Life and Limb

by Jennifer Roberson

  Oh. Yeah. Angels and babies and heavenly matter and beacons.

  And hell.

  And Lucifer.

  Shit.

  I had no clue where I was. It was dark, but a glint of light pierced the room along the junction of blackout curtains. Beyond, I heard traffic. I rolled out of bed—literally—and a quick glance proved it was a motel room. But I didn’t recall getting a motel room.

  Nonetheless they came with bathrooms, did motels, and bathrooms came with toilets, and I resolved then and there to pray to the porcelain god. I hastened to make heaving obeisances, rinsed out my mouth when my belly stilled, then lay sprawled upon the tile floor and welcomed the coolness that soothed my face.

  And then, despite the muddlement in my head, memories swarmed in.

  It had happened so long ago—I’d been twelve—but I remembered it clearly because it hurt like holy hell.

  It hurt my little brother, that is. At first. Then it hurt me.

  It was an accident, but also an example of manifest stupidity. And it nearly got Matty killed.

  After the out of control bike with its ten-year-old blindfolded passenger crashed into the neighbor’s car parked at the bottom of the hill, I went tearing to the house screaming for Grandaddy, who was babysitting while our parents were away, who came out the front door with a frown upon his face asking what on earth I was yelling about and did I want to wake the dead? Not a wise thing, waking the dead. They were not pleasant companions.

  Whereupon I poured out the whole story, ending with the frenzied claim that it was an accident, a terrible, horrible accident, but I appeared to have killed my brother.

  Matty, as it turned out, wasn’t dead, just knocked half-silly and had a broken arm. Grandaddy scooped up his disoriented charge, carried him into the house, set him carefully upon the couch, examined his injuries.

  I, panic-stricken, could barely stand still. And when Grandaddy at last said that my baby brother would survive and turned his clear blue eyes upon me, I blurted, “I’ll do anything to take the pain away. Give it to me! It’s my fault!”

  Grandaddy asked, in a very soft voice, “Why on earth did you tell him to wear a blindfold while riding his bicycle down a hilly street?”

  I hugged myself, shoulders thrust nearly to my ears. “It was just something to do. I don’t know. I don’t know. It just was a dare. It was stupid, I was stupid!” I looked fearfully at my brother. “Matty, I’m sorry!” I thought the pain and the dull bewilderment in my brother’s eyes might kill me. It hurt me to my soul. “Make it stop,” I pleaded. “Make him better. Give it to me. Please.”

  Grandaddy stared hard at me, weighing me against something; I just wanted him to hurry up. “There is a way,” he said after a moment, “that serves two purposes. One will relieve him of his pain.”

  “Do it, Grandaddy!”

  “The other will teach a lesson to a very foolish older brother. One who should know better, who should always protect his younger brother. It’s a stewardship, Gabriel.”

  I knew I’d broken a trust. While my father didn’t spare the rod, Grandaddy had never laid a hand on me and never would. But his disappointment mattered terribly.

  And Matty?—Matty didn’t deserve what had come of his ill-advised journey down the hill with a blindfold on his eyes as his older brother laughed like hell, a journey only undertaken because he worshipped me and didn’t want to let me down.

  Matty was crying and his eyes looked weird, like he couldn’t see straight.

  I nodded frantically. “Anything, Grandaddy. Take the pain away.”

  His voice remained quiet, but compelling. “Will you bear it for your brother?”

  I looked at Matty sobbing on the couch. “Always, Grandaddy. I will.” I nodded hard. “I’ll always take his pain. I don’t want Matty to hurt. I don’t want him to be hurt. Let it be me. Let me bear it.”

  Grandaddy’s hand was gentle on Matty’s dark hair, but he looked at me. “You consent to this?”

  I nodded decisively again, and felt the weight of his gaze. I wanted to look away, but Grandaddy did not tolerate any display of submission. Obedience was required, yes; never submission.

  “Do you understand?” he asked. “If you do something stupid, if you do something wrong, there are always consequences. You might have killed your brother.”

  I looked at Matty again, then wiped at my own welling eyes. I thought my chest might burst apart. “I know,” I whispered. “I know, Grandaddy.”

