by A. M. Goetz
I swallowed hard then. Hell of a nightmare to have.
“And the elk, it started talking, telling the thing to put me down. And when it talked, it used ... it used Pop’s voice.”
I heard Bo gasp a little at that revelation. I felt sick.
“And the elk, it tried tossing its head back so I could grab its antlers and pull myself away, but the thing behind me had a knife made of fire, and it reached up and lopped off the antlers right down to the pedicle. The elk screamed, and it ...” Dack looked up, desperate, eyes streaming. “Bo ... it sounded like Pop ... you know ... screaming. REALLY sounded like him, and he was hurting bad.”
And then Dack was heaving again, and I had the presence of mind to snatch the bucket and sit it in front of him. He didn’t have nothing left to bring up though.
“I never heard nothing scream like that.” Dack muttered. “It was awful. Guess it musta hurt pretty bad. And the elk, its backside went down then, and I fell backwards right into the thing, and then I was in its pocket. I looked up, and it was the Devil. It was grinning down at me, and its hand was coming down like it was tucking me in. But I was fighting to get out. I had my hands out, trying to reach for the elk, but the elk was ... It was flopping around on the ground, dying, and its eyes looked at me like they was sad and terrified all at once. And then it made this noise ...”
And the look in Dack’s eyes must have hit Bo the same way it hit me – like the kid wouldn’t ever be right again after having seen something like that. Bo settled hisself up against the wall beside him and wrapped an arm around his back, tugged him close.
“It was just a dream, man. Don’t let it get to you like this.”
But something Dack had said hit me right in the gut.
“You said you was in the Devil’s pocket?” I asked, suddenly understanding.
Dack looked up. He nodded, swiping at both eyes. “Yeah. Had two dreams about it now. Both times, the Devil – he tucked me in his pocket.”
“What?” Bo asked, seeing the lightbulb come on, I guess.
“It’s ...” I stopped, wondering how much I should tell the boys, how much they needed to know.
“Well?” Bo prompted, not letting me off the hook. “Shit, or git off the potty, Sonny.”
And I looked him in the eye, sad at what I was going to say. I hadn’t wanted them to know – not either of ‘em. Not ever.
“It’s where Pop died.”
Silence. Then Dack, wide-eyed. “What’s where Pop died?”
“Devil’s Pocket back home. It’s where they come on his body.”
Bo’s mouth dropped open before he could catch it, but then he got hisself under control enough to ask, “What’s Devil’s Pocket? I never heard of it.”
“You was too little. Pop used to take us there. It was kind of his special spot – you know – like his Monster Head.”
Dack’s jaw was slack then. “Pop died in his special spot?” He asked, somehow making it all worse.
I couldn’t speak after that, so I just nodded and tried to swallow down the lump.
“Was there an elk?” Bo asked after a bit.
I nodded again. “Was a carcass. They said poachers ...” I had to stop and swallow back bile. “Someone had shot it and cut off the rack while it was still alive. Let it bleed out. Pop ... he was lying next to it. They said it looked like he’d tried ... you know ... to comfort it. His hand was stretched out, petting its neck.”
When he could speak again, Bo questioned me. “How’d you know all that?” He asked, quiet. “I never heard none of that.”
“Cause I didn’t want you to. Sheriff, he took me up there, made me look at it before they moved Pop. Said I needed to ID him. I threatened him I’d kill him if he ever told you how Pop died.” I stood up. “Probably shouldn’t have told you now. Wish I hadn’t.” My eyes fell on Dack, and it was clear he wasn’t really with us anymore. He sat staring blankly at the far wall, humming. His body rocked back and forth a bit, but the lights in his eyes – they was all out.
26
We debated some – whether we should clean Dack up and let him rest in his room – but we ended up bringing him out on the couch. Bo got him out of his rancid jeans he’d been wearing way too long, and we both stood the kid in the shower ‘cause when he got this way, Dack couldn’t do nothing for hisself. All he could do was stare far-away or hum or sway a bit. Sometimes, he’d do a combination of two or all three.
