They are everywhere. Sixteen-ounce Pepsi bottles lined with slimy black tobacco juice. From where I sit in the kitchen I can count at least four. Two rest on the mantle just under the head of the eight-point buck. For some reason they look like two old farmers standing in a field discussing the weather or gossiping about something. The third one sits on top of the big-screen TV with its face turned away from the two on the mantle. The fourth is in use, residing on the end table by the black leather recliner beside the man I married, Justin Manes.

All I can see of him is the pajama tip of his left knee and his toes sticking up on the recliner’s foot rest. Then his head peeks out in left profile, and his hand brings the bottle to his lips. The light hits his black hair, and a few silver strands shine, reminding me that he’s thirty-two to my twenty-one. He spits once, twice, and the goose bumps go up my spine.

I’ve still got the supper dishes to do, and they stare at me the way my mother used to when my brother, Frank, would hit me with everything he had and I would hit him back and he would start crying. Once, when he had gotten older, had gotten big enough so that most people thought he could whip me if it came down to it, he cussed me so hard that I picked up a handful of gravel and forced it all into his mouth. My mother came to his aid that time, too. I was around eighteen then, and as he’s just two years behind me, she shook her finger in my face and told me with her horsy mouth, just as she always had, that he was just a baby, and you don’t retaliate against someone if they’re smaller than you.

The timer on the oven buzzes and I pick up my pot holders and take the cookies out of the oven. I can already see that about half the cookies are burned on their underside. It can’t be me, I tell myself; it must be the oven. I put the unburned ones on a white plate with the image of a pinkish rose and then the others on my favorite plate, which is blue and white and etched with a country scene of a man shoeing a horse. Every time I look at it I get a little tickled. The man’s got on cowboy garb with his hat way up on his head. He’s holding the horse’s left front foot between his legs, and his back is slightly bent. Five shoeing nails hang out of his mouth and his right arm is crooked with a hammer in his hand. The horse’s head is turned to look at the cowboy’s rear end, with its teeth bared as if it might want to bite and the man’s eyeballs are shifted toward his right shoulder with a look that says he’s just remembered the horse’s tendencies.

I pick up the rose plate holding the unburned cookies and head into the living room. I put the plate down on the end table beside my husband. He doesn’t even look up at me. I stand behind his chair, watching the man on TV try to ride the bull. The high-pitched voice of the head commentator, Donnie Gay, flies and squeals along with the ride as if he could help the man stay on by just being loud and hopeful. He says, Oh, you got ’em now, turn him, turn him, but the rider gets bucked off at 7.5 seconds when the bull begins to spin the opposite way he started. I walk back toward the kitchen, hearing Donnie say, Yeah, boys, that’s all she takes. Just one change of direction and you’re picking yourself up off the ground.

I take all my dirty dishes out of the sink and place them beside me on the counter. I put the drainage lid on, turn on the hot water, and squirt in some Dawn. While waiting for the bubbly water to rise, I pour myself a glass of milk and eat some of the cookies on the plate. Clarence suddenly appears in the window above the sink. He struts back and forth on the ledge, pushing his head against the screen as if he wants to be petted. He knows I have scraps, so I get everything that’s left and scrape it into the pot of leftover spaghetti sitting on the table. I turn off the water and put on my worn blue robe and fuzzy pink slippers. Outside, the night is freezing but there’s no wind. Above me the full moon surfs through the wispy clouds. After scraping out the pot for Clarence, I stand up straight and purposely blow out of my mouth and nose to give myself some evidence that I’m alive.
The air reminds me of a glass of ice water on a hot summer day. A train rumbles by on its tracks to the south. Its whistle suddenly sounds so clear that if I didn’t know any better I would swear it was in the field in front of our house. Then, after the third blow of the whistle, I hear something familiar. I can just make out the sound of cowbells, but I know my father doesn’t have any bells on his cattle. There are other sounds, too. I hear the sound of metal on metal, and underneath that is the steady hum of a diesel engine. It hits me then what the sound is, and even now I know that my uncle Anthony is sitting in the tractor’s seat.

I return to the house and begin opening cabinets. I’m searching for a white Braches bag. I finally spot it at the back of the cabinet above the oven. I stand on my tiptoes, barely reaching it with two fingers, and bring it out. The cigars and candy are still there. I put the bag on the kitchen table and then pick it up again. I bring the cigars out and go to the trash can. I pick up the tomato sauce can and shove them down into it. Then I push them down between the trash can and the rest of the debris. I put the bag in the window above the sink and put some of my dishes in to soak. I go back into the living room and sit at the far end of the couch so that I can’t see the TV. I watch the window, waiting for the lights to hit.

