by Alden Bell
Hey, he says to her in a soft voice. How bout a little touch? Just a quick poke like – what do you say?
Shoo, Abraham, she says. Get back to bed.
Come on, he says. You had worse than me, I know it. Me, I’m like a bunny rabbit – quicky dicky. Sweet and simple.
I don’t let stinky dying men poke me, she says. Go to bed.
All the more reason, he says. A dying man’s last wish – would you begrudge him it?
Shoo, Abraham. Go shish-kebab a squirrel. This pussy just ain’t got your name on it.
Moses sees her turning her back on him, burrowing herself into the couch.
Abraham stands appalled for a moment, balancing on his one good leg.
Well, I’ll be goddamned if it ain’t the only name not on it, he says to her, his voice hissing with vitriol. You got the whole phone book down your pants, girl.
Pretending to sleep, Moses waits to see if his brother will take more action. He is a man who does not react well to rejection of the womanly sort. But Abraham is too aware of his brother’s presence in the room, so he turns and stumbles with great noise back to the bed he shares with Moses. Moses can hear him cursing a litany in a whisper under his breath.
Goddamn high-falutin whores, he says. What’s everybody keepin themselves so pure for anyway? Armageddon everywhere you look, and everybody’s still so uppity about a little bump. Like a goddamn piss in the woods. Who cares? You do it and then you go back to the business of not bein dead. Instead we got ourselves a world of princes and princesses and dukes and dukettes – and everybody’s wearin white robes and readin bibles and puttin flowers in each other’s hair. Just once I’d like to meet somebody without such a goddamn fine-tuned moral compass.
When he gets into the bed beside his brother, Abraham tugs the bristly blanket off Moses and curls up in a sweating ball of curses.
Moses waits. He does not sleep much. The embers in the fireplace pop and glow.
*
Five days they stay in the cabin. Five days in the woods where, at night, they can hear the flakes of snow tapping light on the windowpanes, they can hear the branches of the trees cracking under the weight of the fall. If it snows at night, in the morning Moses clears again the ice from behind which the dead man gazes. Moses hunts, the Vestal cooks, Abraham stumbles around the clearing and tends to his wound.
What is it if it ain’t a miniature family we’ve gone and built here? Abraham says.
Five days, Moses thinks. And goddamned if it doesn’t feel, in fact, like they have built something. A something out of nothing. Like a building on an empty lot. A thing that wasn’t there before but now stands undeniable and true.
Nights, when he can’t sleep, Moses goes and sits by the pond and looks up at the sky along with the dead man. Sometimes the Vestal Amata joins him, and sometimes she doesn’t. They talk, and she picks at the ends of her long red hair. She tells him about herself. She was born in Oklahoma City, she was raised by her mother. Her father she doesn’t have much memory of. He went his own way when things went bad. She was five years old, and for a long time it was her and her mother, finding places to hide from the hordes of the dead. Then her mother died when she was nine. Not eaten. She just got sick and kind of faded away. Some stories end that way, the girl explains. After her mother died, she was taken in by a whole lot of different people. Some were okay and others weren’t. Now she’s twenty-five – which is exactly the same age as Abraham.
For brothers, she says, you two got some age between you.
Fifteen years, Moses confirms.
That’s a big difference, she says. And it ain’t the only thing different between you.
Moses shrugs.
We got different mothers, he says.
I’d listen to a story, if you’d recount it.
It ain’t much of a story, but I don’t feel like tellin it at the moment. Maybe a different night under different stars. These ones are too hopeful.
Okay, she says.
He can feel her gaze on him. She does not look away for a long time. He sits up and leans over the ice of the pond.
Everybody’s lookin for their own personal entrance to heaven, Moses says. Mine looks different from my brother’s – and yours different from both.
Moses reaches out a finger and taps on the ice over the dead man’s face.
Him too, he says. Look at him there, nose pressed up against the window of heaven.
The Vestal Amata leans forward to look. She brushes her palm gently across the surface of the ice. Then she looks up into the night sky as if to see what heaven he might be trying to get into.