Sometimes he’d start drooling.
We got him clean and bedded him down, and tired as he had to be, his eyes wouldn’t close and let him sleep. At least he was comfortable though, even if his mind had up and left him, and we probably should’a been more worried than we was, but Dack went out like this a lot, more and more it seemed. Whatever ailed him was getting worse, and eventually, we’d have to take him somewhere to get him looked at, but I hated to think on it. Truth was, Bo and me was scared to let anyone know what was going on with Dack – scared they’d take him away from us and lock him up somewhere and call him crazy.
And maybe he was a little crazy, but who the hell wasn’t? And Dack’s kind of crazy – it didn’t hurt nobody else. Just made a little extra work for the people who was with him when it happened, but me and Bo didn’t care about that. He was our brother, and we’d take care of him. He’d do the same for either one of us.
So once we got him clean and comfortable as we could, we left him alone and went and sat out on the porch. It was coming on evening, and cold, and we had to pull both the covers off my bed and wrap up in ‘em, but it felt good sitting out there on our porch drinking beer together even though it was quiet, and the woods around us wasn’t much to look at right now. December on the banks of the Boquet was nothing but skeletons. All the trees but the cedars stood tall and stick-like, naked from the ground up with big bits of sky shining down between the branches. A few weeks earlier, and it had looked like a photo from one of Pop’s hunting magazines – all kinds of colors.
Now though, it was just plain. Just like us, the woods was getting ready for winter. It was tired from working hard all summer and ready for a rest. But it still smelled good out here – all earthy and damp – and not a trace of Merle’s stinking cigars or the drugs he cooked up in Pop’s kitchen.
And the stars was starting to light up. One good thing about the woods, the sky got bigger in winter.
I wanted to say these things – talk about ‘em like Dack could talk about ‘em. He’d make the trees sound like soldiers and the grass would be a battlefield or something. He had a nice way with words, our little brother. Me and Bo said he was poetic, but Pop always called him glib. Whatever he had with words, neither of us inherited it. We was both hard-pressed to find just the words we actually needed without searching for ones to use just to sound pretty.
Dack, though, he never had to search around. Words come easy to him. Or, at least they had once. I hoped they would again someday. I used to pray every night that whatever damage Merle done to my little brother’s head, God would heal the creative parts of him first, the parts that could describe even the worst day like it was just a small bump in the road. He made us feel better, somehow. He’d once told us he felt like God give him a charmed life, like He looked out for him, kept him alive. And he was serious when he said it.
Only Dack could take all he’d been forced to take for years and come out the other side grateful for the experience.
He was different, our little brother.
Dack wouldn’t be Dack without all the mooning around and noticing things that we let slip by. I couldn’t tell you much about a fish, for instance, except whether it was sneaky to catch and how good it fried up. But Dack, he’d find a million ways to talk about that same fish – the way it looked, how it felt wriggling in his hand, whether it had kids and a family it was missing or what kind of adventures it’d had that had brought it here. Sometimes he got going so far out in left field, talking about something so simple as a stinking old fish that me and Bo would just sit a
nd listen, slack-jawed. Never occurred to neither of us to tease him about it. And when he was done, it was kind of a let-down.
Never would look at that fish so easy again.
I’d missed that.
God, I’d missed ‘em both so much. Leaving ‘em behind felt like I lost both my arms and legs and was trying to go through life without ‘em.
And then lying there every night, wondering what Merle was doing. Wondering if he was keeping his promise to finally start treating ‘em right, and of course he wasn’t. Bo told me the beating never stopped after I left. Just stayed the same or maybe got worse. Said Merle’d gone after Dack’s eye one night with a screwdriver ‘cause he’d caught the kid squinting at him. Bo had stopped it, and didn’t say how, but I knew there’d been some repercussions from that. Probably got hisself beat good for his trouble, but at least Dack still had both eyes.
