Harvest of Bones

by Nancy Means Wright

  “The designs look Celtic. My mother had a pin once, from the Hebrides, with intersecting circles like this one.” She picked it up. It felt electric in her fingers. “I still have it, in a drawer. And Angie made up her own designs? Worked the metal and all that?”

  “Oh, yes. Mother set up a corner of the basement for her. Then she’d try to give them away. To us. Said they were nothing, just designs that came out of her head, as if that didn’t mean much.” Marna fingered a silver ring lovingly. It had a pattern of exploding stars, a purple amethyst in the center. Amethyst was her birthstone, Marna said; Angie had wanted her to have it. She meant to speak to Isis about it.

  “She didn’t realize her own talent. Too bad.” Another thought entered Ruth’s mind, but she buried it before it worked its way into words.

  “And here are Angie’s designs, on paper. Mother had them framed. Here’s the one for the sign. It was Mother’s favorite; she had a funny fellow on a bicycle make it up for us.”

  “Willard Boomer.”

  “Willard Boomer?” Marna repeated the name, thought it humorous. “I remember he caught a fly in his hands while he was here in the kitchen, let it out the back door. A true Buddhist.”

  “But this logo. Your neighbor’s interest in it. His family’s been in town forever—the old mother almost reclusive before she died a couple of years ago, but decent people, for all that. I’ve never heard of any problems there.” Though she recalled something about the younger brother drowning in the creek. But accidental, though townfolks joked it was the work of the old girlfriends, conspiring to do him in.

  Now she’d lost the drift of her thought. “What I’m saying is, did he say why he was upset about that sign, that logo? Unless he was just using it to complain about the place as a whole. They say he complains publicly. He’s not the only one, of course: Conservative Vermonters worry about places like this. They remember Island Pond, for one. Anytime a group of people stray from the norm—the nuclear family—there are suspicions. As though their own so-called family values don’t hide a hundred sordid secrets!” Ruth thought again of her sister-in-law, Bertha, and shuddered.

  “Hear, hear,” cried Marna. And she added, “That’s why Mother keeps a low profile, wants us to stick around, not go in town, you know. Partly for the healing, but also so we won’t attract attention—or our men. She wants to make us forget we’re outsiders. ’Cause that’s what we are. What our husbands have made us. Outsiders.”

  Mama was quiet a minute; her head seemed to shrink into the collar of her print housedress. She seemed to forget Ruth was there. Ruth asked her how she’d interpret the logo.

  “Oh. Well. Angie always said the meaning was in the eyes of the beholder. So my personal interpretation, I guess, is that that arrow about to pierce the moon represents the abuse, the split in the family—what Mother is trying to heal. Mother wants it healed, but she doesn’t want us to forget it. We carry those arrows inside us all the time—in our bones. It’s hard to heal a heart with an arrow through it. It is!”

  “I know,” Ruth said. Then she thought of the skeleton that wasn’t Mac, of the ring on its finger, bearing a similar design of moon and bone and arrow. Was it coincidence—or were the designs somehow linked?

  And what was Alwyn Bagshaw’s interest in that logo? Was there a reason he went after that sign? As she stepped outside, the lights next door blanked out, almost simultaneously. Well, too late for a visit now, and she had work piled up at the farm. There might be a call about Glenna. There would be; she was sure of that. Who would want to harm an old lady?

  Tomorrow maybe, after milking and graining, if she could prevail once again on Tim, she’d pay a visit to Alwyn Bagshaw.

