Harvest of Bones

by Nancy Means Wright

  “Me?” said Colm. “I don’t think so.”

  “Well, take me to Flint’s then. Glenna’s not there anyway.”

  “That’s what I kept telling you. Coming here was your idea.”

  “Shit,” said Mac, and Ruth threw open the door. She stopped on the threshold to stare at the old man slumped in her chair, devouring her doughnuts, swilling down her beer. Colm stood up, smiled sheepishly. “I think you two have met. Ruth Willmarth, Mac MacInnis. Glenna’s husband,” he added, although it wasn’t necessary. Ruth’s face was dawning: rainy and cool.

  * * * *

  Emily wished she had her notebook. For once, the old lady seemed in a talkative mood; she was wearing the black scarf Hartley had brought her, and a black sweater decorated with Puffy’s white fur. She’d answer anything you asked, though Emily wouldn’t take too many chances. Not about the skeleton anyway. Glenna Flint would close up on that one.

  “So tell about way back,” she said, wriggling about on the plywood floor. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but if you got into one of the grooves, it wasn’t too bad. “About how your ancestors got up here to Vermont. Where’d they come from?”

  “Connecticut, someplace. That was old Homer Flint, your father’s named after him. He buried three wives. Homer did.” Glenna rocked back in the chair, stuck out her skinny legs, and Hartley rushed to put a straight chair under them. “That’s better now. Just a sip of that scotch and my tongue’ll be well oiled.” She grinned.

  “This is the last bottle, Aunty,” Hartley warned. “I stole it from the kitchen. I can’t go out and buy it, you know. I’m not eighteen. Though almost.”

  “And you’re in college?” Emily said.

  “I skipped a grade way back. I’m a freshman—the local college. I’m on parole.” She winked at Emily.

  “So what happened to the three wives?” Emily loved true stories. She was beginning to love history. “When was this exactly?” She didn’t have her notebook; she’d have to take it into her head, try to remember it. Tonight, she’d write it down. She couldn’t stay much longer, though, she had to get back home, her mother would worry. Her mother worried all the time now. There wasn’t anything her mother wasn’t worried about.

  “Indians. Back in the 1600s. That’s what happened. Well, one of ’em anyhow. Scalped. An arrow stuck in the stomach. Run right through to the back. And pregnant! Yep, she was. Eight months pregnant.”

  “God,” said Hartley, one hand on her belly. “But it wasn’t the Indian’s fault, right? They were being run off their land? But how could they do that to a pregnant woman?”

  “They could, and they did,” said Glenna, looking triumphant.

  “An arrow. Through a half moon,” Emily murmured, and thought of the ring on the skeleton’s finger, the sign on the Healing House. Somehow everything seemed connected. The past repeating itself in the present. She sucked in her lower lip.

  “What about the other two?” Hartley asked. “What happened to them?”

  “Oh, they died,” said Glenna with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Childbirth, I suppose, overwork. The men chasing around after the Indians while the women scrubbed and cooked.”

  “That much hasn’t changed,” said Hartley.

  Emily imagined it: the wife, alone in a log hut, pregnant, like her sister Sharon, surveying the mountain of washing: husband’s shirts and breeches—did they ever wash those? His “smalls,” like they called underwear back then. And the mending heaped up in a corner, the dirt to be swept up off the sandy floor. The baby sunk low in the belly like a bunch of green apples. She’d walk outdoors, oh, just for a minute, needing sun and air. Out to the cornfield: her responsibility too, with her man away. And suddenly, there they were! Leaping out of the forest: three Indians, with hatchets in their hands, feathered arrows on their backs. She’d scream, race for the house, whirl about once to see if they were still there—and in her belly— ooh, oww!—an arrow. Blood spilling out of the moon ...

  “God,” she said, dropping her head in her hands, her stomach gone queasy. “God, I can’t even imagine it. That poor woman, that poor, poor woman.”

  “Rachel,” said Glenna. “Rachel was her name. Rachel Flint. She was nineteen when she died.” Glenna seemed pleased to be gaining control of her memory.

  “God,” said Emily again, “only two years older than me.”

  “Let’s change the subject,” said Hartley. “It’s over now, all that old stuff. Wal-Mart’s moving into Vermont, you know that? They got it through. Wal-Mart, the wave of the future, dah dah!” She hoisted her diet Pepsi.

