Annie hadn’t planned to hurt anyone. She just wanted to scare them was all. Frighten them just so and they’d leave her alone.
Papa had saved up for years to buy the Colt. He’d let Annie handle the thing twice; once when he first bought it, when Annie was only little, and again when she was older and he was drunk. He laughed when the heft was too much and when Annie dropped the gun onto the floor. He had let her shoot it never.
Papa kept the gun in his top dresser drawer, beneath undergarments, button-front shorts, and long underwear. She had washed the clothes a hundred times before Papa died, right up until it happened, so she wasn’t sure why she felt dirty now as she slid her hands beneath the stacks of cotton.
The pistol was still heavy and would only get heavier, but Annie could handle it better now. In Papa’s closet she found a box of cartridges. She pushed three down into the magazine. Just scare them a little, she thought, don’t need the whole thing full. She laughed at that and slipped the pistol into her dress pocket.
Outside, the Kentucky ground was dead and covered with a thin layer of frost. In the light, Annie thought it looked like gemstones. How pretty to see those tiny diamonds in the dirt. But it was damn cold, too, and Annie walked quickly to Papa’s Ford. Inside, she turned the key and pumped gas until the engine turned. She shifted into drive and pointed the truck south towards the Barrow family farm.
Papa died December thirty-first in the year of our Lord nineteen-sixty-eight and Annie buried him four days after that. The funeral had been worse than she’d expected. The prayers were beautiful, and the flowers, too, placed atop the cheaply veneered casket. The Peyton boys, though, only two and three years behind her, started in with their harmful laughter when Annie stood up beside Father Mark. She was only nineteen, but Annie stood six feet and nine inches tall. She towered over the priest. Annie watched Mrs. Peyton nudge the boys to be quiet, but later, when their mother pivoted away from them, whispering something into the ear of Mirabel Green, the boys laughed again, and louder, more cruelly.
The list of those that attended the service was short. The Barrows, of course. They were the closest Papa had to friends in Paducah. A few families from the church that Annie recognized–the Peytons, the Boone family, Mrs. Greene. Attending, too, were other men that Papa had worked with on the railroad. Thick men, dark with sweat and dirt, even inside of their suits. Papa had moved them to Paducah when Annie was only three, and though she couldn’t remember Arizona much, he told her time and time again how much better Kentucky was. Papa had moved, he said, to find work. And he had found it pulling old spikes out of the twelve mile stretch of railroad that ran through the town and hammering new ones in. For sixteen years he worked for the IC, extra hours each week to ensure Annie was fed, the house payments were made, and, with what little remained, a limited-pay insurance policy. And that, Annie thought, was the extent of her knowledge about her father’s life.
Jim Barrow and his wife were Annie’s closest neighbors, a mile and a half down the road. Annie drove slowly, navigating the truck around patches of ice. The farms were separated by long lines of barbed wire strung across a series of posts and when Annie crossed the divide, she felt her blood thicken. Just a little lesson. The Barrows were good neighbors. Good to Papa and mostly good to her, but Mary Barrow’s glances had not gone unnoticed to Annie.
The Barrows’ ranch-style house stretched across the snow, its north and south wings reaching out to Annie like inviting arms. Jim’s truck had been fitted with chains to help with traction and it was clean of snow. The other vehicle, though, an old sedan that Mary drove to the market on Sundays, was halfway buried. Annie pulled the truck behind Jim’s and shifted into park.
Annie walked up the drive to the walkway leading to the Barrow’s front door. The steps to the porch had been salted and shoveled and it felt to Annie that they had expected her company, and maybe they did. She was alone now that Papa was gone. At the funeral, Jim told her that their door was always open, that she’d always have a place at the table. Annie opened the screen and rapped her knuckles against the cold oak door.
Jim was a tall man but even he had to step out of his home and look up to see Annie’s face.
“Annie,” he said, “it’s as cold as hell out there. Where’s your coat at?”
“Oh,” Annie started, “I…”
“Come inside before you end up lying next to your Pa.”
