Gather Her Round

by Alex Bledsoe

  The enormous wild hog, nine feet from snout to tail, snorted in surprise as he caught her scent. He stepped out of the woods onto the trail, between her and the way home.

  She knew wild hogs were dangerous, and this one seemed to be the size of a Volkswagen. Yellowing tusks curled out from the lower jaw, sliding against the upper whetters that honed their razor-sharp edges. It had high shoulders with ragged skin that had grown thick enough to stop most bullets before they reached anything vital, and bristly hair tapered along its backbone. Its eyes were small, black, and malevolent, set above a wet, flat nose that seemed as large as her own head.

  She looked wildly around for any place that might get her out of its reach, but there was nothing. None of the trees had branches low enough for her to grab.

  Panicked, she dropped her phone and ran for the chair-shaped boulder. If she could get atop it, she’d have a chance: the hog, even as large as it was, had hooves and couldn’t climb.

  She slammed into the rock so hard, the pennywhistle fell from her pocket. She didn’t notice.

  She raised one leg and tried desperately to find a foothold. The edge of her tennis shoe caught on a tiny outcropping, and she prepared to haul herself up.

  The hog’s tusks slashed upward at her other leg just above her knee, cutting through flesh, tendons, muscle, and her femoral artery. Then its mouth closed on her ankle.

  The pain was nothing compared to the irresistible strength that yanked her from the rock and tossed her to the side so hard, it separated the rounded top of her femur from its hip socket. The mouth crushed her lower leg bones, and as she lay on her back in shock, blood surging from the torn artery, she caught sight of a dozen smaller hogs emerging from the woods like a gang of junior high bullies supporting their leader.

  The last thing she felt was the hog’s hot breath, tinted with the coppery smell of her own blood, as it came for her head.

  * * *

  Duncan Gowen stared at his phone. It was unlike Kera to drop off in the middle of a text.

  He looked at her last words: WHY DON’T I

  At last he texted, WHY DON’T YOU WHAT?

  As he waited for a reply, he went to the refrigerator and got out the iced tea. He was at his parents’ house while they were at work; this was his day off from both Old Mr. Parrish’s farm and his weekend job as a barista at the convenience store in Unicorn, so he was particularly irked when Kera said she wasn’t available. Here he was all alone, the whole house to himself, especially the carpeted stairs that Kera loved to be bent over, as they’d discovered during a tryst back in high school. He’d even done fifty sit-ups and push-ups so his abs, which Kera liked to kiss her way down, would be good and tight.

  After he poured his glass, he looked at his phone. Still no reply, and no dots indicating she was typing.

  He took a drink and texted, ARE U THERE?

  Dots appeared. Then came the reply: DFSGSJDGHKK

  He texted, WTF?

  He had no way of knowing that a hog had stepped on the discarded phone as it carried away a hunk of Kera’s flesh.

  * * *

  Later that day, Duncan stopped at the Fast Grab convenience store in Needsville. It was nothing like the relatively upscale Traveler’s Friend he worked at in Unicorn: there the crew wore uniforms with their names on their visors, and corporate sent a representative around every six months to put them through a customer-relations refresher. Here, though, the Fast Grab clerks got loud polyester shirts that were probably trendy around the same time as disco, and nobody got a name badge until they’d passed their first month.

  Lassa Gwinn had her name badge. She’d been working here for six years now, through two pregnancies and a divorce. She knew everyone in the county, and remembered anyone traveling through who stopped more than once. She was three-quarters Tufa, part of Duncan’s group, and his third cousin.

  Now she looked up at him and said, “What’s the matter with you?”

  He put the bag of chips and bottle of Mountain Dew on the counter and said, “Who said anything was wrong?”

  “Well, for starters, you’re not drinking beer.”

  “It’s not even eleven o’clock in the morning yet.”

  “And you got that scowl on your face.”

  “What scowl?”

  “That frowny look you get when you’re worrying about a problem. You’ve gotten that since you were knee-high to a grown man’s ball sac. Did you lose your job over in Unicorn?”

  “What?”

