Death Puppet

by Jim Nisbet

  “That’s a good question,” Eddie said sarcastically. “You put it to them when we get there. Take their minds off things.”

  Mattie pouted. “Goddamn fancy thing’ll be buried in tumble-weeds and chickenshit by daylight tomorrow.”

  Scott had slowed the car to a crawl. They still had two or three hundred yards of rough road to travel to get to the house. A man appeared on the porch, looked at them for a moment, then hurried toward the barn.

  Scott and Eddie both looked at Mattie, then exchanged a glance.

  “Wait a minute,” Scott said. He abruptly reached past Mattie and grabbed the book of Verlaine poems out of Eddie’s hand. “You don’t know anything about this, right?” he asked. He held the book under her nose.

  She looked down at the book. How would he know I know anything about Verlaine, she thought. Is it possible he knows who Tucker Harris is? She looked at Eddie. Eddie looked at her, then at Scott, then at the barn. Eddie was a little nervous. For a brief moment Mattie came very close to telling all she knew, which wasn’t much: that Tucker Harris had showed up yesterday for the first time in a year, the second time she’d ever heard of or laid eyes on him, and showed her a real good time. He was a traveling salesman, a pickup, a one-night stand, a wild respite from a mundane existence, a short left turn for an otherwise straight-ahead girl. When she got up the next morning, which was less than seven hours ago, he was gone and there was a poem handwritten on her kitchen table, purported to be by one Paul Verlaine. The last time she’d heard of Paul Verlaine had been while she was in college, in a homosexual houseboat nightclub she’d wandered into by mistake one night in Seatt—

  “Well?” Scott said, an edge in his voice. He wasn’t very friendly anymore. He was very serious. But then he backed off a bit and said, “Look, Ms. Brooke, Eddie here and I have been sort of acting under the assumption that—”

  “Scotty,” Eddie said, pointing.

  Scott turned and looked toward the barn. Three men stood in the open door. Now two of them drifted slowly among the parked cars. One stopped next to one of the Samurai, which was aimed toward the road, the other stopped after he had one boot up on the first step onto the porch of the house. Mattie saw that it was Jedediah.

  Scott sighed. “Do you even know this guy?”

  “What? Of course I know him, he’s my boyfriend!”

  “Great.” Scott tossed the book back to Eddie. “That’s just great. The left woman doesn’t know what the right man is doing.”

  “Ain’t it history?”

  Scott pursed his lips. “You know what?”

  “What?” they both said.

  “I believe her.”

  Eddie sighed. “Peachy.”

  Mattie looked from one to the other. “Well so do I,” she said. “About what?”

  “I’m back to great, just great,” Eddie said.

  Scott watched the windshield, sighed and said, “Well, it’s too late now. We’re here. Let’s go on in.”

  “Hey, what gives?” Mattie asked.

  “Man…,” Eddie began.

  “Skip it,” Scott said. “The whole thing might work out on some humanitarian level we don’t yet understand.”

  They were nearly to the first of the parked cars. “Humanitarian level?” Mattie frowned.

  “Yeah,” said Scott sourly, “to err is human.”

  “To forgive, divine,” Mattie said automatically.

  “Right,” Scott said darkly. “That’s the part that worries me.”

  Mattie shook her head. “I, I, I don’t have the first clue.…”

  “How well do you know Jedediah, Mattie?” Scott said. “Do you really know him?” They were so close to the cars now Scott was scanning for a place to stop the Chevy, and he had a big false grin on his face, like he was really glad to be in this toothpaste ad, here. His grin was incongruent with his question.

  “But I told you,” Mattie said, “he and I…”

  Scott stopped the car, and it was enveloped by the cloud of dust that followed them. “Mattie,” Eddie interrupted, “I got three things to tell you, quickly now. The first is that you’re in for a really big surprise. The second is, no matter what happens from here on out, no matter who asks you, and that includes Mr. Dowd, there,” he pointed toward the man with one foot up on the porch, “you’re completely ignorant of who we are and what we’re here for.”

  Scott stopped the car, put it in park, and depressed the emergency brake.

  “Hey, no problem, I’m even wondering what I’m doing here, but…” Mattie looked from Eddie to Scott and back to Eddie. “I thought you had never seen Jed before!”

