On the way, they drove past Charley and Edna’s, and there was a big expensive Packard in the side yard. Curtis stared as they passed it. “Whose car is that?” he asked.
“Darned if I know. Never saw it before.” The tenant pursed his lips worriedly. It looked like a banker’s car, and more often than not, bankers meant trouble these days. Though he didn’t think Charley had any mortgage to worry about: The Macurdy land had been in the family for generations.
It seemed to Curtis it would be one of Varia’s Sisterhood: maybe Idri. He wasn’t afraid of Idri by herself, but she wouldn’t be alone, and he wasn’t altogether sure he could handle the men she’d have with her. Besides, this wasn’t Yuulith; they might carry guns. And if they killed him, they’d kill his parents as witnesses.
He wasn’t very good company for the Hammonds at supper. Half his attention stayed on whoever might have driven up in the Packard. He’d come close on the food: It was canned pig hocks and boiled potatoes, with pork gravy, canned green beans, and peach pie for dessert. Seemed like Miz Hammond kept her family pretty well fed. The coffee was weak of course, but coffee had to be bought.
When he’d finished, he paid his respects and left, walking east toward home. But before he’d gone more than a few chains, he left the road along the old line fence, screened by the growth of serviceberry and young sassafras in the fence row, until the barn cut him off from view of the house. Then he hiked through the potato field to the barn, skirting the manure pile. Trapjaw, Charley’s old redbone hound, peered from the barn door, then sauntered out, tail waving, to greet Curtis. From inside, Curtis could hear the sound of milk on pail bottom as his dad began on another cow.
He looked in. Charley was hunkered on the one-legged milking stool, head agamst a fawn-colored flank, squeezing and pulling, the sound changing from metallic singing to the rushing “shoosh-shoosh-shoosh” as milk jetted into milk, broken just a beat as Charley squirted a stream into an expectant cat’s face. With quick tidy movements the animal wiped it off, licking the paw between wipes, then waited primly, hopefully, for her next serving.
“Howdy,” Curtis said.
Charley answered without pausing, merely glancing back over his shoulder. “You’re back, eh? Your ma put your supper on the back of the stove. You’ve got company.” Ordinarily Curtis saw auras simply as an inconspicuous, layered cloud of colors. Now, however, he focused on Charley’s. It reflected distrust, a sense of betrayal. When Curtis failed to respond, Charley added, “It’s Varia. The wife you said drowned.”
The words struck Curtis like a fist in the gut, but he recovered quickly. “How sure are you it’s her? She’s got a twin.” He’d almost said clone, then caught himself. “Named Liiset.”
The barrier softened as Charley considered, and Curtis spoke again. “Did she say anything, or ask anything, that didn’t sound e Varia? Maybe something Varia would have known but this one didn’t?”
Charley grunted. “Now that you mention it … A twin, you say.”
“And Varia wouldn’t have brought men with her.”
“You saw them then?” Charley asked.
He hadn’t needed to. He’d turned Sarkia down on the other side, but obviously she wasn’t taking no for an answer. With his reputation, she’d have sent men, very likely tigers, as the clone’s enforcers. And if it came to a fight, and he succeeded in killing them, how would he explain to a judge, or even to his parents?
“No,” he answered, “I just came from supper with Bob and Hattie. So he wouldn’t feel he had to pay me any two dollars. But I saw the Packard in the front yard when we drove by. And there’s stuff I didn’t tell you. About Varia’s family. Stuff just about impossible to explain; stuff you wouldn’t believe. Too foreign. I-kind of rounded off the truth.”
The strong farmer hands continued squeezing and pulling. As the milk had deepened, the sound had changed to “choofchoof-choof.” Charley said nothing, but he was thinking, putting together snippets of observation accrued over more than twenty-five years. The cat, ignored now, stalked off to wait with others by their milk dish.