Boy Who Shoots Crows (9781101552797) Read Online Free Page A

Harley with extended forks, plus an assortment of painter’s knives, sponges, a couple of magnifying glasses, and other tools. In the western corner stood an easel covered with a sheet. In the nearest corner, a Windsor chair and footstool, both covered in an oatmeal-colored fabric, and, beside them, atop a small bookcase holding several oversize books, a Bose CD player, and a CD holder.
    He crossed to the punch-out, found the drawstring, and opened the curtains. The bay window was composed almost entirely of glass, a wide, tall center panel, and two narrower side panels. With the curtains open, the room was filled with morning light. He could see all of her front yard outside the window, plus that part of the cornfield and woods that bordered on Metcalf Road, the two-lane macadam in front of the house.
    He said, “Would you mind if I take a peek at what you’re working on?”
    He waited a few moments, heard her slide out of her chair. Then she was at the threshold. She stood off to the side, one hand raised against the sunlight. “I haven’t gotten very far with it,” she said.
    â€œIf you’d rather I didn’t . . .”
    â€œIt’s all right,” she said. “There’s just not much to see.”
    He lifted the sheet away very carefully, took a few steps back, and considered the painting. Most of the scene was only sketched in, but the background of sky and the corner of a white Amish house were already roughed in. In the yard was a little girl in full Amish dress, the bonnet and blouse and long skirt, and she was pushing an old-fashioned rotary mower with its cylinder of whirring blades. She was just a tiny thing and had to bend forward as if walking into a heavy wind, putting all her weight against the mower. Her little brother stood a few steps behind her, whipping a sassafras stick through the air. In the foreground, coming down the highway in front of the yard, was an Amish buggy. A boy barely old enough to grow whiskers was at the reins, a young girl beside him, a toddler in her lap. Coming from the opposite direction, in the lower right foreground, was a grizzled old biker, scruffy-bearded and all leathered-up, astride his gleaming chopper. The Amish boy with the sassafras stick stood goggle-eyed in fascination of the biker, his free hand rising in a friendly wave, and the toddler was leaning out of his mother’s lap so as to get a better look at the chromed-up roaring Harley. The painting wasn’t even half-finished yet, but in the lines, Gatesman could see the fullness of a finished work, could see the colors and brushstrokes, could see one world greeting another in passing, the young couple bound to their time and place, the children spellbound, the grinning old biker with a continent of freedom between his sunburned hands.
    He turned to the threshold to speak, but Charlotte was no longer there, so he looked at the painting a few moments longer, then carefully replaced the sheet, drew the curtains closed, and returned to the kitchen, where he found her seated at the table again.
    He pulled the French doors closed and stood with his back to them. “It’s amazing,” he said.
    â€œThe Hagan brothers do good work.”
    â€œYou know what I’m talking about,” he said.
    She smiled. “Thank you.”
    He returned to the table but did not sit. He picked up his coffee mug but only held it. “Did you actually see a scene like that? Or is it from your imagination?”
    â€œI almost saw it. I drove past the house where the little girl was mowing and her little brother was whipping a stick through the air. Then later, closer to town, I passed the buggy. Later that night I was sitting on the porch swing, just thinking about how I might paint the scene, when a lone biker came roaring past the house. And all of a sudden the pieces just fit together perfectly for me.”
    â€œAmazing,” he said again. “My wife was very