Harvest of Bones

by Nancy Means Wright

  She was crazy enough to do anything when she was in a mood. Just to get back at him. Look at the way she rode that effing horse. Christ, he hated that horse! Never mind he couldn’t ride it himself. Jenny Two, she named it. Stubborn as Glenna. It was like masturbating, he told her once; she got her kicks, rubbing her cunt in the saddle. And then she socked him hard, in the gut. Knocked the wind right out of him—and him with weak lungs. He just laughed after he got back his breath. He’d dug a hole for that mare. He was going to do it in, too, he really was. Till one of them came—who? One of the Bagley brothers? He never could tell one from the other, both with that spiky yellow-gray hair, though they weren’t twins, Glenna said. She knew them apart. That said something, didn’t it? Knew them well enough to tell them apart? “What’s the difference, a mole on the butt?” he’d asked once, and instead of getting mad this time, she just laughed. You could never tell about Glenna. Maybe that’s why he hung out with her in the first place. She was unpredictable. Fun, even.

  Anyway, there was that knockdown fight, time he found Glenna on her back in the hay. What other conclusion could a man reach? And that asshole running off. But first—memory foggy now—he grabbed Glenna and struck her, and she got that shovel, or rake or whatever, and hit him with it. Then ran, damn her. Last thing he heard was the horse galloping off; knew she was on it. She didn’t even stop to see if he was dead. Though she must’ve thought he was, according to that Hanna fellow, the guy who’d dragged him up here. He was as good as dead for a time, though, head like a bucketful of mud, he remembered that.

  Then someone else was groaning, not just him. Like Hamlet, act 5, the whole stage full of groaners, dead men. He’d clobbered the guy before he went to Glenna, he remembered now. He’d killed that guy. He was still mixed up about the sequence. Anyway, he was fed up, it was the final straw, her rapping him like that. He left town. Just took what was his: the typewriter, tape recorder, his O’Brian sea novels—all fifteen of them. Rented a room in Montreal till it blew over. Month, two months later, no one coming after him, and he went home—his old rooming house in the city. No one ever called.

  That skeleton, though—did he put the guy in there? The one he killed—whoever it was? In that horse hole? He must have, but he couldn’t recall. Though Hanna said it was Glenna put him in it. He chuckled. Thought it was old Mac MacInnis in that hole, and she’d killed him. Wished he’d seen her face! Was she sorry? Or glad ... Well, he guessed he wasn’t always so great a husband. But what’d she expect, dragging him up here, out of the city? He was a city boy, born there, raised there, right in Brooklyn, where his dad ran a meat market. Nobody rode horses then in the city—except the Irish cops. Nobody kept cows. The only tits he knew were on the streetwalkers.

  But here he was. What was going on anyway? What kind of mix-up here? When she sees him again though, she’ll know it wasn’t him in that hole. She’ll know he just up and took off. She’ll be in a fury. Christ! he doesn’t want to see that. Doesn’t want the police finding out about the one he killed, either.... Mac doesn’t want to be here, that’s all he knows.

  He heard that young woman upstairs, singing off-key to her kid—squeaky voice, putting him to sleep. Heard the older boy, her brother, yelling at her to “shut up,” he was “trying to do his homework.” And that did it. Mac wasn’t hanging around here another minute. He went to the phone, called a taxi; he’d meet it out by the road, he said. “Hurry up. I gotta make a plane in Burlington.”

  And swiping a tenner he saw lying beside the phone— he’d pay the woman back—he was no thief—he had, well, probably just the bus fare in his pocket, to Montreal maybe— Mac stumbled out.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Sharon was in tears, but what could she have done? The toddler was crying; she had to pee; she was getting bigger and bigger—huge! “Mom, I think I’m having twins. I mean, they’re in Jack’s family, Mom. If I do, I’ll shoot myself; we can’t afford it.”

  Sharon had a way of turning a defense into an offense. Ruth gave up; impulsively, she hugged her: Sharon was bearing a second grandchild—new life. Ruth wanted to think about life, life ... “Go to bed, love, go to bed right here,” she ordered her older daughter. Anyhow, Mac was gone, and Colm was mad—after he’d gone all the way to the city to get the man, and now the phone ringing and ringing. “Colm,” she hollered downstairs, “pick up the damn phone.” She wished she had one of those cellular ones she could carry around, but at what cost?