  “’Cause if you did, there’s a part-time shift open here. Midnight to six A.M., three nights a week. And I hear that Cyrus Crow and his NY boyfriend are reopening the café down at the Catamount Corner.”

  “I haven’t lost my job.”

  “Then what’s the frown for?”

  “You ain’t seen Kera come through here, have you?”

  “Kera Rogers?”

  “Have I got another girlfriend named Kera?”

  “She’s your girlfriend? I knew you two went out some, but I didn’t think you’d made it exclusive. When did that happen?”

  He leaned across the counter and said through his teeth, “Have … you … seen her?”

  “Don’t get your drawers twisted around your nuts, Duncan. No, I ain’t seen her today. Why?”

  “We were texting each other this morning and she just dropped off in the middle of it.”

  “Where was she?”

  “She said she was out looking for a place to practice her pennywhistle. But I know that spot, and she ought to get a signal the whole way.”

  “Have you been out there to look for her?”

  “No,” he said like a pouty child.

  “Well, if you’re so worried, why not?” When he didn’t answer, Lassa said, “Oh, ’cause maybe you don’t want to know she ain’t there.”

  “Can you please ring these up before my Co’-Cola gets warm?”

  Lassa rang up the purchase and took his money. “If I see her, I’ll tell her you’re looking for her.”

  “Thanks,” he said, and went outside to his car, an old Altima with a cracked windshield. He cruised around, eating the chips, drinking the Mountain Dew, and trying not to dwell on his suspicions.

  Kera was out of his league, and he knew that, but he loved her anyway and tried not to let his paranoia get the best of him. Yet if she’d been texting from somewhere else and only pretending to be in the woods, that would explain the sudden loss of signal, if not that strange last text.

  Of course, if she’d butt-texted, especially as she was squirming out of her jeans …

  He glanced at his phone on the truck’s seat beside him. Still nothing.

  When he looked up, he stood on the brakes, rose in his seat, and locked his arms to hold the steering wheel steady as the truck screeched to a halt. A half-dozen wild pigs crossed the highway ahead of him. The noise from his tires made them scurry in all directions, and he waited until two that ran back the way they’d come finally went across and joined the others. The whole herd disappeared into the woods.

  Duncan tried to calm both his startled heart and his seething temper. He hated himself when he felt this way, helpless to his own emotions and desires. He wanted Kera so badly right now, mainly because the thought of her being with someone else—no, the thought of her wanting to be with someone else—was more than he could handle.

  And then he inevitably thought: Who could the other guy be? He began mentally listing all the boys she might be fucking at this moment.

  * * *

  Duncan sprawled naked on the couch at his apartment. It was a subdivided old house just off Main Street, and he had three neighbors: two single men who worked construction and were often gone, and a woman who was a secretary at the elementary school and had an eight-year-old son. For the most part, they all got along, since they all knew each other’s families, and they all ultimately answered to Junior Damo.

  He was half-asleep in the drowsy summer heat when his cell phone finally rang. It was
Kera’s landline number. “Where have you been?” he said, his voice thick.

  “I got up, took a shit, blew my nose, and started my day,” said a male voice he instantly recognized. “Where the hell have you been?”

  “Sorry, Mr. Rogers,” Duncan mumbled. “Thought you were somebody else.”

  “I hope so,” said Sam Rogers, Kera’s father. “Is Kera with you?”

  Duncan shook his head to clear it. Why was Kera’s dad calling him? He checked the clock on the cable box: 3:47 in the afternoon. “No, sir. I haven’t heard from her since this morning.”

  “Neither have her mother and I. She went out to practice her pennywhistle and ain’t come back.”

  He sat up. He was damp with sweat from the vinyl couch, and his skin peeled off it like the back of a sticker. “I don’t know where she is, either.”

  “It’s not like her to miss lunch, especially when she’s working this afternoon out at Doyle’s garage. You planning to gather her round from there this evening?”

  Duncan waved at a fly that, drawn to his sweat, tried to land on his face. “No, sir. Have you tried calling her?”

