by J. Thorn
Luke was afraid. He believed her, knew she did not lie. And if the girl—Claire—came back with others, with Men of the World, he knew it would mean the end of everything. And it would be his fault.
"What do I do, Momma?"
"Talk to Papa. He knows the townfolk. He'll know who owned that truck. Then you find 'em, and you'll find the girl. Once you do, take her heart and bring it back to me. Burn the rest. We'll share her meat, and save ourselves from Purgatory. But you ain't got much time to waste now. You best move."
Luke stood. But Momma's grip tightened around his hand. She tugged him close. The stench was overwhelming, and he shut his mouth, hoping she couldn't hear him gagging. "You find her, or we'll take what's left of your pizzle and eat it with grits for breakfast, you understand?"
He nodded, and held his breath until she released him. Then he turned and headed for the door. As his hand gripped the moist, grimy knob, her voice once more stopped him.
"Keep the skin," she demanded.
"What, Momma?"
"My boy. My Matthew. Tell your brothers to eat whatever needs eatin', to take what they need, but they need to keep the skin for me. Winter's comin' and I need all the heat I can get."
Though Luke couldn't imagine his mother ever being cold beneath the heaps of her own slippery rotting flesh, "Yes Momma," he said, and opened the door to the rain and smoke and the aroma of cooking meat.
-8-
There would be no prayer. Not yet. Momma-In-Bed had made it clear that there was not enough time to indulge in giving thanks, not when Hell itself might already be gathering on the horizon. He'd been with her for what had felt like hours, a long slow walk through the sluggish waters of unpleasant times. And because of that inner sense of more time lost than they could afford to lose, the sense of urgency increased. Every minute that passed him by was more distance between him and their quarry, and closing the distance between him and whatever Momma-in-Bed would do if the girl was not retrieved.
Luke ducked his head as he stepped off the porch into the gloaming. The fire cast reddish yellow light, the flames sizzling in the rain and casting shadows on his brother's faces as they looked at him, but he didn't spare them a glance before moving off toward the wood shed. Still, he found it harder to ignore the smacking of lips, the clicking of teeth, the greedy swallows, the tearing of meat from bones, and the murmurs of appreciation as they sat around the smoldering corpse of their brother. It was even harder to resist the smell the breeze carried to him before whipping it away into the trees behind him, where animals with dark eyes would pause and look up, curious but not nearly enough to follow the scent to its source. Even the carnivorous creatures that existed in the premature twilight beyond the trees—among them, the coyotes Momma-in-Bed feared so much—knew the small series of cabins in the woods were best avoided, for they had seen few of their fellow scavengers return from there, and so their curiosity abated quickly and they wandered on.
Luke was hungry, his stomach hollow and aching, and he was as eager as the rest of them to feed on the meat, to savor both the taste and the feeling of their dead brother's strength settling in his own body, Matt's unspoken thoughts, dreams, and ambitions, however simple, weaving themselves into his own brain. But the flesh would keep, he told himself, as he sighed and felt his worn boots sinking into the moist earth. He knew the importance of the task that lay ahead. If they failed this time, if the girl had already found her way to a haven they could not reach, then there would be more than the authorities to worry about. Momma-In-Bed had threatened him, but it had been merely a formality, and not a true promise. What she would do to him, maybe to all of them, if the girl was not returned, would be much worse than simply skinning his pizzle with a rusty knife. She loved him, as he loved her, but that would not be enough to save his life if he didn't make things right, no more than it had saved poor Susanna when she'd defied them.
Teeth clenched to force back the emotions that always tried to insinuate their way into the forefront of his mind whenever he remembered his lost sister, Luke climbed the small rise where the bare earth narrowed to a single trail that wound unsteadily through a short stretch of wild untended grass. The woodshed was narrow, and old, the wood bleached by the sun so it was a mottled white, with patches of gray. In the rapidly fading light, it looked leprous, with yellow light around the edges. The door bent outward at the bottom like a well-turned page, and as he approached, that splintered corner scraped dirt and the door swung wide with a sound like rocks tumbling down a hollow pipe.
