A Little More Fiction

Arson

I heave two plastic gas cans out of the trunk of my car and set them in the tall weeds. Pig weeds, Canadian Thistle up to my waist as I make my way toward the abandoned house. The weathered door hangs from one hinge, creaks in the shallow wind. The inside of the house is littered with mud and bird shit from swallows nesting back and forth through broken windows. Down the wall and along the front room ceiling, at the north corner, there's a sort of bird hotel. Ten or twelve nests mud packed together, a huge mound of crap beneath them on the floor. I hold both arms over my head as swallows dive bomb from all directions. The old table and some twisted bed springs are all that's left in here.
Travelling north of Gimli on highway eight I didn't think, after all these years, I'd actually find the turn off for the long dirt road leading into here. Then I saw the roof of the barn above the trees. The barn where Effie used to keep her cow boxed in a stall. That cow was always hungry. I called the cow 'Bony Hips' but I only called her that in my head. On the late June day that I was brought here forty years ago and saw the stones in Effie's eyes I stopped talking. I just stood and gripped my small suitcase full of clothes. Clothes that Auntie had sewed for me.
I stumble back through the weeds for one of the gas cans. As I spill gasoline around the perimeter of the house I feel kind of bad about the birds. I use the last litre or so to pour a trail about thirty feet away from the front door and I set the plastic can down. The smell of gasoline makes me a little woozy, causes heat waves to ripple in front of my eyes as I carry the other can through thicker weeds to the barn. The barn door is gone. The inside stifling hot. Old manure lofts like muskeg under my feet. I see two rats scurry across the floor and disappear under rotting hay piled at the far end of the barn.
To my left stands the stall that boxed in that skinny, hungry cow. I felt hungry most of the days I lived here too. Effie giving me a pile of green beans for supper, nothing for breakfast. At least when I started school that September she gave me a peanut butter or Klick sandwich to take along for my lunch. All that summer I weeded in her garden, hauled buckets and buckets of water up the well. A mute waif deflecting her screams and curses with my bowed head.
On a wonderfully warm Saturday in late September Effie went to town and I put a rope around the cow's neck. I led her out to an alfalfa field that belonged to the neighbouring farm. I let that skinny, hungry cow eat and eat until finally she turned and headed home. The next morning Effie screeched and screeched as she hauled me into the barn. The cow was dead. She lay on her side in the stall, her stomach hugely puffed and swollen. "You killed my cow, you little witch," Effie screamed. "You stupid, dumb, good for nothing little witch." She grabbed up the pitchfork and charged at me. I covered my eyes and turned as it came toward my face. The fork struck the back of my neck. One tine pierced skin close to my spine and emerged again just at my hairline. Effie grunted as she pulled the fork out of my neck. Blood rivered down the front and back of my blouse, my blouse that Auntie had made. Effie tore an old grain bag from a nail and pressed it to my neck. "Here," she said, "press it there for awhile then go to the well and clean yourself up."
For four days I whirled and throbbed through the pain until at last I slumped my fevered head on the school desk. The teacher lifted my hair and gasped when she saw the festering wound. I only have ragged memories of the hospital, the police. Question after question but it hurt too much to nod or shake my head and I would not speak to that sorry, apologizing man who had placed me in Effie's house. That man who was suppose to look after me.
I think it must be the same pitchfork leaning against the wall below the hayloft door. It is covered with cobwebs and I don't touch it. I rub my neck instead; massage in circular motion the exact muscle that always puckers with dull pain. Outside I pick up the gas can and slosh gas onto the barn walls, make a trail leading to the other can. I throw down a couple of matches and jump back as fire crackles through the weeds and in no time at all rings around the house and barn.
I'm speeding down the dirt road, my car swerving and kicking up a cloud of dust. A few miles down the highway I pull over and notice that my hands smell like gasoline. I get out of my car and from the narrow shoulder of the road watch black smoke billow into the peaceful summer sky.