Beneath the Ashes

by Sue Henry

  “N-no,” she wailed, desperately waving Jessie away.

  Ignoring her motion and cry, Jessie stepped up to stand beside her and look into the hole that had been laboriously scratched out of the half-frozen earth.

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  Her first thought was that the bones were those of an animal—a dog, perhaps, that Anne had loved and

  buried when it died. Then, she noticed the metal box in which they lay, the stained fabric Anne had carefully folded back, and recognized their shape and size.

  Horrified, she realized that she was looking at the bones of a child so small it could only have died at birth or before.

  Or been killed.

  Oh, no.

  No?

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  JESSIE STOOD STARING DOWN AT THE TINY

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  BONES

  NNE

  Holman sobbing beside her. This discovery was such a shock she couldn’t seem to gather her thoughts or know what to feel. Laying a sympathetic hand gently on her friend’s shoulder, she simply stayed where she was and waited for the tears of grief and regret to end and some explanation to begin. When the sobbing finally slowed, she pulled a handful of tissues from her parka pocket and handed them to Anne.

  “Here. Leave it. Let’s go build another fire and make some tea.”

  Anne nodded but, without a word, carefully folded the fabric back over the small skeleton, replaced the lid on the metal box, and picked it up. Now that she had found it, she obviously wasn’t going to rebury or leave it. Clutching it close with one hand, using the other for balance while wallowing back across the deep snow, she stumbled half blind through the trees to the place they had built the first fire, and sat down on the log to watch as Jessie lit the wood she had collected. Neither 123

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  woman said anything until the water boiled under Jessie’s camp kettle and they each had a mug of tea in hand.

  Anne had laid the metal box beside her on the log in order to take the steaming mug. Jessie sat down with it between them, laid her fingertips on what she could only consider a small coffin, and, remembering her earlier decision not to force facts from Anne, spoke softly.

  “Do you want to tell me about this?”

  Anne sipped her tea, took a shaky breath, and exhaled a deep sigh in a mist that was visible on the air for a moment. “I guess I’d better. Right?”

  “I’d like to know.”

  “There’s a lot you don’t understand.”

  “Um-m-m.”

  “It’s mine. At least it was mine.”

  Jessie waited.

  “You see, after the fire that killed Cal’s kids, I found out I was pregnant. I panicked—didn’t know what to do. There was that whole investigation going on—Tatum so damned obsessed with proving I was

  responsible. Cal and I weren’t even speaking anymore. He was telling Tatum all sorts of things that weren’t true. I was terrified that if I told anyone I was pregnant, Tatum would find out, tell everyone it was Cal’s, and use it to prove I’d had a reason to start the fire.”

  It could have provided a motive, Jessie thought, but didn’t say so—a motive for Anne or Mulligan or his wife. Sandra? Sharon? Shana. She frowned a little, wondering.

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  “But I’d met Greg,” Anne continued. “He liked

  me—really liked me—said he loved me. When he

  asked me to get married, I said yes. It solved everything. Do you see?”

  “Yes, I guess it would have, wouldn’t it? But you didn’t love him?”

  “No, you’re right—I didn’t, but I didn’t have much of a choice, did I? But I got to care about him—later.

  That’s part of why I didn’t leave him before.”

  What had happened to make Anne leave him now?

  Jessie questioned. There must have been something—

  a reason.

  “Did you tell him?”

  “About the baby? God, no. I meant to, but then I just couldn’t. I was afraid he wouldn’t marry me.”

  “So you let him think it was his?”

  “Yeah. I know that was bad, but I was really scared, Jessie. What would you have done? It wasn’t my fault.”

  I wouldn’t have been in that situation in the first place, Jessie thought.

  “Why didn’t you . . . ?” she began, slowly.

  “Get an abortion? I thought about it, but I’m

  Catholic—sort of—used to be anyway. Besides, I

  wanted it—really wanted it.”

  “Why?”

  Anne’s expression of disbelief told Jessie that her friend couldn’t imagine anyone not wanting a child.

  “You know. Doesn’t everyone love children? It would have been someone of my own—someone who

  would love me. I always wanted that. It would have made everything okay.”

  Jessie wondered what everything was to Anne, men-

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  tally winced at the word own and the assumption of such requited love. “Did Greg want it?”

  “Well—no. That got to be another problem. He

  didn’t want kids at all. Said that with the world the way it is—violent—and no child got the choice to be

  born—he didn’t want to make that choice for it. When he found out I was pregnant—that’s when he started hitting me.”

  “So, you were pregnant when I knew you.”

  “Yeah, but you left before it showed much. It was winter. I was always in fat clothes anyway—sweaters, parka, that kind of stuff. It was easy to hide.”

  “So what happened? And what are you going to do

  with that?” Jessie pointed at the metal box that held the tiny bones.

  “I’m going to take it to the police, so I can prove Greg killed it. They must have some way of proving how it was killed. Then they’ll put him in jail and I can go where I want and stop worrying about him finding me—hurting me. And they’ll know for sure I didn’t start that fire at Mulligans. Then I’m going to bury it someplace better than up here—with a stone and

  everything.”

