The Auctioneer Read online

  In the foyer of the church, the greeters lined up—first Sonny and Theresa Pike, then Mickey Cogswell looking overstuffed and florid in a suitcoat and tie. The Moores shook hands unsmiling with the Pikes and passed on to Cogswell.

  “Where’s Agnes?” Mim asked.

  “Not up to comin’,” he said. He looked down at Hildie and had no greeting for her. “You heard the preacher’s gone?” he said.

  “Gone!” Mim said.

  But Cogswell motioned to the Moores to move on. “You’ll see,” he muttered.

  Mim caught the child up and carried her down the aisle, while John supported Ma on his arm and followed Ezra Stone as he ushered them to a pew in the middle of the church.

  In the sanctuary, Fanny Linden was playing the organ the way she always had, and sunshine poured past yellow maples through the high clear windows. The church was never more than a quarter full even on Christmas, yet as soon as the Moores sat down, they felt another couple move in directly behind them. Glancing back, John saw the Jameses. Ian James was a deputy, one of the first. John pulled Hildie close to him.

  Ma picked out her friends among the old people, and noted with pleasure that there were more of what she called “young folk” than usual. But then, there always were on the first Sunday of the preacher’s quarter. It was like a special town holy day. John looked around marking which men were there, wondering whether they were all deputies, or whether some were there for the same reasons he was. Mim listened to the solemn music and longed for the rough boards of her own kitchen beneath her feet.

  With a decisive series of chords, Fanny moved into the Processional. The choir—six people in maroon surplices—shuffled into the back of the church. Mim turned to look, just in time to see Perly crowding Dixie into a back pew. He caught her eye and nodded at her as if, in all that congregation, she were his special friend. Then he sat and bowed his head.

  Everyone stood up and the singing began, discordant and somewhat unsure—“A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing.” Mim followed the words in the hymnal with her finger, too shy to sing.

  Suddenly, Ma clutched at her arm. “Good God in heaven,” she said.

  From a side door, a figure was approaching the pulpit wearing Janet Solossen’s black robe with the red hood. He climbed slowly up into the high central pulpit and stood silent during the singing, looking out over the congregation with blank black eyes. It was Mudgett.

  After the singing was over and the organ fell silent, Mudgett read the Psalm: “My heart was hot within me; while I was musing the fire burned...” His voice was high and tense and slow. He seemed more a preacher than the preacher herself. When he lifted his head and prayed, Mim raised her eyes from her bowed head and watched, struck cold by her feeling, despite all she knew, that Mudgett had received a call and turned himself into a spokesman for God.

  After the prayer, he looked out over the congregation until everyone began to squirm. It seemed a practiced gesture, one that brought the pressure of conscience to bear on them.

  “I have a letter here from the Reverend Solossen,” he said at last. It’s dated yesterday.

  My dear friends:

  As you all know so well, I have for years taken as my special missionary concern the plight of the orphans of Vietnam. Now a wonderful opportunity to serve God has come to me, and indirectly to you. Three days ago I received an invitation to serve on a delegation of clergy to the government of Vietnam to discuss facilitating the care of these needy children. Then, today, even as I was considering whether I was meant to leave my own parishioners, and whether I could afford the plane fare, a ticket was slipped under my door for the midnight flight to Hong Kong, where I can connect with a flight to Saigon. This anonymous donation from one or more of you came to me like the answer to my prayers and like an assurance that my participation in this delegation is meant to be.

  Although I know that this probably means that Harlowe will not have a preacher at all this year, 1 hope that you will feel that through me you are all helping to save the lives of these poor children—the victims, in part, of America’s tragic involvement in Southeast Asia. May your prayers go with me, as mine are with you.

  Janet Solossen

  The service went on—the Lesson, the Responsive Reading, the Anthem. It seemed a normal service, and it was hard to realize that the man in the robes was Mudgett. Jimmy Ward preached the sermon, taking for his text “Suffer the little children to come unto me.” Much to Mim’s relief, he seemed exactly like Jimmy Ward, stumbling and apologizing and getting tangled in his words.