  Hartley liked to shop: Emily was adding up the negatives of her new friend; shopping was a suburban trait. Emily, now, she hated shopping of any kind, like her mother. Even the grocery store was a chore. Wal-Mart! “They don’t want it up there in Saint Albans,” Emily said. “The people don’t. And that brazen company, just shoving its way in. Mother’s disgusted.”

  “Well, isn’t it about time we shoved our way out?” said Glenna, banging down her empty glass. “Scotch gone and it’s billy cold in here. That heater doesn’t work worth a damn. I’m going home, that’s where I’m going.”

  “Aunty, you can’t. The boobies’ll come and get you again.”

  “What! What boobies?” She paled. “Don’t say that!”

  “You know—Dad and my stepmother.”

  “Oh. Those. No, they won’t. Last time they fooled me, said we were going out for lunch at some fancy restaurant. We’d have a drink, they said; we’d have a scotch. Oh, we went there all right. But then where’d we go? Headed for that death camp. No more. No ma’am. I’m not moving out of my house.”

  “Then the state will make you, I promise. Aunty, let’s think it through. Let’s not rush it. There has to be a safe place.”

  “That healing center?” Emily suggested.

  Hartley looked interested. She licked her tongue up around her lips, smoothed down her jeans where they’d wrinkled up around her chubby thighs.

  “You said they were all sick down there,” Glenna said, “you said that, Emily Willmarth.”

  “Not all, I don’t think. That woman died of a hemorrhage or something. You know, that boarder’s wife, the guy who stayed at Fay’s B and B.”

  “Oh, that one,” said Glenna, with a twitch that crooked her glasses into a new angle. They made her look, Emily decided, like one of those Star Trek people Vic liked to watch—the ones with pointed ears and slanted eyes. Emily didn’t care much for science fiction. She wasn’t a Trekkie.

  She thought of their excursion to the Healing House. “What’d you see anyway?” she asked the girl. “You were going ‘Mmmmm, ahhhh.’“

  “A woman,” said Hartley, “in the kitchen, taking stuff out of the refrigerator, putting other stuff back in. Then something funny—”

  “What?”

  “Mixing something in the first batch she took out. Then tasting it. Then sticking her finger in her throat and throwing up in the sink. Then sticking the bowl back in the fridge. It was weird. She was smiling the whole time. Suspicious, right?”

  “She’s probably just bulimic,” said Emily. “I’ve a friend like that in school. She stuffs herself, then throws up. What I thought was really weird, though—”

  “What?”

  “That guy next door. What was he doing anyway, burning up all that stuff? Didn’t look like leaves to me. Looked like... well, bones. Tiny bones.”

  “God,” said Hartley. “Not another skeleton—I can’t stand it!”

  “Could’ve been,” Emily said thoughtfully “Well, look, I gotta go. Mom’ll have a cow.”

  “She already has, hasn’t she? Thirty of ’em?”

  “Not funny. You sound like Colm Hanna.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “You know, Mom’s friend. He came over to look at the skeleton. You saw him. He’s a sort of detective-Realtor-Undertaker. I can’t quite figure what he mainly does. But he’s nice. He’s got a thing for Mom. But Mom’s still marr
ied. Dad’s coming back. He might want to stay. Colm Hanna’s got to realize that. So does Mom.”

  “Does she? Anyway, some combination, all those jobs. Do they link up?”

  “I guess so. Hey, I’m off.”

  “I’m coming with you,” said Glenna, frowning, pushing up from her rocker. “We’ll find a nice motel somewhere.”

  “No, Aunty. One more night here. I’ve brought extra blankets. Then we’ll make a decision. I promise. How’ll you get home, Emily?”

  “I’ll go back down to that store, call Wilder. He owes me one. He’ll pick me up.”

  “If he’s not home?”

  “He’d better be.”

  Hartley laughed. “Wait. I’ll walk you down to the store. Pick up some tempeh. You like tempeh, Aunty?”

  “I don’t eat tem-poo—whatever it is.”

  “Well, I’ll find something. It’s not that far. I’ll be back in twenty minutes. Less. Don’t you go anywhere now, Aunty. Promise?”

  “No, I won’t promise.”

