The Devil's Bones

by Larry D. Sweazy

  “How's Dylan taking this?” Jordan asked.

  “He's pretty upset. We left him with Louella,” Ed said. “But he wanted to be here. I'll probably let him come in the morning if everything works out all right.”

  “He loves his Grandpa,” Ginny said.

  Ed nodded in agreement. “Family is real important to that boy.”

  Jordan looked out the front window, saw the van sitting in front of the door.

  “Mother won't leave his room,” Ginny said after casting a glance at Ed that was cold and loaded with quiet anger. “But she asked about you.”

  “Tell her I'll be back in the morning. If anything happens, you give me a call,” Jordan said to Ginny. “I'm going home.”

  Ginny started to say something, then stopped mid-sentence. She reached up and touched his cheek, his scar, then whispered, “I'm really glad you're OK.”

  Ed cleared his throat and Ginny turned around and walked back into the shadows, toward the TV.

  “Jordan,” Ed called out as he followed Ginny. “Me and you need to have a talk once this thing with Holister is over with.”

  “You know where to find me,” Jordan answered.

  “Yes . . . I do.”

  He stepped outside the lobby and took a deep breath, gulping air that did not smell of death and sickness. Even more, he was glad to be free of Ginny and Ed, though he did have the urge to stay, to sit with her, to wait for word on Holister's condition. But there was no way he could bring himself to stay one more minute in the hospital, especially in the same room as Ed Kirsch.

  Does Ed know about last night with Ginny? Jordan wondered. Or is it something else? In the end, did it really matter? He was going to have to face up to what he did, and it looked like that was going to happen sooner rather than later. He wasn't really all that surprised.

  The guilt he felt for leaving both Ginny and Holister pushed his concerns about Ed to the back of his mind. He felt even worse about not seeing Celeste. He cared as much for her as he did Holister, sometimes even more, and promised himself that he would come back to comfort Celeste in the morning when he was rested.

  The van, a ten-year-old Chevrolet with rusted wheel-wells and faded blue paint, revved its engine. Jordan shook his head, jerked open the door, and climbed inside.

  “Damn, you look like you just had the shit beat out of you,” Spider said.

  “I did,” Jordan answered.

  CHAPTER 9

  January 21, 1986, 1:00 P.M.

  A light snow began to fall as the hearse pulled through the black iron gates of Haven Hills cemetery. Kitty took Jordan's hand in hers and patted it gently. All Jordan could do was stare at his lace-up dress shoes. The limousine from the funeral home smelled like the inside of an old woman's purse, a mix of afterdinner mints and lavender perfume. It was the first time Jordan had ridden in a Cadillac. The soft brocade seats felt like he was riding on air, but he could not find it in himself to be excited or thrilled; he just wanted to cry.

  His tears had dried up and he just felt empty. The past three days were a blur of whispering voices, slamming doors, visits to the hospital to see Spider, and people coming to the door dropping off cakes, pies, and fried chicken. Jordan knew what dead meant. When Grandpa George had died seven years before, Spider dared him to touch the dead man's hand in the casket, and he did. But he didn't know how it felt when you lost someone close to you. Someone who lived in your own house, someone you loved and thought would live forever.

  The hearse stopped and the door opened. Albert Patton, the mortician and Louella Canberry's brother, stood back and extended a black umbrella with his bony hands. Snow fell straight down from the gray sky as Kitty exited the car. Cold air blew into the limousine and Jordan shivered, pulled his navy blue wool winter coat tight around himself, and sunk back into the seat.

  Kitty held out her black-gloved hand for Jordan to join her.

  He shook his head. His left hand was free and his right arm was in a sling. If he moved wrong, pain shot through his entire body, adding to the soreness that seemed like it would never go away. He had scratches from the broken glass across his face, and a large bandage under his right eye. His face looked and felt very much like when he had chicken pox when he was in second grade; the stitches itched constantly.

  “You have to, honey. I'm sorry,” Kitty said firmly.

  “I want to go home.”

  “I know. We will soon. Now come on.”

