Spring 2015
Out of breath, he walks toward Ruthie and
sees nothing but flowers and grass waving in the
breeze. He shouts her name and turns in all
directions but is greeted by silence. He runs for
home screaming with all his might. “Ruthie’s
gone. She’s been kidnapped.”
Mom, her face chalk white, runs from the
tent. She pushes Archie aside and dashes into
the meadow. Archie follows as she runs across
the field towards the creek. He hears her scream,
“Oh my God.” And she disappears over the
riverbank. Archie scrambles up the bank and
looks down into the creek far below. Ruthie is
lying on her back with her eyes wide open. She
is on the creek bottom and the water rushing over
her causes her body to gently bobble. Mom is
fighting through the brush wailing, “Oh God no.”
She drags Ruthie into her arms and climbs up
towards Archie who screams loudly as he sees the
limp, lifeless body: Ruthie is dead and it’s all
Archie’s fault.
Mom staggers wildly toward home with
Archie following and emitting loud shrieks. Mom
yells, “Help me, somebody. Oh help me,” as they
approach the cookhouse.
Old Ralph, his face drained of color, charges
down the steps, grabs Ruthie, and carries her
inside. He turns a flour barrel on its side and
lays her belly down across it. Ignoring the spilled
flour, he begins rolling the barrel back and forth
while holding Ruthie squarely in the center.
Mom, her face scratched and bleeding, walks
back and forth wringing her hands and saying
over and over, “What are we gonna do now?”
Archie stands with his mouth wide open,
bellowing, with a torrent of tears boiling do wn
his cheeks while watching Old Ralph.
“Aaasssahua!” Mom and Archie dash around
the barrel and bend over to look in Ruthie’s face;
she’s throwing up water. First a scant few choking
drops, then a torrent of water pours from her
nostrils and mouth. Soon she is crying and the
coughing is less violent. Old Ralph hands her to
Mom who hugs the now fully crying baby to her
bosom and walks in a circle while talking in
soothing whispers to Ruthie.
***
The cookhouse is deserted one morning as
Archie sits at a table eating hot cakes. Old Ralph
sits down beside the solitary boy. “Archie did ya
know your pa hired a new man?”
Archie, chewing noisily, looks up at his new
friend. “No. What’s his name?”
“Blackie Thompson, a bad man from
Oklahoma. They say he done killed three or four
sheriffs. He’s as bad as they come. Nobody knows
why Cab hired him. I’ll point him out to ya at
supper.”
At supper for the next three days Old Ralph
can only shrug at Archie’s unspoken question;
the Oklahoma bad man just don’t come to supper.
***
“Come on. Get the hell up.” Archie is jerked
off the floor and out of his reverie of the good
old days. Cab Cleebo, holding stoutly to his son’s
overall straps, slams Archie to the wall and pins
him there. “You’re the most no-good stupid kid
I ever laid eyes on. If you don’t straighten up I’m
gonna kill ya. I’ll kill you and myself too. Look
at me when I’m talking to you. I don’t wantcha
ta run off like ya always do. You stay here and
get this house cleaned up ‘cause your ma’s coming
home tomorrow. And I wantcha ta be here when
she gets home. Do you hear me?”
Archie nods his head and Cab, with a final
shove, releases his captive, grabs his hat and coat,
and storms out of the house.
Archie moves to the window and watches his
dad charge up the street. He’s puzzled: how does
someone kill his own self? Why would anybody
want to kill his self? It just doesn’t make sense:
nobody wants to kill himself. He decides it’s all
###
The Linnet's Wings