A Girl Lost in a Field

Her hand was in his mouth long before she realized she could pull away. His teeth drilled into the skin, breaking it, and when he unlatched his mouth from the side of her thumb, the marks from his teeth began to bleed.

“You ain’t coming home until that heals,” Lanford said.

They had drove out to a junkyard twenty-two miles from home. He cut the engine to the car and they sat there in the dark. A whippoorwill sounded off from the trees that stood across the road from the junkyard.

“Get out,” he told Esther.

Esther reached into the pocket of her dress and pulled out a handkerchief. Before she could apply it to her hand, Lanford snatched it from her and tossed it to the floorboard.

“Get out, Esther.”

Esther opened the door and the pale moonlight shined on the purpled skin and where the blood was already drying.

“You listen to me, now, Esther.” Esther continued to stare down at her thumb. Hair fell in front her face. Lanford reached over and pulled her face towards him. “You listen to me now. You get out of the this car right this minute or I do worse than leavin’ just a few bites on ya.”

With one foot out the car and onto the gravel, Lanford started the car again.

“Now, Esther.”

She slid off the seat and onto the gravel, standing there holding her thumb, nursing it with her other unimpaired hand.

“How long’s it gonna take for it to heal good?” she asked him.

“I don’t know, Esther.” He reached over and slammed the door and peeled out onto the road, kicking up dirt and gravel.

The lights faded away around a corner and she was left there alone. She looked around and saw the tall metal fence stretching up and down the road for as far as she could see there in the dark. When she turned around, she was met with the sharp smell of old steel and dust.

She walked barefoot across the dirt and pushed the gate open into the junkyard. Cars lined the field and tufts of grass jutted up between them. She made her way over to one car that looked like Lanford’s; this one rusted now like an old sore. The doors were gone and when she leaned in to look inside, the steering wheel was nowhere to be found.

She set her hand around where the door had once been but immediately winced. Lanford had took her handkerchief so she pocketed her injured hand in the folds of her dress and gently placed herself in the front seat of the automobile.

There were faint hints of gasoline and oil but the more apparent stench was the stink of an animal. She sat there for a moment, staring out the missing windshield and counted as many cars as she could that sat along the fenceline and thought about the people who had owned them.

The pain in her hand had begun to subside but as she looked at it again with more curiosity under what moonlight there was, the heat of hurt pulsated and once more it started to bleed.

At the entrance of the junkyard she saw a light bounce along the trees across the road. She thought at first it was Lanford returning and that he had changed his mind about leaving her out here, all alone in the dark.

Sometimes he had these changes of heart, Esther was thinking, sometimes his heart runs smooth.

Footsteps slowly shuffled across the dirt and she noticed the light wasn’t a car but a figure brandishing a flashlight. This figure moved closer to her, the beam of light hitting the cars almost one by one along the fence and then along the line of cars she had found herself apart of.

The figure stopped. They moved the light against the junked cars. Before they turned around as though they were exiting the junkyard, Esther’s foot slipped on the loose accelerator pedal and some tinkling bit of metal echoed through the place.

The beam of light jumped over in her direction.

“Ronnie?” the figure said, a male’s voice.

The figure moved closer and closer to Esther. She could hear herself breathing as the figure’s footsteps were now before her.

The figure shined the light into her face.

“Miss? You alright?” the figure said. When the man realized he was shining the light in her face, he quickly lowered it. The man had white hair and stubble on his aging face and wore washed-out and tattered coveralls. For only a moment she could see his eyes but could not discern their color.

“Miss?” the man said again.

“I’m fine.”

“You from around here?”

“Yessir. I live over in Merit.”

“Merit? Lord almighty, girl, God’s name are you doin’ all the way out here?”

“I was walkin’ along and I got lost.”

“You was walkin along? This late at night?”

“Yessir.”

The old man turned off the flashlight and they shared the quiet and the dark for a minute or more until the old man blew out air and muttered God Almighty to himself before Esther got the courage to speak again.

“I was wonderin’ how long a walk to the hospital is?”

“What you need a hospital for? You hurt?”

“I got my hand cut on the car when I was lookin’ around in here.”

“Let me see it,” he said, and turned on the flashlight again to inspect the cut.

