Savage Species

by Jonathan Janz

  “If it wasn’t a boulder, it was in the same league.” Red Elk shook his head. “Had no business trying to move the damned thing—the farmer my relatives worked for should’ve done the job himself or at least provided enough men to make the work bearable—but that didn’t deter my great-grandpa. He told my grandfather, who was just a kid at the time, ‘They don’t pay us to just till the good ground.’ So they chained the big rock and looped the other end of the chain over the furrow. The ox they were using strained and snorted and had gotten the big rock halfway up when my great-grandpa decided he’d help matters along by getting down in the depression the rock had made to tip it over.”

  Red Elk hocked, spat on the wall. “Well, my great-grandaddy never considered that rock might’ve been placed there on purpose.”

  “Like a cap?” Emma asked.

  Red Elk nodded. “Bottled up what was under there. And what was under there was a big hole. My grandpa said his dad was there one instant and was gone the next, and the ox, maybe hearing something it didn’t like, or maybe even scenting something, went wild and began bucking against the yoke. The next thing my grandpa knew, the chain slipped off the furrow. The ox took off, and the big rock thumped down, trapping his daddy inside the hole.”

  “Buried,” Jesse said.

  “Buried is right. My grandpa was young, probably only nine or ten, but he was savvy. He stood there gaping a few seconds before realizing that without the ox he didn’t have a hope in hell of getting his daddy out of that hole. So he bolted after the dumb animal, which wasn’t moving too fast anyway, old and encumbered as it was by that heavy plow, and before too long he caught up to it and led it back.

  “Somehow he got the chains under the rock again. While he was doing this, he was shouting at the ground to see if he could hear his daddy under there. When he calmed down enough to listen, he found he could hear my great-grandpa, but the voice was muffled and difficult to make out.

  “‘You okay, Papa?’ was what he kept callin’.

  “‘Move this goddamned rock!’ was what his daddy kept replyin’.”

  Red Elk slowed, his flashlight doing slow sweeps over the floor. “Then my grandpa heard the other sounds.”

  A crawling dread began to ooze its way down Jesse’s back, making him step closer to Emma, who didn’t seem to notice.

  “The noises sounded like nothing my grandpa’d ever heard before. But they scared him. His dad’s voice changed too, a new kind of fright creeping into it. He was shouting for my grandpa to hurry, dammit, hurry, and my grandpa got up and began shoving the ox from behind to get it moving. When that didn’t work, he started in beating on the old animal, punching its dusty hide and kicking its shanks to spur it into action. Well, that must’ve worked because the beast started grinding forward, and the rock began tilting up. My great-grandfather’s hands shot out of that hole right away, and his voice, unleashed from that hellish cage, was womanish with fright. My grandpa wanted to give off pushing the animal, but he figured if he did that, the rock would smash down again and cut his daddy in half. So he kept at it, beating that old ox like a rug to get it to move.

  “The rock had tilted just enough for my great-grandpa to wriggle his head and shoulders up onto the ground. He was howling with terror and what sounded to my grandpa like physical pain. My grandpa gave the animal one final kick and lurched over to where his dad was struggling his way out of the hole, and the odd thing was that the rock was more than high enough for my great-grandpa to slide through. In fact, the side of the rock had risen to an almost perpendicular angle with the ground. But despite this, my great-grandpa was still hanging on to the lip of the hole for dear life. And he was screaming louder than ever.”

  Red Elk sighed. “That gave my grandpa the idea that the sinkhole was much wider than he’d thought and that his daddy’s feet were dangling over thin air. He grasped handfuls of his daddy’s shirt and reared back as hard as he could, but that didn’t help. His daddy was actually sliding back down toward the darkness.”

  “‘Use your legs’, my grandpa remembered saying.

  “‘I can’t feel my legs,’ was his daddy’s response.

  “My grandpa couldn’t understand this, so he reached down to get a better hold on his daddy, but when his face got low enough, he saw something that changed his life. My life too, I guess you could say.”

