use. He takes a list of groceries to the store and brings them back to us saying that it makes him think he should be a vegetarian once he sees how much his meat costs him.

"I know you are a gardener," Mr. Walters says to me. "I know you used to have a garden."

"Yes," I say. "In the forest park I did."

The packets he hands me read: Kale, Carrots, Beets, Turnips, Cabbage.

Mr. Walters has cleared out a whole area of garden for me. He shows me how to mix in the manure to make the dirt blacker. He stands leaning against the fence watching me as I plant the seeds and read the packets.

"Those are autumn vegetables," he says. "By the time they come up you'll be in school."

I set the worms carefully aside. I break up the clods with my trowel. Father is not so far away. He is building a corner brace for the fence along the road. Three horses stand near watching him. He stops digging and checks the sky. A truck drives past and he turns his face away.

"This life here must seem pretty easy for you, Caroline," Mr. Walters says. "I hope it's not boring for you."

"It's a girl's own fault if she's bored," I say. I pull my hand flat along the side of the little trench I dug and collapse the dirt down to bury the seeds. "These vegetables," I say, "are you going to take them or are they for Father and me?"

"I hadn't thought of that," Mr. Walters says. "I guess I figured they'd be yours, that you could share them if you want."

"We'll see," I say.

"Did you ever want to ride a horse?" he says.

"I don't know," I say. "I don't think so. These turnips are all planted."

"I have so many questions about how you were living," Mr. Walters says. "It's remarkable, but your father doesn't seem to want to talk about it. They only tell so much in the newspaper."

"I have a question for you," I say.

"Shoot," he says.

"How come you're all alone?"

"I just am I guess," he says.

"How come you don't have any dogs?" I say.

"Maybe if this was a sheep ranch," he says. "But horses and dogs, they don't always mix."

"I've never seen a person wear both suspenders and a belt," I say.

Mr. Walters laughs. "I believe it," he says. "Well, it works for me."





Sometimes when you're sleeping someone presses on your chest or the flat of your back with their hand and when you wake up no one is there but you can tell in the dark air in the room that someone has been talking to you.





This afternoon Mr. Walters takes Father to pick up a piece of equipment. There's some things he can't lift by himself that Father probably can. Father asks and I say I'll go but Mr. Walters says I'll just be in the way and I say no but he says it'll be dangerous and also boring.

"That's all right, Caroline," Father says. "He's the boss. You just do some reading and some gardening. Don't leave the property. We'll be back by dinner."

I weed one side of the garden and then I stop and listen and there's nothing. Far away in the sky a plane slides along. I put my trowel and gloves away and drink from the hose, then walk out past the horse barn following the barbed wire that stretches all the way to the end of the farm. There's a path worn down along the inside edge where the horses walk around and around. There's a place where the stream hooks back around and I leap across there. If someone sees me, I'll say I am checking the fence to see if it needs any mending.

The sun is hot on top of my head. I should have worn a hat. I go through a gate and the grass is longer here where the horses haven't been at it. The ground is marshier and the reeds are higher than my head so I have to push them away with my hands to keep going. I hear the boys' voices before I see them.

"Chainsaw!" they are yelling, and then a dog barks like it's being strangled.