Esther reluctantly showed her hand to the old man.

“Miss, that don’t really look like a cut to me.”

“It is. Like I said, I was lookin’ around this here car because it reminded me of a car I know and I cut myself on a piece of metal.”

The old man studied her.

“You sure you’re alright?”

“I’m fine, mister.”

“You okay to walk?”

“I suppose so.”

“Then why don’t you get out of this old car and I’ll take you someplace where we can get you looked at.”

---

The old man had parked his truck some ways from the junkyard. Esther followed the beam of the flashlight more than the old man’s steps. She examined the ground before her, watching the dirt sift through her toes.

“First thing we gotta do is get you somethin’ for your feet,” the old man said.

They made it to his truck and he held the passenger door open for her. Esther hesitated.

“You sure you’re alright, miss?” the old man said.

“I don’t think I should be gettin’ in your truck, mister.”

“Well, miss, I ain’t gonna hurt you none. Wife at home can probably get a better look at you than I ever could.”

The old man noticed her skittishness once she gripped the sides of her dress like a scared child.

“Name’s Arnold if that’ll help any. Some folks call me Arnie but them folks that call me that just sound like they hayseed that, if you want me to be more honest with you.”

“Arnie’s a fun name to say, though, ain’t it?”

“Suppose it might be. But I figure it depends if I like the person enough who’s callin’ me that.”

“You honest about havin’ a wife?”

“Why? Do I look like a feller that wouldn’t have one?”

“No, I suppose not. You’re handsome enough for a man your age.”

“Well, you flatter me to no end, miss.”

“Esther. My name’s Esther.”

“Well, Esther, have I proved my kindness to you yet?”

---

They soon came upon a house whose outside walls were dilapidated and a bowing porch reached halfway across the front before she noticed it was rotting away. Arnold pulled up about a foot from the porch and Esther saw the screendoor come open. An older woman stepped out, drying her hands on an apron.

Esther stepped out of the truck and the old woman inspected her a moment, then moved her attention over to Arnold, her eyebrows furrowed and her eyes accusatory.

“Ruthie, this here is Esther,” Arnold said.

“You from around here, Esther?”

“She said she’s from over yunder in Merit.”

“Merit? Lord Almighty, girl. God’s name are you doing all the way out here?”

“That’s the same thing I asked her.” Arnold slammed his truckdoor and it caused Esther to jump.

“You alright there, Esther?”

“I’m fine.”

“Ruthie, take a look there at her hand and see if they’s somethin’ you can do about it.”

Ruth came down the steps, and her eyes moved first to Esther’s feet.

“You make it your mission not to wear shoes, Esther?”

“I just lost ‘em.”

“I’m sure,” Ruth said. “Now let me have a look at your hand.”

Esther raised her hand with more reluctance and the old woman gripped it in hers, almost aggressively pulling it towards her to see it in better light.

“How’d she say she hurt it?” Ruth said to Arnold rather than to Esther.

“Says she cut it on one of them old cars down there at the yard.”

“What were you doing down at the yard?”

“That’s what I asked her.”

“Shush yourself, Arnold. I was asking Esther.”

Ruth looked into the girl’s eyes.

“I was just out walkin’, and I got lost and I figured I could just take a rest in one of them cars until I could figure out what to do.”

Ruth examined the girl’s hand again, rolling it over and over as though there would be more wounds growing around the new one. Esther had many scars coating her skin whose origins were mysteries but nevertheless, whether they were past or present, were the results from Lanford.

Ruth moved her gaze over to Arnold, no words Esther could comprehend being spoken between them.

“You hungry, Esther?” Ruth asked.

“I suppose.”

---

Ruth told Arnold to go out and see if there were any eggs left in the coop. When he was gone, Ruth looked over the girl’s dress; coated in dust and frilly along the seams. Her eyes moved to the girl’s dirty feet a second time.

“You have such tiny feet, Esther.”

Esther made to hide them but there was no dirt there on the kitchen floor.

“You know what size you wear?”

“I’m not sure.”

“I may have some old slippers around this place. We get clothes donated to the church and sometimes I end up bringing some of them home. Don’t ask me why though?”

“OK. I won’t.”

