Ian takes a bite of his sandwich and sets it aside. “You going to bring your dad’s shotgun?”
Daniel nods.
“Your.22 won’t do you any good. Not for pheasant hunting. My brothers say if you have a shotgun, we can be the pushers.” Ian pokes his elbow into the center of an unpeeled banana. Its guts squirt out both ends. He does the same thing every day and throws it away so his mom will think he ate it. “You know about pushers and blockers, don’t you?”
Daniel shakes his head.
“Blockers stand along the road, blocking the pheasant, and the pushers walk across the field, pushing the birds so they get squeezed between. Being a blocker is no good. Blockers get hit by buckshot if they’re not careful. Pushing is best. Pushers flush out the pheasant, take an easy shot. We want to be pushers.”
Daniel holds up a hand and shakes his head when Ian slides his uneaten sandwich across the table. A few months back, when Ian first started giving Daniel his leftovers, he took them. Ida Bucher made her sandwiches with double mayonnaise and extra thick slices of cheese, but when Daniel began noticing that he could see Ian’s backbone through his shirt and that he wasn’t growing like everyone else in the grade, he stopped taking Ian’s sandwiches, no matter how much mayonnaise Mrs. Bucher used.
Ian wads up the sandwich in its waxed paper wrapper and drops it into his lunch bag. “My brothers say we’ll be hunting late-season pheasant. They’re the hardest to shoot. Early-season pheasant are stupid. They get shot straight away. But late-season pheasants, they’re the smart ones. You got to be tricky to get the late-season birds. My brothers say that if we’re smart enough to get us some late-season pheasants, we’ll go hunting for Jack Mayer.”
Daniel starts to ask why early-season pheasant are stupid but stops because a group of kids breaks out laughing. At first, he thinks they’re laughing at Ian, but the kids are sitting two tables over and couldn’t hear Ian talking about Jack Mayer and Nelly Simpson and late-season pheasant.
“What are they all laughing at?” Ian asks, putting the rest of his lunch back in the brown bag his mom packed it in and squishing it down with both hands.
“Don’t know,” Daniel says, thinking Ian looks a little blue. Or maybe it’s the gray light from an overcast sky. He turns toward the laughter as a couple of kids at the next table stand. He leans to the left and sees her.
Two tables down, sitting by herself as she always does at lunch, Evie is wearing one of Aunt Eve’s dresses-the blue one, the one with ruffles and a satin bow, the one she said was her favorite. The dress is too big and falls off her small, white shoulders. She tugs at it, gathering up the collar where it has torn away at the seam. She smiles as if she doesn’t hear the kids laughing. She smiles as if Aunt Eve is sitting across the table from her. Daniel throws down his sandwich, jumps up and runs two tables over.
“Hi, Daniel,” Evie says.
Turning to the kids sitting at the other end of Evie’s table, Daniel says, “Shut up. All of you, shut up.” Then he looks back at Evie. “What are you doing?”
“Eating lunch,” she says, laying out two napkins-setting a place for two people.
“Why are you wearing that dress?”
Evie smiles and shoves a piece of peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich in her mouth. “It’s my favorite. Aunt Eve’s favorite, too.”
“You shouldn’t be wearing that, Evie. It’s all torn and it’s not yours.”
Two tables away, Ian is watching them. He still looks blue.
“You’re going to get in trouble.”
Evie takes another bite and dabs one corner of her mouth with her napkin. “No, I won’t. Don’t be silly.” She stands to show Daniel how she rolled up the middle of the dress and tied it off with the sash. “See, I made it fit. I fixed it myself.”
Daniel stands and holds out his arms, blocking the view of Evie modeling her dress. “Sit down already. Does Mama know you’re wearing that?”
“Aunt Eve said I could.”
“Aunt Eve said?”
Evie nods. “Yes, Aunt Eve said.”
Chapter 21
The school bus hisses and slows near Daniel’s house. Holding onto the back of the seat in front of him, he gathers his books and lunch-box, stands and waits until the bus has stopped before stepping into the aisle.
“Now, you’re sure Evie wasn’t meant to take the bus home today?” Mr. Slear, the bus driver, asks.
“No, sir. Guess my mama picked her up early.”
The bus door slides open and Mr. Slear says, “She not feeling well?”
“Yes, sir. Not feeling well at all.”
Daniel waits at the end of the gravel drive until Mr. Slear pops the bus into gear and drives away. Once it has disappeared over the hill, leaving behind a trail of gray exhaust, he walks up the drive. The tailgate of Dad’s truck peeks out from behind the house. He has come home early. The only other time Dad came home early from work was when the first black boy in Detroit called Elaine. Now he’s home because Evie wore Aunt Eve’s dress to school.
After a few more steps, Daniel sees all of Dad’s truck. It’s parked in its normal spot. Mama’s car is parked next to the truck and the spot where Jonathon normally parks is empty. Daniel smiles at the empty spot until he hears a low rumble. He takes a few more slow steps. There it is again. Almost a groan. Rounding the back of the house and seeing nothing, he stops and stomps his feet, trying to warm his toes. The cold air burns his lungs and the inside of his throat. Inching closer to the back of the house, he hears it again. He takes a few more steps. Aunt Ruth stands at the far end of the screened-in porch. She must hear it, too.
“What should I do, Arthur?” Aunt Ruth says. “What do you need?”
Aunt Ruth’s voice is quiet as if she’s trying not to scare something. Daniel shifts direction and walks toward the gap between the garage and the far side of the house. As he nears Aunt Ruth, she begins to sidestep toward the back door. She looks at Daniel. Her eyes are wide and she is shaking her head. She looks small, as small as Evie, as small as the day Uncle Ray came asking for pie and a jump for his truck. On his tiptoes now, so his feet don’t crunch on the gravel drive, Daniel takes a few more steps.
Dad and Olivia are standing in the small alleyway between the house and garage, the space that Daniel always forgets to mow. But the grass has died off with winter and the ground is hard and bare. With one hand, Dad pats Olivia on the hind end. With the other, he waves Aunt Ruth away. Olivia is too large to turn around in the narrow space and she can’t walk through and around the house because old Mr. Murray’s rusted car blocks the far end. The only way out is for Dad to coax her to back up.
“There you go, girl,” Dad says to Olivia in a quiet voice. He sounds like he’s talking to Evie. “Get on back now, girl.”
Step by step, Olivia backs out of the narrow passageway.
“Dan,” Dad says, seeing Daniel standing in the driveway. “Get Evie inside. Get her inside now and get me my gun.”
Blood is splattered across Dad’s white work shirt, the one with the Rooks County patch that Mama sewed on the left pocket before his first day of work. Both sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, and his hands are shiny red like he dipped them in red paint. Olivia turns, leading with the top of her head, followed by her round, brown eyes.
Aunt Ruth said Olivia was a good mother to many calves, but she’s too old now and she’s apple-assed. No one wants her apple-assed calves anymore. Daniel gags into a closed fist and stumbles backward.
A gash runs the length of Olivia’s neck and down into her dew-lap and her jowls hang like parted curtains. Most of her blood is gone, drained out on the ground, soaked up by the dirt. What is left is thick and dark, almost black. A shadow grows out of the wound and spreads up and across her neck, staining her chestnut coat. She staggers, moans, barely more than a whisper. Dad pats her right haunch. Coughing and choking, Daniel thinks of Evie. Dad thinks Evie came home on the bus. No, she’s with Mama. Mama came to school for her, picked her up early. The nurse was going to call Mama because Evie wore Aunt Eve’s dress. The nurse was supposed to call.