Probably Monsters

by Ray Cluley

  Sergei takes the cigarette from his mouth and says hello as Aleksandr explains their roles as officials. Sergei pats his pockets for a lighter. His rifle is across his back.

  The other two men say nothing. The man with the hat is still bent over one of the barrels to move it. His companion is standing straight by his, hands at his sides.

  “Who are you?” Aleks asks. “What are you doing here?”

  Again, neither of the men say anything, though this time they exchange a glance. The man with the barrel begins to straighten up.

  Sergei lights his cigarette and exhales smoke around it in his mouth. Ana realizes this is a signal they’ve used before because Osipov and Zaporotsky step out from the trees. They hold their rifles ready but pointed low.

  Aleks identifies them as part of his team. “Now you know who we are. Who are you? What are you doing here?”

  The man with the poor beard says, “We’re camping.” He points at the backpacks but none of the men look.

  “Camping,” says Aleks.

  The other man stands away from the barrel he’d been moving and looks back and forth between his companion and Aleks.

  Aleks turns his attention to him. “What’s in the barrel?”

  The man says nothing.

  Aleks points with the hand that had held his rifle still and it sways out from his body. Ana knows that none of his gestures are without purpose; the weapon is noted by both men. “What’s in the barrel?”

  “We are camping,” the bearded man says again. The beard shades his chin so that the rest of his narrow face seems to hang over it. He looks like a sockeye salmon.

  “Not fishing?” Sergei says.

  The man shakes his head. “There’s a fine, isn’t there?” He looks at his friend then says to Sergei, “Do you want us to pay a fine?”

  Sergei looks at Aleks. It’s a bribe, Ana realizes. She wonders how often they accept it.

  “Why doesn’t he speak?” Aleks asks. He’s still looking at the man bent over his plastic barrel.

  “He doesn’t understand. He’s not from here. He’s a . . . tourist.”

  The ban against tourism in Kamchatka had been relaxed a little but not much. Kamchatka isn’t exactly a holiday destination. The man with the hat seems to understand the word tourist, though. He tries to repeat it but his Russian is clumsy. “Turistichesky.”

  This time when Aleks points to the barrel he uses his rifle to do it, holding the weapon with both hands. “Open it.”

  The man looks to his friend. The bearded poacher shakes his head.

  Aleks raises his weapon so that it points at the man. “Open it.”

  The man raises his hands instead and backs away as Aleks takes quick strides towards the barrel. But he ignores the barrel and pursues the retreating man instead.

  “Turistichesky!” the man says, and, “Turistichesky! Turistichesky!” He stumbles against one of the packs and puts his hands down suddenly to steady himself. The men yell at him to put them up again. Zaporotsky has his rifle at eye-level to aim. The man raises his hands as commanded but loses his balance and falls.

  His companion uses the distraction to draw a blade from his belt.

  “Knife!” Ana cries, giving up her hiding place. “Knife!”

  The poacher holds his weapon pointing at Sergei. A quick thrust and it will be in his stomach, slicing him open. Sergei tells the man to drop it. The man hesitates for a moment but then does as he is told and as quick as that it’s over. Sergei offers him a cigarette. The man reaches for it with a hand that trembles.

  Ana exhales. It’s loud. She holds her stomach with both hands, thinking of knives.

  “Don’t look at her,” Aleks says. He still has his gun on the kneeling man.

  “Turis—”

  “Don’t look at her!”

  Aleks shakes the strap of his rifle from his shoulder and reverses the weapon to strike the man. The blow knocks the man’s head back and puts him on his behind. It splits his eyebrow and a line of blood runs from somewhere under his hat. He tries to wipe it away or hold himself but before he can reach Aleks strikes him again. Ana stifles a cry with both hands. The man falls back, bloody now at the nose and mouth.

  “Aleks!”

  Sergei catches Ana’s arm before she can get any closer. He holds her back but says nothing.

  Aleks lowers his rifle and paces a circle back and forth around the man. He strikes out once more when the man sits up but this time only uses the flat of his hand to knock his hat away.

