The Pines

by Robert Dunbar

  “Nope, I came over with Larry—he’s inside with Doris.” Sweat soaked the front of his T-shirt, and he gulped more soda. “So how’s things in ’Ro’s Furnace?” He took his glasses off, wiped perspiration out of his eyes with a muscular forearm.

  “How should I know?” Marching around the side of the car, she checked a tire that was low on air. “So it’s me, Doris and a trainee?”

  “Nope,” he answered, grinning. “Sig the Stink’s running with you.” The face she made almost choked him. “Better not let Doris see you making fun a him.”

  Larry looked up from what Doris was showing him. “Athena’s here. Hey, I been meaning to ask you, how come she limps like that?”

  “When she was a little girl, they told her she’d never walk again.” The words came out rapidly. “Obviously, they didn’t know her very well.” Without glancing at him, she lit another cigarette. “Poor kid had a rough time. No parents. Then the grandmother died.” She exhaled heavily, then cleared her throat. “Most of the calls in these parts are from the highways. Like I told you, we don’t do those except in special cases, like if there’s a big pileup, and the hospital ambulances can’t handle it all. I’ll tell you frankly, since you’re going to be working with us, we have an agreement with certain friends of mine. The state won’t go out of its way to inspect our operation so long as we keep to the pines. People have a real funny attitude towards us. Nobody gives much of a shit what goes on out here. They just want to stick us with all the prisons and loony bins and forget about them. Before we started, a lot of pineys never even got to a hospital. Now, of course, the hospitals don’t even want them half the time.” She sighed. “We’re underequipped. So you’ll just have to make do with what we’ve got. We’ll take anything you can beg, borrow and/or steal from the area clinics. They don’t like us much.” Suddenly, she smiled. “Hiya, honey. How are you this morning?” Athena picked up the duty roster. “Who’s driving today?” “Sig’s not here yet. If anything comes in, you take it out.” Athena nodded. “So what do you think, Larry? Are you going to be running with us from now on?” He grinned at her. “I hope so.”

  Jack stepped forward, a keen competitive gleam in his eyes.

  “…even studied the manual already,” Doris was saying. “We’ll just have to see how he makes out when—”

  Jack horned in. “These cards are a gas, ain’t they? Pineys have the weirdest damn accidents. ’Thena, you remember that time when—?”

  Larry interrupted, “Man, since when ain’t you a piney?”

  “Since he took a bath,” supplied Doris, “and started wearing tight jeans.”

  “Is there any more coffee?”

  “Athena, you’re not really gonna drink Doris’s coffee, are you?” Very casually, Jack pressed up close to her. “Look at this stuff—it’s like motor oil.”

  “Don’t worry, I don’t drink it. Look out.” She poured a cup of scalding liquid. “I fill one of the syringes and mainline it.”

  “Jack, this is your captain speaking. You want to give Sig a call and see whether he’s planning on joining us sometime today?”

  The phone rang, and Doris shouted. Moving with surprising speed, Athena leaped into the rig. She started the engine and swung the ambulance out of the bay. Doors banged open, Jack hanging on. He hopped off, tugging the bay door down behind them.

  Doris jumped in next to Athena. “You want to come, Jack? We’re still a man short. Get that side door shut. Make sure it’s locked. Come on, Larry! Get your skinny ass in here!”

  Heart pounding, Larry clambered through the hatch.

  Wes Shourds looked up from the dead animals. He wore his sand-colored hair pasted down flat, which enhanced the vaguely frog-gish look of his broad face and bulging eyes. Just below his left eye, he bore a large inflamed birthmark, and something was wrong with his mouth, a sort of crimping to the upper lip. Though still young, he was already going to beery fat. “Find anything?”

  “Nope,” muttered Al.

  “Sure gone a long time.”

  “Yeah?” Al picked at his long, dirty fingernails. “So? Didn’t find nuthin’ ’cept some funny sorta tracks.”

  Wes knew the tone of voice well enough not to push it. Spencer was a good man to go off deer-jacking with, but you had to be careful with him—he got nuts sometimes. Especially when he had the shakes. Wes swatted away a blackfly that was trying to bite his lip. “Coffee’s ’bout ready.”