And Beth. Poor Beth. She’d tried to help us so many times, and look what it got her. She was floating 20-feet down in the bottom of Pop’s pond with a broke neck. I thought about her boy then. He wasn’t so much older than Dack, which was probably why Beth had cottoned to my brother so easily. That boy had to grow up now without his mom or his dad, all thanks to Merle’s worthlessness.
Bo read my mind.
“Jane said they’re dragging the pond. They found Beth already, probably.”
“Well, with Merle’s luck, they probably ain’t ever gonna find her. He’ll git away with it, just like always.” I predicted.
“Maybe, I guess.” Then, “Think he’ll show up here?” Bo was scratching marks on the planks with the toe of his boot, worried. I wanted to lie and make out that everything was gonna be okay and Merle wouldn’t dare show hisself up here, but I knew better.
He was coming. Damned straight he was coming, and he’d kill Dack this time if he got a chance, Bo too maybe. And maybe me too, since we all knew now.
“Yeah.” I finally said, reluctant. “Yeah, he’ll come.”
Bo looked up, hopeful, “Maybe he won’t be able to find us? Maybe he don’t know about this place.
“He said he was coming to New York, ain’t no other reason to come. He knows.”
Bo was quiet for a bit then, thinking on that, I guess. It was a terrifying thought. We’d all been so scared of him for so long. And that might have been the worst of it – how he’d turned us all—me especially ‘cause I was older and shoulda’ knew better – into a bunch of scared little kids. But Merle had it fixed so standing up to him wasn’t possible. Both me and Bo had to work if we wanted us all to keep on eating, and that meant being away from Dack. And if Merle was mad at one of us, Dack was the one who’d pay. You had to be careful not to piss him off, cause the second you said something smart or looked at him mean, he’d start wondering out loud about how easy it’d be to bury someone alive and how it was something he wanted to try before he died. Then, when we’d shut up real quick, he’d go on and on about how you’d never find someone buried alive in these mountains and about how much fun it would be if you could put a little microphone in the box with ‘em to hear ‘em screaming like a little girl. Then he’d laugh and look over to Dack and ask him how easy he thought it’d be to bury someone alive. And when Dack would shoot panicked eyes to me or Bo, Merle would ask him if he was a screamer.
And we’d all just sit there silent, feeling sick, knowing in an hour or two, one or the other or both of us would have to leave to go to work and wondering if Dack would still be here when we got back or if he’d be suffocating down in the bottom of a dark hole somewhere up on the mountain ‘cause me or Bo had told Merle to go fuck hisself.
And then it came down to why didn’t we just run off? Why didn’t we just take Dack and go – git him away from Merle and git him somewhere safe?
Jane had asked me that years ago, and I still felt my face burn up with shame whenever I remembered. I shoulda’ done something. I shoulda’ got us all out. And the answer to that was that there was we was just plain scared, I guess. We’d tried to run off early on, and Merle always come after us. He always found us, and he’d grab Dack by an ear or by a clump of his hair and drag him back with us following along behind like whipped pups. Then he’d get us all home and make us watch while he did whatever twisted thing he’d thought of to do to Dack, and we’d all be hoarse from screaming before it was all over with.
Then he’d say if we ever run off again, ever tried to take Dack away from him, he’d kill him right in front of us, and he’d do it slow, and we believed him.
He was a son of a bitch, Merle Ashkettle was. But we was done being his whipping boys. Part of me was terrified at the thought of looking over and seeing him crouched in the weeds beyond the garden. But a bigger part of me wanted him to come.
‘Cause he wouldn’t have no scared, sixteen-year-old kid in tow when he got here. He’d just have his ugly old self and his mean ways, and I couldn’t wait to wrap my hands around his throat and start squeezing.
27
Dack come around real quick this time, just about an hour or two later when Bo was in the shower. Kid just yawned hard and sat up on the couch and blinked at me like nothing happened.
“Time is it?” He asked, stretching.
“Going on midnight.” I replied. “You hungry?”
I seen his eyes light right up and had to grin. “Come on, then. I’ll heat up the chili. You up to eating at the table, or want me to bring it in here?”