  “I’ll open it,” says the bearded man. “Please, I’ll open it.”

  Osipov and Zaporotsky go to the barrel. Aleks nods and they prise away the lid.

  “It’s just eggs,” the bearded poacher tells them.

  One of the soldiers confirms it, tilting the barrel so Aleks can see.

  “Take it to the fire,” he says.

  When the fire’s lit Aleks is the first to scoop a double handful of bright orange roe into the flames. The man on his knees groans, touching the wound at his brow. Aleks looks at Ana as he throws in the next wet handful, rubbing his hands over the flames, wiping eggs from his palms and fingers to sizzle and spit in the fire while Ana tries not to cry.

  S

  While Aleks and the others busy themselves with the poachers, Ana makes her way to the river. She tries not to think of the fire still burning behind her. There had been little warmth there.

  “Others will come,” Aleks had said, looking at how the smoke from the fire sent a dark river skyward. An easy signal to follow. “They’ll come back for what they think is still here.”

  Ana wonders if he’ll be ready when they do and then she wades into the river.

  The cold forces her to take quick shallow breaths but she removes her jacket, letting it float open downriver. Next come the layers of wool before they can become too difficult. She walks until the press of the river is against her breasts, river parting around her body but trying to take her with it. Then, immersed in the river’s icy grip, she raises her shirt and exposes her stomach to the current.

  Within her, something stirs.

  Ana stands with her legs apart for balance, snatching sharp gasps against the cold. Her stomach is numb but there’s enough feeling in her fingers to find the ridge of her scar.

  It leaps beneath her hands. It curls and it opens, flesh parting in an easy unseaming of skin she barely feels as the weight of all she’s carried shifts into the running river. An unravelling, followed by a sudden tautness in whatever imagined cord binds it to her, a last sharp tug as it resists its freedom. Then it’s gone, swept away with the current.

  Empty, Ana holds herself open to the promise of the river and lets it fill her, lets it swell inside to take its own shape.

  And from somewhere far away she hears Khantai, calling.

  Indian Giver

  Every man carries his share of ghosts, but there are those who listen to them more than others. That was Grady’s opinion, anyways. And most of those listenin’ didn’t much like what they heard; that was his opinion, too. So he wasn’t surprised to see Tom stumblin’ across the darkening yard towards him. If he was surprised at all it was only that it had taken the man so long.

  The taming of the wild west was something Grady never saw—he was a proper lieutenant, not a glorified book-keep or ledger-maker (though there were plenty of those)—but even so, all he saw of the west was tired and worn down. Land and people. Native people, mostly, but Tom carried the same look himself right now. He had something in his hand that was supposed to be Tennessee whiskey but probably wasn’t. It would taste right, though. And they’d drink it down just fine. A tale of woe was best punctuated with whiskey.

  Seeing Tom made him think of that Philly boy, of course. Stick a city man out here and it gets to him someti
mes, that was true, but Grady wasn’t so sure that was the thinking this time. Still, those ruminations were likely to get him morose and melancholy when he was drinking, and it looked like he was going to be, so he tried to think of other things.

  Tom saw Grady was sitting on the porch and stopped. He hitched his belt up, touched his hat. “Evenin’.”

  “Evenin’, Tom. Been a while. Where you been?”

  “The pen.”

  “You’re spending a lot of time there these days, I hear. Keeping company with our noble savages.”

  Savages. All Grady saw was farming folk with darker skin and longer hair, wearing expressions pressed on them by hard work. The white man had taken their animals and taken their land and they weren’t about to give it back any time soon.

  “Noble savages,” Tom said, nodding. “Don’t see much noble civilized, do we?”

  Grady looked Tom over. The last of the light was leaking from the sky but he could see enough in the dusk to know Tom was in a bad way, and drunk with it.

  “Got somethin’ to talk about,” Tom said, showing Grady the bottle he held.

  Grady nodded. He got up from his chair with a creak he pretended was the wood and went in for the cups.

