Straw House Read online

  THE SUN WAS faithful again that morning, rising above the farm with a shine so fresh it tasted like gazpacho. The birds sat in the trees, ignorant of the wickedness of grown men, and sang a fluty trill. When their song ended, the tape rewound and they sang it again.

  The daisies in the window boxes opened their petals and spun like pinwheels. From way out behind the red barn, a tardy rooster — in need of a winding — eventually called out a salutation. The wooden cuckoo owls in the eaves of the barn, rattled out of sleep, exhaled their hoots like complaints. A poor real-life bee had wandered somehow onto the farm and confused itself. It bumped its rear end into the painted smiley faces of the toy flowers. With delicate plastic petals, they enfolded the bee as real flowers would, but it was little consolation for no pollen. That morning the whole farmhouse seemed to yawn and whine as it sat on the high-tide hill.

  On the nearby porch, a sleeping Pup began to stir. When he took notice of the irritated bee, he switched on and bounded toward the window box. Pup ran a few excited circles. He went: bark bark bark and then did a backflip. Then bark bark bark again and another backflip. The bumblebee flew away with a noticeable wobble. Pup chased after it, toward where the farmer walked in the early dawn light.

  As Pup bounced across the planted furrows, he seemed to forget about the intruder. The dewy mounds of dirt were shaking off sleep, wiggling like wet dogs and shivering in the breeze. Pup stuffed his nose into one of the mounds. Its brown bud poked out of the soil, probably the makings of an ear. Pup trembled with the desire to dig it up, but he knew the farmer wouldn’t allow it. Several rows down, a stubby black stalk was the jumper of the season, already grown out a full two inches. Pup ran over to investigate and barked for the farmer to come see. The plastic tube widened as it rose and from above looked hollow. Under it ran a long set of bumps below the surface — equidistant cars of a train.

  As the shadow of the farmer walked across the furrow, back to the house, the stalk made a muffled toot-toot from its underground locomotive. And the black caboose puffed its first little cloud.

  Never in need of winding, the dawn had grown into day. Pup ran to the fence at the edge of the rows, where a scarecrow leaned back on a post with his arms splayed out, his head drooping below his shoulders. He wore a straw hat, the shape of a tepee with a wide languid brim, and his nose looked like the beak of an old woodpecker: long, sharp, then suddenly bent. His pants were cut off at the ankles and frayed into loose hay.

  Sunny was young in the face. His neck was kneaded and long, as though he’d been choked to death. Pup hunkered down at his foot and barked as loud as he could. Sunny was his partner. When Sunny shifted his weight from one bare foot to the other, Pup thought they were both moving. He darted out ten yards, realized Sunny hadn’t followed, and scampered back to Sunny’s feet. Finally, with a snort, Sunny jerked his head up. Pup barked. They could hear the scuffles and bleats in the barn, the animals ready to be fed and let out. Pup barked again. “I know,” said Sunny. “I know. Shut up.”

  Sunny squinted at the sun. He’d overslept again. He heard the defiant caw of a crow, perched on the fence a few posts down, but didn’t care enough to shoo it away. The farmer had already disappeared into the house. Sunny lifted his sleeve up to his mouth and pulled out a piece of straw to chew on. At his feet, he saw a tin cup full of coffee. Dot must have left it for him before starting her chores. Sunny was new to coffee and still preferred it with five tablespoons of sugar and so much cream it was the color of straw. Sunny picked it up and took a sip. It looked placid and lukewarm.

  Somehow, the stale nature of his drink seemed purposeful to Sunny, as though Dot was nagging him for sleeping too much. Sunny threw the rest of the drink onto the ground and set the cup on top of the fence post.

  As soon as Pup settled back down, Sunny pushed off from his fence post and walked toward the pasture, on the other side of the farmhouse. From what he could tell, it was a beautiful morning, with beautiful feelings everywhere. The whole world was waking up toyful and bright, with a growing feeling that everything was going everybody’s way. Sunny looked down at Pup squirreling along ahead of him. He tried to spit at Pup’s head — nothing came out. He said, “Aw, hell,” because he didn’t much like everybody, and he didn’t like their way.

  THE FARM ITSELF wasn’t much but a couple buildings on the wide country plain. About two days’ canter to town, half day at a panicked ride. Behind the plains was a bluff and behind that a shadow of a mountain, but no one knew anybody who’d been that far.

