Roll Them Bones

by Wilson, David

  “Wonder why he’s in such a hurry?” Frank asked, kicking a branch out of his way.

  “I don’t know, but I wish I did,” Jason answered. “I don’t buy this story of seeing the cabin back in that clearing, and this whole detour to the lake thing is making little sense to me. I feel like I used to feel, like Ronnie is leading me into something I should know better than to be part of, but can’t resist.”

  Frank laughed, but it rang hollow and empty, and Jason didn’t join in.

  The trail sloped gently upward, then down and wound through the last of the trees. As the forest thinned, the shimmering expanse of Lake Quantal stretched out before them. The sun glimmered on the tips of the waves, and Ronnie waved to them from the shoreline. He’d already shucked his pack and started to gather wood for a fire.

  “He’s certainly happy,” Frank observed, frowning suddenly. “You wouldn’t think he was a man trying to rid himself of a nightmare.”

  “Give it a chance,” Lizzy said softly, surprising them both. “He seemed fine last night, and this morning. I don’t think Ronnie has many friends…maybe he’s just enjoying our company.”

  “I know I’m enjoying the company,” Jason said, grinning and pulling her against him.

  Frank rolled his eyes, grinned, and started forward again, more quickly, heading for the shore line.

  “If I’d known you two would be so sickeningly sweet together,” he called over his shoulder, “I’d have written you both into dead end relationships in faraway places.”

  Jason smiled, hugging Lizzy closer. Then he frowned. Something in the way Frank had said that last bothered him. As if they’d been “written” together. As if the words could mold the reality. Very suddenly, Jason wondered what Frank was writing now, and just how it ended.

  He shook the odd thoughts away like cobwebs and strolled down the gentle slope to where Ronnie and Frank stood watching the waves ripple.

  Ronnie turned away and moved to his pack. Moments later he was screwing two halves of a very short fishing rod together, the kind you bought from television ads for $19.95 and they “really, really work.”

  Jason laughed softly. “You don’t have a build-it-yourself gun in there for hunting, too, do you?” he asked.

  Ronnie grinned. “Never really got into hunting. Not sure why. I like to fish, though. It’s quiet. Gives a man time to think.” Ronnie turned to Frank then, his expression flickering from something deeper, to a slow smile, so quickly that Jason wasn’t certain he’d seen anything but the smile. “Gives a man time to catch up on his reading, too.”

  Ronnie stepped up to the water then, drew back and let fly with a long cast. He’d baited the hook with a gob of cheese he’d pulled from the depths of his pack. They all watched in silence as the yellow ball took off in a long, slow arc, breaking the placid surface of the lake with a soft “plunk” and dropping from sight. Ronnie held the rod still for a long moment, letting the bait sink, then turned the handle on his reel, drew the line tight, and wedged the small rod between two rocks on the shore.

  “Who knows,” he said, turning to the others at last, “maybe I’ll get lucky and get us some fresh catfish for lunch. When was the last time you had fresh catfish—any of you?”

  Ronnie’s grin was infectious.

  Frank laughed. “In New York, they ship the catfish in fresh, farm-fed and fat. It is filleted in the market where you buy it—fresh. You can pay as much as fifty to a hundred dollars a plate for a good catfish dinner.”

  The others grew silent, watching Ronnie’s face as Frank painted this picture. The big man looked pained.

  “It never tasted half as good as what we caught here,” Frank finished with a grin.

  The tension slipped away in the breeze and Ronnie turned toward the lake, shaking his head. “You sure grew a set of balls, Frankie,” he said with a chuckle.

  Down the shoreline and around a bend, a rickety dock rocked on the gentle waves. Something about it bothered Jason, and he took a few steps along the lake shore, trying to remember.

  “That dock,” he said, “it…it was gone—before.”

  “Gone?” Lizzie repeated, quizzically.

  “Gone,” Jason asserted. “It got washed away that summer the river rose, remember? We used to sit at the end of it and fish, went swimming off there, then it was gone.”

  They all stared, lost in thought.

