She Walks in Shadows(7)
VIOLET IS THE COLOR OF YOUR ENERGY
Nadia Bulkin
ABIGAIL GARDNER NéE Cuzak was sitting on the bathroom floor, thinking about the relationship that mice in mazes have with death, when a many-splendored light shot down from the stars like a touch of divine Providence. Abigail hurried to the bathroom window above the toilet, but just as she put her fingers on the smudge-stained glass, a loud noise — not an explosion, more like a diver’s plunge — burst from the field and pushed her back onto her heels. The impact tripped the perimeter lights; she could see shockwaves rippling the corn. But there was no smoke, no fire, only the faintest tint of red-blue-purple now rapidly melting into night.
She heard Nate throw off the covers, muttering, “What the f*ck?” And then, sharper, “Abby!”
The two of them rushed downstairs, a shadow of the team they had once been when they were first trying to forge a life together out of the money they’d saved in college, him at the chem lab, her at the campus store. “I bet it’s our buddy Pierce,” Nate muttered, barreling through the kitchen, running into a chair in the dark. If it hurt, he didn’t show it. “He probably cooked up some radio-controlled boondoggle to mess with the crop. Probably aiming for the sprinklers. Or just trying to nuclear-waste the whole damn thing.”
Abigail did not think that sounded much like him. Ambrose might have enjoyed eating up the little farms around him, counting up his tripling acres with a glass of whiskey, but he hated parlor tricks, didn’t think he needed to lower himself to sabotage. She said nothing to Nate. It was better to let him cling to that bone if it kept him occupied.
Nate had his gun. Abigail had a fireplace poker. Her farm cats were skulking by the flower pots, making low, scratchy howls at something in the corn. Abigail followed him to the front as quietly as possible, her bare feet curling around dry stalks and kernels and poisoned insect corpses, but she had the feeling they would not find what Nate was looking for. They would not find any ruddy farmhand with a twistable neck, nor a small, broken, remote-controlled drone. Nate would periodically shush her and veer in a new direction, but Abigail knew there was no life out there. The field was so quiet, she could hear the cats’ growling. Though the air sure smelled strange — pungent and tart with a hint of curdled sweetness. It prickled her skin.
Between the rows, Nate turned and whispered, “There’s no one here.”
She could have told him so, but Nate had to know for himself before he’d turn around. Had to go all the way to the state border before he admitted that maybe he had missed the turn for Salt Creek Road. That was just his way. He liked being careful; she liked that about him.
“Maybe it was something on the road,” she said, so he would let them get back to the house. The thought of the road and the real world beyond the gravel driveway had reminded her that the children were alone. She had dreams about them growing up that way — little feral masters of the house, sunken and sullen and riding the dogs like wolves. “Maybe somebody blew his tire.”
Nate seemed to be chewing the whole interior of his mouth. “That wasn’t a tire, Abby.”
“You can look again in the daytime,” she tried.
“I’m gonna call up that son-of-a-bitch Pierce in the daytime, is what I’m gonna do,” said Nate. “Teach him if he thinks he can intimidate me.”
When they slunk back to the house, the boys were standing on the porch, the dogs at their heels. Zeke was trying to project his authority with his Little League baseball bat; Merrill was wiping his eyes. Teddy asked if a comet had crashed. Nate gave him a little push to the head and said, “Don’t get too excited.” Underneath the porch, the cats’ diamond eyes were shining.
Their harvest was surprisingly healthy that summer — bigger and greener than any others since they’d moved out of their south Lincoln bungalow three years ago and decided to make a more wholesome life in the country. Nate didn’t have the nutrient content analysis back yet, but when he took bites off the blond-haired cob, he said he knew. Abigail thought it tasted off — sour, like the air in the field since the crash that wasn’t a crash — but Nate said it needed processing and when was the last time she’d won any farming awards? Well, he was right about that.
And it was good to see Nate happy. She had never allowed herself to doubt him — before she married him she had asked herself, Do I trust this man to lead this family? and she had decided the answer was yes, come hell or tarnation — but it was still good to get good news.
“What kind of Frankenstein corn are you growing now, Gardner?” said Ambrose Pierce when they ran into him outside Horwell’s General Store, sipping a Dr. Pepper. “I thought you were all about that hippie organic tofu living and here you are, pumping your crop with steroids.”
“You’re the only one growing Frankenstein GMO corn,” Nate said, puffing out his chest. “Some of us haven’t forgotten what it means to be a real farmer, growing real food for a real family.” Ambrose wasn’t married. Nate had suggested he was gay, but he was not. “Guess you Big Ag types wouldn’t recognize real corn if it rose up and kicked you in the ass.”
Ambrose made a guffawing sound. “Aren’t you from Omaha?”
Nate shifted the bags in his hand and went to the truck and didn’t answer. But Ambrose caught Abigail by the wrist before she could follow and said to her, “Abby, something’s off about that corn. I don’t like it. I don’t know what he’s been doing, but you gotta get that shit cleared by the FDA.” A good wife would have stiffly told him he was just jealous, just sorry that he couldn’t quite yet eat up Nate’s land, but she must not have been a good wife. Nate unlocked the doors and shouted, “Abby! Let’s go!” The “go” had a punchy desperation to it, probably because that was the moment he saw Ambrose touching her hand.