by D. M. Pulley
Stop.
And then the terrors would start again.
Sometime before dawn, he heard the crow of the rooster down in the yard. He sat up with a start, sending Lucifer scampering away to a far corner. The hayloft was still pitch-black, but his uncle would be up soon. He had to make it right, one way or another, because he couldn’t take another minute alone with his nightmares.
Jasper pulled himself to his feet and nearly fell when he tried to put weight on his cut leg. It was hot and swollen like it had been pumped full of poison. He forced himself to walk on it, wincing with the pain. He deserved it. He deserved whatever he got. He inched his way around the hay bale toward the ladder, straining to see through the dark. Don’t fall through the chute. Please don’t let me fall through the chute.
He slid his feet slowly along the boards, feeling for the edge of the hole in the floor where the ladder ended. His mother’s voice haunted each step. You be good for Uncle Leo. Make Mommy proud. His uncle’s snores were growing louder and less even. The hay beneath his feet brushed against the wood, telling him where he was. The pain in his cut leg took his breath away with each step. Finally, his toe found the ladder.
He almost cried out in agony as he crouched to find the first rung, but he didn’t stop. The cool air of the barn below struck his bare haunches as he made his way down the ladder one rung at a time. Pale light leaked through the wood siding. The cows were waking. He could hear their restless hooves moving in their stalls. Their udders had grown heavy and painful overnight. Jasper vowed he would do all the milking that day and all the rest of the days it took to make it up to his uncle.
“I see you made it back.”
Jasper’s heart contracted. He turned to face the shadow of his uncle sitting up on the cot. He opened his mouth to say how sorry he was and how he’d never do anything bad ever again but thought better of it. The man wouldn’t believe him. He was no good, just like his mother. Instead, Jasper limped over to the far wall and pulled the riding crop from its hook. He limped back and handed it to his uncle. It didn’t matter if he beat him, not even if he beat him to death. He probably deserved to die, if that’s what it took to beat the bad out of him.
Uncle Leo took the crop and set it down next to him. “Get me a match, boy.”
“Yes, sir.” Jasper nodded and limped over to the side of the barn door where the wood matches were kept. His knee was on fire now. Each step made his eyes lose focus, but he kept walking and handed his uncle the match.
Uncle Leo struck it against the side of the lantern and the barn filled with light. “Let me take a look at ya.”
He leaned down and examined the boy’s legs. Jasper startled as he looked at them himself for the first time. His right leg was caked brown with dried blood. His left shin was blistered purple where the fire had got him. Both legs were covered in dirt and flecks of hay. His shirt was charred black at the edges, so were his hands.
His uncle let out a low whistle. “You really did it to yourself but good, didn’t ya?” His voice was hard, but as he glared at him, Jasper could see a twinge of sympathy in his eyes.
“Yes, sir.” He felt a tear fall down his cheek and brushed it away. He wouldn’t cry. No matter what happened, he wouldn’t cry. He looked down at the crop and then back to his uncle expectantly. He deserved everything Wayne got and then some.
His uncle followed his gaze. “Don’t you mind that. That there’s to make a lesson stick. Nothin’ more. Looks like you took care of that one yourself. Come ’ere. We got to get you cleaned up.” His uncle stood and scooped the boy up into his arms. The gesture filled Jasper with such a tidal wave of relief and humiliation he nearly started bawling. I won’t cry.
“I—I can walk,” Jasper whimpered and struggled to get down.
“Like hell.” His uncle pushed the barn door open with his shoulder. “Save your strength, boy. I promise you, when we’re done saltin’ those wounds, you’re gonna wish I’d whupped you instead.”
CHAPTER 33
Were you hospitalized?
Uncle Leo made good on his promise. He carried Jasper up to the cabin and set him on the kitchen table. Aunt Velma was at the stove.
“Oh, Mary Mother of God!” she gasped when she saw him come in. “Jasper! What were you thinkin’?”
Jasper didn’t answer. He just watched her put a large pot of water on the woodstove and stoke the fire. She grabbed the can of salt from the shelf and dumped half its contents in the water.
“What’s goin’ on?” Wayne asked from his bed.