  Al’s habitual look of hostility lessened somewhat, and he sat on the log. “I got sumthin’ here lots better’n coffee fer takin’ the chill off.” Rummaging through the gear in the bag, he produced a large-mouthed jar of pale fluid and took a deep slug. Golden liquid dribbled down his stubbled chin. As he wiped the hairy back of one hand across his mouth, he silently passed the jar to Wes.

  Wes figured Al probably wasn’t kidding about being cold—he never took that damn hunting jacket off. Made a man sweat just to look at him. He gulped the burning fluid, wondering if Al slept in that jacket, if he screwed in it. “Shit,” he said, eyes watering. “This ain’t from the same batch as t’other stuff, is it?” He glanced at the shards of broken glass that littered the clearing.

  “Fuck you! What’s the matter with it, asshole?” Al snatched the jar back. Some of it spilled, and he started cursing good, then. Wes flinched.

  Strange, but he never liked to hear Al cuss. Something about the way Al said certain words made his flesh creep, sort of. “Damn shame about that blast catchin’ this one in the gut.”

  In response, Spencer only muttered blackly and knuckled at his runny nose.

  Wes looked him over cautiously, noting the huge pores of Al’s face, his rotting teeth, even the straggly sideburns: he had to be about the ugliest man he’d ever seen. Al still fumed over the whiskey, and Wes continued his efforts to change the subject. “Sure ruined a lotta good meat.” Beside him, a buck and a doe stained the sand and lichen. Flies swarmed.

  The night’s hunting had been easy—a lucky thing, Wes considered, since they’d been so drunk—a simple matter of freezing the small herd with powerful flashlights, then blasting away. Because they could get into big trouble if caught out here with rifles, they always used shotguns, the buckshot strung together with wire so it wouldn’t scatter. But sometimes the wire came apart. Last night, a peripheral blast had torn open the neck of a second doe, and though spouting blood, she’d managed to bound away. Following by flashlight, they’d lost the blood trail near the creek. Al went looking this morning but…

  Wes’s eyes narrowed. That’s why Al had been gone so long—he’d found the doe and hidden her, meaning to come back and get her for himself later. Come to think of it, the bastard was looking pretty pleased with himself.

  “You know, Al, we still gotta haul them kills back to the truck.” Disgusted, Wes knew better than to say anything about the second doe. “Your son shoulda come. Coulda used the extra man.” They’d hidden the truck off an unused road, covered it with branches so the troopers wouldn’t spot it.

  “Marl don’t like goin’ jackin’.” Al spat on the ground, a curious note of pride entering his voice. “My boy Marl, he hates the woods.” He grinned at the pines.

  Wes had heard all about Marl Spencer’s hatred of the woods. Local gossip was full of it. Wes clenched his fists. He figured anybody that would set fires would do anything. His fists ached—somebody ought to take that loony kid out in the woods and shoot him. He gritted his teeth, flexed his hands. “So what happened to ole Lonny? I thought he’s s’posed to be yer helper.” He kept his eyes on the dry woods as he spoke. “Jus’ one match ’ud do it,” he whispered to himself.

  “That drunken bastard Lonny don’t do shit,” said Al amiably. “I been good ta him too. Lettin’ him share a room wi’ my boy an all. He jus’ better be watchin’ that still, s’all I can say. Can’t even find ’im half the time. Sniffin’ after that Pam.” Al started talking about sex again.

  His sudden anger fading, Wes went back to cleaning out the
buck’s leaking intestines, a noxious mess shot with black. He didn’t pay much attention to the other man’s talk. Al was always going on about sex. Specifically, he was always going on about sex with old lady Stewart. In spite of having been past her prime and exceedingly obese for as long as anyone could remember, Lizzie Stewart had been covered by every man and, if there were any truth to rumor, half the farm animals in four counties.

  “She come over to the gin mill t’other day, while I was checkin’ the still. I really let her have it.” He thought a minute, scratched at his stubble of gray-blond beard. “You wouldn’t believe the sorta thing she likes, boy.”

  Though he’d had plenty of opportunities to discover the proclivities of the lady in question, Wes dutifully responded, “You dog.”

  “Marl stuck ’is head in the door while I was goin’ at ’er, an you shoulda seen the eyes bug outta his head.” Al guffawed. “That boy took off like the Leeds Devil was after ’im. Couldn’t find’im fer a hour.”