  Afterwards, Mudgett made the announcements: coffee after the service, a fellowship dinner on Thursday, a meeting of the Women’s Overseas Mission group to sort clothing for the Vietnamese orphans. “We plan,” he said, “to continue church services on a regular basis while the preacher’s gone. Anyone who wants to help should speak to Mr. Ward or myself after the service.”

  “That’s not even the way Red Mudgett talks,” Mim said on the way home.

  “He was ever a weasel, that one,” Ma said. “Ain’t nothin’ he could do would surprise me.”

  6

  The week came when there were no nonessentials left. They couldn’t let Ma’s couch go, and not even Perly could have raised any cash for the kitchen table and benches John had put together from some old planks in the barn. As if he sensed their difficulty, the auctioneer came himself with Gore.

  Dixie ran up the path to meet Lassie, her silky tail waving. John watched from the doorway as the two men approached. When they stood on the stoop facing him, he opened the storm door and stepped out to join them.

  “There’s nothin’ left, Perly,” he said, his body firmly planted between Perly and his door. “There’s no point you stickin’ round. You can’t squeeze blood from a turnip.”

  The auctioneer looked down on John, his brown eyes heavy with concern. “You’ve been very generous,” he said slowly. He stood so close that John inched back until he could feel the glass of the door against his shoulder blades.

  Gore leaned on the cornerpost of the house, turning the handle of a rake around and around in his hands, not meeting John’s eyes. Finally he put the rake down and said, “It don’t matter, Johnny. All we want’s your guns.”

  “My guns!”

  Perly stooped to pick a sprig of mint growing near the door. He put it in his mouth and chewed it. “With hunting season coming up, we thought a special firearms auction might be a good idea.”

  “So it’s come to disarmin’ us,” John said, standing solidly before his door.

  Perly threw back his dark head and laughed. “If you’re working for law and order,” he said, “you have to admit it’s not a bad idea.”

  “It happens I need my gun,” John said.

  “What for?” Perly said. “Town records show you haven’t taken out a hunting license for ten years.”

  “A farmer needs a gun,” John said.

  “Don’t suppose you’ve got an old muzzle-loader?” Perly asked, glancing through the door into the kitchen. “Those are fetching a pretty price these days.”

  Gore was kicking at the mudscraper by the door. “He keeps them in the pantry, Perly,” he mumbled without looking up.

  Perly raised his brows. “If you’ll excuse me...” he said to John.

  John stood his ground and Perly waited to pass. Gore watched, his hand hovering near his gun. Hildie was chirping inside, happy to see the auctioneer.

  Perly raised his brows. “Have you considered, John, whether you’re in a position to bar the door?” he asked. He cast a glittering eye over Mim and Ma and Hildie, then seemed about to turn away.

  Finally, his face flushing deeply beneath his sunburn, John thrust his hands deep into his overall pockets and stepped slowly off the back step. He paused, then moved away toward the barn.

  Perly nodded politely at John’s receding back. Then he opened the door and waited for Gore to lead the way.

  But Gore stood scowling and did
n’t move until Perly said pleasantly, “Well, Bob?” Then the policeman moved heavily into the kitchen and, without stopping to greet Mim or Ma, strode directly into the pantry.

  Perly entered with a smile for Mim and squatted before Hildie where she stood with Mim in front of the sink. “Hi there, sweetie,” he said, holding out his arms. “Come say hello to your old friend.

  Hildie smiled, but hesitated. As she headed toward Perly, Mim caught the elastic at the back of her jeans and pulled her roughly back, so that she howled in outrage.

  Perly stood up. He looked down into Mim’s face with a different kind of smile. Dixie whined at the door to come in but he ignored her. “So sorry,” he murmured, but Mim was looking past him at Gore who was carrying the shotgun and the .30-’06, one in each hand, his eyes fixed and sullen on the floor in front of him.

  Perly turned to him. “Did you get the ammunition?” he asked.

