The Lethal Bones

by Nick Thacker

  He had no reason to assume his truck would be in any danger since it had been out there all day. Redneck Carl and his two buddies were probably still around, probably still looking for him, walking by his truck several times with no clue who it belonged to. Ben felt pretty confident they wouldn't take the chance and screw with it.

  His face now started to throb, the remnants of the Carl encounter pulsing through his blood. He could have avoided all of this by merely backing down and letting Carl watch his SportsCenter. But the truth was, Ben hadn’t wanted to. He’d wanted to provoke the sloppy redneck. He’d wanted to feel that heightened rush of brain chemicals from the intensity of the conflict.

  Stupid thing to do, Bennett. The voice in his head wasn’t his old football coach anymore, but his own.

  He didn’t want to go back for his truck now, so he decided to take a walk along the creek. His shoes sank into the soft bank, but it didn’t bother him. It reminded him of the post-rain hikes down by the rivers that ran through the parks. He loved hitting the trail on those days, with plenty of stars above his head. Here, the late-summer air felt cool and comfortable, but it lacked the crispness he’d come to know and love back west.

  Since leaving Yellowstone and Rocky Mountain National Park, Ben missed sleeping outside, nestled in a down bag, looking up at the millions of points of light among the black. He missed securing his food in a bear canister or box and hiding it a hundred yards from camp. He missed making oatmeal in the morning and watching the sun come up over the mountains, drinking freshly ground hot coffee from a French press.

  But he couldn’t go back to Yellowstone or Rocky Mountain. Not again. Not after what had happened.

  He stopped strolling when he noticed a dog on the other side of the creek — a mangy looking thing, thin and limping.

  “Hey dog,” Ben said. The mutt lifted its head to study him. Sad brown eyes fixed on Ben as the dog froze in place.

  The dog then took a couple of steps into the creek toward him, but Ben raised a hand. “I don’t have anything.” He jerked a thumb toward the truck stop. “Probably some great dumpsters up there, though, or you could find a trucker to donate an unfinished sandwich. Or just eat the trucker. I’ll bet you get lucky.”

  The dog cocked its head at him, then turned in the other direction and padded away.

  “Suit yourself,” Ben said.

  Only now had his heart rate returned to something close to normal. His head and face still buzzed, but he no longer felt like his chest might burst open.

  This wasn’t the first fist fight he’d had since leaving Rocky Mountain National Park, but it was the first time he’d actually wanted to lose. That realization settled on him as he listened to the creek water meander along. He’d wanted Carl and his two buddies to kick the crap out of him. Dashing into the kitchen to escape had been an involuntary response. His body had overruled his brain and made him leave.

  Ben sat on the damp bank of the creek and stared at his hands. “What is wrong with you, Ben? Why do you keep doing this?”

  Before he could come up with an answer to the question, his phone buzzed in his pocket. The feeling startled him. No one had this number, and he never got robocalls this late. It was after midnight.

  He took it out of his pocket and stared at the lock screen. Unavailable number. He figured it had to be a wrong number.

  Instinct told him to ignore the call and put his phone away, but something in him made him change his mind. He couldn’t imagine why someone would be calling him so late. A burning curiosity made him have to know who it was.

  Ben tapped to accept the call. “Hello?”

  "Hey, Hermano."

  Ben’s blood ran cold. He felt like he was falling. He hadn’t heard the voice on the phone in almost a decade, maybe longer. But he knew it right away. Lucas Gòdia, a friend Ben had not seen since Twin Falls, Idaho. Not since the fire and all that mess.

  “Lucas.”

  “Hey, Ben. Do you still go by Ben?”

  “I do. What are you… where are you?”

  “Denver. Sitting on my back porch, drinking a beer and watching the mosquitos fry in my new bug zapper. I know you probably got a lot of questions.”

  Ben blew out a breath. “You have no idea. It’s after midnight, why are you calling me? How did you get this number?”

