by A. M. Goetz
I had no intention of letting Merle say one damned thing. First second I had him in my sights, I’d drill him through his hard head. Like he’d always told us, there was a million places to bury a man in the mountains, and nobody’d ever find him.
“You a screamer?” I muttered to myself, quiet. “You a screamer, Merle? I know you are, you son of a bitch. Show yourself.”
I heard the car stop out behind Pop’s old truck, and after a minute or two, I heard a door slam. I raised my rifle and sighted it in on the place where the woods merged with the road. I heard him slam the trunk down next, and I guessed he’d armed hisself. Then the footsteps started up, big and heavy and graceless. And when he stepped out of the tree line with poor Jane all trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey and held tight in front of him, a wicked pig-sticker held tight to her neck, I was too damned terrified to be surprised.
Merle staggered up the lane, Jane held tight to his front and him ducking behind her so I couldn’t git a clean shot. And he was taunting us.
“I know you’s here, Sonny.” He called out, laughing real mean. “I been watching you fools for days. Could’a took that brat anytime, and you’da never knew it til it was too late.” He hawked up a wad of chaw and spit in the grass.
And I was silent, watching. Poor Jane looked like she’d been through it. Couldn’t move nothing but her legs, and there was twigs and leaves stuck all in her hair and her clothes was filthy, and the one leg of her jeans was near ripped clean off. She’d fought the bastard, that was for sure. I saw the black grease smudged on her face, and suddenly I realized what it was Merle had got out of his trunk.
They stood there, Jane looking pissed and Merle hiding hisself behind her like the coward he was, and I tried to figure out what to do. He’d kill her. Wouldn’t think nothing twice about it. He’d stick that knife in her neck without batting an eye. We knew it. He knew we knew it.
But much as I loved Jane, I wasn’t handing my brother over.
Sure enough, he started up again, and tried to seal the deal.
“Got your girl here. You see that?” He shook Jane like a rag doll, and she snarled behind the cloth he had stuffed in her mouth. She tried to lob a kick at him, but he seen it coming. Cuffed her upside her head so hard she went down on one knee. And I took my shot then. Aimed straight at Merle’s head and pulled the trigger, but the bastard reached down at the last second to tug Jane to her feet, and my bullet whizzed harmless over his head and just pissed him off more. He stood up, yanking Jane with him and pulled her head back hard by the hair, exposing her throat. He brought his knife up.
“You missed, you sorry bastard!” He crowed, triumphant. Y’all is worthless as bastard pups. Shoulda took you out in the pond and drowned you in a sack years ago. Shoulda killed you like I’m gonna kill that worthless little shit you call a brother. Gonna kill him first, then, if you’re all real nice, I’ll let the girl go.”
He went on then, liking to hear hisself talk. He was gonna kill Dack, but first he was gonna cut out his tongue while we all watched. Then he’d take an eye or two, and then, when he was good and ready, maybe he’d run a rope around Dack’s neck and slam the other end of it in his trunk, drag him back down the mountain to the highway. See how he held up.
And I wanted him to keep on talking; I did. Every mean thing he said about my brother just piled itself up in my mind inside a big old pine box with a plaque that said “Reasons it’s okay to kill Merle.” If I’d had any reservations before he opened up his big, ugly mouth and started spouting off about Dack, he killed ‘em for me.
Made me feel damned invincible.
“Keep talking, you dumb son of a bitch.” I whispered, my finger tight on the trigger. “You just keep right on going”
Still, I stayed hid, not ready to give up my position. But then Merle, he pulled Jane real close and got this awful look on his face and sort of nuzzled her neck, and Bo come walking, calm as you please, out from behind the shed with the axe. He got about ten feet away from Merle before Merle made him drop it, and Bo, he was yammering about a mile a minute.
“Let her go, Merle. You got me. You can take me. Long as you got one of us, Dack ain’t gonna say nothing to nobody.” He walked straight on til he was standing right in front of Jane. “Just let her go. She ain’t got nothing in this.”
But Merle, he was enjoying hisself too much. He shook his head. “Nope. Don’t want you. Want that pitiful whelp that’us there that night. You decide to talk, ain’t nobody gonna care. You didn’t see shit. He talks? I’m going to prison for the rest of my life. He’s the only one I’m taking. It’s him or her.”
Bo tried to reason with him. “I can lie, Merle. I can say I was there. If I say I was there, and you say I was there, then I was there, right? Who’s gonna know?
Merle looked like he was thinking on that for a bit, but then his hatred of Dack won out, I guess. He grinned and spit again. “Nope. Want the brat. The brat dies, or the girl dies.”
And all this time, Jane was staring right up in Bo’s eyes, breathing heavy cause Merle had her all twisted up on herself. Bo looked down at her, and I seen the muscles in his back go all tight.
He was gearing up to fight. And if he tried to jump Merle while he was still holding his pig sticker ... I wiped the sweat from my eyes and tried to git a clear shot, but Bo was standing right in my way.
We should’a orchestrated this thing a little better.