  At first glance, Kitty's angular face made her look angry all the time, but there was a softness in her eyes, in the way she walked, and in the way she spoke that immediately put any fear of her to rest. Kitty Coltraine would not hurt a fly. Jordan had seen her shoo flies out the window rather than kill them with a flyswatter, carry spiders to the door and watch them scurry away with a satisfied smile on her face. Each night just before dusk, Kitty put a bowl of milk on the back porch. It was not a lure for the stray cats in the neighborhood, but rather a reward for the black snakes that lived under her porch for eating the mice and rats that thrived in the grain elevator just beyond the backyard fence.

  Her softness emitted from her gentle heart like a beacon to Jordan. The lessons he learned from her gave him as much comfort as they gave him guilt when he let his own rage and anger overcome his will, and he squished a bug or tore the legs off a spider for the pure pleasure of it. “No one has the right to judge the value of another life,” Kitty would say when she saw him act out. “Not you. Not me. Not another man on this earth. Not if he truly believes in any kind of God and has any decent view of himself at all.”

  At the moment, Jordan wanted to pull off God's arms and legs for taking his mother away, but he decided to obey Kitty's demand to get out of the limousine, responding to the stern but soft look in his grandmother's eyes.

  He crawled out of the backseat slowly, looked over his shoulder, and saw his father get out of the car on the other side. Big Joe McManus moved stiffly as well, tenuously, as if every step caused him a great deal of pain. He used a cane to steady himself and a bandage covered a row of stitches on his forehead.

  Jordan's feet moved without command and he closed his eyes so he wouldn't see his mother's casket being unloaded from the hearse. Kitty led the way to the gravesite through a path of freshly shoveled snow, clutching Jordan's hand so tight he had to open his eyes. Kitty was dressed in a simple black coat, a black hat that flopped over her eyes and ears, and she wore a pink rose corsage over her heart. Pink roses were Jordan's mother's favorite flowers.

  A blue tent stood over the open grave, the mound of dirt covered with a green blanket that was supposed to look like grass. The blanket looked stark and out of place against the snow-covered ground that surrounded the gravesite. A brass frame had been erected over the hole in the ground. Jordan resisted the temptation to look over the side to see how deep the grave was, to see if it was frozen and filled with snow. Four aluminum folding chairs faced the grave and Albert Patton hurried to place funeral bouquets in front of each tent pole, fresh springtime flowers the color of a dozen rainbows sitting on a pile of snow.

  Kitty sat in the first chair and Jordan sat next to her. Big Joe walked behind them and sat at the other end, leaving the chair between him and Jordan vacant, a place for Spider, at least in spirit.

  Car doors slammed and a parade of mourners followed the simple oak casket to the grave. Peter Hunt, Holister, Corney Lefay, Junior Johnson, Lem Jacobson, and Wally Peterson served as pallbearers.

  Jordan squirmed in his seat.

  “Be still,” Kitty said.

  “It's cold,” Jordan answered.

  “We won't be here long.”

  Jordan leaned over and whispered, “But I have to go to the bathroom, and I'm cold.”

  Kitty patted his knee and put her index finger to her lips to quiet him as the pallbearers slid the casket onto the brass frame.

  Pastor Gleen from the Methodist Church on Lincoln Street stepped up to the casket. The snow began to fall harder and a slight w
ind whipped the grass blanket, raising it off the ground and setting it down gently.

  “We are gathered here to commit the body of Katherine Joanne McManus to the grave,” Pastor Gleen said.

  More words followed, but Jordan didn't hear them. He heard his father sniffle, and he turned his head to see Big Joe shed the first tear he had ever seen fall down his face. Jordan looked away quickly. He stared across the casket at the crowd that gathered on the other side, a sea of faces mostly dressed in black. Snow covered a sea of tombstones. Tree branches looked like the arms and hands of a skeleton. Charlie Overdorf towered over his parents, his head down, staring at the ground. Corney and Edith Lefay held hands. Louella Canberry stood at the corner, unconsciously stroking a tall white lily. Lee and Marita Kirsch stood surrounded by all nine of their kids, almost lost in a gaggle of ratty hand-me-down winter coats. It seemed as if the whole town had come to his mother's funeral. Everybody was there except Buddy Mozel and Esperanza Cordova.

  Jordan stopped searching the crowd as soon as he saw fifteen-year-old Ginny Coggins.