Everyone’s always tryin to find an entrance to the kingdom of heaven, she says. Me, I ain’t so interested in entrances. All I want’s a kingdom of exits.
Moses wonders what she means, and then he thinks he understands. He too has looked this way upon the world at times. He eyes her, the curve of her neck craned upwards, the moonlight catching it pale as the snow, the auburn of her hair like a tangle of nightwood. And then a smile cracks the cool reflection of her face, and she laughs high and tinkling like a Christmas chime. Suddenly he is suspicious of the sincerity of her words – as though she is accustomed to being the awed audience of her own performances. He wonders how much, in fact, she believes her own stories.
But she smiles brightly. So, so bright.
She looks down at the dead man in the ice again.
How long do you think he’s been down there? she asks.
Too long, Moses says and rises to his feet.
Where are you going?
I’ll be back.
He goes to the broken-down porch of the cabin and returns with a rusted red fireman’s pick-axe.
Watch out, he says to the Vestal.
Then he raises the axe over his head and brings the blade down on the ice to the left of the dead man. A crack extends through the surface of the pond, and water splashes out. Then he hefts the axe twice more – once on the other side of the dead man and once beyond where the head is. Then he sets the axe down and slides the loosened sheet of ice away leaving a rectangular patch of water where the dead man is.
Moses kneels in the water at the edge of the pond, before the floating slug. The ripples in the water diminish until the surface is flat and unmoving. Then the dead man begins to rise.
But he has been underwater for too long. The face, as it rises out of the water, melts away, the loosened flesh slipping off bone, the mush of his features splashing into the water, scalp and ear floating mildly on the surface like lily pads. The jaw seems to open, too, but it does so by gravity rather than hunger, because the muscles are rotted away as well. The man cannot hold himself above water, and as soon as his shoulders clear the surface he falls back again. Again he rises, and again he falls back.
Moses doesn’t know what he expected to happen. Perhaps he thought the man would rise like the body of a saint, held aloft on columns of light, lifted to cloudy heaven. Maybe he thought the man would emerge dripping, cleansed, baptized, and steal away into the wilderness to encounter fully his final communion with the earth.
What Moses had wanted was to free the man. But this horror does not look anything like freedom.
He bows his head and sighs as the slug rises again and falls back, the wrinkled flesh of his fingers sloughing off as he reaches for purchase at the edges of the ice.
Then Moses stands and picks up the axe again. He turns it over and uses one hand only to bring the pick end down and bury it in the dead man’s skull.
The pick slips out as easily as it went in, and then the body sinks again for the last time.
Moses looks to the sky again, but nothing has changed. The stars are the same ones he saw before. They are the same hoot owls that once again commence their haunted calls. He is still thigh deep in the pond, but he cannot feel the cold.
He turns to the Vestal Amata who has watched the whole thing in silence. He starts to say something but then trails off:
Well,
at least . . .
At least what? the girl asks.
But diminished so to smallness is the world that the least of anything is difficult to determine.
*
That is their fifth night at the cabin. Moses does not know how he will endure a sixth – for slowing down means growing blind to promise, and a cessation is the ignoblest kind of death. So what will a sixth day look like? What sallow universe will be born?
But he does not have to discover it, because before dawn on the next day the visitors arrive.
Seven
Two Men and a Woman » Bloodshed » A Plan » ‘Kill em Good’ » A Kiss and a Belt » A Showdown on the Bridge » Shooting Wild » A Farmhouse » On the Topic of Family » Void » An Apology » The Love of Broken Things » Gunnison » Arrival
It is the Vestal who wakes Moses when the light is still grey and misty. It is no longer snowing, and instead of the tap-tap-tap of the flakes on the windowpanes, there is only a muffled silence that sanctuarizes their small and fractured home.
The Vestal says nothing. She simply puts a hand against Moses’ cheek, and he wakes. He opens his eyes to see her holding a finger to her lips, hushing him. She points to a window and bids him to wait and listen.
