American Elsewhere

by Robert Jackson Bennett

  It looks like the cowboy was preparing for a mining expedition. There are pickaxes, shovels, jackhammers, ropes, pulleys. There is a bundle at the end of the bed, something wrapped in canvas, presumably whatever the cowboy was mining.

  Maybe it’s gold, Mona thinks, for no reason.

  Then she thinks: What the fuck am I going to do with gold out here?

  She pulls the top of the canvas back. It is not gold, but two smallish cubes that look to be made out of old iron.

  “Huh,” says Mona, and she reaches out to pick up the smaller one.

  She picks it up one-handed. It is not that heavy. But there is something odd about it. It does not feel like metal to her, but flesh. There is a give to it that is distinctly organic, and it sticks to her, like it doesn’t want to be put down. Yet when she sets it back in the bed of the truck, it makes a metallic clunk sound.

  It is when she takes her hand off of it that she suddenly smells something ionized and dusty, like a lightning strike out in the desert, and she imagines someone whispering softly in her ear…

  She shudders. She needs to get the hell away from this place.

  Mona throws the cab door open and looks in. Then she sees what’s sitting on the floor of the passenger side.

  Her jaw drops. “Oh, my God.”

  There are a few things you’d never guess about Mona from looking at her.

  The first, as has been already mentioned, is her age. Mona is a good decade older than she appears to be, and on learning this people tend to instantly like her less. Partially it’s because they are far more forgiving of her lifestyle if they think she’s in her late twenties rather than late thirties, but mostly they’re just upset she ages well and they usually don’t.

  The second thing is that Mona, who is an absolute tomboy in so many ways, is actually really good at crochet. She can make hats, scarves, mittens, potholders, and even coats of impressive quality and with many different and complicated patterns. She had to keep this a dead secret from her friends, especially those on the force, but she made quite a profitable side income selling her goods online.

  And the third—which is probably the most surprising—is that Mona has probably received several times more expert rifle training than your average American soldier.

  While her father roughnecked around West Texas, he and his daughter had little common ground until the day he took her deer hunting and she showed a remarkable aptitude with a gun. Part of it was just genetics, for Earl Bright himself had served in the 75th Ranger Regiment at the tail end of Vietnam, and had been a commendable marksman himself. Their hunting or training trips soon became the only oases in their acrimonious relationship, and Earl began taking her out to the country more and more, mostly just to get her to shut the hell up.

  As a young girl Mona sucked up every bit of knowledge Earl Bright had to offer. She came to know the dance and wriggle of every type of round, the rifling twist rate of every rifle and the primer type of every commercially available cartridge, the difference between shooting with a hot barrel and a cold one. She came to intuit which parts of the landscape better serve the shot, and how to sit for hours at a time with her eye to a sight without allowing herself to cramp, how to ignore hunger for most of a day, how to keep her hands warm and functioning in the cold, and how to stalk through mesquite forests and huisache forests and pine forests.

  Looking back, it is only fitting that Mona’s childhood was not based around any sense of love, but the slow, bitter, patient task of killing. For a killing, as young Mona learned, does not start with the pull of a trigger and the bite of a bullet: a killing starts the instant your toe touches hunting ground and you begin circling what you’ve come there to fell.

  So when Mona’s eyes fall upon the marvelous piece of weaponry sitting up against the opposite truck door, it’s a little like a Stradivarius falling into a violin prodigy’s lap. To her this rifle is such a beautiful, powerful firearm that she almost cannot believe it. And when she grasps the stock and picks it up, a thousand muscle memories spring to life, kindling many long-dormant instincts and desires in her mind.

  She can’t imagine how much this thing must have cost. Christ, she thinks, and she smells its muzzle. It hasn’t even been fired much. There are even boxes of rounds all over the floor.

  She brings the butt up and peers through the optic. Then she wheels around and sights a tree below.

  It has not been boresighted well: she immediately senses that the reticle is far too low for the distance to the tree. Were she to shoot now, the shot would be high. But she is overjoyed to have this realization come rushing into her head. It’s like kissing or having sex for the first time in years: you remember where things are supposed to go, and how much they want to be there, and everything is so impatient.

  She tosses her pink backpack in the cab and situates the rifle nearby. She wishes the cleaning tools were around, for she doesn’t trust the state the cowboy left the rifle in, but it is still a gift.

  She turns the truck on, the diesel engine guttering to a roar.

  Maybe now, since things are going her way, she’ll get some answers.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  It is such a boring day for Megan Twohey, the most boring out of a boring couple of weeks. As she lies under a primrose jasmine, kicking at the cascade of leaves with her small bare feet, she reflects that all of this happened because of the funeral, which of course makes her wonder if this is her fault.

  It shouldn’t be, she thinks. She had never been to a funeral before. People die so rarely in Wink. When she first heard the news, she was so confused she asked her momma, “So what do we do now?”

  “We pay our respects,” said her momma. “We have to go and pay our respects, dear.”

  “How do we do that?”

  “Well, we dress up, and we go see him get buried. We all go and hold hands and listen to the… the preacher speak. As a community.”

  “But I don’t want to do that,” said Megan.

