Harvest of Bones

by Nancy Means Wright

  “Think the kid could run the Deere, pull the manure spreader out to the woods, pick up a load for me? He knows how; I showed him.”

  “No way. Too young. I’ll do it.”

  “Oh, come on. He’s grown a foot since spring.”

  “You sound like Pete. The answer is no. A boy older than Vic lost an arm falling off a tractor down in Shoreham. Like I said, I’ll do it. When? Today? Tomorrow?”

  “Morning. After milking.” Tim swung his sledgehammer against a log end, struggling to drive the log free of the wedge. They didn’t really split, these logs, she observed, just wrenched apart, shrieking, like a bulldozed building. Like a mismatched husband and wife, she thought.

  An ancient blue Horizon was sitting in the driveway. She recognized it when she got to the house. “Why didn’t you just walk in?” she shouted at Colm Hanna. He was getting to be a familiar figure around the farm now—maybe too familiar. She wasn’t a free woman; she had to remember that. Pete wanted more than a sold farm. He wanted a divorce, and for some reason, she was having a hard time giving in. Not for herself—it was over with Pete, wasn’t it? Though after two years, she was still hurting, didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. . . .

  And there were the children, Vic and Emily— especially Emily, who blamed her in some way, she felt, for Pete’s leaving. She knew Emily still told her school friends that Pete would be back. The older one, Sharon, of course, even in her ninth month of pregnancy, could fend for herself; Sharon was a stubborn one, full of New Age ideas. If Ruth heard one more word about eating torn . . . Though it was true, she couldn’t eat beef anymore, not when she was thinking it might have been one other own bull calves.

  Here was Colm, his gray-black hair rumpled from the wind, grinning at her, waving a bone. “I checked Larocque’s after you called. Nothing dug up there. I’ll try Flint’s, but there’s no cemetery on that place.”

  She’d forgotten about the finger, too many other things on her mind: getting in the wood, cutting the last corn, mending tools and machines bought back in the seventies because she couldn’t afford new ones. Work never done, and late fall was supposed to be the more lax time in a farmer’s year. “How old you think that bone is? “she asked as she ran into the house ahead of him, and swept a pile of crumbs off the table. Emily’s house job was the kitchen, but lately she’d been wrapped up in her quarrel about this city girlfriend of Wilder’s.

  “You should see my place.” Colm settled into a high-backed kitchen chair and examined the bone, glasses down on his nose. It looked like any minute they’d slide into his lap. “Dad thinks it’s been in the ground for a while—twenty, thirty years. But we’d have to get an expert. You know any guys got bumped off back then?”

  “People are always dying. You should know that. You and your dad.” She’d never related to the idea of Colm being a part-time mortician—or assistant to one—though what could he do when it was his dad’s business? She set a cup of coffee in front of him, sank into a chair with hers, and then leapt up to throw a log into the woodstove. Tonight, she’d have a talk with Emily about keeping up with chores. “What makes you think it’s male?”

  “The size, I guess. Could be wrong. Dad thinks so, though.”

  “A man with a delicate ring like that?”

  “Ring?”

  “Oh, sorry.” She’d forgotten to mention the ring. She rummaged in a drawer. Where had she put it? But the drawer held only napkin rings that she never used, and in the back a paper cigar ring left over from Pete. She crumpled it, tossed it in the trash can.

  “Emily must have it. We pulled it off the finger—the knucklebone looked frail. It has some bone-and-arrow symbol on it, like a hex sign, she says. Didn’t people use those a lot in the old days?”

  “On doors maybe, yes—but on fingers? But hey, where did I see an arrow recently?” He shoved the glasses back up on his nose. They magnified his intense blue eyes. “Yeah, I know—that meditation group up the mountain, in East Branbury. I was up there yesterday, showing land.”

  “What group is that?” College kids, she supposed, or graduates returning to the area, starting up communes of sorts—usually didn’t do much harm, though there could be drugs involved. Something to kick off the retreat into the inner psyche. Emily had told her the actress woman had Pete meditating. Imagine, pragmatic Pete! One would do anything for sex, she guessed.