When the old woman left her in the kitchen, she could hear Arnold coming back up the back porch, whistling. He entered and in his hand was a rusted pail. He set it on the table. Esther couldn’t help but peek inside.

“You like ‘em scrambled or whole?” Arnold asked.

“I don’t rightly know when the last time I ever ate an egg, so I don’t think I know the difference.”

Arnold gave her that curious look again.

“You got you a husband, Esther?”

“Yessir.”

“He know you was out there at the junkyard all by your lonesome?”

“Yessir.”

Ruth came back into the kitchen, holding in her hands a pair of beige slippers, the soles of them peeling but she said they were better than nothing for a poor girl’s feet than walking barefoot on the hot earth.

She set them down before Esther, and they all watched in fascination as the girl slipped her feet into them.

“They feel alright?” Ruth asked.

“They feel fine, Miss Ruthie.”

“Now, how do you like your eggs?” Ruth asked.

“She said she ain’t had no eggs in so long a time that she don’t really have a preference, Ruthie.”

“I myself like ‘em scrambled,” Ruth said. “You want to try ‘em that way?”

Esther nodded. And she began to feel like the mere agreement was an invitation for a new home so she sat there at the kitchen table, rubbing her feet together through the wornout slippers.

---

She sprinkled her eggs with a little salt and pepper because she saw Arnold do the same. They sat at the table, the three of them, Esther in her new dress and new shoes, with not a word being exchanged, only the clatter and scrap of silverware across their plates.

“Ain’t you gonna get you some, Ruthie?”

Ruth didn’t seem to hear her husband speaking. She watched the girl shove the eggs into her mouth as though being fed was a rare occurrence.

After a while, she told him she had already eaten.

When their plates were empty, Arnold pushed his away from him and stretched out his arms behind him.

“I think I got me a little pipe tabacky left someplace around here,” he said. “I’m thinkin’ I might go outside and have me a smoke. You a smokin’ feller, Miss Esther?”

“She’s skin and bones, Arnold. She doesn’t need all that smoke fillin’ her up.” The old woman looked over at Esther who was forking up the last bite. “Would you like some more, Esther?”

“No ma’am,” she said, wiping her mouth with her injured hand. She quickly lowered it when they yet again saw the wound.

“I think it’s time I take a good cleanin’ to that cut you got there, Esther.”

“Yes ma’am.”

Arnold walked outside onto the porch and sat down in a rocking chair. Soon there was smoke curling up around him.

Ruth brought Esther over to the sink and as the water ran over her hand, dirt painted the basin and the marks on her thumb became white and bloodless.

“These look like teethmarks, Esther.”

“I swear to you, Miss Ruthie, I cut it on the car.”

Ruth turned off the faucet and applied a washrag on the teethmarks.

“You make it a of habit bitin’ yourself like this?”

“No ma’am.”

“You got a feller who makes it a habit of bitin’ you?”

Esther was silent. She brought her hand close to her side, and soon it disappeared into her dresspocket.

“Did you run away from him?”

“No ma’am.”

“So you’re sayin’ that he knows where you’re at right now?”

“I suppose he does.”

They were quiet for a moment. The only sound was Arnold singing tunelessly out there on the porch.

Ruth said, “Let me go and see if I got any iodine.”

---

Soon, Arnold had fallen asleep on the porch, and his snoring had replaced his singing. Ruth and Esther sat there at the table. Ruth had convinced the girl to eat another round of eggs and she brewed the last of the coffee to wash them down.

“Who’s Ronnie?” Esther asked.

“What was that?” Ruth said. The old woman couldn’t help but stare at the girl: stringy blond hair reached to her sloped shoulders, her skin pale and her whole frame skeletal and brittle-looking. As she chewed, her teeth were yellowed and crooked, but she seem to possess them all to give her a chance to bite back.

“When I was down there at the junkyard and Arnie came up on me, he said the name Ronnie.”

“Oh,” Ruth said. “Ronnie’s our boy.”

“He still live with y’all?”

“No, no. Ronnie’s grown but we haven’t seen him in. . . lord. . . six years now. He was one of those unlucky boys who got called up to serve and when he finally came back, he just wasn’t like our old Ronnie.”

“You say you ain’t heard from your boy in a long time?”

