The Pines

by Robert Dunbar

  “I don’t know as how a cripple should even be allowed to have a kid!” Then the voice turned soft and wheedling. “’Thena? ’Thena?”

  “I’d appreciate it if you’d leave now. I’m already running late. By the way, welcome home. Hope you can stay longer this trip. Matthew,” she called, refusing to look back at the man who followed her across the yard. “Come here.”

  Matty stared at them. His hand had found its way back to his mouth, and drool ran down his arm. She pulled him to her and tried to take his other hand—sweaty, sticky. With a wail, the boy pulled away from her, cringing where he stood.

  Lonny approached. “He knows ya don’t like ’im.” Tall and stoop shouldered, he looked odd walking, almost unbalanced, as though his joints all pointed at subtly wrong angles. “Never could stand nothin’ weak, could she, boy?” He grabbed at Matty, hugging him against his legs, the boy at first unresisting. “Looks like he’s gonna be a big ’un, all right. She’s ruinin’ it for everybody, huh, boy?” He crouched beside him, tousled wet hair. “She drove poor Wally till ’e dropped, froze me outta my own house ’cause I was sick.” Suddenly, he was all over the boy, holding and patting him. “You’re a good kid, ain’t ya?”

  The child twisted to pull away, redoubling his efforts and crying in panic when the whiskered face pressed to kiss him.

  “Leave him alone.”

  “Look at dis—he’s filthy! Don’t ya never give him no bath?”

  “He’s been playing in the mud,” she told him, annoyed by the defensiveness in her voice.

  Noises choked from the boy. Lonny stood up, and the boy hunched over, the contents of his stomach gushing out onto the dirt. She said nothing—not even permitting herself a small victorious smile—just put a hand on Matthew’s shoulder.

  “I wanna move back in. Me an’ Pam.”

  She looked up at him, her face caught with an incredulous grin. “Well, you can forget that.” The boy coughed and held his stomach, pouring out the scalding misery.

  “I just wanna come home.” Lonny’s face twisted with pain. “It’s my house.”

  “No,” she spoke slowly, staring him down, “it is not.”

  “All ya did was pay the fuckin’ back taxes! Ya don’t even wanna be here. We built this place! My family. Ya hate it here.” He drew himself up and began to walk toward the house. “Not fair. It’s my parents’ house, my goddamn brother gets it, he dies and you keep it? ’S not fair! Ya don’t even belong here. We’re gonna move back in whether ya want us to or not.”

  “Don’t even try this.”

  “I was born here! In this house!” Trembling with rage now, he swung back toward her. She saw his hands shake and knew what they suppressed. “’Thena, please—I won’t never bother you. And I’ll even fix the place up, you’ll see. I jus’ wanna come home. I’ll die if I don’t. Wallace, he woulda wanted me ta be here. I’ll die. It ain’t like I won’t have money. Me an this friend a mine—he just got out too—we’re gonna start a mink-trappin’ business an’…”

  “Of course you are.” She guided the boy back toward the house.

  “You better let me! I’ll make you! I swear to God, you’ll be sorry. ’Thena, you listen a me! It’s ’at cop, ain’t it? You think that cop you’re screwin’ can keep me out?”

  “Yes.” She whipped around to face him. “That’s it, if that’s what it takes. He’s done a lot more than that for me already. He’s had to, thanks to you and your buddies in town. Do you imagine I don’t know who’s responsible for all my windows being broken? Do you think I don’t know who tore the fence down and drew those things on the walls?” She almost spat. “Thank God for Barry. We wouldn’t have been able to live here, if it weren’t for him. He can keep you out all right. Or put you away. How’d you get out anyway? You weren’t due for a while yet. Maybe I should have him look into that. How’d you like to be back inside? I should do it anyway, for Pam’s sake. I could, you know. So don’t start threatening me again. You think I’d let you back in this house? For even a minute?”

  A weird appreciation on his face, he laughed. “Ain’t so cool now, ’Thena. Huh? Not so calm and collected.”

  She grabbed the struggling boy and resumed dragging him toward the house.

  “Ain’t nuthin’ wrong wi’ my family!”

  Only in the last instant did she hear the footsteps running up behind her.

  “You…!” He grabbed her in a clumsy, flailing lunge. “You hear me?” He shook her.

  “Stop it!”