  “Sorry to call so late. I’ve been trying you in the daytime for a couple weeks, but you never answer your phone. And, about how I got the number, that’s a much longer story. It’ll take time.“

  Ben swatted an ant on the back of his neck. “I got the time, don’t worry about that.”

  “Did you know Zach is going to school in Fort Collins?”

  Zach. He hadn’t thought about his kid brother in over a year. He wondered what he looked like now. Probably just like him, but a bit thinner and a bit younger.

  “No, I didn’t.”

  There was a brief pause. “Still haven’t talked to your family, huh?”

  “What do you want, Lucas? I don’t want to be rude, but this is… a shock, you know? I’m at a truck stop in Kansas and just got my ass beat by a guy in a trucker hat, so I’m not really feeling up to ‘catching up on old times’ right now.”

  “Come to Denver.”

  “Why should I do that?”

  “I can’t tell you over the phone. There’s something here in Denver you need to see. Something you’re going to want to see. That’s all I can say about it right now.”

  Ben sighed through his nose and watched the dog, who had now returned to the creek. The mutt’s tongue shot out at the creek, lapping up water. The dog’s ribs vibrated as it drank. Ben could see scars up and down its legs. This thing had led a rough life. Maybe I’ll look like that in another ten years, he thought.

  “Come on,” Lucas said. “I know you don’t have anything better going on.”

  “Yeah, okay. I’ll come to Denver, but only because I have to see your new bug zapper.”

  “Really? Awesome. I’ll get you a plane ticket.”

  Ben shook his head, even though he knew Lucas wouldn’t be able to see it. “That’s okay. I’ll drive.”

  3

  Ben piloted his truck into the neighborhood off Sheridan Street. The mountains to the west were like old friends. He almost knew their curves and points intuitively, and he would have recognized the skyline of Denver anywhere. Ben hadn't seen too many skylines like that in his wanderings around Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, and the other flat flyover states of the Midwest. He missed the mountains. He missed being out in nature, with a purpose and a plan.

  Lucas lived in a suburb of Denver, a place named Westminster. More of the businesses in this area had Spanish on the buildings than English, and Ben wondered if Lucas, a Mexican-American, felt more comfortable here because of that.

  The neighborhood was like any typical suburban row of houses you could find on a brochure for middle-town America. It looked like all the other suburbs he'd driven by. Short, two-story homes, painted differently but in unoffensive earth tones. Yards that could use a bit more space and a bit less xeriscaping.

  Ben felt a pang of nostalgia. Even though none of these houses were his, nor had he ever owned one, he realized that he hadn't slept inside a home in a long time. He hadn't had a bed to call his own in longer than that.

  Lucas’ house was a small thing, maybe two bedrooms. Light painted brick, with a basketball hoop in the driveway. Ben noted there were no children’s toys out front, but the front door had been adorned with a colorful wreath that didn’t look like the sort of thing Lucas would have made. At least, not the Lucas Ben remembered from Idaho. A lot could change in a few years, though. Maybe Lucas had taken up creating colorful decorations as a hobby. Probably not, though. He realized what it all meant: Lucas had officially “settled down.”

  Ben parked and marched up the walkway to the front door. Only then did it occur to him that he should have brought something. A six-pack, or a bottle of whiskey, something. Too late now. Besides, I do
n't even know what he likes anymore. Lucas had said that he’d been drinking a beer when he’d called yesterday, but Ben had no idea what that meant. Dark beer, lager, IPA?

  He lifted a hand to knock, but the front door pulled back before he could. There stood Lucas, beaming. Same as he had been the last time they'd seen each other, save for what a few years had done to him. Hair a little thinner up top and a little gray specking onto the sides of his head, the lines of his face a little more defined, and the pudge of his belly a little farther out. But to Ben, it was like walking through a time machine. Lucas Gòdia, live and in the flesh.

  “Harvey Bennett,” Lucas said, then snatched him by the collar to pull him in for a hug.

