by Alex Bledsoe
Bliss smiled. The authority of a leader was replaced with a sisterly affection. “They just didn’t know the right song.”
9
Bliss’s headlights raked across the bedroom window as she backed from the yard, turned, and drove away. Bronwyn wondered if the visit had even awakened Deacon, Chloe, or Aiden. There was etiquette involved when one First Daughter visited another on official business, but this seemed more clandestine: not secret exactly, but certainly discreet. If Chloe was marked, if Bronwyn really did need to take her place soon, then the less fuss, the better for the community at large.
Mom …
Bronwyn had a sudden, vivid image of her mother in a coffin, her face still and pale, her dark hair arranged around her shoulders. This merged with a flash of memory, of Steve Caffaro sprawled on the sand beside her, eyes open but sightless. Then came the blow that crushed her like a swatter coming down on a fly as yet another IED went off nearby.
“Private Hyatt … Private Hyatt…”
She opened her eyes. Had she been asleep? Someone had turned off the light, and the room was black. She felt a shiver along the back of her neck as the situation’s reality set in. The voice could be only one thing. Her haint, a genuine ghost, was calling for her from the darkness outside. Apparently it was just waiting its turn.
This wouldn’t be the first haint she’d encountered. When she was nine, she’d spotted one walking slowly along the curve of County Highway B. It had been just after midnight, and she was returning home with a pillowcase full of bullfrogs. The haint resembled an old man, and hummed to himself as he shuffled along. His footsteps made no sound as he scuffed across the gravel toward her, and he vanished in the headlight beams of her father’s truck as he arrived to pick her up. She’d gotten six swats from Deacon’s belt that night, which took priority over the haint. So she’d never told anyone except Dwayne about it.
She’d seen another haint, a little girl this time, when she was thirteen and stumbling drunkenly along the tractor path between her father’s land and the Hamilton farm. And she thought a third encounter was a haint, but it turned out to be simply wild child Curnen Overbay, Bliss’s forest-roaming, possibly retarded sister.
But this was the first one that called her name, in a voice so soft, she wasn’t sure at first it was even more than the wind. It was the first one specifically haunting her. And it was creepier than she ever imagined.
She rolled onto her side as much as her shattered leg allowed and peered past the American flag curtain. A shape materialized out of the darkness, lighter than the surrounding night. She swallowed hard as it resolved into a young woman in desert combat fatigues, with strands of dark hair dangling from under her helmet. Her left side was missing a basketball-sized chunk of flesh, leaving a jagged gap from the top of her hip to her rib cage. The edge was black with blood.
Bronwyn swallowed hard. “Not now,” she whispered.
“Private Hyatt…,” the haint repeated.
She drew courage from the blue glass on the windowsill. Still soft, but more firmly, she said, “Soon. But not now.”
The haint tilted its head and silently, expectantly gazed at Bronwyn. It was hard to look directly at it; when Bronwyn focused on any specific part, like the face or the gaping injury, the details went fuzzy. It was like something glimpsed in the corner of your eye that vanishes when you turn toward it. Then it seemed to both back away and fade until the shadows reabsorbed it. In moments it was completely gone.
Bronwyn rolled onto her back and sighed. She was sweating, the chill kind that comes after a narrowly avoided disaster. There was a tingle in her throat that, for a moment, seemed about to develop into a sob. But like the haint, it too faded into nothingness.
Still, there would be no sleeping anytime soon. She turned on the lamp and laboriously used her crutch to drag the mailbag to her bedside. She took a handful of cards and letters and put them on her stomach.
The first one said, We hope and pray for your swift recovery. God bless you for your service to our country.
The second one said, Without people like you, the ragheads would have struck us again. I think you deserve a medal for every one of those bastards you sent to hell. Stay strong, and keep the faith.
The third said, You’re no more a “hero” than my fucking dog. You’re a pawn being used by the right wing to pander to its illiterate, TV-sucking constituents. Between you, American Idol, and global warming, we’ve proved without a doubt that the human race is worthless. The letter was signed, A global citizen.
