The afternoon sun lay above the humped horizon of the hills. Virgil heard a car with an automatic transmission coming up the hill. The sound faded into the curve at the top, then increased along his mother’s ridge. The county sheriff parked at the property’s edge and strode across the high grass. Troy wore an official hat and jacket with a badge, although the rest of his clothes were casual. The last time he had visited was six years ago, courting Sara.
“Hidy, Virge,” he said.
“Troy.” Virgil nodded once in greeting. “Any news?”
The sheriff shook his head.
“Your mom home?”
“She stays home, Troy. Don’t hardly go nowhere but church. Sara takes her.”
“I’ve seen that before,” Troy said. “I’m not much of a churchgoer myself.”
“No.”
“Me and your brother, we ran together some.”
“You were pretty wild before the badge.”
“Yeah, buddy. I always remember Boyd telling me what Jesus said to the hillbillies before he died.”
“What?”
“ ‘Don’t do nothing till I get back.’ ”
Troy looked up the hillside, where road dust settled onto the brush, forming a patina over each leaf. He wiped his forehead and spat.
“You sure you can’t just talk to me,” Virgil said. “And let Mommy alone.”
Troy stared into the treeline. His tone of voice shifted, as if backing away.
“It’s got to be her. Official.”
Virgil led him up the plank steps and across the rain-grayed porch. In the front room of the small house a bare bulb lit framed photographs of Boyd and their father. On the other walls hung pictures of Sara, Marlon, and their children. There would be no pictures of Virgil until he produced kids or died.
Sara came into the room, blocking light from the kitchen.
“I warn you, Troy,” she said. “I ain’t going peaceable.”
The sheriff laughed.
“How Debbie could stand being married to a man mean as you I don’t know,” Sara said. “Has she had that baby yet?”
“Three more weeks, Sara. She’s doing fine.”
“And you?”
“Same.”
“I meant about having kids.”
“Don’t bother me,” Troy said. “I told her we’d quit whenever she wanted.”
“Sounds like you changed some.”
Troy’s face turned red and he closed his mouth. When he spoke, his voice had shifted again, as if he’d stepped behind an invisible wall.
“I’m here to see your mom, Sara. Need to talk to her direct. You all can be present, but it’s got to be her.”
Sara looked quickly at Virgil, who shrugged. She brought their mother into the front room.
“Mrs. Caudill,” Troy said.
“Hidy, Troy. You’re too late. She’s been married nigh five years.”
“Could be I’m up to court you this time.”
Her face softened briefly.
“Law says one at a time, Troy. You get the divorce, then come back.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He removed his hat. “I just wanted to tell you that the investigation is open and ongoing. At this time we have no suspects. We have no evidence and no weapon. What we have got is more rumor than an oak’s got acorns, and it all points to a man named Billy Rodale. He’s been questioned. He denies it. There’s nothing I can do.”
The sheriff slowed his words, careful to look only at Virgil’s mother.
“No one is willing to testify, Mrs. Caudill. You know how it is. People keep their mouths shut in a situation like this. If something happened to Rodale, people would stay quiet on that, too. If there’s no witness or weapon, I couldn’t do nothing about him, either. The person who did it would probably not get hisself caught.”
He stood and held his hat in both hands.
“I’m speaking for myself now, Mrs. Caudill. I feel terrible about it. All of it. But the law can’t do a thing.”
Virgil followed him to the porch. The sheriff avoided his eyes as he walked across the yard. He drove out the ridge and Virgil watched the road dust rise like smoke.
In the house, Sara and his mother sat on the couch. No one spoke. Virgil saw in their eyes what they wanted him to do. He left the house.
He started the mower and worked slowly because the grass was high, lifting the front wheels to prevent stalling. He mowed steadily, following the pattern he’d learned from his father — mark the perimeter first, then work inside it. He’d learned to paint a wall the same way. He wondered where the urge came from to delineate the edges of everything, to make maps and build fences.
He eased the mower along the edge of the hill, swerving instinctively for a tree that wasn’t there. He wondered if someone had cut it down, but there was no stump. Sweat stung his eyes and his wet shirt clung to his back. He got his bearings, which seemed ridiculous in his own yard, and saw the tree. It was in front of him, four feet over the hill, surrounded by ground cover. The tree was bigger but he recognized the angle of its growth. As a child he had pushed the mower on the other side of the tree, but now there was no grass near. He was stunned to realize that the hill was falling slowly away.
He shut off the mower and rested in shade. The raucous sound of the engine had hushed the birds, and the abrupt silence made his ears ring. The acrid smell of the septic tank drifted on a breeze. If the very earth could shift, anything could.
The sound of a car engine drew his attention, and he placed it as Abigail’s big Ford. He’d known Abigail all his life. They’d dated in high school but she had married the star quarterback of Eldridge County High and moved to Ohio. He drank and beat her, a secret she’d kept until the day she arrived at her mother’s house with a carload of belongings. She’d taken a two-year course in accounting and now worked in the payroll department of Rocksalt Community College.
For the past four years, everyone in Blizzard figured she and Virgil would get married. Virgil went along with the idea. She would marry him if he asked, and they’d talked about it in an oblique fashion, but he didn’t ask. He couldn’t, although he wanted to. He wouldn’t ask until he knew what held him back in the first place.
He tightened the muffler and returned the lawnmower to the shed. A bobwhite emitted its three-note call. He inhaled the scent of dusk, the coming dew. Katydids creaked like old bedsprings. Lightning bugs made a trail of yellow specks in the dimming air. He and Boyd used to wait until they blinked, then pull their bodies apart and smear the glowing mush on their faces.
Virgil leaned against the back door, dreading entry and supper. From inside came the rising laughter of Abigail, his sister, and his mother. It struck him that half his life happened when he wasn’t around. While he washed his hands for supper, Marlon arrived, having left the kids at an aunt’s house. Virgil stood in the kitchen door and watched him with the women. Marlon had more of a place in the house than Virgil did.
Sara noticed Virgil in the doorway.
“There he is,” she said. “Poop-head’s here.”
“Yard mowed?” Abigail said.
“You know the hill’s going over the hill out there.”
“No,” Abigail said. “I didn’t know that.”
Everyone waited for him to continue.
“This house,” Virgil said, “is a good six feet closer to the edge of the hill than it used to be.”
Marlon stomped on the floor, frowning as he gauged the walls.
“Foundations ain’t twisted,” he said, “or the windowglass’d be broke. I’d say the house’ll last awhile yet.”
“But will the hill?” Virgil said.
He sat at the metal-rimmed formica table. The ceramic salt and pepper shakers were a hen and rooster that leaned against each other.