  “God damn it, Perly,” Gore muttered and did not turn.

  Perly turned back to Mim. “Where is it?” he asked.

  Mim stood still, pressing Hildie’s shoulders against her thighs, her face gone white.

  Perly shook his head and grinned. “Guess you just can’t please all the people all the time,” he said, and brushed Mim’s cold cheek with his fingertips.

  Then, with one step, he moved into the pantry and, without searching at all, reached up and swung the red steel box of ammunition off the top shelf.

  Mim watched from the kitchen, Ma from the front room, and John from the barn as Perly followed Gore down the path and the two men sprang up into the cab of the truck and drove away.

  The following Thursday, under a scudding sky, heavy with rain, Perly and Gore came again.

  John came out of the barn and stood in the doorway, his feet spread wide and his arms folded. “There’s nothin’,” he said.

  Perly gazed cheerfully around the yard, his face darker than ever after a summer in the sun.

  Gore leaned against the truck watching. “We’re takin’ cows,” he said.

  “Cows!”

  “Just a couple,” Perly said and winked at Mim who was standing behind the glass in the door looking out. “Figure that’s two fewer to milk. Or if you’ve got a couple that aren’t milking at the moment, we’ll settle for those.”

  John glanced up at the pasture where the seven red Jerseys were bunched together under the white ash by the gate, their udders swollen, waiting for him to come and bring them in.

  Perly stood with his arms folded in a graceful parody of John. His eyes reflected the rainy sky. “We’ll take two,” he said.

  “The hell you will,” John muttered. Then he said, forcing the words out slowly, “Get off my land.”

  John turned and headed up the path toward the back door and his family. His body seemed numb and each step was an effort. He felt he was pushing not only through his fear of the gun in Gore’s holster, but through walls of confounding anger as well.

  He didn’t hear the steps behind him or the rustle of clothing. Without a sound of warning or the slightest appearance of haste, Perly slid between John and the door he was approaching.

  “Did you want to consult your wife?” Perly asked. He opened the kitchen door and caught Mim tightly by the shoulder as she stepped away. He smiled down on her. She raised her eyes to his and the two were caught in the posture of young sweethearts.

  John stopped.

  Holding Mim by the arm, lightly now, Perly led her toward her husband.

  John saw Mim, pale and unfamiliar, walking obediently toward him in the crook of the strange man’s arm, her body brushing his. Fear had blanked out all expression on her face.

  Catching his breath, John turned quickly away toward the pasture and the cows, his anger and the heaviness of the humid afternoon combining to stifle him. He moved toward the path between the barn and the woodshed that led up into the pasture. Dixie darted out ahead of him and Lassie yapped along behind.

  He moved up and up into his land. He could hear Gore puffing behind him, but he could only sense Perly’s silent tread. Under the ash, a flat sharp stone, as big around as a milking pail, had fallen from the wall. It grew and changed in his sight as he approached, becoming a weapon.

  When he got to the barbed wire section that opened to release the cows, he stopped until Gore and Perly came up behind him and he could feel their breath swirling around his head. The stone was six feet ahead of them. He would wait until they were through the barbed wire. Perly came first, moving through as silent and effortless as a cat. Gore watched John as he went past, his small eyes cautious.

  John noticed the empty holster first. Then he saw the gun. Gore wasn’t pointing it, just dangling it at his side, half hidden behind his broad thigh.

  “Well,” said the auctioneer, “which of your pretty lasses will you part with?”

  John stood staring down at the stone. If he bent to pick it up now, next week’s news would be that John Moore had had an accident cleaning up his guns for hunting season—never mind the fact the guns were gone.

  And then the three women would be alone.

  John held the fence post and looked past the men to the weathered house below to steady himself. It looked small with distance on the gray day. And in the yard, diminished too by distance, Mim stood where they had left her.

  “Which ones did you say?” asked Perly.

  Silently, John pointed to Moon. He leaned on the post for support as the auctioneer himself moved toward Moon, slapped her on the flank, and started her ambling easy down the field.

