Tilly said, “Speed up, huh? I’d like to be home for my program.”
Inside the hood, Ree came to know the flavors of her own wind. The sound of her own bellows at work. The whistling breaths and smells that were her. She was loudly alive in her own ears and okay to smell.
“That funny one?”
“I never find it all that funny.”
“Then which one do you mean?”
“The one you call the funny one. I just don’t find it to be all that funny. What I like is the puppet that lives in the basement.”
“You remember to bring gas for the chain saw?”
“It’s got gas. I looked at home.”
The bounces became higher. Tires grunted across some uneven surface, a field, a cow path, the rippled earth of a river bottom. During the higher bounces Ree and Tilly bumped together.
The car eased to a stop, and Merab said, “Get the gate.”
“Should I latch it back? Or wait ’til we leave?”
“We’ll latch it leavin’.”
Beyond the gate, the car was driven more slowly, meaning there must not be much of a road beneath the tires. There came a stretch of jolting, rhythmic jolting, the jolts all alike, and Ree guessed they were driving sideways over a cornfield. There was an extra noise that could be the dry crack of corn stalks breaking.
“Where’s the path?”
“Over under them trees.”
“Park there.”
Tilly maneuvered Ree out of the car, holding on to an arm and pushing. The air was cold and had a little slap to it and the sack ruffled. The snow was crusty underfoot, an iced layer of crunch thin on top. Somewhere distant a train neared a crossroad and hooted a warning. The trunk popped open; things were lifted out. Ree stood straight and proud in case the very worst was about to happen and she would soon be presented to the Fist of Gods, and no god craves weaklings.
Merab said, “When I take this sack off your head, you might know where you are. I don’t really think you could, but if you do know where you are, you forget you know it. Get me? Don’t try’n guess where this is, or ever come back here if you know. That won’t be allowed.” The sack was removed with a yank and tossed onto the backseat. Tilly shouldered an ax, the other sister hefted a small chain saw. Merab held a heavy flashlight that threw a long beam. “There’s still a little walkin’ to get there. Follow me.”
A field, a line of trees, a small path with a few paw prints wending deeper into the woods. A plump waxing moon and silvered landscape. Merab followed the beam and led them on a slow wamble across a rankled field, then a slight curving path rose to a balled mound with a knuckled ridge and down again into a vale. It was a coggly path to an iced pond, with a hedge of blowdown barring the way. The logs and branches caused slipping and barked shins, oaths and mutters, but were soon put behind, and the women gathered into a puffing rank, staring down at the stiffened pond.
Merab said, “There he is, child. See that tallest little willow? Your dad’s sunk under it, tied to an engine block.”
The pond in silver light, with the slouched willows and surface of dull ice, instantly became a wrenching vista. Cattails and small nibbling fish in low water, a living grave for Dad. An urge to kneel on the snow waterside passed in a sniff, and Ree moved around the bank toward the tallest little willow. She slipped on the snow, stood, stepped, slipped again. The sisters followed her around the pond to the spot nearest the willow.
Merab said, “I’ll shine the light. You’ll need that ax to open the ice.”
“Then what?”
“He ain’t deep. This water don’t get deep.”
Ree stomped the ice and it creaked but did not crack wide. She took another step, and another, then came back for the ax. She stood on the ice near the willow, raised the ax and put all her feelings into the whacks she delivered unto that pond. It sounded like grievous hammering, hammering met with slushy grunts as the ice shattered and black water splashed. The light shined where the ice had been and freed water heaved.
“He’s right there, child. Underfoot, almost.”
“I don’t see him.”
“You’ve got to reach down’n tug him up for seein’. He ain’t floatin’ no more, but he won’t seem heavy.”
Ree removed Mamaw’s coat and flung it toward Tilly. She dropped to her knees and edged over the ice to the open place. She plunged her arm into the pond and screamed, screamed at the cold, but moved her hand all around. Her hand quickly felt thickened, insensitive and balky, so she pulled it out and stuck in the other.
“Go straight down, not over to the side like that.”
