Cutter and Bone

by Newton Thornburg

  Still he did not pass out. He was aware of the door behind him opening and closing again and then long seconds passing, time droning in a stillness broken only by the sounds of the bulls in their stalls. And he was thinking, trying desperately to get some sort of fix on his predicament, some idea how to get out of it. A few thoughts stuck: that Wolfe and Billy probably knew nothing about him, that he was there because of Cutter’s rantings at the parade, that his one chance was to separate himself from Cutter as much as possible.

  Slowly he pushed himself up, aware of Billy standing above him, still leaning back against the stall, and casually lighting his cigarette now with a kitchen match that he carefully blew out and returned to the pocket of his battered denim jacket. Bone worked his way across the alley from him, scooted up against the stall there, to protect his kidneys and spine, which had melded into a single clot of pain.

  “Too bad about that,” Billy said finally. “Too bad we had to do that.”

  “Why me?” Bone got out.

  Billy ignored the question. “Mister Wolfe don’t know you’re here,” he said. “Fact, he don’t know anything about you. I want to keep it that way.”

  Bone, trying to keep the pain and fear out of his voice, again asked what was going on, why they had singled him out.

  “You can thank Humperdinck. All that shit he was broadcasting this afternoon.”

  “You saw him crack up. You just said so outside. So what’s it matter, what a psycho says?”

  “Oh, it matters,” Billy assured him. “People just don’t say stuff like that around here—especially not about J. J. Wolfe.”

  “Well, I don’t know your J. J. Wolfe,” Bone said. “And I barely know Humperdinck.”

  “Barely know him?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Just traveling companions, huh?”

  “An employee is more like it. His driver. Maybe you noticed—he’s missing a few limbs.”

  “I noticed.”

  “About four days ago, on the coast, I was at this party. And he came over and said he heard I was loose and would I drive him out here. He offered meals and expenses.”

  “That’s all?”

  “That’s all.”

  “Not part of the take, huh?”

  “What take?”

  “Extortion.”

  “I don’t know anything about any extortion.”

  “You don’t huh?”

  “That’s right, I don’t.”

  Billy exhaled a smoke ring, then sailed a smaller one through it. “You lie pretty good,” he said.

  “Not when I’m scared.”

  “You scared now?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “For good reason.”

  “Me?”

  Bone shrugged. “On my own turf, with just the two of us, maybe not. But here, yeah. You people scare me.”

  “That’s smart. Too Bad Humperdinck ain’t smart.”

  “He’s sick, that’s all.”

  Billy looked down at Bone and shook his head, in contempt and wonderment. “J. J. Wolfe killing some teenage girl and dumping her body in a garbage can—now, why would anyone say a thing like that, huh?”

  “I don’t know. Ask the man who said it.”

  “I’m asking you.”

  “And I can’t help you. I drove the man’s car here, that’s all. I don’t know what’s he’s up to. I don’t know what your beef is. But it ain’t with me.”

  For a while Billy said nothing. He was standing in front of the stall now, almost facing it. “You get a look at that critter in there?” he said finally. “Bad Dream, we call him.”

  Bone had crawled up onto a bale of straw, hoping to ease the pain in his back. Through the stall’s two-by-ten slats he could see the animal inside, a great horned black beast as long and tall as a thoroughbred racehorse but twice as wide, twice as deep, with a head the size of a barrel, nostrils he could have stuck his fist in.

  “Yeah, I see him,” he said.

  “But can you believe him? Angus-Chianina cross, he is, over a ton of black nigger rage. Can you imagine what he’d do to some poor sonofabitch happen to get caught in there with him? Somebody, say, tied up? Can you picture it?”

  Bone could, and in cold terror. But all he gave Billy was a flat “Yeah.”

  “Yeah, I bet you can. It’s like I was telling Humperdinck last night about the good old boys around here. Them and their pickups loaded down with guns. This just ain’t a healthy place to come in and slander somebody, especially somebody like J.J. Wolfe.”

  “I can see that,” Bone said. “I’m sorry it happened. But I didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  “You didn’t, huh?”

  “No.”

  Billy took a drag on his cigarette and slowly exhaled, all the while studying Bone with his ice-water gaze. “Why’d you come here?” he said finally.

  “I just told you.”

  “Why’d he come here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Blackmail? Did he come here to blackmail J.J.?”

  “Blackmail Wolfe? For what? What’d he do?”

  “Who said he had to do anything? A man like J.J., he’s a sitting duck. With all his responsibilities, all his holdings—it just takes a rumor, my friend. That’s all. A little dirt. And then some creep thinks he’s in business.”

  Bone said nothing. And Billy went on, his voice suddenly hard and urgent, as if he were revealing a terrible secret. “J. J. Wolfe is the straightest man you’ll ever meet. He’s the best there is. The hardest working. The straightest.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” Bone tried.

  “And anyone say any different, anyone think he can waltz in here and call him a murderer and sex maniac—and figure we’ll just roll over and pay, pay ’em not to lie about us—well, let me promise you they ain’t gonna be able to hide nowhere. You understand that? Nowhere.”