  “Scott has a great scrapbook. The third is,” Eddie said, fumbling for the passenger door handle, “no matter what happens here, remember that we’re your friends, and you can trust us.” With that, Eddie opened the door and got out of the car.

  “With what?” she yelled after him. “My bank account?”

  “Relax,” said Scott grimly, the big smile still on his face. “I really did know Jed in Vietnam, and it’s true Eddie’s never seen him. We’ll explain later. You and Jed are the ones going to have a rough time. But try to keep an open mind, and we’ll get through this.”

  Open mind? she wailed inwardly, I spent all last night keeping an open mind. Don’t I get a day off?

  When Scott stood up and got out of the car, he said calmly, in a strong, loud voice, “Incoming, motherfuck.”

  Mattie didn’t know what to think. She was embarrassed to be alive. There was no longer any doubt in her mind that she had no business either in this car or on Jedediah Dowd’s ranch. She clearly, blithely, had led two strangers with more secrets than they were telling directly to somebody they wanted to see, Jed, who was holding a few secrets of his own. Moreover, to stumble onto Jedediah’s ranch while something decidedly important was going on, to the substance of which she had not a clue, clearly represented an intrusion into his private affairs that he’d probably never forgive her.

  But what could possibly be going on here that was such a big deal? A dance? A barbecue? A husking bee? Had he bought a VCR? After all, this was a goddamned burned-out cattle ranch with a grandfathered water allotment Jed couldn’t even afford to pipe to his pasturelands. She’d always thought Jed a bit of a dreamer on that score, scheming to turn this ranch into a place for breeding horses, but hell, dreamers were nothing new to Douglas County. Being a dreamer was practically a prerequisite to living there.

  Outside the car, recognition had slowly dawned on Jedediah’s face. But the realization that he was being greeted by a friend he hadn’t seen in ten or fifteen years did not entirely efface the expression that had previously been there. He looked angry enough to storm up a hill in spite of flamethrowers and propaganda.

  “Scott? Scott Michaels? It can’t… What the fuck are you doing here?”

  “Can and is, Jed Dowd, and not only that, you’re expecting me.”

  Surprise drained back into Jed’s face, and he looked from Scott to Eddie. Eddie held up the Selected Poems of Paul Verlaine so everybody could see it, like it was a judge’s score in a diving contest.

  Jedediah was obviously thunderstruck. But, slowly, the biggest grin Mattie had ever seen on him flooded the man’s face. Jedediah slapped his thigh with the pair of gloves he’d been holding in one hand and shouted, “You’re in the business! Sonofabitch, you’re in the business!” And he whooped, slapped his thigh again, and the two men met and exchanged bear hugs just beyond the hood of the Chevy.

  Eddie dropped the arm that had been holding the book and sagged against the fender, his tension visibly ebbing from him. Well that’s a fine howdeydoo, Mattie was fuming on the front seat. I suppose they’re talking about Show Business. She knew Jed hadn’t realized who she was, yet, and made no move to draw attention to herself by getting out of the car. But her temper was about to get the better of her. The gall of that Jedediah Dowd. What business? She’d been sleeping with the son of a bitch for the better part of two years,
and as far as she knew his only business was to go broke as slowly and with as much dignity as possible, while pretending to be living in 1878.

  Jed was introducing the men they could see from the yard. “That’s Sam Rodriguez, from L.A., and Tamil, from Kansas City…”

  “This is Eddie, from Frisco.”

  “That’s a town,” Jed said, jerking a thumb skyward.

  “What a town,” Eddie agreed, without his usual enthusiasm.

  Man, thought Mattie, increasingly nervous, this is passing strange. Who the hell are these people? Masons?

  “Ahm, Jed…,” Scott began, after a pause, “there’s a little something else.…”

  “What?” Jed said, looking his old buddy in the face. “Something else?” He grinned and slapped his gloves on his thigh. “I’ll bet there’s something else!” He waved his arm to encompass the whole place. “But you’re going to have to go a long way to whup up on this crowd, man.” He began to enumerate on his fingers. “No hookers, but we got shrooms, we got rock, we got the new Dead album…”

  Hookers?