“Jasper’s back, honey. You never mind that. Get up quick and go tend to the cows,” Velma said as she ripped a large cloth into rags and dumped them into the pot on the stove.
“Yes’m.” Jasper could hear Wayne thump out of bed and pull open drawers. A second later, he was at the boy’s side, staring at his legs. “Dang. You really did it, huh?”
Jasper couldn’t look him in the eye. “I’m—I’m so sorry, Wayne.”
“Hey.” Wayne socked him in the arm. The dull pain was a brief distraction from the horrible burning in his legs. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Wayne! Git!” Aunt Velma swatted at her son.
Wayne squeezed Jasper’s arm before leaving. “It’s gonna be alright, kid,” he said, as though he didn’t really believe it, and then pushed through the door.
“Leo, I’m gonna need you to wash up.” Velma was scrubbing her own hands in the washbasin with lye soap. Then she pulled one of the rags from the pot. “We’re gonna start easy, baby,” she cooed.
She began wiping the dirt and dried blood from his legs. The water felt warm and soothing at first. Jasper stared at the ceiling. He tried to count the nail heads in the boards to keep from squirming. Trickles of salt water seeped over his skin to the edges of his wounds, sending sparks of pain up his spine. He flinched despite his best efforts. I won’t cry.
After two rags were filled up with blood and hay, Uncle Leo’s face floated over him in front of the ceiling. “You’re gonna need to bite on this now, son.”
The word son distracted Jasper to the point where he barely noticed his uncle putting a leather belt between his teeth. It tasted like shoe polish. Jasper wanted to spit it out, but the look on his uncle’s face told him he better not.
“We’re gonna do this as quick as we can,” Leo said to Jasper. He then pinned the boy to the table with the trunk of his body.
Jasper thrashed in protest but couldn’t move under his uncle’s weight. His knee exploded in pain as Aunt Velma set about attacking the wound. In that terrible moment, Jasper lost all sense of himself and became something else. Something wild and inhuman, screaming and thrashing against the weight of his uncle. White lights flashed as he pounded his head back against the table. His teeth bit down on the belt hard enough to crack them all.
“Easy. Easy now,” his uncle said from a million miles away. “We gotta clean it out.”
“Bits of glass are lodged in there,” Velma said over the gagged screams. “I’m gonna need to get the brush.”
The pain eased up just enough for Jasper to stop thrashing. His uncle let him up and pressed a bottle of brown liquid to his lips. “Drink some of this, boy. It’ll help the pain.”
Jasper opened his clenched eyes, and the entire room pulsed. The liquid burned his mouth, and it was as though he’d forgotten how to swallow. His uncle thumped him on the back, and the hot stuff poured down his throat. It hit his stomach like a fireball and headed back up again. His uncle slapped a hand over his mouth, forcing him to swallow it again. His head began to spin.
“What’d you give him?” a muddled voice asked.
“Corn mash. Just a little.”
“Good Lord, Leo. That’ll make him sick.”
“You got a better idea?” Jasper could barely understand them. Their voices warped and wobbled.
It wasn’t quite clear what happened next.
Over an hour later, Jasper woke up, cold and trembling. A lump throbbed on the ba
ck of his head, and his right leg felt like it had been half eaten by a monster—a monster with steel nails for teeth. When his eyes managed to focus, he could see a bloody rag tied to his right knee. His left shin was slathered in some thick white paste. They weren’t legs anymore, they were meat. The whole room was stuck at a funny angle, like a giant had picked up the house and set it back down crooked. It took him several minutes to see he was lying in bed. He tried to sit up and groaned.
“You comin’ back to us?” Aunt Velma asked from the curtain that separated Wayne’s bed from the kitchen.
Jasper tried to say yes, but nothing but a garbled moan came out.
She came to his bedside and put a hand on his forehead. “You got a fever, baby. Cuts like that go septic real fast in a barn. You should’ve come to me right away.”
“I’m so sorry,” he tried to say but couldn’t be sure what words got out. The warmth of a gentle hand on his skin made it impossible to hold back the pain, and soon the room was shaking with his sobs. He wanted his mother.
