Nothing Save the Bones Inside Her

by Clayton Lindemuth

  I motor up the grade and Emeline stands on the porch.

  “Gimme a hand here.” I hurry to the tailgate, pull Chambers off and support him hip to hip, but Chambers slips to the ground. I hoist him over my shoulder, again. Lug him up the steps. Emeline opens the front door and I dump him on the kitchen table.

  “The wound is clean. You got to stop that bleeding.”

  Emeline hovers at the living room door.

  “Damn you Emeline, we don’t have time for games. Get your ass over here and plug these holes, ‘fore he bleeds to death.”

  She cants her head. A gust brings a smattering of rain to the roof. “You better get Jacob inside,” Emeline says. “Merely a suggestion.”

  “S’pose so. You patch him up.”

  I stride to the door, and as I pull it, Emeline says, “I’ll take care of you, Brad.”

  Got a spark in her eye since she pulled that stunt with the rifle last night. I’ll settle with her after bit. I can’t look after Chambers, and Doc Fleming won’t overlook a gunshot wound. But first, three dead men litter my woods. I steer the truck to the edge of the forest, gather Jacob and carry him to the walnut tree. I lean him in the folds of the trunk then return to the still site.

  How did the revenuers know to find me in the woods, right there?

  I grab the first lawman’s boot, curl my wrist and pull. The man is too heavy. I slip my arm below his shoulders. Thick bastard. I fight him to the water’s edge. His feet float; his back is on rocks. Gusts blow rain across the choppy water.

  I find the jug of walnut whiskey we had at the site before carrying the second man to the lake’s edge. He’s lighter or the whiskey makes me strong. The water reaches the shore in six-inch waves. How the hell is this going to work? If I take him out deep and the boat upsets, can I swim with one arm, in boots?

  If I hold a gun on Emeline, she can row and throw the men overboard with cement blocks tied to their ankles. Fish’ll strip them clean in a month, maybe. But Emeline’s proven the moxie to bead a rifle on me. She might dump the boat and take her chances. What good is a pistol if I’m paddling with one arm?

  Only thing that will work, and only for a short while, is to drag the bodies far as I can from shore, or maybe tuck them under some low-hanging branches. Come back in late fall, dredge up whatever’s left and burn it.

  I shift a corpse into the water. Lightning flashes on the opposite hill and the boom arrives after a two-count. I don’t like being in the water with so much lightning but I got to figure I’m damn near indestructible. And if heaven or hell wants me dead they either lack the power or they got a special death in mind.

  I slip in the mud to deeper water and the body floats just below the surface. Soon as the man’s open mouth fills his lungs with water he’ll sink. I tow him to a fallen tree that’s created a shelter of oak leaves. A mild current eddies here, trapping leaves and green detergent foam.

  I wedge the body under the timber and return for the next.

  Jacob stares. I climb from the water and stumble to the walnut, touch the bark, shy like my wet finger will conduct a shock. The bark crumbles. I press my palm, curl my fingers. Close my eye.

  “I got to know what I’m gonna do.”

  Lightning flashes and thunder claps. I press my eyelid tight and half imagine, half dream I see Deet, shaking his head, and Jacob, pleading. My old man, Mitch McClellan, weighs me with a judge’s stare. The widow looks away.

  But none of this is from the walnut.

  It all fades like a dream and now that I’ve had a play vision the walnut says it’s time and a man with a terrible grin and a face hewed from ironwood studies me. He turns sideways like to view a spectacle, but my eye is stuck on his frame. It is another version of me, or some distillation of everything strong in the McClellan line.

  It is my grandfather, Jonah.

  Gramps shakes his head sideways and the feeling I’ve had all along—someday becoming the country gentleman, money and power, and special insights—that feeling is gone. Gramps shakes his head and I’m out. One eye, one arm, everyone around me destroyed.

  Jonah stares and I follow his gaze.

  I see my kitchen. Blood on the table. Chambers is gone—and Emeline? She pours me a drink.

  Emeline cleaned Chambers’ leg with a towel and hot water.

  Chambers held her arm. “I always saw us like this, you takin’ care of me.”

