by E. Joan Sims
Henry stopped and spat in the fire. “Is it true they found you two naked together?”
Burke didn’t move a muscle. His only physical response to the other’s man’s jibes was a wildly pulsing vein in his temples. I was beyond being shocked by anything either of them could say. This was worse than any nightmare I had ever had.
I closed my eyes and tried to wish myself elsewhere. Then I sighed and took a deep breath. The situation was as real as it gets, and I had to stay with it if I wanted to remain alive.
“Got a shovel?” asked Henry.
Burke shook his head.
“Then you two had better get busy picking up rocks. Don’t want them coyotes having my pals for dinner. That’s the least I can do for them considerin’ they helped me make off with the money from the arms sale.”
Henry stood up and slapped his free hand against his thigh.
“Damn! I’m might’ near a millionaire, what’ ya think of that, honey?” he asked me.
“I’d say that’s a lot of money for a few guns and ammunition,” I answered softly.
“And two sidewinder missiles. Don’t forget the missiles. Have to thank Captain Burke here for that. Right, Capt’n?”
Burke clenched his teeth tightly. I watched his jaw muscles bunch up and waited for the explosion I dreaded. When it didn’t come I tried to defuse the moment.
“Wha…what coyotes? You said something about coyotes. Surely we don’t have anything like that here. Don’t they live out west somewhere?”
“They did until the winter of nineteen and seventy-eight. One of the worst winters we ever had. Froze the Mississippi River clean over in two or three places. Them coyotes was starvin’ over on the western side. They crossed over on the ice and stayed after the thaw. Screw each other more than rabbits, they do. Now we got more coyotes than deer this side of the river. Damn scavenging bastards eat up all the quail and pheasant. A fellow can’t hardly find anything to hunt no more. I shoot ’em ever’ chance I get.”
Henry lifted his rifle and followed our every move as we searched the area around our campfire for rocks to cover the bodies of the men Burke had killed. Rocks were scarce on the level ground under the trees, but I stumbled on a gully twenty feet or so away from the camp. In periods of heavy rain it was probably a good size stream. The water had carried and deposited stones of all sizes down to a narrow mouth that disappeared between two large boulders.
The snow hadn’t melted in the gully and my hands were soon stiff and unfeeling from digging the rocks out of the frozen ground. Burke must have been in much more pain with his wounded hand. He staggered and groaned with each step.
Henry unceremoniously shoved the bodies of his two friends close together and directed us to start piling rocks on top of them. Slowly the burial mound grew. I was only able to carry two rocks at a time and Burke had all he could manage carrying one.
I lost count of the number of trips I made to the gully and back. I was beyond caring whether or not Henry shot me and was about to sit down for a rest when Burke stumbled and fell. I stopped and bent over to rest my hands on my knees while I tried to catch my breath. Burke lay still and unmoving. I straightened up and made a tired effort to lift his shoulder.
“Cut that out! If the son of a bitch can’t get up let him lay there and freeze to death. Some tough guy soldier he turned out to be,” Henry scoffed, his rough words making angry white puffs in the frigid air. “Guess all that crap about him being a fag was true.”
Henry sauntered over to Burke’s prone figure and poked him in the back with his rifle.
“Just the same, as much as I liked these good old boys he killed, he did make it possible for me to keep all the money for myself. Maybe I ought’a let him have a clean shot through the heart, a present from one hunter to another.”
There was no fight left in my body. I was past caring or protesting. I had reached the limits of my endurance. He could kill Burke or he could kill me. I sank down in the snow and let the words of a Spanish prayer soothe my soul.
Henry propped his rifle against a tree stump and dropped down on one knee next to Burke. He unsnapped the holster of his pistol with his right hand while he tried to turn Burke over with the left. I sat and watched the two as I would have actors in a play. I was as detached and uncaring about their future as I was their past.