  All at once, Ben experienced a flood of emotions. The sense of nostalgia threatened to overwhelm him. The last time these two had spoken, Ben's father had passed away not long before. He'd escaped his family immediately after, running out on them, missing his father's funeral. Leaving a note but lacking the courage to hand-deliver it. Becoming someone else, moving away, trying to forget the person he'd been.

  And now, hugging Lucas, it all came back. The past smacked him upside the head and made Ben’s brain feel like someone was squeezing it. Maybe we can’t really run away from our past, he thought.

  Lucas held him out at arm's length. "You stink, Hermano."

  "Sorry. Been a couple of days since I stayed at a place with running water."

  Lucas took a step back and eyed him up and down, then waved Ben inside. He took stock of the house as he stepped through the doorway. First, he noticed a vase full of flowers on an end table next to the couch in the living room.

  “You must have a girlfriend because I have a hard time believing you could ever keep a house this clean."

  Lucas held up his left hand, showing off the metal band. “Married. Six months now.”

  “Married? Wow, congratulations!”

  “Thanks.”

  “I’ll bet you even have decorative soaps in a dish in your bathroom.”

  “We do, and they smell great.”

  Ben nodded. “So where is she? I’d love to meet her.”

  "She's at her mom's until tomorrow, but she's looking forward to meeting you." Lucas pointed a finger at Ben. "Don't you leave your dishes in the sink and get me in trouble. She's been gone two days, and I've managed to keep the house clean so far."

  “I wouldn’t dream of doing something as harmful as leaving a dish in the sink.”

  Lucas chuckled. “Want a beer?”

  "Sure, but… if it's not okay for me to be here, I can find another place to stay. I don't want to intrude or anything since she's on her way back."

  By the time Ben had finished speaking, Lucas had already returned with two bottles of Fat Tire. New Belgium, Ben thought. Good choice. He handed one to Ben while shaking his head. “No, really — she wants to meet you. I’ve told her all about you. We made up the guest bedroom with the soft sheets. You’ll love it.”

  “You sure?”

  “Really, it’s okay.”

  Ben sipped his beer and wandered around the room. Lucas and his wife had a healthy collection of framed pictures along one wall. Mostly family, with a few of Lucas and a beautiful, black-haired, dark-skinned woman on what appeared to be hiking trips. They looked perfect together.

  Ben turned around. “It’s good to see you, Lucas. I didn’t think I ever would again.”

  “I know how you feel. But sometimes, life brings people together when they least expect it.”

  “That’s deep.”

  Lucas laughed again. "Smartass. Have a seat." He cleared a tablet and remote control off a chair and set it opposite the couch. He pointed Ben to the sofa.

  “What have you been up to?” Ben asked as he nestled in against the couch cushions.

  "Contracting, mostly. Anything and everything. I have a little crew I run up and down the Front Range. Framing, mudding, and taping, whatever people need, mostly residential. It's been about three years now, working steady. Moved here just before that, coming from a couple years of oil work down in Texas. I was on a job rebuilding houses after flood damage in Brighton, so I wasn't planning to stay. But, I met Marietta, and… you know how the rest goes."

  Ben didn’t, but he nodded along, anyway.

  “What about you? Last time I saw you, you were going off to Yellowstone.”

  “Yeah, I did that.” Ben’s voice trailed off.

  Lucas eyed him, eyebrows raised. “Okay, hermano, I need a little more than that. You don’t work there anymore. I know. I already asked.”

  "Okay, okay," Ben said, lifting his hands. "Yeah, so I went to Yellowstone and was working with a game manager there. It was good for a while, then it wasn't good, and I wanted out. They had this kind of ‘ranger exchange program' thing, and I thought different scenery and different people would improve my attitude. They sent me to Rocky Mountain National Park. That was good for a while, too, then it wasn't. I mean, it really wasn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Things… went bad there. People died.”

  “What? People died at RoMo? What are you talking about?”

  “You wouldn’t have heard about it,” Ben said. “It all got swept under the rug. I’m not even supposed to talk about it, actually. Politics.”

  “Wow. Sorry, man.”