A commercial comes on and my husband looks over at me with his dark eyes and pretty-boy face. Did you eat any of those cookies? he asks. They were good.

A few, I reply.

You’re gonna have to quit making them or I’m gonna be as big as you.

He looks back to the TV quickly and I see the red come up around his ears, but I ignore the comment and say, I doubt that.

I do a fake stretch and my hand bumps into the chest of the mounted deer’s head above me. I feel the hair on its neck. I bring my hand down and stare at my husband. I don’t know how I got such a handsome husband except for the fact that he didn’t have a family of his own and that he kissed up to my parents. I have to admit that I didn’t notice his kissing up at the time and I guess every time he saw them he saw us, or I should say him, inheriting what they’d slaved their whole life for. My mother pretty much ate up whatever he said but my father never showed any signs of being charmed. My mother pretty much married him to me. She says he looks like the catcher for the Atlanta Braves. Javy Lopez, or something like that, only smaller.

I hesitate and then address him. Justin, I say, and he spits into the Pepsi bottle, keeping his eyes on the TV.

What, hon? he asks.

The lights hit the window through the curtains. For a moment, the tractor and the cowbells and pots and pans drown out the TV. The tractor’s engine dies, and there is nothing but the sound of voices, a scraping of feet jumping off the trailer into the gravel, and a few rattles from the cowbells.

Who’s that? he asks.

It’s a Shivaree party, I say. Do you remember me telling you about what a Shivaree is?

I think so. So I guess they’re going to throw us in a pond or creek, right?

Yeah, I say. Do you have any cigars? If you have cigars and candy to give to them, they can’t do anything.

No, I don’t have any. Didn’t you get some that first week after we were married? he asks. It seems like I remember us making a special trip to Wal-Mart just to get them.

I found the bag, I say, but the cigars were gone. I think Frank took them. You know how he’s always making himself at home.

So I guess we’re screwed, then? What are we going to do?

Well, I say, feeling a lump clog my throat, if I have the candy I don’t have to go in. The cigars always fall on the men in my family’s Shivarees.

He eyes me with what I think is suspicion, but he’s too comfortable in the recliner to take anything seriously.

Eh, they won’t do anything, he says. I mean, it’s freezing out, right? It’d be crazy to throw someone in a pond on a night like this. It might even be too iced over to throw someone in even if you wanted to.

I smile to myself, knowing he hasn’t thought that Shivaree might mean cold. I’m not sure myself. I just know it’s something my father’s family practiced with some regularity.

Maybe not, I say, but don’t be surprised if they do.

There’s no way to get out of it? he asks. I got some Copenhagen. Reckon they might take that instead?

I say, I don’t know, maybe, but even as I say it I know that I know. I get up and pick up the empty plate beside him. I drop it into the sink and go to the front door and flick on the porch light. The night air fogs out of their noses and mouths and the younger kids’ faces are bursting with anticipation. They are bundled up in coveralls, toboggans, ski masks, scarves, and gloves. Uncle Anthony stands in front of everyone, gesturing with his big hands to ask for quiet. I open the door and step out on the porch. Anthony holds up his gloved hand and brings three fingers down one by one. When the last one drops everyone yells, Cigars and candy! I manage to laugh lightly and holler back, I’ve got the candy but I don’t have the cigars.

They walk toward the porch, and I go to the window and get the bag of candy. As Anthony comes through the door I hand it to him. He takes the bag from me, and scoops out a Carmel and hands it back to the kids. He looks comical as usual, with some kind of pilot goggles on his forehead and white furry earmuffs coming down under his beat-up John Deere cap. He’s trained the cap’s bill into a sharp, triangular angle that always reminds me of the roof of a barn. Where is he? he asks.

He’s in the recliner watching bull riding as usual, I say. I don’t think he believed me when I told him what you were planning to do.

Anthony smiles and sticks his false teeth out at me the way he used to do when I was a kid. He looks at the short and stocky Clinton, my uncle by marriage, and his sixteen-year-old son, Shane, who’s already six-four, and says, Let’s get ’im, boys.
I watch them head into the living room. They don’t say a word to my husband. Anthonyabs his arms from behind, and Clinton and Shane come around in front and take a foot apiece. As they bring his body off the recliner up into the air, my husband says, I swear, if you do it you’ll wish you never met me. Uncle Anthony just smiles a little bigger. His attention has been diverted by the bull riding. The horn sounds and the rider comes off in a cloud of dust. He grins down over my husband and says, Didn’t Samantha tell you about our crazy family traditions? Somebody get the door.