  Jessie was momentarily speechless. She stared at Anne and thought hard about this idea. How was she rationalizing all that from a few small bones in a metal box? Was she delusional?

  “He killed it?”

  “Of course. I wanted it.”

  “So you’re going to tell them all of it? Even with Tatum still suspicious? He won’t believe you.”

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  “Well—I don’t like that part of it, but—if I go to the police instead—”

  “It’ll be the troopers, Anne. This didn’t happen in town. It happened out here, right?”

  “Yeah, well—whatever. At least it won’t be Tatum.

  It’ll get him off of me.”

  “It won’t when he finds this out—and that some-

  body burned your cabin ten years ago.”

  “Greg burned the cabin. How can that hurt me?”

  “Can you prove that?”

  Anne thought about it.

  “How could I have done it? He’s the one who kept burning stuff. You can tell them that.”

  “I told you, I don’t remember that.”

  “But you could tell them that.”

  “I won’t lie, Anne.”

  They stared at each other, each astonished that they couldn’t agree on something so basic.

  “It wouldn’t really be a lie,” Anne said, finally. “It happened. You just don’t remember.”

  Jessie shook her head and stood up. “It would be a lie, because I don’t remember any such thing.”

  Anne frowned and refused to look up at her.

  “Come on.” Jessie changed the subject. “Let’s put out the fire and finish digging up your money.”

  “Don’t bother,” Anne spit the words at her, angry and impatient. “The
re isn’t anything there. This is what I really wanted.” She picked up the metal box again and hugged it.

  Jessie was suddenly furious, sympathy disappearing like fog in sunlight. Another lie. How many had she

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  been told? Was there truth buried anywhere in any of this?

  “Why can’t you just be honest with me?” she de-

  manded. “You keep telling one lie after another, then expect me to help with whatever you want—whatever you think you need—to trust you—even lie for you.

  How can I?”

  Grabbing up the shovel, she stomped off through the snow, around what remained of the ruin of the Holman cabin, toward her sled and team, ready to harness them together and quickly get away from this place and the whole unsettling situation. Once again, all she wanted was Anne Holman out of her life—to be home in her own, much-loved cabin, in peace and security, with nothing to interrupt what was important to her—the spring training of her young dogs.

  “I just want to get out of here,” Anne called after her, echoing her thoughts.

  “You’ve got that right,” Jessie replied, without turning. “As fast as I can manage it.”

  Falling to her knees in the snow to pet Tank and croon indulgent phrases concerning his trustworthi-ness, she didn’t see the look of sullen resentment on Anne’s face as she watched her go or hear the curses mouthed behind her back.

  An hour later, Anne in the sled once again, dogs pulling happily, they were back on the trail, heading toward the Forks Roadhouse, Petersville Road, and the Kroto Creek pull-out, where Jessie’s truck waited.

  Anne had sulked but had helped to collect their belongings from the cabin. She had put the metal box

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  with its infant bones in her day pack and held it on her lap in the sled. Jessie had noticed that she had no trouble making room in the pack for the box and wondered what Anne had discarded, for it had been full on the trip into Little Peters Hills. Unwilling to initiate another argument with her stubbornly resentful passenger, however, she asked no questions. What could it matter, anyway?

  She made no stops on the trip down, but main-

  tained a steady pace and they arrived back at the pickup at a little after noon. Though it was a brilliant sunny day—mild, with no wind—that made for extremely pleasant running, invisible angry thunderclouds had continued to hang over the sled and its riders, so Jessie had simply pretended she was alone and enjoyed the efficient working of her dogs in their spectacular surroundings. The summit of Mount McKinley had

  continued clear, with only a small cap of cloud that hung above it like a halo. The shining crystal white of its glaciers, ridges, and slopes fell like a robe with deep-blue shadows between the folds, bringing a

  smile to mind as she envisioned an enormous angel, minus the wings.

  Arriving at Kroto Creek, Jessie found two young

  men loading their heavy snowmachines onto a trailer behind their truck. They greeted her with recognition, friendly smiles, and interest in her team, asking permission to pet the dogs and asking a few questions about distance racing. Anne had silently and immediately climbed into the pickup, leaving Jessie to unharness and load her dogs. It exasperated her that she had to ask the snowmachiners to help her lift the long sled

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  to the top of the dog box and secure it for travel, though they were happy to assist.

  As soon as Jessie had driven east on Petersville Road, reached Trapper Creek, and swung her truck back onto the Parks Highway, heading south toward Wasilla, Anne, who had said nothing, curled up facing the passenger window and went to sleep, or pretended to, clutching the day pack with its sad contents. It was a long, unhappy return trip, with no conversation.

  Jessie was not displeased to be able to ignore her companion and consider the unsettling events of the last two days that had seemed to happen one after another, without warning or cessation, leaving her off balance and struggling for answers—and peace. Fires, demands, secrets, deceit—now this problem of a more deadly nature, contained in a metal box. It all felt confusingly out of control—as if somehow it had nothing, yet everything, to do with her. Had she had choices?

