The Best American Mystery Stories 2012

by Otto Penzler

  Brucie came over and squatted down on his haunches. He crossed his arms and looked at Dan. Dan guessed he was about twenty-five, but he could have been some perpetually adolescent forty-year-old. He smiled at Dan until Dan found himself smiling, too, unable to say why, nodding at the silliness of it all, how it seemed more like some prank than a robbery. No one robbed you this way.

  Brucie uncrossed his arms and his left shot out, the closed fist catching Dan on the side of the head. He had been turning away as he nodded and the blow glanced off, but was still hard enough to stun him. There was another fist to his face and he felt the tearing of the inside of his cheek between the bony knuckles and his teeth, leaving the sudden, grim taste of blood. Dan thought about the angelic look on Brucie’s face, the mask that hid the nasty workings of a small, mean man who never had anything but small, mean thoughts. He took two or three more blows, not really able to keep track of the damage, they came so fast.

  “You made this too hard, man,” he heard Brucie say. Dan’s ears rang and the man’s voice sounded hollow and far away. “What kind of salesman don’t carry his money in cash? Plastic ain’t the way for a man to carry his money. It ought to be cash.”

  Dan fell onto his side. Brucie was still squatting beside him. Dan had his eyes closed. He felt a hand on his hair as he was dragged up, back into a sitting position.

  “I think you’re lying about that damn number. I think you’re wasting my time because you think you’re going to get away with something. Let me tell you what,” he said. Dan opened his eyes, squinting now through the pain. Brucie’s face was only inches away. His breath reminded Dan of the wind from the beef packing plant back home, the odor of rotting meat so intense it weighed down the breeze that carried it.

  “I don’t want the number anymore. When that branch bank or whatever it is in that little town up the road opens, you’re going to clean out your account, and if you’re lucky, we’ll let you live. If you’d given us the number for that card, we’d already be gone. You just had to make it hard. Well, I can make it hard, too.”

  Then he stood, giving Dan’s hair a hard yank and throwing his head back against the wall. He glanced at the woman, jangling the keys he had taken from Dan earlier. “I’m going out to check out that car again; I know he’s got some more cash stashed somewhere. Make sure he don’t move. And don’t be talking to him.” He slammed the door as he left.

  Dan’s head ached as the booming of the door shook the thin walls of the motel room. He sucked away the blood from the numerous cuts inside his mouth, wanting to spit it out but feeling weak and impulsively swallowing. The echoing pain in his head started to subside as the flow of blood decreased and what he swallowed began to taste less salty.

  Jane continued to look out the window. He hadn’t seen how she reacted to Brucie’s blows. She had said she didn’t like hitting. But she did not seem disturbed now; maybe she only meant she didn’t like being hit herself. Dan was sure that it happened, that the little man beat up on the big woman. There were no bruises on her that he could see, but he knew that it happened.

  She turned away from the window and walked back to the bed, sitting down to a groaning screech from the box springs. A sigh came out of her that seemed to go on and on.

  “I liked that story you were telling,” she said. “I wish he’d let me talk to you so’s I could hear how it ended. He doesn’t like it when I have fun over something he hasn’t made up.”

  “I could tell you the rest of that story,” he said slowly, trying to keep the edges of his teeth away from the cuts inside his mouth.

  “Don’t talk. He’s mad enough already. He don’t have good control when he gets this mad.”

  “I think you’d like the rest of the story,” Dan said. “I can speak quietly.”

  She turned her head toward the door. He saw her chewing her lower lip. Then she sighed another windy sigh. “Talk real low,” she said. “I mean real low.”

  The pain from his jaw kept his mouth from opening more than an inch or so. A loose flap of skin on the inside of his cheek caught on his back teeth when he spoke, but he had to finish the story. He could see that his only chance was the woman. He took a deep breath and tried to let the story come back. Of course, the story had changed now, and it came to him so fast he could barely keep the words from stumbling over each other as they came out of his mouth.