  She glanced at her watch; it was already after ten. She had to be up by five, because she couldn’t ask Tim to do the morning milking again. Another note from Tim on the breakfast table: “Zelda broke the west gate. Still mourning that calf she never fed? What is it about women?”

  Humph. She’d ripped up the note. Women, indeed. They’d never really come to terms, men and women, would they? It seemed a grave difference, impassible. Try to break down the fence between the sexes and you landed on someone’s ego.

  “Jeez. Jeez,” Colm was saying into the phone, “jeez, Roy. Well, hurry up forensics about that stuff in the cabin, will you? And find that old guy. No, I’m not making it up. He’s alive; it’s really Mac. He just took off on us while we were looking for Glenna. Yeah, I’m sorry, I know we didn’t. It was just—”

  Evidently the chief had hung up. Colm’s face was a study in purple. “He’s ticked off that we didn’t let him know right off. About Glenna, I mean. He had to hear from Hartley’s stepmother down in Poughkeepsie. And he thinks I’m kidding about Mac. Says it’s Mac in that hole all right. Kept repeating what the forensics guys said. Blow to the right temple, just what Glenna said she probably did. A puncture in the breastbone—that arrowhead. As for the teeth, Fallon said half of them were choppers—bad ones at that, not all his own teeth at all. Glenna verified that. And I wore out shoe leather looking for a damn dentist.”

  “He might have identified the false ones.” She tried to sound calm; she disliked controversy, arguments. With Pete, she was always the first to make up. Pete would blow, and then give her the silent treatment, face closed up like a coffin. When she couldn’t stand it any longer, she went to him, apologized (For what? she sometimes wondered). He’d grab her and pull her upstairs. It seemed that sex was the only way to end an argument. Sometimes she enjoyed it, too, she had to admit. She still woke nights, missing it, wanting it....

  But she and Colm weren’t on that plane. They weren’t on the point of ending a quarrel upstairs, though she knew he’d like to. She was the one holding off. Colm was sunk in a chair now, his chin in his hands. He was wearing that blue-striped shirt with the kelly green corduroys she disliked, that ridiculous Green Mountain Boy cap—he looked as though he was headed for a Saint Patrick’s Day parade. His sneakers were blackish with dirt, and some of the dirt was on her floor, little triangular patches, from the rubber cleats. For some reason, she almost laughed.

  He looked up, as though she had. “Both of them missing now. You think they had a rendezvous? Old lovers do sometimes. Rediscover each other?”

  “Uh-huh. Not at the Flint farm, though—Fay would call.” It was a silly thought, but she rather liked it. She liked the idea of people getting back together. Herself, though, with Pete— she didn’t know. As long as she gave Pete no answer, there was no divorce.

  “It’s out of our hands, I’d say. At least we know Mac isn’t far. He has no wheels,” Colm said.

  “Taxi?”

  “Jeez. Yeah.” He leapt up, fumbled through the phone book. His fingers were shaky on the dial. He told her she needed a Touch-Tone, and she thumbed her nose at him. He described Mac to Branbury Taxi. “Short, sort of a Grumpy the Dwarf look, if you know what I mean.” He winked at Ruth. “Yep,” he said when he hung up, “they took him into town. To the bus station. He’d catch that last bus to Burlington, maybe Montreal, depending on when—” He looked at his watch. “It’s already ten-thirty. “Jeez.”

  She wished he’d stopped saying “Jeez”; she hated the word. Now he was back on th
e phone, dialing the police chief. They’d have to stop the bus. “But suppose he got off somewhere in between?” He looked helplessly at Ruth.

  “That would complicate things.”

  “Jeez.”

  When the phone rang again, they both lunged for it. Ruth got it first; it was her phone, after all. The call was for her anyway. It was from Marna, one of the women down at the Healing House. “It’s Rena,” Marna said, sounding like someone who’d just fallen into a pit. “We found her in the bathroom. I don’t know what it is. She was slumped over on the floor. It was awful. I called the ambulance—though Isis wanted to wait. What else could I do? They’re on their way. I remembered you came; I didn’t know who else to talk to, I’m not from around here. I don’t like what’s been happening. We need help!”

  Outside, a wind storm was blowing up; the phone crackled in Ruth’s hand, and she dropped it. Colm picked it up, put an arm around her, led her to the living room couch.

