Bone White

by Ronald Malfi

  “I’ll shoot you, motherfucker,” she uttered, tasting acid at the back of her throat.

  The dog turned and padded around the far side of the trailer, leaving her alone.

  She backed out of the driveway and sped out of Winsock, the windows down despite the cold. Her entire body felt feverish again. It wasn’t until Winsock was a tiny dot in the rearview mirror did she begin to calm down.

  31

  He didn’t realize he was asleep until Danny was standing above him, shaking him awake. It was night, the interior of the cabin lit only by the glow of the stove’s embers behind the iron grate in the middle of the room. Danny’s face looked like a mask, his wild hair and unkempt beard part of some elaborate disguise.

  “Come with me,” Danny breathed into his face. “Get up.”

  Paul slid his legs over the side of the makeshift bed, wincing at the pain in his toes and the stiffness of his legs. His left foot felt like it was filled with shards of broken glass. Danny draped a coat over him and helped him to his feet.

  “The hell’s going on? Where are we going?”

  “Outside,” said Danny.

  “What’s outside?”

  Danny crossed the cabin and flung open the door. Icy wind flooded the interior of the cabin, and doused the embers in the stove. The cold struck Paul with solid force, so strong and invasive and all-encompassing that he forgot about the agony in his left foot.

  Danny hurried outside into the night. Snow swirled around the open doorway. Paul campaigned toward the doorway at a slow pace, bells and whistles going off in his head. Something wasn’t right here. Something was off. He slipped his arms into the sleeves of the loose coat Danny had draped over him and buttoned it up. Above his head, the contingent of little wooden crosses fluttered and spun and spiraled in the wind.

  Stepping out into the night was like jumping into ice water. An agonized cry crawled from his throat. His aching feet, covered in multiple layers of animal furs, cried right along with him. He took a few steps out into the clearing, his rabbit-hide boots cleaving through the snow.

  The night sky looked like the bottom of an underwater trench. There were no stars. Wind howled and whipped the trees into a frenzy. With each gust, tornadoes of snow spiraled across the ground. Ice pellets struck his face and burned against his flesh.

  Danny stood in the center of the clearing, his rifle in his hands. He was scanning the nearby tree line, his hair rippling behind him in the wind.

  “Danny! Danny!”

  Danny turned and waved him forward. Paul thought it was easier said than done: It felt like it was twenty below out here, and despite the multiple layers, he could feel the frigid air permeating his flesh straight down to the marrow of his bones. Gritting his teeth, he advanced toward Danny, the icy wind searing the dry pockets of flesh below his cheeks. He began to shake. His feet felt like they each weighed three hundred pounds.

  Danny stepped toward the perimeter of crosses, his rifle aimed at the chasm of darkness that filled the gaps between the trees. He paused on this side of the crosses, with only the barrel of the gun extended beyond the barrier. A moment later, there was a loud crack. A large pine bough dropped from a nearby tree, crashing through other branches on its way down. It struck the ground in an expulsion of white powder.

  “Danny!” Paul shouted over the wind.

  Danny held up one hand in his direction—the universal gesture for stop—but he did not turn around and look at him. He didn’t take his eyes off of that dark patch of forest.

  Paul heard a hollow chattering around the far side of the cabin. He looked and saw the ram skeleton dancing wildly in the tree.

  Danny came up alongside him. There was a runner of snot crystalizing in his mustache and his eyes were narrowed to slits. The steel barrel of the rifle gleamed a bright blue in the moonlight. He pointed toward the spot where he’d been staring just a moment ago.

  “There’s something there.”

  “What?”

  “There’s something there,” Danny repeated. “Go see. But stay behind the crosses.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Just go and take a look.”

  Holding one hand up in front of his face to block out the driving sleet, Paul hobbled through the snow and stopped before the line of wooden crosses.

  Paul looked up at the black forest that loomed before him. He could hear more branches falling from the trees. In the periphery of his vision, he thought he saw movement in the darkness all around him.

  “Stay,” Danny called to him. “Stay there.”

  Snow crystals peppered his face like buckshot. The pain in his feet had lulled to a dull nothingness, and Paul didn’t know whether this was a blessing or if it signaled certain doom.

  “Stay,” Danny commanded.

  “I’m not a fucking dog!” Paul shouted back.

  Something darted through the blackness beyond the trees. Paul caught it at the very last second. It was just a glimpse, yet he couldn’t deny that something was there. It wasn’t just another falling tree limb.

  “Did you see it?” Danny called to him.

  “What am I looking for?” When Danny didn’t answer, he raised his voice and repeated the question: “What the hell am I looking for?”

  There came the dry, brittle cracks of a tree trunk breaking against the strength of the wind. It sounded so close that Paul took a step backward and glanced up, half-expecting a large pine tree to come barreling down on him through the darkness. A tree did come down, shearing tree limbs and kicking up clouds of snow in its descent, but this one crashed to the earth maybe twenty feet from him, falling very close to the outer perimeter of the crosses. Clouds of snow roiled out of the woods like smoke from a fire.

  After a moment, Paul realized that the wind had died down, and that the rush of air that filled his ears was his own labored respiration.