“I’ll come out.” He said, tossing the cover back. He seen his clean clothes then and blushed. “You put me in the shower? I smell like ... what the heck do I smell like?” He sniffed an armpit.
“Ocean Breeze or something.” I shrugged, chuckling. “It was on sale.”
Dack nodded. “Far out.”
“Sure is an improvement over your man-stink.” Bo offered, coming up behind him and tossing his damp towel over Dack’s head. “Coulda washed you in swamp slime, and you’d a smelled better.”
Dack stood still with the towel on his head, his voice muffled, “Bo didn’t take no liberties, did he, Sonny? You gotta watch him. Said he’s been staring at my junk.” He snickered then, pulling the towel off and using it to snap Bo in his ass.
Bo rolled his eyes. “Forgot to bring my microscope. Wouldn’t fit in my pack, little man.”
“Don’t talk about yourself that way, Bo. He’ll grow some. Just give it some time.” Dack teased and jumped back out of the way when Bo pretended to come at him.
“Come to the table, you bunch of hippies. The kitchen’s closing.”
“I ain’t no hippie.” Dack said, nosing around the stove, looking for the chili pot.
“I put it in the fridge, dummy.” And I stood back and took a good, long look at him standing there with his hair down past his shoulders and the rag on his head and my old jeans that was at least two sizes so big he had to hold ‘em up with one hand. His feet was bare, and his shirt was flannel with the sleeves cut off.
“Yeah, you ain’t no hippie.” I agreed and set Bo off laughing.
“Sorry to break it to you, man,” Bo told him, yanking out his chair, “But we’re all hippies. Come from a long line of hippies.”
“Pop wasn’t no hippie.” Dack said, indignant, and I shook my head in agreement.
“Not Pop, Einstein. Mom was the hippie.”
Dack looked offended, “Got any proof?”
Bo rolled his eyes. “Dude, they named us Hudson, Boquet and Adirondack. What, that ain’t enough?”
“Anyways ... you forgit what Mom looked like?” I asked him, and it was clear the kid wasn’t putting the pieces together. He drew his brows together like he was thinking hard.
“I seen pictures. Just looked like Mom.”
I set the chili on the stove to warm up and sat down across from the kid. “She had this real long hair down past her butt, and she wore these shorty-short skirts, looked more like belts than bottoms.”
Dack nodded, frowning. “So?”
I shrugged, “So she was a hipp
ie – a tree-hugger. That’s how Pop met her.”
“She sure was pretty.” Bo interjected. “Pop had high ideals when it come to women.”
Dack shook his head. “I cain’t remember a thing about her, ‘cept what I seen in Pop’s old albums.”
And that didn’t surprise me. Mom died the year Dack was born. Just spiked a fever one day, started stumbling around, went to the hospital and died. Pop said it was an infection.
And much as we told Dack about Pop, guessed we never said too much about Mom. I was just four when she passed on. Bo, he’d a been about two.
The most I ever knew was that they met on opposite sides of the law. Mom was in the crowd that was standing in front of some swamp they wanted to fill in to put up a building. Pop got called out to help the cops git rid of the riff raff. Didn’t have a lot of law enforcement back home, so’s Pop ended up on them calls a lot.
To hear Pop tell it, it was Mom responsible for the little zigzag scar that run just under his left eye. She lobbed a rock to take the paint off a cruiser and got Pop instead. He said she came running right over, crying, sorry she’d hit him. He said it was a good thing she was pretty ‘cause she had aim like a blind man in a wind storm. Guessed the two of ‘em got to talking about trees and stuff, and next thing come along was me.
Didn’t a one of us really remember much about Mom ‘cept what Pop told us, and he wasn’t too inclined to talk about her. Just seen him sometimes, sitting in his room with the picture albums, running his hand over the ones that had Mom in ‘em. And women loved Pop too. Always wanting to come over and make us dinner, clean the house. But Pop, he turned ‘em all down flat. Then he’d fix us dinner hisself and go settle down with Mom’s pictures afterwards.