by Chris Offutt
Joe’s eyes were open and he was staring at a plaster ceiling that had cracked into a network of fine lines. A bare bulb dangled from a ceramic fixture. It was not the ceiling of the cabin. He shifted his weight and an eruption of pain jolted his leg and he remembered with an exhausting suddenness the events on the side of the mountain.
Through the window and many miles away, the sky held crescents of cloud like spilt ashes. A cow scratched its throat on a fence post and Joe wondered if his leg was still attached to his body. When he leaned forward an unthinkable pain took his breath. Sweat spread a sheen across his face. He lay back panting, his body weak.
A woman blocked light as she entered the room.
“Lay still,” she said. “You got healing up to do yet.”
She tugged the blankets to his chin and blotted the perspiration from his forehead. Her touch was firm, the fingers tight with muscle. She held a glass of water to his lips.
“You’d best not move your leg at all.”
He was silent, watching her face. It was very smooth, with large eyes and thick black hair. She was close to his age. Fatigue settled over him.
The next time he woke, he felt stronger. The room was small, with the lowest ceiling he’d ever seen. The window ran from the floor to the ceiling, and as he looked through the glass, a bull trotted by, its gait as buoyant as that of a deer. A flock of starlings landed among the boughs of a cottonwood. He heard children laughing. Wind moved the high grass like the surface of a lake. His leg ached and he was relieved to see its outline below the blanket.
Joe could recall nothing after the truck ride off the mountain. Something prowled the edges of his mind but he couldn’t capture it. The woman entered the room and he feigned sleep until actual slumber came.
Each time he woke he was stronger and more hungry. On a bedside table were a clock, toothbrush, water pitcher, and glass. Two bedpans sat on the floor and he was embarrassed by the sight. He wondered if he could walk, a thought that drenched him with fear.
The room seemed to belong to a young boy. Rough planks mounted on the wall held the bounty of the woods—skulls of raccoon, fox, bird, and deer. There was a beaver skull bigger than his clasped hands, its incisors the dark gold of feed corn. Beside severed bird claws lay what appeared to be the scalp of a great horned owl and next to that, a roundish skull with huge eye sockets. The walls were festooned with feathers he didn’t recognize. The pelt of a coyote hung beside an enormous wing. A snakeskin was pinned to the window frame.
Beside him the digital clock flicked a minute. He didn’t like such a clock, which seemed to hold time in place. A clock with a face and two hands lent a sense of time’s movement, its immensity, and Joe wondered if he was old-fashioned. Maybe people had felt the same resistance when timepieces became portable enough to carry on their person. He had no idea how many days he’d been in bed.
He woke later to a presence in the room and slowly recognized Ty sitting in a chair. Joe tried to speak but the words emerged slow and garbled as if he were hearing his voice underwater. Sleep overcame him. When he woke again, Ty was gone and the woman was back. She wore boots, a denim workshirt, and heavy wool pants with red suspenders. Against the low ceiling, she seemed very tall.
“You look better,” she said. “Hungry?”
Joe nodded.
“About time.”
She left, the heels of her boots heavy on the slat floor. She closed the door and Joe noticed that it had no interior knob. He stared through the window. Above the ridge was the biggest cloud he’d ever seen. It was like a gunship moored in the sky, its lower half dark gray, its wispy tips a glare of white. The woman returned with a plate of cold meat. His jaw ached from the abrupt salivation but after six bites his appetite was sated and he was tired again. As sleep pulled him, the woman wiped grease from his lips.
When he woke, he heard the sound of children’s voices rising in laughter, turning to tears. The woman was changing the bandage on his leg. It throbbed at her touch. The entry wound was healing into a slight depression, but the other side of his leg was still a mess.
“Not as bad as it looks,” the woman said. “I’ve seen legs worse that a bull walked on.”
“Who are you?” he asked. His voice sounded rusty at the edges, a neglected tool.
“I’m Botree.”
“How long have I been here?”
“Ten days.”
He frowned in surprise.
“You’re on drugs,” she said. “They make you sleep and lose track of time.”
“What kind?”
She plucked a small bottle from one of the shelves. Three more sat beside it.
“Butorphanol,” she read aloud.
“Never heard of it.”
“Knocks a horse out easy.”
“I could have swore I heard kids.”
“You did.”
“Was Ty here?”
She nodded.
“Am I a prisoner?”
“No.”
“Then why’s there no doorknob?”
Botree pointed to a screwdriver on a string that was tied to a nail beside the door.
“That’ll get you out. Been there twenty years.”
“What is this place?”
“My room when I was a girl,” she said. “Like it?”
Joe closed his eyes. His leg stirred him with pain and he swallowed the pills by the table. He didn’t know if weeks or hours had passed when the low voices of men woke him.
“This whole damn setup could cost my license.”
“Nobody knows nothing on it.”
“Johnny talks a blue streak.”
“He won’t.”
“He might brag it up, Owen.”
Joe opened his eyes. Two men stood just outside the door, talking quietly.
“There’s other things to worry on right now,” Owen said.
“Like me getting used as a medic for your games.”
“These aren’t games and you damn well know it.”
“You got your first casualty, a goddam innocent victim.”
