Etta and Otto and Russell and James Read Free Page B

Her hands were more red than purple now, from up close. Her breath was like a machine’s.
    A coyote, she said. He was startled. It wasn’t his fault, it wasn’t mine. A coyote, she said.
    She grabbed Otto’s hand, and he grabbed Walter’s. They ran together, back down the ridges made by the tractor tires.
    O tto had seen plenty of dying things. Plenty. He had seen gophers, drowned, from when Harriet and Walter drowned them out, or shot, from when they didn’t drown and instead ran up and away from the water, right to Harriet’s gun. They were shot in the head, usually, and killed straightaway, except when they moved unpredictably and got shot in the side or leg, and would keep moving for a bit, keep trying at life, until Harriet could get in a good second shot to stop them hurting.
    And he’d seen chickens, of course, half-left from foxes, and broken wild birds, from the windows or from cats.
    And once, when he was younger, only four, Otto had found the very smallest kitten, a runt, brand new and abandoned in the tall grass behind the outhouse. It was gray and pink and very tiny. He kept it secret, because they weren’t allowed to have pets just for themselves. He took the turkey roasting pan that his mother only ever used at Christmas, filled in with rags and pencil shavings to make a nice bed, and kept the kitten in it, tucked back in the high grass where he hadfound her. He kept the lid on when he wasn’t around, to keep the kitten in and the foxes and dogs out. The kitten was so small that she hid easily under the rags and in the pencil shavings, and Otto would have to dig to find her each time he came with a small bit of milk or milk-soaked bread. He would hold her in one hand up to his face and tell her, You are small now, but you will be so big. You shouldn’t be scared. You will be the queen of the cats. Don’t be scared, don’t be sad. You’re gonna be great, great, great. He would stroke her with his little finger over her round wrinkled head and hope for her eyes to open. She would hold on to him with her claws that tickled more than hurt. He called her Cynthia.
    But Cynthia’s eyes didn’t open. And she never ate the milk-bread and barely drank the milk. And she started moving less and sleeping more, only sleeping, and only barely holding on when Otto lifted her. He stroked her head and stroked her head and even tried, a little, to pull back the skin to open her eyes, but nothing worked. He would rock her, slowly, in his hand, and say, Cynthia, Cynthia, Cynthia, wake up, wake up, wake up, but she was sick, and he knew sick. Sick like a neighbor baby. So, one night, after using the outhouse, Otto lifted the roasting pan out of the grass, with sick Cynthia in it, and carried it carefully and quietly up to the bedroom. Amos, eight years old and wise, was awake when he came in.
    Otto? he whispered. Others were sleeping all around.
    Yeah?
    Why do you have the turkey pan?
    Don’t tell?
    I won’t tell.
    Come and see.
    Amos got up, careful not to wake Walter, with whom he shared his bed, and they went into the hall. Otto put the roasting pan on thefloor between them. It’s my kitten, he said. Cynthia. She’s sick. He lifted off the pan’s lid. You hafta dig to find her, he said. She hides. He found her in the corner, in the shavings. He lifted her up in his right hand like he always did. She had shavings stuck to her back and head. She only sleeps, he said.
    She’s bald, said Amos.
    Yeah, said Otto.
    They both looked at her for a few seconds. From the room behind them they could hear everyone’s sleep-breathing.
    You know she’s dead, said Amos.
    Yeah, said Otto. His throat was dry. He was holding his hand so, so, carefully.
    Okay, said Amos. He put his hand on Otto’s shoulder and kept it there.
    Okay, said Otto.
    It was almost a year later, walking toward dinner after chores, when Amos said to Otto, You know Cynthia? She was a gopher, you know. Not a cat. She would have been killed anyway; she