  She slipped free of his feeble grasp. “Brad, the bullet that cut through your leg nicked an artery. Your leg is dead. Won’t be long until the rest of you is too.”

  Emeline stepped to the front door. She passed Chambers on the table. His eyes were closed; his skin was pale. Whatever amount of blood he’d lost, it wasn’t enough. Bracing herself on the countertop, the refrigerator, the wall, the banister, she made her way to the basement, pulled the lanyard, and in the back room lifted a blue circular device with “de-ratter—de-mouser” stamped in the base. A glass globe on top, screwed upside down, contained a half-gallon of Warfarin pellets. She flipped it sideways, toggled the pedal and a dozen white pills fell to the floor. She cradled them by her womb.

  But hadn’t the Lord commanded her to wait, and watch what was about to unfold? He’d spoken clearly. He could have told her she would have to stuff Chambers’ leg with rat poison—but He didn’t. Emeline returned the poison to the blue de ratter and climbed the stairs.

  “Let’s keep our eyes on the Lord, Brad. Things are going to turn out perfectly,” she said. “I’m checking your wound. We have to try to stop the bleeding.” She held her finger below his nose. He was unconscious.

  Angus had fashioned a tourniquet. She touched the knot. It was tied poorly and Blood flowed from Chambers’ thigh to the table and dripped to the floor. Emeline grabbed a mixing bowl from the cupboard and placed in on the floor.

  Emeline sat at the table. Chambers shuddered from his loins and his hands clasped the side of the table. He gulped short breaths.

  She waited. His chest rose and fell, but the pace was slight and the sound almost non-existent. Finally his back arched and he wheezed. His back fell to the table and the air rushed out. His whole body clenched.

  Emeline leaned forward, close to his face. His eyes opened, though no breath came through his mouth, and his countenance was utterly blank. His pupils were empty.

  Emeline dumped the bucket of blood into the toilet.

  Thank you Lord for helping me in my unbelief.

  The telephone rang. Emeline answered.

  Emeline sat on the same chair from which she’d watched Deet in the barn. Angus stepped to the porch, swung the screen door open and entered. His clothes dripped as if he’d been swimming.

  He was alone.

  “Chambers bled out,” she said.

  Angus leaned against the wall. “Damn near filled the boat with blood.” He stared at the floor. His face was tired.

  She said, “Where’s Jacob?”

  “Down by the tree.”

  “Why’d you leave him?”

  “I got to bury him.”

  “I should take the Bible down and say a few words.”

  “I thought you might.” He rubbed his temple under the eye patch strap. Ruffled his soaked hair. “I feel just about dead. We got anything to eat? You want to fix some pancakes and gravy?”

  “We’ll have to move Chambers off the table.”

  The table was wet from her scrub brush. Angus sat in fresh, dry clothes and chewed buttermilk flapjacks.

  “Someone called a few minutes ago,” Emeline said. “He said his name real fast and I didn’t hear. Said you had his dog and he was coming to get him.”

  “Who?”

  “I asked, but he yelled he knew what you did.”

  “Charlie? Did he say his name was Charlie?”

  “I think that’s right. Charlie.” She gulped water from a glass.

  “When’s Charlie coming?”

  “He said tonight.”

  “Not in the storm.”

  �
�Well, he knew it was raining—said he had to get off the phone before the lightning zapped him.”

  “We got to move Maul.”

  “You move him. He’s too mean. I tried to feed him this morning and he about took my hand off. Isn’t that what you said the other night?”

  “Two of us can do it. We’ll tie him out in the woods, and when Charlie comes he’ll be none the wiser. I’ll show him the pens and run him off.”

  “What’s the secret? How come you got Maul so much meaner than the other fellas get theirs?”

  Angus studied her face. “The others stop when a dog aggresses them. They don’t take em far enough.”

  “But you do.”

  “Damn right.”

  “You think that bitch outside is worth breeding with him?”

  “Not her.” Angus drank again and Emeline poured more. “We got to go,” he said, and finished the glass. A blue-white flicker lit the room, and the thunder crash lingered.

  “Angus, about last night—” She withdrew a new jug of whiskey from the cupboard. His eye followed the bottle. She filled his tumbler and placed it before him.