  Scott ducked his head and tugged at the lobe of his ear. “Ah, well Jed, I think maybe…”

  “And in that Bago over there’s a full bar, an ice machine, VCR…” He slapped Scott’s arm with the gloves. “Coldest beers in the lower forty-eight.…” He smiled and looked from Scott to Eddie.

  “I don’t drink,” said Eddie.

  “Wait a minute, wait,” Scott said, throwing a nervous glance Mattie’s way. “That’s not what, I mean you don’t, it…”

  Hookers…

  “Of course,” Jed continued, “this here thing’s about all over, Scott.” He waved his gloves. “Only about ten buyers left, maybe twelve people. Been here three days. A lot of them left around daylight this morning. Rest of them’s to pull out after dark. But, hey, there’s plenty of stuff left. Most of the sinse is gone of course, but—”

  “Jedediah Dowd!”

  Jedediah Dowd’s voice stopped dead in his throat, his mouth hung open. After a moment his redhead’s red face went redder. He knew the voice. He’d never heard that tone in it before, but he knew the voice. His green eyes didn’t waver from Scott’s, he didn’t even look to see her standing next to the Chevy.

  “Mattie.” He looked like he’d been poleaxed. “Mattie,” he confirmed it to himself, still without looking. His voice became even calmer. “You brought Mattie Brooke with you? Out here? Now?”

  Mattie could feel the change in the weather. It was as if a clear sky had suddenly maximized its potential for a twister. The air darkened into a dirty yellow, the temperature waffled, and the atmospheric pressure plummeted to nothing with an almost audible thump. The only thing they needed was a long black anteater’s trunk to spiral down out of a boiling sky and funnel them all up to their destinies in a cacophony of bawling livestock and exploding windows. For a moment, it was so quiet Mattie thought the wind had stopped blowing. But she could see it had not. The dark ends of Jedediah’s red mustache fluttered where he waxed them. His eyes gleamed in the shadow of his hat.

  The moment was really protracted, eternal. Mattie stood there so long waiting for Jed to go up in smoke that her mind had time to wander. She saw that several men stood now in the open barn door, and one was standing in the doorway of the Winnebago. Music drifted faintly behind him, and she could tell by the way he was standing that the hand he was leaning on held something out of sight over the top of the doorway. That’s either a beer or a gun, she thought.

  Then a nervous smile flashed over one half of Jed’s mouth beneath his mustache, and disappeared. His nose was about a foot from Scott’s, and neither had taken his eyes off the other’s. “Man,” Jed said quietly, “you have fucked me up again.” He said it deliberately, as if walking the realization through his mind one step at a time, not really sure where all the implications were going to take him.

  But no, and it was right then that Mattie found out the rest of all she would ever need to know about Jedediah Dowd: She saw that he knew exactly where all the implications were going to take him. Or to be more precise, he knew where they were going to take Mattie. What Jedediah needed to know now was how the rest of the world was going to handle the results, now that he’d decided on them. Mattie’s opinion not included.

  Mattie intuited this turn in Jed’s fury, and it chilled her. She realized there wasn’t a bone in her body the man cared about. Dowd was beyond duplicitous: He was treacherous. She was scared, then; no, she was furious; then she was scared again.

  But Scott Michaels was something else. Mattie had seen Jed almost as mad as this before, and most people gave him a wide berth when they saw the fit coming on. But Scott didn’t back down an inch, and Mattie realized that they must have known each other very well, at one time.

  “Send her home, Jed,” Scott said evenly. “I fucked up, but she hasn’t seen a thing.”

  What haven’t I seen? She almost said it out loud. But as the seconds wore on Mattie was learning volumes. She knew that things were never going to be the same between her and Jedediah again, no matter what happened. But more than that, Jed was obviously up to his ears in something important, possibly dangerous. Since she didn’t know what it was, perhaps she ought not find it out. But why shouldn’t she find it out? They’d been talking about getting married, hadn’t they?

  Well, no, not exactly.

  Come to think of it, the subject hadn’t come up. Ever.

  Who would want to marry this jerk?

  Jed continued to stare at Scott. Never had Mattie seen him exhibit such authority. “How could you…?”

  “Hey,” Scott shook his head and shrugged, “she’s your girlfriend, right? Talking marriage, right? Partners in life, right?” He pulled both hands to his chest. “My old lady knows what I do for a living. She knows every time I stop off at the Mitchell Brother’s Theater to get change for the bus just by looking at me for chrissakes, she knows what I’m thinking when I’m not even thinking. How could I dare to hope that another relationship would be any different?”