Luke stopped in his tracks.
Though not a large man, Papa-In-Gray cut an imposing figure. In daylight, his skin was the same shade as the door that was now swinging away from him. In town, he was respected, but it was respect borne of fear. At home, among his kin, things were not much different. Now, in the gloom, beneath his angular, inverted triangle of a face, the chin topped with a peppering of silver stubble, Papa wore a dirty brown apron, which Luke himself had made for him from the skin of one of the men they had caught the summer before. Strands of blue nylon rope had been looped through holes at the top corners of the apron, the holes ringed by steel washers to stop the rope from sawing through, keeping the rough rectangle in place, and also, as was the case now, to conceal the wearer's nakedness.
Grim-faced, Papa raised his right hand. In it, he held the head of one of the youths—the one the girl had called 'Stu', which the family had found amusing since they figured this was most likely going to be the way he ended up. His blonde hair, though matted with filth now, still managed to retain a healthy look death had denied the rest of his body. The tanned handsome face of which Luke had found himself mildly envious, was no longer so handsome, slackened now by the pain that had ushered it into death. The eyes were closed, pale brows arched, the thick-lipped mouth open slightly, as if starting a sentence that would forever remain unspoken. Papa-in-Gray very rarely did a sloppy job with the carcasses and this one was no different. The machete had made a good straight cut through the boy's neck, and no bone or flesh protruded from the wound.
"A good'un," Papa said now, in his gravelly voice. "Who took the girl?"
Luke couldn't meet his gaze as he spoke, so instead he stared at the ground. "Big red truck came and picked 'er off the road. Two niggers—one old, one young it looked like. They made off with her. Headin' east."
Behind his father, Luke glimpsed the rest of the boy's naked body, splayed out on the worktable in the shed underneath a single bare light bulb. His hands and feet were gone, and his chest had been opened and excavated, the organs collected in a rusty bucket on the floor. As Luke tried to get a better look, Papa surprised him by tossing the severed head in his direction. Caught off guard, it hit Luke in the chest and he was knocked back a step. With a grunt, he staggered, feet splayed, and quickly righted himself, grabbing with his crooked fingers a handful of the boy's hair just seconds before it hit the ground, a development he knew would not have impressed his father.
As if anything ever would.
Exhaling heavily, Luke straightened and clutched the head to his chest. Papa-in-Gray nodded, but it was not a gesture of satisfaction, rather confirmation that his disdain for Luke was justified, and no one would ever convince him otherwise.
"Take it," the old man said, wiping bloodstained hands on the apron. The flesh seemed to soak it in. "We're bringin' it with us. Tell the others to get themselves a piece of those kids each'n load 'em up."
Though Luke wasn't sure why they were bringing along pieces of the dead kids, he knew better than to question Papa's instructions.
"All right," he said, and waited.
"Tell Aaron bring the truck 'round, and make sure all you boys got yer knives." He looked over Luke's shoulder. "Get movin'."
Luke started to say something, but Papa turned his back on him, and in two short steps was back inside the shed, the door swinging shut behind him.
As he stood there, the rain still pattering on his shoulders, the severed head gripped f
irmly by its hair, Luke felt overcome by bitterness toward the old man, who, ever since that day in the clearing with Susanna, had shown no affection, or respect toward him, not even a little. Worse, the old bastard had never once sat him down to explain why he'd done what he'd done to his sister, why they couldn't have just let her go, or maybe tried to talk some sense into her. No, he'd left that task to Momma-in-Bed, and he suspected, at the back of his mind, that all she'd done was make excuses because she wasn't rightly sure herself, no matter what she'd said about the poison in his seed. Neither one of his parents had grieved for her.
