“Mercurochrome tastes funny.”
She exhaled. Couldn’t think of what to say. “Go.”
Her leg ached now that she’d moved, but it was the pain of a mending bone, not of burning infection. She closed her eyes and imagined walking barefoot in grass or on pebbles, or even in mud, with tiny brown pillars squishing between her toes. Thank God she didn’t have morning sickness or a compulsive appetite. It was good to be warm and fed, trusting the Lord like she promised, and hopeful He would help her unbelief.
Jacob returned. She indicated a space beside her and grasped his arm.
“Stop pulling.” She said. “It doesn’t hurt yet.”
“But it will.”
“You let it fester and we have to amputate—then it’ll hurt.”
She rubbed the tweezers with an alcohol-soaked cotton ball then wiped his wound. “All right.” She repositioned him a few inches leftward and squeezed his arm; a rivulet of blood trickled to her hand. He quivered as she brought the tweezers to the mark.
“It hurts!”
“Hurts?” She pointed to her leg. “The bone went clean through and was out in the air. You’re practically a full-grown man. You can deal with a splinter.”
She pressed the tweezers into the puncture, wormed them farther. Jacob’s lower lip rolled over and tears pressed from his eyes.
“I can’t feel anything,” she said. “You sure there’s a splinter in there?”
He shook his head.
She pinched the tweezers and dragged. Nothing. “I’ve got to do it again. I ought to be able to find a splinter big enough to leave a hole like that.”
“That hurts!” He yanked free.
She grabbed his other wrist. “Jacob! Your father has a jug in the hutch. Bottom cabinet. Bring it to me.”
He drew back, eyes intent on hers. “What for?”
“Bring the jug and a cup.” She released his arm. “I can’t chase you, so you better come back.”
“Pap don’t like nobody touching his whiskey.”
“Get the jug.”
The humidity-swollen hutch door clucked like a turkey. Jacob returned with the black whiskey cradled in his forearm. He placed it at Emeline’s feet and returned to the kitchen. She unscrewed the cap and without bringing the mouth to her nose smelled walnuts and alcohol. Iridescent oil filmed the top and reflected the ceiling light.
Jacob brought a cup. She poured a half-inch.
“Hold your nose and gulp it.”
“Does it taste bad?”
“It’s a little warm—like pepper. Plug your nose.”
Jacob pinched the bridge of his nose and threw the cup back. He gasped. She grabbed his arm, plunged the tweezers deeper. Jacob’s eyes watered. He coughed. Pounded his chest with his free hand. Rasped.
“Hold still!” she said, and pressed farther. “I’ve got something here! Hold still!”
She eased the tweezers out, her forehead hot with concentration.
“Rats!” Purple blood welled out.
“Not again,” he said.
“Here, take more.” She splashed a second shot into the cup, marking the jug with a bloody fingerprint.
Jacob brought the cup to his lips and swallowed.
“You didn’t plug your nose.”
“It ain’t so bad.”
“I found something; got it most of the way out.”
He offered his arm and she explored the wound. She closed the prongs. “I got a hold. Be still. What?” She released a BB into her other hand, dabbed it with cotton. “That’s a BB. That’s from a gun.”
“No it’s not.” Something dark and angry skipped behind his eyes.
“I shoot, and I know. That’s from a shotgun.”
“So what if it is? The wind blew the barn roof a hundred feet.”
“You hold your tongue.”
“You ain’t my ma!” He wrested free; his heel toppled the jug. Whiskey splashed to the area rug.
“Jake! Pick it up!”
She stretched but couldn’t reach; Jacob watched until the whiskey drained even with the opening and no more trickled out. A dreamy, stunned look covered his face, as if his thoughts voyaged far.
“Why’d you do that? You looked like you saw something.”
“I was thinking of Ma.”
“You miss her.”
Jacob righted the jug. Picked up the cup.
“What are you doing? Don’t do that.”
He drank. Done, he clucked his tongue and smiled with vacant eyes. “She was a bitch.” He tossed the empty cup to the sofa; it bounced from the cushion edge and rapped her cast. “Like you.”
“You don’t mean that.”