  “Let’s neck,” he said. “Till it all blows over.” He put an arm around her waist and she let it stay. “Close your eyes and imagine Mac and Glenna, like this, on that horsehair sofa.”

  “Till he rubs her the wrong way and she slugs him. Like this.” She shook a playful fist in Colm’s face.

  “Spoilsport,” he said, and buried his face in her neck.

  She relaxed—a moment’s sheer pleasure. Until the phone rang again and Marna asked if Ruth could come. “Now?” the woman pleaded. “Could you possibly? Please? I don’t know who else to ask!”

  * * * *

  Somehow the Healing House atmosphere was lighter with Isis gone—to the hospital to see about the two sick women. Anyway, Ruth thought, a visit would help to keep her mind off Glenna. Hours now and no trace of the old lady—but the police alerted and searching. What else could Ruth do? Except worry. She had a talent for that.

  Three of the remaining women were playing cards in the scrubbed living room; two others were in the kitchen, whipping up a butter cake. “It’s strictly illegal,” one of them said, a woman in her twenties with long, straight black hair. “I have a sweet tooth, you see. She never allows it, even though my cholesterol’s low, only one forty-two. I mean, it used to be high, high! I went on this oat-bran diet.”

  “Wherever did you find that mix, Grace?” a third woman asked, coming into the room. “I searched everywhere.”

  “The convenience store,” Grace said, looking sly. “I sneaked out and bought it.” She did a little jig in her bare feet. Ruth noticed the pink-painted toenails. Here was a hedonist, in the Healing House!

  “With what? We don’t keep money here,” the third woman said, turning to Ruth. “We buy our food out of a common pool.”

  “It’s not what you think, Jo,” said Grace. “I didn’t take it! I’d never touch the cache. I had some . . . well, hidden, I’d never turned in. I know it’s illegal; Mother would have a fit— but I just felt I had to ...”

  Jo pretended a stern face when Grace looked anguished, then broke down and laughed, put an arm around her friend. “Don’t worry, kid, I did the same. For a fag now and then. You can’t break old habits. I had to hide money with Jake— he’d shake it out of me. Half-killed me once when he found I’d kept the sewing money. I still worry he’ll find out where I am.”

  A fourth woman entered the kitchen, went over to Ruth, grabbed her hands, squeezed them; then she gave an embarrassed laugh. “You’re here! I didn’t know. I’m Marna. Remember me? I called.” She wheeled about to address the cake makers. “I can’t believe this. Rena’s poisoned, Ellen barely recovered, Angie’s ... dead, and you’re making a cake. Don’t you see we’re all in danger here? Someone’s trying to kill us! One of the husbands maybe. Sneaking in and poisoning our food. Whose?” She glanced about wildly, her voice rising to a shriek. She clung to Ruth’s hands.

  Grace held up a dripping wooden spoon. “But Angie’s was a preexisting condition. We knew she was fragile when she came here. Mother told us. And Rena—well, she always looked off balance, like she’d fall over her feet any minute. It’s a symptom of brain damage, the boyfriend knocking her around.”

  The other cake maker agreed with Grace. “Rena was always the odd one. Didn’t want to talk about her problems, even in talk session. Mother asked her once why she was here.”

  They keep using that word, Ruth thought. “Mother?” she said. “You mean Isis?”

  “Oh, yes. We call her that. Her real name’s Anna Smith, but she changed it legally to Isis Blue Moon. She looks motherly, don’t you think? You hardly realize she’s in a wheelchair. She’s fierce about keeping up the massage therapy. We think of ourselves as a family here.”

  “Not always easy to think of Rena as family,” said Jo. “Shrinking away from us all the time, not wanting to share what’s inside, get it out. Mother’s right. Why is she here, anyway? The rest of us share. That’s part of our healing.”

  “Same as you and me, she’s here,” said a another woman, appearing in the kitchen doorway. She was dressed in a long green cotton skirt, bare toes sacking out from under; she had a pale pockmarked face, mousy brown hair parted in the middle. “I heard the story once, part of it anyway. First the stepfather—you know. Every night till the mother found out. Then the husband. He’d get drunk and hit her. When she cried, he’d hit harder. When she tried to leave, he’d throw himself at her feet, say he loved her—you know the bullshit. Then she was afraid to leave—keep quiet and you’re safe, you know. They don’t want to be found out, these bullies—they’ll come back and kill you! My man, well, he never hit. He just wouldn’t talk, that’s all. Wouldn’t have a telephone in the house, can you imagine? In this day and age? Said it was a nuisance, that the ringing made his blood pressure go up. He was a lawyer, said he had enough of the telephone daytimes. So I had to go out and use a pay phone to call a friend.”