  Hartley winked at Emily, then ran out the door. “She’ll be back,” Emily called to Glenna, then added, “Thank you,” as though they’d just concluded a second interview. Outside, though, she was glad Hartley was with her. It was a cold black night, no wind, not a glimmer of a star. She shivered. “What is it about darkness,” she thought aloud, “that changes your outlook on the world? Makes you feel unsafe?”

  “Yeah,” said Hartley, “Wilderland. I mean, sorry, I’m talking about Tolkien, not your old boyfriend. Anything can happen if you get off the path. They’re all out there, the weirdoes. Ooo-hh-h. And it’s almost Halloween.”

  “Oh, help! Indians!” joked Emily, flinging up her arms, dancing into a clump of bushes. And she was yanked back to the path by her giggling friend.

  * * * *

  Glenna was in and out of time. Nodding off in the wicker rocker and then waking. What was wake and what was sleep? She didn’t know. Age slowed time, changed it. Till it wasn’t chronological anymore. It was increasingly a struggle to hold to the present. Mac... Mac was dead. Wasn’t he? She’d killed him after . . . after something—a fight? Mac was jealous, so jealous. It was his worst fault—and over what? Nothing she’d done. She had no interest in that other one—which one? Forgot his name already. It was long ago now; she couldn’t conjure up a face in her head, didn’t want to....

  She was a prudish woman when it came to talking about sex—she couldn’t help it. That other business in the barn— she kept trying to piece it together, but her mind would stall. He’d come at her, some man ... after she’d run at him, with what, the pitchfork? Teasing at first, then angry, shoving her down in the stall... What’d he want anyway? She was almost sixty then! After that—blank place in her head. What had happened?

  Only that anger, that sense of violation, something she’d blanked out. Then Mac suddenly there, she remembered now, grabbing the fellow. Grabbing her. Her! And that was when she killed him. Must’ve been the pitchfork again, or the shovel—an arrowhead, they said? Where’d she get an arrowhead? She’d ridden off on Jenny; that much was clear. When she came back, Mac was gone. The hole filled in.

  But who—who? Her tiny mother, who had Parkinson’s— the body falling down around the spirit? She had a spirit, her mother! More than Glenna. Glenna, she thought, seeing herself from a distance, was weak. Oh, she put up a good front. But now she was afraid. Afraid of change, afraid of old people’s homes, afraid of death. Not death of the body, no, that’s not what she was afraid of. Afraid of the dying spirit, yes, its slow paralysis.

  For one thing, she’d never been able to bring herself to open up that hole, look in. Why? Because she’d been sure it was Mac. And someone else had been there. Someone had seen, had sent her a letter. “LOOK IN THE MIROR FOR MACS KILLER,” it said in bold black misspelled capital letters (she never held with misspellings; she and Mac were alike that way—wanting it right!). She’d burned the note. But the letters stayed on in her head, bold and black, just behind the eyes.

  She heard a sound outside, by the window. If she couldn’t see so well as she used to, her hearing was still sharp. She shoved forward in the rocker, and, oh, felt her groin full and leaking. She hated the feeling, the old body, humiliating her. And no toilet in this damn cabin. She pushed herself free of the chair, listened again for the noise. But she heard only the wind, a hooting somewhere. She knew an owl when she heard it.

  Outside, the quiet was almost audible. She held her breath, then let it out slowly. Squinted into the night. Agh, foolish. When was Glenna Flint ever afraid of the dark? Even so, she wouldn’t go far. Just out beyond the cabin, a clump of brush there, thinly illuminated by the open door. She found a spot, pulled down her britches, squatted, felt the pee spill down her left leg—might as well have done it in her pants! Then what? A leaf? She hadn’t thought to bring a Kleenex, couldn’t think ahead these days, just lived for the moment. Like some monk. Hah. She waddled over to a bush, holding up her pants in one hand, snatched off a bunch of leaves, hoped it wasn’t poison ivy, wiped.

  Thought she heard something. A giggle? Those girls, spying again! “Who’s there!” she squealed. “Who’s it? Come out and show yourself.” She hurried to pull herself together, got her underpants hitched around wrong, hoisted up her trousers, fumbled with the zipper.

  “It’s me,” the voice said. Whose voice? It wasn’t one of the girls. Familiar? Could be. She squinted, could only make out a dark shape. “I saw you,” the voice said, sounding angry.