  “One of them,” Emma said.

  Red Elk nodded. “One of the Children. Its green eyes blazed at my grandpa from the shadows of that hole. Its face was smeared with blood. It had hold of my great-grandpa’s legs. It was chewing on one of his ankles.

  “The ox must’ve been worn out, what with having lifted that huge rock twice and all the chasing and beating it’d been through. The weight of the rock dragged it back, the door to the hole closing and my grandpa about to be crushed under it. Grandpa was bent on not leaving his daddy though, so he held on as long as he could. Held on until the white monster in the hole dragged his father screaming into the darkness. Grandpa was just able to roll out of the way before the rock crashed down on him.

  “No one believed his story, of course, and who could blame them? Little Indian boy talks about a monster eating his daddy? They hardly even investigated it.

  “But my grandpa did. He explored the tunnels for years but never found his daddy. Never found the monster, either. Eventually, he decided to build the house we just blew up. Where one of the tunnels ended. That way he could stay close to the mystery and maybe get some revenge.”

  Chapter Five

  After climbing up and down half a dozen steep slides, Sam suggested they rest for a little while in the small bowl of rock they now found themselves in. He posited the suggestion as a respite for all of them, but Charly heard the hoarseness in his voice, knew he was badly winded. Funnily enough, she found herself attracted to him for this minor deceit. Love was like that in the beginning, she knew. Everything filtered through a screen of endearment. Oh, she was sure he had his faults. Probably wore the same underwear on consecutive days and left his beer cans sitting on the table. He had something of the caveman about him and would need a little feminine civilizing. Yet the imperfections weren’t glaring ones, like the ones Eric had.

  Treating her like dirt, for example.

  She watched Sam now in the glow of the small fire he’d made with Robertson’s lighter and a few desiccated strips of driftwood he’d pocketed before they left the river below. The smoldering driftwood produced more smoke than anything, but strangely enough, she sort of enjoyed the greenish flare of ghostly light it put off, like they were witches around a cauldron. Staring into it, she was almost able to suppress the doomed anxiety that throbbed within her every time she thought of her baby.

  Why are you sitting here? part of her demanded.

  Because I’m exhausted. We all are.

  No excuse.

  We’ll move soon, she thought. The moment Sam catches his breath…

  She cast a glance that way and felt her anxiety fade. As Sam worked his house key over a milky chunk of quartz, grinding down the teeth until the metal was honed to a gleaming shard, she studied the overgrown hair on the back of his neck, wiry black curls with a few white strands salted in. His ears, too, were a trifle fuzzy. But far from turning her off, she banked these details away for later use. She could kid him about his ear hair, maybe suggest French braiding it. He’d laugh softly and ask her if she wanted to give him a pedicure too, and she’d say yeah, we can do it in the bedroom.

  Then they’d go.

  Sam understood when to laugh and when to be serious. Eric was serious all the time, especially when it came to Charly. Whenever Eric made a joke with her it was cutting. Thinking about it now, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d kidded with him.

  Melanie was watching Charly with sullen intensity.

  Sam went on whetting the edge of the key. “Something on your mind, Miss Macomber?”

  Eyes never leaving Charly, Melanie said, “You’re disgusting.”
/>   Charly gazed back at her. “That’s a little hypocritical, don’t you think?”

  “Nasty is what I’d call it,” Sam said.

  “Mel’s right,” Eric said. “I’ve pampered her too much. Doesn’t have to work, doesn’t have an ounce of stress.” He chuckled darkly. “Unless you call spending my money stressful.”

  Charly fought off a surge of indignation. “I buy the kids’ clothes, I shop for groceries…”

  “You get your hair done for a hundred dollars—”

  “Thirty-five plus tip.”

  “—and then you wear it in a ponytail anyways.”

  Sam said, “My wife paid fifty, and that was fifteen years ago.”

  Eric shot him a look. “No one gives a shit about your wife, Bledsoe.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Charly said.