  “You’re not listening again,” Colm accused, his eyes probing hers. He looked thinner than ever, cadaverous. Those hunger lines around his mouth! Real estate, like farming, was depressed in these parts. “Why don’t you join up with them?”he teased. “Might do you good. This is an older group, seems like. Some of them look forty years old, maybe fifty.”

  And when she gave him her “How do you know?” look, he said, “They called me, wanting to buy up a couple extra acres of land. I tried, but no way old conservative Bagshaw next door was selling. I mean, he wanted an acre of their land. ‘I ain’t selling to no cult members,’ he said. He remembers that Northeast Kingdom group, supposed to have been abusing their kids.”

  “And the state took away the children. I thought it abominable. They had no proof of abuse.”

  “Well, they thought they did. Anyway, I didn’t see a single kid at the Healing House. That’s what they call the place,” he explained, and this time she had to laugh. He was wolfing down her doughnuts. His chin was a furry mask.

  “Pig,” she said. And suddenly she remembered what he’d said. “What were you saying about the arrow?”

  “On the sign. A bone crossed with an arrow—about to penetrate a moon, or what looks like a moon.”

  “But that’s it!” she cried. “That’s the ring. I mean, almost, except that this one didn’t have a moon.” And she smiled, noticing a moon of sugar around Colm’s lips. He caught her glance, and smiling himself, he licked it off with a pink tongue.

  “I need a shave,” he muttered. “I thought I’d wait till after I saw you, though. You don’t mind?”

  “Should I?”

  But he just looked at her, hard, then licked his lips again.

  * * * *

  Fay was coming back from the barn with a half pail of milk, painstakingly drawn, when a white car squealed its brakes in front of the house. Then Fay caught a glimpse of a girl, a decade younger maybe than her Patsy, dragging a paper bag from the car. Guests! And no one had called ahead. She hadn’t been gone that long. But she mustn’t prejudge, or assume they were staying. In her excitement, she stepped into the rivulet; it filled her socks. Oh well. The car had a New York license. There was a dent in front, but it was in better shape than her own ancient Dodge. They’d told her at the auto-parts place that her engine was in good shape but that the body wouldn’t go through another winter; the bottom might drop out. A metaphor for me, she thought. But she’d worry when winter came. Who knew? By then, she might have found her future.

  She stopped to button her jacket properly, ran milky hands through her hair; it needed cutting. No, she thought. I’ll grow it into a long braid—yes, something different. Dan had always wanted her to grow her hair long—that’s why she’d kept it short. “Perverse,” he’d said, and she guessed she was. She’d had to be, or he’d have cooked her into an omelette.

  Entering, she heard footsteps upstairs. Now that was a bit of an imposition. They might at least have waited in the kitchen. “Hullo up there,” she called. There was no banister on the stairs; that could be a liability. She’d had to get a license, had barely met the fire laws. “Hullo—proprietor here,” she said.

  “Who?” a woman’s voice called. “I’m the proprietor here.”

  And then a younger, sweeter voice said, “Aunty, please, Dad rented the place out; you’re not the proprietor now. Hi, down there,” and a girl came flying down the steps, her chestnut-colored hair a raggedy mop. “Sorry, we just kind of took possession. We really hadn’t planned to come; it just—happened. We got in the car, and next I knew, I was kidnapping my aunt! I mean, we’re
just here till my parents get back from some convention. They’ve got Aunty signed up for a nursing home. She sprained her arm, you see, chasing the cat.” She grinned, stuck out a hand. She was a pretty girl, on the plump side, eyes the color of grass. “We brought some stuff for supper.” She waved at a paper bag on the kitchen table.

  “Wait a minute here,” said Fay. “It’s just breakfast you get, and I provide it. You go out for dinner. I’ve got a list of nice places. You want fish? Try Elmo’s. Steak?”

  “I’m a vegetarian,” the girl said. “So’s Aunty—more or less. I brought pizzas.”

  A screech filled the upstairs. The girl dashed up, three steps at a time. “Aunty, you all right?”

  “No, I’m not all right. They took everything out of my closet. You didn’t think to pack a damn thing to wear.”

  “Aunty, I didn’t know. I didn’t know we were coming here.”