  Had she made bad ones? Could she have anticipated and avoided them? She felt exhausted and discouraged, as if she had seen only the middle part of some action-adventure movie, with no way of knowing how it had started or would end.

  She flipped on the radio, searching for some upbeat music to take her mind off the problems at hand, and caught the last few bars of a country-western song she almost recognized. Still feeling disheartened, she was listening with only half her attention, when the bright introductory music-box notes of an old Stevie Nicks’

  song filled the cab, catching her off guard and vulnerable. It was a tune of such an infectious rhythm that she had hardly been able to sit still when it played. To-

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  gether, she and Alex Jensen had danced to it—and smiled at the words, for some of them held fairly accurate personal meanings. Phrases like “have my own life” and “stronger than you know” had made Alex grin and point a defining finger in her direction. Others, like

  “lovers forever,” had never passed without a hug and a moment of sweetness. Coming now, out of nowhere, it brought sudden tears that blurred the road, as she suddenly missed him with an intensity that closed her throat and turned in her stomach like a shard of glass.

  “Dammit.” Angrily, she twisted the radio knob and the music disappeared into static. Switching it off, Jessie swiped at her eyes with the back of her hand.

  Whatever happened to normal people?

  Anne shifted position slightly, but did not respond.

  No more, Jessie told herself, with an impulsive

  surge of energy.

  So, what can you do?

  I can stop letting things just happen. I can take control of what’s going on that concerns me.

  Like?

  Like making sure that someone who knows what to

  do finds out about the remains of her baby.

  Tatum?

  No. I don’t like Tatum or trust him. Becker would be better. I can also make sure that Anne leaves my house.

  I won’t be responsible for her, or her problems, any longer.

  That’s reasonable, probably best, but . . . It’s really not your responsibility. Let her do what she says she wants to. But if she doesn’t . . .

  No buts. She promised to go. Tomorrow she will.

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  Why not tonight?

  I’m too tired. I don’t want to get involved in any more lies—or any long explanations to Becker tonight.

  It can wait till tomorrow. That’s soon enough.

  It wouldn’t be, but Jessie had no more way of knowing that than she could have predicted what they had found at the cabin site in the Little Peters Hills.

  When they arrived at her cabin on Knik Road, Jessie spent two hours with Billy and her dogs, feeding and watering, appreciating them, checking the health and welfare of each. Then she went into the puppy pen and lost herself in their half-grown enthusiasms and clown-ish behavior for half an hour, which brought back some of her good humor.

  Anne had made dinner for them both and packed up all her things in preparation for leaving the next day.

  They ate with hardly a word, and it was clear she was still bitter with unreasonable resentment.

  After dinner, she disappeared for a long shower, leaving Jessie to do the dishes and clean up the kitchen. By the time she came out almost an hour later, Jessie, wanting a shower herself, was gritting her teeth with irritation. This did not lessen when she found that Anne had made a wreck of the small bathroom. Damp towels had been left on the floor; the soap lay dissolv-ing in the bottom of the shower; and the sink was covered with toothpaste, short pieces of hair, a used razor blade, and a
streak or two of blood, where Anne had evidently shaved her legs and cut herself. Altogether unacceptable and distasteful, it exasperated Jessie further to have to clean the room before she could comfortably clean herself.

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  “Do you need a Band-Aid?” she asked Anne a bit

  sharply, when she returned to the living room, feeling better after her own shower.

  “No, thank you,” Anne replied stiffly formal, without looking up from the television program she was watching. “I’m just fine.”

  Jessie went to bed and quickly to sleep. But it wasn’t long until Anne turned off the television and the lights and a long, dark, waiting silence fell over the cabin.

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  IN THE DARK TWO ’

  O CLOCK STILLNESS OF JESSIE’S

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  CABIN

  the only sounds were tiny hisses and cracklings from the banked fire in the woodstove and a small rustle of blankets and sheets as Jessie turned over in her big brass bed and settled again. Anne was almost hidden under a pile of blankets on the sofa.

  The yard was empty, every dog curled up warmly on the straw inside its box. A pickup driving late on Knik Road passed with only a whisper, had anyone been listening inside the log structure. There was no wind, so even the trees in the surrounding forest were silent in the dim light of the faraway stars and the thin rim of a new moon in the western sky.

  Under one corner of the cabin, in the crawl space directly beneath the bedroom, there was the sudden tiny click of metal touching metal, as the readout of a digital timer reached zero and closed an electrical circuit, causing a spark along wires piercing a plastic bottle of cigarette lighter fluid. The bottle exploded with a pop that went unnoticed, casting a wide circle of fire that 134

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  lit the crumpled newspaper and wood shavings that had been spread heavily on the ground and, in a place or two, ignited the exposed wood piling that formed part of the foundation of the cabin. The paper flared quickly, lighting more of the shavings that, encouraged by the flammable liquid, burned hotter and longer, transferring flames, heat, and a plume of rising gases to the joists and subfloor three feet above.