Beneath the Bonfire

by Nickolas Butler

  “Bret,” she said unsteadily, “there are people coming up the driveway.”

  “Go back inside, baby,” he said, his voice too calm for her. “Go back inside, I’m just expecting some visitors.”

  “They’re here,” she whispered. Then, “Bret, what is … what’s happening?”

  “Go on now,” he said. “Go to sleep. Just some bet-making, that’s all.” He turned his back to her, led the “winning” dog away, toward where she did not know. Help, she hoped. Bandages and medicine, painkillers and water, though all that seemed very unlikely.

  The dead dog before him she recognized as Bick. He slept in their bedroom, ran in his dreams. Bret had described his coloring as “red red nosed.” Bethany shouldered into the cage, picked up the dog in her arms, its body impossibly hot and heavy, and left the barn, just as a column of men came toward her in the night, their own hands full of leashes, dogs snarling, dogs whimpering, dogs who remained chillingly silent, even happy amidst it all. The night suddenly raw with violence.

  She carried the dog into the house, went into the bathroom, locked the door, started the shower, and then stepped into the cold water with the dog in her arms. She held it until it cooled down. She slept on the floor of the bathroom that night, beside the cool of the toilet. Kruk never came for her. She found him in bed the next day at noon, asleep and snoring.

  She scooped the dead dog from the bathtub, wrapped it in towels, and carried it down to Crawfish Creek, where she let the body drop through the water to the bottom, the towels gently moving in the current. She spent the next three hours tossing large stones onto the sunken body until it was covered entirely. An underwater cairn and headstone. When she finally turned to walk back to the house, there he was, right behind her. He struck her across the head with the back of his hand. She went down, holding her mouth as it filled with blood.

  “Once a month those men come out, lay their bets, pay me money to fight their dogs,” he said over her, savagely. “Once a goddamn month. You never have to see it or even know it, okay? You can just go ahead and forget what you saw. They’re just animals.” He breathed quickly, put his hands on his hips, and scanned the fields as if for witnesses. Then he leaned down to her, touched her shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have done that. But damn it, girl. I told you to stay away from the barn.”

  He turned away from her, striding over the desiccated cornstalks. Thereafter she could not be unafraid of him, and the dogs sensed it. She suspected him of training them against her. She kept steak in her pockets, fed them whiskey when he was away. Sang them lullabies as they lounged on the kitchen floor, drunk and full. She did love them, their big eyes and long tongues, felt safer in the house with them beside her, her protectors, their bodies warming the drafty old house through the long, quiet winter. They curled around her on the couch as she read, the heat of their bellies resting atop her cold feet.

  She was afraid to run, had no friends, and nowhere to go. Most of that fall, winter, and spring they lived quietly, taking walks, cooking. A week in Corpus Christi eating fresh shrimp and crab, him having his way with her in a seaside motel to the steady soundtrack of warm, crashing surf. She’d kept her eyes shut or focused on the shifting shadows of other guests walking past their window blinds.

  She was trapped, his viciousness and kindness meshed together to form their own cage. She tried steadily to separate the dog killer from the man who was her lover and companion, but the two figures constantly came together into one and it unnerved her. She did not understand killing at all. No one in her family had ever even hunted. On the nights of the fights she tried to be away, to make the whole thing disappear. Those evenings she spent driving the prairies, breaking at truck stops to pee and buy snacks, soda. She took solace in the country music played in such places at low, comforting volumes. In the mornings she found handwritten notes that he’d left on the kitchen table:

  Who was I before you? Love, Bret

  She called the police one day from the pet store, anonymously. Reported that there was an illegal dog-fighting syndicate operating in a barn off the Crawfish Creek. It was late spring then, and she wanted it all to come to an end. She hoped that the police would scare Bret and he would shut down the operation on his own accord. The officer on the other end of the line listened to her and kept asking her name. She repeated the information and hung up. A day later a police car rolled up their gravel road and two officers knocked on the door.

  “We’ve got a report of some dog fighting on these premises,” a woman cop had said, her long red hair flowing out from behind a brown patrol hat. She was tall and lean, her skin very pale and freckled in places.