Aunt Velma scooped him into her arms and held him as he cried. He bawled like a baby and didn’t even care. He wept until her shirt was drenched and he could almost breathe again. She didn’t let go even when he’d calmed down a bit. Her rocking back and forth was comforting and nauseating at the same time. He didn’t want her to stop but was certain he was going to throw up all the same. He groaned and lurched until she eased him back down to the pillow and placed a cool compress on his head.
After she left the room, Jasper fell in and out of nightmares as he lay there slowly going crazy. Blood dripped down the walls. The monster in the bus driver’s pants. Lucifer eating a rat. Mr. Hoyt laughing. The bed shifted like a feeble raft as the room tossed and turned. The blanket smothered his screaming skin. His entire body was a knee, a throbbing, pus-filled knee.
Eventually, a face resurfaced at the bedside. It was Uncle Leo. “We’re gonna get you dressed and head over to Dr. Whitebird. I got business out there anyway. Can you stand?”
Jasper tried to nod.
His uncle pulled him up until he was sitting on the edge of the bed. Jasper struggled not to vomit from the dizziness. Leo pulled a clean shirt over his head and looked the other way so Jasper could use the chamber pot. Getting pants on over his injured legs proved much harder, and they eventually settled on Wayne’s old summer short pants.
The cool air outside the cabin hit Jasper’s overheated skin hard enough to focus his eyes for a moment. His uncle helped him limp over to the truck, hobbling on his burnt leg, until Leo just gave up and carried him. Jasper didn’t have the strength to be embarrassed anymore.
Uncle Leo cranked the engine, and the boy leaned his throbbing head against the cold metal of the car door. He shut his eyes and didn’t open them again until the car had stopped moving.
“We’re here,” his uncle announced. “Black River Reservation.”
Jasper forced his head up so he could look out the windows. He expected to see tepees or wigwams like he’d seen in his book, but there was nothing but rows and rows of small cabins and a few scattered trailers. “What are those?”
“Forget what you’ve heard, boy. These are regular folks, just like us.”
Jasper nodded.
“Be polite to Dr. Whitebird, and whatever you do, don’t ask if he’s a real doctor. He gets real offended by that.” Uncle Leo opened his door. “He got his MD from Wayne State, and he’s the best damned doctor this side of Port Huron. Understand?”
His uncle got out of the car before Jasper could answer. The passenger door cranked open, and his uncle scooped him up and set him down a few strides later on a folding metal chair inside a small cinder block building. Then he rang the silver bell set on the card table opposite the entrance.
A minute later, a brown-skinned woman appeared through a blank door behind the table. She didn’t have a feather in her hair. Her long black braids were the only thing that looked Indian about her. She wore a simple dress almost identical to the one Aunt Velma had been wearing that morning.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
“Tell Dr. Whitebird Leonard Williams is here to see him. My nephew’s in need of some help.”
“Just a moment.”
Uncle Leo took the seat next to Jasper and put a hand as rough as sandpaper on the boy’s smoldering brow. He dropped it and shook his head. “You ever get the chance again to pick between a whuppin’ and some real-life punishment, what are you gonna pick?”
“A whuppin’, sir,” Jasper whispered. The room was starting to tilt under his chair. He shut his eyes and pressed the lump on the back of his head to the wall.
“Damn right.”
A door clicked open. “The doctor will see you now.”
“Come on.” Uncle Leo hauled Jasper off the chair and helped him through the door and down a narrow hallway to another room. Inside sat a hunting cot and a locked cabinet. His uncle laid Jasper out on the cot and leaned against the wall next to him.
A few minutes later, an older man appeared in the doorway. He was wearing a button-down shirt, a white coat, and a tie. A stethoscope hung around his neck. Jasper blinked at him with his fevered eyes. It took several minutes for him to confirm that Dr. Whitebird was actually an Indian. His long gray hair was tied back, and he had a tattoo of a bird on the back of the hand he extended to his uncle.
“It’s been a long time, Leo,” the doctor said as they shook hands. “How’s the family?”
“Been doin’ real well, thanks.”
“And who is this?” Dr. Whitebird asked, crouching down to look at Jasper.