Bronwyn stared at this one, trying to decide how she felt about it. It should piss her off; these were the cowards who didn’t know they were cowards, people who didn’t understand the need to meet violence with violence. She’d joined her fellow soldiers in mocking them, and truly felt they were as big a danger as those wild-eyed grunts who craved the experience of killing another human being.
Something Bliss once told her came back vividly. They’d been seated on the edge of a cliff looking down over the valley, their bare feet dangling in the breeze. Bronwyn had been maybe ten. “There is no sanctity of life,” Bliss told the younger girl. “There’s always something that has to kill something else, either to eat it or to protect itself from it. And even with people, there’s some that just need killing. I remember a fella named Ardis, who used to live down by Trebbel Creek. He was the meanest fella anyone ever knew.”
“Meaner than Rockhouse Hicks?” Bronwyn had asked. Even among the children, the old man was notorious for his vindictive cruelty.
“Honey, he made Rockhouse look like a dang pussycat. But Ardis was Tufa, he had his song, and we put up with him as long as we could. But finally…”
“What’d he do?”
“Beat a fella’s dog to death. Tied the dog’s paws and beat it to death with a baseball bat. Started with the back legs and worked his way up so the dog would suffer the most.”
“Why?”
“The owner accidentally cut him off on the highway. So Ardis followed him home, stole his dog, beat it to death, and left it back on his driveway.”
Bronwyn was silent for a long time.
“You should feel bad hearing that,” Bliss finally said. “Just because we’re Tufa and can ride the night wind doesn’t make us above the rules of right and wrong. Ardis thought it did, thought that we’d protect him.”
“We didn’t? I mean, you didn’t? They didn’t?”
“‘We’ is always right. No, we didn’t. A man who’ll kill an animal that way will eventually move on up to people if he’s not stopped. The legal system says you have to wait until after the crime to remove them from society, but we have our own rules, and our own ways of dealing with things. He showed up at the barn dance to play, and no one stayed to listen. The next day he was found right there.” She pointed down, where the cliff ended eighty feet below at the tops of the trees. From this height, the highway resembled a gray ribbon.
“Wow,” Bronwyn said, imaging the impact as the body crashed through the tree limbs before striking ground she knew was rock hard. “So he killed himself?”
“Our songs are important,” Bliss said. “We have to know them. We have to sing them. And someone has to listen. That’s why we meet and play, that’s why Rockhouse’s people meet and play.”
“But he did kill himself?” she persisted.
Bliss looked into the girl’s eyes. “He needed killing, Bronwyn. Whether he did it to himself or someone else did it, the result was the same.”
Now Bronwyn recalled that conversation in a whole new light. Had Bliss confessed to murder? Had she personally shoved Ardis the dog-killer off the cliff? And ultimately, was she right? Hadn’t Bronwyn been trained to kill, quickly and efficiently, anyone her superior officers said “needed killing”? Bliss had at least made the determination herself; Bronwyn simply followed orders.
She put the letter aside and picked up another. It read simply, Get well soon. The Davis Family: Bill, Suzy, Brittany, and Joshua.
Her laptop was still packed away. She hadn’t checked her e-mail in three days, since leaving the base for the flight home. Would it now be full of similar greetings? She’d learned in the hospital that Web sites devoted to her, or rather to the media’s image of her, had sprung up like mushrooms after a summer rain. She’d deliberately avoided them; did these people not have lives?
She considered trying to get to the refrigerator for a beer to help her relax. She’d been sneaking beer out of that same fridge since she was twelve, and climbing out the window through which she’d spied the haint for almost as long. Lying in a drugged stupor in the hospital, she’d wished for this room with almost feral ferocity, but now that she was here, all the feelings that drove her away from it had returned. She felt more trapped than ever before.
She wanted a drink. She wanted to kiss a boy. She wanted that boy to put his hands all over her. She wanted to drive like a maniac, and pick fights with other boys’ girlfriends, and with other boys. She wanted to spray-paint something rude on the water tower in nearby Mallard Creek.