  The others murmured in sympathy. Grace emptied her batter into a cake pan, shoved it into the oven. Ruth felt her own blood heat up. “He could have let her have it,” Jo said, “could have turned off the ring when he came home.”

  The woman in the doorway shrugged. “Anyway, it got to her eventually. I mean, in the house all day, no kids, the place still as a morgue. She’d pack to leave, and of course he’d threaten suicide. You know the kind.”

  The others laughed. Ruth gathered that suicide was a common threat. “Most likely never carried out,” she said.

  “You got it,” said Grace, clanging the oven door shut. “Homicide before suicide.”

  “So you think this sudden attack, whatever it is, was brought on by Rena’s anguish, not letting it out? The husband brainwashed her too long—she couldn’t speak out herself?”

  Jo considered. “Or something more. Something from the outside. I mean, her husband sent a threatening letter. He hired a detective to find her.” Mama shivered and peered earnestly at Ruth.

  Everyone was quiet. Ruth could hear the vibrating hum of the refrigerator.

  “Well, Angie was definitely poisoned,” said Jo. “I mean, the police are questioning the husband, right? That guy who kept trying to get in here? Sent her that candy? I’m glad I didn’t eat any of it. But they’ve got no proof, right?” She pointed a finger at Ruth.

  “Of course they have no proof!” Ruth leapt to Kevin’s defense. “He loved his wife, I’m sure of it. If you could hear him talk about her. Why, he’s devastated. He’s just gone in the hospital himself, did you know that? A breakdown of sorts. The police have driven him to it. He’s not a well man to start with. And now….”

  She looked up, to see the others smiling at her, ironic smiles. Pitying smiles. “Sure,” said Jo. “They all love us. They really do. But only because they love themselves more.”

  The others agreed noisily. Grace banged a spoon on the edge of the sink. “Got to get this done before Mother comes back.”

  “But you don’t think Kevin Crowningshield poisoned his wife?” Ruth said, backing off the love issue. She couldn’t argue with six women who paint
ed all men with the same batter.

  “Well, he wouldn’t have poisoned Ellen or Rena. Or the rest of us. I mean, we all had symptoms, but we got better with some stuff the doc recommended. I think it was something else we ate. And Angie’s was—well, we’ve already discussed that.”

  “But we don’t know,” Marna concluded, “we just don’t know. I think someone’s trying to do us in. Someone—among us even. Who can get at the food.”

  There was a hush while they looked down, almost to a woman. Not wanting to look at one another. Ruth felt chilled, the way she had when Pete left, not knowing exactly why, what she had done. Might have done, or left undone, around the farm. Wondering who might have spoken out against her, what child even. Or Tim, without meaning to, laughing with Pete at some inadequacy of Ruth’s: leaving the barn door open, not completing an account, missing a meeting of Agri-Mark because she was chasing after a wayward animal. Not knowing. Not knowing—that was the worst.

  They broke apart then. Grace gave up on a frosting— there wasn’t any confectioner’s sugar; said she wasn’t hungry now. “Don’t know why I started the dam cake anyway. Sugar makes me hyper.” Jo went out to forage in the garden: “There’re still some beet greens. We need vitamin C.”

  “There hasn’t been anyone else here?” Ruth asked Mama as they walked out into the front hall. “Anyone suspicious? I mean, anyone at all you can think of?”

  “Just the plumber, an electrician when we had a power outage. Seemed harmless enough, Vermonters—though looking at us like we’re freaks, some weird cult, waiting to catch the next UFO. That old guy next door came over once. All upset about the sign out there. I’ll bet he’s the one defaced it that time. It was Angie’s design. Have you seen her jewelry, by the way? She was planning to take it to the craft center when she... died.”

  Marna blinked, turned away quickly, and led Ruth to an adjoining room. There was a small table with gold rings and silver pendants. Ruth gasped. They were dazzling: full of loops and spirals and—mystery was the word Ruth would put to it.