Winter's Bone

by Daniel Woodrell

  “I ain’t so stoned I don’t know our own goddam car when I see it! And that’s what I just fuckin’ saw—let’s get after him.”

  Gail leaned over and began to tuck herself away, button her blouse.

  “Well, you’ve got to finish changin’ Ned’s diaper, then. You do that’n I’ll chase. Or else you’ll have to wait a minute while I do.”

  Ree sniffed the scent of baby shit in the air, looked at the yellow smear, the helpless drooling face, then reached beneath Ned and pulled him and his fouled diaper onto her lap.

  “I got him.”

  Gail put the truck into gear and lunged forward across the bridge. She drove slowly past the line of waiting vehicles with the people standing about and two hogs yet running around, then stomped the gas pedal flat and chased her own headlights up the thin winding road. She got the speed up to where the high-set old truck felt loose and tilty on the turns. If you lost the road there was no shoulder and it was a smashing drop into lonesome wooded gullies. She kept her foot heavy on the gas and crossed into the far lane on tough curves.

  She said, “I’ve lost them taillights.”

  “Get around this bend’n maybe we’ll see him ahead down in the bottoms.” Ree was trying to wipe Ned’s butt with a blank section of the dirty diaper while jolting about in darkness inside a speeding truck that leaned toward tilt on the curves. She aimed her swiping fingers at the baby soil but her hands bounced about and she felt her knuckles sink in muck and slide across smooth skin. She wiped her fingers on the diaper, raised Ned a bit, and swabbed his baby butt until it looked close enough to clean in the shadows. “I don’t see taillights nowhere now.”

  The truck said warning stuff on the turns in a grating metal language. The tall shifter shook about angrily and the black knob ducked away from Gail’s hand until she let up on the gas pedal. “Man, I can’t go this fast!” The truck coughed and heaved as it lost speed. “That’s too fast for this ol’ thing to go safe.” The road was black to the eye and always turning, one long dark loop dropping sharply toward the bottoms. The truck passed between glum forests of plucked trees and clots of shivering pine. “It won’t do no good for nobody if we slide off this goddam ridge.”

  “Ugh—where’s a clean one?”

  “Clean one what?”

  “Diaper.”

  “It fell to the floor, there, by your feet.”

  “I don’t trust myself to stick in pins rollin’ around like this.”

  “He sprung for some store-bought kind. They don’t call for pins.”

  Black ice lay slick where the road bottomed, and the truck slid a surprise twist sideways and completed most of a circle before rubber found dry asphalt again and Gail yanked the squealing tires straight. She yelped and slowed fearfully to a shambling pace, then suddenly stopped altogether and sat trembling, overlooking a steep bank of scrub and a frozen cow pond. Her pale hands remained choked around the steering wheel. Beyond the pond there were shorn open acres of stumps and snow and deep drifts built against stacks of felled trees. She bowed her head to the wheel. She said, “Sweet Pea,this ain’t what we got stoned to do.”

  During the brief spin Ree had clutched Ned bare-assed and squirming to her chest. She’d held him fast with both hands while whirled about to slam her shoulder against the door and smack her cheek against the window glass. Now she cradled his head to her chest with one hand and spread the diaper on her lap with the other and felt an odd blush rise on her face. She started to laugh with relief and said, “Well, you never do know for sure what you’re gettin’ stoned to do. That’s a big part of why you do it.” She calmly began to wrap and fold the diaper snug around Ned’s voiding spouts and he smiled a winning toothless smile. “I think he looks a way lot more like you than him, know it?”

  “Me, too.”

  “Especially if his hair comes in red.”

  “Floyd’s momma prays against that happenin’ every day.”

  At lower speeds the truck grumbled and lurched awkwardly at times. In the bottoms beside the river lay the best growing dirt in the region. The houses near these unshapely stretching fields were burly and flush, with young trucks in the driveways and paid-off tractors in the barns. Chopped cornstalks poked above the snow, and useless old tassels and shucks had blown into the wire fencerows and stuck to the barbs.

  Coyotes began calling down the moon.