  “Ain’t gonna stop, and there ain’t nuthin’ you can do ’bout it neither. Where’s your fuckin’ cop now?”

  She pushed at him with her fists as his grip tightened. “Take your hands off me.”

  He met her eyes and backed away. “You think there’s sumthin’ amatter wi’ me? You’re the one’s sick. Don’t gimme that look.”

  “Matthew, come back here.” The boy had fled around the side of the house.

  “I can see your face, bitch. I know that look, that ‘you’re disgusting’ look. That’s your opinion. Wally didn’t think so. An’ I ain’t stupid, neither. You’re the one. Too goddamn good for my family. Oughtta be too good ta live in our house then.” His voice rose as he worked himself toward frenzy again. “I’m a bum or what? Is that what you think? Oh God. I oughtta punch your face in. What do you think a that? Like ya think you’re some fuckin’ saint with…”

  From the corner of her eye, she caught a blur of brown movement.

  “…that ambulance crap, I—”

  “No!”

  The dog seemed to explode at him, paws striking his chest. Lonny careened backward.

  “No, Dooley! Down! Down, I said! No!” She got hold of the old leather collar and pulled back as the snarling dog lunged again, jerking her forward.

  Cloth ripped. Half crouched, Lonny held one arm protectively at his throat while the other beat the air as though still fending off the dog. “Hold ’im! Don’t let go!” He recoiled slowly, reflexes off.

  Only now, watching him, did she realize just how drunk he really was.

  He scuttled backward, almost falling. “Oughtta fuckin’ shoot that dog! Looka the size of ’im!”

  Again, Dooley tried to go after him, dragging Athena. She yelled, planted her feet and held on to the collar with both hands. “I think you’d better get out of here.” She staggered forward, barely restraining the animal. “Down, Dooley! Down!”

  Lonny stumbled near the edge of the yard. “Le’ me tell ya something,” he yelled, his voice horrible with fear, an aggressive whine.

  Dooley barked furiously, front paws rising off the ground. “No!” Standing almost straight, the dog was as tall as the woman, and it took all her strength just to slow him down. Lonny’s shouts sounded incoherently obscene. Both arms wrapped around the dog now, she considered just releasing him. “Good boy,” she soothed. “Good old Dooley, take it easy, boy.” His barks—this close—hurt her ear drums.

  The man’s voice slurred even more as he staggered into the trees. Even from this distance, she could see that his eyes had unfocused. The effect was one of gradual disintegration, as though he’d been held together only by purpose. “’S my house.” Only the rage remained, though grown confused and diffuse. “Oh Jesus, it’s my fuckin’ house.”

  Saturated air hung over the pines like a heavy blanket. Dooley pulled away, raced to the edge of the dripping trees and stood baying at the departing figure.

  “Shut up, Dooley!” Suddenly, she moved toward a sapling that had edged its way into the yard. She grabbed it with both hands and tugged. The roots gripped deeply, but thin branches stripped off, became whips that cut into her palms, leaving her hands full of wet needles. The green wood bled. Inhaling the acid wetness of the sap, she grunted, twisting the black bow of the trunk, pulling it apart. “Oh God.” She let go of the ruined sapling, wondering if she should go get the ax and put it out of its misery. The tree swayed, and she stepped back. She had to go find Matthew.

 
Hurrying along, she brushed her smarting hands on her work shirt, and gravel oozed underfoot like mud.

  “Look what I found!” Waving, Pamela came along the road with the boy in tow. He weaved behind her like a balloon and seemed fine now, though his cheeks were still damp with the brine of tears and sweat.

  “Sorry I’m so late, ’Thena.” Pam sped up her shuffling walk. She waded barefoot through the damp, loose earth, carrying her good shoes. Her best blouse—red—seemed to burn against the sodden grayness. “How come you’re still home? I mean, I thought you’d be down at the hall already. The reason I’m late is I was over at…Oh, ’Thena! Your poor hands!”

  The palms bled. She held them out of sight. “Oh,” she said, noticing the tightness of Pam’s skirt. “So you do know he’s out.”

  “What? I just thought maybe…” Pam clutched the boy, feeling his shirt. “Oh, c’mere now, baby. You’re all wet. Let’s go in the house and get you changed.”

