“What about calling the sheriff to get a dog here?”
“You are as dumb as you look.”
Arlene winced. How had she ended up joined to a man just like her daddy, after all those girl years she’d spent crying in her bedroom hating her daddy and swearing over and over and over, promising herself: Never. Never ever ever ever. Now. Here she was. And the girl. She’d run off just like Arlene had always wanted to run off. Smart girl. Brave girl. Give the girl that. She was smart. And brave. Smarter and braver than Arlene ever was. Arlene, who knew she herself could be as mean as a pit bull and as ugly as a rat with her ugly mean thoughts, shutting the door to the cellar on the poor girl when Arlene thought she was down there, just so Arlene could watch her game show in peace and teach the girl something. Teach her what? Teach her how to be mean as a pit bull and ugly as a rat? Arlene had wanted to stop herself from slamming and locking the cellar door, but she couldn’t; the mean part of her was too strong and it bullied the good part of her from acting the way Arlene knew in her heart she should act, the way God expected her to act. Just like it always did.
Many times in the past weeks she’d wanted, truth be told, to go down in the cellar and grab the girl and take off with her. Use the girl’s bravery for her own. Escape. Leave and never come back. But she’d been too scared. Of Lewis. And . . . And what? Scared she didn’t know what to do next. Where would she go? What would she do? She had no money. She had no one to turn to. No other family. No family at all. A mean man and a girl who wasn’t even her own blood, lucky for the girl.
And now that the girl was gone, Arlene hoped the girl’d get away for good. Arlene rooted for her. And if the girl did come back, if they found her, Arlene would never treat her so bad again. Never yell. Never hit. Never put her to bed hungry. Never lock her in rooms. In the cellar. Never let Lewis get after her again. Never. Never ever ever. She promised herself then and there, promised over and over again.
“What’re you mumbling on about over there? You even listening to me?” Lewis barked.
Arlene blinked.
“No sheriff,” Lewis said. The spittle on his chin made him look like a retarded dog, Arlene decided. A dog someone ought to shoot and put out of its own damned misery, or at least to spare others from its bite. Same look as her daddy always wore. And now she wished she’d run away. Oh Lord she wished. Her whole life was one long unfulfilled wish for running away to another life. Any other life. Some long-lost distant life and dream, over the rainbow.
Lewis slapped her face. “Earth to Arlene. No sheriff till we look and got a story if we don’t come up with her quick.”
“It’s so cold already,” Arlene said. “Poor thing. If we get the sheriff here and—”
“Poor thing. She’ll manage. Poor us.”
Lewis hoofed it to the edge of the overgrown yard. “Where you at?! Come on out. We ain’t mad,” hollered Lewis, who was always mad.
Arlene decided then that if she found the girl, she’d hide her. And if she didn’t find the girl . . . Well, she didn’t know. But she felt she might curl in a ball and die for all the wrongdoing she’d done the girl. And she needed to right it. If she could. Lord, give me the chance, she thought, and if we don’t find her, I’ll take a willow branch and lash myself bloody for you, and the girl.
Lewis stepped into the woods where the night shadows were long and deep. “You’ll eat your supper cold.”
Arlene sneaked in behind Lewis. I could take an axe, she thought, and strike him in the back of the head and he’d never know. It’d be done.
Lewis pushed deeper into the dark woods.
A branch whipped back and gashed Arlene’s face.
She shrieked.
“Lucky that’s all you get,” Lewis said.
Trees. Nothing but dark trees. And rocks. “We ain’t going to find her in this,” Arlene said. “Not if she don’t want to be found. We need to get help for her sake—”
“I’ll go see Aulden ’bout his dog. He’s killed a few bear behind that dog,” Lewis said.
“I’ll call him,” Arlene said.
“Leave me to it. You fucked up plenty already,” Lewis said and knocked her to the ground as he shoved past.
Arlene lay on the cold ground, not getting up.
Not daring.