  Sam Rogers sighed the way parents do at the stupidity of the young. “No, son, that hadn’t occurred to me. Glad you’re here to remind me of these things. What did I ever do before you came along?”

  Sam had never really cared for Duncan, and Duncan knew it. Sam had been a trucker since he turned eighteen, and he felt the boy was too aimless for his daughter, whom he cherished. He’d even tried to fix Kera up with Whitey Crowder, who’d been born without his right arm, when she started dating Duncan. While Duncan had nothing against Whitey, it meant that Kera’s father preferred him to someone like Duncan, who had all his parts. That was humbling.

  Still, Sam wasn’t one of those men who kept his daughter locked away from life. He let Kera make her own mistakes, and was always there to wipe her tears and help her sort things out. So Duncan secretly worried that Sam was, deep down, right about him.

  “Sorry,” Duncan said, “I just … I was asleep.”

  “In the middle of the afternoon?”

  “It’s my day off,” he said defensively.

  “Huh. Must be nice. Well, if you hear from her, tell her to call home. Her mama’s worried, and it ain’t doing my blood pressure no good, either.”

  Sam ended the call, and Duncan stared at the phone. He almost screamed when it suddenly buzzed in his hand again.

  “Hey,” his friend Adam Procure said. “Is Kera with you?”

  “What?”

  “I just got a call from her dad, looking for her.”

  “Why would he call you?”

  “I think he’s calling everybody.”

  “No, she’s not with me. Have you seen her?”

  “Not in days.”

  “I talked to her this morning, but we got cut off.”

  “Do you think we should be worried?”

  “I dunno, man. I was asleep.”

  “In the middle of the afternoon?”

  “It’s my day off!” he repeated, more vehemently.

  “Whoa there, slick, calm down. I didn’t mean anything by it. When she turns up, let me know, okay?”

  “Yeah,” he said, and Adam disconnected. Duncan made himself get up, went into the bathroom, and started the shower. He left the water fairly cold, so it would wake him quickly.

  For the first time today, he wasn’t annoyed or pissed off. Now he was a little scared.

  3

  It was late afternoon by the time Duncan got ready to go look for Kera. Following his shower, he’d started drinking beer to calm his nerves after talking to Sam and Adam. Then he’d stopped, realizing things might be serious, and was now halfway between a sour-stomached buzz and a hangover. He was also in that middle ground between worry and anger. If something had happened to her, he was going to hate himself for waiting so long to go help; and if nothing had, he was going to be furious with her for yanking his, and everybody else’s, chain.

  And if he was angry, he knew just how she’d apologize. And that had him intensely aroused. So he was a miasma of conflicting feelings as he drove toward the last place she’d supposedly been.

  The Rogerses lived at the base of Dunwoody Mountain, along a winding gravel road. He stopped just before the turn to her house so hopefully Sam wouldn’t spot him; he could see the man’s trailer-less Peterbilt in the front yard, the truck’s chrome gleaming through a coating of road dust. He cut through the forest to reach the trail Kera would’ve taken to Recliner Rock.

  He was no woodsman or hunter, but almost at once he spotted a fresh track from a tennis shoe that looked about the right size, and was pointed in the right direction. He looked around, but there were no similar tracks coming back. So either she’d continued on the trail past Recliner Rock, or …

  He tried to recall where that trail finally came out. Was it behind Briar Hancock’s place, near the old gravel pit? Why would she go there, unless it was to meet someone else?

  His already iffy stomach began to churn. He walked as quickly as he could, wishing he felt well enough to run.

  He stopped again when he found the ground torn up along a good ten feet of trail. Something had come out of the trees, crossed the trail, and headed uphill into the forest. Again, he wasn’t experienced enough to recognize the tracks. They looked like hooves; were they deer? He’d never seen deer agitate the ground like this. This looked like something had rooted around in the dirt in search of something. He flashed back to the wild pigs he’d nearly run over. Could it have been the same herd?

  “Kera?” he called out. “Hey, Kera! You out here?”

  He stayed very still, listening for any movement. A bird trilled and insects hummed, but there was no human answer.

