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Previously published in New Reader Magazine, and in Song of the Highway. a short story collection by Sharon Frame Gay, published by Clarendon House.
“I
IOWA, 1959
F IT ISN’T ONE thing, it’s another,” my mother was fond of saying. It seemed to be her answer for everything. She said it when I was sick, if the hens quit laying eggs, or a storm was comin’. There was no way of knowing if we were heading for a train wreck or just a bumpy ride. So, I paid scant attention when she reeled through the door one morning, mumbling about one thing or another, and fell into the chair at the kitchen table. “Go fetch Daddy, Charla, and tell him to drive me into town.” “What’s wrong?” I asked, peering out from behind the book I was reading. It was the good part, and I resented stirring from my chair and going out to the field to holler Daddy in. “Copperhead,” she said, then collapsed. Her arm was swollen, turning black, and there were several distinct holes in it. More than one snake bite. My heart thudded. I didn’t stop to put on my shoes and raced across the fields through the dirt, rocks, and clumps of ma-
nure. I elbowed my way through the cornfield, the stalks taller than a grown man, following the sound of our tractor. Daddy was at the far end of another field. I screamed and motioned with my arms until I thought they’d fall off, but he was driving in the other direction. Pin-wheeling across the planted furrows, I decided yelling was doing nothing but hurting my throat because he couldn’t hear me. Daddy reached the end of the row and turned the tractor around. When he saw me, he sped up, stopped a few feet away, and climbed down. I told him what happened. Daddy left the tractor running in his panic as we cut across the fields together. “Charla, get over to the Beasley’s! Call the fire department. Maybe they can meet us halfway up the road to town! Tell ’em it’s a snakebite!” I split off and sprinted down the gravel road to the Beasley farm, my bare feet cut and bloody. Nobody was home. Their cars were gone, the dogs sleeping under the porch. The doors were never locked, so I flew up the steps and threw myself over the threshold, knocking over a pile of books on a small table as I reached for the phone.