  S

  “Alright,” said Grady, sitting back in his accustomed chair. There was another beside it, and a small table. They had the whole stretch of planks to themselves. The men inside were sleeping. Grady, though, liked to stay out late, watch the stars.

  “It’s one of those stories that needs tellin’ because it’s heavy,” Tom said. “Tellin’ it makes it easier to carry.”

  Grady heard a lot of stories like that. Carried a few, too.

  “Alright.”

  He poured them both drinks.

  Tom had a story to tell, but he kept quiet a while. That was fine by Grady. He watched the stars do nothing in the sky, and listened to the quiet sounds of men snoring and shifting in their beds behind him. Occasionally a breeze carried the smell of wood smoke and bacon grease from across the yard.

  “North wall’s goin’ be extended,” Tom said eventually.

  “What for?”

  Tom shrugged. “Colonel wants to.”

  Grady could have asked “what for” again, but didn’t like to waste breath he could whistle with.

  Tom tipped his cup and took all that was in it, refilling as he swallowed. Grady offered his own cup for more. He didn’t want Tom’s nerves to soak up all the whiskey. “Slow down, Tom. It’s been a while since you and me shared a drink.”

  Tom acknowledged that with a nod and poured. “Did a round up couple of weeks back,” he said. “Mountain flush out.”

  Grady nodded. Drank. “That a fact?” He knew it was, but this was how it had to start.

  “Went into the hills.” Tom counted them off on his fingers; “Me. Henry. Cody. Packard. James.”

  Grady nodded. Five was about right.

  “You wanna talk to me about James, Tom?”

  “It got messy up there, sir. But I fixed it now.”

  Tom was paler than the half moon above them, dark rings like smudged soot under his eyes. Tom hadn’t been sleeping well, that was how Grady reckoned it. He had questions, but he waited. He’d done his fair share of round ups. Companies went into the mountains looking for Injuns hiding out or just plain missed. There were a lot of them out there still, holed up in caves or just living so remote they were easy to miss first time round, even second and third. Course, the more Injuns they rounded up and persuaded west was best, the more they learnt where others were. Families wanted to go west together. These people had been tribal once and bonds were still strong.

  “It was a small place tucked away in the crags,” Tom said, “screen of trees round it. Vegetable patch. Chickens. There was a well out front with a low wall.”

  Tom paused to drink but really he was remembering. He wasn’t on the porch with Grady no more. He was somewhere in the mountains.

  “The man, he’s big. Goliath big. Huge. And he’s wearing all this fur that makes him seem bigger. Hair’s long and all untied,”—Tom gestured with his hands— “down over his face. You seen ’em like that? Real wild looking, but with that look they all got, the one that says he knows they’re beat and never had no hope otherwise.”

  Grady said, “Stamped down like trodden ground.”

  “Yeah, that’s it. That’s how he looked. I gave my speech, just like always. Had my ledger, took a record of what they were leaving, told ’em they’d be reimbursed and paid a relocation fee just for going where the land was better anyways.”

  Grady nodded, but he had his doubts about that last bit. To his mind it was like taking off someone’s feet then giving them a pair of boots. Even if they were given land, Grady reckoned it wouldn’t be long before someone took it back again.

  “He wasn’t really listenin’,” Tom said, “but he started gatherin’ things from the yard. Like he’d been expectin’ us a while. Two young’ns—”

  Tom’s voice caught in his throat. He put his cup down and said something to the floor Grady preferred to hear in church.

  “A girl and a boy, both dirty ’n’ scraped a bit but smiling. They came out to see.” He stared at his empty hands as if wondering where his drink had gone.

  “The others, they was all in the saddle, same as always. Cody, he had a smoke. James and Packard were talking about Philadelphia. They talked so much about a place they both lived in, I don’t know how they managed to say anythin’ new. They knew each other all but Biblical.” He tried to smile at that but it didn’t work. “Then Henry happened.”

  “Henry?”

  “He did what was usual for him. We’d give ’em time to pack and Henry’d use that time to ride round ’n’ round their house. Said it put the hurryin’ on but really he did it ’cause he liked to rub people wrong. Henry can shoot, salute, ’n’ spit a little, but that’s about it, so he makes the most of a job like this.”

