* * *
It was fifty miles out when Smoker woke.
“Isn’t any way to know if or when we’re clear of this,” Andre said.
“We won’t ever be clear.”
“Likely not,” Andre agreed.
They let five miles pass.
“You ever think Penny killed herself?” Andre asked.
“What the hell makes you say a thing like that?”
“What did she tell you right before?” Andre asked.
“I’m not going into it again.”
“She hated the big water?”
“Turns out she had some reason,” Smoker said.
“Seems scared is more a little kid’s word. Hate’s for broccoli or bedtime.”
“Maybe hate’s what was handy.”
“Could be,” Andre allowed.
They drove awhile farther in the morning gray. A doe and two fawns stood at the road shoulder. Andre wondered if the bear saw them.
“She told me she hated me a few days before,” Andre said.
“Well, you probably earned it.”
“I brought her ice cream. She took it and looked at me and said I hate you. Then she took a bite and said she hated you, too. And Pork and Peg. Then she ate some more. I asked why but she just handed me the empty bowl and watched more TV.”
“Hell, she was the only one in the family everyone catered to and we did without letup. You’d think she knew she was a short-timer and so did we so we heaped love upon her.”
Andre entered a turn and then accelerated. “Just because she was the apple of our eye, don’t mean she saw it the same. You’ve got plenty experience at others taking to you and you not feeling anything back.”
Smoker seethed. “Bust me in the chops and make a finish of it.”
“She hated the water because it was going to swallow her. Maybe she felt the same about her kin.”
Smoker lifted his pistol from under the seat. “I swear I will shoot you someplace it hurts if you don’t leave off.”
Andre nodded to the sleeping child between them. “You know what I’m suggesting?”
“Yes,” Smoker said.
“Good.”
“I don’t like it a bit.”
“Didn’t expect you would.”
Andre crisscrossed the wheat and rock in silence until he made town, then parked the truck at his wedding house.
15
EXODUS
August–September 1991
At three in the morning, Andre rang her doorbell until Claire answered. Bird stood next to him on the porch.
“I better sign those papers,” Andre said.
Claire blinked. “You’re back?”
“Not for long so I need to sign.”
“I was thinking you and I might talk it over first,” Claire said.
Andre shook his head.
“What happened?” Claire asked.
“It went bad,” Andre told her.
“Bad?”
“The cops will visit you. I tell you more, you’ll have to lie or tell them what they want. And I know you’ll lie.”
Claire glanced at Bird.
“Will you take her?” Andre asked.
“Where’s Smoker?”
“In the truck.”
“How about Dede?”
Andre shrugged. Claire bent and wiped a hair from Bird’s forehead.
“How long?” Claire asked.
“For good,” Andre said.
“Okay,” Claire said.
Andre kicked one shoe with the other. “Tell Reynolds to draw them papers up,” he said. “And some for Bird, too.”
* * *
Three nights later, past midnight, Andre approached Claire’s place once more. He parked at the Almira water tower under a willow that disguised his rig then hiked two miles to the house. In the twilight, he watched Claire and Bird on the couch. Claire was reading, he recognized her body rocking with the words. The girl remained perfectly attentive. After Claire put Bird down for the night, Andre whistled. Claire saw his cigarette ember and smoke rising behind the tree. She opened the door. On the table were several documents he signed, forging Smoker’s name when necessary. Claire brought him a foil-lined box. Inside she’d put a leftover roast, some spuds, a loaf of bread, and a package of salami. She’d found his bottle and threw it in, too. Then Bird appeared in the bedroom doorway.
She looked at Andre and blinked.
“Can I sleep with you, Claire?”
“Sure, kiddo,” Claire said.
The girl raced into Claire’s bedroom. Andre heard the bed bounce. He patted Claire’s hand.
Claire walked him to the porch. He stopped her from switching on the light.
“You don’t know where we are,” Andre told her. “Keep it simple when they come. Tell the truth. If they press you, tell them you want your lawyer. I dropped some money with Reynolds. It’s not enough if things get sticky, I’ll find more.”
“What about school?”
“I’m done with it. I didn’t want that, but there it is.”
He listened to the wood screen door clatter and shut behind her then lugged the food and bottle toward his truck.
* * *
Andre parked the truck at the house but Smoker and the bear and King were absent. The next day he waited until evening then walked to the spring. At an unkempt willow he looked for sign of them. Finding none, he forged a trail through the heavier brush, the food in a knapsack over his shoulder. He unhooked a barbed-wire gate and angled through the alfalfa. The dry air held the sagebrush scent, a tougher smell than things that required rain. A sound through the low grass startled him. King broke through, his hair matted and tongue flapping. The dog nosed his leg. Andre patted him.
Half a mile farther, Andre made a coyote call and waited for its return. A small fire burned inside a ring of stones where Smoker turned a scrawny rabbit over a spit. He had resorted to green wood that smoked and burned grudgingly. The bear, a few feet away, pawed his eyes.