  The farm sat by itself, some trees and a creek to the immediate west, and hills and hills and hills the rest. The farmhouse sat atop a rise, with its porch like a bowl haircut. In front of it was the empty hundred-yard pasture, cordoned off by the split-rail fence and the dirt road beyond that. On the other side of the road was the first outcrop of trees, then the creek. The red barn with the chicken coop behind it sat to one side of the farmhouse, the vegetable garden to the other. And behind the house, in the east where the sun was sure to hit first, were the rows. The rows were precious. Nobody went there but the farmer, who walked them in the early light. And Sunny.

  Of course, the plains were empty, so nobody was really around to trespass the rows. But if they did, Sunny was there to scare them off. And Pup was there to back him up.

  After they crossed the empty pasture and arrived at the split-rail fence, Sunny threw a rock at the ornery crow that’d followed them, and Pup conserved energy by sitting stock-still like a show dog. He had a way of yammering that sounded like a cicada, then he’d suddenly remember to save some for later and go into standby. He used to be Boy’s dog, since they’d come up in the same harvest, but Boy had left him on outside once and Pup had nearly run himself to death. Sunny had found him the next morning fallen over in the pasture, lying on his side and kicking his feet in tired spasms. So Pup learned from that day to keep still. Plus he never left Sunny and steered clear of Boy.

  Pup had a proprietary notion about Sunny’s right foot, and as soon as Sunny took up his position on the fence, Pup took up his on the foot. Soon Sunny could hear the low hum and rattle of Pup in sleep mode. The soft part of Pup’s warm belly lay across the straw bundle, and his appendages splayed out in all four directions. Sunny knew the belly was warm because that was where the battery went, under the shaggy fabric. Sunny shifted his weight to his left foot, then slowly lifted Pup with his right. The little dog’s paws drew in as his body rose from the dirt, like a banana peel picked up from the middle. His head dangled to one side, his tongue the other. Sunny held him in the air awhile, but Pup didn’t stir other than the belly breaths and a few distant yips to ward off bad dreams. Sunny eased his foot back down. Pup’s legs spread out again into a furry starfish.

  A whistling breeze swept through the straw in Sunny’s shirt. A bristling wheeze. The last scratches of winter seemed content to stir dust in an empty pasture, chill one young man and his sleeping dog, then draw against the sun and die. The tall grass seemed to wave good-bye.

  “Hey, Sunny!” said the farmer’s daughter. “You gonna let those poor animals outta the barn or what?” She stood on the porch steps, shouting across the hundred-yard pasture. Her hair was auburn, tied in a ponytail. Her eyes were the color of fresh basil. “Or you just gonna mill around all day?” she added.

  “No,” said Sunny.

  “What?” said the farmer’s daughter. Sunny often mumbled when he spoke to her.

  “I said, no, Dot, I ain’t gonna mill around all day.” They called her Dot, short for daughter.

  “Good,” shouted Dot. “I know you’re givin’ up your foot in the noble pursuit of a nappin’ dog and all, but I could use your help.”

  Her low opinion of his usefulness rankled Sunny. He ground the straw in his
mouth into a thousand hairs. He brought a shirtsleeve up to his mouth and pulled out another piece. As he did, he peered down the road. The previous evening, Sunny had spotted a stranger, now still just a speck on the horizon. But soon he’d walk by on the road, bringing news of town. Sunny turned back to the farmer’s daughter. She was tapping her foot on the porch step. “I’m waiting for that stranger,” he said.

  Dot crossed her arms. “And you can’t do both?”

  Sunny shook his head no.

  “Oh, I get it,” said Dot. “You’re gonna protect us.”

  “Somebody’s gotta do it,” said Sunny.

  “And somebody’s gotta let the stock out.”

  Sunny smiled. “Guess that’d be you.”

  Dot marched across the pasture, toward the red barn, all the while glaring at Sunny.

  Fifteen minutes later, she stamped back across the pasture, toward her vegetable garden. She didn’t look at Sunny. “Aw, hell,” said Sunny, under his breath.

  As she disappeared over the crest of the hill, she shouted, “Told you so.”

  Sunny already hated the stranger, who had a hobble and was taking forever. The man would have been tall if he stood up straight, maybe even two rakes high. His torso was normal, but he had legs like a stilt man at a fair, with as much meat to them as regular legs, only stretched like saltwater taffy.