  Grady knew the type and said so, but Tom wasn’t listening.

  “Second time Henry comes round from back he’s got a woman followin’ him. She’s all dressed in deerskin and bird shit, got a cloth tied around her waist held full of eggs. Her hair’s long ’n’ braided ’n’ gathered up a bunch at the back. I remember that ’cause she was shoutin’ Injun at him an’ shakin’ her head and the braids were fallin’ loose. Henry just laughed, spurrin’ his horse a few steps to turn a circle so as he could laugh back at her face.”

  “What did she do?” Grady asked, pouring them another drink.

  “She threw an egg at him.” Tom laughed, but it was a harsh sound. “Got him, too.” He slapped his right hand against his left shoulder to show where.

  Grady paused, cup hovering at his lips. He knew how a story with a bored young soldier and an angry Injun woman could end after something like that. And Tom had said it was messy. James said the same thing by doing what he did, tasting his own gun and putting a stain of himself on the walls of his bunkhouse.

  “What did he do?” Grady asked. “Henry, I mean.”

  “He crapped in their well.”

  Tom looked out into the stockade, though there was nothing to see out there but cabins and they was only dark shapes in the gloom. He swallowed his drink down.

  “He crapped in their well,” Grady said. “Well, sure.”

  “He did that a lot. If they pissed him off some, or they took too long packin’, he’d crap. Got so I wondered if he held back for the occasion. Usually he’d crap front of the house, in the doorway or some place. No reason for it when it’s a home they’re leavin’ anyway, but he knows they don’t wanna see that as they leave. It’s spittin’ in a man’s wound. Even Injun knows that.”

  Grady agreed.

  “Henry’s got broken egg shell runnin’ down his chest, and a face that�
��s fiery fierce. He’s dismountin’ in a hurry ’n’ so am I but my damn boot tangles in the stirrup. Henry’s stridin’ at this woman, hand on his pistol, and she’s ready to throw another one, yellin’ at him ’n’ all us, and I’m thinkin’, shit, my money’s on Henry.”

  Tom was talking in the present sense of things, Grady realized—they were getting to it now.

  “I’m too far away to stop anythin’, but the big fella, he steps out from the house ’n’ grabs his woman’s wrist from behind, bursts the egg in her hand. Then he scoops the rest from her apron ’n’ lets them break as well. He’s calm, though. Sayin’ soft things to her. Henry calms down too, but not enough to let things be. Not Henry. He strides over to the well they have out front, drops his britches, and takes a crap perched over the edge.”

  As far as bad stories went, this wasn’t one to lose much sleep over, Grady thought. Which only meant it weren’t finished yet.

  “Henry finds it funny every time he does it, so he’s laughin’ even as he’s droppin’ his dirt. James and Packard, they’re laughin’ too. They’ve not been out with Henry before so it’s new to them, and James is as fresh as tit milk, but even so I reckon they was just easin’ down after the tension. Cody don’t say nothin’, of course.”

  Grady knew Cody. Everybody did. Cody was likely the oldest in Tom’s group and should’ve been in charge, but for reasons no one talked about he wasn’t in charge. Those reasons were him leadin’ out after Willy Wilson and none but himself coming back. Wilson was a bad man with a greased holster and a fondness for other folk’s horses. Just one man, but Cody couldn’t put him down clean. That was a long time ago, but people remembered a thing like that.

  “Cody keeps out of it,” Tom said. “By now the young’ns have come back out because of all the yellin’ an’ cussin’. The girl’s filled a cookin’ pot with things to carry out ’n’ she hugs it to her stomach, watchin’ her mamma stride over to Henry. He’s still squatting and straining and she shoves him! Sonofabitch damn near falls in! He makes a wild grab ’n’ gets some of the wall ’n’ some of her deerskin, and likely he lets another load loose, too, without thinking ’bout it, but then he’s laughin’. It’s the nervous kind a man has when he’s been scared. We all know it, and he knows we know it. So he slaps her across the face.”