Mr. Splitfoot by Samantha Hunt Page B

young man palms his suitcase. Ruth steps into sight, clears her throat. “Hello, little sister,” he says. Something new in town after so long living with old things. “That’s some gorgeous explosion on your face, huh?” Ruth lifts a hand to her cheek. “Yes, it is,” he answers for her. The young man takes his leave, throwing an arm up in farewell, whistling as he walks away. Ruth can’t tell if he’s a boy or a man. Closer to a man, she thinks. The shadow of a bird crosses his back. He doesn’t even see it, doesn’t know how lucky he is, free as that bird. Or maybe good things just happen to him all the time.
    Her hunger burns worse when the young man is gone. “Apples?” she asks Nat. The farm has a number of hoary trees. Each fruit is good for two bites before a hard blue spot crops up. There are tons of them because the other kids won’t eat what the worms left behind.
    “Not today.”
    Troy is a tipsy municipality built on top of three powerful confluences: Panhooseck and Paanpack, the old peoples; shirt collars and steel, the old industries; Hudson and Erie, the old waterways.
    People with cars pass Nat and Ruth on their walk into the city. The drivers pretend to focus really hard on their driving so that they won’t have to, all Christian-like, stop to offer them a ride.
    But as previously reported, he isn’t a Christian. The young salesman’s car is stopped up the road, a quarter mile from the home. He’s attempting to turn the engine over again and again, but the engine won’t fire. Nat slides past the car, but Ruth stops at his window. She touches the pane. The man turns the key one last time and the engine engages.
    “Look at that.” He rolls the window down. “You fixed my car.”
    Ruth smiles.
    “My name’s Mr. Bell. You’re in need of transportation? Perhaps I could be of assistance. If you can trust a vehicle as wobbly as mine.”
    “Mister?” Ruth asks. She hears his funny way of talking, using more words than necessary as if he enjoys them. Maybe he went to college. Maybe he’s Canadian. Ruth nods. He’s too young to be a mister. Twenty-four tops. His car and clothes are clean. He wears his seat belt. There’s no sign of his case. “Nat.” Ruth calls Nat back quickly like a well-trained dog.
    They press their faces against the back window to see what such an unusual young man has inside his car: a seasonally premature ice scraper, a well-used road map. They climb in the back as if riding in a taxi.
    “Where to?”
    “Downtown.”
    “Downtown.” Mr. Bell laughs. Something about town is funny. They drive in silence, stealing glimpses. They pass the Roxy Laundromat. Ruth can see the side of the man’s shaven neck, his suit and collar, the sloppy cut of his long hair, the length of his sideburns. She sees his hands on the wheel and the chunky skull rings. His fingers have sprouted dark down on each knuckle.
    “Suppose you all heard about Pluto?” The man makes conversation.
    Of course, they’ve heard of Pluto. They nod slowly, and he catches the nod in the rearview mirror.
    “Glad old Tombaugh was already dead when they announced it.”
    More slow nodding.
    Mr. Bell looks at them quickly. “They decided it’s no longer a planet?”
    “Right.”
    “Right.”
    Nat and Ruth begin to wonder whether or not they will be getting out of this car alive. Pluto not a planet? This man is clearly deranged.
    “Pistachio?” Mr. Bell offers, raising a bag over into the back seat.
    “No, thank you,” Nat says, but Ruth decides to try one. She’s starving.
    The city of Troy, New York—after a brief shining role at the center of the steel industry—fell off the map of the modern world. Head of the now more-or-less dead Erie Canal, a number of buildings still display versions of Troy’s once-bright future. Frear’s Troy Cash Bazaar. Marty Burke’s South End Tavern, with its separate entrance for ladies. The Castle, the Gurley, the Rice, and the Ilium. Burden Iron Works and