“Seems an eternity.”

“Does Arnie think he’s out there at the junkyard or something?”

“I suppose he does. You see, when Ronnie was little he used to go out there and hide and Arnold would have to go get him. So when Ronnie came back from overseas, and he started actin’ out, and almost every night Arnold would find him hidin’ out in one of the cars. But soon he kept runnin’ off and Arnold wasn’t findin’ him at the yard anymore. But Arnold still goes out there every night just in case our boy is just hidin’ from us like he did when he was a little boy.”

“I feel kinda bad that he found me instead.”

“Don’t feel bad, Esther. I’ve made my peace with it and think when Ronnie’s ready to come home, we’ll wake up one morning to find him sitting right here at the kitchen table, ready for a round of eggs.

Once Esther’s plate was clean, the old woman could tell the girl was fulfilled.

“When I was a little younger than you are now,” said Ruth, setting the plate in the sink. “I used to go on these little walks by myself. I’d go anywhere my little feet would take me. Whether it was the corner store, or some neighbor’s garden, I would make it my mission to explore it all. My momma and our family, we lived surrounded by cornfields, and as much as I liked traveling along to the other places in the county where I seem to always know where home was, there was a thrill of walking along the paths between the stalks of corn, and getting lost and trying to find my way back again. So one time when I had closed my eyes and ran up and down the path and I then opened my eyes, for just a brief second, I felt I was hopelessly lost in this maze of corn. I looked both ways up and down that path but there didn’t seem to be an end to them. When I stared up into that blue sky yonder, I imagined I would see my momma’s hands reach down and pick me up. But instead, I closed my eyes again and started running down the path until I heard my momma’s voice saying, ‘There’s my little Ruthie.’”

The girl grew quiet. She leaned her head over the steaming cup of coffee. And once more, rubbed her new slippers together.

“I’m not lost, Miss Ruthie. I’ll go back to Lanford when I’m ready to,” Esther said.

---

Ruth had given her a blanket and a pillow and set her up on the couch. Esther had refused Arnold’s offer to take her to the hospital, him saying it was the least he could do despite having a stomach of eggs and a head of cheap tobacco but a hearty bit of do-good in him.

She lay there in the strangers’ house, staring up at the ceiling and past the roof to the stars overhead, closing her eyes once or twice during that time before they involuntarily popped open.

She got up off the couch and folded the blanket and set it carefully there for Ruth to find in the morning.

When she tiptoed through the kitchen and onto the porch, Arnold was still sitting there with his head tilted back and his eyes shut, his pipe still smoldering away in his hand.

Esther went down the steps, the old planks creaking underneath her.

“You headin’ home?” Arnold said.

“I should be makin’ it that way soon.”

“I can give you a lift anyplace you want to go. The offer still stands.”

“I’m fine, but thank you, Arnie. You and Miss Ruthie both.”

“You sure you don’t want a smoke before you head off?”

Esther smiled but said no.

“Like I said, my offer still stands.”

“You can help me with somethin’,” Esther said.

“Anything, Esther.”

“Miss Ruthie was tellin’ me about this cornfield she use to play in when she was little. You wouldn’t happen to know where it is by chance?”

Arnold leaned forward in the rocking chair, examining the road before him, his eyes navigating up and down it for a moment.

“I can’t rightly recall that, but I believe it might be the one some ways down the road from here. Me and Ruthie, you see, we grew up close to one another in this same place and we ain’t had no aims to ever leave it, but sometimes these places we used to know, well, they startin’ to slip away one day after the other and things are changin’ a little too fast for us nowadays.”

“I appreciate your help anyway. I can probably find it by myself.”

“You goin’ be alright walkin’ in the dark?”

“I’ll be fine, Arnie.”

---

The ground beneath her felt more solid, little to do with the way she walked but more with how her feet seemed properly covered. Her stomach was full. Her hand still slightly stung but otherwise healing faster than normal, or so it seemed. She walked a ways down the road until she hopped of it and found a hill which lead to a treeline at the top. She climbed the steep hill carefully, finding purchase with her slipper-covered feet on roots and rocks to keep her steady. When she made it to the top of the hill, the woods were dark and she was awash with fears, but she continued through them anyway.