I didn’t even flinch when Burke flopped around on his back apparently lifeless only to rise up swiftly and smash the rock he had concealed in his hand against Henry’s temple. Henry made a small sigh and fell heavily on the cold ground, his dead eyes open and staring dully at the night sky.
Burke got up to his knees and spat in Henry’s bloody face, and then smashed him again and again between the eyes. I didn’t start crying until I heard the bones in Henry’s face crack.
Burke knelt over his enemy’s dead body and searched him. Finally he struggled to his feet and staggered over to the dying fire.
“Here,” he cried hoarsely, “come here and help me put more wood on the fire or we’ll never last the night.”
“What does it matter?” I sobbed. “You’re going to kill me anyway.”
“Yeah,” he grinned, “but remember there’s always the smallest chance that you might get me first. Life,” he laughed hoarsely, “is full of surprises. Just ask that good old boy over there.”
Burke was right. I still felt the tiniest kernel of hope deep within my heart. I said one more Salve Regina, remembering how sweet and pure Cassie’s voice had sounded when she sang it at her First Communion, and pushed myself up from the ground.
For twenty minutes I hobbled around the clearing picking up dead limbs and branches. Burke helped me kick over a big hollow tree stump we would put on the fire before going to sleep. It was big enough to keep us warm throughout the night.
“Our main problem,” Burke said seriously, “is food. You’re about all in, and I need your strength for tomorrow.”
“Well, gee thanks for thinking of me,” I answered crossly.
Burke went on without paying any attention, “You’ll have to carry the vermin’s body to the reservoir.”
He ignored my startled gasp and continued with his tirade.
“I couldn’t have planned it better if I’d tried. Old Hank’s body is going in the drink with a smashed jar of Ricine in his pockets and that knapsack of money on his back. I’m sure his ugly face is well known to the authorities. This way, there won’t be any doubt the militia is responsible for all the deaths. The National Guard and the regular army will be put on full scale alert for the next fifty years! If I work it right, I may even get a promotion. I can tell the FBI that I suspected Yancey and Callard all along and followed them to the camp. From that point on, I can borrow your story and pretend to have been the prisoner who finally escaped and risked his life to keep at least one bottle of Ricine from going in the river.”
His grin was wicked and feral, showing all of his huge teeth.
“Hell, I’ll be a bitchin’ hero!”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Before Burke finished pinning imaginary medals on his chest, I interrupted to burst his manic bubble.
“And just how am I supposed to carry the dead weight of a two hundred pound man another ten, or five, or even two miles, when I can hardly make it out to the bushes to pee?”
“I’m going to get you a venison steak for breakfast,” he announced with an even bigger and more insane grin. After you eat your fill of roasted deer meat you can carry Henry, and me, to the dam and back,” he laughed.
I didn’t exactly jump up and down, clap my hands, and sing “a hunting we will go,” but I did join in his enthusiasm for a big juicy venison steak. On that cold dark night in the middle of the forest, I was as looney a tune as he was. I wasn’t too happy, however, about his plan to build a sled using the fresh deer hide and two long poles. I liked it even less when he told me I would drag Henry’s body on that sled to the river, but the delicious anticipation of meat cooking and sputtering over th
e campfire seemed somehow more important. And to make me even more agreeable, Burke surprised me with a present.
“Here,” Burke said as he dug his uninjured hand in his pocket. “I think these are yours.”
He held his hand over mine and dropped my Rolex and my other jewelry into my palm.
“Where did you…?” I gasped as I slipped my wedding band back on my torn and dirty finger.
“Henry,” said Burke, pointing at the stiffening body at the edge of the clearing. “They were in his jacket.”
Burke spat in the fire. His spittle danced and sizzled in the embers.
“Once a thief, always a dirty rotten scumbag. Henry was the executioner they sent to kill Ta’Ronda Yancey’s hacker boyfriend. He started unraveling this whole mess when he stole the computer and sold it to the pawnshop. You can thank him for your short life span.”
“You forget,” I said with a tired smile, “just like another Southern lady once said, ‘tomorrow is another day.’”