  “Do you understand, Gabriel?”

  I nodded fast and hard.

  “And do you understand the concept of primogeniture?”

  “All passes to the firstborn son,” I answered promptly; I’d learned that from Grandaddy years before. “The eldest inherits all.”

  “Including the rights and responsibilities of his siblings,” Grandaddy said. He looked down at Matty, ran a gentle hand through his hair. “It’s far more than land, than wealth, than material goods. It’s the stewardship of the younger. Matthew is yours, Gabriel, as much as he is your parents,’ and mine. Do you understand?”

  I nodded.

  “You’re old enough, now,” Grandaddy noted, meeting my eyes once more. “Perhaps you’re ready.”

  I realized then he was thinking about something deeper, something more than just healing his youngest grandson and teaching his eldest. “I’m ready.”

  Grandaddy wasn’t quite Grandaddy anymore. He was other. He was more. He wore the face of a man, but reminded me of a story where a man bore the soul of something ancient, and far more powerful.

  “Do you accept this responsibility willingly?” Grandaddy asked. “Even all the pain that accompanies it? It’s a binding, son. A very powerful one.”

  I knew it soul-deep, in the parts of me that bore my name, my selfhood. “I accept it, Grandaddy. Willingly.”

  Grandaddy smiled, teeth glinting briefly in the beard. “Don’t gird your loins quite so hard, Gabriel. It’s not like that. No trumpets, no white light. You’ll just know. It’s duty, and honor, and love, and loyalty, and utter devotion. It’s what no man can take from you. But you can surrender it should you choose.”

  I was certain. “I never would.”

  Grandaddy marked his sincerity. Nodded. “Hold out your arm, Gabriel.”

  I did so, and Grandaddy touched it even as he touched Matty’s, and the pain passed from my brother to me.

  It hurt. It hurt bad. Against my expectations, against my will, I gasped noisily and tears slipped free.

  I’d done this to Matty. I’d done this to my brother.

  Grandaddy didn’t heal my arm once I assumed the pain. Grandaddy made me bear the consequences of my own actions: a broken arm, and a concussion.

  But neither mattered. What mattered was my brother, and even as I inherited Matty’s pain, stunned by its force, my brother fell asleep right there on the couch.

  “Primogeniture. Or, as we say, primogenitura,” Grandaddy told me. “It’s now coded into your soul.”

  * * *

  —

  As I sat upon the bathroom tile and blinked myself out of the then and back into the now, I heard the door open. Despite the protests of stomach and head, I heaved myself upright, made it to knees, reached for the knife sheathed once again at my spine—except it wasn’t there.

  “Hey,” called a voice. “Is it alive?”

  I climbed to sock-clad feet—where the hell were my boots?—clung to the door jamb. Steadied myself, took one step into the room. Saw a man silhouetted briefly against the daylight beyond the open door. A man wearing a cowboy hat.

  Okay, probably didn’t need a knife with him.

  “You are a walkin’, talkin’ example of ‘rode hard and put away wet,’” announced the hat. “Though maybe talkin’ is a bit beyond you just this minute.” He closed the door behind him, shook the
paper bags in his hand. “I picked up some grub. You want anything to eat? Grandaddy’ll be here soon.”

  I frowned, rubbed at my brow. Picked grit out of my eyes. Heard Grandaddy again, inside my head.

  “Do you accept this responsibility willingly? Even all the pain that accompanies it? It’s a binding, son. A very powerful one.”

  I knew it soul-deep, in the parts of me that bore my name, my selfhood. I’d said, “I accept it, Grandaddy. Willingly.”

  I now stood upon the cusp between bathroom and bedroom and stared at the stranger. Grandaddy had said I would remember things. And I had. I recalled the day I caused my brother to crash. But this guy wasn’t Matty.

  “Food?” he asked. “Or maybe hair of the dog? We found a flask of whiskey in your saddlebags.”

  “Primogenitura,” Grandaddy had told me. “It’s now coded into your soul.”

  I blinked hard, thinking about Matty, an older Matty, then pushed those memories away with a hard inner thrust of denial. Not now.