  To walk, the stranger had to jut out his knee to the side and extend one long leg forward. Then he’d swing his body over the extended leg, pivot out to the side, and extend the next leg forward. As a result, he winced constantly at the hyperextension of his knees as he bobbed up and down along his stride. He wore trousers up to his underarms, a plaid shirt, and a mangy corduroy cap. His arms weren’t particularly long, considering his lower portion’s proportions, and his goatee was equal parts black and white.

  About thirty yards off, the stranger looked up and caught Sunny peering at him. He raised his hand in the air. Sunny looked down at his feet and kept his arms crossed. Pup woofed from their side of the fence, did a couple backflips, then hid behind Sunny.

  When the stranger finally shambled up the road, Sunny kept silent and picked at the straw in his sleeve. Then he crossed his arms and tilted his hat, like a sleepy gunslinger, in the hopes of looking burly.

  “Hola, chacho,” said the lanky old man, stretching his lower back and grimacing.

  “I ain’t a chacho. Where you come from?” asked Sunny, without turning.

  “Mami and Papi, like everyone else,” said the stranger. “All of us chachos, yeah?”

  Sunny couldn’t tell if the man was making fun of him or being careless the way old men are of young men’s pride. The stranger chuckled as he reached in his pocket and pulled out an orange. The stranger had thick jagged finger­nails, the color of fossils, with cracks in them like old bars of soap. As they talked, the old man staked the orange on a forefinger and spun it in both directions across the nails of his other hand. His mangled claw stripped the orange peel like a lathe.

  “I suggest you ride on through,” said Sunny. He didn’t care about news anymore. He just wanted the stranger gone.

  “Are you the only farm around here?” asked the old man. He began scraping the orange clean of the veins and skin.

  “We can protect ourselves,” said Sunny.

  “Easy, chacho,” said the stranger, tossing an orange segment to Pup. “I look for work.”

  Sunny snorted. Pup licked at the fruit with a woolen tongue, then swallowed it whole.

  Field hands didn’t come around much. People in town usually told ’em not to ask Sunny ’cause he always said no, and there wasn’t much else this direction. Sunny looked the man up and down. The stranger straightened himself for inspection, wiped a hand over his goatee.

  Sunny wondered for a second what it’d be like to live all those years with legs like split rails.

  “What can you do that I can’t do better, old man? Besides mounting a velocipede.”

  “Being old is something,” said the stranger. He didn’t seem irritated, which irritated Sunny.

  “Yeah, it’s something, all right,” said Sunny.

  “My name is El Sobrino del Mago,” said the man with a little bow. He lifted his corduroy cap and some dust wafted out.

  “I don’t care,” said Sunny.

  “You call me Sobrino for short.”

  “Or nothin’.”

  “Mago mean ‘magician.’” From Sobrino’s mouth, it came out “majeecian.”

  “You deaf?”

  “No.”

  “Then shut up. I said I don’t wanna call you nothin’,” said Sunny.

  Sobrino took a gangly step back to get a different look at the young man as he put the last orange wedge in his mouth. Some liquid sluiced into his goatee, escaping through the toothless gaps in his mouth. Sobrino’s teeth weren’t in any better shape than his finger­nails. In the silence of their stares, Pup did another backflip.

  “You are rude to me, no?” said Sobrino. He sucked through his teeth at a piece of pulp. It made a rattler’s hiss.

  “I can be any way I please, stranger,” said Sunny. Something metallic in Sunny’s sleeve caught the light and glinted at the old man. “You’re trespassing,” added Sunny.

  “Ah, not yet,” said Sobrino, pointing at the fence.

  “The deed extends to the oak,” said Sunny, nodding at the tree on the far side of the dirt road. Sobrino looked over his shoulder at the tree, then back at Sunny, then down at his hand. Sunny had pulled a throwing dart from his sleeve and held it like a knife. The metal arrow was as sharp as a surgeon’s needle, with a blue and red flight at the base.

  Sobrino put his hands in his trouser pockets and glanced up the deserted road he’d come by. Then he said, “No.”

  Sunny leaned forward, in case he misheard, and in case he needed to jump the fence.

  “No, the farm don’t end there, or no, you ain’t leavin’?”