“More chow,” Andre said.
King whined and lay down at Smoker’s ankles. Smoker divided a wedge of fat and gristle from the roast and fed both dog and bear. They woofed their scraps then eyed each other. The bear whined and King circled him then lay beneath Smoker.
“They partnered up?” Andre asked.
“Tolerating each other, at least,” Smoker said.
Andre uncapped the bourbon and offered the bottle. Smoker pulled deep then returned it. Andre held up his open hand.
“Still dry?” Smoker asked.
“Guess so,” Andre told him.
Smoker set the foil in front of King. The dog’s tongue scoured it.
“Some sandwich stuff in there, too,” Andre said.
Smoker built the bear a sandwich to keep the animals even. Andre lit a cigarette and tossed the package to him. Smoker rested his arm against a high spot of grass. His finger was still crooked and a knot bent his nose in a manner that the bar folks might identify as character. The bird shot in the ass would strain his gait and he would treat it similarly.
“You did right,” Smoker told him. “Goddamn, I’d like to talk it through with Birdy, though.”
They remained quiet awhile and smoked. Andre lay on the ground. The lowering sky attached to the coulee in gray wisps. The birds hushed and the coyotes quit their evening shouts. The bear snored. Andre recalled that he and Smoker once owned this country.
“I wish it would rain,” Andre said at last.
Smoker laughed. “Look at you. A heathen praying for the flood.”
That night, Smoker and the bear and King fell into their dozes, while Andre remained weary but awake, his mind fluid and teetering toward unconsciousness. Sleep was trust and he wasn’t sure he had courage enough for it.
Epilogue
EXODUS
October 1991
Smoker didn’t recognize the washout; it was as simple as that. The pickup hood disappeared into the cleft cut by spring thaws eight months ago, th
en the cab with them inside. Smoker shoved through the gears even as they dominoed the grade. Partway, he lost Andre through a window. Smoker twisted his head to see how his brother fared, but forward was backward too quick for a good look.
The truck finished with its tailgate up a tree and grille in the dirt. Smoker shoved himself from the steering column and examined the divot his skull made in the windshield. Rainbowed light twisted through the spider cracks and hurt his head. He bumbled to the sprung door then collapsed onto the pine straw below.
“How’d you do?” Andre shouted from above.
Smoker took inventory. The glass nicked his forehead, which bled steadily, but a little time would fix it. He attempted to stand but his ankle took no weight. His split sock filled with blood and a deep cut exposed gray bone. “I’ll manage,” Smoker hollered.
“Any way you can get up to me?”
“Be easier for you to slide down than me crawl up.”
“My leg bone’s come out,” Andre shouted.
“Guess a leg trumps a foot,” Smoker replied.
He hunted a stick and hobbled across the hill. His ankle throbbed and his breaths cut him so that he limited himself to short puffs of air, which left his head dizzy and his vision unreliable. He paused and inhaled deep to catch up and his lung felt like it hooked a rib. He paused in a tree well but remained so long his starry thoughts could not recall why he had halted nor why he should keep on nor, if he had reason to move, which direction he ought to pursue.
“Come on, then,” Andre hollered.
Ten feet up a tree, Smoker saw a bloody smear. He climbed toward his brother’s voice and found him several feet above heaped against a tamarack, shoeless. Both halves of his femur split his jeans. The skin shone and he shivered. Smoker unbelted his hunting knife and hacked his brother’s pant leg. Blood pasted the denim to Andre’s skin and the blade caught hide. When Andre didn’t yelp, Smoker ordered him to wriggle his toes. He couldn’t.
“Try the other,” Smoker told him.
They answered. Smoker peeled the pant leg to Andre’s calf. Each bone end had furrowed a trough coming out. Red, quaking muscle and fat sided the wound. In its gutter, blood fluttered then drained to the middle where it spilled out, then stopped a beat before repeating itself.
Smoker lugged his sweatshirt off, wincing at his aching sides. He looped and knotted it and made ready to throttle the bleeding.
“Tourniquet might leave me losing it.”
“I thought you was crippled a minute ago. Losing just one should be a relief.”
“Things tight?” Andre asked.
“It ain’t milk spilling out of you.”
Smoker cinched the shirt taut and knotted it. Andre’s heart beat more blood from him. A low branch was near. Smoker tore it free, then tied both ends to the shirt sleeves and cranked until the stick could bear no more. The bleeding kept on.
“Get a bigger stick,” Andre told him.
Smoker shook his head. “It ain’t the pressure, it’s the muscle padding the artery.” Smoker had watched the ground blacken under deer and bear he’d killed; he’d listened to the last of it ticking. He wondered if he’d end up seeing his brother go over in the same way. He pressed his fingers to Andre’s neck. His pulse was fast but steady. Fear paled him. Shock wouldn’t be far behind.