  “Well, that’s too bad,” said her momma. “You’re going.”

  She wanted to ask her daddy what he thought. But her daddy stayed down in the basement, smoking cigarette after cigarette, and all they ever got out of him was a hoarse “Yes” or “No” or “Uh-huh” emanating from that thick blanket of smoke. She asked her momma once what he did down there, and her momma said, “Well, he…” and then she didn’t say anything at all.

  And since Megan had never been to a funeral, and since funerals are so stiff and uncomfortable, she behaved pretty poorly, taking off her shoes and picking at her toes, and though she didn’t know it things got so bad that her momma got upset, like crying upset, and Megan’s daddy leaned over, eyes glimmering and face cold, and he whispered something to her momma. Then her momma hauled Megan out to the parking lot where, for the first time in months, she pushed Megan over her knee and spanked her.

  And this was not a spanking like any Megan had ever received before. This was no warning, no threatening tap. Two hits in, Megan realized her momma was really, genuinely trying to hurt her. And Megan got so scared she started crying too, and both of them just sat there in the car crying while those people put that box with the man in it in the ground.

  “You can’t do that,” her momma said. “You can’t do bad things in front of your neighbors. They all saw, all of them.”

  “I’m sorry! I didn’t think it was bad.”

  “It was. It was so bad, Megan.”

  “I didn’t know. I didn’t, I promise.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said her momma. She shook as she stared at the people standing around the hole in the ground. And then Megan realized her momma was scared, way more scared than she was, and she understood, a little, for there seemed to be so many unspoken rules to how adults lived their lives, always maintaining a constant image of prosperity and happiness. Megan felt sure she’d just shattered theirs for everyone, so went to see Lady Fish straightaway after, and that calmed her down a little.

&nb
sp; But ever since, no one will come out to play. It is as if that day changed everyone. They stay inside, staring out the windows with wide, frightened eyes. It’s like they’re waiting for something. Only Megan gets let out to play, and that’s because her momma sleeps all day now. And her daddy, of course, just stays down in the basement.

  But there is no one to play with. Megan is alone. Even Lady Fish left, just up and vanished in the night.

  She feels sure it is her fault. If she had not been bad in front of everyone, if they had not all been there to see, then perhaps everyone would still be happy together…

  Megan sits up. Someone is walking her way through the brush. She peers through the branches and sees an old lady hiking across the hillside behind their house. Megan thinks she recognizes her, a little. Isn’t she the lady from the courthouse, maybe? She isn’t sure. Megan wonders if the old lady is coming for her, but she veers away down toward the woods at the bottom of the hill. Right away, Megan realizes where she’s going.

  Slowly, Megan creeps out of the jasmine’s branches. She walks to the edge of the hill and sees the purple-and-white pattern of the lady’s dress weaving through the pine trees.

  She wasn’t wrong. The old woman is going to where Lady Fish lived.

  The thought first terrifies her, then intrigues her. She thought she was the only one who knew about it. But there’s nothing down in the woods except that.

  Megan wonders what to do. Should she tell her parents? She never told them about Lady Fish. But besides, what would she get out of her mother except a muttered plea for quiet, leaking out from underneath the pile of pillows on the bed? And her daddy… he wouldn’t say anything.

  Megan begins following the old woman’s path down the hill. The soil grows very damp beyond the rocks at the bottom of the hill, and the trees ahead are very, very tall, unusually tall for this dry climate. A string of flat red rocks winds through the wet earth, and Megan has to hop from one to the other to get ahead, for just beyond the trees the ground just gets wetter and wetter, until it’s almost like a marsh.

  Megan had never seen a marsh before she found this place. She knows the marsh is there simply because Lady Fish wished it to be. And she is fairly sure no one else has found it, for no one ever goes into the woods. But she isn’t sure why no one does. If people like Lady Fish live in the woods, wouldn’t everyone want to go there?

  But then she remembers one evening when Lady Fish, tall and shimmering and undulating, sang her a song about the other people in the woods, and how some slept and should not be woken, and some were quite upset to be there and should not be approached, and so on and so on… really, from the way Lady Fish described it, she was the only nice one in the forest.

  And she was nice. On the days when her momma went down to the basement and came up cold and pale and stinking of cigarettes, Lady Fish was always there. She always had a few kind things to say. She was a wise, lovely person, Lady Fish.

  Once Megan asked her why her momma and daddy seemed so unhappy sometimes. It was a question she had asked a few people, like teachers and the parents of friends, but they always grew awkward and coughed and changed the subject.

  But Lady Fish didn’t. She simply thought, and said (in her own special way of speaking), “Because they are pretending to be something that they aren’t. We all are, child.” And that was the perfect thing to say.

  Megan misses her so much. How awful it was to come to her home, and call her name before the opening in the earth, and not hear the sucking of mud, the bubbling of water, and Lady Fish’s low purr as she rose up to visit. Megan called her name again and again, but she did not come. It was then that Megan knew she was truly alone.

  She stops behind a tree. She can see the old woman standing in front of Lady Fish’s house. The opening in the ground is long and wide, like Lady Fish herself, and it turns away to coil underneath the hill. But though it is wet and stinking, the old woman hikes up her skirts and carefully descends.