  “You’re right,” Ronnie said finally. “Hell, I’m not sure when it came back. I didn’t come out here for a long time after that night…but I don’t remember a time when it wasn’t there—or didn’t, until now.” He stared at the dock, bobbing gently, and frowned. “I’ve been fishing from that dock for years.”

  A quick flash of motion, whirr of nylon on steel and they all turned at once to where Ronnie had left the fishing rod propped against the stone. Line was screaming out of the reel, and the short fiberglass rod was bent nearly doubled.

  “Jesus,” Ronnie gasped, diving for the shore line and gripping the handle tightly. He dragged back against the line, setting the drag tighter with a practiced flick of his thumb, and the line quit spinning off into the lake. The muscles in Ronnie’s forearms instantly corded, taut with effort.

  “What the hell is on the other end of that?” Frank asked, whistling softly.

  “I don’t know, Frankie boy,” Ronnie grunted, but whatever it is has different ideas about our lunch than I do.”

  They gathered around, the pier forgotten for the moment in the quick excitement of the battle with the fish. Though the effort was slightly exaggerated by the short length of the pole, when the dark silhouette of the catfish slithered near to the shore-line, they all gasped in surprise.

  “Christ,” Jason said softly. “I’ve never seen a catfish that big. What are they doing, stocking this thing now that I’m gone?”

  “Not that I know of,” Ronnie answered, almost reverently. He leaned down carefully, drawing the line toward the shore. He didn’t have a net, or anything, really, just his hand. One bad shake of the head and that fish would be fading into the muddy water.

  “Careful,” Frank said, unnecessarily.

  Ronnie had reached to his belt with one hand, flipped the Buck-knife free of it’s leather sheath, and had it open with another subtle motion of his thumb. Before that soft “snick” could fully register, his arm shot up and down, and the blade impaled the catfish, directly between the eyes. Blood washed out and around the thick, flat head, and the tail thrashed wildly. It was going nowhere. Ronnie’s strong thrust had dug the blade deep into the bone of its skull, pinning it as it fought a futile battle with time, and Ronnie’s blade.

  “Oh.” Lizzy stepped back, turning her head away quickly. Jason stepped back to circle her shoulder with one arm, but he didn’t look away from the fish. The motion had been so sudden, the destruction so casual and complete. Only Frank had stood his ground, watching carefully. It was as if he were memorizing the scene for some future novel. Maybe he was.

  “One of you might want to work on that fire,” Ronnie said, not looking away from the fish. “It’ll take me a bit to get him cleaned and gutted, but we don’t want to spend too much time at it.”

  Frank moved away, leaning immediately to gather a handful of driftwood from the shoreline. Jason turned Lizzy so her face fell against his chest and held her.

  “It’s just a fish,” he said softly.

  Jason felt Lizzy nod, but her shoulders still shook, and inwardly he cursed. Why couldn’t Ronnie have pulled the fish out of the water first? Why such a display? Why now? The trust that had been building slipped a notch. Jason’s gaze slid away from Ronnie’s back and down the shore-line once again, locking onto the pier. The pier that shouldn’t be there.

  A lot of things could be done with such a pier. If one were to come in from the water side, things could be done in the woods without anyone’s knowledge. The far shore of the lake was draped in a heavy mist, obscuring what Jason knew was there. More piers, homes, the outskirts of Pendleton, a
slightly larger community than Random. Something was itching at the back of Jason’s mind...something he couldn’t quite put into place.

  “That’s one serious lunch,” Frank said, breaking the silence.

  Ronnie had already begun the task of gutting and skinning the catfish. Now that the head had been removed and tossed, the surreality of the moment eased somewhat. It was a fish, after all. Jason had gutted his share, as had Frank, and even Lizzy had once been pretty handy with a filet knife.

  It had been the sudden, deadly stroke of the knife, no warning, that had done it. Ronnie was being everyone’s friend, the bully dead and buried, but there was still a streak of something deep inside that had to be watched, and worried over. As Jason watched Ronnie work, steady and confident, a red haze slid over the scene. Blood, rippling in the lake, mixing with the mud and slime. The helplessly thrashing tail.

