"Now? So late?"

"I said, Haw, I'll come get him."

So Connne drove to Wolf's Head Lake, arrived at 1:25 A.M. in hastily thrown-on jeans, sweatshirt, sneakers without socks. She had not so much as glanced at herself in a mirror, hadn't had time to splash water onto her face or drag a comb through her hair, rushing off, calling to the children (of course, they'd been awakened-or had they been asleep, at all, waiting too for the telephone to ring?) that things were all right, their dad was all right, at Wolf's Head Lake and she was going to get him.

How strange to be driving alone at night, arriving alone at the darkened lakeside. Buildings made unfamiliar by night, their lights extinguished. The faded red neon wOLF's HEAD INN extinguished. There were only two vehicles in the tavern parking lot, one of them Michael's pickup. Haw was waiting for Corinne on the Inn veranda, beneath a bug-swirling light, a tall, burly, apologetic nian who made no effort to shake Corinne's hand, or touch her to comfort her-that wasn't his way. "Michael got in a, kind of a disagreement with a local guy," Haw said, "-they'd both been drinking and they shoved each other around. But nothing serious." Corrnne entered the neardarkened tavern, diminished and melancholy it seemed without patrons, even the jukebox turned off, but, oh--that smell. She would know it anywhere. "How badly drunk is he?" Corinne asked. "Sickdrunk? Pa.s.sed-out drunk?" She was trying to be matter-of-fact. She was trying not to sound fririous and reproachful, a raging wife. Wasn't she a farm woman, after all-she'd had plenty of experience with emergencies. Telling herself, As long as he's alive. He's alive.

A light was burning at the rear of the tavern, beyond the bar and the shabby old-fashioned kitchen, beyond the stinking alcove, and Corinne hurried in that direction, not waiting for Haw, who was short of breath, to lead her. He lumbered close behind her, squint-. ing at her through smudged gla.s.ses, smelling of beer himself, male- sweat and beer. Saying, "Michael looks worse than he is. Don't be upset." But when Corinne saw her husband sprawled atop a bed, his face swollen, his upper lip swollen and b.l.o.o.d.y, shirt stained and eyes shut, snoring, she began to cry. It took some time to wake him and when she finally did, crouched beside the bed in a posture of abriegation and appeal, stroking his heated face, she had a sense of going in and out of focus in his eyes, a hapless female figure in a cartoon.

The room was minimally, shabbily furnished and smelled of insecticide and stale tobacco smoke. It had an adjoining cubbyhole of a bathroom, however, and Haw was kind enough to provide a rudimentary first-aid kit, so Corinne could tend to -jchael-WaShing his face, putting iodine and Band-Aids on his cuts. He groaned- cursed, thrashed about; he was deeply ashamed, disgusted with himself Saying, "I don't lu-mow what the h.e.l.l happened, honey. One niinute 1 was O.K. and the next-" His arm lifted, only to fall back limp onto the bed.

Haw said, "You're both welcome to stay the night-of course- Drive back home tomorrow. That way, you won't have to both come again, to get Michael's pickup." He was hanging about in the hallway, awkward, apologetic, yet trying for an amiable tone. O-d-friends-tvho't'e been- - ag h- wo rse-tha th,t-gether tone. Corinne remembered their encountet in the Kmart and felt a physical, visceral dislike of the man.

Stiffly she said, "Thank you, but I want to take Michael home tonight."

"But-"

"Not Tonight."

She was close to clamping her hands over her ears, like one of her children.

"Corinne, come on," Haw said, scratching at his beard, "-d'you hate it here that much? Hate me?"

Corinne stared at I-law, wiping her eyes. A wave of shame caine over her: how could she, Corinne Mulvaney, whose sense of herself as one privileged by G.o.d had defined her entire adulthood, knowledge hating any living person, let alone this sad, hopeful, raddie-faced and lonely old friend? One of the few men of Corinne's life who had desired her, as a woman? "Well, all right." she said, relenting. "You're right, I suppose. But we'll pay you for the room."