  Bethany shook her head, shrugged her shoulders. “No idea,” she said. “We’ve got some dogs, sure. But I don’t know about any fighting.” She leaned on the door, her body weak.

  Officer Aida Battle looked at her, removed her hat, smoothed back that fiery hair. They had not yet met. “Ma’am, are you sure?”

  Bethany nodded.

  “Can we get a look at that barn?” the other officer asked, motioning with his thumb.

  Bethany nodded again, unable to meet their eyes. The male officer went off toward the barn. Bethany watched him open the swinging doors and go inside. She felt the redheaded woman’s eyes on her.

  “I should get your name,” the female cop asked. “No matter what, I ought to get your name.”

  “Bethany,” she said. “Bethany Evers.”

  The male officer was already coming back. He shrugged his shoulders at the female officer, said, “I got nothing. Five or six dogs. Not uncommon on a farm like this. No other signs of anything unusual.”

  The redhead studied Bethany’s face and then glanced toward the barn. She said, “Bethany, if you ever need to reach me for anything, here’s my information. Sorry to disturb you.” She handed Bethany a business card. She donned her hat again, smiled brusquely, and turned. Bethany exhaled. The female officer turned back.

  “Bethany,” she asked, “what do you all farm out here?”

  Bethany paused, thought quickly. “There’s no money in farming anymore. It’s just cheap, is all. And quiet.” She smiled, though her eyes pleaded with the officer. Your partner is in on it, she thought. A barn full of pit bulls. He never mentioned they were pit bulls. “The dogs like it,” she said, lying. “My boyfriend inherited the land from his grandmother.” She did not want them to go.

  * * *

  Aida nodded, kicked the dry ground, began walking away. In the distance she saw a circle of old, disturbed coals. The memory of a large fire. She walked back to the police car. Her partner was already in the car. It was unusual that she would ride with another officer and had spent most of her career patrolling alone, but her lieutenant had suggested that Lombard ride along. The address in question was in the middle of nowhere, and Officer Battle was close to retirement.

  “I don’t need that on my shoulders,” he joked. “You go out and don’t come back. So close to retirement and fruity drinks on some Floridian beach. No. Take Lombard along, guy couldn’t find his ass with both hands. Show him those back roads.”

  They drove back down the gravel driveway and through the hulking shadow of the red barn. At the road, they met Kruk’s truck. He waved happily to them, rolled down his window, and stuck an elbow out. In the bed of the truck were three pit bulls, their tongues lolling. “Hello, Officers,” he said. “Can I help you?” He blocked the sun from his eyes, squinted.

  Aida peered at the dogs in the bed of the truck, their nails loud on the metal. They barked incessantly. “What kind of dogs are those?” she asked.

  “Terriers,” he said, nodding. “Magnificent dogs.”

  “Pit bulls,” she said, nodding back at him. “Right? Pit bulls?”

  He spat at the ground, grinning. “I don’t call them that, Officer. They’re my pets and I love them.”

  “That why you’ve got them riding in back?” she replied. “If you loved them, you might let the
m ride in the cab with you. Maybe even buckle them in. Fact is, I could give you a ticket right now.” She wanted to see more of his face, but it was obscured in the shadow of his visored hand.

  “Aida…” Lombard said quietly out the side of his mouth as he pretended to peer out the passenger-side window.

  “We just came from the creek,” Kruk said. “They were playing. Havin’ a ball. I didn’t want to smell like wet dog. My girlfriend hates that.” He smiled again, his teeth showing.

  “Yeah, we just met her,” said Aida, putting the cruiser into park. “Nice lady. Showed Officer Lombard here the barn.” She tried to remember the young woman’s name but couldn’t. I just met her, Aida thought. She waited for a reaction from the man.

  Kruk did not flinch, though he did rub the stubble of his face with a hand. Looking more closely at the passenger side of the police cruiser, he smiled and gave a wave. “Officer Lombard, didn’t see you at first.”