At first my husband struggles, but I know who is holding him and know he doesn’t have a chance. When I was a kid Anthony used to grab my knee and ask me if I was boy-crazy, and his grip was more like steel than anything human. My husband looks for me as they bring him through the kitchen, and our eyes lock. Anthony has the tip of his tongue out to his nose as he backs down the steps in front of the door.
I feel the cold air hit my feet. I put my fuzzy slippers and robe back on and follow them through the yard at a distance. Seth, Anthony’s youngest son, is having trouble opening the wire gate across the road.

Anthony says, Pull the top of the post to your chest, Seth.

Seth does and the wire slides over the post easily. They make it through the gate, and Seth turns on his wheat light that he uses for coon hunting and follows directly behind. As they walk down the road toward the nearest pond, I see crystals of frost sparkling in the yellow and matted Bermuda grass. The grass is slick between the ruts of the road and Shane slides down and my husband manages to kick his foot free of his grasp. For a moment I think he’s going to get away but Anthony and Clinton hold firm until Shane times my husband’s kicks just right and gets another hold. It’s not until they get going again that I find I’m out of breath.

Every once in a while I hear my husband grunt in a strain to break free. He cusses them seriously for a while with cries of Let me go assholes and then he goes into denial and says, You bastards won’t do it, you bastards won’t do it.

I’m behind them at a distance with Anthony’s wife, Dana. Dana always makes it a point to attend a Shivaree because she’s been thrown into her own pond. I had been there that night. Someone had gone into their house while they were away and removed the cigars and candy. It took five men to wrestle Anthony into the pond and most of them got just as wet as he did. I remember Dana had come out crying and mad. I think I was the one who held her glasses while they made her take the plunge.

We near the pond. A cold fog rises above its surface in the halo of Seth’s wheat light. Thin pieces of ice float glassily in the brown water. Suddenly a cow looks up with water dripping from her muzzle, her yellowish eyes glowing in the semidarkness. She startles and runs over the high bank, her hooves sounding on the hard ground. Dana and I stop some distance away from the action. They’re holding my husband in front of the pond like a swing, asking if he’s ready for a bath. I hear him ask without adding a curse word, Why are you doing this?

I think that’s the same thing I said, Dana says.

It’s nothing personal, Anthony says. We’ve been doing this for as long as I can remember. You get married, you get Shivareed. I don’t even know myself why we do it.

They begin to swing him then, and I hear my husband say, Wait. You know how Samantha’s mom is. We’re not married anymore. We’re divorced. You know her mom. We don’t know how to tell her. You know how she is.

They keep swinging him. Anthony giggles and hollers to me, Is that true, Sam?

No, I say. He’s just making stuff up.

She’s lying, my husband hisses. She just wants to see me suffer.

Don’t listen to him, I say.

On three, Anthony says.

As they let go of him I hear Justin’s final words: But I don’t love her.

He comes up out of the water and screams. After the first one he lets out two more. The pieces of ice tinkle against one another as the waves ripple against the shore. Everyone stands on the shore giggling and smiling as he wades out in the yellowish white of the wheat light. He comes walking through everyone in his bare feet, his pajama bottoms soaked and transparent and his arms crossed with his hands in his armpits.

Clinton chimes in around a cigarette, Looks like you got some shrinkage there, Justin.

My husband ignores the comment and the laughter. I brace myself as he nears me. I can’t see his face because the wheat light shines behind him and directly into my eyes. He pushes me aside, though there’s plenty of room for him to go around. He pushes hard but I take only one step back. I turn and watch his glistening white back trudging toward the house.

Anthony is behind me. You think he’ll get over it? he asks. You did tell him when you married that you had a crazy family, didn’t you?

Yeah, I did tell him, I say. It’s good for him to get up off that recliner now and then anyway.

We make our way up to the house. I hear Clarence scream and the front door slam.

Sounds like he’s taking it out on the cat, Dana says.

If he hurts that cat I’m gonna hurt him, I hear myself say.

As we near the house I begin calling, Kitty, kitty, kitty. He comes out from behind the house, stepping carefully. I pick him up, examine him, then put him down. I go to the door and find it locked. Everyone stands around the porch not knowing how to act. I go to my car to get the keys, and Anthony follows me.

Have you guys been having trouble? he whispers loudly.

I look up at him. He’s always been my favorite uncle. Although he easily weighs three hundred pounds and has a thick beard, his eyes reveal the youth of a boy. I don’t have any other uncles like him. My father and his five other brothers have always been too concerned with how fat their wallets are to enjoy life but Anthony always had time, whether it was a game of basketball or sitting up on the fender of a tractor so I could feel like I was driving by myself.