Smoker’s ankle had fallen apart hiking up so he got himself lengthwise along the grade and rolled. The hard earth and rocks battered him and pinecones tore his undershirt and back. He extended his arms to steer himself toward the pickup.
Under the seat, Smoker found the ripsaw. He pulled it over a tree’s trunk to clean it then hunted another walking stick and hobbled Andre’s direction.
“Don’t watch,” Smoker told him.
“It’s my leg, I guess I’ll see what happens to it.”
Smoker began sawing. Andre’s flesh opened. Smoker’s breath tore through him with each pass. More skin and fat parted. The muscle sheath fought the blade, but once through, the saw cut deep, separating the tissue like slicing steaks. The only catch was tendons, which snapped and popped under the blade.
Near halfway, Smoker got to the bleeder. The artery flailed like a worm. Smoker plucked it and squeezed the end shut. He’d brought a rubber band from the truck and, on the way up, cut a green twig and scraped it of bark. He sliced the artery clean with his pocketknife, then stretched the limp end of the vessel over the wood stopper as far as he could without splitting the flesh, then wrapped them both with the rubber band. Finished, he sat against the tree trunk and vomited.
“We weren’t even drinking,” Smoker said. “I never once wrecked drunk.”
“Maybe we had it right all along,” Andre replied.
Smoker spit then cleared his throat. “We’re a long way from anywhere,” he said.
“And I don’t seem to be good for hiking out.”
“You’d be hard put.”
“How about you?”
Smoker shrugged. “I ain’t near as beat up as you, but I won’t win any races.”
“Well, I guess you better get to it,” Andre said.
Smoker shook his head. “I ain’t comfortable leaving you.”
“Well that’s kind of you, but we’ll be a long time waiting for the next bus.”
“Goddamnit, you think I haven’t thought of that.”
Andre said nothing, just stared at his ruined leg. It was near four o’clock as best he could tell. The sky was blue and hot. Gnats hovered over his face. He swatted them.
“It worse than a hangover?” Smoker asked.
Andre shook his head. “Hangover feels guilty. This doesn’t hurt as much as it’s supposed to. It’s kind of interesting to tell you the truth.”
After a while, Smoker sat and put a hand to his chest. His paled skin was damp with sweat. Breathing was difficult, Andre could see. Smoker leaned against the ground and slept aimed backward down the hill. It would leave him a headache, Andre thought. He was going to remind him of it but drifted off before he could. When he woke, Smoker had no pulse or breath in him.
Andre stared into the dusk and then the rising night. The sky seemed on top of him. He’d heard the most amazing thing about space is the amount of nothing in it, but tonight it looked like it might hold all it was rumored to. He longed to be just a salt speck flashing across the great rock walls, the yellow prairies, the pine, tamarack, elm, and white-barked birch lining the breaks. He felt a thrill of lightness. His stomach cramped then let go. He vomited but felt fine after. He heard the blood flow then tick from him until his heart lost its prime and he died.
A month passed before hunters found them. The coyotes had had their share and the magpies. Their faces were meaty blanks, and it was only through the contents of their wallets that anyone might’ve guessed who they were at all.
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to the following, who helped wrangle these strays into a herd: Nicole Aragi, Sean McDonald and all the MCD/FSG folks, Jeff Sanford, Charles McIntyre, Chris Offutt, Max Phillips, Desi Koehler, Elizabeth McCracken, John Whalen, Bob Ganahl, Jim Preston, Darren Nelson, Stevens County Libraries, and the Washington Center for the Book, as well as my family.
ALSO BY BRUCE HOLBERT
The Hour of Lead
Lonesome Animals
A Note About the Author
Bruce Holbert is a graduate of the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. His work has appeared in The Iowa Review, Hotel Amerika, Other Voices, The Antioch Review, Crab Creek Review, and The New York Times. He grew up on the Columbia River and in the shadow of the Grand Coulee Dam. Holbert is the author of The Hour of Lead, winner of the Washington State Book Award, and Lonesome Animals. You can sign up for email updates here.
Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraph
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Cha
pter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Also by Bruce Holbert
A Note About the Author
Copyright
MCD
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
175 Varick Street, New York 10014
Copyright © 2018 by Bruce Holbert
All rights reserved
First edition, 2018
Portions of this book originally appeared, in somewhat different form, in the following publications: The Anthology of Lilac City Fairy Tales, The Antioch Review, Cairn, Crab Creek Review, Del Sol Review, Hotel Amerika, Inlander, The Iowa Review, Mary, New Orleans Review, 94 Creations, Other Voices, Quarterly West, RiverLit, The Spokesman-Review, Tampa Tribune, West Wind Review, and Word Riot.
E-book ISBN: 978-0-374-71638-7
Our e-books may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by e-mail at [email protected].
www.mcdbooks.com • www.fsgbooks.com
Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at @mcdbooks
Whiskey Page 21