Salvage the Bones

by Jesmyn Ward

“Maybe they not from here,” I say, because there is a man pacing in the ditch, and he is holding his head. Blood slides in a curve down the side of his face, between his fingers and down his forearms. He could not have known the road would curl like his streaming blood in this, the trickiest part of the bayou to drive. He could not have known that the road clung to whatever dry land it could find, and that it was no place to drive over the speed limit. Daddy had wrecked his truck here once, when he was drunk. When he came home after the police let him out, he cursed for a good two hours about Dead Man’s Curve.

  “Y’all need help?” Big Henry asks out the window as we slow to a stop. Skeetah looks straight ahead, ignores the scene out his window, the pacing man.

  The man looks up, climbs from the ditch. It is as if he doesn’t see the woman as he steps so close to her, he could kick her. He has a cell phone in one hand, smashed up against his ear, his thin brown hair in his other. He is wearing a white shirt with white buttons, and the blood has made a beauty contestant sash across his chest.

  “Can you tell me where I’m at?” he says. His voice is loud, as if he is shouting at an old person who is hard of hearing. “I’m on the phone with 911, and they need to know where I’m at.”

  “Tell them you in between Bois Sauvage and St. Catherine’s, on the bayou. Tell them the closest road is Pelage, and you right before the Dedeaux Bridge.”

  The man nods, opens his mouth to speak.

  “I’m…” He closes it. “Can you? I’m…” He reaches into the passenger-side window, holds the phone in a red grip in front of Skeetah’s face. Skeetah doesn’t shrink away, doesn’t move. Instead, he stares through the man’s hand. Big Henry, in his way, takes the phone with just two of his fingers. It is polka-dotted with blood.

  “Yeah, it’s been an accident. Two people, and they car flipped over in a tree.” Big Henry repeats the location. “This the man’s phone, but the woman, she just laying there.” He pauses. “Okay. All right. I will.” He looks down in his lap, mumbles, “Thank you.” On the ground, the woman still looks as if she is asleep: head on her bicep, hands open as if she has just let something go, laying on her side.

  “What’d they say?” I ask.

  “They want us to stay here with them until they come. They going to be a few minutes.”

  “I need to get home,” Skeetah says.

  Big Henry stares at Skeetah as he pulls to the side of the road to park in the overgrown grass. I am almost afraid he will hit the man, who stands wilted in the ditch again, his toes no longer touching the woman. The man stares off as if he cannot see Big Henry’s car sliding past him, inches away.

  “The puppies. She don’t know how to take care of them yet.”

  Big Henry turns off the car. I hold myself. The pregnancy test crinkles. Big Henry removes the keys, looks at the man’s phone that he has dropped in his lap. He opens the door, pulls himself out of the seat, closes the door, and begins walking toward the man.

  “She’s hungry. And nursing,” Skeetah says.

  In every one of the Greeks’ mythology tales, there is this: a man chasing a woman, or a woman chasing a man. There is never a meeting in the middle. There is only a body in a ditch, and one person walking toward or away from it. Big Henry is kneeling next to the woman. The man has sunk to a squat so that only his head is visible, which he is holding in his hands. I think I hear him moaning. Big Henry hovers over the woman like a grounded buzzard at the side of the road, awkward and cross-footed. I wonder what the woman with the hair the color of a golden condom wrapper is to the man.

  “I don’t trust her.” Skeetah waits to say this until Big Henry is too far away to hear, so low I think he’s forgotten I’m sitting in the backseat.

  “You think they family or friends?” I shift to ease the scratch of the test, but I don’t move too much because I don’t want it to fall out of the band of my shorts. Skeetah doesn’t answer. I push the front seat.

  “Huh?”

  “Family or friends?” I look back toward them to see that the man is wandering toward us. Big Henry hollers at him, but it sounds like he is mumbling.

  “Lovers,” he says.

  “What you mean?”

  “You know what I mean,” Skeetah says.