  Wes finished trussing the buck. He put the jacklights away in the rucksack and hefted his shotgun. “We best get started ’fore it gets any later.” He rubbed at his eyes. “All that rum we drunk last night. Meat’s gonna spoil in this heat. We shoulda been long gone as is.” He saw that Al hadn’t moved. “‘Less you want ’em to catch us outlawin’.”

  “You always worryin’, boy.” Al reached for the tin cup. “I ain’t even had no coffee yet.”

  She took the rig down an infrequently used expanse of old highway—the call hadn’t given an exact location. The sun felt blisteringly hot on Athena’s left arm and shoulder, and she glanced to the side: a burned-out section of forest, all scorched earth and blackened stumps. Flame red flowers dotted the charred earth though, and glimpsing them, she smiled a little. The ride seemed almost smooth, save for a new knocking in the engine.

  Behind her, Doris still lectured. “Then a lot of the time victims refuse treatment, or have left the scene, then what you do is—”

  Athena interrupted, “There it is.” Her pulse quickened in anticipation.

  “That siren sounds like it’s dying,” said Doris, as she climbed up front. “It’ll be the next thing to break down, I guess. Wouldn’t you know the first call we get would make a liar out of me? I just got done telling the kid we don’t get car accidents.”

  “Well, that ain’t true anyways, Doris.” Jack turned to Larry. “We got this tractor-trailer wreck once where we had to scrape the guy up with a fish knife.”

  “Cut it out, Jack,” demanded Doris.

  A blue and white state police car, just parking on the shoulder of the road, honked a greeting. The highway shimmered in waves of heat, and two shattered vehicles hissed, angled on opposite sides of the road. Pulling the ambulance over by the nearer car, Athena turned off the siren as Doris jumped out into the white haze. Larry clambered down behind her, blinded after the dimness of the rig’s interior.

  A uniformed trooper called over. “You handle this, Doris?”

  Crowbar in hand, Athena climbed down, mumbling to herself. “One of these days we’re going to have to deal with someone she doesn’t know. Bound to happen.”

  “I’ll tell ya whether or not we can handle it after I see what it is,” Doris muttered. “Jack, Athena, take this one. You come with me, Larry.” She called back to the trooper. “What happened here, Fred?”

  “Header, looks like.”

  Doris sprinted to the car on the far side of the hot asphalt. Nervous and eager, Larry followed.

  Halfway out onto the buckled, shining hood, a woman sprawled in a welter of blood and glass, and while Doris checked for vital signs, Larry squinted at the burning glare. The woman’s hair was red now. One side of her face was laid open in the sunlight, her back teeth grinning blue and yellow.

  The empty road ran parallel to the highway, down which flowed a steady stream of traffic, placid and so close.

  The tar was soft and blistered. No air stirred. Larry felt an internal doubling of the heat. His shadow turned black, and the road seemed to be burning through the bottoms of his sneakers, while the sun glinted around the blood on the car. Bits of steering wheel lay all around him.

  “Fred? Call the coroner’s wagon to come get this one.”

  The trooper stood by the police car. “Will do, Doris. Sure is a scorcher today.” He stooped to the window and said something to his partner.

  “How you doin’ anyway, Fred?” Abruptly, Doris squeezed Larry’s arm. “Go sit over there and put your head down. You’ll be all right in a minute.”

  “Just fine, Doris,” the trooper replied. “How’s yourself?”

  “Can’t complain.” She peered into the police car. “Don’t say hello, Jim.”

  The trooper in the car shook his head and muttered. “Goddamn wreck shouldn’t even be allowed on the road.”

  “What’s that, Jim? You talking about me or the ambulance?”

  “How are you, Doris?” he said louder. “Still running that outlaw rig, I see.”

  “Don’t do me any favors. You don’t want to talk to me? Go ahead. Be ignorant.”

  Across the highway, Athena and Jack leaned into the windows of the other vehicle. Gunmetal gray, it was ancient, back doors tied with clothesline, hot vapor still squirting from the radiator.

  The smell of voided bowels filled the overheated car. Athena judged the old man to be about seventy; the boy looked fifteen at most. Glass fragments glittered like some impossible frost in the boy’s hair, and across his forehead a deep gash oozed, slowly, steadily. One of them groaned. The old man clutched feebly at his chest, and the sunlight, slanting onto his face, revealed an awful pallor.