  Lombard waved meekly back. Kruk smiled at Aida, shrugged. “It’s a nice spot for dogs,” he said finally. “So much freedom, you know? Room to roam.”

  Aida put the car back into drive, her foot on the brake. “They’re dry already,” she said.

  “What?” asked Kruk.

  “Your dogs,” she said, “they’re dry.”

  He blinked.

  “You said you were up at the creek. Those dogs look dry.”

  Kruk looked over his shoulder at the three panting dogs. “They dry off quick in the back of the truck like that. My little secret.” And then passing them on his own driveway, he gave them a wave somewhere between friendly and dismissive.

  “Seems like a nice guy,” Lombard said.

  “Yeah, how about that? You knew him this whole time and you never let that slip. Why didn’t you say something?”

  Lombard spit out the window, scratched at the back of his head. “I didn’t realize he lived out here, is all.” He shrugged. “So I see him at the bar sometimes. What’s the big deal?”

  “I don’t like something,” Aida said. “Something ain’t right.”

  * * *

  When Bethany finished her story, Aida paused. “I remember that day, Bethany,” she said. “I remember not believing him. But that’s all the more reason why I still have to go after him. He’s got my gun, for one thing. I can’t let that go. The lieutenant will have my ass. Jesus.” She could not believe she hadn’t recognized the girl, hadn’t recognized Kruk. Her face, I didn’t recognize her face with the scars, she thought. My goddamn mind is going. Unraveling.

  “You can’t,” Bethany said. “Not right now. Just take me to the hospital. I’ll need more stitches.”

  Aida shook her head. “You don’t get it. By all rights, I ought to have him already. Pulled over and in cuffs.” She shrugged off Bethany’s grip. Decades of untarnished service to lose her pistol this close to retirement; Aida was livid, scared. “I’ll get backup. More cops.”

  “They won’t care,” Bethany said stiffly.

  “What do you mean?” Aida said, exasperated. “What do you mean, they won’t care?”

  “They’re all in on it too,” Bethany said, blood everywhere, drying black. “The whole town’s in on it. Your buddy in the car that day, I bet.”

  “Impossible,” Aida said. “This is serious. Abuse of animals, gambling, racketeering.”

  Bethany was shaking her head. “They just think they’re animals.” She wiped her eyes. “I’ve seen it. The way they throw their dogs away afterward. Check the creek. Check the ditches. You’ll see. Just walking the road near our house I’ve collected eighty collars. Eighty.”

  Aida was quiet.

  “They don’t care about your gun, Officer Battle,” said Bethany. She reached into the pocket of her denim skirt and produced Aida’s card, held it up. “All they want to do is bet money on dogs. Now, can you take me to the hospital?”

  She knows my name. She has my card. “I can’t do that,” said Aida. “The hospital will make me file a report. I can’t lie.”

  “Then I’ll take myself,” Bethany said. “Won’t be the first time.” She wiped the counter off, the dried spots of blood. Her manager’s car was now idling in the parking lot, where he sat, eating fast food from a greasy bag. He had just pulled up.

  Aida moved toward the door, stunned. She stopped in the doorway and said, “I’m sorry, Brittany. I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to help you.”

  “It’s Bethany,” the young woman said, “and you forgot your dog food.”

  Aida waved her hand in the air, crawled into her cruiser, and felt the lightness of her belt and holster. Pulling away from the pet store, she reached for the radio to alert other cars of the assault, but then paused. She tried to remember what color the truck was that Kruk had been driving. Had it been red? Black? She pulled onto the road and drove quickly in the direction she thought he had gone, but the road led rapidly out of town and onto the prairie. Ahead of her, nothing but flat fields and trains delineating the horizon. She exited the road, driving onto a gravel track that she knew led to the train tracks. She watched a freight train rush by her patrol vehicle, the graffitied cars a blur before her. She rolled down her window and sucked in the air. What just happened? What just happened?

  Back at the station she walked in, went to her desk, and found Lombard in her spot, on the telephone, talking to his wife.

  “Took you long enough,” Sergeant Doty said. “Where’s the dog chow? The kibble and bits?” He scoffed, examined the box scores of a crumpled newspaper.

