“Look,” Kendra says. “Maybe I’m wrong.”
There’s no way she’s wrong about that bird. But it’s possible she shouldn’t have told Axel. And maybe she shouldn’t have poured the boy a shot, as he’s still staring at it like it’s the gateway to hell. Between that postcard and the leg Axel handed him, he’s not doing badly — given himself a job tossing logs to the woodstove every hour, although it was way too hot to start.
Kendra crosses and uncrosses her legs beneath the table, pushes her sleeves over her elbows, then peels off her layered tops till she’s down to her undershirt. She deals. Behind her, the woodstove blazes.
Goddamn Axel though, spying through the window this afternoon, being pissy about her truck — he pushed her too far.
Let it go and relax. Count to ten, or meditate on, on what? That she feels sorry for Axel despite the last three years of building rage?
Both of them next to naked and failing at cribbage. She’s distracted during the plays, Axel is frustrated. And trying to teach the kid is pointless. He doesn’t understand suits, and talks the whole time, breaking the quiet with awkward little laughs, and she’s worried that Axel — with the mood he’s in — will either hit the boy, or say something else weird about their family.
“Here.” Kendra downs the kid’s home-still that’s been there all evening. Better for both of them. “Axel, we should feed him.”
“You want me to feed him?” He hops to the counter. The rabbit is still on the counter in the bag and he picks it up.
“Are we—” Cody says. “Is that dinner?”
Kendra says “no” at the same time Axel says “yes” and she follows up with “Give the boy a break.”
Axel tosses the bag to the freezer.
“The power’s off, outside would be a better storage place.”
He ignores her. Grabs a Tupperware full of frozen empanadas and hops to the porch, slams a half-dozen on the barbecue.
“Jesus, it’s freezing, put some clothes on.” How does she always end up with this role? She holds out a coat. He accepts. All three of them stand in the dark on the porch. Cody’s brought the fake leg, but she doesn’t point it out. The cold is a welcome break from the heat inside.
“Argentina,” Axel says. “The nuns put us to work and I learned food. Not just these” — he taps the empanadas with the barbecue tongs — “the birds we flew, they ate snake.”
The home-still is working and the moment feels almost good. The kid is oddly interested in food, like the sandwich this morning, and she might get a story from Axel that hopefully won’t end on him eating a raw fish — head and all — after catching it swimming, or some other ridiculous exaggeration about his youth. Actually, even if he gets into how he started that would be good. He could use a reminder right now that when the falcon population dropped and the wild capture ban went through, he was the first to breed gyrs with any success. The respect he has at the meets — it would be good for Cody to see that side of him. Rather than whatever this is — Axel barbecuing, single-legged, in his underwear in a snowstorm.
“The nuns?” the kid says. She’s glad he does because she’s curious too, and she snaps a picture of the two of them before anyone can object.
“Argentina?” she prods. But they miss their chance — cutting through the thick, windswept snowfall, the chug of the tractor. And when they look to the sound, they see Melanie peering through the slats of the porch. The girl runs.
“Hey,” Kendra calls. “Join us.” She shouldn’t be out in the storm. They’re protected from the wind on the porch, but past the lip of the roof the snow whips through the blackout.
“You’re siding with the girl?” Axel squeezes the tongs.
Siding—? She’s going to call again but she sees a beam of light bouncing across the pasture. Melanie has a flashlight, she’ll be okay.
“Was she with you, when you flew the white?” Axel.
Of all the petty shit — what was she hoping to get from this man again?
The yard, half-melted and wet all day, is crusted and glassy. Snow falls, sharp and small, and in gusts that cut through his flashlight’s swath and make it difficult to focus on the outline of the buildings. He shuts off the flashlight and lets a burst of queasiness past. The barn becomes a void in the flurry. The lights are out, as is the motion sensor that should flicker reliably across the field from Axel’s place. The power’s failed — start the generator. This job he can manage.
Earlier, a moment ago when he went to change the old man, there was no way. He knew it as soon as he entered the room and saw Austin. An invalid, his blankets shoved to his waist, in greying pyjamas. Austin who, before the stroke, Christ. Starting when Milo was seven, Austin had him heat water and bring soap and towels to the field or barn — wherever Austin’d wrestled a calf from a pelvis. Austin wiped the birth sac and fluid from the calf with hay, then soaped his arms and chest and washed in the bucket. Delivered and doctored all his own cattle. Had even managed the bull — harnessed the beast, penned it, settled the teaser, then come alongside the animal and hupped him. Terrifying, even poled. The bull was massive. Got scary height on its hind legs, with chest and shoulders rested on the teaser’s ass. He’d refused to hold the harness rope or be near the pen during semen collection. Milo sold the bull with the market calves first thing after moving back with Melanie. Artificial insemination from purchased straws is so much easier — even Melanie can do that. But when he was a kid, there was Austin next to seventeen hundred pounds of horny meat, directing its unwieldy pink shlong into a fake vagina.
He circles to the generator under the lean-to around the back of the barn. The dull red metal is fused with patches of snow. He keys it, but it won’t catch. Try again. Eight-gallon tank so fourteen hours run time. The genset — if it ever starts — should boast enough watts to run the house as well as a portion of the milkers and the milk bin. He tries the dipstick. Dry. Okay.
Such discrepancy — Austin’s collapsed chest, arms curled like the tendons have shrunk, even the facial fat has faded away and left this emaciated human — it’s almost easy to dismiss what remains of his father. Well, no. If that were true, he’d be able to clean the old man. He wouldn’t be hung up on embarrassment. The old man clenching his fist and pawing the blankets — goddamn. Thought he’d way outlived embarrassment.
There’s too much of a drift at the side door to the garage so he opens the main barn door and fumbles through to the garage that way. Tractor grease, machine oil, cut-gas, warmed by the smell of compressed sawdust bricks, and by body heat from the cows beyond the wall. He sets a hand on the tractor and spits in the floor drain. The smell of the diesel is no good. Get it outside. He clears a few bottles out of the main door — might as well, since he has to rescue Kendra’s truck tomorrow — and opens the garage. Probably shouldn’t syphon in the garage anyway, he’s got that much sense. He steps on the running board, grabs the canopy support, and swings into the seat. He bends over the wheel and drives into the snow and wind, ducks at the door even though the plastic canopy above has clearance.
In the drive, he parks the tractor and dismounts. He walks back to the garage and crawls behind the boiler and finds a length of tubing. He blows the dust out of it and lets it uncoil. Long enough. Grab the jerry can and back outside. The wind blows his coat against his back and he leans into the square-nosed body of the tractor. He’s got this. He pulls his glove off with his teeth and twists the cap off the gas tank and sets it on the seat of the tractor. Glove back on. Tubing slid into the tank. He readies the jerry can and sucks on the loose end of the tube. As he sucks, a beam of light bounces over him in the drive — a flashlight. Melanie runs up to him; her glasses are crooked and she’s holding her toque on with one hand. She doesn’t see him and almost collides, but at the last minute veers away. The tubing spits diesel over his teeth.