Luke turned away, and looked from the head to the semicircle of bodies huddled around the fire—his brothers, still eating, Matt's skin draped like an animal hide across a battered old workhorse between them and the four ramshackle sheds they used for the Men of the World. Luke hadn't given them the order to keep the skin for Momma. They had known, most likely because one or more of them had been listening at the window when Momma said it, and they'd worked quickly. For one brief moment, a flame ignited inside him, hot enough to make tears of shame and hurt blur his vision. He imagined them crouched down beneath that dirt-smeared glass, their heads bowed as they listened to the story of cold-blooded murder, his part in it, and the warning he was given. They would have heard the fear in his voice that only surfaced when Momma or Papa threatened him. They would have heard it all, and hurried to deny him the one command he could use to reinstate his authority over them. Then they'd watched him—he had felt their stares on his back as sure as the rain—through the smoke and heat from their meal, as he'd picked his way toward Papa's shed. And they would have known he would find even less warmth up there, a fact confirmed by their father's sudden tossing of the severed head, done, Luke guessed, to entertain his other, more faithful sons. In fumbling it, Luke had given them all exactly what they'd wanted.
As he approached them now, he forced a crooked smile. They looked up expectantly, blood and fat smeared across their faces.
"You been cryin'?" Aaron asked tonelessly.
Luke shook his head. Not crying, he wanted to say. Just 'memberin' how much I hate that kin-killin' son of a bitch. But he would never say such a thing, no matter how true it might be. To say it aloud would be to condemn himself, for he had no doubt that as soon as the words left his mouth, Papa would hear them. And a blade would cut those words in the same swing that took Luke's head off at the shoulders. His brothers would mourn him without weeping, devour his flesh without hesitation, and promptly forget he'd ever existed, like they seem to have done with Susanna and now Matt, their gentle brother, who would be remembered only for today, and only when the taste of him rolled back up their throats. So instead he took a deep breath, watched as Joshua and Isaac stared curiously at the head in their brother's hands, and delivered the instructions his father had given to him.
Immediately the boys moved into action, scrambling toward the sheds, propelled by the excitement of another hunt so soon, leaving Luke alone to stare at the gnawed remains of his brother, the smoke burning his eyes, the smell taunting his belly.
To anyone watching, the small shake of his head would appear to be a gesture of sympathy, or regret.
But it was none of these things.
It was anger, pain.
And envy.
*
"Pa?"
The old man sat in a chair by the fire, chin on his chest as if asleep, but his eyes were open and watching the door, one hand on the stock of the rifle he'd set across his lap, the other on the neck of a bottle of rye whiskey.
Pete, right ear still ringing from the blow his father had dealt him when he'd caught the boy looking in the injured girl's window, wasn't sure if he should head upstairs to bed, apologize again, or just keep his mouth shut. But he wanted to hear his Pa speak, because since they'd come home, the old man hadn't said a word. This in itself was nothing unusual, but something about the silence tonight was different. It unnerved Pete, thrummed through his stomach until he thought he was going to be sick. Even the crickets and bullfrogs seemed to sing with less enthusiasm, the birds sounding tired and wary, as if eager to warn the old man and his boy of something bearing down on them, but unable to find a song they would understand. Night had come fast too, the unseen sun sinking down behind the trees at the edge of the property, sending out a low cold and steady breeze like a ripple after a rock has been dropped in a pond. Quietly, Pete moved to the table and took a seat, his arms folded on the chipped wood among the remains of a hastily thrown together rice and corn dinner, which Pete had cooked, and had seemed to have been alone in enjoying. From here he had a clear view of his father, whose sharp profile was silhouetted by the flickering flames, but should the old man erupt into a sudden violent rage, the table was between them, and would afford the boy protection, however briefly.
"Pa?"
Slowly, so slowly Pete imagined his neck should have creaked like an old door, his father turned his head to look at him. His eyes were like smoked glass, a cold fire flickering beyond them.
"You hush up now," Pa said. "Need to listen."
"For what?"
His father sighed, but didn't reply, then went back to looking at the door with such intensity that Pete found himself checking it himself for something he might have missed all these years—a word, maybe, or a carving or engraving, something that might justify his father's scrutiny.