  Ree held Ned tugged to her side and said, “Let’s get on home. This is no good. I mean, why would he be runnin’ if he saw me wavin’?”

  Chapter 18

  WHERE REE slept the night shadows seemed never to change. A yard light across the creek cast a beam at the same angle as always through her frosted window. She sat up in bed listening to The Sounds of Tranquil Streams while watching the same old shadows and vanishing sprites of her own boring breath. She raised two quilts and draped them across her shoulders while the stream tumbled chanting around a rocky bend and she considered forever and how shadowed and lonely it would likely be.

  In Ree’s heart there was room for more. Any evening spent with Gail was like one of the yearning stories from her sleep was happening awake. Sharing the small simple parts of life with someone who stood tall in her feelings. She stretched flat and turned the knob to quiet the stream. Counseled by midnight and a clutched pillow she eventually eased into sleep.

  Knocking sounds pulled her awake. There was no radiant heat this far from the stove and she stood on the cold wood of the floor and looked out the window and saw the antique truck. The frigid air raised bumps on her skin as she went toward the knocking.

  Gail said, “He told me if I was goin’ to stay out this late, I might as well stay out all night. He took Ned to his folks’n shut the door on me.”

  Ree waved her inside and threaded through the dark to bed and crawled yawning under the heavy quilts. Gail sat on a chair and began to undress. Her breathing floated welcome ghosts into the air. Caked mud broke loose when boots thumped to the floor. Jeans and socks were dropped in a bunch on top of the boots. She fidgeted on bare feet and rubbed at the skin of her shoulders and arms, looking down at the bed.

  Ree held the quilts pulled wide, patted the sheet, and said, “One log alone won’t hold fire.”

  Chapter 19

  THE NEEDED skill was silence. Along the dangle of knotted branches gray squirrels crouched utterly still as the day roused. They were alarmed by every sound but not long alarmed by any. The dawn air held the cold of night but there was no breeze and squirrels soon lost their fear of the new day and moved out along the branches. Easy meat for the table with naught but silence and a small bullet required.

  Ree and the boys sat with their backs propped against a large fallen oak, butts on gathered leaves, boots in thin patches of snow. Trees were yet in shadow down low but fresh sunlight warmed the upper reaches. Ree noted a squirrel standing upright on a high sunny branch and slowly raised the rifle and popped a shot. The squirrel squeaked mortally and spun a loop on the branch, hind claws scraping at bark for a final grip before falling limp to ground. Harold budged forward to retrieve the squirrel but Ree held him back. She shook her head and whispered, “Leave him lay. They all run into their holes hearin’ that shot, but if you stay still’n quiet they’ll come right back out in a few minutes. We want two more.”

  She passed the rifle to Sonny, and they leaned back to wait. The boys had red noses and Ree told them with gestures not to sniffle their snot but to let it build full, then remove it with one quick snort. Sonny saw a squirrel lying along a thick branch but fired too low and splattered bark chips. He frowned and passed the rifle to Harold. The sun rose and tree shadows began stretching wide across the open spaces. Harold’s shot did not hit squirrel or tree, a wasted bullet sent whirring into the distance. Ree pegged another and Harold winced as the squirrel fell squeaking and clawing feebly at the air. This one bounced off several branches and landed on a log. With his next shot Sonny hit his target in the hind parts and the squirrel thudded to ground and started to
scramble awkwardly in the snow and winter brambles.

  Ree nudged Harold. “You can chase after that one. They got claws’n teeth, you know, so wear gloves to grab ’em.”

  “He’s still alive!”

  “Notch his head ’tween two fingers’n pull—like with a chicken.”

  “He’s callin’ for his momma!”

  Sonny stood and shook feeling into his legs, then slipped on his yellow leather gloves and walked toward the maimed squirrel thrashing about in snow spotting with blood.

  “I’ll do it—he’s mine, anyhow.”

  The squirrel huffed after breath and squeaked things defiant or pitiful or both. Sonny hunkered and dropped a hand over the squirrel’s little head and jerked it beyond connection with the body though the skull remained inside the fur. He watched the chest sink a last time, then gathered the others and carried them all by their tails.