  Danny came up behind him and clapped a hand on his shoulder.

  “What the hell was all that?” Paul gasped.

  “Did you see it?” Danny said. “It was out there. It moved around the clearing and cut down into the ravine.”

  “What did?”

  “The devil. The devil, Paul.” Danny surveyed the dark forest all around them. “It’s not setting any traps for you. No tricks this time around. It’s coming straight for you. It’s already got a handhold around your heart.” Danny turned to him, and Paul was startled to find tears standing in his brother’s eyes. “I’m not gonna let it get you, Paul. I promise. I’m not gonna let it get you.”

  Danny’s hand dropped off his shoulder. Paul watched as Danny went over to make sure the crosses closest to the fallen tree were still secure in the ground. The wind had died, but there were still little whirlwinds of snow spiraling across the clearing. On the far side of the cabin, the sheep skeleton danced its terrible dance.

  I’m not gonna let it get you, Paul. I promise.

  Yet Paul couldn’t shake the feeling that Danny had just used him as bait.

  32

  The solution came to him two days later, as he helped Danny build a fire for their breakfast. Danny only checked his traps in the mornings, and whatever he’d caught was what they ate for all three meals of the day. But twice a day—in the early morning and again just before dusk—Danny would disappear for an hour or two into the woods by himself, his rifle hanging over one shoulder, his revolver tucked into the rear waistband of his pants. These were perimeter checks, Danny informed him; he’d circle the cabin in a widening gyre that sometimes covered several miles. Paul didn’t ask him what the purpose of these checks was, mainly because he was afraid of the answer. Before he left, Danny would suggest that Paul read a book and keep off his aching feet while he was away, and usually Paul did . . . although he always had one ear cocked for the sound of gunfire in the distance.

  Danny was adamant that Paul remain within the circle of crosses, particularly when Danny was out on one of his perimeter checks. It was safer that way, Danny said. So Paul rem
ained behind in what he came to think of as the Cross Corral, like a puppy with nothing better to do than stare off into the forest and wait for his master to come home. On the two occasions when Danny taught Paul how to shoot the rifle, Paul remained behind the Cross Corral while Danny traipsed into the forest to hang targets.

  Having never fired a gun before, Paul took to these lessons with reluctant assiduousness. Danny instructed him on what to do and Paul did it. The rifle’s shoulder-stock stamped purple-green bruises along his right shoulder, and after only a half hour of shooting, there wasn’t enough water in the world to wash the acrid taste of gunpowder from the back of his mouth.

  Paul never asked why it was so important he learn to shoot, mainly because he thought he knew the answer. He just narrowed the focus of his mind and got through it, ignoring the larger picture all around him. He’d only broached the subject once. He had just finished firing at a target fifteen yards away, and had a nice grouping to show for it, when he lowered the barrel of the gun and said, “How will I know which ones to shoot when the time comes?”

  Danny hadn’t required elaboration. And his response, as simple as it was, chilled Paul down to the core: “I’ll tell you.”

  Paul began to grow frightened by the prospect of some stranger coming through the woods and happening upon the cabin. Every time he heard movement beyond the trees, he prayed it was an animal. He was terrified that some waylaid hunter might come stumbling into the clearing, looking for directions or trying to get better cell phone reception, only to have half his face sheared off by a .30-06 Springfield cartridge.

  It was over the course of these two days that Paul began formulating various plans on how to get Danny back to civilization. The easiest scenario would be for Paul to leave the cabin on his own while Danny was away on one of his perimeter checks, and hike down through the woods toward Dread’s Hand. He could call Jill Ryerson and say he found his brother and that Danny was in need of medical attention. Yet Paul was tormented by the vision of his brother rotting away in some prison cell for his crimes. Did Alaska have the death penalty? He wondered if he could talk Ryerson into recommending psychiatric institutionalization over a prison cell. But was that really any better?

  For a time, Paul considered striking Danny over the head and knocking him unconscious. People in movies made it look easy, but Paul worried that striking Danny over the head might result in dire and even fatal complications. Instead, he thought he might be able to drug him and render him unconscious. There were enough pills in the arsenal Danny kept in the cabin. Once Danny was unconscious, Paul could load him onto the sledge and drag him down through the foothills, much like Danny had dragged him here when he found him semiconscious in the woods.

  The main problem with all of those scenarios was that they required Paul to navigate the forest and make it back to Dread’s Hand on his own. He’d already gotten lost once out there. What would happen if he knocked Danny unconscious and started dragging him away, only to get lost out there again? They were in the foothills, and logic dictated that if he continued walking at a downward slope, he’d ultimately reach the town or the road that ran through it from the highway. But that logic had only gotten him lost all those nights ago. It hadn’t worked. Also, could he even pull Danny on the sledge with his ruined feet?

  There hasn’t been a single airplane overhead. I haven’t heard the gunshots from hunters’ rifles out here, either. It’s almost as if we’re in an entirely different world, the only two living human beings. All of a sudden, he could picture himself walking down through the woods for days, weeks, months at a time, and never coming upon civilization, or even flat land for that matter—that the rest of his life was doomed to be one continual downward trek through the mountains.

