Pale Harvest. Braden Hepner

do you want? said Heber.

      —Give it all to me.

      For a moment Jack felt the sadness Seth’s mother must have felt every time her son deliberately burned another moral bridge under her stern vigil. It was the glee with which he watched the flames, as if they alone were the pursuit. Heber was comfortable tonight playing the sage, if they cared to listen. Seth was drawn down to humility and innocence as he asked Heber questions about basic female anatomy. Heber began explaining, folding his legs beneath him and shaking two cigarettes out for them to smoke.

      Jack wanted to take her down to the river to watch it move its brown mirth past the banks. There was something raw about the river, something primal and ancient. There was a duckblind down there, a shack like a lone, derelict temple, sitting on what was almost an island for the river’s curve. When it came to getting a woman the farm was a fetter, though Elmer had done it. Blair once called that event an act of God. Divine intervention. Carrie worked hard at a man’s labor when they needed her, washing the barn, milking some mornings, driving tractor, feeding, moving pipe, and Jack felt pity for her, was softened toward her, even though he felt he hardly knew her and her demeanor toward him was civil at best. And their boy, there was their boy to consider.

      —What’s up, John? said Heber. You look like you got your peter knocked in the dirt. I tell you I saw her the other night, right before the funeral?

      —Where at?

      —I walked here to the park to sit under this tree, and directly I heard the chains of the swings going. So I got up and wandered over and there she was. She seemed distrustful of me at first.

      —You seen yourself lately?

      —I learned a little about her. She’s studying botany.

      —All right.

      —They left a bad husband and father. Abusive, probably, though she was reluctant to spell it out.

      —Yes.

      —She’s active in the church. She’s trying to live righteously.

      —Yes. I know all this.

      —She told you?

      —No.

      —Who told you?

      —Woolums.

      —Woolums told you? What does that asswipe know about anything?

      —All of what you just told me, and a lot sooner.

      —Did he tell you if she’s a virgin?

      —Dumbass, said Jack.

      —Who? Me or him?

      —I’d put you both on that train and wave goodbye.

      Heber said, Tell me with a straight face that you expect her to be a virgin and I’ll tell you you’re seeking something that no longer exists, and that you can’t demand it. Tell me you’re ready to throw that worn out scruple to the wind.

      —If there are no girls like that around anymore then God himself has also left us, said Jack.

      —He hasn’t left us. He’s as bent over his work as he’s ever been. But what you see around you is his work.

      —I guess there’s nothing wrong with looking for it, if you want it.

      —Do you think you deserve it?

      Jack looked at him.

      —You’re marooned on a remote set of standards that you’re neither close to nor willing to forsake, said Heber. How long will you keep it up?

      —In my estimation she’s got what I’m looking for.

      —Spoiled goods, said Heber. You don’t want spoiled goods.

      —I didn’t say that.

      —Be that as it is, in my opinion there is great glory in either possibility. You might try it. She might give you her kingdom. You’re still in the market for kingdoms, aren’t you? She has pearls, does she not? Indeed.

      Heber resettled himself on the ground and let out a guttural grunt of satisfaction. He chuckled to himself and said, Would it change your view of her if you found out she’d fucked a score of men through high school and college, that she tasted it at fourteen and hasn’t gotten enough since?

      —You make a passable dipshit, said Jack.

      —My guess is somewhere close to but under fifteen. She’s got the attention for it, no doubt. Question is, how’d she respond to it.

      —She’s a good girl, said Jack. There ain’t many like her.

      —My estimate is only so conservative because she’s the kind that will stick with one partner for a while. But I’ll bet she’s been fucked hundreds of times.