  “The farmer lived alone and had a cold supper of bologna and pickled peppers, listening to the far-off crashing and grinding together of trees as they fell against each other and were lost to the current of the rising flood. He didn’t think the waters would reach the farmhouse or the barn, but if they did, he didn’t know what he’d do with those thirty head of cows when they needed to be milked in the morning.

  “After he finished eating he lit his pipe and went out onto the front porch and looked out into the hazy night, the sky somehow lightened by the lowering rain clouds. It wasn’t long before he heard it, the piercing cry of a panicked animal, sharp against the roar and murmur of the flood. He turned his head, using his good ear to focus on the point and gauge its location, several hundred yards downstream of the house.

  “‘Serve the damn thing right if it drowned,’ he said, and then put out his pipe and went back out to the barn and put on the chest waders he used when he went fishing for brook trout up in the mountains. He grabbed a halter for the cow and a flashlight and trudged away from the house and the barn, too quickly reaching the edge of the waters. He hesitated a moment, giving himself one last chance to turn back, and then began high-stepping his way through the flooded alfalfa field.

  “Feeling the fool, he waded deeper and deeper, playing his flashlight over the dark water, which had become surprisingly smooth now except for the occasional wake of some branch or dead critter and the accompanying foamy mustache. ‘That damn cow is probably gone, and what do I care about the dog?’ he said aloud, but continued on.

  “The sound of barking led him farther out into the flood than he had thought he could reach, out through the cottonwoods and closer to the deep channel of the river within this new river. He moved gingerly now, as the water had reached his thighs, telling himself, Ten more steps, only ten more, and then he would go ten more after that.

  “When he first saw the dog, it was balanced on a log pressed against a tree by the current. It had stopped its barking and held its dark, shiny eyes against the flashlight. Relieved in a way he didn’t want to admit, he saw that he only had to take a few more steps and he would reach the dog and then he could carry it back to shallow water and begin to focus his worry on the real problems this flood had brought to him.

  “But he didn’t make even that next step, as his foot caught on some submerged branch or root and he fell forward, the cold water flooding over the front of the waders, drenching his shirt and the top of his pants. He quickly regained his stance, cussing himself and cussing the dog. He tried to stand fully upright, but some instinct or maybe the thick, low clouds, heavy on his shoulders, kept him hunched over.

  “He flashed the light toward the dog again and realized that it wasn’t standing on a log at all. The dog held its precarious perch on the cow, where it had become lodged against the cottonwood tree, the cow bowed in the middle, its head low in surrender to the current. Instead of feeling relief at finding both of the animals, the farmer sighed in resignation at the effort it would require to free them and get them back on dry land.

  “Looking closer, he saw that the cow had a wound on its neck, a loose flap of skin that showed red even as the lapping waters tried to wash away the blood. He checked the dog again and saw its lolling tongue and bloodstained muzzle, shocked but somehow not surprised.

  “‘You,’ he shouted at the dog, never having given it a name, only ‘dog,’ only ‘you.’ He shouted the word, the name, in a stern voice, an accusing voice, that failed to stir the dog as it lowered its head and bared its teeth.

  “The cow suddenly reared its head out of the water and appeared to
recognize the farmer with wide, mad eyes. Abruptly closing those eyes, it tried to lunge toward the farmer, suddenly breaking loose from the grasp of the current and sliding away from the tree, the dog struggling to keep its balance.

  “The farmer pulled out the halter, thanking his good luck that he didn’t have to pull the cow out from behind the tree himself, and as he held the halter out toward the head of the cow, the dog moved forward on the cow, balancing on the cow’s neck, and tore savagely at his hand. The teeth caught him in the web between his thumb and forefinger, leaving a deep gash and intense pain.

  “Enraged, the farmer looked about him for a floating branch, anything that might be floating by with which he could beat the dog, beat it loose from the cow and let it fend for itself. It had gone crazy and was worthless to him now, or at least for the time being.

  “Finding nothing for a weapon, he swung at the dog with that painful, closed fist and caught it in the head. It didn’t fall, but backed up enough that the farmer thought he could slide the halter over the cow’s head.