Instead, she was on her ass in bed, her leg assimilated by the Borg and her head numb and fuzzy. The Bronwynator had left the building.
She yawned. Now she was tired, after all those deep thoughts. She pushed the envelopes and cards aside and turned off the lamp. The sense of foreign objects under her skin was so palpable, she could barely stand it, so she closed her eyes and began whisper-singing one of the oldest songs she knew, something that always gave her comfort. She was so weary, she did not realize that this was the first whole song she’d been able to recall since her injuries. She just knew it felt wonderful to sing it.
Oh, time makes men grow sad
And rivers change their ways
But the night wind and her riders
Will ever stay the same.…
The transition from song to dream passed without notice. Unlike her recent nightmares, in this reverie she reclined naked on soft grass, the night air warm and humid, the silver full moon overhead. Her skin was smooth and bore no injuries, no scars. In the dream she began to cry with happiness.
10
Deacon eased the tractor along the rows of knee-high corn. Dirt stirred by his passage sparkled in the morning sunlight.
He’d been up since before dawn, unable to really sleep. He’d heard the front door open, the creak of passage across the floor, and the distinctive squeak of Bronwyn’s bedroom door. He had a good idea who had come to visit, and why. At least this time it hadn’t been that damned Gitterman boy, but the knowledge did not help him relax.
He wiped his sweaty face with the back of his arm. The day was starting out muggy, so even though the temperature was pleasant he still dripped with perspiration. It wasn’t hard to farm in the valley, and this field was small but blessedly flat. All he had to do was keep the dirt turned, hum the right tune, and everything came up easy. They’d have enough corn for the family, and a little to sell besides.
Over the tractor’s rumble he heard a sharp whistle. He looked around, saw the source, and froze. He reached under the seat for the .22 revolver he kept handy to chase off rabbits and starlings and tucked it into the waistband of his jeans.
He left the tractor idling as he hopped down, feeling the impact in his knees and lower back. He strode across the field to the barbed wire fence, where Dwayne Gitterman stood leaning on a post. His truck was parked in the middle of the road behind him. He looked like he’d been up all night, with red eyes and a beer-stained shirt. Dwayne grinned and said, “Hey there, Mr. Hyatt. How’s the corn coming? Keeping the horseweed under control?”
“What do you want, Dwayne?”
Dwayne put one foot on the lowest strand of wire and lifted himself off the ground, using the pole for balance. “I was driving by, and when I saw you, I thought I might come by tonight and see Bronwyn.”
“Hm. When I saw you, I thought I might shoot you and bury you where nobody would find you.”
“Now that’s fucking harsh, Mr. Hyatt. I never did nothing bad to you or your daughter.”
“And you never done nothing good for anyone else in your life. Get outta here, Dwayne. If you come to the house, I won’t have to shoot you. Bronwyn’ll have your balls for paperweights before you get to the porch. And not a soul will miss you.”
“Well, I might still do it. I’m only a frog’s-hair less pure-blooded than you, you know, so I expect y’all to be civil.” He hopped down off the fence. “You might come outside sometime when I’m squirrel hunting and catch a stray bullet, you never know. Be a real tragedy. My conscience would never get over it.”
“I might mention you threatenin’ me to old Trooper Bob Pafford. He’s still got an eye out for you, and he’d love the chance to pull you over.”
“That asshole don’t scare me,” Dwayne said. “And he could never catch me.”
Deacon met Dwayne’s eyes. He was silent for a long moment, then said softly, “Do you want me to sing about you at the barn dance, Dwayne? Want me to come up with your dirge? Because if that’s what it takes to get Bronwyn shed of you, I’ll do it.”
Dwayne’s cocky grin slipped a little. “You be overreacting a little, Mr. Hyatt,” he drawled.
“No, you be taking up too much of my time. Go back to your hole and bother somebody else. You come anywhere around here again, it’ll be my trigger finger that slips before I can stop myself. And your dirge might get a thimbleful of tears out of the whole valley.”