  She was standing next to her mother, Celeste, wearing a thin yellow coat with a white dress underneath. Her blonde hair flowed gently over her shoulders. She did not wear a hat or gloves. She looked warm, like a ray of sunshine, out of place, almost like she was attending an Easter service instead of a funeral.

  “Ashes to ashes,” Pastor Gleen said, continuing the service.

  They made eye contact and Ginny smiled at Jordan. And for the first time since his mother had died, Jordan smiled back.

  “Dust to dust.”

  The pastor ended the service. A breeze whipped through the tent, and the mourners slowly returned to their cars.

  Kitty stood up and took a rose from the top of the casket and gave it to Jordan. She leaned down, kissed him on the forehead, turned back to the casket and kissed it.

  “Goodbye, baby,” Kitty said, her voice breaking. “I love you.” A tear dripped on the casket. She quickly wiped it away, stood up straight, and glared at Big Joe.

  Jordan was still sitting in his chair, too cold to move, wanting to be warm, but not wanting to leave. “Can I see her one more time?” he asked Kitty.

  “No, Jordan, you can't,” Kitty said.

  Kitty reached for Jordan's hand but hesitated. “Stay here a minute.” She left the tent, skirted the grave, and made her way to a man standing apart from the crowd of mourners, twenty feet away.

  The man was José Rivero. He was dressed in all black, the usual white straw Stetson replaced with a felt cowboy hat, and he wore a long leather overcoat that fluttered loosely in the wind. He nodded as Kitty approached him, took his hat off and put it back on quickly. Kitty was taller than José, but she did not seem to tower over him. José always seemed like a big man, even though he was shorter than most of the men Jordan knew.

  Jordan could not hear what they were saying, but when José took Kitty's hand into his and tears welled up in his eyes, there was no question what was being said. He didn't need to understand a foreign language to know sorrow, he had seen plenty of it in the last few days to ever forget what it sounded like, looked like, and felt like.

  “I told her I didn't want that wetback here,” Big Joe said, easing up with the cane.

  Jordan looked up at his father. Big Joe was dressed in the only set of dress clothes he owned; gray wool slacks, blazer, and a white shirt. Only his black tie was new.

  “José didn't do anything,” Jordan said, looking up at his father.

  “You've been around her too long. That one is nothing but a liar and a thief, just like the rest of them.”

  Beyond the gravesite another light wind kicked up, buffeting the tent. Jordan's stomach growled, and then started to twist into knots. He'd heard his father rant about the Mexicans all his life, and had learned the hard way to keep his mouth shut. But for some reason, it didn't matter today if he got a swat across the face. He probably wouldn't have felt it anyway. “He's her friend, and mine, too.”

  “That's not saying much,” Big Joe said, taking a step toward Kitty and José. “He needs to get the hell out of here.”

  Instinct mixed with fear and Jordan grabbed a hold of his father's coat sleeve. It surprised Jordan as much as it did Big Joe.

  “He didn't do anything. José's just being nice,” Jordan said, his voice rising from a quiver to a shout as tears streamed down his face. “You're the one that killed my mother! You killed her! Not him! Leave him alone!”

  Big Joe wrapped his hand around Jordan's wrist, spun him, took hold of his clip-on tie, and pulled him within an inch of his face. “Don't you fucking say that. Don't you ever fucking say that to me again, do you understand?” He let go with a push, propelling Jordan backward.

  Jordan stumbled, bumped into the casket, and slid down to the cold ground. He had never felt rage before. His face felt hot and he could hear his heart beating a million miles a minute. He clenched his fists, and wanted more than anything to hurt something, hit his father in the face. But he couldn't see clearly, everything was blurry. His tears tasted salty, and he was surprised at how much they tasted like blood.

  Holister appeared behind Big Joe and grabbed him by the shoulder. “Calm down, Joe, calm down. He's your son for Christ's sake.”

  “Shut the fuck up, Holister. This is none of your goddamned business,” Big Joe said. He tore loose from Holister's grip and stepped back toward Jordan. “I didn't kill your mother, you little bastard.”