Burke thought that was very funny. He rocked back and forth on his heels and laughed manically.
I was tired—bone tired and very hungry. My stomach felt like a giant, gnawing, empty hole. I brought the conversation back to breakfast. I wanted to be sure Burke could make good on his promise.
“So how do you catch a deer?” I asked innocently.
Burke went into another paroxysm of laughter. I was getting tired of being his straight man and told him so.
He wiped his eyes and shook his head.
“Catch a deer! Hunt! You track and hunt deer. Actually, in this case, I think they’ll come to us. Somebody knew enough about the habits of the deer in this vicinity to build that stand here in these oaks.”
He reached over and picked up a couple of acorns from the base of the tree he was leaning against. “Acorns. Deer love acorns. They practically can’t resist them. I imagine if we hadn’t made such a ruckus here today they would have shown up to graze. They know very well if they don’t hurry the squirrels will get them all.”
“But you said they won’t come near the scent of man. We have three dead men and two live people. How are we going to get them to ignore that?”
Burke was unusually quiet for a moment.
“That has been worrying me. But I think I’ve come up with a solution.”
He looked up at me with cold dead eyes.
“We’ll uncover Henry’s friends and leave them as far from the clearing as we can drag them. The coyotes will take it the rest of the way. Deer are used to scavengers. They won’t sense anything strange about that.”
I groaned when I thought of the macabre work ahead of me. And Burke had another even more disgusting task in mind.
“And you can pull Henry up to the deer stand. I have enough rope. What I don’t have is enough raccoon or fox urine to cover both our tracks. You’ll have to stay up there with him until I bring down a deer.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” I breathed. The world whirled and danced in front of my eyes. “You’re insane!” I whispered. “I won’t stay up there with a dead man, not even for a minute! You can’t make me,” I finished feebly.
But of course he could.
I stumbled over to the impromptu burial mound of Henry’s two friends. Then I remembered that Henry had worn gloves. I marched deliberately over to his body, pulled the suede gloves off his stiff dead hands and slipped them on mine. They had fleece inside and felt great. I smiled grimly and bent to my task.
Kicking and tossing the rocks to one side, it took me much less time to uncover the bodies than it had to cover them up. When I finished, I called to Burke to help me pull the corpses away from the clearing. At first he didn’t answer. I called a second time. He got up slowly and stretched before he came to join me. He had been asleep! I could have made a run for it. But where would I run? And how far would I get without food or water? I sighed and resigned myself to whatever fate had in store for me in the company of this man—to the bitter end.
I tugged and pulled until I managed to get the smaller of the two men back out of the clearing and well away from the light of the fire. Together, Burke and I dragged his larger companion over to join him. This time, without hesitation, I helped Burke search their pockets for anything that might prove useful to us. Burke found a two candy bars, and I found a pamphlet from the Mount Pisgah Baptist Church denouncing the fiends who kill unborn babies. It was wrapped around three marijuana joints.
We abandoned the two militia men to their fate with the coyotes and staggered back to the warmth of the fire. With my last ounce of energy, I helped Burke push the hollow stump on the flames, then collapsed on top of the blood-spattered jacket I had taken off the larger of the men.
Without a word, Burke offered me half of one of the candy bars. I was, after all the best pack animal he had. I barely swallowed the last bite before I fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.
At some time during the night, I awoke to the sounds of gnashing teeth and cracking bone. The coyotes growled and fought each other for bits of flesh and sinew. I shuddered and tried to put what was happening in the forest out of my mind. After a while I succeeded when exhaustion overtook me and I slept again.
Burke woke me before dawn the next morning. He’d rigged a primitive pulley using a rope and the fork in the tree above the deer stand. He ordered me to start climbing. Without a word of complaint I followed his instructions and pulled on the rope while Burke guided Henry’s cadaver the twenty feet to the stand. Despite the freezing temperature, I was soon sweating with the exertion.