“We don’t know anything about him.”
“Took three men to bring down one in the timber.”
“Rodney, we all appreciate you taking care of him.”
“Yeah, and I’ll appreciate you paying off my school loans if I lose my license over treating a man ought to see a real doctor.”
“You’re a real doc.”
“We’re talking about a man might not walk again,” Rodney said. Joe pushed himself up on his elbow.
“I’ll walk,” he said.
The men stepped into the room and Rodney’s gaze calmed the flare of anger that had driven Joe to speak. Owen emptied a sack onto the bedside table. Joe recognized his toothbrush and personal items, including his cash, the gold piece, and the belt balancer Morgan had given him. He wondered about his pistol.
“Got this stuff off Ty Skinner. Travel light, don’t you.”
“I get it,” Joe said. “You shoot a man, take his stuff, and evict him all at once.”
“That’s not how it is.”
“I guess it’d be a whole lot easier if I went ahead and died.”
“I don’t know how easy it’d be,” Owen said. “But things would sure be on the simple side, Rodney here’d sleep better, and I’d get to keep your money.”
Joe began to laugh. The two men joined him, awkwardly at first but relaxing into the shared need for release. Joe realized that laughing with these men was what Boyd would have done.
Rodney sat on a chair beside the bed and lifted the blanket to expose Joe’s leg. Owen left the room. Rodney removed the bandage and cleaned the wounds, his touch gentle, his expression tightly focused. Joe flinched at the rivets of pain that cleared his head and watered his eyes. He stared at the yellowed skull of a deer and repeated in his mind the phrase “Not me, not me.” The pain subsided and he relaxed. Sweat slid into his eyes. He was more fully alert than he had been since the barn.
“Well,”
he said to Rodney.
“It’s bad.”
“Tell me all of it.”
“The first bullet lodged against the lower femur near the knee. Your little surgery drove that bullet out pretty good. Problem is, the second bullet fragmented. I picked pieces out all night. You cracked the bone, but that’s pretty much healed already. There’s nerve damage but I don’t know how much. Worse is you nicked the patella and severed the medial collateral ligament,”
“What’s all that add up to?”
“Know how a knee works?”
“No,” Joe said.
“It’s where your leg bones meet. Ligament holds them in place. There’s a big one on top that covers your kneecap, two in between the bones, and two more on the side. You cut the side one in half.”
“What’s a ligament?”
“It’s like a short piece of rubber stapled to the bones. The rubber gives when you walk but it always snaps the bone back in place.”
“So what’s that mean?”
“Bottom part of your leg won’t always stay where it’s supposed to,”
“Because the rubber piece is cut in half,” Joe said.
“You got it,”
“How can I make it stronger?”
“You can’t. You can strengthen the leg and let muscle protect it, but the ligament will always be weak. A sharp pivot and it’ll go out on you.”
“Anything else?”
“Your meniscus is probably tore up, but I can’t tell how bad without X-rays.”
“What’s a meniscus?”
“It separates your bones. Sort of like a rubber gasket. What it does is keep your leg bones from banging against each other when you walk.”
“So now they’ll rub.”
“Not too bad, but yes.”
“Anything else?”
“I don’t know,” Rodney said. “The whole knee is a bad design for the weight it has to carry.”
“You mean I got hurt because of a bad design?”
“No. It was the bullets that did the hurting. The way the knee is built is pretty much proof that we used to walk on all fours. Another million years and our knees won’t be so vulnerable.”
“How do you fix it?”
“Used to, a surgeon cut off the extra tissue, trimmed the ends, overlapped them, and sewed the whole rig back together, I don’t know what they do now. Knee surgery is the only branch of medicine where they use power tools. They can restring a knee like a tennis racket.”
“Can you do that?”
“No.”
Joe moved his gaze to the light fixture on the ceiling. He felt something shift within him, a settling of some depth, and he realized that he’d aged. Just as children endured growth spurts, aging happened in short bursts, and he’d moved one step closer to the dull white skulls on the shelves above his head.
“What’s that stuff I’m on?” he said.
“Started you with an opiate-base, then tapered you off into Percodan, now just Darvon.”
“Is that animal dope?”
“The first one was, but it’s the same routine for humans. Begin with morphine, then back you down.”
“I’d like to quit them every one.”
“That’s up to you and the pain. I’ll leave some ibuprofen. You might take the Darvon at night to sleep.”
“Is that the best?”
“No,” Rodney said. “The best painkiller is heroin, but it’s against the law to give it to someone who’s dying, no matter how bad it hurts.”
“Why’s that?”
“The government’s afraid they might get addicted.”
Rodney gathered his tools. He wadded the old dressing and stuffed it into a plastic bag.
“Any more questions?”
“Just one. Why’d Johnny shoot me?”
Rodney stood and Joe noticed straw adhering to the bottom of his jeans. There was an expression of resignation on his face.
“Now you know why I like working with animals,” he said, “They don’t talk.”