"Corinne, what the h.e.l.l-"

"I said we'll pay you."

Surprising, how tough she could be, even in her nerved-up exhausted state. She'd almost forgotten how good it felt.

Brisk, capable, fueled with purpose as a mom should be, Coriune telephoned home to a.s.sure the children that everything was under control. Patrick answered the phone on the first ring. He asked how was Dad and Corinne said Dad was fine and Patrick persisted, what had happened?-afld Corinne said that nothing had happened. "It's just Dad isn't up to driving tight now. But he'll be fine by morning. We'll both be home by midmorning." Still Patrick asked, reproachfullY-

"What's wrong with Dad? I've got a right to know." Cormnne said sharply, "We'll talk about it tomorrow, Patrick. Good night!"

As long as he's alive. Alive.

I give us both over to You, G.o.d. Protect us!

They lay together exhausted. Only partly undressed, their shoes off. Not in, but on top of- the dank-smelling bed that was hardly more than a cot, pushed into the corner of the cramped little room. Michael's left eye had swollen almost shut and promised to be luridly blackened. There were cuts in his eyebrows, his upper lip was swollen, the color of an overripe plum. His knuckles, too, were skinned and swollen. A jittery sobriety had overtaken him by 3 A.M. just as Corinne sank toward sleep. "Jesus, honey, I'm sorry!" Michael murmured. Corinne murmured, "Well." She was holding him in a way she'd held him frequently, after lovemaking, in the early years of their marriage: her arm slipped beneath his heavy shoulders, his head on her shoulder, his arm slung across her. Seen from above, they would appear to be huddling together like dazed and desperate children. With an air of dogged incredulity that seemed genuine Michael was saying, "-ust don't know what happened." Corinne said, tak- ing the tone she'd taken with Patrick, "It isn't what happened, Michael, it's what you've done." The schoolmanrnsh edge was a way of keeping herself from more tears, or worse than tears. Adrenaline had pumped through her veins for a long time and was beginning now to wane and Corinne knew that, when it did, if she Wasn't safely unconscious, she would be washed out, despairing.

G.o.d protect Us/-we're your children, too.

She wished Michael, willed him, to sleep. To relinquish shame. The tattered remnant of his pride. A man's pride, carried like a burden on his back. But vaguely, wonderingly he continued to speak. Corinne had not inquired what the quarrel with the stranger had been. Haw claimed not to know and Corinne did not think it had had anything to do with it-Wolf's Head Lake was a considerable distance from Mt. Ephraim. But she preferred not to know, would -1ever ask. There was the relief of her husband's living se?f When the :elephone had rung waking her from her stuporous sleep she had iad the instantaneous terrified conviction that Michael had been rifled, or had killed; that he had transgressed beyond his capacity to :eturn. But that was not so. With G.o.d's iove, it would not be so. he could save him, would save if only G.o.d showed the way.

Now, the comfort of his warm, perspiring body heavy against hers. Her arm growing numb from his weight. His damp hair, the hard intransigent bone of his skull. A smell of his body and breath- beer, whiskey, sweat. It was a smell she savored as, a farmer's daughter, she'd learned to savor, young, the smells of the barnyard, the smells that nieant home. Well, yes-they were stinks, sometimes. Exacerbated by rain and humidity. Yet, still, they were familiar, they meant home. They meant what is known. U/hat is given to us, to know.

The light in the room was extinguished. There was a window beside the bed, no blind to draw so Corinne was aware of the starlit sky above Wolf's Head Lake; a faint-luminous pearly moon that seemed to be pulsing. Unless it was an artery in her brain that was pulsing. Confused, she mistook it for-what? A streetlamp. Somehow, that was logical. There were lights on poles in Haw Hawley's parking lot turned off for the night and somehow this was one of them except floating. And there was a streetlamp in a famous painting of a jungle, a dream-jungle, a French painting of the previous century Corinne had seen years ago but could not now identify, yet recalling the jungle flat as wallpaper and clearly a dream and the artist had inserted a streetlamp in it because that is the nature of dreams.