  “Yeah?”

  “I married you for good or worse, and if you’re willing to accept it, I owe you an apology. I haven’t been a good wife to you.” She reached slowly, touched the strap of his eye band, dragged her fingernails lightly over his ear.

  He sat straight in his chair.

  “You lost your arm, and what did I do? Loafed around and complained. I’m a terrible complainer—and a broken leg’s no excuse. Deet died and I didn’t think about how you must have felt losing your oldest son. I never realized how cold I’ve been until tonight.” She touched his shoulder, shifted her hand down to his chest.

  “You need to take a drink of this.” He held the glass to her.

  “I didn’t like it much, last time.”

  “Last time it was straight whiskey. This has walnut. It’ll change your perspective.”

  “Well, I just changed my perspective. Don’t know I want any.”

  “You’re a hard woman to trust.”

  “I don’t have the stomach, but if you want me to, I’ll drink it. The Lord says I’m supposed to obey my husband and I will, though it’ll make me sick and hurt the baby. I’ll obey my husband.”

  “That’s what the Lord says.” Angus propped his chin with his hand.

  Emeline gulped whiskey and her stomach turned. She spewed the whiskey into the sink. With half of the glass remaining, she said, “I’ll try again if you need me to.”

  “That’s enough if you’re just going to spit it out.” He stretched to her, pinched her breast. His pupil was a void and his head swayed as if something weighty rolled loose inside. “Just one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You got to call me ‘Mister’.”

  “When?”

  “Now. Forever.”

  “Okay… Mister Hardgrave.” She helped him to his feet. “Whoa, there, Mister… Let me get my coat and the lantern.” She stepped to the closet, braced her arm on the molding. She grabbed the lantern. She’d leave her coat; the rain would keep her alert.

  Angus watched from the living room door, braced against the jamb. Emeline primed the lantern at the kitchen table, lifted the globe, struck a match.

  “Watch your step,” she said.

  “I ought to be suspicious, you bein’ so nice.”

  “Lots of women don’t have it near as good.”

  She opened the door. The lantern sputtered. Across the lawn, two pairs of eyes reflected green. Lightning flashed. The barn was a huge, black shadow. Lighting flashed again and the forest appeared white, green, silver, and was suddenly black again. Fat raindrops stung.

  She took Angus’s arm and they crossed the lawn. “I only see two dogs in the pen,” she said.

  “Reb’s dead. There’s a neck pole against the kennel, topside. We use that to keep our distance.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Slip the loop at the end of the pole on his neck and he can’t get at you.”

  “I don’t know how you mean. Steady, there.” She heaved against him as he slipped.

  “I’ll do it. I just need help getting the chains on him afterward. That’s what’s gonna be tough.”

  They entered the barn and Angus angled to a box of towing chains at the back of the white Farmall.

  “This’ll hold him.”

  They stood at the kennel a minute later. Maul glowered at the rear of the cage.

  “He’s a brute,” she said.

  “A piece of work, for damn sure. I’m gonna put that loop on him and once I got him, I’ll pass it to you.”

  “All right, if you’re sure.” She placed the lantern above the pen.

  “That sumbitch Charlie ain’t left me no choice.” He stopped. Looked as if a thought struggled to take shape, and said, “Nah.”

  Angus opened the pen door. Maul remained in the back, his head low and a perceptible stiffness lifting the hair on his back. “Easy boy. Easy.”

  Angus pushed the staff into the pen. “Move the light to the side a little. I can’t see him.” The rope loop was parallel to Maul’s head.

  “Shit.”

  “What?”

  “He won’t put his cussed head through the loop.”

  “Can you jiggle it?”

  “You think he’s susceptible to jigglin’?”

  “What if I go to the side? Will he look at me?”

  “Take that stick by the barn and prod him a wee bit.”

  Emeline lifted the staff from the grass, rammed the sharp end through the wire into Maul’s neck. Maul latched with his teeth and broke it with a violent twist. Angus jabbed with the loop, but missed. Maul clamped the pole in his teeth and jerked. Emeline prodded him with the splintered staff.

  “Hold on, Em; we don’t want him too riled.”