  “And I can’t find my red sweater. It’s my favorite. It cheers me up in the snow. Your mother never packed it when she rushed me out of here. It should be in the bottom drawer, and it’s not.”

  Fay climbed the stairs slowly, afraid of what she was hearing. She remembered that sweater; it was full of holes. She’d packed it away in a box somewhere. Oh dear. At the landing she stiffened her shoulders, jerked her jeans around so the zipper was properly in the middle, and took a stand in the doorway of the guest room.

  “Who are you?” said the old lady. She resembled some variety of hybrid shaggy dog. Under the unbrushed hair, the face was fierce. She looked like an Amazon, ready for battle, a sling on her arm. For arrows? Fay wondered. She was almost beautiful, in a feral way, like a wild hawk. Fay had to admire her. As she stared, the woman yanked off the sling and tossed it at the girl. “I don’t need this thing anymore. It puts me off balance.”

  “I’m Fay Hubbard. I mean, that’s my married name. My great-grandmother was a Flint. I rent the place out for a B and B. So who are you?” As if she didn’t know. She took a deep breath, held on to the edge of the doorway. The old lady just sat back down on the bed, looking put-out, as if Fay had stolen her surname.

  “I’m Hartley Flint,” said the girl sweetly, “from Poughkeepsie, New York, and this is my great-aunt, Glenna Flint. This is her place. She owns it.”

  “You bet I do. Six generations on this rocky soil. And I’m not paying to stay in my own house.” The old lady flopped back on the bed, throwing her feet up on the quilt Fay had just had dry-cleaned.

  “Jesus,” said Fay, and held on to the doorknob.

  “I’ll pay,” said the girl. “I’ve got a credit card. I’m not supposed to use it except for food. My parents are in Florida. I mean, I told Aunty she should stay at the inn. She’s so... perverse,” she whispered in Fay’s ear, and Fay’s eyes widened. “But she insisted. They want to put her in Lands’ End, you see, and she doesn’t want to go.”

  “Lands’ End’s a catalog,” said Fay.

  “Same thing,” said Glenna. “Freeze you in print, those places. Shut you up between covers. I won’t have it.”

  Hartley sucked in her lower lip, looked contrite. “Just for a couple nights. Till my parents come back from Miami.”

  “I’m not leaving. Never again,” said Aunty, spacing her words, her eyes narrowed. “I’ll get a court order.”

  “Somebody has to take care of you,” said Hartley, sounding prim. “You can’t live alone. Who’ll see that you eat right and don’t fall down the stairs?”

  “That one will,” said Glenna, pointing a finger at Fay.

  Feeling panic in her chest—any minute she’d have a heart attack, and the women in her family had all had them early on—Fay backed out of the room and ran for an Ecotrin.

  * * * *

  Emily Willmarth was cooling it altogether with Wilder Unsworth. It was just too much, this city girl Joanie Hayden, with her diamond nose stud. He claimed there was nothing to it, but Emily could hear the tremor in his voice when he denied any interest; she could see that flush of red across the cheekbones when she mentioned Joanie’s name. So Emily was going underground.

  Anyway, she had an assignment for her history project. She had to read a moldy book about the Branbury area in the local library and then interview a couple of equally ancient residents. Mr. Morinelli had assigned her one, an old fellow named Alwyn Bagshaw, who lived in East Branbury and whose family hadn’t moved off the original pitch since they’d floated up the Otter Creek from Connecticut in 1769. But she had to find one other interviewee on her own.

  “Try next door,” her mother said, pointing to the south. They were in the barn, cleaning up after evening milking, scraping out the calf pens. Emily disliked the job, and she was wearing a scarf up over her nose. Another cow, Esmeralda, had freshened, but at least she was nursing her young, unlike that miserable Zelda. Emily didn’t know why her mother kept that cow. Now Zelda’s calf had the scours: loose bowels that stained its tail yellow. Her mother was pushing a huge pink pill down its gullet, while the calf laid its ears back in panic. Her hand was practically swallowed up inside the purply throat.

  But her mother was still talking. “Glenna Flint just came home to roost.”

  “Oh?” Emily knew their old neighbor Glenna Flint. She had a voice like a crow. Emily laughed at her mother’s choice of words. “Home to roost,” she repeated.

