Free A Hard Witching by Jacqueline Baker Page A

explain. He looked down at the near-emptybucket. “Ground’s hard,” she added. “On account of the frost.”
    She held out her hand for the spade, thinking he might drop it there in the dirt. It was hard to tell with Jack. Moody. But he just nudged the bucket with the toe of his boot and handed her the spade.
    “Going to Schecters’,” he said.
    Lavinia had not been to Ray Schecter’s place since that once before she and Jack were married, not long after Ray’s wife had been taken back to the hospital in North Battleford for the third and possibly final time. Lavinia had never met her.
    “She’s a schizo,” Jack had explained amiably as they rode over in the truck. “You know what that is, a schizo?” Before she could answer, he reached across and squeezed her thigh. “That’s a schizophreniac.” He tapped his forehead beneath his cap. “She’s not right.”
    Lavinia plucked gently at the dark hairs on the back of his hand and he pulled it away. “What do you mean,” she asked, “not right?”
    He rolled the window down and adjusted the rear-view mirror, though there was nothing to see behind the truck but a cloud of dust. She turned anyway, just to check.
    “She’s mental. What more do you want to know?”
    “I mean,” she said, “how did it happen?”
    “How should I know? She’s a schizo. They’re probably born that way.”
    Lavinia frowned and looked out the window, out over the brown furrows of fallow fields that looked as if they’d been raked by enormous fingers in smooth and continuous patterns. The familiar monotony of colour, the unvarying shape of theland. The way you could never get out of that sun, or that wind. It could make anyone crazy.
    “What’s the matter now?” Jack said.
    “Nothing,” she said carefully. “It’s just, that doesn’t sound nice, calling her that. A schizo. It sounds … disrespectful.” But disrespectful was not what she meant. She did not know exactly what she meant, only that the word grated on her.
Schizo.
    “Oh, for Christ sakes.” Jack shook his head, tipped the brim of his cap lower. They hit a particularly hard ridge on the dirt road (on purpose, Lavinia thought) and the truck jumped, jolting her on the seat so hard, her teeth clacked together.
    Up ahead, Schecters’ place sat neatly on a small rise, the house at the highest point, the outbuildings sloping gradually away, as if sliding almost imperceptibly downhill, though the word
downhill
was in itself a gross exaggeration.
    “Anyway,” Lavinia said, “it doesn’t matter.” She rested her hand on his arm.
    “Okay,” Jack said. “Okay. Forget it.”
    They rolled past the house, and Jack pulled the truck to a stop outside the hog pens. Ray was already there, leaning across the railings. Lavinia reached for the handle, but Jack said, “Won’t be long,” and slammed the door, crossing the yard in long strides.
    Lavinia sat in the hot cab, feeling close to tears, Ray’s presence a few yards away the only thing keeping them in check. Over nothing, she thought. That was the worst part.
    She watched Ray look up as Jack approached, lift one hand in a half-greeting and lean backaway from the pens, his T-shirt pushed up a little over his belly. He shook his head at Jack, jerked a thumb toward the pens. “Sonofabitch,” he said, and shook his head again. She watched as Jack hooked his long body across the rails, then leaned back, too, tipping his cap away from his forehead. “I’ll be goddamned,” he said. Then he turned suddenly and waved to Lavinia. “Come on,” he called.
    Ray nodded at her as she stepped up to the pen.
    “See that?” Jack said, pulling her close by the sleeve of her shirt.
    At first she saw nothing but a large, spotted sow, curled sideways in the mud.
    “What?” she said.
    “There,” Jack said, pulling her closer.
    She leaned across the rails, peering over to where Jack pointed.
    “Only one left,” Jack said. “Christ, Ray, that’s a goddamn