  Mattie was appalled. Scott’s married? She shot a glance at Eddie. Eddie rolled his eyes.

  “That’s just the point,” Jed growled, “it’s none of your business.”

  “All right, all right,” Scott said quickly, “I fucked up. I, me, myself.” He gestured toward Mattie, but even as he spoke, Jed was shaking his head. “She didn’t fuck up, I fucked up. It’s not her fault. Let her go home. Here.” He turned toward the car, flicking his hands as if shooing chickens before him. “Mattie,” he said, “take our car. The key’s in the switch. Beat it. Git.”

  Mattie stared at him. He’s an asshole, but he’s right, a little voice said in her ear. Take a powder.

  “Come on,” Scott said hurriedly, walking toward her, “get in, start the motor, drive out of here.”

  “Mattie,” said Jedediah firmly.

  Scott stopped with his back to Jed, his jaw set. Mattie looked past him. “Yes, Mr. Dowd?”

  “You are cordially invited to spend the night in the guest room of my house, and, after breakfast and a little talk tomorrow, I’ll take you home.”

  She glanced at Scott. His eyes said No.

  Mattie’s temper nearly snapped. There were too many men telling her what to do. “That’s right neighborly of you, Mr. Dowd,” she said between clenched teeth. She stepped away from the car and slammed the door, hard, so that Eddie jumped off the opposite fender and a cloud of dust rose off the roof.

  “I accept.”

  Silence.

  She stood uncertainly, feet slightly apart. She didn’t know what to do with her hands.

  “Oh shit oh dear,” Scott said, so softly that only Mattie heard him.

  “Aren’t you gonna kiss me?” she said sweetly, acidly, to Jed.

  “Why?” Jed said, his mouth strangely twisted. “It ain’t even dark yet.”

  Chapter Ten

  “MAN,” JED SAID AS THE GROUP APPROACHED THE BARN, “I never knew a dude to get
himself and his friends in more shit than Scott Michaels. You got any more surprises?”

  Scott scrubbed his cheek with the back of one hand and said nothing. Mattie was walking behind them with Eddie and couldn’t see the expressions on their faces, but it seemed to her they’d retreated from their confrontational mode, into the kind of joshing friendliness one might expect from comrades in arms who had survived and walked away from a few firefights, but might kill each other in the bar. Not that she knew anything about the joshing friendliness of comrades in arms walking away from firefights. As a distinction, “male bonding” eluded her. Most males of her acquaintance would bond with anything that moved and not a few things that didn’t—much less another member of the species. Where had the idiots who used this term spent their lives?

  They passed the Winnebago. It was cream with blue trim. A blue and white striped awning had been stretched over nearly the entire east-facing side of it, and a couple of chickens pecked fitfully beneath low tables and a few lawn chairs scattered in its shade. Music floated out the door and open screens, distinctly country, vaguely familiar, but Mattie couldn’t place it.

  “Jimmy Buffett,” Eddie said, almost as if to himself, but with an approving and, if Mattie had not thought it out of Eddie’s character to do so, almost ingratiating tone of voice. She and Eddie traded glances. She could see he was distracted, but Eddie looked ahead toward the barn as he noted, “There’s one of his tunes on the jukebox at your cafe, called Margaritaville. Big hit for him. Perennial standard, to a certain cut of thinking. I prefer the Ramones, myself. Or maybe Reba McEntire.”

  So it was, Mattie thought, eyeing Eddie curiously. Margaritaville. She wondered when he’d had time to study the playlist on the jukebox. But she also saw that he was trying to ease the tension, even as his eyes darted sharply. And as she noticed his alert behavior she realized that Eddie, while making it his business to seem innocuous, didn’t miss a trick, nor a detail. Which must mean that close observation must have been the business of his business, so to speak. And again she considered that, while Eddie had never laid eyes on Jedediah Dowd, he had recognized Jedediah the moment he first saw him, from perhaps a hundred yards away. From a scrap-book, he’d said. She considered the back of Scott’s head. If a man like that kept a scrapbook, she’d pluck chickens in hell with Richard Nixon.