He remains still, and then he can hear it. The stuttering groan of snow beneath clumsy boots. It is difficult to sneak up on someone in the snow. The ground itself cries out your presence.
Did you see them? Moses whispers.
The Vestal nods.
Three of them, she whispers. Two men. One woman with a bow. Fletcher’s people.
Moses wakes his brother, and they creep to the windows, peeking out from behind the ratty curtains they kept closed in case of just such an intrusion.
The men’ll come through the door – both at once, Abraham says. The woman with the bow, she’ll stay back, watch for runners.
Right, Moses says and nods.
What do we do? the Vestal asks.
Moses turns to her. They are all three crouched to the floor.
You want to go back with him? Moses asks her.
No, she says and shakes her head. Why would I—
You’re goin with him or you’re comin with us. My brother and I, we put our necks out there to get swinecut again, you’re comin quiet. No more sneakin off.
She looks at him straight, her eyes narrowed, as if she would consider this. As if her word of honour were a puzzle box she is trying to open behind her back.
Decide, Moses says.
Fine, she says quickly. Fine. Agreed.
Moses then turns to his brother.
The two that come in, he says. You and me’ll take em. No noise. Let the Vestal be the bait.
*
When the door opens, there is first one man – wrapped up in leather and carrying an Uzi swaying in an arc before him, as though he would pepper the room with rounds if given a reason. But as soon as he sees the small figure on the bed, he lunges and holds the Vestal down with brutal and gleeful force. He swings the automatic weapon around to his side on a long leather strap.
Found you, ain’t we? he says. Brucie, get in here!
Then the other man, a twin of the first, comes into the room, smiling and carrying two pistols.
Where’s your boyfriends at? says the one named Brucie. He chortles. They use you up and leave you behind? I guess that’s what you get when—
But that’s when he spots Moses, emerging from behind the door like a bearded leviathan, a monstrous bladed weapon raised above his head.
Brucie opens his mouth to say something, but before he can utter a sound or raise his hands in defence, the weapon comes down and shatters his skull, exploding his head and sending thick spumes of bone, blood, gristle and brain in a multifoliate bloom across the floor and walls.
The other, splashed with the wastage of what used to slosh around in his compatriot’s brainpan, shuffles back quickly on the bed, reaching for the Uzi – but Abraham rises from a pile of dusty blankets behind him, reaches around the man’s neck and buries a knife in his throat up by the ear. An arterial surge of blood erupts from the wound, but the man still struggles – so Abraham draws the knife deep and true around the underside of his jawline. The man’s head falls backwards against Abraham, cut off near to entirety, his neck now opening up in a huge thickly pumping cicatrix. Abraham lets the body drop to the floor and then drives his blade through the man’s eye socket to prevent him rising again.
It is done. The three wipe their eyes clean of blood. The Vestal picks a bit of gristle off her cheek. She does not flinch. Moses waits for her to flinch, but she does not flinch. A hard woman, that one. A woman raised in the midst of gore, chaos.
What about the other one? the Vestal asks. The woman outside.
Moses takes a sighted rifle from the corner and hands it to his brother.
Abraham’s got the eye, he says.
Abraham takes the rifle and goes to the window, putting the barrel between the curtains right up to the glass pane.
You got one shot, Moses says to his brother, or she’ll bring the whole cavalry up here. Can you do it?
I reckon I’ve done plenty of headshots from this distance.
Here, Moses says. He takes a pillow from the bed and wraps it around the muzzle of the gun to hush the report.
Can you still sight it? he asks.
Sho, his brother answers.
One shot, Moses says.
One shot, Abraham says.
They wait while Abraham sights it. Moses looks out the window through a narrow gap in the curtains. He can see the woman’s figure there in the snow, holding the bow with an arrow nocked loose in it, looking towards the cabin and shifting nervously. Every few moments she lets her gaze go back down the hills behind her towards the main road where the rest of her company sits in wait. Moses watches her, and her breath comes in clouds from between her lips.
Hold up, Moses says to his brother.
What now? says Abraham.