The foyer had doors leading to, on the right, the Barrow’s living room and, on the left, the dining room. The entryway was cool, the vents and doors closed to keep the heat in. Opposite the front door hung an oil painting of the 1937 flood. It was a mass market piece sold across Paducah and the rest of McCracken County. In the painting, a silhouetted figure paddled north along Broadway. Annie had seen the painting a thousand times and had always wondered if she would have survived, had she been alive then. When she stood on the tips of her toes against the whitewashed walls downtown, against the high water marks painted black on the bricks, the hash marking the 1937 flood was at eye level.
“Well,” Jim said, “come get something hot to eat.”
Annie wiped her wet boots on the Barrow’s welcome mat and followed Jim into the living room. Inside, Mary sat curled on a sofa cradling a mug. Across from her a pyramid of pine logs burned inside the fireplace. The sweet smell of sap hung heavy in the room.
Jim said, “Honey,” and Mary turned toward them.
“Oh,” Mary said. And then, “if I had known you were coming over, Annie, I wouldn’t have looked such a mess.”
Inside her dress pocket, Annie’s fingers had become stiff around the Colt’s handle. It was silly to feel so worked up, she decided. Annie walked to the Barrow’s hearth and sat down, cross-legged on the warm wood flooring.
“Bring some coffee, Mary,” Jim said, “put some eggs on, too.”
Mary set her own mug onto a dark-stained end table and stood up. From behind her, Annie heard the woman say something to her husband, though she could not discern what, and then Mary’s light steps out of the living room.
Jim groaned as he fell into the reclining chair and its footrest swung open.
“How are you, Annie,” he said. “I mean, do you need anything? If it’s the money, we’ll bring you all the groceries you need.”
“No, Mr. Barrow,” Annie said, “I just haven’t felt much like leaving the house until now, is all.”
“Annie,” Jim said, “ain’t none of this going to get any better, I promise you that. Staying locked inside that house won’t help it.”
Annie turned toward him and smiled a cold, toothy smile.
“I know, Mr. Barrow,” she said, “and I sure do appreciate your concern.”
*
Papa’s funeral was held on a Sunday, and those who attended the funeral first attended the day’s mass. Father Mark Bishop led the celebration, a young man new to priesthood and new, too, to Paducah. Annie thought that no, he was not an unattractive man.
Father John, the congregation’s elder priest, sat behind the marble altar, overseeing the service. When Papa first moved them to Paducah, Father John was the first to welcome them. His Continental bounced over the dirt drive and up to the shotgun house. He shook Papa’s hand, then kneeled and took Annie’s, his breath sour with whiskey. And then he was gone, but Papa had been sold on his kindness and the two began to attend Father John’s Sunday services.
Father Mark finished his reading of Mark–chapter seven–and began his homily.
“They’re in Los Angeles,” the priest said, “Indianapolis. From Seoul to Yuma to Chicago and yes, even that holiest of lands, Jerusalem, they are abundant, these men and women of idolatry. They speak not the word of Christ. Not your Christ, nor mine, for we know there exists but one true Christ, and he is the son of God. Last night I sat by the fire and listened to one of those sinners, a man name of Jones, speak on the radio.”
He could not, Annie thought, be much older than herself. She thought, too, about what Papa would say had she brought him home for supper. Would he shake his hand, or would he intimidate Mark, running a square of chamois leather across his pistol? Would Mark press his lips against hers? Would he slide his hand along the inside of her thigh? Annie felt guilty to think these things, guilty that she was at mass and guilty, too, that she thought these thoughts on the day of her father’s funeral.
Father Mark said, “Joseph Jones dialed in to the evening open lines on eighty-nine-point-three; tells the host about how he’s Zepheniah reincarnated. This man, this mocker of the Good Book, has said that he knows the date of Christ’s judgment of mankind, that the Dies irae will arrive sooner than you know, or I know.”
Annie hoped, as he spoke, that it would be Mark burying her father that afternoon and not Father John, who had closed his eyes and was, perhaps, asleep.
“Let us remember, brothers and sisters,” the Father continued, “that the prophets, major and minor, were chosen by the Lord our God, and there is but one Zepheniah, and this man, Jones, is not he. Pope Paul has said as much himself, has said as such about any number of idolaters. So go forth, sons and daughters of Christ, go forth in peace knowing that there is but one God and Him our only Father who knows all and who sees all.”
