David’s stomach lurched as Jonny drove down the valley and turned off the highway toward their home place. Less than an hour before, David had been sleeping on the floor of his living room on the same space of carpet where he had finished his bottle of vodka and passed out at some dark hour in the morning.

 

He was tired and somewhere between hung-over and still drunk.  His days and nights were mixed up now that he had stopped taking cases, had stopped going to the office altogether.  It seemed his head was always foggy too.  It took him longer to figure out things, like this morning when he awoke to the sound of Jonny’s clomping footsteps.

 

                  “How the hell did you get in here?” David had asked.  His mouth was dry, his jaw felt heavy, and the words rolled out like concrete.

 

                  “You can’t be picky about who comes in when you leave the door unlocked,” Johnny had said.  “Get up.  Let’s go for a ride.”

 

                  “I’m not going anywhere with you,” David had argued, but within minutes, he was propped up in the passenger seat of Johnny’s new black Toyota Tundra.

 

The interior of the vehicle was loaded with gadgets and toys.  A navigation system sat in the center of the dashboard.  It displayed their location and all of the surrounding county roads on a moving, digital map, roads David and Jonny both knew by heart.  The new car smell was overpowering, and David considered throwing up.

 

                  “Why are you bringing me out here?  What do you want with me?” David asked.  He turned the volume down on Hank Williams singing about tears in his beer until the only noise in the truck was the blow from the air vents. 

 

                  “I figured you’d want to try out my new wheels,” Jonny said.

 

                  “That’s a damn lie.  Where are we going?”

 

                  “Down to that strip of woods on the lake.  We’re going to cut some timber down there,” Jonny said.

 

                  “No we’re not,” David said fast.  Jonny didn’t answer, but a smirk blazed across his face.  “My name’s on that property too, and I’m not cutting any trees.”

 

                  “I’ve got a document here that you’re going to sign, and it says different,” Jonny said.  He looked at himself in the rearview mirror, his fingers perfecting the slight part of his hair on the left side of his head.  “If you don’t sign it, I’m going to dunk your wet brain in the lake until you’re half dead.

 

                  “We’ll see about that,” David said. “I’m not signing anything.”

 

                  “You sure?  It takes a lot of money to buy that high end liquor you drink.  Especially now you don’t have a regular check coming in.  Money’s got to come from somewhere.”

 

The road had turned to gravel now, and David felt every bump and rut.  This was the beginning of their family’s land.  To the right was a pasture field, and the gate was open.

 

                  “Pull down there.  I see Uncle Dew at the barn,” David said.

 

                  “I don’t know if that old man is more crazy or stupid, and I don’t have time to investigate today.”

 

                  “Pull down there already.  I’ve got to get out of this truck before I puke.” 

 

David adjusted the vents so the cold air was blowing straight in his face.

 

                  “I don’t like the way he looks at me,” Jonny said, but he turned off the gravel lane and onto the dirt trail to the barn anyway.  Then he added, “You throw up in here, and I’ll clean it with your tongue.”

 

Their great-uncle Dewey leaned against his rake in a glowing white sun.  Sweat beaded up on the old man’s forehead above his bushy gray eyebrows.  He watched the Tundra slither closer to him, unsure of its owner.  He squinted half-blindly from the shine of the black paint. 

 

David opened the door before the tires had fully stopped. The great glaring light of the sun over the parched earth hurt his eyes.  He had lain inside so long, hardly been out in the daytime, and he had forgotten how terrible the drought was, how miserable the summer sun could be as it burned through you.  It wasn’t lunchtime yet, but it was already humid and sure to get hotter.  He gasped the damp air and tried to control his breathing, unable to say anything as Dew watched.

 

Sometimes, when David found himself looking at his great-uncle, he found himself also looking in the face of his dead grandfather Jess.  Their faces weren’t identical, but they were so much alike that it confused David’s senses.  He would search Dewey’s face knowing there had been differences in their features but unable to remember them with any precision.  He saw the same flax-colored eyes, setting above the same protruding cheekbones and jutted-out nose.  The men were akin though only in their physical features.  Their hair may have been the same hawkish red, but their personalities and habits couldn’t have been more different.

 

Two years younger than David’s grandfather, Dewey had always been the little brother that needed protecting. He was slow.  His body moved like a turtle that climbed out of the creek bank, a crawler by nature but with an added measure of hesitation as if he wasn’t sure up on dry land was really where he wanted to be.