After Rodney left, Joe felt better, but he was exhausted. He’d forgotten to ask about walking. He shifted his body and the pain made him gasp. He reached for the Darvon, changed his mind, opened the bottle of ibuprofen, and swallowed four pills. He was furious with himself on every front. He shouldn’t have shot himself. He shouldn’t have buried the possum. He shouldn’t have come to Montana. He closed his eyes. He’d brought it all on himself, and he hated himself for it.
His leg hurt but the fatigue was stronger. As sleep took him he realized that he didn’t blame Johnny, and he wondered why.
He awoke to a different presence in the room and blinked several times to shed the haze of sleep. Sunshine poured through the window, edging everything with a rim of light. Two small boys stood just inside the door, their faces solemn. Joe waited for them to disappear into the light of reality until he understood that they were actual children.
“Hidy,” he said.
“It’s my brother’s birthday,” the older boy said. “He’s three.”
“Happy birthday.” Joe said.
“He gets presents.”
Joe closed his eyes but a shadowed after-image of the boys remained outlined against the glowing light inside his head. He thought of Sara’s children and how he’d failed to tell them good-bye. A sudden sadness pressed him to the bed. His limbs felt heavy and thick. He opened his eyes and regarded the younger boy. His hips were as broad as his shoulders, but he had no neck. His head rested directly on his body as if bolted to his shoulders.
“I have something for you,” Joe said. He held his cupped hands in the air. “It’s just what you need.”
The older boy stepped forward.
“No,” Joe said. “It’s for the birthday boy.”
“What is it?”
“I can only tell him.”
The older boy coaxed the young one closer to the bed. Joe extended his arms and opened his hands in a quick motion toward the boy’s head.
“That was a neck,” Joe said. “Now you have a neck.”
The boy covered his throat with a hand.
“I got a neck,” he said. “For my birthday. A neck.”
“Now get out of here,” Joe said.
The boys ran from the room. Joe’s leg ached. It had been hurting all along but he’d forgotten about it in their presence. A quick anger overwhelmed him and he wondered if he was mad at the boys for returning his pain.
Through the window, the shadow of the roof pointed at the seam of sky along the ridge. Much of Montana was vacant—the land, the streets, the riverbeds. The sky was often bereft of cloud. Perhaps it was natural that he’d stayed here. There was less need to fill the emptiness in him when he was surrounded by an equal amount of empty space. The anger shifted to a profound despair. His leg hurt and he couldn’t walk He wanted to lie in his childhood bed, tended by his mother. At birth his grandmother had given him a stuffed bear that he’d slept with for many years. He missed it as much as all of Kentucky.
He slept. Three times the pain woke him in the night and he ate ibuprofen, determined to wean himself from the heavier medication. In the morning Botree changed the dressing and brought him food. He ate slowly, careful not to spill anything among the sheets. His leg hurt worse than it had in days and he wondered how much time had passed.
She pulled a chair near the bed and smiled for the first time, a breaking of light that was just as swiftly gone.
“A neck,” she said.
“I didn’t mean it to be an insult.”
“It’s already his favorite present. His brother wants one now. A bigger one.”
“Of course.”
As she looked at him, Joe was abruptly embarrassed at his weakened state, his dependence, the nakedness she had seen. He wished he was still taking painkillers.
“How long you all planning on keeping me here?” he said, “What are you anyhow, drug dealers?”
“What,” Botree said. “Who?”
“The whol
e bunch of you.”
“No. We’re not drag dealers.”
“Well, you’re damn sure something fishy. Shooting a man for no reason, then keeping him knocked out on animal dope.”
“You’re a hair on the fishy side yourself,” she said. “No mailing address. Carrying a pistol. Pew thousand in cash. Burying a stuffed animal.”
“Nothing wrong with any of that.”
“Nothing wrong with going to a hospital, either.”
“My business. What’d Johnny shoot me for, anyhow?”
“I guess that’s his business,” Botree said. “Why’d you shoot your leg?”
“I don’t rightly know.”
“There’s plenty of people out here who’ve killed themselves. But you’re the first dumb enough to try it in the knee.”
“I guess I thought shooting would knock out the bullet that was already in me, like driving two pool balls into a pocket at once. I didn’t think the second bullet would bust up like it did.”
“You didn’t think at all,” Botree said. “About like every man on this land.”
Joe’s anger flared, then faded as quickly as it came. He couldn’t recall ever having been so volatile and wondered if the medication was responsible. The pain in his leg was part of his being and he tried to accept it. Another part of him, deep at cellular level, craved the sweet release of narcotics. Getting mad temporarily alleviated the need.
“Is this your house?” Joe said.
“No. It’s Coop’s.”
“Who all lives here?”
“Me and the kids, and Coop, Owen, and Johnny.”
“So they’re your brothers.”
“I’m in the middle. Owen’s oldest, Johnny’s the baby,”
“He’s not a baby.”
“Johnny doesn’t feel too good about what happened.”
“I don’t either.”
“He wants to come and see you.”
“Why’s that?” Joe said, “To finish the job?”
“Talking to you would make him feel better.”
“I know he’s your brother and all, but how he feels ain’t exactly high on my list right now.”
“What is?”
“Walking,” he said.
Botree rose from the chair. At the door she turned, a grin lurking in the lines of her mouth.
“A neck,” she said, shaking her head. “A neck.”