“My nephew Jasper. He decided it’d be a good idea to knock over a lamp in the barn last night.”
“I see,” the doctor said, studying Jasper’s face. His deep brown eyes were kind, but they stared at him longer than anyone had ever bothered to look at him before. For an instant, Jasper panicked that they could see all his thoughts—even the bad ones he was afraid to think out loud. The doctor touched Jasper’s cheek, then peeked under his bandages. After this brief examination, he stood up. “Where are his parents?”
“Away,” Uncle Leo said in a tone that made clear he wouldn’t be answering more questions on the topic. “I’m his guardian at the moment.”
“Hmm,” the doctor grunted and contemplated this for a moment. “This boy needs a penicillin IV and a tetanus shot. How do you plan to pay?”
“I’m lookin’ to trade if I can.”
The doctor chuckled. “Now I know why you come here first. What do you have for trade? Corn? Wheat?”
“His mother gave him this before she left.”
Jasper sucked in a cry as his uncle pulled his mother’s necklace out of his jacket. The men pretended not to notice.
“I’m sure she’d do anything she could to help him now,” Uncle Leo added, handing the beaded pendant over to the man.
Dr. Whitebird took the necklace and studied it, turning it over and over in his hand. Finally, he said, “The boy must stay here for two nights at least. There is too much danger now for him to leave. If the infection spreads to the blood, he will be in the hands of the Great Spirit.”
“I understand,” Uncle Leo agreed and then looked down at Jasper, who was gaping up at him in tears. He grabbed his nephew by the chin and looked him hard in the eye. “He’s a strong boy, Doc. He’s gonna be fine. Aren’t you, son?”
Jasper clamped his trembling lips together and nodded.
CHAPTER 34
Do you believe it was your fault?
Uncle Leo held Jasper still so the doctor could put a needle in his arm. And then another. The pinpricks felt like nothing compared to the madness in his legs. Dr. Whitebird hung a glass jar of medicine over his head, connected to the spike in his arm. The nurse got Jasper a straw pillow and put a colorful blanket over him.
“Don’t mess with that line, boy,” his uncle warned him.
“Yes, sir,” Jasper whispered, trying not to look at the bloody bandage that he
ld in the needle.
“We’ll come check on you tomorrow.” Then Uncle Leo left him alone in the room.
A few minutes later, the nurse came back. It was the same woman from the front desk. “Drink this,” she said, lifting his head up with one hand and holding a warm mug to his lips. “It will cool the fever. You should try to sleep. Sleep will help the medicine.”
It was a bitter tea, but Jasper did what he was told. The warm liquid hit his queasy stomach and immediately calmed it downs then spread to his arms and legs, quieting the chills in his bones. It was such a relief he couldn’t form the words to thank her. Jasper was out before she left the room.
Hours later, the sound of footsteps pulled his eyelids open. He squinted in the darkness of the room, unsure what had woken him. He didn’t know where he was. There was no window or clock. The tug of the line in his arm reminded him he was lying on a cot at the Black River Reservation. The pain in his knee was still there but had been muted. Maybe it was getting better. It might even be normal again someday. He lowered his head back to the pillow and let his eyes close.
“Jasper,” a voice whispered next to him.
He sat up with a jolt.
“Relax, honey. Lay down.” The voice was startlingly familiar.
He strained to see in the dark. “Mom? Mom, is that you?”
A warm hand reached out and cupped his cheek. “Shh! Lay down, sweetie. You’re hurt.”
He slowly lowered his head back to the pillow. Her hand moved from his cheek to his forehead.
“Your fever’s coming down. That’s real good. You’re gonna be fine.” Her voice trembled with tears. “You’re gonna be just fine.”
It hurt to hear her crying. It hurt to hear her voice. He started crying too. “Where did you go? Why? Why did you leave me?”
“Shh, baby . . . I’m so sorry. I had to leave. I had to . . . but you shouldn’t worry about that now. You need to get better.”
“But—the apartment. I thought someone might’ve . . .” He felt himself growing more and more hysterical. Her car. Detective Russo. The blood on the wall. The diary. He fought to lift his fevered head back up. “What’d he do to you?”