I slid out from under the porch and stood up, my rifle aimed and ready. I marched on Merle, his head in my crosshairs, and the second he seen me coming, he yanked Jane up tall and ducked down behind her. He grinned mean.
“Knew you was up here. Knew they’d come running to you. You always was the trouble-maker.”
I wanted to say something to him then. I wanted to laugh in his ugly face ‘cause he was the one cooking up drugs and beating up kids and killing the neighbors, and I was the trouble-maker? I wanted to tell him how I planned to cut his own tongue out and feed it to him backwards for all the mean shit he said about Dack. I wanted to laugh right back at him and tell him how I planned to bury him up on the mountain in the cold and the dark and not tell no one, and no one would ever know what happened to him or miss him.
I wanted to say those things, and I was opening up my mouth to do it when Dack walked right up behind Merle and presented hisself like a gift. Little bitch must have sneaked out the back door and circled ‘round through the woods to come up behind ‘em like that. Didn’t have no weapon on him neither, not even a damned kitchen knife.
“I’m ready, Merle.” He said, real quiet. “You can let her go now.”
And Merle, he spun right around and threw Jane away like old trash. He grabbed Dack by a clump of his hair and started dragging him away.
Jane was rolling all around, trying to git up on her feet and screaming through the gag, and Bo was running back for the axe, and I was stumbling’ forward, my rifle up and still not able to get a shot off ‘cause of the way he was holding Dack in front of him.
Dack, he was saying the same words over and over, “Be strong and courageous. Be strong and courageous.” And he was sobbing in between ‘cause Merle was yanking at his hair again and clobbering him in the face with the hilt of his pig sticker.
And I had a shot then, and I stopped and held my breath and squeezed the trigger like Pop had showed me, and Merle froze ‘cause he seen it coming. I pulled the trigger and the fucking gun jammed up, and that’s when I knew it was all over. Merle was almost back to his car with Dack, and none of us even close, and I knew Dack was going in that trunk and none of us would ever see him alive again.
I took off running, and Bo was running and Jane was screaming and it still wasn’t enough. Merle was gonna win, just like he always done. He was gonna win, and Dack was gonna die. After all the kid had been through, he still wasn’t gonna make it out alive. And I screamed straight up at Heaven then. I screamed at God not to let it happen, and why was he letting it happen?
Merle
got Dack to his car, got the door open, and was shoving Dack inside when the elk stepped out of the underbrush just behind him. He was massive, with a shoulder spread that spanned at least two feet, and his rack was terrifying. He’d come ambling out of the woods, minding his own business and been surprised by the ruckus Dack and Merle was causing. By the time the elk stopped, startled, Dack was inside the car.
But Merle wasn’t. Merle was outside the car by the back door and standing right in the beast’s way. And I swear to God, the thing narrowed its eyes and glared at him. It snorted once, threateningly, and then it was pawing the ground, its head down, ready to charge.
Merle let out a scream to rival Jane’s then when the thing come at him. It hit him full on, right in the chest and then it stomped on him. Once he was down, the beast backed up, staring down at him. It raised its head and looked at Dack on the backseat of the car. And Dack, he stared right back, jaw open, excitement in his eyes. Then the elk turned to stare at me and Bo. It looked back at Dack again, and then it tossed its head and snorted. It bugled once, a whistling, drawn-out scream that sounded near human. Then it run off into the woods the way it come, and its harem of about five or six cows went with it.
Me and Bo peeled Merle’s unconscious form off the ground and throwed him in his own trunk, slamming the lid down on top of him.
Then Jane was in Bo’s arms, and I was scrabbling to git inside the car to git to Dack, and he was grinning’ all excited, saying, “Did you see it? Did you see it? It was the one I seen in the dreams!” And he had snot running down his face and blood running down his head, but he didn’t care one lick. I tugged him gently out and helped him stand, and then Jane and Bo moved their huddle over and pulled him into it, and I stood looking off after that elk and his women.
It was awful late in the season for rut, and I pondered on how I’d been living in that house for near on a year, and never seen a single elk until today.
31
Afterward, Dack took Jane inside and let her git cleaned up, git something to eat.
I drove Merle’s car into town, Bo following behind me in Pop’s truck. We found the police station, and I went inside and called the sheriff back home. He talked to them city boys for a good, long time, and while they was talking, they brought Merle through and locked him in the jail. He was awake and sneering, and bawling about how he needed a doctor ‘cause some fucking wild beast had come out of the woods while he was minding his own business and stomped his ass.
And if it’d been me, I’d of let him cry. The city boys, though, they called him up a doctor, and when the guy come, he took one look at Merle and decided he needed a hospital. They locked Merle up in the leg irons and handcuffs and took him out on a stretcher with a guard beside him.
They took our statements, then, me and Bo’s, and at first I think they thought we was making it all up. But the more we talked on about all the mean shit Merle done to us, the nicer they got. Brought us in coffee and donuts and asked if we wanted to order something from down the street.
We didn’t though. All we wanted was to git back to Dack and Jane and make sure they was okay. They was the ones should’a been heading to a hospital, not Merle.