  Jordan could smell whiskey on his father's breath. The bitter smell made his stomach churn even more, and he lost control of the bile that was rising up in his throat. Vomit splattered on Big Joe's dull black shoes.

  Holister wrapped Big Joe in a full Nelson, grinding him to a sudden stop. Lem Jacobson and Wally Peterson joined Holister, jumping into the struggle, and pulled Big Joe from under the tent toward the line of cars.

  Jordan was panting, trying to regain his breath. He saw his father vanish in a swarm of black suits and shouts, like ants carrying a meal back to the nest. He wiped the vomit from his mouth with his sleeve and pulled himself up from the ground by leveraging his weight against the casket. When he blinked and regained clear vision, he saw Kitty standing before him with a panicked look on her face. She bent down, produced a handkerchief out of nowhere like a magician, and cleaned his face.

  José and Pastor Gleen stood over her shoulder, staring down at him.

  “Are you all right, honey?” Kitty asked.

  He shook his head no. Without thought or explanation, he took off running. The bottoms of his shoes were slick and the snow was deep beyond the grave. Tombstones were a maze that had no end. They went on as far as the eye could see, and Jordan had no idea where he was going. His skin was pinprick cold, his face was throbbing, and his shirt was wet. But he didn't care about getting warm. He just wanted to get as far away from the casket and his father as he could. Kitty called after him, her voice distant. Her commands for him to stop only made him run faster, harder.

  A line of twenty-foot white pines towered in front of him. Four crows lit from the tops of the trees and flew away in alarm. More tombstones lined the edge of the trees and beyond them, a mausoleum stood as a sanctuary, a limestone building as big as the Sunoco station, with an open airway that cut through the middle of it.

  Jordan made his way inside and stopped. A few inches of snowdrifts covered the floor, and the walls were close enough to touch with his arms extended, lined with eight brass markers on each side. The walls blocked the wind, but it was still very cold. He took some deep breaths, settled into a rhythm of steady breathing, and leaned against a carved pillar of stone cherubs.

  Voices called after him, fading in the wind.

  Tito, Tito, where are you?

  He had no intention of hiding, of staying there. He just wanted to get away from his father, from everything that was happening. All of the markers on the walls had the name Mozel on them. Beloved father. Dearest sister. Our baby boy. He recognized a few of
the names. Hamilton Mozel III was Buddy's father. Buddy was Hamilton IV. But most of the names meant nothing to him. They were just names marked on a wall. But now he knew there were real people inside the walls. Real people, alone and cold, just like his mother.

  “There you are.”

  Ginny Coggins was standing in the doorway. Jordan resisted running.

  “Are you all right?” she asked, walking to him.

  “I don't know,” Jordan said.

  Ginny smiled. “Kitty's pretty upset.”

  “I know.”

  “You want to go home?”

  “No.”

  Ginny ran her fingers through Jordan's hair. “I heard Kitty talking to my mom. You're going to live with her for a while, at least until Spider gets better.”

  “Spider's not going to be better,” Jordan said. “He can't walk. He can't run. He'll never play basketball with me ever again.”

  “It's sad,” Ginny said. “But Spider's still alive. That's a good thing, right?”

  “I'm scared.”

  Ginny nodded. Her yellow coat glowed in the murky gray light that filtered into the mausoleum. She ran her hand down the side of Jordan's cheek, pulled his face up, leaned down, and kissed him briefly on the lips.

  “It'll be all right,” Ginny said. “I promise.”

  January 21, 1986, 1:07 P.M., Patzcuaro, Mexico

  The boy's legs were thin, and dead skin flaked to the floor as the last of the cast was cut away. Sunlight beamed through the eight-foot glass windows and illuminated all of the metal in the room. Even the doctor's face seemed to shine as he stood up and put the saw on a tray. A glint of light reflected off the stethoscope around the man's neck, and the boy clutched the medallion around his neck.

  “Ah,” the doctor said. “St. Christopher has done his job well.”

  The boy looked up at the doctor oddly, hearing words he understood for the first time since he had been awake. The man was obviously Mexican, but so far had only spoken in Spanish. “My mother gave it to me,” he said.

  Outside, children were laughing. Always in the distance. He still didn't know where he was. How he'd got there, how long he'd been wherever he was.