  I’d always assumed he missed more than half of what went on at the Pit; seemed like all I ever saw around him, once he brought home a pit he told me he stole out of somebody’s yard when he was twelve, were dogs. Striped dogs, bald, whitish-pink dogs, fat dogs, dogs so skinny their bones looked like a school of fish darting around under their skin. His voice was a bark, his step the wagging thump of a meaty tail. We lost each other, a little. And now I wonder what Skeetah’s seen, what he’s been paying attention to when his dogs are sleeping, when he’s between dogs, because every dog before China died before they got a year old. Each time, Skeetah waited a week, then got another one. Before China, he never bothered to buy dog food, and he fed them table scraps mixed with Daddy’s chicken feed. What does he know about lovers? He’s the odd one, the one that always smells like sweaty fur when all the boys are together, the one the girls probably think stinks. But even I know that there’s one, always one, who likes the boy like Skeetah. There’s always one for everybody. But I don’t think he believes that. A hand slaps the door wetly, and the man is there, his fingers trailing red like fishing line. He is squinting at Skeetah, and Skeetah is leaning away from the door.

  “Hey, man.” I hear the crank; Skeetah is rolling up the window.

  “I think I’ve seen you before.”

  Skeetah stops mid-roll.

  “Don’t you cut grass?”

  “Can you please get away from the car?” I squeak.

  “At the graveyard?”

  Skeetah rolls up the window so that it seals. Instantly it is five degrees hotter.

  “This asshole,” Skeetah mutters. “Why doesn’t he go check on his girlfriend?” He wants to open the door, I know. “How he just going to leave her there like he don’t see her, walk over her like a pile of dirty clothes on the floor?” He wants to hit the man, the bleeding man, with the door. He wants to cuss the man out.

  “He’s already bleeding.”

  “He don’t know me. He don’t even live in Bois Sauvage.”

  “Maybe he live in one of them big houses back out on the bayou. Maybe he go to one of them churches upcountry and saw you on his way.”

  Skeetah rolls on his shoulder so the knob digs into his back; the glass pillows his head. “Big Henry need to come get him.” He says it, and Big Henry is shuffling across the grass toward us; he moves gracefully when he runs. All the awkwardness that hobbles him when he is standing or sitting or walking, afraid to crush things, is gone.

  “Sir, the ambulance is on the way.” Big Henry grabs the man by the elbow with the fingers of one hand. “Come with me.”

  The man rubs his head, smears blood across it like a bandana. His eyes twitch from side to side like he’s reading a book we can’t see.

  “Sir.”

  “He don’t deserve it,” Skeetah grunts, and slouches further down. “China’s waiting on me.”

  The man walks leaning forward, his head swinging from left to right. He peers from the road to the woods, tangled with switchgrass and swamp myrtle. He doesn’t swing his hands when he walks. He stops near the woman and stands, but he won’t look at her. Instead, he pulls out his phone, dials, and talks. Big Henry stands on the other side of the woman. He waits. When the ambulance arrives twenty minutes later, the man is still talking. The woman is still sleeping. Skeetah’s eyes are closed; every few minutes, his nostrils flare.

  Skeetah tosses the bag of dog food over his shoulder like Randall tosses Junior and trots to the shed before Big Henry puts the car in park. Big Henry rolls his shoulders, puts his arm on the back of the seat Skeetah has run from.

  “Thank you for the ride,” I say.

  Big Henry turns, bends his arm, looks at me when he says it. I almost can’t hear it over China’s excit
ed barking coming from the shed. She throws them like knives. Rip, rip, rip, rip.

  “You welcome.”

  My mouth jumps, and I know it’s not a smile, but I slide out of the car and away from Big Henry anyway. He’s still looking. I got my hands in the pockets of my shorts, and I pinch the test so it won’t slide out when I walk.

  “You should wash your hands!” I yell over my shoulder on the way to the house. He could have blood on them, that man’s blood, breeding things on his hands. The inside of the man’s body come out to make Big Henry sick. When I push the door, Big Henry’s already at the outside spigot, scrubbing like he wants to peel his skin off.

  In the bathroom, the old pink tile that Mama helped Daddy lay feels wet, but I can’t see any water on it. The tub is dry. I pull out the test, run the water while I tear the plastic. I’ve seen movies, know you pee on the stick, which I do. I lay it on the edge of the bathtub, and I climb in, careful not to kick it over on the floor. The tub is some kind of metal, and it is warm. The plastic mat on the bottom of the tub is soft. I watch the stick like Big Henry watched the man. My feet are black against the white, and they leave dirty streaks when I rub them against the tub; it’s like I’m rubbing the color off. I sit on my hands; I avoid looking at my stomach, flat in the tub, the way the man refused to look at the woman lying at his feet, sleeping in the long grass.