  Gore kept watch, his feet planted wide apart, his gun tight in his hand, and his mouth half open, gasping for breath.

  After that, Mudgett and Cogswell came again for a while. Mudgett led the way and Cogswell ambled after him like an enormous awkward pet. He was drinking heavily and had to be spoken to sometimes two or three times before he responded. They made two trips one week to take the entire crop of squash, and then they took the churn and separator and, finally, the rest of the cows, always a pair at a time. John and Mim worried about Hildie without the milk, but she went on thriving. They still had good vegetables, and they started eating the chickens as fast as they could, one or even two a day. “Guess they can’t take what’s already et,” Ma said.

  They picked the last of the green tomatoes and hid them under the floorboards in their bedroom, then pulled up the bean and tomato stakes. They picked pumpkins and what few squash were late to ripen. They picked bushels of wormy apples. The cider press was gone, so Mim cut them up and made apple sauce from some and hung the others on strings from the rafters in the attic to dry. They put plastic over the windows of the front room and the kitchen. And every day they went into their woods and cut a load of firewood. John got up on the roof with a burlap sack full of bricks on the end of a rope and cleaned the chimneys, and together they emptied the traps behind the stoves.

  It was too cold now to bathe in the pond. Instead, on Saturday afternoons, they heated three big kettles full of water and poured them into the galvanized tub. Ma got the first bath, than Hildie, and finally Mim and John. Mim heated a bowl of water and, scolding and coaxing, washed Hildie’s bright thin hair.

  The leaves began to fall from the trees and everything seemed to move closer to the house—the pond, and the pines where the road opened up, and the edges of the pasture. Mim brought the old wooden lawn chair into the kitchen so that Ma could sit in the kitchen comfortably.

  John went and told the doctor’s wife he didn’t have the cows any more.

  “Why is everyone giving up cows?” Mrs. Hastings asked. I see Lovelace and Rouse don’t have theirs any more either. I hear they’re being sold at the auctions. You must be getting a fine price.”

  John stood before her thinking of the check for five dollars he d gotten the week before for two good milkers.

  “Well, I guess it wasn’t that much we paid you,” she said with a touch of irritation. “It was good butter, I’ll say, but I guess it just isn�
�t worthwhile any more.”

  “The doctor,” John said, “he must know what’s going on. All the...”

  “What?” said Mrs. Hastings. “Inflation? If it’s Harlowe and this auction business you mean, I have to tell you right out we never could understand what makes you people tick. How can anybody hope to understand people who won’t raise a finger to better themselves? It’s just like the butter problem. Nobody even wants to do an honest day’s work any more.”

  The tall woman opened the back door and stood brooding at John, waiting for him to leave.

  John paused in the doorway, meeting the contempt in her gaze.

  “Ma’am,” he said, “for all your fancy schoolin’, ain’t much you do understand.”

  After Hildie was in bed, John poured the money out of the crockery jar over the sink and counted it, as he did at least once a week. “A hundred seventy-three,” he said. “And a hundred in the bank.”

  They had never been so low going into winter. “Six dollars a month for a phone what never rings,” he said. “Don’t suppose they’ll be askin’ me to run the snowplow neither.”

  “What if there’s an accident?” Mim said.

  “A phone ain’t that much help,” Ma said. “We got along without a phone happy enough when Johnny was a boy. Some things we can do without.”

  There was an unaccustomed peace in the house. Ma had stopped complaining. She lived on her couch as if it were an island. She slept there at night near the warm stove, and in the mornings she made room for Hildie and the two of them played “Let’s pretend,” or told stories about when Grandma was a little girl—stories Hildie could soon tell as well as her grandmother. They cut up ten-year-old magazines from the barn and pasted them together in new ways with flour and water paste. Sometimes they watched Sesame Street together, and for a week Ma worked with her stiff hands sewing together two puppets from quilting scraps the auctioneer had overlooked.

  “I ’most wish she’d start in to meddlin’ again,” Mim said.