  Of course, she thought, looking away: Lonny could never have walked all the way from town in that condition. Nice of him to stop with his wife. She tried to put a hand on her son’s shoulder—he felt bony as a colt as he dodged past her and followed Pamela toward the house.

  “Let me get you buttoned right, leastways, baby. Did you dress yourself this morning, huh?”

  “Pamela? The roof leaked upstairs during the night. Could you mop it up?” She felt the pockets of her jeans. No car keys. But she couldn’t go back in the house. Not right now. She needed air.

  “Aren’t you going down the hall? ’Thena?” Her voice sad and childlike, Pam called after her. She wanted so much to talk to Athena about Lonny, to brag and dream, but now…Miserable, she watched her retreating back.

  Then Matthew stood at her side, rain-battered weeds clutched in his fist.

  “No…don’ be sad, Pammy. Look…”

  “Oh, Matty!” She brushed them to her face. “Black-eyed Susan! Oh, baby.” She kissed him. “How’d you know they was my favorites now, huh?”

  The weeds around the town dump began to straighten and bristle, exuding their noxious perfume.

  Marl Spencer scavenged for jars in the refuse. He lifted one specimen, inspected it, then chucked it. The impact made a damp thud. He saw another, partially buried, and began rooting it out. The jar held a black lump of ants. Then he jerked back with a cry, swatting at his head, and slipped on something rotten.

  Flying slowly—and always lower—the huge insect whirred on darkly veined wings, and from where he lay in the rubbish, the boy followed it with his eyes. It struck a tree, clung.

  Marl stared into the pines. All around him in the hard shadows lay the tracks of dogs.

  Once out of sight of the house, Athena felt bigger somehow, more vital, as though she’d left behind a great pressure. Long strides carried her over rain-packed sand. Rapidly shrinking puddles reflected hot gray, and the air felt like a wet sweater. She veered away from the road and followed a nearly invisible trail across the springy turf.

  With aimless determination, she passed a stream and breathed in the almost-pleasant smell of fecund water. The current made only the smallest hushed lappings. As she moved on, she examined the shallow cuts on her hands and decided it looked as though she’d been picking roses. Green scum lapped at the mud, and in the soft bank were pressed dozens of tiny tracks, no bigger than a house cat’s, with long finger like claws. A willow stooped low over the creek, casting shade thinner than the sunlight, and when she paused to lean against the trunk, a bird flustered in the branches. The trailing strings of the willow brushed her face as she turned away, and the bird began a faint trilling call.

  Walk it off, she told herself. Clear your head, girl. A fitful wind stirred, and the pines smelled cool now. Keep your head above water. She inhaled the deep green scent. Put your thoughts in order.

  The trail soon became no more than a gully, sides sloping to a rut in the center. Was it a dry stream run? Vines and dense wet growth tangled, harsh and green, on one side of the path, but the brambles and thorns on the other looked brown in the spray of sunshine. Of course, she realized—a fire ditch. Off the path, a teeming mound of ants seethed over a small dead animal, and she glimpsed white fur. Albino, what ever it was.

  She ducked half-bare branches as the trail narrowed, needles and twigs crunching briskly underfoot. The ditch became choked with stiff waist-high weeds, and her long legs swished wetly through the undergrowth. A sweet smell grew cloying as she waded farther.

  She passed a rusting bale of barbed wire. Hornets crawled over the rotting apples that littered the ground now, and among the gnarled trees of the old orchard stood the ruined fragments of a brick wall, pitted, weathered almost to the color of sand. A bullfrog—large enough to eat mice and birds—squatted on the wall, fearless as she passed. Incredibly, even here lay the empty husk of a car, surrounded by the broken glass and trash that lay scattered around fragmented bricks.

  Everywhere, walls had tumbled in huge sections and a fine dust had settled like volcanic ash.

  The old town.

  Sunlight streamed through the small stands of pine, white places shimmering with flies and gnats. A black-dirty cast entombed one arm, the other wrist and both ankles bound to tent pegs. Filthy head bandages had come unraveled in the sand, the earth around them, cratered by the rain, scaled with a pocked crust.

  “Joey?” Ernie’s voice cooed gently as he leaned over him. “Do you want water?” Ernie smiled. A thread of saliva fell from the corner of his mouth, beading Joey’s cheek. “Do you see it? Do you want this again?”