Jacob backed away, until he spun and ran into Deet at the screen door.
“Hey! Whoa! Where you going?” He seized Jacob by the shoulder but Jacob shook loose and bolted toward the barn.
“What’s got into him?”
“I don’t know. He just turned mean all of a sudden,” Emeline said.
Deet approached, sniffed, telegraphed a question.
“He only drank a little. And spilled the rest.”
“That’s the whiskey Pap got from the widow. I snuck a gulp; tasted like hog shit—near as I could tell. Jake choked it down?”
“Appeared to like it.”
“He’ll upchuck in three minutes.”
“I dug in his arm for a splinter and gave him a drop of whiskey to settle down. I found a BB from a shotgun. Does that make any sense?”
“I didn’t hear any shooting last night—though Jake made it outside before Pap and me.”
“Can the wind blow a BB?”
“Did you pick it out his arm?”
She nodded.
“Then the wind can blow a BB.” He hovered over the wet mark on the rug. “Pap says anything about this, you tell him I did it. I’ll get a rag.” Deet paused. “Oh wait.”
He stepped to the door and reached outside. “Here. I made this.”
He passed a wooden crutch to her. He’d split a piece of ghostly pale maple, secured the bottom with a leather thong, bolted a handle into the middle, and a shaped shoulder rest at the top. She ran her fingers over the curve of the body and couldn’t help form the impression he’d given it a special measure of attention.
“Thank you,” she said.
“I’ll size the handle to you once I get the floor cleaned up,” he said.
“There’s rags and a bucket in the closet.”
Deet gathered the items. Minutes later, he pressed a cloth to the rug and scrubbed. He flipped the rag over and looked at it.
“This whiskey’s gonna stain and stink forever. I’ll soak it outside.” He moved the coffee table, lifted the sofa with Emeline on top, pushed the rug from under with his foot and dragged it to the porch.
Emeline struggled to her feet with the crutch, found it close to the right length, and hobbled to the kitchen. Each forward step pressured her shin and pain flashed, but the kitchen looked dreadful, scattered bowls and plates, bomber-class flies rapping walls and windows. Here was something to do and the crutch gave her the means. But first she’d see to the black whiskey that this very minute stained black the hardwood floor. Emeline drew water in a bucket, and leaning on the crutch, mopped the hickory floorboards.
“That leg ain’t knit yet,” Deet called through the screen door. “You don’t need to be working.”
“I’ve got to do something.” She lost her balance and hopped sideways until she bumped into the wall.
Deet entered, stabilized her hip with his palm.
“Why don’t you wait until Doc Fleming puts on a permanent cast?” He eased his arm around her waist. “Lean on me.” He helped her to the sofa and knelt beside her, arms pinned by her back and legs.
“Deet—”
“Shh.” He rested his head at her sternum. “I can hear your heart.”
His hair trapped white sawdust chips. His forehead lifted and fell as she breathed. She rested her arm across his, behind his shoulder, and stroked th
e hair above his ear. “There’s nowhere for this to go, Deet.”
His arm snuggled tighter below her thighs.
“I can’t think for fear of hearing steps on the porch,” she said. “This is madness.”
“So be it.”
“I’m married, Deet. I’m married to your father.” She shook his shoulder.
He lifted his head and his eyes were grave. “I’ll take you away.”
“With a broken leg? We can’t even talk like this.”
“Then why are you still petting my head?” He pulled from beneath her legs, rested his hand across her belly, sidling a breast.
“Deet—”
He kissed her. She pressed against him, then pulled away. “I’m married—before God.”
“You don’t love him.”
“Deet—I’m pregnant! You and I can’t be.”
He withdrew his arm. Shuffled backward on his knees and then stood. “Pregnant?” He retreated to the screen door and opened it. Slumped against the jamb, shaking his head. “You ought to kill it.”
Jacob’s disobedient feet scuffed tufts of grass and he made a giddy game of it. He’d angled toward the segment of barn roof lying in a crushed heap midway to the chicken coops, but a dark curiosity directed him to the lake path. The whiskey opened his mind and he knew what he must investigate with his newfound intrepidness.
