Читать книгу Driftless - David Rhodes - Страница 11

SCHEDULED VIOLENCE

GRAHM SHOTWELL WAS MAKING A BOMB IN THE SHED BESIDE THE barn while his wife and two children slept in the farmhouse. His dog, Gladys—curled up yet wide awake—lay on the floor next to the kerosene heater, and Boxer the family cat sat on the sill staring out of the smudged window into a barnyard lit by the blue-green light from a gibbous moon. An old tube radio crackled and spit in the corner, occasionally emitting music from The Gospel Hour. A single hooded bulb cast a cone of yellow light onto the workbench.

Grahm set a foot-long section of pipe into the vise, locked it in place, and selected a three- inch die from the collection his father had bought at a neighbor’s auction a generation ago. Inserting the die into the ratchet handle, he made threads in both pipe ends, applying a fresh supply of cutting oil after each several turns. Slow work, but the metal yielded to the strength in his arms in a satisfying way. When he was finished he wiped the metal shavings and oil from the threads and with a loose-jawed wrench screwed an iron cap on one end until he could turn it no more. He drilled a small hole in the middle of a second iron cap. Seated at the table, he poured used bolts, screws, and nuts into the pipe until it was approximately one-third full. These would act as shrapnel, which he separated from the rest of the interior with a small, clean rag.

From a green tin Grahm poured black and gray powder into a paper funnel, the shiny, slick particles sliding over each other and cascading into the pipe’s open throat until it was filled within an inch of the top. The mounded surface shimmered like live hair. With wire cutters, Grahm snipped off several feet of orange dynamite fuse from a spool hanging on the wall and clamped the pipe into an upright position in the vise. After screwing on the second iron cap, he inserted one end of the stiff, coiled wire through the drilled hole until he was sure it nestled safely within the black heart of the powder. To keep the fuse from moving, he applied a generous glob of epoxy, forming a collar where the fuse entered the pipe. With a single turn of the vise, the Promise of Just Vengeance was freed, and Grahm held it before him for several minutes in the yellow light, contemplating the scheduled violence contained in the heavy, mute, smooth, compact form. He then put it in the corner of the shed under a rumpled tarp, extinguished the kerosene heater, silenced the radio, turned off the light, and opened the shed door. The dog scrambled to her feet and bolted through the narrow opening, nearly toppling Grahm in her race to be first outdoors.

A fine mist had developed in the air, drifting through the moonlight, settling like breath on the grass. Grahm walked to the barn, through the milk house, and into the darkened interior.

Not wanting to turn on the light, he carefully made his way along the north wall as his Holsteins slept, chewed, groaned, and switched their ropy tails. Lulled by the nocturnal peace of the animals, he sat for several minutes on a bale of straw near the freshening cow he had come to check on. Because she was not breathing heavily, the flesh around her pin bone was still soft, and she was standing calmly, he thought her calf would not try to come out until sometime tomorrow. He listened to animal sounds in the darkness and thought about crawling under the covers with his wife, her body warm, smooth, and pliant from sleep. He tried to imagine her welcoming him, eager for touch, but his imagination failed.