The Auctioneer

Mim threw another look over her shoulder at Fanny, unable to answer. Outside, she stood by the gas pump openly squinting once again at the charred spikes of trees clinging to the hill beyond Mudgett’s.

That night after Hildie was in bed, Mim sat at the table turning and turning a mug of birch tea. “We’ve got to go now,” she said. “Tomorrow’s Thursday.”

“All my life, livin’ near forests, I never saw a forest fire,” John said. “Remember the fires in Bar Harbor? The 4H was ever after us about fire, like they figured we’d be trippin’ over fires every load of wood we cut.” He had his knife out and the bark peeled off a new maple stick, but he was stabbing at the table, leaving a circle of small raw marks. “A forest fire. I figured a forest fire ate up houses like kindlin’ sticks. I figured a forest fire went—”

“John!” Mim cried. “Tomorrow’s Thursday. At the very least, they’ll be comin’ after the truck. Will you set your mind to that?” John looked at her absently and went on talking. “They got no dogs at Gore’s these days. No dogs to warn them...”

Lassie, thinking she was summoned, struggled to her feet and waddled to the table wagging her tail. John ignored her.

“John,” Mim asked suddenly, lowering her voice and leaning closer to him. “Was it you set that one too?”

“What a question, Miriam,” Ma snapped. “Wasn’t you up there sleepin’ with him the whole night through?”

“But, John,” Mim cried, “if they figure out you set the one, they’ll lay the blame on you for Gore’s as well. They’re like to come for you tomorrow, let alone the truck.”

John got up, paced to the door and looked out into the darkness. “I didn’t set but one fire, and that one fizzled,” he said. “But, could be I set a good idea goin’. There’s plenty have the same reason’s us to want trouble for Gore.”

“Sit down, for the love of God,” Mim cried, springing up herself, then sitting down again. “You make a perfect target there.” She pressed her palms to her eyes. “I wish we had some shades.”

“Well, for myself, I’d rather burn up in my bed than be turned out like a tramp,” Ma said.

“We plan to take your bed, Ma,” Mim said, “or at least the cushions. John, why can’t we go? Now. Tonight.”

But John wasn’t listening. His eyes were bright. He was carving away at the kindling now.

“John!” Mim cried. “Lord sake. You’re actin’ both of you like you lost your wits. Tomorrow they’ll take the truck for sure. And then we will be stuck. Stuck! And you keep settin’ like we had a world of time to kill.”

John threw his knife on the table and stood up again. “We go and he’ll say, ‘Look, the Moores are runnin’. Must be them.’ Perly don’t give a damn who done it really. All he needs is a body to crucify.”

“But if we go...” Mim started.

“How far do you reckon we’d get with the truck lookin’ the way it looks? Lucky to make it to Powlton.”

“If he’s goin’ to crucify a Moore,” Ma said, “I’d sooner he found us at home than runnin’ like so many hippies.”

Mim slammed down her cup so that the tea leaped out and spattered on the table. “What about Hildie?” she cried. “You just sit here and wait when you know sooner or later... It’s her they’ll come for.” She dropped her forehead on the table. “At least in the truck, we’d stand a chance.”

The wind blew hard all night, and John, listening as the hours passed, kept thinking he heard sirens and alarm bells, even the crackling of fire. Hildie, Mim, and Ma. He kept counting them over. He listened to Hildie’s labored mouth breathing and felt Mim’s warm foot resting against his knee as she slept. Ma, sleeping alone downstairs, made him uneasy. He wanted to bring her up into the little room with the rest of them so that he could count her life over too in the sound of her breath. He kept hearing cars in the dooryard, footsteps in the gravel, the sound of rifles being cocked. He remembered stories of people held prisoner in farmhouses—torture, rape, children tossed on bayonets. In the cities they shot people walking down the streets. In Vietnam they had shot whole villages.

At some point, lying in his own sweat, he pulled Mim to him and said, “We’ll go, Mim. We’ll go. You’re right. We’ll go first thing tomorrow before thev come.”