  I ran a hand through tangled hair, snagged some in the ring I’d donned at Grandaddy’s behest. Stared blankly at it a moment, then looked back at the cowboy.

  McCue? McCue.

  “My bike,” I rasped, throat sore from vomiting. “Where is it?”

  “Outside,” he answered. “Grandaddy and I hauled your ass here, dumped you on the bed, then went back and fetched your bike.”

  I was appalled. “You rode my bike?”

  Remi McCue set bags and cups upon the table, moved into something approaching daylight, though dim. Then he ran open the blackout curtains, and I winced away from the vicious assault of daylight.

  “Son, I been ridin’ roughstock for years. Bulls and broncs. A Harley’s downright polite compared to them.”

  I stared at him. A stranger who wasn’t, quite, according to Grandaddy. And there was definitely a strong resemblance between the two of us.

  “Everyone begins as strangers—except in heaven. We are of one host, boys. You’re made of the same matter.”

  I felt a chill touch the base of my spine. “I didn’t dream it, did I? Any of it?” Well, except for Matty’s childhood incident, which I hadn’t thought about in years.

  “Nope, not a dream,” the cowboy said. “Well, unless we had us the same dream. He gave us a plateful, Grandaddy did. While you were snoring off the whiskey, I did me some thinking. The man has never lied to me. Not in my life. And this—” he raised a hand into the air, displayed the ring, “—well, I felt something. And so did you.”

  “You’re bound now. Life and limb. Blood and bone.”

  I gazed again at the ring on my right hand. The middle finger, not the ring finger. Symbolically, the longest finger represented Saturn, the Balance Wheel, a sense of right and wrong, the law, the search for truth and propriety, self-analysis, secretiveness.

  Yeah, I figured being born of heavenly matter maybe led one to self-analysis and secretiveness.

  Silver pentagram set in hard black spinel. Five-pointed star contained within a doubled circle. Co-opted of late by some as representative of black magic, but in early Christian symbolism the basic upright pentagram represented the five wounds of Christ and was considered protection. Alpha and Omega. A spinel, in lore, supposedly boosted energy to power up a spiritual quest. Silver was a precious metal representing purity, purpose, vision, and strength.

  Well, couldn’t be a whole lot more symbolic than all of that.

  Something flew across the room. I caught it out of instinct. “Hair of the dog,” McCue said. “Settle that head. Grandaddy wants to go hiking. Has some more to explain, he says.”

  It was my own flask, silver, embossed with a Celtic cross. I unscrewed the cap, raised it briefly in thanks, sucked down whiskey, then gazed at McCue. I had most certainly been drunk the night before, drunker than I’d been in a long time, but an alcoholic blackout was not numbered among my experiences, not even last night. And I remembered this guy.

  Then I focused on what McCue had said. “Hiking? Does the man not know what a hangover is?”

  Remi laughed. “Well, that’s what he announced. We’ll go up the mountain, gaze upon the world, and listen. That’s what he told me last night, when we dragged your ass in here.” He smiled. “Pretty much what I’ve always done when Grandaddy came calling, though we don’t really have mountains to speak of in Texas. So mostly we walked along the arroyo. You?”

  There were mountains in Oregon, and I had climbed some with my grandfather. But I didn’t say so. Just stared at him. He stared back, expression bland. I don’t know you, I thought. And I don’t want to know you. I’ve lost too much. I can’t invest again.

  And Grandaddy was in my head once more. ‘Remi is someone you’re going to come to know very, very well. Someone with whom you will form a bond unlike any other. Someone upon whose actions your life will depend, and whose life will depend upon your actions.’

  “You know what this reminds me of?” McCue asked.

  I shook my head.

  “Movies where aliens show up, or elves, or witches, and no one seems ever to have heard about ’em. Like it’s all new.” He shrugged. “I mean, yeah, I’m a little skeptical about Area 51, but at least I’m aware of it.”

  “The UFO crash at Roswell,” I added.

  “We know about angels,” McCue said. “We know about Lucifer and Armageddon. The concept isn’t new. It’s just—disbelieved. As reality, I mean. As possibility.”

  I blew out a noisy breath. “Yeah.”