 

It was easy to picture Dewey as a timid boy, always afraid.  He acted like a man who had been beaten all his life, although David knew he had not.  In fact, David was sure Jess had done everything in his power to take care of Dewey, to help him where he might have been unable to make it on his own.  David wondered if Dew had really been born that fearful of living or if something had happened to turn him that way.

 

                  “You sick?” Dew asked.  Dew watched Jonny slide out of the truck and absently nodded. 

 

                  “Sick of his driving,” David lied through heavy gasping breaths.

 

                  “You boys ought to look at this good load a hay they just brought.”  Dew went back to work.  He raked every loose strand of hay into the pile he had formed inside the barn doors.

 

                  “I can sure smell it,” David said.  He took in the sharp odor of cut grass.  When it was so fresh, it held a scent of fermentation, which didn’t go well on his stomach.  He choked back the reflex to gag.  David hated putting up hay.  He had spent the summer before law school in the hay fields.  He remembered how his muscles had never ached so badly, how his bare shoulders had been blistered by the sun, how he had breathed the dried threads of cut grass into his lungs until it felt part of him.  He never forgot what hard work it was.  “We’re lucky to get any hay with this drought on.”

 

                  “That’s the truth.  It’s as dry a time as I’ve ever seen.  Bone dry.  If we don’t get some rain soon, we’re going to be out of the cattle business and every one else too.”  Dew stopped for a minute and looked at Jonny and David.  He took them both in, but his eyes settled on Jonny.  David felt disheveled, unsure if he had even combed his hair before piling in Jonny’s pickup.

 

                  “I need to go see a man about a horse,” Jonny said, and he walked around the barn toward the creek. 

 

                  “He won’t find enough creek water back there to piss in,” Dew said. “Just a trickle.  And you better pray it don’t dry up.  Say, what are you doing out here?  I know Jonny ain’t no account, but don’t you work no more?”

 

                  “I quit,” David said.  He hunched over and tried to shield his eyes from the sun.  It felt strange to say it aloud.  It didn’t seem like the whole truth.  David couldn’t help feeling his occupation had been lost to him.  It had slipped away in the same way Pam had slowly become distant and hard, until she finally walked out on him with his best friend.  As Pam disappeared, so did his ability to concentrate and deal with his clients.  His case load dwindled.  He stopped meeting new clients, quit having office hours altogether.

 

He almost said all of this to Dew, and more, but it was too much ammunition to throw out with Jonny only on the other side of the barn.  David’s head was befuddled but not enough to forget to protect himself from his older brother.  But if there had been a truly good soul he could lay it all out for, it would have been his Uncle Dew.

 

                  “I guess I need some time to clear my head,” David offered as some explanation.  Dew stuck his chin out and went back to raking.  “You going to try to save every piece of hay you can find?  I’d say there’s plenty for winter without worrying about that spilled bit.”

 

                  “I ain't worried about wasting and saving,” Dew said.  “I’m trying to make sure there’s none loose in case some fool throws a cigarette down and starts a fire.”

 

David had never thought of such a possibility, but again his uncle’s simplicity made sense.  It was with this kind of instinct and knowledge that Dew had managed the farm with great success.  His hold as the farm’s overseer, doing the hard and dirty work, allowed Jess to find his talents elsewhere.  With Jess’s unreserved social abilities, he found joy at playing county and state politics.  Jess would have a turn as road commissioner and later as county supervisor, but until he drew his last breath, he was a major hand in the local political scene.  David wished he and Jonny had a better relationship and were not at odds all the time.  David wished he liked Jonny more.

                 

                  “Some people are careless.  That’s the truth.” David said.

 

                  “And some are plain mean.”  Dew’s fingers fondled the rake’s wooden handle.

 

                  “You afraid someone might start a fire out here on purpose?” David asked.  His stomach was temporarily more settled, and he stood straighter in the sun’s heat.  His foot pushed a chip of rock over the dusty ground.

 

                  “I didn’t say that.”  Dew looked as if he had been accused of something.  “But it wouldn’t be the first time for it to happen.”

 

A crow flew over from the nearest walnut tree and landed on the barn above them, his claws scratching against the tin roof.  The mounting sun revealed the purple in his feathers.  He cocked his head to listen to Dewey’s words.

 

                  “A barn full of good dry hay will go up as fast as you can call the fire department,” Dew went on.  “You’d see plumes of black smoke for miles and miles.  You can’t put that kind of fire out.  Yessir, a fire is a terrible thing.  A barn fire is especially bad.  The only thing worse is when your house burns.  It’s an awful thing when a man strikes a match and burns your home down.”

