Editor’s note: In April, Portsmouth’s RiverRun Bookstore started accepting submissions for its first short story contest. The response was big, according to RiverRun owner Tom Holbrook — they received more than 100 stories from area writers ranging in age from 10 to 82 years old. Among the contest’s winners was Anne Britting Oleson of Dixmont, Maine, whose story, “Gun,” is presented here. All the winning stories and other selected submissions will be published in an anthology by Piscataqua Press, the bookstore’s publishing imprint. Some of the authors will read from their stories during a reading and awards ceremony on Sunday, Aug. 2 at 5 p.m. at RiverRun, located at 142 Fleet St. in Portsmouth. (above illustration by Alyssa Grenning)
Gun
by Anne Oleson
Cal,” my father said, glancing up sharply at my footsteps; then his face relaxed into a conspiratorial grin. “Come here.” His voice was low. “Come look at this.”
He sat on an up-ended five gallon pail in the dimness of the shed off the kitchen, caressing the silver plate of the revolver he cradled in his lap. I paused, struck by the shine, the power. I had never been this close to a handgun before. My neck prickled. I looked around for my mother.
“She’s next door,” he said, reading my nervousness. His laugh was strangled. The gun dwarfed his large hands. He held it out to me. I took a step back, and he laughed again. “Come on, Cal. It’s not loaded.”
Even then, I knew if I touched the revolver, I would be implicated: I knew how my mother felt about handguns, though she never spoke of her reasons. I knew what my father was doing. Yet despite the dim light of the shed, the gun gleamed, a beautiful thing. I could not take my eyes from it. When I reached out, my hand belonged to someone else entirely, divorced from my will.
The wooden handle under my palm was smooth and warm. The gun was heavy, and I needed both hands to take it from my father. My shoulders strained when I tried to lift it to eye-level. He shifted me about so I stood between his knees, reached around, helped me hold up the revolver so I could sight down its bright barrel. “Like this,” he murmured above my ear. “How does that feel?”
Sinful, and exciting — but I didn’t know how to say that, so I said nothing.
Then we heard the front door slap in its frame, the sound of my mother’s voice soothing my younger sister, and my father quickly wrapped the gun in an oiled rag and hid it atop the old wardrobe in the corner.
“I don’t want it in the house,” my mother had said.
A few nights previously, she had sat very still and upright at the table, her silverware crossed on her half-full plate. “Eat your dinner,” she urged my sister, who stared slack-jawed at nothing.
“Mary—” my father protested, his face flushing slightly.
“I’ve told you,” she cut him off.
“I know, but—” he started, but then seemed unable to continue. Instead, his fork clinked against his plate as he pushed his potato around its edge. “I know you don’t like it — I know it makes you think about your brother. Still, Mary. You should just look at it. It’s beautiful. And for what the guy was asking for it—it was a steal. An absolute steal.”
She looked steadfastly at him for a moment longer, before rising, straight-spined, to clear her place and fill the sink for dishes. Behind her back, my father’s shoulders slumped.
I had thought that had taken care of things; when my mother used that tone, she brooked no argument, and my father and I usually fell into line — not Alice, but then she had trouble understanding. So I was surprised when, turning back from the wardrobe, he lifted his finger to his lips and cocked his head toward the front room.
He didn’t mention the revolver at dinner that evening. Instead, he made chatter about the lawnmower, a feral dog someone had seen by the river, the chance of a strike at the mill. Every once in a while, he’d reach a hand toward my sister’s plate, to set a small piece of biscuit and butter there. When my mother bent to pick up Alice’s spoon, hurled to the floor in temper, he caught my eye and winked.
I looked away.
When I swung into the yard after school, my mother met me, her eyes wild. “Calvin,” she said, “your sister’s missing.” Her yellow hair loosed from its bun, blowing around her flushed cheeks.
I tossed my books on the porch. Sometimes Alice wandered off, but she rarely went far. “How long has she been gone?”
“Oh, I don’t know, I don’t know!” She was close to tears, which meant long. “She was with me hanging laundry, but then she was gone.” She wiped a hand across her cheek. “Calvin, I’ve looked everywhere. I’ve called your father at the mill.”
My mother never did that. But Alice was never far. She would get tired, curl up into a ball behind the sofa, or under a bush, and fall asleep, her grubby fist under her cheek.
“Check the house,” I said, soaking up her urgency. “I’ll look out here.”
“I’ve already checked,” she protested.
“Check again.” I started back down the steps.
We both heard the high-pitched giggle from the back yard at the same time, the one that turned into a scream. I flew around the corner of the house as I heard the screen door slam, my mother dashing the short way through the kitchen.
Alice, her face dirty and her dress torn, was backing away from a mangy yellow dog, her mouth a wide O. For its part, it paced slowly toward her, ribs rippling under its matted coat.
I skidded to a halt, staring at its dripping jaw. Alice screamed again, and the dog took another measured step, belly low to the ground. It snarled, showing pointed yellow teeth.
There was a sharp click. A shot.
The yellow dog jerked upwards, and then fell in its tracks, a bloody hole in its side.
Alice shrieked.
My mother streaked past me, dropping the revolver near the dead dog. She gathered Alice up into her arms, burying her face in my sister’s neck.
Suddenly my father was there, racing around from the road. He stopped short when he saw my mother, Alice, the dead dog, foam still at its muzzle. “Mary—”
She lifted her blazing eyes to his face. “Take care of it,” she said, then stepped gingerly around the carcass and went into the house.