  Color washes across the stick like a curtain of rain. Seconds later, there are two lines, one in each box. They are skinny twins. I look at the stick, remember what it said on the packaging in the store. Two lines means that you are pregnant. You are pregnant. I am pregnant. I sit up and curl over my knees, rub my eyes against my kneecaps. The terrible truth of what I am flares like a dry fall fire in my stomach, eating all the fallen pine needles. There is something there.

  THE THIRD DAY: SICKNESS IN THE DIRT

  Last night, I dozed and woke every few minutes to wish that I could sleep, could close my eyes and fall into the nothing dark of slumber. Every time I dozed, the truth that I was pregnant was there like a bully to kick me awake. I woke at seven with my throat burning, my face wet.

  This is what it means to be pregnant so far: throwing up. Sick from the moment I open my eyes, look up at the puckered plaster ceiling, remember who I am, where I am, what I am. I turn the water on so no one can hear me vomit. I turn it off and lock the bathroom. Lay on the floor. Lay my head on my arm, the tile the temperature of water that’s been sitting out on a counter all night, and stare at the base of the toilet, the dust caked up around it like Spanish moss. I lay for so long I could be asleep. I lay for so long that when I raise my head from my arm, my hair has marked cursive I can’t read into my skin. The floor tilts like the bottom of a dark boat.

  “Esch!” Junior screams as he tries the doorknob, slaps the door, and then bangs out of the back door to pee off the steps.

  “Esch?” Randall calls.

  “I’m shaving my legs!” I told this to the tile, hoarse.

  “Shaving? I’m too old to pull a Junior.”

  “I’m almost done.” I bend over the sink and drink until I don’t feel like throwing up anymore. Even after I turn the water off, I still keep swallowing. My tongue feels rolled in uncooked grits, but I still swallow. Repeat I will not throw up, I will not throw up, I won’t. When I walk out of the door, I follow the baseboards.

  “You okay?” Randall stands in my way.

  “I rinsed the hair out the tub,” I say. “Don’t worry.”

  The sound of Daddy chugging the working tractor through the yard, I ignore. In bed, I pull the thin sheet over my head, mouth my knees, and breathe so hot it feels like two people up under the sheet.

  When I wake up for the second time, the air is hot, and the ceiling is so low, the heat can’t rise. It doesn’t have anyplace to go. I’m surprised Daddy hasn’t sent Junior in here to get me up by now, to work around the house and prepare for hurricane. Late last night, he and Junior carried some of the jugs in, lined them up against the wall while I made tuna fish. Daddy kept counting the bottles over and over again as if he couldn’t remember, glanced at me and Randall as if we were plotting to steal some. If Randall’s told him that I’m sick, he won’t care. Maybe they’ve scattered: Junior under the house, Randall to play ball, Skeet in the shed with China and her puppies. My stomach sizzles sickly, so I pull my book from the corner of my bed where it’s smashed between the wall and my mattress. In Mythology, I am still reading about Medea and the quest for the Golden Fleece. Here is someone that I recognize. When Medea falls in love with Jason, it grabs me by my throat. I can see her. Medea sneaks Jason things to help him: ointments to make him invincible, secrets in rocks. She has magic, could bend the natural to the unnatural. But even with all her power, Jason bends her like a young pine in a hard wind; he makes her double in two. I know her. When I look up, Skeet’s standing in the door looking like he’s going to cry.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Skeetah shakes his head, and I follow him.

  Inside the shed, the puppies are swimming in the dirt. They lay on their bellies, their feet sticking out like small twigs, bobbing on the dusty current. They twitch and roll. They are silent. They are pink yawning tongues. All but one paddles toward China, grabs her abdomen like we do sunken trees at the river. They have trouble grabbing her tits, knead her belly with their paws like we do with our feet when we balance on the slimy trunks. All but one swims and sucks.

  He is the white and brown. He is the cartoon swimmer, the puppy who dove like Big Henry when he was being born. He lays face down. His mouth opens and closes like he is eating the shed floor. Skeetah’s face is so close to the puppy that when he talks, the brown and white fur flutters, and it almost looks like the puppy’s moving.

  “He was okay early this morning. Ate once and everything.”