  It was growing warm in the closed barn now, and Billy absently unclasped his jacket. As it fell open Bone was able to see his T-shirt underneath, and the emblem on it: a red Arkansas razorback hog, name and symbol of the state university’s sports teams. And for some reason that emblem began to scratch at Bone’s attention, like a face he could not quite place. He wanted time to think about it, but Billy’s voice kept at him.

  “You got that, friend?”

  Bone nodded. “I don’t know anything about the man. I didn’t come here to harm him.”

  “And your buddy—that go for him too?”

  Bone did not answer immediately, for it had come to him now, what it was about the razorback. Just a fucking pig, the service station attendant had described it, the picture on the T-shirt of the man who bought the cans of gasoline in Santa Barbara. And Bone wondered if he was not looking at the man now, the firebomber, not Wolfe after all but his nephew, even at this moment idly scratching at the small red rampaging boar on his chest. Bone could almost see the thing taking place, J.J. drunk and blood-spattered, coming back to the motel in shock and panic, probably not even sure what had happened, probably even wanting to call the police—and Billy stepping in, the iceman, the man with the quick hard answers.

  It was an intriguing theory, but only that, Bone knew. The razorback was not proof enough. Nothing was ever proof enough.

  “What about it?” Billy repeated. “That go for your buddy too?”

  “He’s not my buddy.”

  “No, of course not. And that scene this afternoon at the Ferris wheel, you smashing the hippie—what was that?”

  “The man’s a cripple,” Bone said. “The hippie was kicking him.”

  “So he’s not your buddy, huh?”

  “No.”

  “Then you can’t say what he’ll do, can you?”

  “I can tell you what he won’t do. He won’t remember any of this. They’ll give him shock treatments. Electrotherapy.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Mutual friends. They say he’s been in and out o
f hospitals ever since Vietnam.”

  This information seemed to impress Billy. “Then he is a psycho.”

  “Wouldn’t you be?”

  Taking another drag on his cigarette, Billy shook his head thoughtfully. “I want to be done with this whole goddamn thing, right here and now. But I gotta be sure. J.J., he’s not just my uncle and boss—I owe him. My old man was no good, a lush, but J.J. made sure we never did without. Whatever we needed, he gave. He even sent me to college.”

  “Arkansas,” Bone said.

  “Yeah. Biz Ed and wrestling. And now I run his farms for him. And I travel with him some. He likes to talk cattle.”

  “You were in Santa Barbara.” It had slipped out, a mistake.

  And Billy did not miss it. Something new came into his eyes, something Bone could not read.

  “What do you mean by that?” the cowboy asked.

  “Nothing,” Bone said, trying to cover. “I just figured whatever the hassle was. I mean between Wolfe and Humperdinck—well, maybe you were in on it. Maybe you were there.”

  “Yeah, maybe I was. And then maybe there wasn’t any hassle at all, just two totally separate events. J.J.’s car gets bombed and this local girl gets herself wasted and dumped in a garbage can. And you two clowns pick up on it. Easy money, you figure. You add one and one and come up with what—ten thousand? Is that about it? That what you figure he’d pay not to be bothered, not to have the publicity?”

  Bone was shaking his head, denying it all. “I told you—I don’t know anything about it. I drove the man’s car here, that’s all.”

  “Sure, you did.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And that’s why you said I was in Santa Barbara—because you don’t know anything, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  Billy smiled grimly. “Of course that’s right.”

  Bone was on his feet now, taller than Billy, bigger. And he found that he could manage his pain, could fight if it came to that. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “It’s not important.”

  “Oh? What is then?”

  “That you’ve got my word—I don’t know anything about Wolfe. I don’t know what any of this is about.”

  “That’s all?”

  “And I’m walking out of here. Now.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Just like that.”

  Billy thought about it. With his boot he cleaned a place in the straw on the floor, then dropped his cigarette and carefully ground it out. “You and your ‘employer’ are some odd couple,” he said finally.

  Bone made no response.

  “Yeah, old Humperdinck, he don’t just pay the price, he ups the ante. He can’t wait to pay. But now you, you figure you can get in scot free, right? You figure you can put on that pleasant harmless face and everything okay, everything’s sweet and easy.”

  “And that’s wrong, huh?”

  “That’s wrong.”

  “So be it. I’m still leaving.”

  “Well, of course you are. You jist gonna waltz on out of here, free as the wind, right?”

  Bone said nothing.

  And Billy was not smiling now. “You best get started then,” he said.

  As Bone left, he did not give the cowboy his back, not until he reached the barn door. Then he turned and went out into the failing light. He forced himself to walk unhurriedly all the way to his car and he drove slowly down the hill and out through the stone gate. Only then did he slam the accelerator to the floor.

  It was almost midnight when he arrived at the hospital. He found Monk in the waiting room, sitting by herself in the dimness. When she saw him, she gave a cry and practically knocked him down diving into his arms. Then she let it out of her, the fear and tension of the last eight hours, crying like a child. In time she told him what she could, what little she knew. Alex was sedated somewhere, asleep. She did not even know his room number. She had not seen him. She had given the doctors all the information she could, but they had not told her anything, in fact were not even shrinks. A psychiatrist would not be on duty until morning, they said, and even then it would be a while before he got to Cutter or would have anything to tell her.