  “Maybe Grandaddy’s lost his mind,” McCue observed. “Maybe he’s senile—unless of course he is what he says he is . . . I don’t rightly think heavenly creatures possess the capacity to go senile, do they?” He shrugged. “Hell if I know. But I’m going to listen to the man.”

  I leaned hip and shoulder against the door jamb. I hated admitting any kind of weakness, and muddled memory, in my view, is indeed a weakness. But I got no vibe from Remi McCue that suggested the man was looking for an edge, for leverage. What I sensed was calmness and possibly an inability to take offense. Which might come in handy if we really were meant to work together.

  I’d been alone a long time. And this guy is not what I’d pick for a shiny new bestie. Nothing against him, but—a biker and a cowboy?

  I looked at him, thinking back to something Grandaddy had said. “What’s your name again? Your full name?”

  “Remiel Isaiah McCue,” he replied. “Remi for short. And you’re Gabriel—what?”

  “Gabriel Jeremiah. Gabe.”

  The cowboy grunted. “Makes more sense, now, though, don’t it? Biblical names. Seems we were named after some big-hat celestial beings.”

  I cast my line carefully, with single-word bait. “Grandaddy’s an angel.”

  “Agent of heaven,” McCue corrected. “Or so he said.”

  “Come on, man, seriously? Like a sports agent? I don’t think so. Angel in disguise, maybe.”

  Remi shrugged. “He can call himself whatever he likes, I guess. I got on my phone last night, did some browsing. I’m somewhat acquainted with the whole angelic hierarchy thing, thanks to schooling, but never thought of it in terms of family.” His eyes were steady. “You buyin’ what he said?”

  I frowned. “Sure sounded like you were last night.”

  “I got no reason to disbelieve the man,” McCue said flatly. “If you look at various cultures and religions, there are commonalities of context that suggest such things as celestial beings—or whatever you want to call them—exist.”

  I drank more whiskey out of the flask. “Maybe.”

  “You’re a folklorist. Master’s, you said?”

  I nodded.

  “But I take it from what you said last night that you don’t believe everything you read.”

  I gusted a cut-off laugh. “Hell, no.”

  A corner of
his mouth twisted. “But I’ll bet you believe that much of folklore has arisen out of ‘commonalities of context.’”

  I smiled, tipped the flask, then screwed the cap back on and deflected again. “I’m guessing you do.”

  McCue picked up one big cup, offered it. “Coffee. I don’t know how you like it; I brought back creamer and sugar, too.”

  “Black. Thanks.” I unwound myself from the door jamb, tossed the capped flask to my bed, took the steps necessary to place myself within reach of nirvana. Even fast food coffee was better than none at all, though the room likely offered a whopping two whole servings via sealed foil bag and cheapo coffeemaker. A glance at the other bed showed me a somewhat rumpled bedspread. “You sleep here?”

  McCue smiled. “Grandaddy and I weren’t sure you wouldn’t choke on your own puke last night, so yeah. We did you the courtesy of removing your boots, but that was it. So your virtue’s still intact.”

  I grunted, peeled back the hatch on the plastic cup lid, sucked down coffee. It had often crossed my mind that this brand was more like 3,000-mile motor oil than actual coffee. Now, in the Pacific Northwest? That was coffee. And it needn’t be pussied up with various flavorings, either.

  “‘Commonalities of context,’” I said after a few swallows, quoting Remi.

  McCue sat down in the chair beside the small table, opened a bag. “Kind of like saying a vast multitude buys into all the bullshit.”

  I smiled; I’d been in conversations like this before, in class and out of it. “But it’s hard to deny when so many cultures share similar backstories. Bits and pieces, I mean. Look at all the cultures that’ve included stories of a Great Flood in their oral and written traditions.”

  McCue dug out a cardboard box holding something approximating a burger, only it was ham and sausage and egg instead. “Your Master’s is in folklore . . . my PhD is in Comparative Religion. You see any parallels there?”

  I captured the other bag, sought my bed. “One can always make an argument that religion is folklore.”

  “I’m talkin’ about you and me.” Remi drank coffee, smiled his slow, crooked smile. “You any good with knives?”