Father Mark bowed, his hands pressed together in prayer for a moment. Then he raised his head and spoke again, more lightly.
“Don’t forget we’ll be celebrating the life of one of our own after today’s service, our brother Floyd Stearns will be buried in the Oak Grove Cemetery. Floyd is survived by his daughter, Annie Stearns, and she hopes that all who knew her father’s kind soul will feel welcome at the burial.”
When Father John and Father Mark had exited through the vestry and all with the ceremony was finished, people in the pews around Annie began to shift and collect belongings. As they left, some of the congregation stopped at the last row and reached out a hand of sympathy to Annie. They gave condolences and were sorry, they said, to miss the funeral. Others did not stop but looked when passing, some with sorry eyes, but most with curiosity and some, Annie thought, with disgust. And when the rest of the congregation had filed out of the church doors, Annie was left alone, a mind full of thoughts unraveling in the hallowed space.
After several minutes, Father Mark returned from out of the vestry much more casually–black slacks and button-up, a clerical collar wrapping around the priest’s neck. A clean look that suited him, Annie thought. Father Mark smiled at Annie, and she felt a heat begin to spread through her lower stomach.
“Ready?” he asked, and Annie could not reply with words but nodded.
As they left, Father Mark kneeled before the crucifix and crossed himself. Annie, too, crossed herself, then slid out of the pew. The young priest walked down the nave and led her outside and into his sedan, a four-door Corvair painted as brown and bright as Papa’s eyes and, for a moment, Annie did not think about her father and how he was gone but instead thought about what life might have been like if things were different, if this wasn’t the man that would be burying her father, but something more.
*
“Here you go, Annie,” Mary said. She handed Annie the mug and placed a plate of eggs scrambled, still steaming, on the floor beside her.
The Barrow’s fireplace had hypnotized Annie, and Mary’s voice pulled her back to the present. She was warmer now, after sitting before the fire for how long? Annie wondered.
“Oh, why thank you, Mrs. Barrow.”
From his recliner, Jim said, “Are you sure you don’t need anything, Annie, surely you ain’t come over just to sit and watch a fire.”
Annie laughed. The shaking had returned.
“No,” she said, taking a sip from the mug, “no, I ain’t come over for that.”
Annie set the mug down on the floor and slid it away from her. And then, the plate, too, she slid, though harder than she intended, and the ceramic of the plate met the ceramic of the mug with a crack. The coffee pooled around the shattered mug, then trickled along the trenches separating floorboard from floorboard. Annie sat stiller than death.
“Oh, Annie,” Jim said. “You didn’t burn yourself now, did you?”
“No, Mr. Barrow,” Annie said. A voice inside her questioned what she was doing there on the Barrow’s living room floor, what she was doing with a gun in her pocket, but before she could give consideration to this, another voice, a different, darker voice responded. Just scare them, is all, that voice said.
“Mary,” Jim said, and there was a brief pause in which Annie could feel a heavy coldness.
Annie heard Mrs. Barrow rise from the sofa.
“I’m sorry about that, Mr. Barrow,” Annie said, getting to her feet.
Jim said, “I think it’s time to get you home, Annie. This is something you likely got to sleep off. I can drive you if you’d like.”
Annie sunk her hand into her dress pocket and held the Colt’s handle tightly. With her thumb, she pulled the pistol’s hammer back, felt the mechanical click. Annie pulled the gun out and leveled the barrel at Jim Barrow’s chest.
Jim began to lift himself out of the recliner.
“Now, what in the hell do you aim to do–”
Annie squeezed the trigger and felt the Colt jump, the gunshot reverberating around the house. The hole in his chest was smaller than she imagined it would be, but with each wheezing exhalation, blood blossomed on Jim’s shirt.
Annie heard the soft padding of Mary’s feet running back into the living room. She watched Mary considering Jim, considering the smoke still drifting from the pistol’s barrel. She watched, too, as Mary turned toward her. Mary screamed.
Annie could see that Mary wanted to cry, that she wanted to scream again and again at the sight of husband, shot down in her own living room.