Moses turns to the Vestal.
You know that woman? he asks.
The Vestal nods.
She’s a sport archer. Can land an arrow between a slug’s eyes at a hundred yards.
She would kill us?
The Vestal nods.
Or have us killed, she says. She ain’t a bad person. But she’s a soldier, and she’s got loyalties like the rest of us. Hers are to Fletcher. He protects her.
Moses sighs and nods.
Okay? Abraham asks.
Okay, Moses says.
Once again he looks through the window. Abraham takes a number of seconds to steady himself. Then there’s a muffled report, a quick crack at the windowpane, and outside in the snow Moses sees the figure of the woman drop the bow and slump down quietly in the serene drifts.
They wait for a few minutes, listening. But there is no rush of aid coming up through the trees – no panicked response. The people below have not heard, and silence catches in the branches of the trees like some vast spider’s web.
*
Moses leaves the other two to wash the gore from their faces with melted snow. He goes a long way around through the trees to where he can see the main road in the distance, the extended line of parked vehicles that is Fletcher’s caravan. Then he returns to the cabin.
We’re stuck, Abraham says. Ain’t we? We ain’t trekking through the woods, and we ain’t got a car.
They’ve got cars, Moses says. There’s one at the back, away from the others. One man at the wheel, sleeping. We go through the woods, come up from behind. Quick, before anyone knows.
They’ll see, says Abraham. They’ll give chase.
Let em, Moses says. They track good, but they’re slow. We’ll outrun them.
Abraham nods. He massages his stiffening leg with snow.
But he can’t hardly walk, the Vestal says and points to Abraham. How’s he going to tromp through the woods and make a dash for a car?
I ain’t, says Abraham, looking at his brother. I’m stayin here.
What? says the Vestal. They’ll kill you.
Naw. They’ll be too busy huntin you two. I’ll go up in the trees a ways and hide out a couple hours till they’re well gone. Moses’ll drop you where you’re going. Then he’ll come back here for me. Ain’t that right, brother?
Moses says nothing for a moment. His eyes meet Abraham’s, and something passes between them.
Can you conjure a better plan? he asks Abraham finally.
I surely can’t, says Abraham, grinning a little.
It’ll be a few days, Moses says. Can you last it?
I can last it. You for certain you can find this place again to come get me?
Moses shrugs.
If I don’t, he says, there’s someone in the pond out back could use some company.
Moses smiles and chuckles a little, and Abraham laughs with him.
You ain’t much of a brother, Abraham says. Are you?
Ain’t neither of us anything to make a daddy proud.
Abraham squints up at the sky, as if in remembrance of something profound.
It don’t matter, he says. Our pap is long gone. Likely he was the first slug that ever was. The one that started this whole thing. Just one stubborn prick refusin to stay dead. Don’t that have a ring of truth to it?
Moses smiles and nods down at his feet.
It does, he says. It surely does.
For a while again they are quiet, kind of kicking their feet in the snow and looking everywhere in the world except at each other.
Hey, Moses says at last. Do me a favour.
What’s that? says Abraham.
They won’t come for you. But if they do – if they do come for you, then kill em good, okay?
You got it, Abraham says, a smile spreading across his face like that of a child who has garnered the approval of a difficult parent. I’ll kill em real good. I’ll make tobacco pipes out of their bones and be smoking em when you get back.
*
The man at the wheel of the small car is still sleeping when Moses returns to it with the Vestal Amata. The caravan sits idle along the road. Towards the front of the line, many of Fletcher’s people have got out of the vehicles and are tromping playfully through the snow. One woman with a bandana around her head is making a snowman and decorating it with the eyeballs and nose and scalp cut from a slug. Fletcher himself is there, too, standing atop the truck at the very front of the line, his wide sombrero perched on his head and a bottle of wine in his hand. He drinks and laughs at the antics below him and then drinks again. Every now and then he glances up towards the cabin. He wonders, perhaps, why it is taking his three soldiers so long to return. But he is reluctant, no doubt, to go up there himself after he was taken hostage last time.