Asleep or Awake
Jonah started awake in his chair. The cabin was so dark and cold he felt at first he was still a boy exiled to the back shed for peeing his bed. More and more he thought of those days: boyhood without a childhood. Here, in the dark, he might have been anyone, of any age, in any time. He might have been an animal. Or a bird. Or dead.
He felt his face.
No animal.
No bird.
Not dead.
Not yet.
He was relieved to no longer be that boy, but dismayed to still be the man whose first thought upon waking, as it had been for twenty-five years, was: Where are my wife and child?
Where’s the girl? a voice said.
The girl.
He’d forgotten her. He had dozed again, without realizing it. It seemed he could not remain awake.
He did not remember where he’d set the flashlight. His entire body ached, a dull humming throb of pain. He swam his hands in the dark, mole blind, navigated to where the lantern sat, its metal cold as the devil, his old, cold fingers hard-pressed to work its pump. He got a wooden match and struck it, gravedigger’s breath in the match glow. He worked the pump. The mantle pulsed with greenish light, whooped into a bright glowing orb.
He cupped his hands around the warm glass.
Better.
The girl. Where was she?
He wondered if he had dreamed her. No. He could hear her mumble in the dark beyond the lantern light’s arc.
He carried the lantern over. There. There she was.
Good.
Good.
She lay on the couch. The blanket had slid down off her; he pulled it up to her chin, then stoked the fire in the woodstove.
Fire lit, he gently rubbed the girl’s feet, cold even in his socks.
With her feet warmed and the woodstove heating the cabin, he killed the lantern and sat again in the dark, preparing in his mind to return her home.
The darkness and his exhaustion were so complete as the woodstove’s heat washed over him that he did not know if he was awake or asleep. Alive or dead.
Find Her
“You lost her?” Aulden said.
“She lost her,” said Lewis, glaring at Arlene.
They stood at the yard edge in the dark and cold.
“Hadn’t you better call the police?” Aulden said.
“Asshole sheriff’d probably just call you for your dog.”
Aulden’s redbone, Ms. Rose, whined at Aulden’s feet.
“I don’t know about this,” Aulden said.
“I know. I’ll pay you.”
“With what? Dirt?”
“What you want?”
“Don’t want anything.”
“Bullshit. We all want something. Name it.”
“Help building a new ice fishing shanty. A six-holer.”
“I can swing that.”
“You pay for the wood.”
“Wood and labor?”
The screen door swung open.
The two men looked up.
Arlene stood in the doorway, Coke bottle held by a pinkie finger shoved down the neck. No more beer. Never ever ever.
The girl’s likely froze to death, Arlene thought, and Lewis’s acting the ass. She finished her Coke and tossed the bottle into the woods.
“Wood and labor,” Aulden said.
“Christ. Fine.”
“You got anything with her scent on it?” Aulden said.
Lewis yanked something from his pocket, slapped it in Aulden’s hand.
“Got anything else?” Aulden said.
“It doesn’t get any more scent than that.”
Aulden put the soiled panties to Ms. Rose’s nose. “Find
her.” His nose wrinkled at the foulness of it all.
Vanished
Flashlight beams bobbed in the darkness, and tree branches jumped out at Lewis and Aulden as they searched, and Ms. Rose bayed.
Down ravines and across creeks, the two men scrambled, their breathing emphysemic as Ms. Rose was drawn on by a scent their human noses had long forgotten how to detect.
Lewis stopped. “Mutt’s nose better not be twisted.”
“Rose is less a mutt than you. She’s got papers.”
“How’d that girl’d get this far. What in hell got into her?” Lewis spouted.
“I wonder.”
Lewis slipped the tip of his tongue through the spaces where he ought to have had teeth but didn’t. “She’s run farther than a coon.”
Up ahead, Ms. Rose fell quiet.
“Let’s go!” Lewis bellowed.
They trudged on, the cold night air metallic with coming snow. The woods as dark as the other side of the moon save for the flashlight beams cutting swaths ahead.