  “You’re so ungrateful,” Melanie said, a bitter twist to her lips. “Flo provides you with a home, a beautiful family, all the things you need, and how do you repay him? By kissing another man. I’ve never seen…” Her lips became a white line, her pretty face pinching into something decidedly unattractive. “…anything like you. You treat Flo like some—”

  “Do you have to call him that?” Charly asked.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Every time I hear ‘Flo this’ or ‘Flo that’ the hackles on the back of my neck stand up.”

  Melanie stared at her as though she’d lost her mind. “Everybody calls him Flo.”

  “I don’t. Whenever I hear ‘Flo’ I think of that old TV show, what was it—”

  “Alice,” Sam said without looking up.

  “Alice,” Charly agreed. “You were too young for it, Melanie…actually, it was before my time too. I only watched it because my parents did. There was this big-haired waitress named Flo—”

  “‘Kiss my gritz’,” Sam put in.

  Charly laughed. “That’s right, she’d get mad at her boss, Mel Sharpels, and end up telling him off.”

  Sam was laughing too. “‘Stow it!’”

  Charly leaned forward with her laughter. God, it felt good.

  Eric had been watching the exchange sourly. “Aren’t you two cute.”

  Charly turned, regarded him in the green light of the fire, which had already begun to gutter. “I forgot you were there, honey.”

  Eric’s grin was ghastly. “Don’t ‘honey’ me, you goddamned tramp.”

  Charly didn’t flinch. “I wondered when you’d get to that.”

  “I’m sure you did,” he agreed. “You know what kind of a slut you are.”

  Sam spoke mildly. “I’d bag that kind of talk if I were you.”

  “You don’t have enough money to be me.”

  “Can’t argue with that.”

  “Suck at building houses,” Eric went on. “Can’t make your payments on time. No wonder your kids want nothing to do with you.”

  “You son of a bitch,” Charly said.

  “Hit a nerve, did I?”

  “You shouldn’t talk about—”

  “It’s all right,” Sam said.

  “Sure it’s all right,” Eric agreed. “It’s common knowledge what a deadbeat this guy is, isn’t that right, Sammy?”

  Sam smiled softly. “My dad used to call me that.”

  Eric went on, “I ran into someone at the lumber yard. I wanted to buy a swing set for the girls because I think it’s important for a dad to be a part of his kids’ lives.”

  Charly opened her mouth to say something, but the look on Sam’s face stopped her. He was watching Eric with a kind of fierce vulnerability that was painful to behold.

  Eric continued, “I spoke to this guy who worked there, and he told me how far in the hole Sammy here is with the lumber yard. This guy said that Sam used to drink himself senseless most nights and carry on with the girl who ran his office. Back when he could afford an office, anyway.”

  “These are lean times,” Sam agreed.

  “But back then things weren’t so lean, were they, Sammy Boy? Both in the construction business and in the screwing department. Too bad your wife dropped in on you at the office one day when you had your receptionist bent over a desk.”

  “Eric,” Charly said between clenched teeth.

  “It’s okay,” Sam said. Looking Eric in the eye, he said, “I made the biggest mistake a man can make. Excepting murder and rape and that kind of stuff.”

  “You don’t have to—” Charly began.

  “We were married ten years when I cheated on my wife.”

  Charly’s breathing slowed as she listened.

  “I never had sex with anyone at the office, but I did cheat. Two different women, the first of them a one-time thing, the second went on a couple months.”

  “One of them your receptionist?” Eric asked.

  “I wouldn’t call her a receptionist,” Sam said, “but yes, I did make the mistake of getting involved with an employee.” He smiled crookedly. “Course, you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

  Eric’s smile evaporated.

  “Then what happened?” Charly asked.

  “Barbara found out from a friend, though it doesn’t really matter how she found out. She confronted me and I confessed. She told the kids right away, and they stopped talking to me.”

  Charly heard the subtle break in his voice, asked, “How old were they?”

  “Jenny was eleven, Daniel eight.”

  “Hurtful thing to do to your kids,” Eric said.

