• • •
They take all the fathers away. The mothers weep and plead, and the Federal Men hush them, and gently hold them back while they take all the fathers away. Someone is following the Federal Men as they take all the fathers away, shooting photographs with a large camera that hangs heavily around his neck. The man chews gum. Ruth watches him as he aims his camera at Sister Taft, her children huddled around her on the bench outside the school, the man with the camera moving, crouching, training his lens on Sister Taft and her children, flash popping, and as the last of the men is taken away, someone begins to wail sharply, a sound rising above a smaller sound, a lower sound, the sound of children crying all around her, crying quietly beneath the one piercing wail. Ruth’s stomach never stops making the noise now. Something is alive inside her, and her outside feels dead. Her mother comes to her, face tight, and Ruth wonders if she knows, too, that this is the Second Coming, and her mother kneels before Ruth and wraps little Sarah in a hug, and that’s when Ruth notices that the wailing has been coming from her little sister all along.
• • •
Then they take the mothers away. The children go into the school. The room is too small for all the children. They pack together. Ruth feels the heat of the children around her, but she does not look at them or talk to them or think about them. She stares at the shirt in front of her, at one fraying thread of a boy’s shirt, and she keeps one hand on the shoulder of Sarah and one on the shoulder of Alma. Someone is smoking, a foul odor. Three of the Federal Men and two women who look like worldly schoolteachers are looking at the children and conferring with a man who is sitting at the teacher’s desk. The man makes some marks, and the woman escorts a few children from the room, and they start again.
• • •
Did the fathers and mothers go up into heaven?
• • •
They take the children away in twos and threes. The brothers and sisters are crying. Ruth watches silently, and Sarah and Alma watch silently, and Ruth stares at the chalkboard, stares at the leftover sentence on the board, written in cursive: Why does the man run? Brothers argue and sisters argue, but they are taking the children away in twos and threes. Why does the man run? A remnant of a lesson. Ruth thinks there must be an answer. She thinks that if she stays very still, maybe this won’t be happening. When the women and the Federal Men finally get to Ruth’s family, they begin to take her brothers and sisters away.
• • •
“All right, then.” One of the women is smiling, smiling at Ruth, and then smiling at Sarah, and then smiling at Alma, and then smiling again at Ruth. Sarah and Alma are trying to hide inside of Ruth. “Why don’t you two come with me for a bit?” Ruth shakes her head, and wraps each arm more tightly around her sisters.
The Federal Man watches. The man with the camera is back, leaning against the wall. He chews gum. The Federal Man whispers something to him and he smiles.
Ruth can’t figure this out. Did the fathers and mothers rise up to heaven? Did all of the children stay behind? Why does the man run?
The woman wears pointy glasses and her hair seems sculpted into a wavy bun. She smells of fancy lotion. “Come on now,” she says, trying to carve the children away from Ruth’s side with her hands, gently, gently, viciously. “It’s okay. You two come with me.”
Ruth holds tight. She says, “No.” The word is like a lump of food she needs to spit out. The woman doesn’t stop. The Federal Man says, “You’ll be all right, girls,” and Ruth manages to spit out the lump more forcefully: “No!” She wonders if she can hold her sisters tightly enough.
The woman and the Federal Man stop, but do not retreat. The woman’s hands are still touching Alma and Sarah, still resting on their shoulders, still poised to reach in and carve them away from Ruth.
“No,” Ruth says, and then she says it again. “No.”
She stares at them. These people. She prays for the Lord to stop them. To kill them. She asks for that, for the Lord to kill them. She asks that this not be the Second Coming. She says, very quietly, “No, no, no, no, no.”
• • •
In the home of the man and the woman whose name she cannot remember, Ruth sits on a sofa with her sisters. They are together, at least. Ruth’s mind keeps softening, drifting. Sarah and Alma sit beside her, legs straight before them, faces wrung white. Ruth wants to tell them to pull inside of themselves — she thinks of a turtle. She wants to tell Sarah and Alma to pull inside of themselves and just stay there. Ignore everything outside the shell. Just stay in there and wait. But the man and the woman whose name she cannot remember are sitting there, one in each chair, the chairs that match the sofa, the chairs and the sofa clean and new and fancy, like everything in the house. Carpet runs to the walls and tucks itself in like a made bed. There is cut glass on the cupboard doors, and teacups inside. The woman whose name Ruth cannot remember is saying something Ruth cannot keep track of, in tones that are sweet and pretty and false. Ruth cannot focus on her words, but now the woman seems to be waiting for something. They are together, at least. If only she could tell them, if only she could find a way to let them know: Pull inside, sisters. Pull inside and wait. The woman is kneeling down in front of the chair that matches the sofa, and Ruth thinks she is going to pray now, and Ruth thinks she should not pray with these people, that praying with these people would be a sin, probably, but then she realizes that the woman wants to give them a hug, then she realizes that one of her sisters is crying again. Which one is crying? Alma is crying. Ruth wants to tell her—Pull inside and wait—but she can’t. The woman is kneeling there, and she is saying something softly, and her arms are open, and she smells like lotion, and Alma is crying, and Ruth wants to tell her but she can’t, so she just says, “Go ahead,” because it doesn’t matter.
REUNION
August 23, 1975 GOODING, IDAHO
Boyd wrings the handlebar grip, dipping his shoulder, and the Kawasaki spits and flies toward a rocky ramp of lava. Jason found this spot — the tiny cliff that drops three feet onto a flat piece of desert — and now he watches as Boyd goes over the ledge, front wheel dropping. The whine halts abruptly. Boyd pitches headfirst over the handlebars, and the Kawasaki flips across the desert. For a second Jason thinks Boyd will be badly hurt. Even when Boyd hops up, holding his elbow and grinning madly, even then, Jason knows that he doesn’t really want to do this. He wants to be away, alone.
The Kawasaki lies on its side in the duff grass, back wheel slowly spinning. Three jackrabbits inch up, sniffing, and hop off.
“I know what I did wrong,” Boyd says, breathing heavily. “You gotta go faster and pull back harder.”
It’s not that Jason’s scared. At least he doesn’t think so. He’s jumped other things — lots of them — and he’s usually first to go. But Boyd’s wreck makes him nervous, a little, and that’s enough, on top of this other thing, the fuzzed focus and half exhaustion that’s been swamping him since Grandpa died.
“You look about half retarded right now,” Boyd says. “Mouth all open.”
Jason shrugs, and Boyd goes to get the bike. Boyd won’t give him too much shit if he doesn’t do it, Jason thinks. It’s not the time for that, but as that thought enters Jason’s mind he wonders: What is it the time for, exactly? His mother says it’s time to reflect and remember the importance of family, the eternal verities, the celestial kingdom, et cetera. What is it the time for? Anecdotes and platitudes. Self-comforting nonsense. It’s better this way. He’s out of his pain. He’s with the Lord now. With Grandma. At peace. Everyone has something to say. Everyone has a lesson to impart, an anecdote dragging a moral trailing a tidy little pat on the head. A grand, swamping tide of bullshit. Only Boyd had said the right thing: “Man, dude. That is fucked up.”