  “‘Come on, you young heifer,’ he said, holding out the halter, waiting for the cow to recognize it, to settle its head into the familiar nylon headgear. The snout of the dog came out of nowhere again, the sharp teeth catching the outside of his already injured hand. He swiped at it but missed again.

  “‘Damn it, you bitch, get your head in here,’ he shouted at the cow, leaning back a little, thinking the dog might not be able to reach him.

  “At last the cow did come forward, with a sudden bawl and a violent lifting of its head, catching the halter with its nose, but not square on enough for him to get it over the cow’s ears. So he grabbed those ears and held on and tried to slide it up over one ear at a time.

  “He’d forgotten the dog in that instant when he sensed success, when he thought the hardest part would be done. So when it came leaping out at him, grabbing hold of his own ear and tearing it as it shot by, the farmer screamed in such rage and pain that he dropped the halter and started splashing about, swinging his arms, wanting only one solid punch, one painful crack on the dog’s head. He had to get rid of the dog or it would kill him.

  “The struggle had preoccupied him to the point where he’d lost any sense of his location. He had probably been slipping down the slope of the hole for a few seconds before he noticed that the water was pouring over the top of his waders, sloshing down all the way to the rubber boots, quickly filling them. He still had hold of the cow’s ears, and he quickly realized that that cow had become his lifeline, his only hope. He needed to use the cow’s buoyancy to keep him from going down and not coming up.

  “The dog nipped at his ear again, but he didn’t care. He had the cow’s ears and thought that he should try to slide up and put his arms around its neck. He still had hope, a slim hope, that he would get out of this mess, and the cow seemed to cooperate, staying still and floating along with the current until maybe they would settle into a shallow place.

  “It became an intense struggle, as he tried to keep his head above water while his waders ballooned and became heavier and heavier, pulling harder and harder. He heard the dog splashing behind him, staying with them, but no longer attacking him. The dog, that damn dog, would kill him one way or another.

  “So when the cow suddenly rolled away from him and he lost his hold on the ears, and then rolled back and over him, forcing him down, he knew that he had only himself to blame. Not the cow, not even the dog. When he knew he wouldn’t come up again, when his last breath bubbled away and the cold water filled his lungs like it had filled his waders, his last thought was that the damn dog would survive him and probably the cow as well.”

  The room was silent for a moment as Dan’s voice died out. He had begun to talk quietly, as he promised, but the volume of his voice had risen as the story reached its conclusion. He wondered what Jane thought about the story.

  The woman sat on the edge of the bed with her knees drawn up, somehow looking smaller. Without saying anything about the story, she reached for her purse on the table beside the bed and got out a pack of cigarettes. She lit one with a tiny disposable lighter, inhaled deeply, and slowly blew out the smoke through her nostrils. She continued to smoke without saying anything, finishing half of the cigarette. Then the doorknob rattled.

  Brucie burst into the room, holding a magazine in one hand and a pint bottle in the other. He slammed the door behind him, looked around the room as he unscrewed the cap on the bottle, tilted it back, and finished it in one long swig. Then he tossed the magazine toward Jane, who tried to move but still got the flapping leaves of the magazine across her face. Brucie laughed and flipped the empty bottle toward Dan. Dan turned his head, the bottle glancing off the wall and hitting him in the shoulder.

  It was a bottle of Old Grand-Dad that Dan always kept in the car in the event that he became stranded in a blizzard on the plains. It was in the emergency kit that had the space blanket, the little Sterno stove, the coffee, and the chocolate. He had never opened the bottle, so Brucie had to be drunk.

  “At least I know you’re a man now,” Brucie said. “You got a girlie magazine and whiskey in your car.”

  “It’s just a Playboy,” Dan said, foolishly embarrassed for some reason.

  “Yeah, and I bet you don’t look at the pitchers.” Brucie started giggling as he said this, confirming his drunkenness. As soon as he stopped, he looked thoughtfully at Dan and smiled. His eyes had become dulled, but Dan knew this was deceptive. The fury inside the man was hotter than ever.

