The Matriarch Read Free Page A

fast.” Frank’s voice is faint. “I don’t understand figs myself; I just come out here every day and pick ’em up. Forgot to bring the basket this afternoon.” Frank looks down at his hands as if surprised to find them empty.
    There’s something really disconcerting about this tree. Its sweet stench is wafting over me like a fine, invisible mist.
    “I thought I’d put you to work on a new barricade tomorrow, Cassidy. You can see this old one is just about useless. Way too small.”
    “What’s to stop the tree from outgrowing the new one?”
    “We’ll just have to make it plenty big, I guess. I don’t want Georgie makin’ himself sick on these figs. He’s gobblin’ them down like they’re apples. That horse doesn’t have very good sense, you know.”
    “Why not just keep Georgie out of this pasture?”
    “But he loves this pasture, loves the grass here.” Frank’s voice is fading. It blends in with the sighing sound of the breeze in the leaves of the tree, which is disturbingly human. “Besides, Cassidy, how much bigger can this thing get?”
    It’s hard to listen to my uncle; I’m too focused on the tree. It seems foreign to me … alien. I feel Louie still leaning hard against my leg. In an unwelcome rush of sane thought, I realize I can’t really feel the air moving, but I see the leaves move.
    There is no breeze!
    My mouth goes dry. A chill crosses my neck. I look over at Frank. My uncle is standing still, staring at the tree. Frank’s right hand is resting on the butt of his gun. Strange to admit, but I wish I had a gun too.
    We get into the Ranger and drive back to the ranch house, both of us sobered by that tree.
    “I drove through Diablo on the way here, Uncle Frank,” I say. “The place was dead. No one on the streets or anywhere. Odd for a Sunday, I thought.”
    “Yeah, town’s pretty quiet these days.”
    “Why?”
    “Hell, I don’t know,” Frank says. “Why do you ask?”
    “Seems strange on a Sunday. The place actually gave me a kind of ominous feeling, you know?”
    “No, I don’t know. What d’ya mean, ominous?”
    “Spooky,” I say. “I was happy to drive on through and get out of the place.”
    “Well, like I said, Cassidy, I don’t know why you feel that way. Diablo’s always seemed pretty harmless to me.” He pulls a cigarette out of his shirt pocket and lights it. “That tree now … I don’t think it’s exactly ‘spooky’ but it sure is unusual … right?”
    I nod. I’m spooked by both the town and the tree, but I don’t share that with my uncle … not yet, anyway.
    We arrive at the ranch house and I put Louie on a leash. We start out and Frank grabs my arm. “I’m really glad you’re here, Cassidy. I need you.” I’m surprised that my uncle keeps telling me he needs me. It’s a little unnerving. We start up the stairs to the house. “What’s the puppy’s name?”
    “Louie.”
    “Well, I’ll be damned. C’mon Louie.” The three of us go up to the porch. “I’ll have you meet some friends.” There’s a faint scent of warm cornbread in the air as we walk over to a round wicker table.
    “This here’s my brother Burt’s boy, Cassidy,” Frank yells as if everyone is hard of hearing. “And his pup, Louie.”
    An old couple is seated at the table. They look familiar to me, but I can’t remember their names. I knew them when I lived at the ranch, and I remember them fondly. Two young women are at the table as well—one just taking a bite out of what looks like a fresh fig. Her mouth is partly open, and she’s sucking in shreds of the meat of the fig. She grins at me as juice runs down her chin. It’s not a pretty picture. I’ve never before seen anyone assault a piece of fruit that way. And, she has another fig in her hand, at the ready.
    A burly man with close-cropped reddish hair hovers near the table, and I think this is probably Lester-Lee, the man Frank told me he’d hired to help out around the place.
    Bottles of Heineken