  Ben shrugged. “It’s okay. I made it out alive, anyway, and it was a while ago. I’ve been running around since then, just, uh…” He wasn’t quite sure what exactly he had been trying to do, so he told Lucas the truth. “Trying to find myself, I guess.” Ben laughed. “Whatever the hell that means.”

  “I gotta be honest with you, Ben, it doesn’t look like it’s okay. You look like hell.”

  “Yeah,” Ben said, shrugging, knowing he didn’t have grounds to refute the claim. “It’s been weird for me since I left the parks. I was supposed to go back to Yellowstone, but I declined. Technically, I’m on an ‘extended sabbatical.’ It has something to do with taxes that I don’t really understand, but they’re not paying me or anything. I’ve sorta been drifting around, going from place to place, doing odd jobs and stuff like that. Kind of a homeless wanderer, which I thought would be cleansing, but it mostly just sucks.”

  Lucas pointed at Ben’s face. “Looks to me, based on that shiner you got, you’ve been doing more than wandering.”

  Ben instinctively put a hand up to cover the parting gift from his new friend Redneck Carl." I can't argue with that. Look, I'm just trying to figure out what's next for me. There doesn't seem to be an answer to that question. At least, not out there."

  Lucas leaned forward in the chair. “I hear you. I was like that before I met Marietta, to be honest. My world got a lot clearer when she entered it.”

  Lucas took a Post-It Note from the table, along with a pen. He scribbled something down, folded it in half, and then passed it to Ben.

  “What’s that?”

  “Your little brother Zach’s phone number and address up in Fort Collins.”

  “Is Fort Collins far?”

  Lucas shook his head. “Naw, it’s about an hour north of Denver.”

  Ben considered this for a moment, and then he nodded his thanks. He stuck the little slip of paper inside his wallet. Then, he put his wallet in his back pocket, and he could almost feel it — that extra millimeter of thickness back there, weighing on him.

  “You going to call Zach?” Lucas asked.

  Ben shook his head. “Why am I here, Lucas? I didn’t just tear up hundreds of miles of highway to get here in a day so you could give me Zach’s info.”

  “Right,” Lucas said, sniffing. He looked away for a moment, toward the wall. “I met this girl. Her name is Ember.”

  “If you’ve been married only six months and you’re already having an affair, I don’t want to hear about it.”

  Lucas spread a grin. “No, it’s not like that, not at all. This woman, Ben, she says she knows you.”

  “I’ve never met any hippie chick n
amed Ember in my entire life.”

  “Maybe not, but she knows everything about you. She wants to meet you. She’s no hippie, either. That’s for sure.”

  Ben drained the last of his beer and set it on the coffee table. "She doesn't know everything. And why should I care about her wanting to meet me?"

  Lucas eyed Ben for a long moment. “She does know everything, Ben. And you should meet her because she has something I think you’re going to want to see. It’s why I’ve been so intent on getting you here. It’s why I’ve been calling you for weeks, trying to get you to pick up.”

  “What is this ‘thing’ she has?”

  Lucas shook his head. “I can’t tell you. I have to take you to her and show you — her rules. Maybe it won’t help you find your purpose, but it might help you find some closure. I know you’ve been looking for that.”

  Lucas sat back and sipped his Fat Tire. A beam of light shined through the window, glinting off Ben’s dark bottle on the coffee table.

  Ben sighed and looked up at his friend.

  4

  Ben and Lucas sat in Lucas’ car outside the building. Ben didn’t know exactly where they were, only that it was about ten minutes from Lucas’ house. They had driven away from the mountains and toward the taller buildings of downtown Denver. Though he had worked at Rocky Mountain National Park, he had never been through Denver.

  Currently, they were in an office park. The building in front of them was tall stone, about four stories. The sign on the front said something about a co-working space. Ben couldn’t get much of an impression based on the cars in the parking lot.

  “You okay?” Lucas asked.

  “Not really. I’m kinda freaking out. I would feel a lot better if you told me what was going on and let me know what I’m about to walk into here.”

  “It’s better if she tells you. I need you to trust me.”