She felt something, something cloth, pulled hard. The light was partial but the main spot was bright. She knew that shirt. A green plaid flannel with the sleeves hacked off at the shoulders. Long johns underneath, with long white sleeves. The long johns felt like mud or moss or both in her hand. She tugged until she saw an ear, then turned her head and puked at the willow. She did not let go as she spewed.
“Here’s the chain saw.”
“What?”
“How else you goin’ to get his hands? They’ll know it’s him by his hands.”
“Oh, no, shit. No.”
“Take the saw—here.”
“No, no.”
The quiet sister held the light. Merab sighed big and loud, then came onto the ice lugging the chain saw and crouched beside Ree. “Don’t think of him as your daddy—just some guy. He’s just some guy.”
Tilly said, “Look away from his face.”
Merab said, “Jesus, shit, we’ll be here all night the way you’re doin’.” She jerked the saw started and leaned toward the shirt. “Hold his arm out straight, child, and I’ll make the cut.”
The saw pissed smoke and rattled and the smoke made dread wisps over the ice and the rattles filled the night. Flecks of meat and wet bone hit Ree in the face and she closed her eyes and felt patters on her eyelids. When the blade cut through, Dad’s body sank away from her grasp but she had his hand from the wrist. She spun and tossed it onto the bank near the sisters.
Merab said, “Why’d you let go? You’ll need both hands or sure as shit they’ll say he cut one off to keep from goin’ to prison. They know that trick. Reach back down there, now—quick. And be careful of his skin—that’s your fingerprints. Your proof.”
The ice gave as she stretched, and she fell into the pond. She felt Dad with her legs, bent into the water and raised him by pulling on his head. His skin felt like pickled eggs. She found the good hand and pulled it toward the chain saw. Her body was gone, she could not feel it below the neck, and a glow spread in her mind. She was on a distant tranquil shore where rainbow-colored birds sang and coconuts dropped bountifully to warm sand. The smoke and rattle, his other hand coming free, the return walk to the car a blur. The sisters peeled her soggy clothes from her frame and shoved her into Mamaw’s coat.
Chapter 35
DAD’S HANDS brought sorrow and a blessing. Deputy Baskin was called and came for the hands the next morning. The sky was piled with bland clouds. Ree and Baskin met on the porch and he stared at Ree, wearing his big hat, with his lips rumpled, pinched tight. Dad’s hands bulged the blindfold-sack, and the burlap was still damp. Baskin said, “How in hell’d you come by these?”
“Somebody flung ’em on the porch last night.”
“They did? They knock first?”
“Nope. I heard the thump. Got up. Found ’em.”
“Uh-huh. I’ll go on’n act like I believe that, girl, out of regards for your grief’n stuff. You know, truth is, a lot of the time I actually sort of liked ol’ Jessup. He wasn’t always all that bad to be around. He could tell a joke good, at least. Amen.” He opened the sack, looked inside, twisted it closed again. “I reckon I’ll run these paws straight in to town, have the doc tell me if they’re his.”
“They’re his, man. It’s Dad’s hands.”
“We’ll know yes or no on that soon enough.” Baskin stood with his legs spread and
his teeth nibbling at his dry lips, the burlap sack swaying. The brim of his hat shaded his eyes. “I didn’t shoot the other night ’cause you were there, you know. In the truck. He never backed me down.”
“It looked to me like he did.”
“Don’t you start sayin’ that to folks around here, girl. Don’t let me hear that’s the story gettin’ around.”
“I don’t talk much about you, man. Ever.”
He rolled the sack tight, rolled it into a compact brown bundle, and stomped down the porch steps. Without looking back at her, he said, “Sometimes I get so fuckin’ sick of you goddam people, know it?”
When the boys came home from school she told them that Dad was gone for good, dead, they wouldn’t see him again, not in this life. Both boys said they already pretty much knew, and Harold asked what heaven was like. “Sandy. Lots of fun birds. Always sunny but never way hot.”