  Megan is shocked. She would have never dreamed of doing such a thing. Lady Fish’s home was her own. It was not a place for visitors, not even Megan.

  She walks to the edge and looks down. How often she observed the curves and crenellations of the muddy earth conforming to meet Lady Fish’s long, swirling shape…

  Then the old woman’s face appears at the bottom of the tunnel. Her face and hands are filthy with mud. “Hello, there,” she says.

  Megan jumps. Then she draws back, slowly.

  “Oh, don’t be frightened, dear,” says the old woman. She climbs out of the tunnel with remarkable agility. “I won’t hurt you. I’m not here for you at all.”

  Megan still keeps her distance. The old woman smiles and sits down on the ground. “I think you’re here for the same reason I am,” she says.

  Megan still does not trust her enough to answer.

  “By which I mean, we share a common acquaintance.” The old woman nods at the tunnel.

  “Are you a friend of hers?” asks Megan.

  “Hers?” asks the old woman, as if a little surprised to hear the term. “Oh. Well. I am actually, erm, her sister, if you must know.”

  “Her sister? No, you’re not.”

  “I most certainly am, dear.”

  “But you don’t look anything alike.”

  “That does not mean we are not sisters. It’s why I’ve come looking for her.” She looks back at the tunnel, concerned. “How long has she been gone?”

  “Why?” asks Megan.

  “Because I am worried about her.” She pats the ground next to her. “Come sit by me. There’s nothing to be troubled about.”

  Though initially reluctant, Megan does so. It is hard to mistrust a little old lady covered in mud.

  “She was your friend, wasn’t she?” the old woman asks.

  Megan nods. “Was it wrong?”

  “Was what wrong?”

  “That we were friends,” says Megan.

  “Why would you ask that?”

  “Because I do a lot of bad things,” says Megan. “It’s why everyone left. Why Lady Fish left.”

  “Lady Fish? Who do you mean by… ah. I see.” The old lady considers it. “You think she left because of you? Well, I very much doubt that.”

  “You do?” asks Megan, hopefully.

  “Yes,” says the old woman. “You don’t seem to be a very bad girl to me. And I think she had other reasons for leaving.”

  “Are you going to try and bring her back?”

  “If she wishes to, I will try to make that happen.”

  “I hope you do,” says Megan. “I miss her.”

  “You were very close, I take it.”

  Megan nods.

  “When did she leave?”

  “After the funeral.”

  “Mr. Weringer’s funeral?” asks the old woman.

  “I don’t know his name.”

  “I see,” says the old woman. “So it was very recent, then. Did she say anything to you before she left?”

  Megan thinks as she stares down into the tunnel. And she remembers. It can be so hard sometimes to remember their conversations. It’s like having spoken to someone in a dream.

  “She said she was worried about me,” she says. “She said… she never wanted anything to happen to me.”

  “Did she,” says the old woman.

  “But I wasn’t sure why I would be in trouble. I hadn’t done anything then. And I’m not in trouble, am I?”

  “I have no reason to think so.” The old woman goes silent, thinking. Then she looks around the edges of Lady Fish’s house, examining the mud. “Hm.”

  “What is it?” asks Megan.

  “Nothing, but… was anyone else here? Recently, I mean. Did anyone else come to see Lady Fish?”

  Megan thinks. It seems like so long ago… but then she remembers one evening when she sneaked out of the house to see Lady Fish, because she had heard shouting from down in the basement, and her mother kept going down and coming up and going down, an
d the smell of cigarettes was so strong Megan just had to get out of the house, and she went straight to Lady Fish… but she saw someone was there.

  “A man,” says Megan. “A man came to see her.”

  “And who was this man?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t?”

  “No.”

  “Well, what did he look like?”

  Megan thinks hard. “He was wearing a hat.”

  “A hat?”

  “A white hat.”

  “A white hat…,” says the old woman. “Hm. No, that doesn’t mean anything to me. But perhaps it is something. Did you hear what they were discussing?”

  “I could hear what he said. But I couldn’t hear what Lady Fish was saying. You never can, unless she’s talking to you.”

  “Really? She must be one of the very young ones, then. What did this man say?”

  “He said he needed help. Help in bringing someone back, I think. And Lady Fish needed to come with him.”

  The old woman goes very still. She stares through the trees into the sunset, her face grave.

  “I see,” she says quietly. “That is very good to know, then. Very, very good.” She stands up. “I must go now, my dear. You have been very helpful. For that I thank you.”

  “Will you find her?” asks Megan.

  “I hope to.”

  “And she’ll come back?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know, my dear,” the old woman says.

  “But you have to know,” says Megan. “How can you not know?” The loneliness that descends on her is blank and crushing. She sits down on the marshy ground and begins to cry.

  The old woman, who previously seemed so grandmotherly, simply watches, her eyes small and inscrutable. It is then that Megan begins to feel, even through her sobs, that all of this person’s actions and behaviors have been an affectation, like she was repeating lines from a memorized script that has worked well for her so far; and yet when confronted with something unwritten—like the sobbing of a small child—she has no idea what to do. She only stares, indifferent, unmoved.