* * *
Aunt Raby’s attic smelled like she did: a musty, abandoned accumulation of decades sticking around for reasons unknown even to her. The boxes stacked along the walls and at the eaves were unmarked, and bore the logos of defunct produce companies and other products that no longer existed. Don banged his head on the beam running down the center of the peaked roof and muttered, “Shit!”
“What was that?” Aunt Raby’s trembling voice called. She waited at the bottom of the rickety ladder, propped on her upstairs walker.
“Nothing, Aunt Raby.” He shone the flashlight around until he saw the box she’d mentioned, then crawled on his hands and knees to it. Dust puffed when he opened the flaps.
Inside the box were the contents of an old writing desk: innumerable pens, small white envelopes, and blank reply cards with faded images of birds and flowers. But beneath them, at the bottom of the box, he found the Swayback family Bible.
It was a large book, nearly two feet square and over six inches thick, with a heavy purple bookmark ribbon attached to the spine. The page edges were gilded, except near the top corner where it was worn away by decades of turning. He tucked the book under his arm and backed his way down the ladder.
When he’d brushed the dust from his jeans and washed his hands, he put the big book on Aunt Raby’s kitchen table and opened the cover. The first half-dozen pages were listings of family births, deaths, and marriages. It was somehow touching, he thought, that no consideration was given to possible divorce and remarriages. He scanned the listings, which began in 1803, until he found Forrest Swayback.
The date was June 11, 1912. On that long-ago day, Forrest Leon Swayback had been joined in holy matrimony with Bengenaria Oswald. Their three children, including Don’s own father, were listed under that. Don followed the line to the date of his own birth, in July of 1972.
Aunt Raby put one gnarled hand on his back. “Did you find what you’re looking for, honey?”
“I did, Aunt Raby. Did you ever know Grandma Benji?”
“I sure did. She was one of them Needsville Tufas, you know.”
“I know.”
“She could sing like the voice of heaven, that’s a pure fact. Only she wouldn’t sing a hymn to save her life. She’d sing country and western songs, even nigra songs, and of course those weird ol’ Tufa songs when she thought no one was listening. But she’d never praise the Lord, she sure wouldn’t.”
“Did you like her?”
“She was never nothing but kind to me. Sometimes it’
s a shame to think about someone that sweet burning in hell, but the Bible says it true, and she never accepted the Lord Jesus Christ that I know of. She and Grandpa Forrest got married by a judge over in Mississippi, even, because she wouldn’t have a church wedding.”
Don nodded, copied down the dates of her birth, death, and marriage, then took the bag of garden tomatoes Aunt Raby insisted on giving him. As he drove home, he thought about the phrase weird ol’ Tufa songs. He’d never heard a song that was specifically Tufa; he wondered idly what they sang about that was so weird.
* * *
Brownyn stood propped on her crutches at the end of the hall. She stared through the living room into the dining area; it was really a single big room divided by the edge of the rug separating the hardwood kitchen floor from the couches, chairs, and TV. So she had an unobstructed view of the strangest thing she’d seen in a while.
Her wheelchair was on the table upside down, its big wheels removed and propped against the kitchen counter. Deacon’s toolbox sat open on a chair. But Deacon wasn’t the one working. Instead a dark-haired boy, tall and lanky and instantly familiar, adjusted the ball bearing mechanism as he hummed to himself.
Her heart began to pound, and another, more basic response swelled within her. Dwayne. Suddenly she could barely stand, and it had nothing to do with her injured leg. She fell against the wall and dropped one crutch, which clattered against the floor.
The boy, startled, dropped the wrench in his hand and spun around. They stared at each other, mouths open, words frozen in their throats.
Finally Bronwyn managed to speak. “Don’t just stand there looking like a damn carp, Terry-Joe, get my crutch before I bust my ass here.”
Terry-Joe Gitterman rushed over and scooped the crutch from the floor. He tried to push it under her arm, but that only caused her to stumble into him, and he caught her around the waist as she fell. He grunted at her weight, which made her scowl and say, “It ain’t all me, you know, it’s this damn office building on my leg.”