Oh, I don’t know if I would call it problems. Maybe we don’t have enough problems is more the case, I say, not quite knowing what I mean.

Hmm, I was just wondering why he said what he said back there.

He just wanted to get out of it, I say, looking away from him.

My body has begun to shake with cold. I don’t have on the clothes everyone else does. I open the front door and tell them to come in. Anthony hesitates and says, Nah, we better not. We may try to get Kenny and Tonya on the way home. I’m pretty sure they’ll have cigars and candy, though.

I hear Seth say, Aw, Dad, it’s cold. They begin piling onto the trailer, going to the front where the square bales of hay make a windbreak, and snuggle in together. Anthony stands alone in the light and says, Call me after a while, so I know you’re all right.

Oh, I’ll be all right. Don’t worry about it, I reply.

Okay, but if anything happens, let me know.

Okay, I say, feeling my sinuses start to hurt as if I want to cry.

I watch him climb onto the seat of the tractor, remembering how it feels to be wedged in the hay with a gang of people on a cold night. He puts the goggles down over his face and brings the scarf from his pocket to wrap around his neck and lower face. He backs the trailer out of the drive and starts down the road. The trailer rattles as their silhouette disappears over the hill against the night sky.

I close the door. The bathroom door down the hall is closed with a light underneath. I don’t know where I want to go. I go to my dishes. The lukewarm water makes me shiver and I instantly feel the need to pee. As I walk by the hall bathroom I hear the shower running. I hold my fist up to knock, think better of it, and go into the bedroom. I leave the bathroom door open here. I sit on the toilet, staring at my feet with my chin in my hand. When I look to the left I see the Pepsi bottle my husband keeps on the nightstand for when he watches my small TV in bed perched on the small table beside a picture of my grandparents and their six boys and one girl.

I pick my father out of the lineup. Like the other three older boys, he has his hair slicked back with Brylecreem and wears a dark suit and tie. Except for Anthony, who looks to be about ten, no one has a smile on his face. My grandmother sits in the middle with my grandfather, her face strained and pinched. The rest of the faces reveal no stories, except that they can and will endure the world for better or worse.

I get up and go into the kitchen. I open the cabinet and take out four trash bags, the TV blaring behind me. I shake them as I walk back down the hall into the bedroom. I double them so that I have two trash bags. I open my closet, then push my shirts and dresses down the rod and bring them out on the bed. I open up my drawers and stuff all my pants, underwear, and socks into the trash bags. I grab my purse and sling the strap around my neck, and pick up the trash bags in one hand, and get what I can of the hung dresses and shirts, and teeter my way down the hall to the front door. As I pass the TV I see the bull rider flopping up on the bull. I know from my husband that the riders tie themselves to the bulls, and, sometimes, when they don’t go the eight seconds like they’re supposed to, they get bucked off before they can untie themselves. The rider’s just helpless until the clowns can either cut the rope or untie it enough to get the hand out. I watch for a few seconds as the bull tramples the rider’s legs with its back feet. The clowns are making jumping passes up on the back of the bull at the rider’s hand. . For once, Donnie Gay is silent.

I can’t open the front door without putting something down, so I put down the hung clothes. I open the door, pick up the hung clothes again, and then put everything back down. I go over to the trash can, take off the lid and dump the contents on the kitchen table. I pick up the tomato sauce can and shake the cigars out on top of the pile so my husband will have to see them. I remember the plate then, which still sits on the counter holding some burned cookies. I let the cookies slide off onto the floor as I walk back and put the plate in with the bag of clothes.

I pick everything up again and make my way to the car. I opened the trunk, throw it all in, and close the lid. I open my door, call Clarence, and pick him up and toss him across to the passenger’s side. The car stalls for a second, starts, and I put it in reverse. Clarence snuggles against me and I push him back into the seat. My teeth chatter as I head up the first graveled hill. Through the snowflake-ice that’s crept halfway down the windshield, I see that the sky has cleared and the full moon gleams directly overhead. The stars sparkle dimly like clean silverware. A barely perceptible dust cloud rises as I near the highway. Clarence sits on his rear as if he can see out. The heat begins to warm my toes, and I switch the blower to the defroster and turn it up full blast. As I come to the end of the gravel road, I see them. Their forms dissolve into the moonlit darkness against the windbreak of hay. I turn my car the other way, listening to the crunch of gravel as my tires take the pavement, and I whisper to no one, “Thank you.”

"The Shivaree" is Keith Wells' first publication. He lives and writes a few miles from the Arkansas state line in Myrle, Missouri.