Merle should’a been deep in a hole in the ground. I said as much and didn’t feel one bit bad about it. Merle deserved worse than he was gonna git once Dack testified to what he done.
But he’d come out shining, I knew. He always did. They’d lock him up somewhere for a short time, and he’d make friends with other mean bastards, and they’d bully all the little guys was in there with ‘em. And it made me feel real bad, thinking about it.
But then the city boys let us go and told us they’d be up to check in with us in the next few days. They needed Dack’s statement to what he seen Merle do to Beth, and they needed Jane’s statement as to what meanness he done to her. And when they told us that, my mind went immediately to Al and what Merle mighta done to him too. I asked to call ‘im, and they let me.
The phone rang about six times before Al picked up. He sounded all out of breath, and the first word out of his mouth was “Janie?”
So I told him what Merle done, and let him know Jane was safe. I asked him what happened that night, and he couldn’t tell me. I don’t think he really remembered who I was, so I put Bo on the phone, but Al didn’t remember him either. We wasn’t sure what to do after that, so Bo told him again that Jane was safe and that she’d be home soon. And Al, he believed him. Let out this kind of sigh of relief and hung up without saying goodbye.
And me and Bo, we had to chuckle over that. Al was a good guy, and he’d been worried about his daughter, and that was good enough for us. God knows, wasn’t one of us fit to judge another man’s crazy. And Ben was due to git out of the Army any day now; he’d be there to keep an eye on the old man ‘til we got Jane back there.
So they walked us out to Pop’s truck, and shook our hands, and that’s when I seen Merle’s car up on the back of a flatbed. They was impounding it for evidence. They drove it away while we stood there, and watching it go felt like an ending. Felt like we was finally done.
Dack was safe, and even though we knew he had a hell of a long way to come before he remembered everything that happened the day Pop died, and he had a long ordeal of testifying against the man who’d been hurting him most of his life, we’d be there to see him through it. He had me and Bo and Janie, and he had his Bible. And maybe he had a elk out there too, watching over him. I didn’t say nothing to Bo, but after that elk stomped on Merle, it looked straight at me, and I swear to God, it had a little zigzag scar right under its left eye. Had a lot of women chasing after it too, and that thought made me crack right up.
I knew it was a crazy notion, but our lives up to this point hadn’t exactly been sane, so who was to say?
Bo and me, we piled back into the truck and lit out for home. We parked as close in as we could git, and Dack and Janie, they heard us coming. They was both out on the porch watching us walk up, and between the two of ‘em, they had more bruises than skin showing. And Dack, he asked right off how it went.
Bo grinned at him, “Bastard’s finally in jail where he belongs. He’s gone, Dack. He ain’t hurting no one no more.”
Dack was quiet at that, and it sort of surprised us both, I think. We stepped up onto the porch, and Bo went right to Janie and pulled her into his arms. She was all cleaned up, and it looked like Dack had bandaged up the worst of her troubles. God knew he had plenty of experience at rubbing on ointment and taping down gauze. Her hair was still wet from her shower, and she wore a pair of Dack’s old sweats and one of his tee shirts that near swallowed her whole. She was a funny sight to see. Apparently, Bo didn’t care a whit though. He tugged her close, and me and Dack, we both rolled our eyes at the kissing noises behind us.
“You feel good.” I heard him tell her quietly, and I couldn’t help myself then. I snorted once, sounding exactly like every Ashkettle ever born, ‘cept Merle, and shook my head.
“Git in the house, you bunch of hippies. It’s darker than a stack of black cats out here.”
“Can we git a cat?” Dack asked then, turning back around and spearing me straight through my heart with The Smile. And I couldn’t help myself. I nodded, thinking of all the extra food we’d need to buy and the stink of a litter box and all that fur all over them new beds and us with no vacuum sweeper.
Bringing a cat into this situation was just plumb ridiculous, but I was a damned defenseless fool when it come to my brothers.
I herded ‘em all into the house, and Bo sat Janie down on the couch to look at her wounds, and Dack and me – we headed into the kitchen to start up a late supper.
I stood there, in front of Pop’s window over the sink, soaping up my hands while Dack dug the big skillet out from under the stove and started cutting up the last of the tenderloin. I watched him for a bit before taking the big knife and showing him the right way.
“Gotta cut it like this. You cut it like you was, and we’ll still
be chewing it tomorrow.” I told him, softening my words with a shoulder-bump so’s he’d know I was just trying to help and not just criticizing like Merle would’a done.
It was full-on dark outside now, but the cold moon was big and bright in the sky, and it lit up the side yard near like daylight.
It was quiet out there and peaceful, and I took a deep breath and let it out slow, just gitting all the jitters out. And a memory come back to me then of Pop. He was grinning and holding Dack by both his little-boy hands. The two of ‘em was spinning around, Dack’s feet leaving the ground as he whirled round and round with Pop at the center of his world. It was dark outside, just like tonight, with nothing but the light of a full moon to help me see ‘em, and both of ‘em was laughing like crazy.
Ashkettle crazy.
It was fitting, I guessed.
END
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