  The day before, he had commented on the state of his two purpled toes. “They’re frostbitten,” he had explained to Danny. “They’re gonna cause trouble. I need to go to a hospital, Dan.”

  But Danny hadn’t been swayed. “They’re not gangrenous. I’ve been keeping an eye on them.”

  “They hurt.”

  “I can take care of it,” Danny said, and Paul wondered just how Danny might do that.

  Amputation, Paul thought, shivering in the corner of the cabin. He’ll dope me up and take them off with his hunting knife. Easy as pie.

  It just showed how adamant Danny was about staying put. Even Paul’s own deteriorating health wasn’t enough to coax Danny back to civilization.

  It was on that second morning, while he prepared a fire inside a wreath of rocks so that Danny could cook their breakfast, that the solution came to him. The second he thought of it, he knew it was the only plan that would work. It was so simple that it should have been staring him in the face all along, and he began trembling at the prospect of it.

  I’ll set the goddamn cabin on fire and burn it to the ground. There’s enough accelerant in there to do the job, and once these old tinder walls go up, there’ll be no stopping it. Winter’s almost here, and it’s already around twenty below at night. Without shelter, he’ll have no choice but to come back down out of the woods with me.

  It would have to work.

  He decided to wait until Danny left for his morning perimeter check, which meant he was a bundle of nerves during their breakfast of whatever rat-like thing Danny had managed to snare in one of his cages. Talk was minimal and Danny looked exhausted. There had been another midnight rousing the night before, Danny shaking him awake and ushering him outside into the cold. There had been no wind this time, and the night had been as silent and still as a crypt. Danny had urged him to walk around the perimeter of the Cross Corral, and Paul had complied, his entire body aching, his feet like two hollow cinder blocks attached to his ankles. He had seen nothing, and after a time, Danny allowed him to go back to sleep. But Danny had remained awake, sitting outside by a campfire, his rifle across his legs, staring out into the darkness.

  “What’s with the skeleton of that animal hanging in the tree?” Paul asked midway through breakfast. It was still as black as night outside, without even the barest shimmer of daylight glowing through the cracks of the cabin walls.

  “It’s me,” Danny said. He was scraping the remainder of his meal from a tin pot and shoveling it into his mouth. When he looked up at Paul, he must have seen the dour expression on his brother’s face. “I’d been here at the cabin for three days, and Mallory wouldn’t let me leave. He said I was being stalked, just like you are now. He said it would come for me in the night. And it did. But I got it. Mallory showed me how.”

  “What exactly did you get?”

  “It’s funny,” Danny said, “but I thought it was you at first. I went out into the woods and there was this guy standing right there, a few feet away, in the trees. A stranger, I thought, somehow out here with us in the middle of nowhere. It was dark, but when he took a step toward me and the moonlight struck his face, it looked just like you, Paul.”

  “Or you,” Paul said.

  “Yeah,” Danny said. “That’s the point, though, right?”

  “Is it?” Paul said. “I have no idea.”

  Danny set his food down on the cabin floor. “It tries to trick you. It shows you an image of yourself to confuse you. But Mallory had warned me, and I wasn’t confused. I shot it and killed it.”

  “A man?”

  “No. Just a trick. It wasn’t a man. Not really. After I shot it, I saw it was just a sheep. I skinned it, cleaned the bones, and hung it out back as a reminder.”

  “A reminder of what?”

  “That I’m here for a reason. That I’m on this mission now.”

  “Because you shot a sheep . . .”

  “Because I beat it at its own game,” Danny said. “Everything became clear once I killed it. I broke the spell. I began having these vivid dreams. Sleepwalking a little, too. I’d make these circles in the ground outside, digging with my hands while I slept. Circles with a line through them.”

  “A symbol of the Keepers,” Paul said
.

  Danny’s eyes widened. “Yes. How’d you know that? Have you dreamed it, too?”

  He was thinking about the afternoon he’d passed out in the classroom and how he’d scribbled the circle with the slash through it on the floor in chalk. But he chased the thought away just as quickly as it had arrived.

  “Someone back in the village told me about it,” he said instead.

  “Well,” Danny continued, “Mallory told me how it worked—how it had been working for more than a hundred years. He said that the Inuit people out here had done it since the beginning of time, and that he was going to teach me.” Danny’s lips went tight. “I think he was starting to go crazy out here by the time I came along.”

  “You think?” Paul said, unable to restrain the sarcasm in his voice.

  “I had my doubts that I’d be able to tell if someone was . . . well, bone white . . . in the very beginning. Just like you. But Mallory said I’d know when I came upon the right person. And he was right.”

  “How many people have you killed out here, Dan?”

  “I told you,” he said. “They’re not people. They’re husks of people with something black and evil walking around inside them. That’s why killing them isn’t enough. You have to remove the heads, too, and bury them. For a while, it’s okay to just . . . just bury them where you can . . . but Mallory began wondering toward the end if those bodies shouldn’t be buried in consecrated ground. A holy cemetery somewhere.”

  “How many of these . . . these devils have you killed?”

  “It’s only one devil. Poisons you by touch. A spiritual touch. He almost got me, you know.”