They followed behind the light, as if the light knew where they were headed.
“Where’s that mutt? Call her!” Lewis squawked.
“Ms. Rose!” Aulden called.
Lewis crouched, flashlight tilted under his chin to cast his face into a ghoul’s mask. He picked up a twig and snapped it as if to trip a switch in his brain that would allow him to reason out a plan. No plan came. No reason, either.
Ms. Rose bawled in the distance.
They came upon Ms. Rose, each man sweating like a spooked horse. Ms. Rose paced, burrowing her nose into the leaves as if she were a truffle pig.
“Where is she?” Aulden said.
“Find her, damn you,” Lewis said.
“Don’t curse my dog.”
“Hand me them panties.”
Aulden handed them to Lewis, who pushed them into Ms. Rose’s snout. “Find her!”
Ms. Rose wagged her tail.
“Useless bitch!” Lewis said.
“Keep it up, I’ll knock out the rest of your teeth,” Aulden said.
“Well, how in hell can she have her scent then not have her scent?”
“Wait.” Aulden walked away, circling ever wider around Lewis, Ms. Rose in step. He swung his flashlight beam. Rocks and stumps jumped out from the darkness and were eaten again by it. Ms. Rose fell into a lazy walk beside him until they came back to where Lewis stood.
“It’s like the poor thing just vanished,” Aulden said.
“Poor thing?” Lewis said. “What about me? We don’t find her we lose four hundred a month.” He swept his flashlight round, frantic, but it did not make the girl appear.
Preparing
Dawn came. Brittle.
A patter on the tin roof like that of dancing mice. Sleet.
The girl squatted like a bush child on the corner of the couch, eyes locked on Jonah’s.
Those eyes. Sally’s eyes. He felt as if his heart would give out from looking at them, and from the pain he’d be unable to endure if he had to give up a sight he’d lived to see again for the past twenty-five years.
Drive her to town. Now. To the authorities and her family, the voice said. Bring her back. Right now.
No. He had to wash her first. Feed and clothe her. She was not an animal, some stray dog he’d found in the woods.
Her hunger and hygiene and nakedness be damned. Take her back now; wrap her in the blanket and take her back before it’s too late.
He looked at the girl gnawing the ends of her stringy hair as if trying to eat it. Her grimed, abused body. Hair caked with mud. No. He needed to tend to her first.
Liar.
And it was a lie. He did not need to, he wanted to care for her, consequences be damned. He did not want to give her up.
He wanted to keep her.
“You need to eat,” he said and seared salt pork in the cast-iron pan atop the woodstove.
Her eyes tracked him.
He brought the pork to her on waxed paper.
She sniffed, curled her lip.
He picked up a piece.
Took a bite.
“Mmmm,” he said. “Mmmm.”
A phantom smile haunted her face. But the girl would not eat. Her dark eyes slayed him with emotion he’d not known in ages. He wanted to hug her, pull her tight to him and comfort her. Protect her.
The voice said, Careful. She’s not yours. Get her home.
Her eyes seemed to examine each crevice of his weathered face, a look in them and a tilt to her head as though she were trying to conjure a memory.
He slid the pork toward her.
“Eat.”
She picked up a piece, nibbled it.
“There. See. Good.” He felt the long-dormant rush of parental pride.
She spat out the pork.
Sally didn’t like salt pork, either; she picked the smallest speck of it out of her baked beans.
“Not the best meal,” Jonah said. “Let’s get washed.”
The girl eyed him, mud-streaked face quizzical. Her hands crusted with dirt.
Outside, he filled a tin bucket of water at the spring, then brought it inside and warmed it on the woodstove, soaped up a ratty towel.
Sally loved to be bathed, even as an infant in that cheap little plastic tub Rebecca had received as a shower gift. When Rebecca squeezed water from a sponge onto Sally’s tummy, Sally had drummed her heels and pumped her fists, wriggled and gabbled, dark eyes gleeful, her face breaking into that wondrous toothless smile. “She’s babying out!” Rebecca would exclaim. “Our water baby!”