"You scared'a somethin'?" he asked then after giving up on the door and focusing instead on his father's taut, aged face.
He didn't understand a whole lot about his old man, but figured himself a pretty good judge when it came to moods. Anger was the easiest one of course, given that it was, more often than not, a whole lot of blustering, heavy breathing and cussing, followed by a couple of open-handed smacks across the head if the fault was Pete's, and a couple of kicks in the ass if it wasn't. Sorrow was a tougher one, but over the years Pete had learned to recognize that too. He reckoned his Pa had never really gotten over Louise—who Pete considered his second Ma—leaving him, and the boy thought he understood that. Sometimes late at night when he lay in bed, Pete would watch the stars, untainted by city light and sparkling like shattered glass in the moonlight, and go over the constellations in his mind, summoning the memory of her, imagining her there beside him, listing off all the names. Sometimes he imagined so hard he could almost feel her there, could smell that scent which had always brought to mind images of spring flowers and clean laundry as she sat next to him on the bed, her fingers stroking his hair, her other hand on his wrist. There's Cassiopeia, she would whisper in his ear, looks just like a double-u, see it? And there's Orion, and those three stars right there, that's his belt. Up'n the corner, see that one look's red? And he would nod and wait for an answer that wasn't coming, because she hadn't stayed around long enough to offer it, and so there his imagination would falter and the loneliness would rush in like cold water through holes in a sinking ship. But there were always dreams, and in dreams she never left him, was still here cooking mouth-watering food for them, singing with that beautiful voice of hers, and messing around with Pa, who would scowl and look irritated but only because he was struggling not to smile.
It had been a long time since Pete had seen his Pa smile about anything, and he often wondered how much of that was his fault. He knew because he wasn't all that smart, he wasn't likely to ever get the kind of job that could give his Pa and him a better life. He wasn't ever going to be mayor or President or an astronaut like his second Ma had told him he could. She'd said he could be anything he wanted, just like she aimed someday to be a famous singer, but he knew that wasn't true now, and Pa knew it too, even said as much when he'd had a few days drinking under his belt and didn't seem to know what he was saying, or that he was saying it out loud. Coulda been somethin' boy. Coulda been a real man, but you ain't never gonna amount to nothin' more than a farmboy with cowshit on your shoes and straw in your head, standin' at that door waitin for somethin' better to come along that ain't ne
ver comin'. Not for you, boy, and sure as hell not for me. Pete would listen carefully to his father's words, and feel the pain that came with them, but told himself Pa was only saying those things out of disappointment and anger, and because it was better to throw mean words at the boy than at his own reflection in the mirror. Pa had wanted a better life too, but as soon as second Ma walked out, bound for Detroit with some man Pete had only seen once, and that by accident, the old man had given up hoping for a future. He had given up, period. The woman he'd loved had left him here with a son that wasn't of his own blood, a dying farm, and plenty of time to sit and drink and wonder why she'd given up on them.
"I reckon I am," his father said, in such a low voice that Pete had to strain to hear it, and even then he had to struggle to remember the question his father was answering. His thoughts had set him adrift from their conversation and now he had to search quickly for the thread. He found it as he watched the old man raise the bottle of whiskey and study the remaining dregs.
Pa was afraid, and as it was a state Pete seldom, if ever, saw in him, it had the effect of galvanizing his own discomfort. He stood, shoving the chair back with his knees, and came around the table to stand beside his father. "What's wrong?" he asked.
The old man lowered the bottle, but kept his eyes on it as he spoke. "I don't reckon I did much of a job by you," he said. "Don't reckon I could even if I tried. My own Pa wasn't much of a man neither, and never treated me right, though I don't expect that's much of an excuse."
Hearing his father talk of such things disturbed Pete more than the odd silence and the sudden sense that their house had shrunk around them, but he shrugged and forced a smile.
"S'okay, Pa. Don't nobody know the right way to do everythin'."