  “When you noticed him like this?” I ask. The puppy turns his head to the side, and it looks like his neck is broken. Skeetah rocks back. The swimmer gasps.

  “About an hour ago.”

  “Maybe it’s China. Maybe her milk’s bad for him or something.”

  “I think he got parvo. I think he picked it up out the dirt.”

  My morning nap on the tile comes back strong.

  “Maybe he just sick, Skeet.”

  “What if it’s in the dirt? What if the rest of them get infected?”

  The puppy taps the floor with one paw.

  “Maybe if you just get him to eat. Maybe he ain’t been able to get enough milk.”

  Skeet scoops up the puppy, puts him in the dirt inches away from China. She lowers her head, pointed like a snake. When the puppy jerks his neck again, she growls. It is the rumbling of rocks across packed earth. The puppy lays still. His eyes aren’t even open yet. She growls again, and he slides to one side.

  “Stop it, China.” Skeet breathes. “Feed him.” He pushes the puppy forward inches. The puppy’s face plows into the sand.

  China’s neck snaps out and she barks. She lashes. Her teeth graze the puppy, whose legs twitch outward and draw in tight.

  “Skeet!” I yell.

  “You bitch!” he hisses, cutting his eyes at her, wounded. He grabs the puppy, wraps it in his shirt, sits back on his folded feet. China ignores him and lays her head along her white, gleaming arms that look like herons’ necks. Her eyelids droop, and suddenly she looks tired. Her breasts are all swollen, and the puppies pull at them. She is a weary goddess.

  She is a mother so many times over.

  “Maybe she just trying to protect the rest of them. You know, if it’s serious, she know.”

  Skeetah folds the puppy in his hand like a baseball. He nods.

  “Fine.” The bugs outside sing because the day is so bright, it is gold. Daddy guns the tractor; he is pulling plywood in stacks across the clearing, gathering wood from all the corners of the Pit for the storm. Big Henry had told us one of his cousins from Germaine had a whole litter die of parvo; the puppies had just opened their eyes, and then the fir
st one died, and then each day after that, every time his cousin walked out back to his doghouse, he would find another puppy dead, so small and hard that it was difficult for him to imagine that they might have once lived. “You going to come out with me and camp tonight?” The puppy is a black ball in Skeetah’s black tee: still, round. Skeetah is not looking at his hands, but he is watching China with something like respect and love in his face. “I need to separate him. Make it easy for him til he dies.”

  “Yeah.” I breathe. My stomach flutters. I will watch Skeet kill his own. “You know I’m here.”

  Eating is different now. I hunch over a bowl of eggs and rice in the kitchen and I eat but feel like I am lying to myself and Skeetah, who is stealing food for our night in the woods. Every bite is another lie. Food is the last thing I want. Skeetah pulls more plastic bags from under the sink and wraps them around the one holding the food so that the bundle is opaque as a spider’s egg sac, and I can’t see the mix of things that would be our hurricane supplies that Skeetah is filching.

  “Look good?” he asks.

  I swallow. I nod.

  “We should take a jug of that water.”

  “You know Daddy done probably counted them.”

  “We’ll tell Randall to tell him that it was them beers he was drinking yesterday. Made him miscount.”

  “Randall ain’t coming?”

  “Don’t know. But you know Randall tell Daddy whatever.”

  Skeetah puts the bundle of bags under his shirt. He looks pregnant now.

  I skim the belly of my bowl with my spoon, slide the steel along all the curved places. The rice clumps; the eggs are bundled. It all disappears, and I wonder what I am feeding. I imagine the food turning to mush, sliding down my throat, through my body like water through a storm drain to pool in my stomach. To make what is inside me grow to be a baby in the winter. And Skeet smiles at me and holds the door open, waiting for me to walk through, and he is blind.

  Junior is pulling planks of plywood across the yard. He yanks them up and hauls, walking backward through the dirt. Daddy has them scattered all around, pulled from other places on the Pit, and has lain them on the ground. Junior is piling them, and every one leaves a trail of crumbling wood behind him since they are eaten through with black, rotting blotches. Junior is leaving a trail of bread crumbs. He is covered in dust, and it makes him look rolled in chalk. His thin gray shorts sag on him, hanging to the middle of his shins. They must be an old pair of Skeet’s. He drops a board, and it claps.