Annie said, “Oh, Mrs. Barrow, now I came all the way out here to frighten you all and I aim to do just that.”
Mary stepped away slowly, slowly, then turned and ran for the front door. Annie raised Papa’s old Colt again. She squeezed the trigger, and the pistol jumped a second time.
“Just a little scare,” Annie said, starting towards Mrs. Barrow.
Annie waited for Mary to respond. After a moment of standing above her, Annie decided that she had scared them well enough. She slid the pistol back inside her dress pocket, exited the Barrow’s, and returned to Papa’s truck. This time, the engine caught on the first turn of the ignition.
*
Annie knew that she had to leave Paducah before she pulled the truck up to Papa’s. She had hoped the drive home would calm her heart, but it had only beaten more furiously since she left the Barrow’s.
Inside, Annie stopped first at Papa’s room. The box of .38 shells, mostly full, was still open on his bed. It felt like he had been gone for years already, and Annie began to cry. She fell onto her knees beside Papa’s bed, feeling that she might vomit.
After her stomach calmed and she felt she could cry no more, Annie returned to the closet, searching for any more of Papa’s possessions that she might take with her. Annie did not need to stand on the tips of her toes to reach the shelf on which the aluminum bar and hangers hung. The shelf was at eye level–flood level–and she could see that, except for the box of .38 shells, Papa hadn’t used the space for storage. She kneeled again, this time beneath the hangers and clothes, to see what was on the floor and found, behind pairs of old boots, a lockbox. The box was heavy, and Annie wondered if the weight came from what the box held or the reinforced steel of its structure. Papa had left the key inside the box’s lock.
Annie brought the box back to Papa’s bed and opened it, dumping the contents next to the ammunition. Out came photographs, letters, a cross made from two railroad spikes welded together. All the photographs were shots of Papa. Papa sitting with an arm wrapped around a man with hair to his shoulders and a thick beard. Papa holding Annie in the crook of his arm. Papa beside a woman on a gurney. Papa holding the woman’s hand and her holding the newborn, already longer than average. Papa with the bearded man, again, in long white robes. The woman, Annie thought, was probably her mother. The man, though, she was unsure of. Papa didn’t have a brother. Hadn’t, at least, told her of a brother. Whoever it was, Annie could see that he and Papa were close.
Annie read the letters next and found that the return address on each was the same. It was an Arizona address – Yuma – and the sender’s name was printed J.J. Annie could not recall Papa ever talking about the man, but then, Papa didn’t talk much at all. J.J. wrote of bible verses. He wrote of followers and how, if Papa decided to come back to Yuma, he would always be a cardinal. Most of the letters ended with J.J.s signature and a note that said Your brother in peace and love. One letter, the final letter Annie read, did not include a signature or a note, but signed off with a new name. But that wasn’t quite right. It wasn’t a new name. There was a familiarity about it, the sharp Z-sound like a wasp in her skull. Zephaniah.
Annie took the photographs of Papa. She took, too, the cross and the letters. She walked back through the house to her own room and placed the items and as much clothing as she could fit inside a suitcase. This time, Annie remembered to retrieve her coat from behind the door, and after placing the envelope containing the rest of Papa’s policy money into her pocket, left the house for good.
Annie placed the suitcase in the truck’s passenger seat, and then the cross and box of ammunition inside the glove compartment. This was where Papa kept his maps, and Annie pulled these out carefully. As she waited for the engine to warm up again, Annie ran her finger along the map, down Kentucky and then westward through the country, tracing the thin green line to Yuma. Since Papa had brought them out here, Annie had never left the state. She had never, in fact, been further than Louisville, and she was frightened to go. Still, she shifted the truck into reverse and pulled onto the road. Heading south towards I-57, Annie passed the Barrow’s house and saw that Mary’s sedan was still buried and that Jim’s truck, too, was still there. Police had not yet arrived. Turning her head back toward the road, Annie breathed deeply and pressed her foot harder onto the gas pedal.
Daniel Miller helps edit hex literary. His work is forthcoming or has appeared in Hellarkey, Pleiades, HAD, among other places.