  “Or visit. I don’t think she has much power anymore over the nephew and his wife. She’s a little eccentric maybe, but she can probably tell you her life story.” Her mother laughed. She looked years younger when she laughed, Emily thought. But she hadn’t laughed much since Dad had left. She wasn’t doing anything to get him back, either. That annoyed Emily.

  “What’s so funny?” she said.

  “Oh, I don’t know. The whole situation. There’s quite a crew of Flints over there now. That Fay Hubbard called again, in a panic herself. Wants to know if it’s okay to drink unpasturized milk. I told her that her ancestors drank it and lived. Anyway, they’re all ages over there—one of them just a little older than you. Fay hasn’t had a single guest yet, I understand, though of course it’s off-season. She rented a cow. Can you imagine? Renting a cow?” Her mother broke off into a paroxysm of giggles, and Emily laughed, too.

  “You don’t need me here anymore, right, Mom? You can finish up in a jiff? Well, maybe I’ll call Flint’s and set up a time to talk with old Glenna. Vic’s tape recorder’s in his room, you think?”

  “Better not borrow it without asking. And for heaven’s sake, don’t touch his telescope. He saved for a year to buy a real one—I mean, other than the homemade. Your friend Wilder’s family destroyed that one.”

  “Not my friend Wilder anymore, Mom. We broke up.” Emily swept out one more stall under her mother’s watchful frown. She was thinking about that girl at the Flint’s. Maybe they could be friends. She could use a friend—she’d dropped other girls while she was so thick with Wilder. And where did it get her?

  Okay, she’d interview old Glenna, type it up on the Selectric—when would her mother break down and get a computer?—and then go see that Bagshaw. She didn’t know much about him. She’d just heard he was crotchety. That’s what her conservative teacher said: “crotchety.” And he lived next to that new meditation center, or whatever it was. “Stay away from that place,” Mr. Morinelli had warned, like it was dangerous to sit and think.

  Maybe she would and maybe she wouldn’t. Her sister, Sharon, said there was a midwife who lived there; Sharon’s midwife had used her once as an assistant. Well, Emily was ready for new experiences at this point in her life. Honestly, she was getting sick of cows. Sick of this whole family situation.

  She ran to the door, leaping the cow patties, then turned and looked hard at her mother. “When are you going to call Dad?” she accused. “He’s always calling here first, and you never give him the time of day. Don’t you think he might come back if you’d give him an opening?”

  But her mother just went on doctoring the calf, her head in its Select S
ires feed cap like an extension of the animal’s belly.

  * * * *

  Young Vic Willmarth watched his sister leave the house before he took the hawk into the house. It was a red-tailed hawk; he knew the broad blond wings and rounded reddish tail from his Scout work. He’d found the bird out in the east pasture. It had glared and hissed at him, but it couldn’t fly; it was down. Beside it, its mate had lain motionless. The wings, during the bird’s death throes, had left a feathery, four-foot-wide leaf angel on the field. The male—or was it female?—had flapped its wings furiously as Vic wrapped it in his coat.

  “I’m sorry,” Vic said, “I really am. But your mate’s gone and you’re still alive. And I’m gonna try and get you better.”

  But the hawk seemed to fall in a dead faint when he got it up into his room; it lay there with one unblinking eye fixed on him, accusingly. When his mother came in, before she could open her mouth to object to a nearly dead hawk on his clean quilt, or remind him he had chores in the barn, he said, “I know, Mom, I know. But I want it to live. Can you drive me to the vet’s. Mom, please?”

  The hawk made a noise then, a small pleading sound, and Vic told about its mate. “They mate for life, Mom; I read that somewhere. It’s sad. Can’t we help it?”

  She stood there a moment, looking down at the hawk, looking like her eyes might explode in her face, and then she said, “Okay. Get in the pickup. But we’ll have to leave it there, because I have work to do and I have to get right back.” Vic smiled, wrapped the hawk back in his jacket, and followed her out. His mother was a pushover when it came to animals— birds or cows. It was just with people she was tough. Too tough, he thought, thinking of his father. He had his own theories about why his dad had left.