  “It was. I begged Barbara to forgive me, lived out of my truck a couple weeks. Eventually, she let me sleep at the house again, but the atmosphere there had soured. I was like a pet that nobody wanted around anymore. At some point, Barbara told me she’d give me another chance.”

  “What happened then?” Eric asked. “You go on a bender and bang some hooker?”

  “When we’d begun to reconcile, she stayed out all night and showed up the next morning telling me she’d gotten her revenge.”

  “Screwed somebody else, huh?” Eric said, grinning. “Just like you.”

  “Just like me,” Sam agreed. “The kids…I’d already lost them. So Barbara took them and moved to town. I was allowed to see them every other weekend, but after a while, we let that lapse. I wanted to stay in touch with the kids, but Barbara wanted a clean break, and I guess the kids did too. They no more wanted to be with me than they wanted to have earlier curfews.” Sam smiled grimly. “Which they had at my place and was one of the many reasons they dreaded staying with me.”

  “You were trying to set a good example,” Charly said.

  “By atoning for the bad one I’d set when they were younger, sure. I guess it was too much, too late. Last time they stayed with me, Jenny was fourteen and Daniel was eleven. He told me he hated me. Jenny didn’t state it in such explicit terms, but she didn’t have to. I could see it every time she looked at me.”

  They were all quiet a moment.

  Leaning back on his palms, Eric said, “Boo-hoo.”

  “Shut your mouth,” Charly said.

  Eric grinned at her. “Don’t think I’m not storing all this away, sweetheart. You’re gonna get what you’ve got coming pretty soon.”

  Sam’s voice was no longer serene: “Lay a hand on her, and I’ll rip off that little pecker of yours and clean your ears with it.”

  Charly favored her husband with an appraising look.

  He turned to her. “What’s on your mind?”

  “An epiphany,” she said. “I just now realized why you coach women’s basketball instead of men’s.”

  Eric grinned at the ceiling. “This oughtta be good.”

  “You can’t intimidate men,” she said. “You can’t intimidate every woman either—that’s why the first assistant you had quit—what was her name…Terri something…”

  “I let Tanya Bogans go because she was a stupid dyke who didn’t know shit about basketball.”

  “She was good enough for the previous coach.”

  “Maybe that’s
why they always had a losing record.”

  “Or maybe she refused to put up with your outmoded, patriarchal attitude.”

  “Outmoded what?”

  “Giving all your assistants menial tasks, making them pick up your lunch.”

  “That’s what assistants do, they assist.”

  “Then why do you have managers? You’re telling me it takes someone like Melanie here to get an order right at a fast-food restaurant?”

  “What the hell’s your point?”

  “My point is you enjoy it,” Charly said. “You enjoy telling women what to do. Your tone is always dictatorial.”

  “Big word.”

  “It’s how you treat your players, your assistants. And it’s how you treat me and the girls.”

  “My players love me,” Eric said. “So do Kate and Olivia.”

  “I’m surprised you know their names.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “They hardly know you. But maybe that’s a good thing.”

  Eric shook his head, his expression marveling. “You’re some piece of work, you know that, Char?”

  Melanie had been watching all of this with an aura of growing asperity. Now, as they all turned to her, she inhaled deeply and with the attitude of one coming to a momentous decision, she stood, strode the three paces over to where Eric sat reclining on his hands, and put her mouth on his. As her hand settled on his chest and then began to massage, their kissing became more feverish, almost like a pair of animals rutting in the dirt. His fingers played over her chestnut hair, her bare shoulders. Charly watched in dim revulsion as one of his hands descended to her jutting rear end and massaged her. She moaned.

  After what seemed like minutes, she broke the kiss, directed a triumphant glare at Charly and returned to where she’d been sitting.

  “Well,” Sam said, “aren’t we just one happy family?”

  Charly stared morosely at the fire, which had died to embers. She could no longer stomach the sight of her husband. Without thinking much about it, she scooted closer to Sam, who held the key nearer the guttering firelight and examined it.