Good smell, mostly. To him. Familiar, anyway: prairie grass at dawn, a little cow shit, strangely sweet, a bonfire burning somewhere, but not for fun. It was a work fire and someone’ddropped in a hunk of molded plastic, maybe. Like that. A tumbleweed blew through and a black calf was nibbling at a cabbage garden near the closet door.
What’s this, my charge said.
Not sure, I said.
—
The bonfire smoke cleared and the calf was startled away by a thrown stone. A human figure suddenly stood at the foot of the bed.
Father, said my charge, amazed.
What are you, his father said, looking around at the spacious, high-ceilinged room. Big dang deal?
My charge nodded shyly.
Best get over it, his father said. Because look where you’re at.
True, thought my charge.
He had not seen this coming, this difficult end.
I had a few of ’em, Father said.
What? said my charge.
Sorrowful regrets, said Father. One was, I was too harsh. With you. Was I?
Maybe, he said.
All right, then, Father said. So I was. What to do? You see where I’m headed with this.
No, sir, said my charge.
It was good to see the old man again. In that familiar country slouch. He was missing the index finger of his left hand from the famous threshing accident and always kept that hand in his front jeans pocket. Sometimes he’d take something out of that pocket (a penny, a lint wad, the last bit of a pencil) and squint at it as if it were more deserving of his attention than whatever it was youwere saying. If he ever caught you staring at the stub he’d be brusque with you rest of the day.
But he seemed different now: kinder, lighter.
Wouldn’t you think this little guy’d be cured by now? he said almost merrily, raising the maimed hand.
Are you real? my charge said. Sir? Or am I making you with my mind?
His father inclined his bony, sunburned head at me.
Ast her, he said.
He’d always done this, said “ast” for “ask.”
A fellow could ast around, find out about a thing if he had some get-up-and-go.
My charge had been a bright child and around the age of six this mispronunciation had begun to embarrass him. Once he’d corrected his father in public.
Once.
His father was of our ilk, as was the black calf, who had now drifted back into the room and stood near the love seat, gnawing contentedly on one of its cushions.
Real, I said.
A sweet, pre-crying feeling came over my charge.