She'd believed that this heavy perspiring man huddled against her was asleep but suddenly he began to speak. A low, aggrieved, jarring voice she could not escape. "-This thing that I did I didn't tell you, nor the lawyer either, flick him, flick them all, think I don't know how they tall about me behind my back? take my money and ridicule me?-so I acted on my own, yesterday morning I went to the Chautauqua County district attorney and demanded the s...o...b.. talk to nie in person, Birch himself- big-deal Democrat, I voted for him for Christ's sake, so I demanded he bring crnninal charges against the kid who'd a.s.saulted n-my daughter, she could not testify herself so we would have to bring charges on the strength of her doctor's records, Dr. Oakley's records could be subpoenaed and he could be made to testify-couldn't he? Isn't that the law? Where a felony has been committed against a minor? A medical man, a man who knows exactly what happened to my daughter! He could be made to testify, he would have to tell the truth And Birch listens, or pretends to listen. Saying then it did not seem to him a 'winnable' case. Just to take it to a grand jury-not a 'winnable' case. If the victim refuses to testify. And I say but what if the victim had been killed? You would charge the murderer wouldn't you? What kind of criminal justice system is this for Christ's sake? And Birch asks why won't my daughter testify, has she made a statement to the police?-and so on. Questions like that. f.u.c.king lawyer questions! Pretending he's sympathetic. Saying, 'In such cases the defense will argue "mutual consent." All but impossible to convince a july where it's a female's word against a male because the jury must deliberate evidence and can convict only beyond a reasonable doubt. Unless the young woman has been seriously injured and can't testify, and her injuries doc.u.mented, and maybe a s.e.m.e.n swab matched with the young man. It would be a rare case, possibly if the victim was r.e.t.a.r.ded, where she reflised to testify or was ruled incapable, and a grand jury would indict. Not "winnable," Mr. Mulvaney. You'd only be opening your daughter and your family to public humiliation. If the defendant didn't cave in and there's no reason he would in such circ.u.mstances, in fact his lawyer would move to dismiss and a judge would probably concur. This is Chautauqua County,' Birch says, 'we had a h.e.l.l of a time getting an indictment against a man in Milford-you read about it, maybe- who beat and kicked his pregnant wife a while back-juries don't like to "interfere" in domestic cases. In male-female cases. If s.e.x is involved, especially. Remember that trucker who shot his wife and her boyfriend with a shotgun?-the grand jury did indict, but on second-degree manslaughter-the jury acquitted him-"not guilty by reason of temporary insanity." Probably you wouldn't know, Mr. Mulvaney, "s.e.xual misdemeanor" and a.s.sault and rape cases are reported all the time, including pretty brutal rapes, but these cases rarely get to trial. Even if a grand jury indicted which Idon't believe they would it would be impossible to conduct a trial without your daughter and if she did testify it would destroy her'-and I'm listening to this bulis.h.i.t and can't hold back any longer saying 'I want the flicker punished! I want justice! I see this kid around town, my daughter has to see him in school, and my son-he's getting away with it, with the hurt he inflicted on us.' I was getting excited, I guess. I was yelling at Birch saying 'We deserve better in this town, my family and me!' And these deputies came in, guards-"

Corinne was holding Michael feeling his heart beating through his body. Madness! He was mad. Yet she held him, the corners of her eyes leaked tears stinging as acid. "Oh Michael, oh my darling, oh no oh no," she whispered, though he didn't hear, wasn't listening, locked in his grief, a fanatic grief, yet childlike too, saying, "G.o.d help me, I don't know what else to do. If! can't protect my own daughter. My own children. My family. If I wasn't a coward I would exact my own justice. I can't live with it. We'll have to sell the farm and move away. We're like lepers. We-" Corinne shut her eyes tight she saw High Point Farm on the very edge of High Point Road, the steep drop along its most dangerous stretches, thinking 1-f7iy we will fall over, fall to the bottom and be lost. Michael was saying, pushing from her anns now, sitting up, rubbing his face, his swollen eyes, half sobbing, incredulous, "It isn't just my daughter it's all of us. She can't be blamed but it's all of us I vowed I would love them all equally-I did. I tried. When they were babies, I tried. But the girl-she ran away with my heart. She can't be blamed, but that was how it was. Always I'd be thinking I would killfor her, my baby girl. But-"