  Ree said, “There’s a way to make a stringer for these things if you get a big bunch. These bones here, behind this thing like an ankle? You can poke a hole there between the bones and run a stringer through like with fish, but we don’t need a stringer today. Not for this amount.”

  Harold said, “Let me carry one.”

  The sun was taller though light had not yet broken through to the ground. The path was narrow and iced on the north slope. These rough acres were Bromont acres and they’d never been razed for timber, so the biggest old trees in the area stood on this ground. Magically fat and towering oak trees with limbs grown into pleasingly akimbo swirls were common. Hickory, sycamore, and all the rest prospered as well. The last stretch of native pine in the county grew up the way, and all the old-growth timber was much coveted by sneaking men with saws. If sold, the timber could fetch a fair pile of dollars, probably, but it was understood by the first Bromont and passed down to the rest that the true price of such a sale would be the ruination of home, and despite lean years of hardship no generation yet wanted to be the one who wrought that upon the family land. Grandad Bromont had famously chased timber-snakers away at gunpoint many, many times, and though Dad had never been eager to wave his gun about in defense of trees, he’d loaded up and done it whenever required.

  Sonny said, “Look—I can stick my little finger down inside the hole. It sticks down purty deep, too.”

  “Don’t you go lickin’ that finger, now.”

  “I think I feel the bullet.”

  They crested the slope, breakfast held swinging by the tail, and started toward the house below. Smoke drifted from the stack. Across the creek a cussing Milton was trying to start a cold balky truck while another Milton banged on the motor with a wrench. Ree kept her eyes on her side of the creek and led the boys down the curving damp trail to the rear of the house.

  Harold said, “Ree, are these for fryin’ or for stewin’?”

  “Which way do you like best?”

  Both boys said, “Fried!”

  “Okey-doke. Fried, then. With biscuits, maybe, if we got the makin’s, and spang dripped on top, too. But, first thing is, we got to clean ’em. Sonny, you fetch the skinnin’ board. I think it’s still leanin’ on the side of the shed back there. Harold, you go for the knife—you know which one I want.”

  “The one I ain’t s’posed to never touch.”

  “Bring it to me.”

  The skinning board was a weathered barn slat scored with a snarl of cuts and stained by various bloods. Sonny laid the board at Ree’s feet and she dropped one squirrel onto the wood and set the others to the side. When Harold returned with the knife, Gail came with him and stood on the porch, sipping coffee.

  Ree said, “Hey, Sweet Pea, how’d you sleep?”

  “Good as ever.”

  Sonny nudged Ree with his elbow, said, “Show me how, huh?”

  “I’ll show the both of you—Harold, you stay close.”

  She stretched the squirrel lengthwise and drove the blade in at the neck.

  “Now, these are harder’n rabbits but still not too hard, really. Think like you’re cuttin’ the squirrel a suit, only you’re cuttin’ the suit off of ’em, not for ’em to put on. Open ’em at the neck, here, cut the wrists free like so and slit the arms, cut the ankles free like so and slit the legs, then split ’em like this down the middle and bring all the cuts together. Their skin sticks to ’em more than rabbits, so you got to pull at it, and help it along by easin’ the blade between the fur and the meat. Harold, put your hand in there’n yank out them guts.”

  “I ain’t touchin’ guts!”

  “Don’t be scared—the thing’s dead. Nothin’ to be scared of.”

  Harold backed slowly toward Gail and onto the porch.

  “I ain’t scared to do it, I just don’t want to do it.”

  Sonny crouched to the skinning board and shoved his fist inside the squirrel and pulled the guts onto the wood. He scrunched his face and shook his head. The guts made a somber pile of deep reds and pale reds, browns, and blacks. He looked at the guts, then at Harold. He said, “It ain’t no worse’n cleanin’ up puke or somethin’. You should do the next one.”

  “But cleanin’ up puke always makes me puke.”

  Ree was watchful over Sonny as he split the next squirrel open. She said, “You got you a whole bunch of stuff you’re goin’ to have to get over bein’ scared of, boy.”