  “You missed him. Choke up on it.”

  His arm already in the pen, Angus followed inside with his head, shifted his hand closer to Maul.

  Emeline glanced at Angus’s feet. He was bent at the hip with his shoulders inside the kennel.

  “I’ll get him looking this way,” she said, and stabbed Maul with the stick.

  “No!”

  Maul whipped his anvil head, shouldered Angus’s arm aside and charged.

  Maul’s teeth glow—never seen anything so beautiful. His muscles ripple in a flash of lightning and as I behold the fury of his attack, a secret, walnut part of me cheers. This killer makes no bones. Maul’s shoulder collides with mine and my head bounces from the chicken wire. Before I can move, Maul sinks his teeth into my neck and a million tons of pressure collapse my windpipe.

  I am flat-out fucked.

  The pain paralyzes and I understand with each subsonic grunt that Maul is ripping out my throat. Maul loosens and snaps tighter, closer, with a gentle rumble passing from his throat to mine. A love song. Maul heaves; his tremendous neck tosses me side to side, cuts my brow against the chicken mesh. He growls with the intimacy of killer to prey, as if to say, soon enough you’ll join my flesh. Then you can kill.

  But I’ve killed. I’ve killed so much!

  My mind floats and I see Jonah McClellan. He pays me no mind. He swats like there’s deerflies around him, keep stinging him. He looks to the sky with wrath. Jonah the whale tormented by something bigger. Why’d you lead me wrong, Jonah? Why’d you set me up for failure? Why you let my boys die?

  Jonah stops swinging at his tormenters and stares stupid at me.

  Maul squeezes with force I cannot comprehend. Blood drains warm into my throat, my lungs, and I gag without air.

  Emeline says something. I try to hear as blackness presses in from the sides. She says it again.

  “You’re dying, Angus.”

  Of course I’m gonna die. We all gonna die.

  A red light forms at the center of my sight. It overwhelms Maul’s stinking coat, the blood, the lightning. But not the darkness.

  The light
grows redder.

  Forty Two

  As Maul growled and thrashed about the pen with Angus, Emeline retreated to the house. Angus’s body blocked the exit. She wanted to do this while all the blood and electricity in the air gave her clarity. She dragged an end table to the fireplace, struggled on top, and withdrew the Sharps rifle Angus had told her never to fire.

  As she arrived at the crate she found Maul wriggling to escape, his head barely squeezed through the narrow gap between Angus’s torso and the gate. She pressed the rifle barrel to Maul’s head and pushed him backward. The dog scrambled.

  The carbine locked in her folded arm, she took Angus’s hand and checked his pulse. Emeline released his hand and lifted it again, starting over. Again she pressed for his pulse and felt the faintest pressure, a tiny beat, as if the heart of an infant struggled to keep alive the decrepit and addled body of Angus Hardgrave. Emeline held her fingers to his wrist and after a few moments, felt another beat arrive, fainter than before. She waited and felt no more.

  “If life handed anyone a raw deal it was you, Maul. But I’m not having you around a baby.”

  Emeline cocked the carbine, drew it to her shoulder and pointed toward Maul’s head. She squeezed the trigger and the rifle erupted. The barrel pulled and she heard the bullet impact bone and mush. Through ringing ears she listened for Maul’s breathing but heard nothing. She shifted around the kennel and on the side, pressed the barrel through the wire and prodded him.

  While she peered lightning flashed so brightly the sky was illuminated like day. She beheld Maul’s shattered head and turned while the lightning still flashed, a single jagged bolt that seemed ten feet wide, a fiery white electrical spear that crashed into the land beyond the house and dazzled her feet with electricity.

  Emeline left the rifle propped in chicken wire and limped alongside the edge of the porch. She looked over the hill to Devil’s Elbow. A tower of flame consumed the walnut, as if the purpose of the lightning bolt was not to strike the tree, but to ignite all of it at once. The smoke was acrid, like a rotten offering, and the flames grew higher as she watched. She listened to the crackling as if hoping to hear confirmation that Jonah McClellan suffered within, but like the rifle ended Maul instantly, she suspected Jonah McClellan was no more.