The Hunter

She’s grown. Two years ago, when she first showed up in his backyard, she was a scrawny, silent kid with a self-inflicted buzz cut and a half-grown bobcat’s urge towards both flight and fight. Now she’s up past his shoulder, the buzz cut has relaxed into a rough crop, her features are getting a new clarity, and she rummages and sprawls around his house like she lives there. She even has entire conversations, or at least most days she does. She’s got none of the polish and artifice that some teenagers start developing, but she’s a teenager all the same, both her mind and her life getting more intricate every day. The things she says, just about school and her friends and whatever, have new layers underneath them. Cal is having more trouble with it than she seems to be. These days, every time he picks up a whiff of something on her mind, the bloom of terror inside him spreads wider and darker. Too many things can happen, at fifteen, and do too much damage. Trey seems solid as hardwood, in her own way, but she’s taken too many knocks in her life not to have cracks in there somewhere.

Cal finds a clean rag and starts rubbing down the chair with the vinegar mix. The sticky coating comes away well, leaving long brown streaks on the rag. Outside the window, blackbirds’ rambling songs carry from far across the fields, and bees revel in the clover that’s commandeered Cal’s backyard. The dogs have found a stick to play tug-of-war with.

Trey, holding two pieces of wood side by side to compare them, says, “My dad came home.”

Everything in Cal comes to a dead stop. Of all the fears that were milling inside him, this wasn’t one.

He says, after what seems to be a long time, “When?” The question is a dumb one, but it’s all that comes into his head.

“This morning. While I was getting the chair.”

“Right,” Cal says. “Well. He here for good? Or just for a while?”

Trey shrugs extravagantly: no idea.

Cal wishes he could see her face. He says, “How’re you feeling about it?”

Trey says flatly, “He can fuck off.”

“OK,” Cal says. “That’s fair.” Maybe he ought to be giving the kid some bullshit speech that includes the words “but he’s your daddy,” but Cal makes it his practice never to bullshit Trey, and his feelings on Johnny Reddy happen to coincide with hers.

Trey says, “Can I stay here tonight?”

Cal’s mind stops again. He goes back to rubbing down the chair, keeping his rhythm even. After a moment he says, “You worried about something your dad might do?”

Trey snorts. “Nah.”

She sounds like she’s telling the truth. Cal relaxes a little bit. “Then what?”

Trey says, “He can’t just walk back in.”

She has her back to Cal, rummaging among the wood, but her whole spine has a taut, angry hunch. “Right,” Cal says. “I’d probably feel the same way.”

“Can I stay, so?”

“No,” Cal says. “Not a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“Well,” Cal says. “Your dad might not be happy about you taking off the minute he’s back in town. And I figure I’d best not start out by pissing him off. If he’s gonna stick around, I’d rather he didn’t have a problem with you hanging out over here.” He leaves it at that. She’s old enough to understand some, at least, of the other reasons why not. “I’ll call Miss Lena, see if you can spend the night there.”

The kid starts to argue, but she changes her mind and rolls her eyes instead. Cal finds, to his surprise, that he feels shaken, like he just fell off something high and he needs to sit down. He props his ass on the worktable and pulls out his phone.

On reflection, he texts Lena rather than calling her. Could Trey stay at your place tonight? Don’t know if you heard but her dad just came home. She doesn’t feel like hanging out with him.

He sits still, watching the sunlight shift across Trey’s thin shoulders as she pulls out lengths of wood and discards them, until Lena texts back. Fuck’s sake. I don’t blame her. Yeah she can stay no problem.

Thanks, Cal texts. I’ll send her over after dinner. “She says you’re welcome to stay,” he tells Trey, pocketing his phone. “You gotta tell your mama where you are, though. Or ask Miss Lena to.”

Trey rolls her eyes harder. “Here,” she says, thrusting an old oak sleeper at him. “This?”

“Yeah,” Cal says. He goes back to the chair. “That’s good.”

Trey marks the end of the sleeper with a swipe of black Sharpie and puts it back in the corner. “That stuff coming off?” she asks.

“Yeah,” Cal says. “It’s fine. Easy as pie.”

Trey finds a clean rag, dips it in the vinegar mix and wrings it out hard. She says, “What if he’s not OK with me coming here?”

“You reckon he’ll have a problem?”

Trey considers this. “He never gave a shite where we went before.”

“Well then,” Cal says. “Most likely he won’t give a shit about this, either. If he does, we’ll deal with it then.”