Corinne said, sitting up beside him, "Michael, no! Don't say such things. It's a sin to say such things."

"-I'm not strong enough, I'm a coward. How can I live knowing that! G.o.d help me, Corinne, I can't bear the sight of the girl any longer." Michael began to sob helplessly, despairingly, in Corinne's arms. It seemed to her she could not hold him tight enough, enclosed enough; she would have wished to envelop him with her body, as one might a small child, an infant, drawing him somehow inside her, stilling the terrible agitation of his thoughts. Oh, if she could swallow him up! Save him! "I wish to G.o.d I never had to lay eyes on her again," Michael whispered, in horror of what he was saying. "G.o.d forgive me! It's so."

Corinne heard herself whisper in reply, hesitating only a fraction of a second, "I know, darling. I know." She began to croon, rocking him. His hot heavy pulsing body. His maleness, his very bulk. That weight turned to despair, so heavy. How had she been blind for so long, these weeks?-how had she missed understanding?- here was her first love, her firstborn. The others, the children born oilier body, even Marianne, were hardly more than dreams, ripples on the surface of a dark impenetrable water. From this marl, from his body, their bodies had sprung. He was her first love. "Darling, I know," Corinne crooned softly, as if it were a lullaby. Seeing the goose comically entangled in nylon fishing line thrashing its wings, struggling in desperation. But I will save you: with G.o.d's help.

So Corinne and Michael Mulvaney clutched at each other desperately in a room at the rear of the shabby Wolf's Head Inn at Wolf's Head Lake, in the early hours of a day in April 1976, until at last, mutually exhausted, they lay back down together in the narrow dank-smelling bed and slept, slept.

GONE.

What a morning it must have been of swift, inspired arrangements! What bargaining, bartering, pleading and coercing by telephone!

For when Patrick and I returned home from school the following afternoon, we discovered that our sister Marianne was gone.

J ust-,t-one.

Mom had driven her, the Buick station wagon packed with as many of her things as it could hold, to Salamanca, New York, a hundred miles south and west of High Point Farm, where she was to live from now on with a Hausmann relative, a cousin of Mom's who, we were a.s.sured, was a very very nice, very good-hearted Christian woman who'd never had children of her own.

We must have stood there gaping for Mom added quickly, as if this were a crucial point, that of course m.u.f.fin had gone with Mananne-"On her lap all the way, purring." Fixing us with a beaming neon smile.

"THE HUNTS M A N".

ONE BY ONE.

Qne by one, we went away.

It's the story of American farms and small towns in the latter half of the twentieth century: we went away.

First of the Mulvaney children, even before Marianne went to live with a cousin of Mom's in Salamanca, was my older brother Mike: to live in Mt. Ephraim initially, and continue to work at Mulvaney Roofing, until the business encountered "fiscal setbacks" (Dad's term) and relations between father and son became strained, and more than strained, and Mike quit and joined the Marines.

That would be in November 1977. Approximately a year and a half after the events I've recorded. After it.