  “No, you cannot be however you please,” said Sobrino.

  “’Cause I’ll chop you down, you hobo-lookin’ Paul-el-Bunyan.”

  “For asking to work?”

  “For being cute.”

  “No one has called me cute before.”

  “Don’t be cute. I ain’t your taco amigo.”

  The old man turned his head and looked at Sunny with one eye, then turned and looked with the other. Sunny tensed, because he was barely eighteen years old, and he’d never been in a real fight.

  Sobrino suddenly sprang forward. Sunny stumbled backward over Pup, who let out a pitiful yelp. Sunny righted himself and thrust the dart in front of him like a knife. Sobrino was leaning over the fence now, imposing himself into Sunny’s space. Sunny’s hand shook. “Shut up!” he screamed, even though Sobrino hadn’t said anything.

  Finally, Sobrino leaned back again and bared a muddy grin. Sunny couldn’t decide whether the man’s smile was alarming because he was dishonest or because he was old and ugly. Pup was afraid. He rolled over and showed his belly. The old man nodded at the dart Sunny was holding and said, “That? I got ten of that.” He scraped one hand across the fence post. The pine ribboned under his nails.

  Sunny switched the dart to his other hand. He said, “You ain’t welcome here.”

  “I should be,” said Sobrino. “Is your house?”

  “It’s the farmer’s,” said Sunny, “but I’m the right hand, Sunny.”

  “Aha . . . Sony.” The way he said it, it rhymed with phony. “Sony the sheriff of the farm.”

  “You could say that,” said Sunny, still gripping the dart and shifting from toe to toe.

  “I do say that, Sony the sheriff. ’Cause I going to like you, Sony. You and me will be, what you call it? Amigos rancheros.”

  “Why?” said Sunny.

  “You are the only sheriff.”

  “Me and the farmer’s daughter.”

  “Is she like you?”

  “Like me? Like what? Mean and whatnot?”

  “No, like you, a s
traw man,” said Sobrino.

  “Why, you got a lighter or something?” said Sunny. He stepped well out of reach, in case the old man had something to burn him with.

  Sobrino showed his dirty palms. “Easy, easy, chacho.”

  Sunny put his outmatched dart back into his sleeve and put a piece of straw in his mouth in the same motion. He ground on it like a finger­nail, then got another one. He was embarrassed for having yelled “shut up” before. Sunny turned to walk back up the pasture toward the farmhouse. He said over his shoulder, “If the farmer’s daughter ain’t got work, you gotta leave.”

  Sobrino hollered after him, “No problem, boss. I pick the best peaches, from high up, yeah?”

  Sunny rounded the hill toward the vegetable garden, where the farmer’s daughter was working. He spat hard and said, “Aw, hell,” under his breath.

  THE VEGETABLE GARDEN wasn’t more than a dozen acres, bordered by alfalfa from some years back that kept coming up every year on its own ambition. The farmer’s daughter worked it alone, with Sunny helping out during picking season. Wasn’t one of those industrial outfits, like the thousand-acre corn kingdoms you heard about in town.

  Leeks and cabbages. Tomatoes and garlic. Squash and cauliflower. Almost in that order. The farmer’s daughter could grow anything, just about. People in town said she was gifted from the ground up, her with eyes the color of fresh basil.

  She’d kept them in turnips and beets all winter, which Sunny and the toys didn’t have much use for, but they used the crops to barter for batteries, spare lightbulbs, and touch-up paint. They always ran out of cherry red when the RC fire trucks came up in the summer and drove around crazy in the gravel.

  Sunny stepped through the alfalfa onto the freshly tilled soil. His foot sank into the cool dirt, which he didn’t feel but knew was cool because it was moist. Pup struggled to climb over the furrows and yapped for Sunny to wait up. Sunny reached down and scooped him up.

  In the middle of the garden, the farmer’s daughter was leaning under the hood of a green tractor. Sunny knew there was nothing under the hood but an empty compartment, even though the whole thing was the same size as a real tractor. Boy was sitting in the driver’s seat, pressing the big round “On” button with both hands. He was dressed, like always, in the full dress uniform of a military cadet. The undershirt was painted on, but the rest of his clothes were interchangeable. The brass buttons on his cuffs, epaulets, breast pockets, and down his chest made up a substantial part of him.