  “He’s the one—get the old guy,” directed Athena.

  “Christ,” Jack said. “You could cook in here.” He tugged at the smashed door on the driver’s side, throwing all his weight into it.

  “Just take it easy.” Athena reached through the passenger window. “You’ll be all right now.” She felt pieces of bone moving under the flesh of the boy’s arm, and he trembled violently. “Easy.”

  “Fuck, I don’t believe it.”

  “What’s the matter, Jack?”

  “You see the way these back doors are tied shut? Take us a hour to cut through all this. Hey, Doris!”

  The boy’s eyes focused on Athena. “My daddy…my daddy’s hurt. Please help my daddy, lady.” The voice was that of a very small child.

  She realized her mistake: this wasn’t a teenager. She’d been misled by the unlined face and the subtly wrong shape of the head. This was a grown man, perhaps twenty-five years old. She watched as one of his overlarge ears slowly filled with blood. “You’re okay now. Take it easy.” In that moment, the young man’s eyes shone with complete trust, and she backed out of the car, attacking the stripping around the crack-rayed windshield with the crowbar. “I could use a little help here, Jack,” she grunted. The chrome came off easily, and in seconds they were tugging off the glass. It came out in pieces, and they tossed the chunks to the side of the road. Brushing fragments out of the way, she climbed over the hood.

  The old man’s mouth moved.

  “No, don’t try to talk.”

  He shook, lips working.

  “Okay, I’m coming. Take it easy.” She leaned her head to him. “What is it? Where do you hurt?”

  His voice hissed in her ear. “My boy’s slow.” His eyes watered. “You unnerstand? You take care a my Joey first.” He croaked the words, his chest heaving in strange fluid wobbles. “He don’ unnerstand.” Breath came in liquid gulps.

  “Doris!”

  “Let’s get moving here!” Doris trotted over with the kit. “What’ve you got?”

  “Flailed chest.” Athena crouched over the dashboard. “Little bit harder and he’d be pinned on the steering column. We’ve got to get to him—now.”

  Doris grabbed the crowbar. “How’s the kid, Jack?”

  “Head injuries—broken arm, lacerations,” he announced, fixing a splint. His glas
ses kept slipping down his nose because of the way he was sweating.

  Still crouching, Athena bound the old man’s arms across his chest. As the sun pounded on her back, she felt flooded with sweat, cramping, and the heat seemed to boil away her strength. “How’re we going to get this old guy out of here? Oh.”

  “That’s got it.” With a loud ripping, Doris pried the door open and snapped the hinges, letting it fall in the road. “Larry, come over here and watch this. Jack, where’s the board?”

  Sweat got in their eyes, a stinging blur, as they strapped the old man to the board, lifting him out the side. Jack wheeled over the rattling litter, and the troopers lent a hand. While windshield glass fell from their clothes to tinkle and crunch on the ground, the older man and the younger steadily pleaded that the other be looked after first.

  “Christ, these two are going to break my heart,” Doris muttered, running alongside the litter. “Fred? You guys hanging around to wait for the coroner’s wagon?” They slid the stretcher into the rig.

  “Yeah, Doris. Catch ya later.”

  As they pulled out, Athena grabbed the radio, letting the hospital know what to expect. Doris set Larry to bandaging Joey’s head, while Jack checked out the old man.

  Still pale, Larry moved slowly, clumsily. Blood seeped through the bandages faster than he could wrap them, and Joey just stared doe-eyed at his father, so white and still.

  Every time he bleated for his “Daddy,” Athena squirmed in the driver’s seat. She couldn’t understand why it should bother her so much. She knew little enough about fathers. Few men had hung around while she was growing up, certainly no paternal ones. The family history held that her mother had been raped. What ever the case, after her mother’s breakdowns and suicide attempts began, Athena had been carted from Alabama to her grandmother’s house in New York. “Fathers yet,” she muttered to herself. “I may be starting to crack up myself.” She tried not to listen to the boy.

  “How’re you making out, Larry?”

  “Okay.” Joey’s eyes seemed to float in murky liquid as Larry wrapped the bandages around and around his head, the red flower blooming through the white gauze. “You get a lot of retards out here, don’t you?”