  “I’m feeling like I don’t want to wait another couple of hours for that bank to open. I’m feeling like I want to get on the road right now. This fifty dollars will put gas in that car of yours and get us a meal. Maybe I should just call it good and move on. Maybe that’s what I should do. What do you think, pardner?”

  He had walked over beside Dan. Tired and hungry and sore as he was, Dan knew what was going to happen next. Fear flushed up from deep inside and for a moment he felt himself swelling with adrenaline, wanting to break the ropes and rise up and at least defend himself. But it lasted only that moment and he felt himself slumping, felt despair replace the adrenaline. He looked down at the man’s boots, pointy cowboy boots, and wondered if he was going to use them to kick him to death.

  Dan looked over at the woman sitting on the bed. She had moved to the edge of the bed. She had the magazine, the Playboy, in her lap. She looked down at the magazine, and Dan had the idea that she was trying not to say anything. She knew what was going to happen. Dan knew she had seen it before.

  “Don’t, Brucie,” she finally said in a tired voice. “Let’s just go, like you said. Let’s just go somewhere else.”

  “Oh, we’ll go, all right. Just let me say goodbye to our buddy Dan here. He’s been so damned helpful.” His eyes had brightened; the hateful heat inside was fueling his rage.

  “Don’t, Brucie. Please,” she said. “I’ll leave you if you do. I’ll go, and you’ll be on your own.” She stood up and looked around and grabbed her purse from the nightstand by the bed. She glanced at the door and then back at Brucie.

  Dan should have been watching the boots instead of the woman. One of them slashed at him and caught him in the side. He thought he heard a crack as the air whooshed out of him. He toppled over onto his side. He lay there, struggling to breathe, seeing the boots just inches from his eyes. When he was able to take a shallow breath, a sharp point of pain in his side blew all of the air out again.

  “If you leave, I’ll come find you. I’ll find you and I’ll talk to you just like I’m talking to Dan here. You’ll come back.”

  Dan had his eyes on the boot this time and was able to turn to the side and absorb the kick with his shoulder. It hurt, but at least he could breathe. He wanted to ask for help from the woman, but he knew he was lost, and even in his fear and pain, he knew that the woman should probably leave while she had the chance. Maybe Brucie wouldn’t find her. Maybe she would call the police in time. He hear
d her heavy footsteps and hoped that she would escape. All he could do was look at the boots and wonder how long he would last.

  “Don’t be stupid,” he suddenly heard Brucie say.

  The boots suddenly rotated, facing the other way now, and then slowly floated off the floor. Dan looked up and saw Brucie dangling in Jane’s arms. She held him in a bear hug as he squirmed and kicked his legs, trying to escape.

  Dan gritted his teeth through the pain, managing to right himself, leaning back against the wall. Jane’s big arms completely encircled the little man, her hands clasped on opposite elbows. She turned with him as she squeezed, spinning around slowly like they were dancing. Brucie was kicking slower now, his pointy boots searching for the floor. His pale face had turned a bright red, his lips a strange pastel blue. Then the kicking stopped and she held him like some limp, life-sized doll. After he had been completely limp for several minutes, she laid him on the bed.

  She stood over Brucie’s body, her face stony and unreadable. She watched him sprawled there on the bed and even leaned a little closer, turning her head as if searching for the whisper of his breathing. She might even have been waiting for him to wake up so she could apologize and do something nice for him, or ask what they could do for fun. Any fun thing he wanted to do. But Dan could tell with certainty that Brucie would never wake up. Finally she sighed, her broad shoulders rising like the final swell of a volcano before it collapsed in on itself.

  She turned and took heavy steps across the room and stood over Dan. He pushed himself away from the wall, trying to turn, thinking she would untie the ropes on his wrists. He could do the ones on his ankles on his own.

  He felt her touch, but instead of loosening the ropes, her arms slid around him and then his feet were off the ground and their eyes were level. Dan was bigger than Bruce, but she held him with ease. Her brown eyes gleamed from the tears that filtered through her mascara and ran in dark trails down her cheeks.