Sign of Respect

A story about making a delivery.

In a pastoral setting, a green valley nestled between two high, snow-capped mountain ranges, a sick father called his daughter to his bedside. There was a lamp with a shade that made its light soothing and warm on the table beside him. Since her father had become confined to his bed, she had never seen it turned off. Outside the window, the branches of an oak tree revolved in the wind.
“I need you to take this to the man in the house near the old clinic.” Her father was holding a package that looked like a box of chocolates in his lap. It was wide and flat and white and had a pale, sparkling ribbon wrapped around it.
“You mean the one where there was the fire?”
“Yes, that’s the one.”
“But you told me never to go near there.”
“I know, little one. But this is a special mission. I need him to get this package, and you’re the only one I can trust. Just follow the gravel road, you won’t miss it. Can you do that for me?”
“Okay…”
“That’s my girl.”
She took the package and left her father’s bedroom. She relocked the door from the outside, like he had asked that she always do. The key felt large and clumsy in her small hands.

The road spread out in front of the girl. There were houses and trees and fences. As she walked, the fence nearly reached the top of her head. The ground tilted upwards. She turned a corner.
“Where are you going, little girl?” asked a woman carrying groceries. It was the new wife of the man who owned the hardware store. His old wife had died a year ago, and he had gotten a new one, just like that. The little girl hadn’t known grown-ups could do that. She had asked her father why he never got a new wife. This was a little while before he got sick. She hadn’t understood his answer.
“Nowhere,” the little girl said.
“What kind of answer is that? You must be going somewhere.” She was wearing dark paint around her eyes. The girl had seen her at the bus stop when she first arrived from the city and she had been wearing it then, too. Her father had told her it was called eyeliner. The girl thought it made her look pretty, but also kind of scary. She didn’t understand why she was still wearing it. No one else in the village did.
“I have to deliver this to someone.”
“To who?”
“I don’t know. A man.”
“A man? What kind of man?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, you should be careful about giving things to strange men. Especially when you’re a little older.” She readjusted her groceries in her hands. As she did so, an apple shook loose from the bag and fell and rolled away. “Oh, God.” She turned and went chasing after the apple, forgetting about the girl.
The girl continued to the intersection and looked both ways. Nothing was coming. She crossed the road and then the next one. The ground inclined downwards. She turned and started walking down the road towards the old clinic.

The girl walked over a wooden footbridge and water flowed swiftly beneath it. Some tree branches had gotten caught in the rocks near the bank. Driven by the current, dead leaves had piled up against them. A wheel turned slowly in the water. On the far side of the bridge, attached to the wheel, was a small house, and beyond it some fields where cows chewed slowly. As she passed the house, an old man leaned out of one of the windows.
“Making another delivery for your daddy?”
She recognized the old man. Sometimes, when her father sent her to buy groceries, she would see him shuffling up and down the aisles. She never saw him take anything off the shelves, just slowly move around the store. She looked at him suspiciously.
“What are you talking about?”
“I saw you come by here yesterday. You had on a different shirt, but it was definitely you. I thought you must be making a delivery.”
“No, I wasn’t here yesterday. Yesterday, I was at home all day.”
“Well, that may be so, but I still saw you walk right by here, going to make a delivery. That is what you were doing, isn’t it? You looked so serious and determined. In fact, just like you do now!” He laughed. Wisps of white hair clung to the edges of his face.
The girl frowned. “It wasn’t me. It was someone else.”
“You were wearing a blue shirt with three buttons at the collar and a plain black dress yesterday, weren’t you? Be honest now.”
“How did you know that? Who told you?”
“No one told me, little girl. I saw you come by here.” The old man was suddenly very serious. “Now, listen to me. I saw you come by here, but I didn’t see you come back. Don’t make that delivery, you understand? Just give the box to me. I’ll know what to do with it.”
“No! It’s not yours! You’re trying to trick me!”
“Little girl—”
“No! No! No!” She ran away down the road, not listening to what the old man was shouting after her.

Before it caught fire, the clinic was where the girl had gotten her annual check-ups. When she had fallen and gashed her forearm open, it was where her father had taken her to have it stitched up. Now, all the windows were broken, and what walls hadn’t crumbled were all scorched and black. It was dark inside, all day long. Just beyond this, the road split: to the right, it led off towards the county seat, a long way away; to the left, it became a gravel track, and disappeared into a grove of tree. The girl took the left path.

It was dark and sweet-smelling in the trees. It felt “secluded,” she decided. She had just learned the word a few weeks ago, and had been looking for opportunities to use it. It was difficult, because most places in the village weren’t secluded at all. There were too many people around. She had thought the place she liked to sit in the oak tree behind her house might be secluded, until she had noticed her neighbor looking at her through a window. That was how it always was in the village. There was always someone looking at her.
“Why didn’t you ever get a new wife like the man who owns the hardware store?” she had asked her father.
“I’m not the same sort of man as the man who owns the hardware store, little one.”
“But shouldn’t I have a mom? I mean, don’t you want me to have a mom?”
“You do have a mom. She just had to go into seclusion.”
“What’s seclusion?”
“It’s somewhere secret and quiet, where you can be alone.”
That was how she had learned what it meant when a place was “secluded.”
There were lots of roots and loose stones in the path. It didn’t go in a straight line, but bent in a curve, going away from the village. She heard something rustle in the bushes, but when she looked, there was nothing there.

After a little while, the trees started to thin. She came out into an open area near a high, sheer cliff. At the base of the cliff was a house. It looked old and run-down and looked very small. It was really more like a cabin. There couldn’t have been more than two or three rooms inside. It was painted white, but the paint was faded and dirty. No one had given it a new coat for a very long time.
“This must be the place,” the little girl said. There was no one to talk to, but she said it anyway, for her own benefit.
The house was further away from the path than it looked, and everything between was overgrown with wild grass. The grass was full of weird, rusted objects, little iron balls and rods and springs. She was careful picking her way through it. Some of the objects looked sharp.
She knocked on the door. There was no sound from inside. She knocked on the door again. The box was clutched tightly in her other hand. With just one hand to hold it, she noticed more how heavy it was. She knocked a third time. Suddenly, the door swung open. A man in nice-looking clothes with stringy black hair was standing behind it. She hadn’t heard anything from inside. She wondered if he had been standing there the whole time.
“You must be his daughter,” he said.
“Are you the man I’m supposed to give this to?”
“That’s right. You’re very astute.”
She held out the package and he took it. She stood there, unsure what she was supposed to do now. The man was looking at her.
“Do you know what’s inside this box? Do you know what your father gave me?”
She shook her head.
“I’ll show you.”
With one hand, he quickly loosened the ribbon. The motion was practiced and confident. He lifted the lid off and let it drop to the ground with the ribbon. They landed on the floorboards with a dull clatter. He was holding the package just above her eye-level, but she could see wisps of cotton blooming out around the edges. He reached into the cotton and pulled out something black and oblong. It was a gun.
“Now do you know what this is?”
“A... gun?”
“Wrong.” He squatted down and slipped the barrel between her lips. She clamped her teeth down and it clanked harshly against them. It pressed against them. It was very cold. “This is a sign of respect,” he said.
He took the barrel out of her mouth and stood back up. He shut the door in her face.
The little girl turned around and started walking home. She made her way back through the grass, onto the gravel track. She went back into the grove of trees, and when she came out on the other side, it wasn’t her anymore, but someone completely different.