The Auctioneer

People stood up and side-stepped out through the pews slowly and absent-mindedly, completely absorbed in staring at the cluster of people around the auctioneer, straining toward the side door for yet another glimpse of Michael and the baby girl.

Mim and John said little as they drove home. The buff gravel road blurred in the last afternoon light and the trees closed darkly overhead. Mim gripped the edge of her seat and planned in detail how they would fix up the back of the truck for the family to sleep in. They would sleep with Hildie clasped between them. John pictured the pasture the way it had been that morning, pale gray with frost, the rank witch grass near the stream crunchy underfoot, Hildie in the big orange hand-me-down sweater and a green stocking cap running and sliding, running and sliding down the hill.

Mim jumped out before the truck was quite stopped. “Where’s Hildie?” she cried to Ma as she burst into the kitchen.

Ma sat perfectly still in the old wooden chair, without a blanket or a shawl, her gnarled hands gripping each other. “I don’t know,” she said.

“You don’t know?” Mim said.

“A car fetched up in the dooryard about twenty of four...”

John came in the back door.

“My God, my God,” Mim cried. “She’s gone. They took her.”

“Not them folks in the car,” Ma said, pulling herself up out of her chair. “Strangers, a man and two women. They never so much as opened a door. Just craned their necks and backed round and that was it.”

“Where is she then?” Mim whispered.

“We was playin’ cards when right in the middle she perks up her head, her eyes like saucers, and she says, “A car, Grandma.” Then she picked herself right up and run out to hide just like you told her. The car went off, and I called at the door, but no Hildie. You know when you told the child to hide, you never said a word about comin’ back.”

“You kept a sharp eye on the car?” John said.

“It ain’t the car,” Ma said. “But there’s no end of dangers could strike her right here.”

Mim ran to the barn. In the horse stall, the hay and the old army blanket were flung about haphazardly, but Hildie’s orange sweater was gone. “Hildie!” she called. Then louder and louder. Her voice hit the full hayloft overhead and fell dead. The stanchions were already looped with spider webs as if they’d been abandoned for years.

Mim ran up the stairs to the loft, but Hildie was not in her swing. “Hildie,” she called. She heard the creak of steps and stumbled downstairs crooning, “Hildie, Hildie,” but it was only John. “Hildie,” she screamed.

“Stop,” John said, catching at her shoulders as she ran for the door. “Think. Where would she think to go?”

“They took her,” Mim cried, fighting his arms. “You heard him say they plan to.”

John let go and Mim burst free and ran around the barn toward the sand pile.

John went into the house and called to Lassie. The old dog stood up and wagged her tail. “Go fetch Hildie,” John said, motioning to the door. “Where’s our Hildie, old girl?” Lassie wagged her tail sadly and flopped back down on her rug. John closed the door and leaned against it scanning the yard.

“Hildie?” he called and his voice fell flat on the encroaching night. He picked up the iron bar on its cord and struck the big rusted gong over and over again.

Mim ran up and stood breathless with him.

It was almost dark. The gong stopped sounding and there was nothing but the wind.

“You try the pond. I’ll try up yonder in the pasture,” John said.

Obediently Mim walked down the path toward the pond, her eyes yearning into the underbrush for the bright orange glow that would be her child. Instead, down near the gravel at the pond’s edge, she found Hildie’s wagon, half filled with gravel and topped by a split plastic pail and an old spoon with the silver worn off. “Hildie?” she called, but her voice wasn’t loud any more. She tried to remember whether she had seen the wagon around lately. The pond was a mottled shiny gray like granite polished for a gravestone. She could not see beyond its surface. “Hildie?” she said softly. The water made quiet rhythmic rushes at the shore. And that was all. She covered her mouth with both hands and stood listening. Moment by moment, the pond before her darkened toward night.

And then she heard the quick light laughter behind her and whirled to see Hildie running down the path toward her, her orange sweater spiked with broken bits of hay.

She clasped her in her arms, her head shaking with dry sobs against the child’s soft body.

Hildie pulled away confused. “I hid, Mama,” she said, “the way you said. Just the way you said. I hid even better than the way you said. I heard a car and hid. I stayed hid ever and ever so long. And then I heard our truck. I heard you callin’ and the gong.”

“Why didn’t you come?” Mim wept.

“I wanted you to see how good I was hid. You said to hide most careful of all if it was friends.” The child smiled and would have laughed if it hadn’t been for her sense that she had made a mistake. “I hid so good you couldn’t find me.”