I was also worried about the two bottles of animal urine I still had tucked in my pockets. Burke thought he had the urine. How was I going to make the switch? It was as important for me that he succeed in his quest to kill the deer as it was for him. I had to think of a way to exchange the bottles.
When Henry was safely tucked away and tied down to one corner of the flimsy shelf high above us, we melted some snow from the gully in the Vienna sausage tins. Burke shared another candy bar with me while we drank our hot water.
When he finished eating, Burke unzipped his pockets and handed me the bottles he had been carrying around. His hand was swollen and throbbing with infection. He wanted me to open the bottles and help him apply the liquid. He must have been in considerable pain, because he closed his eyes and leaned back against a tree. I thanked God for the opportunity so easy offered and quickly tucked his bottles away. I fished the others out of my pocket and broke the seals. Then I set about dabbing and drizzling the contents over his boots and lower legs.
The stuff had a strong, unpleasant musky stench, but Burke didn’t seem to notice. His face was flushed and feverish. I wondered if he would drop in his tracks with fever and infection so I could slap him with a rock like he had Henry. I guess I stopped for a moment to enjoy thinking about it because he opened his eyes and slowly brought the rifle up until it was resting on my cheek.
“Don’t get any cute ideas, lady. It’ll take a lot more than a little fever to knock me off my feet. One false move from you and all bets are off. I’m very creative. It won’t take me long to come up with another plan when you’re just a memory.”
He pressed the rifle hard into the soft skin of my cheek and kicked my feet out from under me.
“Save some of that urine for the back of my heels,” he ordered.
He stood up and turned around from me to finish. When I was done with his boots there was still some liquid left in both bottles. I stood up and drizzled the rest over his back and shoulders. I took great pleasure in covering him with piss.
The pale winter sun was making a weak entrance over the horizon when Burke made me climb back up the tree.
“Stay there,” he hissed, “until I come back for you. Don’t move even if you hear a shot. With my hand…I might be a little off my marksmanship. A wounded buck can be very unpredictable. I don’t want to have to worry about you getting in the way.”
And off he went, the mighty hunter, to fetch us
some breakfast.
It was cold up in the tree even though I hunkered down as far as I could out of the wind and the occasional flurry of snowflakes. I tried to imagine that they were fireflies, that I was watching them from the patio on Meadowdale Farm on a balmy summer evening, but the sight of my stone-dead companion spoiled the ambience.
For the first time since Burke appeared in the dugout I was alone and had the luxury of mourning Bert. It was too cold for tears, but I mourned. I thought of all the things I wished I had said, all the things I wished we could have seen and done together.
When Rafe disappeared, my greatest sorrow was that he didn’t get to share my life with Cassie. She brought such joy to my existence. He would have reveled in her triumphs and valiantly protected her from all harm. He would have loved being her papa.
The emptiness I felt with Bert’s death was different—it was for the future that might have been. And now, somehow, I knew there would never be another man for me. I had my chance with these two, one every two decades of my life, and that was it. There would be no third man when I was sixty. I would have no Horatio to laugh at my silly jokes and flatter me extravagantly when I was wrinkled and grey. Nora Dick and I would have more in common than my own Mother and I did. I think Nora realized that when I went to visit her. That snowy December afternoon she had seen in me the ghost of her youth, the last gasp of fading desire. That’s why she had sympathized instead of encouraged.
“Oh, God,” I begged, “Let me live and carry it off half as gracefully as Nora.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The morning grew colder as the minutes passed. The snow flurries got thicker and closer together. I looked over at Henry and cursed him for being cold and dead. I needed the warmth of a live human being. I considered ignoring Burke’s orders and climbing back down to warm myself by the dying embers of the campfire, but I was too afraid to risk it.
I huddled back against the tree, seeking its protection from the icy blast of freezing wind. My body went into spasms of involuntary shivering. The planks of the stand swayed and shook with each seizure and left me breathlessly wondering if the shaky structure would come apart and send me hurtling to the ground.