Read Online Once Upon a River by Bonnie Jo. Campbell - Free Book Online

voices arguing, maybe the twins. Junior came out of the house, held the door open for Cal, and walked slowly beside him down the stairs and to the driveway. Cal was taking small steps, as though just learning to walk. Junior opened the front passenger door and held out his arm as if to support his father.
    “I don’t need any damned help,” Cal said in a strained voice.
    He got into the front passenger seat, and Junior got into the back seat. Finally, one of the twins climbed from the back to sit between his parents. None of them looked in Margo’s direction. The Christmas lights on the oil-barrel float were still on, their colors muted in the early evening light. Saturday evening Mass would keep them away from home for at least an hour and a half. Usually Joanna went alone or with the littler kids—Cal had about as much interest in religion as Margo’s father’d had—but today Joanna might have convinced them that they ought to pray for Billy and have their souls worked on. Maybe Joanna thought there was something to be gained by showing the family in public at this time. Maybe Cal wanted to show he had not been crippled.
    Margo climbed the steps, found the door key under the flowerpot where it had always been, used it in the lock, and replaced it. The kitchen was warm from the woodstove, which someone had damped down to last until they returned. The house smelled of cinnamon bread. Margo smelled turkey soup, too, which meant that Joanna, despite last night’s events, had boiled turkey carcasses as she always had done the day after the party. Margo had last been in this big, bright room last Thanksgiving when she was helping Joanna with the dishes, before she’d gone out to join the party. Margo ventured into the living room, where she’d argued with Billy for years without feeling uneasy—it was only in the last year that Billy had become strange and scary to her. The Murray house never did feel empty, even when everybody was gone. Always the place was full of scents, warmth, and energy. This evening she could feel the Murray spirits hiding around corners, hanging from the ceiling and wall fixtures. Even when she’d been welcome in this house, she had preferred to stay in the kitchen. When she’d gone into the living room to watch TV, she sat on the floor beside Cal’s chair, and he had sometimes patted her head and said, “Good girl.” Billy had whispered, “Good dog,” or “Good Nympho,” whenever Cal did it, but she hadn’t cared.
    But she couldn’t stay here now, after what had happened. Where would she sleep while she waited for her mother to come?
    She found a sheet of paper and a pencil and wrote a note. Dear Joanna and Cal: Thank you for your generous offer to let me stay with you. My mother wants me to come to her, but she asked me not to say where she is. Please don’t tell anyone. Love, Margaret. She left it on the kitchen table.
    Margo walked into Cal’s office, a room she had never entered. Kids were not allowed, and it was a rule they all followed. The room smelled of Cal, of leather and gun oil and citrus shaving cream. It also smelled a little of sweat and whiskey.
    The gun cabinet was closed but not locked. Maybe in his rattled condition, Cal had forgotten to lock it, or maybe he was so confident no one would mess with his guns that he never locked it. She opened both doors. Inside were a dozen rifles and six twelve-gauge shotguns, but not her daddy’s twenty-gauge with his initials burned into the stock.
    Margo’s heart pounded as she extracted the Marlin, the gun Cal had let her use on special occasions, because it was like Annie Oakley’s, he said. Margo ran her hands over the squirrel carved into the walnut stock, the chrome lever. Cal had kept the gun oiled and polished. An electrical charge passed through her as she touched the gold-colored trigger. When she had last shot with it, there had been a tooled leather strap attached, but it had been removed, leaving only the sling