  But milky opalescence had covered the boy’s eyes.

  “You see it, don’t you?” Ernie held a pocketknife with a gray mother-of-pearl handle. Smiling, he touched the sharpened point to the boy’s flesh and slowly pressed. A dot formed, and the tip entered slowly. He cut down.

  Not much blood now. Instead, a yellowish fluid leaked out, flowing easily over the thicker, slower stuff that puddled around his body. It accumulated around the blood, thinly circling it before soaking into the sand.

  A warm breeze stirred the woods, and a butterfly flitted past.

  Fierce heat beat down on Ernie. Pushing orange hair and sweat out of his eyes, he straightened and stared into the pines.

  He was tanned dark from living in the open. For a time he’d survived on foodstuffs scavenged from the torn litter of the campsite. But now he was hungry.

  He waited for the woods to give him a sign.

  Nothing.

  Why?

  Sighing, he crouched, pulled away the rest of the bandages and tenderly caressed the stubbled head. Then he stood and faced the trees again. “I offer you this!” Clenching his eyes shut, he spread wide his arms, opening himself to the sentient woods. Accept it! His teeth gritted with concentration. My gift ! A chattering hum came from his mouth. Accept my offering. Beginning to go into a coughing fit, he opened his eyes to the sun, and the pines seemed to shiver. Please! On the verge of once more falling to his knees and prostrating himself, he let his vision stray to the boy.

  Sunlight fell softly now, and the purple wounds looked almost pretty. There! Startled and jubilant, he stared at the incision across the chest. I didn’t do that! I’m sure I didn’t make that one! I didn’t! He began to laugh. The woods! The pines! In a pool of motionless white light, he reveled. They did it! A sign!

  From the trees, the crows were calling.

  Often, she found herself drawn here, here to this island of peace, this sanctuary where the stones lay deep and quiet. Silently, she skirted the mounded rubble of ore slag, lumps of refuse from the extinct forge. Stalky weeds sprang from the piles, reclaiming them. She stumbled over an old shoe, cast off in the yellow earth.

  Finally sitting down, she flexed her leg. The shattered wall, already sun warmed, felt almost dry, and drowsily, the hornets buzzed. She’d always found a peculiar solace in this place. Heavy with age, it had long since surrendered its fight against the pines.

  Vines gre
w over sun-soaked bricks. She sighed, glad she’d decided to come here, then laughed, because she hadn’t decided, not consciously. Rising, she stretched and approached the foundation hole of the old furnace itself.

  The stones here weren’t soft and crumbling, but black and fused together as though spewed forth by an eruption. The hole…

  Bottomless.

  Something like coldness breathed out from it, coldness and a permeating silence. Everything wooden had rotted away, leaving only this dim brick outline. It was the grave of a town. Black leaves oozed beneath her feet.

  Balancing like a child, she walked along the bridge wall between two cellar holes, the only sound the murmur of the sides crumbling into stagnant water as she passed. She gazed into one shuddering pool. Something plunked. A frog? The weaving patterns of water-strider spiders stirred a patch of iridescence, and rippling crescents spun. Disks interlocked and overlapped, trembling at the edges of the granulating bricks, turning them to sediment. At last, her anger seemed a distant thing—the sun had steamed away the breeze, but what remained of it caressed her hair. She glanced up at the rough ring of the clearing, now bathed in sunlight, clear and fresh.

  Flowing, the morning’s dream came back to her, not in fragments, but slow and thick as honey: herself straining, here, in this place, screaming on a slab of stone, and the baby’s head, enclosed in a bluish caul, squeezing through the redness. The features looked…not normal. She squirmed from that vision, from the burning agony and tearing. The dream shifted, and she was once again a child, facing the image of Granny Lee’s lined face, explaining about the blood, the old lady embarrassed, the little girl deep in shame. They walked through this empty town, her leg brace chiming against the stones as she tried to avoid places where blood had pooled. Suddenly alone, she flew down the road with mystifying speed, lame no longer. And she walked in the new town, empty as these ruins. Doors flew open to show tables set with drying dinners. But she saw no people. Only caked blood everywhere. In the streets, like a crushed-brick paste. On her legs. She passed a truck with its motor running. And everywhere the crusting wetness, as if it had rained blood. And the moaning of the truck became the droning of a fly, became the buzzing of the hornets.