  She knew the voice now. It was the Booby. That’s who it was! She grabbed at the underbrush, broke off a switch—flew at him with it, smacking him, the strength back in her hands now. Whacked him on the head, the chest, the legs. The stick caught his groin; he yelped, grabbed at it. She heard it gather air, speed, like a sound of rushing hooves, and then, like Jenny tripping that time, jumping the pasture fence, her head striking a post, she was down in the leaves.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Hartley Flint’s stepmother was on the line about Glenna, and Fay, squatting by the phone in jeans and a T-shirt stained with freshly squirted milk, was, admittedly, lying through her teeth. “She’s with Hartley, Ms. Flint; we know that at least. Your daughter will see that she’s all right. Don’t you worry now.”

  But it wasn’t Glenna’s physical well-being that was worrying Matilda Flint the most; it was the fact that the old lady had escaped from the state hospital. The notoriety, the embarrassment! “What will we tell people?” she wailed. “And that girl, she should be in school. We worked so hard to get her into that college. She was underage; she didn’t have the grades. Oh, she’s bright—too bright—but she never studied. Always reading, imagining things, into that fantasy—that bobbit, or hobbit, or whatever they’re called.”

  Through the dusky window, Fay saw Willard Boomer buzzing along on his bicycle. The wheels wore a phosphorescent strip, and a good thing, for it was dark out in spite of a three-quarter moon. Minutes later, in the middle of Matilda Flint’s harangue, he came lumbering up the steps. “I have to go now,” she told the woman. “I’ve a guest driving up. But don’t worry now, please; we’re doing everything—”

  “You know where she is. You’re holding back on us.”

  “I don’t know,” Fay said honestly. For once, she was glad she didn’t know the exact whereabouts of the pair. Fay was not a prevaricator by nature—she’d probably blurt out the truth if she knew it. “But you’ll be the first to know if I find out.”

  “It’s my husband’s only child,” Matilda wailed, Glenna evidently forgotten; and Fay, remembering her own daughter, whose whereabouts she knew but lately couldn’t penetrate, said, “I know, believe me. But everything will work out; I’ll see to it.”

  And she hung up the phone, for Willard was already in the house, his big perspiring face grinning to see her—her, Fay. She ran to get him a cool drink. Gandalf, who liked Willard, and vice versa, leapt up from his corner, stuck his narrow gray muzzle in the signmaker
’s face.

  “Well, well, howth sweetie pie,” Willard lisped, putting his own face to the dog’s. And then he said, “Oh, oh” when the dog peed on the floor. Fay ran for the paper towels. “You do have a way with dogs,” she said. “It misses Hartley, though. It whimpered all last night, then slept on her bed. The mattress lists now, north to south.”

  “Oh, but I saw the girl, up the road a bit, running. I thought she was just exercising. I was coming the opposite way or I’d’ve stopped, offered a ride on the handlebars—least I think it was her.” He took the drink of iced tea and lemonade Fay offered him—”Kickapoo,” she called it—smiled, looking grateful.

  That’s what Fay liked about Willard: He was grateful for things. She’d never known a grateful man before—unless it was for sex. Her ex-husband took things for granted: her, the meals, housework, even sex; her simply being there, until that day she wasn’t. She wished she could have seen his face when he read the note. But, well, she hadn’t hung around long enough, had she? Couldn’t. Couldn’t breathe, suddenly stifled, as if she had a bad case of asthma.

  “It might have been Hartley. I rather think so, yes. Definitely, yes,” he said as the door burst open and the girl hurtled in, hair and shirt flying, her face flushed and angry.

  “Where is she? Is Aunty here? She just left. She just took off on her own. I was only gone fifteen minutes—well, twenty maybe. I went to the store, to get her something to eat. The ungrateful old—”

  She dashed upstairs, three steps at a time. Gandalf raced up after, his white feet a blur. “Aunty? I know you’re there. How’d you get here anyway? Aunty? Answer me. Aun-tee!”

  “She’s not here,” Fay hollered up. “Hartley, come back down. Where was Glenna anyway? When did you last see her? Your stepmother called; she’s furious. You can’t get away with this, Hartley. You can’t postpone fate.”

  “No, no, you can’t! You can try, but it comes running after you,” Willard echoed. “Like that greyhound,” he said as Hartley stomped back down again, the dog’s angular head pushing her onward.