  Jason shook his head. Frank had returned, dropping an armload of wood beside the small fire. He set immediately about the task of building that dancing flame. Jason slipped gently free of Lizzy’s embrace and moved to his pack.

  “I think I have the tinfoil,” he said, forcing a light tone to his voice that he no longer felt.

  “I’ve got some spices tucked away,” Lizzy said softly. She knelt to sift through her pack slowly, still pointedly avoiding any glance in the direction of the catfish, or Ronnie. Jason noted that her shoulders were trembling, and again he cursed himself for agreeing the whole crazy trip.

  Grabbing the small box of aluminum foil from his pack, he slipped closer and knelt beside her as she dug through her own belongings.

  “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I didn’t know it would be like this.”

  “There was no way you could have known,” She replied, barely a whisper. “No way any of us could know.” She glanced up at him then with an intense, taut expression stretching her usually pretty features. “We don’t know now. It was a bad moment, but I’m seeing this through.”

  Jason watched her for a moment, thought of things he might say, discarded each, then nodded, rising and moving to the fire. Frank was poking the coals with one of the longer branches he’d found, and at just that moment, Ronnie headed toward them from where he’d been washing the now gutted carcass of the fish in the lake. It was truly a magnificent catfish, all of ten pounds, bigger than Jason could ever remember seeing.

  “Hell of a fish,” Frank said, glancing up. “Almost like he knew you were coming.”

  “If he’d known that, Frankie boy,” Ronnie laughed, tossing the fish onto the bed of foil that Jason had prepared, “he’d have been far away from this place. Good luck, though. There’s plenty here for everyone.”

  Jason saw Lizzy drop her eyes and knew there would likely be more for the four men to eat than expected. Heaving a sigh, he slid the foil toward her and watched as she carefully sprinkled the herbs from her pack over the fish, curling the foil around it and moving to lay it across the bed of coals. Her motions were slow and cautious, and Jason had the sudden realization that it was hard for her to approach those coals; to put the fish inside was harder still.

  Jason’s mind blanked for a second, and he leaned against his pack, fighting for balance. In that instant, eyes had glared back at him from the coals, hands had reached, long claw-like fingers groping toward Lizzy. The sizzle of the fish hitting the fire, white-noise distraction and he was back. That quickly, shaken and coated with cold, drying sweat.

  “Jesus, Jason,” Frank called to him, “If you’re that cold, carry it over her to the fire.”

  Jason shook his head and rose, nodding. No words were possible, he knew they’d sputter out in an embarrassing mumble, or be the wrong ones. Even as things muddled and grew stranger, Jason knew with a sudden certainty that there was something underlying this trip that they couldn’t see. Not all of them anyway. Every word might matter. Every thought shared was a possible link, or a possible snare. Even with the almost-noon sun lighting the lake, the shadows had grown long and deep.

  As he slipped up beside Lizzy and seated himself on the log, the aroma of baking fish slipped up through his senses, calming him and drawing him back across the years. Just to the right, a glint of waves caught his eye for a moment. The pier jutted out into the empty expanse of the lake. Jason followed the shimmering water out to where it lost itself in the mist.

  FIVE

  The sun had slipped most of the way behind the tops of the trees, and Jason knew it couldn’t be much further. His memories of the forest itself were muddy, the distance faded in and out of perspective as flashes of that night, of fire and old Tara’s wrinkled face haunted him. No matter how hard he tried to will himself to be calm, he could not.

  He walked very close to Lizzy’s side. He wanted to protect her, to offer strength she could use to get her through whatever was to come, but he had nothing to give. He trembled, fighting just to manage the uncontrollable shakes that gripped his frame.

  It was eerie how they’d fallen into step. At the lake, they’d all been a group, still smiling, if a little more subdued than they’d been the night before, or around the morning camp fire. Now they’d dropped into old roles—Ronnie in the lead and Frank close behind, the old eagerness to see what might lay ahead obvious in his pace and the way he stumbled over roots and brush. Of all of them, Frank seemed most desperate to reach that clearing. Not for the first time, Jason found himself watching his old friend, and wondering why.