The next day she cleaned Dad’s shed. Rakes and hoes stood in a corner. A punching bag of battered red leather hung chained from a wooden beam. The swaying chain had dug a deep groove into the wood. She kicked the bag. The chain rattled and she remembered how happy she always used to get hearing Dad whip that bag, rattle that chain, make the bag jump. The first year after he came home from the pen he’d spent hours and hours out here, day after day, punching away. He called the bag Hagler and taught her to punch it, too. The leather scraped her bare knuckles raw, and the gloves were so heavy she’d had to wind up ridiculously to heave even a slow round punch. The gloves still dangled by their laces from a nail in the wall.
When the boys came home she met them in the doorway, holding the gloves.
“Another thing you two’ll want to know, is how to fight. I can show you what Dad showed me. Knock the spiderwebs out of them gloves and I’ll lace you both up.”
The boys were very concerned about spiders, spiders inside the old gloves that’d come awake smelling the sweet blood in their young fingers and scurry from cracks in the stuffing to bite. They swatted the gloves against the wall, the potbelly, held them upside down and shook, stuck table forks inside and poked around. Ree pulled the gloves onto their hands, wrapped the laces around their wrists and tied them. Their hands were too small for the gloves but she tied the laces tight so they’d hold. She showed them the basic stance, left foot forward, left fist forward, right fist held back cocked beside the ear.
“Let your weight come along behind your punches, that’s”—she looked from the window to see Uncle Teardrop drive into the yard—“hang on a minute.” She held the door open for her uncle. The boys did not wait for further instructions, but leapt together and began belting each other, swinging and sliding on the wooden floor, ducking behind the couch, the chairs, shrieking as they hit and got hit. Teardrop came into the loud house looking tired, hair limp and uncombed, days of whiskers making his cheeks seem blued, wearing black pants with mud daubs at the cuffs. She tapped his arm, said, “Hey—have a seat.”
He watched the boys with interest. They flailed away with the heavy gloves, and both reddened in struck spots but neither bled. They began to tire quickly, swinging wild blows that fell three feet short of each other, and puffing.
“Bell,” she said. “You sit between rounds.”
Teardrop said, “How is it now over here?”
“Mom’s not good.” Ree gestured toward Mom’s shadowed room. “I think she knows.”
“I expect she knows more’n any of us think.”
“More’n she wants, anyhow.”
The boys were beside the kitchen sink, trying to get glasses from the cupboard while still wearing boxing gloves. Their cheeks were flushed and Harold sniffed. They punched the faucet open and held the glasses with bunched mitts.
“I guess you’ll be needin’ to get some money laid by. I could scare somethin’ up for you, girl, learn you how to earn around here.”
“I won’t touch crank. Crank ain’t for me. Nobody gets better from that shit.”
“There’s other stuff to do, too, if you’ll do it.”
“You boys sit still a minute. I’ll turn the TV on. Sit.”
The picture was fluttery, lines dashing about and warping, but the program was explained by a news announcer’s words, and Teardrop sat on the couch to watch. The boys sat at one end, slurping water, Teardrop at the other, and they sort of saw but mostly heard about big events off in other corners of the Ozarks.
The main news, the news of the world, was just beginning when headlights approached on the rut. Mike Satterfield parked beside the truck and came across the snow, swiping at his long brown hair. He carried a blue plastic sack and had a pistol strapped to his leg. She let him inside without any greeting but a nod. He saw Teardrop on the couch, said, “I know you, don’t I?”
“Yup. Mike, ain’t it? Crick’s boy. I’ve known ol’ Crick since my whiskers came in fuzzy.”
“Is that when you posted your first bond?”
“Before that, even. He used to do my daddy sometimes.”
Satterfield studied Ree more closely in the weak light, said, “Looks like you earned this with blood, kid.” He handed the blue sack to her. “This is yours.”
The sack was fat with crinkled bills.
“How’s it mine?” He sat sideways to the window and sundown, and his eyes threw tiny sparks of color. His chin hair was one step lighter than his head hair and his knuckles were stout and he smelled like town. “Ain’t it his?”