  Gail said, “Harold, you got the sand for this, ain’t you?” She stroked his dark hair and when his eyes met hers she bent to kiss his cheek. He blushed, leaned his head into her middle, and threw an arm around her waist. “I’ve always known you to be such a brave little rascal.”

  “You can’t always leave all the ugly stuff to Sonny, you know. That ain’t right.”

  “I don’t mind—he’s my only brother.”

  “I mind. Harold, get your butt down here. You don’t wanna make me run after you. You truly don’t. Get down here now’n squat beside me. Close your eyes if you want, but get your goddam fingers in there’n yank out them guts.”

  Harold did not move and Ree stood to grab him by a wrist. She pulled him down the porch steps to the skinning board. He crouched on his knees with his eyes held shut and she guided his hand inside the squirrel. He made the sort of face that generally breaks into tears, but squeezed with his hand and pulled and pulled until the guts lay on the board. He stood then, calmly looked at his hand, then at the guts. He said, “That really ain’t no biggie, is it? His insides sure was good’n warm on my fingers.”

  Gail said, “Look at Harold! Look who’s still the brave, brave little rascal I always thought he was.”

  Harold seemed embarrassed but pleased and stood over the gut piles staring down. “We don’t never eat those parts, anyhow, do we?”

  “Nope.”

  Sonny and Harold rushed together beaming then and slapped their bloody hands at each other. They stood still giggling for a moment and carefully rolled red fingers across each other’s cheeks to make spotty war paint stripes. They laughed and hopped about the snow-caked yard, swatting away with bloody hands while Ree tossed the remaining squirrel onto the skinning board and bent to cut the suit.

  Chapter 20

  FULL STOMACHS brought about a spell of peace and Ree languished on the couch. She stretched on her back with her long legs propped atop the armrest and put a dish towel over her eyes so the pictures playing inside her head would flicker brightly against a darkened space. A tiny purple circle puffed into a large blue circle, an expanding bucket mouth, maybe, and inside the bucket it was like ten gazillion fireflies popped into sparks but their sparking light was of all the colors known to the mind and constantly popping from one color into another. A red cloud of mist grew from the bucket and shrunk into a regular little crooked tree on a hilltop with an old wrinkled sky above. When the wrinkles parted the sky was a blue eye that winked until she was in the tree with her feet hanging from a branch, dangling above a sudden roiling ocean that opened below. The ocean had waves that leapt like dancers. A smattering of cows grazed between dancers in the oce
an but many others puffed with bloat and floated foundering horribly on their sides just beyond reach of the waves until pitchfork tines swooping down from somewhere pierced their bloated bellies all at once and the released fart-wind from so many bloated cows knocked her flying from the tree into a fragile green jungle. The jungle shattered into smoke behind her as she ran and held people she knew, sort of, at least she sensed that she did, but they wouldn’t face her or say hello or stop to help with directions. All her feelings were of being lost and her frantic words were shouted in a language nobody else seemed to hear. She ducked under a yellow leaf big as tomorrow and fell against giant time-spanning lips that could smooch her spirit entire from days of girlhood to now with but one knowing pucker. The lips kept smooching on her sweetly like she was yet and forever a child, though, which felt wrong, stunting and stale, then in the measure of a single heartbeat her dress fell open like shutters and she stood revealed, a woman, and…

  The dish towel fell from her eyes and the flickering pictures sank beneath light with the lips sinking away last, even as she felt her fingers reach out to grab them for holding near. She opened her eyes to see Uncle Teardrop’s face poised inches above her own, and seen at this distance his melted side looked as big as a continent on a globe. He said, “You think I forgot about you?”

  It was a continent with a volcanic history, vast sections of wasteland and rugged brown mountainous zones rained upon eternally by three blue drops. Her eyes took it all in as she rolled off the couch sideways beneath him onto her knees and hurried across the floor. As she crawled she said, “What do you mean, forgot about me? Huh?”

  Uncle Teardrop wore a brown leather jacket that had been slashed open in a couple of places and home-stitched back together with fat leather strands, and a camouflage cap meant for green seasons. His dark graying hair was dull, lank. His black jeans had washed pale in patches and his boots were dun lace-ups. There’d be a weapon on him somewhere.