By the time Mike had his final nasty quarrel with Dad and slammed out of Mulvaney Roofing forever, his life had become what you'd call complicated. He wasn't a reliable worker for Dad, sometimes arriving at the work site late, or failing to show up at all. He didn't get along with certain of his co-workers, nor with Alex Flood who was Dad's right-hand man. Nights, he ran with a wild, hard-drinking crowd, some of them guys he'd known in high school who like him hadn't gone to college, or in any case hadn't graduated. There were rumors that some of these guys dealt in drugs, or a.s.sociated with dealers who operated out of Port Oriskany, Rochester, Buffalo. Half-drunk, late at night, Mike was several times stopped in his Olds Cutla.s.s by Mt. Ephraim police or sheriffs men, and let off with a warning; the cops knew "Mule" Mulvaney who'd been a star of the Mt. Ephraim Rams and they knew Michael Mulvaney Sr. and liked him or anyway felt sorry for him, d.a.m.ned sorry for what had happened to his daughter. To Mike they said, "You don't want to get into any more trouble, son," and Mike said, wiping his face, in the way he'd had of speaking to his high school coach, "Officer, I sure don't! Thanks for telling me that." Still, he had two D.W.I. citations by the time he totalled the Olds Cutla.s.s one rainy autumn night out on Route 119, escaping with minor b.u.mps and lacerations himself but causing the girl who was with him serious injuries, a broken collarbone and ribs, a shattered kneecap, facial lacerations so disfiguring she would have to undergo a series of cosmetic operations.

Twelve days after the accident, Mike made the break with Dad, left Mt. Ephraim, signed up at Marine recruiting headquarters in Yewville without telling anyone beforehand. We were all amazed- you'd have thought Mike might have hinted to Patrick what was coming, but he hadn't. Morn was heartbroken, deeply hurt. She hadn't understood how estranged Mike and Dad had become, though it had distressed her how infrequently Mike came to the farm to visit, even for his favorite meals. Unless they weren't "favorite meals" any longer and Mom hadn't been informed.

Most of this, I didn't know at the time. I understood that things weren't good between Mike and my parents and I understood that Mike was making a break with his family which included his brothers, too. I believed that Mike had been shamed by what had happened to Marianne because it meant that "Mule Mulvaney" no longer counted for much in certain quarters of Mt. Ephraim. Zachary Lundt and his pals Rodman, Breuer, Glover. Phil Spohr too ran with that crowd. By treating Marianne as they had they were showing their contempt for her big brother, too. Weren't they?

Some c.o.c.ksucker's gonna pay for it Mike had promised. But a long time had pa.s.sed and no one had paid.

There were weeks when I didn't see my older brother except to catch glimpses of him in town, usually in his car-he'd honk, and wave, grinning out at me yelling "Hey there Ranger!" but not slowing down as he pa.s.sed by. I'd look after him, waving, my smile fading on my face like some pathetic cartoon character fading right out of the frame. One October afternoon leaving school I ran into himn on Meridian Street, saw this tall good-looking reddish-haired guy emerging fromn a 7-Eleven in black T-shirt and chinos and work boots, two Molson six-packs in hand and a cigarette uroupmg his mouth and one of his adoring girls waiting in the idling lipstickred Cutla.s.s coupe that had to be the sweetest, coolest car anybody could want to drive, ever. "Ranger!-hOW'S it going?" Mike called out. He introduced me to the girl as his kid brother and she smiled at me out the car window, a pretty thin-faced blond with frizzy hair and lips made up to look like luscious raspberries. "Is 'Ranger' your real name?" she asked, and Mike said, "h.e.l.l, no: his real name is 'Dimple.' Smile for us, kid, and show why." My face burned. I didn't know ill loved it or hated it when Mike teased me in that way of his that was rough, pushy, almost-mean, like Dad. In fact, if you didn't look to see it was Mike at such times, his voice so resembled Dad's, and his manner, you'd swear this was Dad.

The girl's name was Marissa King. She was nineteen years old, the daughter of a customer of Mulvaney Roofing, a farmer who owned hundreds of acres in southern Chautauqua County. Mike had met her while working for her father, repairing barn roofs for several weeks that summer; there had been talk, though none of us Mulvaneys knew it, of the two of them getting engaged. But Marissa was the girl in the Olds Cutla.s.s with my brother, the night it was totalled on Route 119.

And Marianne of course was gone.