  “What’s the deal?” she asked the room. The men shrugged, rolled their eyes, kept hitting their keyboards. Lombard hung up.

  “What the hell?” she asked him.

  He threw his hands in the air. “What do you want, Battle?” he asked. “You forget where your damn desk is?” The men in the office liked to tease her about her memory. She was always losing things: her hat, reports, her coffee mug. They said she was getting old.

  “My desk,” she said.

  “This is my desk,” he said.

  She opened the top right drawer, where she stored a package of tampons, though she was past the age of needing them. They were not there. She reached across his crotch to the top left drawer, where she kept two packages of Dixon Ticonderoga No. 2 pencils, all deftly sharpened. The drawer was a tangle of rubber bands over a layer of glossy fantasy football magazines.

  “Hey!” Lombard said. “Quit snooping! That’s my shit!” He slammed the drawer shut.

  She stormed out of the office and the men roared with laughter. In the locker room she splashed cold water on her face, let her hair fall loose, breathed deeply. She went to her locker and opened it to an avalanche of Titleist golf balls, all bouncing around the room loudly. She was startled, confused, her mind reeling. Did I leave that young girl back there? Why didn’t I help her? Why didn’t I recognize her or that man?

  Just then her colleagues came into the locker room, a sheet cake in the lieutenant’s hands ablaze with candles. They sang loudly to her, “Auld Lang Syne” and “For She’s a Jolly Good Fellow,” bottles of beer already open in their thick hands. She smiled, beaten and confused, and holding back her own hair, blew out the candles as she was expected to.

  “We’ll miss you,” the lieutenant said, his hand on her shoulder.

  “I guess you didn’t even need the dog food,” she said over him to the K9 unit. They grinned like wolves.

  “One other thing,” she said to the lieutenant later in the evening, pulling him close and whispering, “I lost my pistol. Twenty-five years on patrol, and I lose my pistol going to the pet store on a prank.” She shook her head. “How much paperwork does that earn me?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Eat your cake. In a few months you won’t need it anyway.” Then, “Lord, Aida. That memory of yours. Must be some rust on that steel trap of yours, huh?”

  She shook her head.

  She ate the cake and drank beer with the other highway patrolmen. Then, protocol be
damned, they broke into a box of cigars and the room began to fill with thick, dank smoke. Her eyes reddened as she looked over the room and wondered which among these men took their thrills from watching the slaughter of dogs. There was a fog accumulating inside her head and it frightened her. She had become a cop to protect people, but lately … she was weak, easily duped, so confused. Her memory failing her.

  Driving home that evening early, she narrowly missed several deer on the roads. Inside her house she made a mug of instant coffee, stirring the fine particles of coffee into the boiling water. Within the useless chicken wire of her garden, two fawns were chewing on her lettuce plants and she saw rabbits among the radishes and carrot tops. She had misgivings about retirement. She knew she needed to see a doctor, but was afraid of the notion of a brain scan, scared to think of her body entering the pounding tube of a CAT scan. She feared Alzheimer’s even more. She lived alone and wondered if her isolation was responsible for the broken connections inside her head. She was always forgetting things, many things. Everything. Not long ago she’d left the prowler in her driveway overnight, idling, lights on, until the gas tank ran empty. The next morning she had to pour a gallon of gasoline from a jerry can into the tank, gas meant for the lawn mower but enough to get her back into town. Other things too: She had forgotten the lieutenant’s name, had handed a speeding ticket to a waitress instead of her money, wore tennis shoes to work three mornings in a row. It was Lombard who gently pointed to her feet.

  She thought of Bethany and realized in that moment at her kitchen sink, looking out into the growing shadows of the gloaming, that the reason why the young woman had not pressed her to arrest the man was that she wanted him killed or dealt with in different terms. And what good could possibly come from involving the police, the same men she knew were complicit in his crimes? And then just as suddenly, Aida recognized the scars on her face. They were not from any kind of blade. They were the scars of a face bitten by a dog, maybe many dogs. The kind of scar she saw most frequently on the dirty faces of neglected young children.