The grasses on the bank bore the first tinge of golden dryness at their tips; the blades hung lethargically. A bass floated belly up at the lake edge, its silver underside discernible from the trail. Seeing it, Jacob isolated a piscine odor from the others that pressed upon him: water, forest, and something foreign as death, and recognizable as a rotting roadside groundhog.
The walnut tree commanded him to investigate its broken limb.
He reached the shadow cast by the tree’s crown and stopped short. A breeze fluttered leaves and the giant tree wavered. The line of gloom on the ground shifted. Jacob stepped into the shade and his awareness gathered close like testicles in cold water. Something dead and rotten lay near the tree, perhaps crushed by the fallen limb.
Jacob recoiled—but was drawn, and touched the tree again. The vision was gone but a voice arrived as if its journey was long, beamed through some diaphanous membrane and misassembled at his ear.
“Jacob.”
It was a woman. He knew her. “What?” He answered even as he placed her timbre. “What?” He looked at trees, the ground. “Where are you?”
His balance wavered and he rested his free palm against the rough bark.
“Jacob!”
He fell; broke contact; regained his feet, ran to the border of shadow and light. As if tethered by a hemp rope around his waist, the walnut tree heaved him. He fell back to it, heart thudding, and pressed the wood. “Ma?”
“Here…”
“Here where? Ma?” He stepped away and spun, searching. Silence. He pressed his hand to the tree. “Where? Where!” She didn’t answer.
He shivered; he sensed another ghost, a provider of images. Formless, it made him think of an old man, a giant. It spat words (fuck!) at him. Jacob faced the blackness.
“Where is she?”
“Hehehehe.”
The presence urged him toward the fallen limb. Jacob clambered over a branch and crawled below the next. The smell of rotted flesh grew until he buried his nose in his shoulder and retched. The earth soaked his knees and elbows; he pressed his belly to the slippy leaves and grass, wriggled under a limb and found another, closer to the ground, and struggled below it. Deeper into the leafy cavern, he pressed tight to the dank earth, closer to the pungent flesh. Bark scraped his bare arm. Twigs gouged his face, brushed his eye sockets; still he squirmed forward.
Wind shifted and the tree groaned; the broken limb, still connected by a hinge of splintered timber, clamped Jacob to the soil. The weight crushed the air from his lungs and he fought to refill them, opened his mouth but his lungs were pressed closed. He kicked; his toes slipped on leaves. He clawed; his fingers drew mud. There was a hole by a limb. If he could reach it he might pull forward and breathe. Yet even as he thought this, his awareness faded. His legs flailed. He saw the presence, a man made of sawdust and leather, who grinned as if the wind, the shifting tree, and the subsequent revelation of his form were all his doing.
Blackness encroached upon Jacob’s sight. The breeze abated. The walnut groaned and the presence disappeared. Free, Jacob gulped air, scampered forward a few inches, panted.
His hand sank deep into the ground in a slippery hole beside a limb, left when the branch shifted after impact. He reached deeper, (…that’s right, Jacob, touch her…) his bare hand roughed by the bark. “Jacob…” Frigid water filled the bottom of the hole.
“I’m here, son…” His mother’s voice…
The mud gave way like over-easy eggs. He shrieked. Smacked his skullcap against the limb. The wind shifted, clamping his shoulder to the ground with his arm in the hole and his fingers probing rotted flesh. His eyeballs bulged and his voice escaped him; he had no air; the tree crushed his lungs. The giant man appeared, gestured him to go deeper. (grab her, boy! that’s a titty!) Jacob recoiled, shifted and his hand filled with putrid meat and amid the soft stringy mass he found a circular piece of bone.
Or metal.
He grasped it. “Jacob…”
“Ma, why?” he choked.
“Angus.”
The presence howled laughter throaty as a tornado. Jacob connected the words and the breeze abated; the tree shifted, the branch released its delicately wielded weight; he locked the metal in his fist and scrambled back. Mud blackened his arm. Back through leaves and limbs; he ran to the lake, away from the floating bass. He splashed and rubbed his forearm in the water, opened his hand and under the surface his mother’s wedding ring sparkled.