“The fella with no name? He never gave a name and, hell, I couldn’t say for sure the man was ever even all the way awake, but he was sure ’nough good news for you-all when he put this down on Jessup.”
Teardrop stood straight up and walked outside.
Ree said, “Ain’t it still his, though?”
“Ol’ no-name ain’t hardly gonna come back for it, not the way things happened. We took our cut from the cash, and there’s this much left. That makes it yours.”
The boys sensed something special had occurred and stood at Ree’s side with their boxing gloves on her shoulder. They peeked into the bag, and Harold said, “Does this mean you’re leavin’?”
Teardrop’s pacing steps thudded on the porch planks.
Satterfield said, “I don’t know how you did it, kid. How you got out there’n run down the proof and all. Not many could do that. You’re somethin’, kid.”
Words weren’t forming for her, they skittered away, but finally she snatched a few and said them. “Bred’n buttered. I told you that.”
“Does this money mean you’re leavin’?”
Satterfield leaned to her, swatted his hair, shook her hand. “Listen, kid, you ain’t old enough to hire legal’n all that, I know, but if you could get around, drive to town’n places, we’d sure use you. We go the bail for most every Dolly this side of the Eleven Point, you know. Almost all of you-all get bonded out by us. You’d be like gold to me.”
Shadows were long across the yard as Satterfield left. Birds gathered all about in the trees and made their shrill evening noise. She stood on the porch, watching him drive away, then turned to Teardrop. The color of him had changed, paled, paled everywhere but his scar. His hands were jammed deep inside the pockets of his slashed leather jacket. She said, “What? What’s the matter?”
“I know who now.”
“Huh?”
“Jessup. I know who.”
Without hesitation or thought she sprang to him, spread her arms and held him tightly, smelled the raw scent of him, the sweat and smoke, the roiling blood and spirit of her own. She felt she was holding somebody doomed who was already vanishing even as she squeezed her arms around his neck. The shadows had the creek, the valley, the yard, the house. The shadows were over them and she wept, wept against her uncle’s chest. She wept, snuffled, wept, and he hugged her, hugged her ’til her backbone creaked, then broke away. He went down the steps three at a time, hustled to his truck without a backward glance, and was gone.
She sat on the top step trying to dry her eyes with a s
leeve. The birds had so much to say at dusk and said it all together. She laid two fingers high on her nose and pinched a yellow splat to the yard. Ice hung in glaring jags from the roof, poised like a line of spears above the steps. Snow on the steps had been beaten flat by winter boots and become hardened and slick. The boys sat on both sides of her, leaned their heads to her chest, rested boxing gloves in her lap.
Harold said, “Does this mean you’re leavin’? That money?”
“I ain’t leavin’ you boys. Why do you think that?”
“We heard you once, talkin’ ’bout the army and places we wouldn’t be. Are you wantin’ to leave us?”
“Naw. I’d get lost without the weight of you two on my back.”
They sat quietly, the shadows deepening, lights shining in windows across the creek.
Sonny said, “What’ll we do with all that money? Huh? What’s the first thing we’ll get?”
Fading light buttered the ridges until shadows licked them clean and they were lost to fresh nightfall. The birds quieted as the last light darted away. Ree stood and stretched. Twilight dimmed the snow, but icicles overhead held that gleam.
“Wheels.”
Reading Group Guide
WINTER’S BONE
A Novel
Daniel Woodrell
A CONVERSATION WITH DANIEL WOODRELL
Explain the title of your latest novel, Winter’s Bone.
The “winter’s” part of the title is obvious, and the “bone” part comes from slang. It can be stated wryly, sarcastically, even tenderly, when throwing a sop to someone, “Oh, give him a bone.” In this case, it is winter itself giving a gift, a bone, to Ree Dolly. The season knows she has earned it, and the term suggests the double-edged aspect of the gesture and is suited to the novel.
Ree Dolly signifies a departure from the rough, wild misfits about whom you frequently write. She’s a very strong, very serious young woman. After all of the charmingly dysfunctional characters, including the other Dolly family members, where did Ree come from?
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