Read Online Mr. Tall by Tony Earley - Free Book Online Page A

corncrib, jumped inside, and pulled the door closed just as the dog skidded to a stop outside. It barked and snarled and snapped and bit at the corner of the door. With her fingernails she clung to the wire nailed to the inside of the door and struggled to hold it closed. She could see the dog through the slats, and feel its spitty breath on her legs. It leapt up and shoved with its front paws against the building with such force that it landed on its back. Plutina felt the heavy wooden latch outside the door drop back into place with a thunk.
    Once the latch fell, the dog stopped lunging, as if locking Plutina inside the corncrib had been its plan all along. It remained posted just outside the door, however, growling almost silently, its head cocked, staring at the point where she had vanished. Every so often it turned its head and barked sharply toward the house. (Mr. Tall! Hey! Mr. Tall! Come out here!) Plutina tried to shush it, but when she did the dog leapt snapping at the door. She backed away and looked around wildly. The slats nailed to the outside would have been easy enough to kick out, but the inside of the crib was a cage of tightly woven wire mesh stapled every few inches to the studs and the floor, even the roof joists, to keep rats from getting into the corn. It was constructed so soundly that the door didn’t even have a hole for a latch string. A few bushels of last year’s corn lay spilling from the corners, but that was all. There was nothing she could use to pull up the wire. She could see out, but she couldn’t get out. She closed her eyes and whispered, “Oh Jesus, I need Charlie to come get me right this instant.”
    Behind her a screen door slammed, and she whirled toward the house. Coming down the back steps was the tallest man Plutina had ever laid eyes on. His legs were so long she thought at first they were stilts. He wore overalls of unimaginable length; eight or more inches of wrist poked out from beneath his buttoned shirtsleeves. Mr. Tall. He had a long white beard. He dropped a straw hat onto his longish white hair as he stepped into the yard. She couldn’t see his eyes for the shadow of the hat brim. She slowly backed against the wire at the front of the crib, but jumped away when the dog managed to insert its snout between two of the slats near the floor and bite at the wire just behind her ankle. She stood in the middle of the floor and through the slats watched Mr. Tall stride slowly toward her. Hot piss ran down her leg.
    â€œNoggin!” Mr. Tall said in a gruff voice as he approached. “What you got in there?”
    Mr. Tall squinted in through the slats and immediately stumbled backward. He slapped his shirtsleeves and the front of his overalls as if yellowjackets were swarming on him. “Good…Who…Shit,” he said. When he stopped whacking himself he rapidly shook his head. He cautiously stepped back toward the building and leaned forward to stare in at her.
    â€œWho are you?” he said.
    Plutina opened her mouth to speak but found that her breath had left and taken her name with it. Her own hands waved uselessly around her face.
    â€œI said, ‘Who. Are. You?’”
    Her face contorted and scrunched. A string of snot swung suddenly from her nose and she wiped it on the back of her arm. “Please don’t kill me, Mr. Tall,” she managed to say.
    â€œWho are you?”
    â€œI promise I didn’t know you had a dog and I didn’t mean to get all locked up in your corncrib like this and make you come outside. I promise I didn’t. I swear.”
    Mr. Tall closed his eyes and grabbed hold of his ears. He stomped his foot. “Who are you! Who are you! Who are you!” he said.
    â€œI was just playing a game and yesterday I came out of the corn and ran and tagged your barn and today I didn’t know you were home and after I got to the barn again I decided to run down and tag your house but your dog