  He picked his way over the torn path, wishing he’d changed out of his new tennis shoes. Ahead, the trail grew wider, which meant he was close to Recliner Rock.

  “Kera!” he called again. “C’mon, answer me!”

  He stopped when he saw the first splash of red at the trail’s edge.

  It was a thick liquid, deep crimson and heavy, and its weight bent the grass where it oozed along the blades toward the tip. He touched it, his heart suddenly thundering in his ears with a mix of panic and horror. When he saw it on his fingertips, he knew immediately what it was.

  “Kera?” he called out again as he rushed forward. His voice trembled and grew high-pitched. “Kera!”

  He reached Recliner Rock and stopped dead. A waist-high smear of blood marked its surface. The unmistakable tracks of fingers ran through it, making parallel lines of red down to the ground, which was torn up even more, the mud and blood mixed as thoroughly as if they’d been through a blender.

  Duncan couldn’t breathe.

  “Kera?” he said, his voice barely getting out.

  And then, like that scene in Jaws when the police chief sees the shark eat the little boy, Duncan’s vision shifted until all he could see was the pennywhistle lying discarded on the ground.

  And then he knew Kera was gone.

  * * *

  Bliss Overbay, in her capacity as an EMT, draped a blanket around Duncan’s shoulders. He looked up from his seat on the Rogerses’ front steps and said numbly, “I’m not cold.”

  “I don’t want you going into shock,” Bliss said. She looked to be in her thirties, with the long black Tufa hair braided and bundled on her head. She was far more than what she appeared to be, but at that moment, what was needed was simply a compassionate paramedic. “It can happen even in the summer.”

  “Too late,” Duncan said. “I’m pretty fucking shocked.”

  “I know what you mean,” she said, and briefly touched his cheek. She was from the other group of Tufa, guided by a totally different leader, but she had broad responsibilities to the Tufa as a whole. “Let me know if you need anything else, okay? I can call your parents for you.”

  He closed his eyes, petty annoyance in his voice. “I’m a grown man, Bliss. Yo
u don’t have to call my folks. I live by myself, I work, I wipe my own ass.”

  “And you need somebody here with you,” she insisted gently.

  As if in response, old Quigley padded over and plopped down on his stomach at Duncan’s feet. “I’ve got somebody,” Duncan said. “See?”

  “Yes, but I don’t trust his judgment in a crisis. Is there someone else you’d rather I call?”

  He tried to think of someone, but no one came to mind. Certainly not his parents. He could call Adam, but he didn’t want his friend to see him so shattered. “No,” he said at last.

  “There you go, then.” Her walkie-talkie beeped, and she took it from her belt. “Overbay.”

  “Come on up here,” a male voice said. “We need you to take a look at something.”

  “On my way,” she said, and clicked off.

  Duncan looked up at her. “What did they find?”

  “You heard as much as I did.”

  He started to rise. “I’m coming with you.”

  She pressed him back down. “No, you’re not. I promise, I’ll tell you as soon as I know.”

  He swallowed hard. “If it’s her—”

  “Then I’ll tell you. Do you really want to see it?”

  He couldn’t meet her steady, no-nonsense gaze. “Okay,” he mumbled.

  Bliss tousled his hair the way she had when he’d been a boy, only a few years ago, and walked around the house.

  * * *

  Like many of the homes in Cloud County, the Rogers house was built on a hillside, with a small backyard that sloped sharply up to the tree line on Dunwoody Mountain. There were a birdbath and a little herb garden in the more level side yard, both kept neat.

  Standing apart from the house, arms around each other, were Kera’s parents. Sam and Brenda Rogers had their eyes closed; those unfamiliar with the Tufa might think they were praying, but as she got closer, Bliss heard their faint, light humming.

  Bliss walked over to Chloe Hyatt, who stood a respectful distance away, ready to help if needed. The Rogerses’ other two adult children, Spook and Harley, were on their way, but it would be hours until they arrived. A few years earlier, Chloe had lost her adult son, so she understood what they were feeling. She also knew that at the moment, she could contribute nothing but her sympathetic presence.