The girl scratched at her scalp. Jonah parted her hair with his fingers. Lice teemed, and red, raw sores polluted her pale scalp.
Jonah wiped at her face with the corner of the towel. A faint smile again passed on her face.
“Warm. Nice,” Jonah said. He placed the warm towel on the back of her hand. “We need to get you all nice and cleaned before we take you home.”
She shook her head with violence, as if to break her neck.
“Nice. Warm. Clean,” Jonah said. “Mommy and Daddy will say what a good girl you are.”
She shook her head again.
He handed her the towel. “You’re right, you can do it. You’re a big girl.”
She rubbed the towel all over her face, water running into her lap.
“Behind the ears. We don’t want potatoes growing back there,” Jonah said.
Her ephemeral smile glimmered. Paled.
“The neck,” he said. “Good. An old pro. I’ll leave you be.” He went out to the porch.
The cold mountain air was bracing, yet the sunshine filtering through a break in the clouds caressed his cheek with its warmth.
He closed his eyes and turned his face to the sun. Its heat drummed lightly on his eyelids. How unfathomable that the sun’s heat reached across ninety-three million miles to warm his face. Ninety-three million miles. How mystifying its life-giving heat. How impossible its very existence. How mad. How miraculous.
He listened to a raven’s clotted call. Listened to the melting snow drip on the wood steps. Breathed in the biting scent of spruce and hemlock. How was it people believed in heaven? What place could be more wondrous than here? For the first time in decades, he sensed wonder, felt a compulsion to translate what he felt into words. To write a poem.
A voice said: If the sun’s light and heat can reach across ninety-three million miles in eight minutes to warm your face, why can’t your daughter return to you from across twenty-five years? To be made flesh again.
He jolted as if he’d touched a live wire.
The voice was madness.
Yet the impossible and miraculous sunlight continued to reach across the universe to warm his face and light the earth, grant the world life.
He coughed, hacked up phlegm.
Red blood stained the white snow.
From far below in the beeches, the calamitous din of a revving engine rose.
An ATV.
&nb
sp; Jonah froze.
Listened. The ATV was down in the beeches. Where he’d found the girl.
Were they coming to search up here already?
I told you to take her to town straightaway, the voice said. They’ll never believe you were going to bring her back if they find you up here with her.
Panicked, he hurried inside.
The bucket was knocked over and the girl stood in a puddle of soapy water, sucking on the corner of the soaked towel.
The sound of the engine rose outside.
Jonah grabbed his rifle from the corner. Cocked the hammer.
The sound of the ATV died.
Whoever was driving the ATV would have to hoof it from there. It was no more than a half-hour hike, if one knew of the skein of a trail leading to the cabin.
“Stay here,” Jonah said to the girl.
She frowned.
“Stay,” Jonah said. “I’ll be right back.”
Her eyes shimmered, wet.
“Please,” he said.
Outside, Jonah sat in his old chair, rifle on his lap, and waited.
The sun was gone behind the clouds now.
Snow was falling.
The skin on his arms prickled.
The engine did not start again.
Whoever had driven up was still out there, somewhere.
He clutched the rifle tighter in his cold hands.
Sally
Jonah jarred awake, mind cobwebbed with memories and dreams. A pale ghost stood beside him, a slight luminescent hobgoblin with dark lost eyes.
Jonah’s mind ached as it lingered in the netherworld and he saw himself sitting at the edge of the pit with Lucinda, his arm around her, holding her as she sobbed; her father charging from behind to knock Jonah to the ground, beating on him as if he believed Jonah meant Lucinda harm. Then the image was gone. No, not gone. There, yet invisible, dust in a bar of sunshine vanishing with the drawing of the window shade.
A ghost hovered at his periphery.
What Remains of Her Page 12