  Bone talked the girl into leaving the hospital then, and they checked into a nearby motel. She asked about the way he kept holding his back and he told her he had been in a fight at the jail and had fallen against a table. She ran a tub of water for him then and even helped him into it. He was not sure what would be better for his back—hot water or ice packs—but he knew that the heat felt good and he settled for it, for almost an hour. And all that time Monk held forth on the profound new depth her relationship with Cutter had reached. Her coming to Missouri with them had been preordained, she said. The gods or stars or whatever had known Alex would be needing her eventually and so had forced her to come along, against her will really. For she hadn’t wanted to come, had never done anything like this before, yet here she was, right when he needed her most. Alone she was nothing, a zero, always had been and always would be. But not as part of Alex, his lover or gopher or doormat, she didn’t care what her role was, as long as it was what Alex wanted. Because he was a very special human being—Bone could see that, couldn’t he? Had he ever known anyone like Alex before, anyone who could talk the way he could, anyone who behaved the way he did, anyone with that look of his, that special look that said he knew it all and had seen it all, felt it all? And he would be well again, be himself again, Monk knew that, did not question it any more than that the sun would rise in the morning. Simply because he was Alex, because he was he.

  Bone kept nodding and yawning. And finally, ready for bed, he kissed her on the forehead and said goodnight. But he did not sleep. For a long time he lay there in the dark thinking about all that had happened that day, and he found it incredible that he still was not sure that Wolfe was guilty. He had seen the man in the flesh and no bells had rung, no lights had dawned. And yet, if the man was innocent, then he certainly had overreacted to Cutter’s charges, having a deputy bring Bone out to the farm and letting his lured hands beat him and grill him the way they had. If Wolfe’s only worry had been a nuisance blackmail attempt, why would he have gone to such lengths to stop it, outside the law?

  On the other hand, if he was guilty, then why had he let Bone go? Billy had not been acting on his own—Bone did not believe that for a moment. Wolfe undoubtedly had heard what Cutter said at the parade. And he had learned that Bone was with Cutter, had traveled all the way from Santa Barbara with him, and therefore was probably his partner in crime. Yet they had let him go.

  So Bone could only conclude that Wolfe was either innocent or the next best thing, a noncriminal at heart, a muddler like most people, like Bone himself, and in letting him go had opted for inaction and uncertainty rather than undertake a cold-blooded execution. Either way, Bone considered the matter over and done. He was safe. He was out of it. And Cutter too—but out of it in a way Bone did not want to think about now, not tonight. Tomorrow would be soon enough for that.

  In the morning, stiff and sore, he returned with Monk to the hospital. And they had to wait till almost noon before a doctor finally saw them, a doctor who turned out to be the long-awaited psychiatrist, though in the flesh he could have passed more easily for a Los Angeles used car salesman, snapping his gum and glad-handing them, giving them a big Sears grin to match his computer-coordinated red and white print shirt with red tie and slacks, white belt and white shoes. Doc Wheelright, he called himself. And if they were expecting a lot of psychoanalytic jargon, then they’d come to the wrong store.

  It was kinda hard to tell about their friend. He was still in a depressed state, that was for sure, but it was too early yet to say whether what he had was a genuine psychotic depressive reaction or just some sorta blue funk. Their friend had this weird kinda light in his eye—a kind the Doc had seen before, plenty of times—and it usually meant the patient was playing games of one kind or another. Which didn’t mean the boy wasn’t sick
—oh, he was that, all right, no doubt about it. The doc had called L.A. for Cutter’s VA record and judging by it and what the girl here had told Doctor Ramsey last night, well it was obvious the boy needed to spend some time off the streets, safe from society. And quite often that’s all these things were, breakdowns like this—a kid knows he’s had it, knows he’s sick, and so kinda lets it all go, kinda commits himself to the hospital by his own hand. Sort of a soldier, heal thyself situation, if they knew what he meant.

  The doctor paused at that point to grin and reflect on the phenomenon of his verbal felicity, then he got down to the business side of the case. This VA hospital did not have a psycho ward—he himself worked for the university, was here only in a consultancy capacity—so Cutter would have to be transferred soon, either to Little Rock or back to the coast, depending on family, finances, and so forth. Bone told the doctor that there was no family left but that a Santa Barbara businessman, a Mr. George Swanson, came closest to filling the bill. Bone himself was not in the most secure or affluent time of his life and—here he tried, and failed, to think of Monk’s real name—she was still in college. So the nearest source of moral and financial support, outside the VA, would be back in California. Wheelright, writing all this down, said that he imagined that was where they would probably transfer Cutter then, send him back with an orderly.

  “And me,” Monk put in. “I go with him, wherever he goes.”

  Wheelright nodded agreeably. “That’s fine—if you pay your way, of course. And if I don’t find out in the meantime you’re part of the patient’s problem.”

  “She’s not,” Bone said.

  Bone had a hard time convincing the doctor to let him see Cutter that same day, before he started for the coast. And even then Wheelright said that he would have to accompany him.