Twenty Eight
We bolt the derrick erect, fire motors, and sink the bit by mid-afternoon. The surrounding field has dried under the sun but humidity is thick. Mosquitoes hover in a silent cloud beside the pounding diesel motor. I swat but they hone on my breath. I scratch my neck with sodden leather gloves.
Merle waves me away for a quick lunch. A thicket of blackberry grows at the edge of the field in the shade of cherry and oak trees. I press the side of my boot to the thorny stems, kneel at a carpet of ferns. I crush a fistful of leaves in my hands and rub the residue on my neck and arms. Fuckin skeeters.
Back at the Ford I wash a dry sandwich with gulps of walnut whiskey and coffee, and when I finish, top off the thermos cup, and put away the jug in the passenger foot well. I drop a flannel jacket on top and Merle stands at my window.
“What you got?”
“Coffee.” The diesel motor chugs forty feet away. “Karl on the rig?”
“He’s the two-man, ain’t he?” Merle props his elbow on the roof and bites paper-wrapped bread. “We add a section in five minutes, so cut it short.”
“We’ll hit fifty feet today.”
“I want sixty.” Merle grins. Walking away he spins. “Charlie’s gonna fight Thunder on Tuesday.”
“That right?”
“You don’t want to miss it. That Thunder—he got a chunk of the devil in him. Eats his own young—killed the last bitch Charlie paired him with. Had to find a bitch meaner than him, and any bitch that mean has to add something to the line. Them pups’ll be special.”
“Sounds like a bunch of bullshit.”
“What?”
“He’s selling pups.”
“You bet against Thunder and see.”
“Don’t think I’ll be for or against.”
“Well you oughta pull your wallet out if you want to talk like that.”
I drink. “What’s the pay?”
“Three to one.”
“Who’s he matched with?”
“Another red nose. Same pappy as the one that whooped on the dog you took home. Named Maul.”
“Maul.”
“Head like a fucking rail splitter, they say�
�and taking on Thunder, come out of retirement—that ain’t a sight a man ought to miss.”
“Yeah, well my barn roof blowed off last night, damn near landed on the truck.”
“Roof blowed off?”
“That’s right. Storm come outta nowhere and next thing, I’m standing beside a twenty-foot section of roof, fifty feet from the barn. Tossed the whole damn thing right over my boy’s head.”
“That’s bad luck. Go to the fight and bet on Thunder. Your luck might improve.”
“It ain’t bad luck when the man upstairs has it in for you. And it ain’t good luck when the one below has your back. Luck ain’t got jack shit to do with it.”
“What the hell’s that mean?”
“Anything you want. Now give me some peace if you want to sink sixty feet today.”
“I’ll get seventy.”
I drink. “Wasn’t you supposed to shoot a well on the Derry side?”
“They get the nitro, I shoot the well. For today, we’re hitting seventy feet. Break’s over.”
He turns and I swig a long pull from the black jug, cap the thermos. We take positions on the rig, both on the same side. I stand by the cathead, an auxiliary power source from the main drill motor. Done it a million if I done once—break the linkage, insert a new thirty-foot section and reconnect the old to the top of the new. I feed a chain around the pipe and coil it on the cathead, and with a quick pull, friction catches the spool and spins the pipe loose.
I push a lump of chains aside and plant my feet square. Karl, at the top of the A-frame derrick, elevates the shaft until the section break is four feet above deck. Sarge slaps a pair of semi-circle chock blocks around the lower pipe so it don’t slip back down the well. Same time, I coil the chain around the upper, just above the break. Lean to the cathead, wrap the links on the spool. The slack chains I kicked aside misaligns and binds.
“Son of a bitch!”
“Come on, for crissakes!” Merle cries over the din.
I tug the chain, kneel, hit the bind with my palm and reach below to the lever that will disengage the cathead from the diesel engine.
“Watch it!” Merle yells.
The bind breaks. The taut chain pops and whistles. In an instant the links pinch my arm to the spinning cathead and flips me to the other side.
Nothing Save the Bones Inside Her Page 16