  Frank claimed to write the dreams out of his system, but did he? He showed little sign of the stress the rest of them had faced. Even his fear of Ronnie seemed forced.

  Darkness was dropping over them fast, making it harder to be certain where they were, or how far they’d come. Ronnie plodded on steadily, as if he’d walked this trail a thousand times.

  Had he? Jason wondered suddenly. Had he only come back to this place once, as he’d said, or was it all a setup?

  Jason shook his head and slipped a little closer to Lizzy, nearly bumping her hip into one of the passing trees and barely catching a branch before it could whip back into his face at Frank’s passing.

  “Hey,” he said softly, “be careful up there. I’d like to make it with both eyes.”

  No one answered, but a few moments later, Ronnie stopped. He cocked his head to one side like a dog, searching for a scent.

  “I don’t hear anything,” he said at last. “This is about where things started to get strange.”

  Jason looked about the small clearing dubiously. “How can you remember that so clearly?” he asked. “I’ve dreamed about this place thousands of times and I remember little details: the color of her dress, how the house looked as it burned, those damned bones. I remember her eyes, and her voice—but I don’t remember where we were when we first heard the sound. I don’t remember which direction you ran before we moved from the clearing. I barely remember which direction we ran afterward, and that only because we made it back.”

  Ronnie stared at him for a long time.

  “What are you saying, Jason?”

  Jason met Ronnie’s gaze steadily. “I’m not saying anything,” he replied, “except that it’s damned odd that you remember this part so well when at this point nothing had happened yet.”

  “My night was different from yours,” Ronnie said, turning away. “I don’t have the clear images you do. I didn’t walk into that damned clearing and face down the witch, remember? I saw it all from different angles, heard it all in the sound of your voices. I’ve heard you tell the story, even read it a couple of times in Frankie boy’s books. But this part of that night? And the trip back? Those are the parts I do remember, that I think of time and again, wondering if I could have or should have done something different.

  “I always felt like I let you down. Thought about that a lot, believe it or not.”

  Jason stared at the larger man until he thought his eyes would water, then nodded. “I guess I do believe that. Sure as hell can’t get it out of my mind.”

  Before
they could say anything further, Lizzy let out a soft cry and clutched Jason’s arm tightly.

  Jason spun, as did Ronnie, but before he could get the question out of his mouth, he saw that she was pointing off through the trees. The twilight was giving way fast to the shadows sliding out from the bases of the trees. Through that murky darkness, light shimmered. A sheen of— something—that hadn’t been there before.

  “Christ,” Frank said, brushing his hand back through his hair—so like the habits of his childhood that Jason nearly smiled despite it all.

  Ronnie was standing very still, and Jason thought he might have caught a tremble in the big man’s shoulder.

  “It’s just a light,” Jason said, suddenly. “There could be kids out here camping, yes? Wouldn’t be the first time. Could be hunters. Could be almost anything. Let’s get over there and see and get this over with so we can get back to the fire.”

  No one answered, but Ronnie shook his head slowly, as if clearing it of unwanted thoughts, and started toward the light, winding through the ever-thinning trees without a backward glance. Frank was close behind. He kept stopping and staring out through the trees, as if he could make out something that way that the others would miss. He would then start forward again just before Jason and Lizzy bumped into him.

  The air shimmered, and the light grew brighter as they walked. Everything shifted slightly— that was how it seemed to Jason. It felt like one of his nightmares, not quite real, not quite believable. No way they could all be there, together, again. No way that light was shining, just as it had shone so long ago—just exactly as it had shone.

  What had begun as a soft glow was now a dancing flicker, flames.

  “I see her fire,” Frank said, echoing the past, and Jason stopped, angry.

  “It isn’t her fire, Frank. She is dead. You saw her walk into that burning house. I saw it. Tara isn’t fucking out here, and neither is that damned cabin.

  “What’s wrong with you? What’s wrong with all of us?”