 

David could tell his Uncle Dew was on a one-track path by this point.  This was the most David could remember the old man speaking in years.

 

                  “You wouldn’t believe a man with any sense would do that, would you?  Burn down another man’s house?”  Dew shook his head and made tsk tsk tsk noises with his tongue.  Then, in not much above a whisper, Dew added, “I know because someone burnt my house down once.”

                 

                  “Who burnt your house down?  When?”

 

                  “Forget it.  I shouldn’t have named it to you.”  Dew looked around, as if to make sure he and David were still alone.

 

                  “Tell me,” David said.  “I’ve never heard this story before.”

 

                  “There used to be an old two room shack up on the hill, right where Jess built the new house.  An old Marsee man worked here on the farm and lived there for a while.  He cleared out, and I moved in.  It was the first time I lived anywhere but the house I was born in.  Course, I could still see the home place across the holler.  One day, I took a load of cattle to market in Knoxville.  When I came back, there was nothing left of my little house but ashes.”

 

                  “Who would have done that?” David asked.

 

                  “It don’t matter who,” said Uncle Dew.  He began raking again, although there was really nothing left to rake.  His arms sped up anyway.

 

                  “You mean you don’t know?”

 

                  “No,” Dew said, stopping his movement and looking at David again.  “I knew whose hand had lit that match as soon as I laid eyes on it.”

 

Jonny slipped around the corner of the barn.  He leaned against the wall with a big smile.  He had obviously been listening for a while.  Dew glared for a moment and then hung the rake on a nail inside the barn and closed the heavy wooden door.

 

                  “Well, who was it?”  David asked again.

 

                  “Now I can’t say,” Dew said.  He secured a latch on the heavy swinging door to keep it closed.

 

                  “Come on Dew.  Tell us who it was,” Jonny said.  For a moment, David misunderstood Jonny’s tone and thought they were sharing the same curiosity.

 

                  “The past is the past,” Dew said.

 

                  “So you do know?” David asked.  He did not want this to be another mystery for his head to try to unravel while he drank vodka and stared at the ceiling.

 

                  “Of course he knows,” Jonny said, his voice even more snide.  “Don’t you?” he asked David.

 

                  “Well, is he still alive or dead?”  David ignored Jonny’s taunt.

 

                  “Oh, that bastard’s dead and rotting in hell.”  Dew looked at Jonny when he spoke.  He never sounded so sure of anything in his life.

 

                  “Then you can tell us.  Who was it?”  David asked.  He couldn’t imagine who would do such a terrible thing to his great uncle.

 

                  “Naw,” Dew said, stretching the word out.  “I can’t say.  Now it’s time to get out of here.  I’m late to eat.”  The old International he used around the farm roared to a start and rolled forward.  Little plumes of dust spit out from his trail.

 

                  “Do you think he was right about all that?  You think someone really did that to old Dew?”  David asked.

 

                  “Why yeah.”  Jonny laughed and opened the Tundra’s driver’s side door.  The shine from its black paint was enough to blind. 

 

                  “You sound awful damn sure of yourself,” David said.  He could feel the blood rush to his already hot face.

 

                  “Cause I know exactly what happened,” Johnny said.  “I can’t believe you can’t figure it out.  Aren’t lawyers supposed to be smart?”

 

                  “Who would do that to him?”

 

                  “Do you not know, really?”  Jonny looked at him as if surely he wasn’t that stupid.  “Grandpa Jess did it.  He burnt Dew’s house down.”

 

Despite the heat around him and the sweat that mantled his forehead, David felt ice scrape along his backbone.  He didn’t want to admit it, but it had the edge of truth in it.  His whole career as a lawyer was filled with stories of his legendary grandfather Jess, how the man had railroaded and bullied his way over anyone who stood in his political way.  David imagined there had been a line though.  Hadn’t Jess always been kind and protective of Dewey, the dawdling brother back on the farm?

 

                  “How do you know?” David asked his brother.  He felt sweat building under his hair line and running down his temples.  His stomach growled in discomfort again.  “What makes you think so?”

 

                  “Because that’s what I’d do,” Jonny said.  He climbed in the truck and turned over the Toyota’s smooth motor and waited for David to get in.

 

David felt the bitter taste of bile shoot up from his core.  As the liquid stung his throat, his knees bowed.  His outstretched palms grasped for the dusty earth to hold him steady.  Unable to hold it in any longer, sourness filled him, and David was finally sick.