  * * * *

  Alwyn Bagshaw watched the house after the Willmarth woman’s pickup squealed to a stop. But after awhile, he switched out the lights, sat down in the chair by the window. He kept that chair there now; he had watching to do. They never pulled their shades, those devil women, wanted him to see in, sure, get their kicks out of a man watching. Wanting more than a man—wanting his house, his land, what was left of it after Ma sold off that parcel. When Denby died, they got back the two acres up in the forest, but then Ma sold them back to the state. For what? For a year’s rent, the state fleecing its citizens like always, milking them. Ma’d had land in the swamp, too, but the state took that for sixty measly bucks. Though it wasn’t worth anything, all muck and bugs. Been in the family two hundred years, though. Two hundred! The Bagshaws one of the first families up to Branbury, the ancestor a doctor. Doctor, sure! Indians shot him when he was building a cabin for the wife and child, shot him through the shoulder, front to back—on the spot where Alwyn sat now—and he set the shoulder himself. Himself, he thought. Alwyn admired that. That was self-sufficiency. Self-sufficiency was good; his mother had taught him that. “Grow your own,” she liked to say, “don’t let them greengrocers fleece you. Live off your land.”

  Ma’d wanted Denby to be a doctor, like his ancestor, but Denby didn’t have the hands for it, the head. All Denby wanted hands for was women. Alwyn, now he could of done it, sure, learned what it took. But there was no money for the learning. He finished high school, too, a sight more’n Denby ever did—Denby dropping out after ninth grade. Then went to work, Alwyn did. Next thing to being a medical man, testing milk. Seeing that milk had nothing contaminating, nothing to hurt the children.

  Alwyn liked children. Liked girl children, too. His cousin Oscar had one, cute little thing, used to set on his lap and he’d tell the story of his ancestor, about the arrow shot through, front to back, and setting it himself. She liked to hear it, too; she’d ask questions. “Did it get better, Cousin Alwyn? Did it heal?”

  But they grew up, girl children. Changed. Turned into gossips, looking for men, sex. Ma no different, was she? Ma kept Denby in her bed long after Father took off, made Alwyn sleep alone. What’d they do in that bed? He shut his eyes, saw the hand stroking down the boy’s belly, down to the sex there, fondling. Denby wriggling, liking it—that’s how he’d got his sex drive, sure, that’s how it’d started. Taught by Ma. Ma, who’d locked him in the cellar that time a whole day and night. Left him sobbing there, his blanket soaked on the old mattress. And Ma never came.

  She was coming out of the place now, the Willmarth woman. He saw her, saw her hesitate on the walk, look over toward his place, take a step in his direction. He let the curtain drop, though she couldn’t see him. It was dark inside, dark outside. She wouldn’t come over in the dark, would she? No, she was turning back again, running to her car like something was running after: the Antichrist, chasing her into the green pickup; engine grinding, racing off down the road, down the mountain.

  She’d come back. Sure, maybe tomorrow. When Alwyn wanted to be left alone. No one laughing at him, no one pushing him in the creek, no one saying, “Alwyn, wash your hands. Alwyn, go to the toilet, Alwyn, go to the store, buy me some sleeping pills. I had another bad dream last night, Alwyn. I want it to stop; I get no rest.”

  He heard a squealing noise upstairs in Ma’s room. For a moment, it sounded like Ma; he started up, hanging on to the dark wood banister. Ma would tell him what to do now. Ma had always helped him decide. She’d know what to do. Then he realized: It wasn’t Ma. It was someone—something—else in that room? For a minute, he couldn’t think what. But it wasn’t Ma. Ma was dead. He had to decide on his own.

  Then he couldn’t think what he had to decide.

  The tiger cat came thumping down the stairs then, mewling for food, and Alwyn guffawed. All that time, it had been the cat.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Roy Fallon had two messages for Colm when he called in that night from the mortuary phone. Forensics had found white hairs in the brush; they’d have to do a DNA analysis, match them up with Glenna’s. They’d already sent a man over to the Flint farm. “Though that woman Fay is nuts— a match for Glenna,” Fallon allowed. “Wants to identify the hairs herself, not wait for the forensics report. I
said, ‘Lady, you must be a scientist.’ She said, ‘I know hair when I see it.’ I mean ...” Fallon’s voice trailed off.

  “Women,” said Colm, and laughed. Fallon laughed, too. He had a chugging laugh: chuk-chuk-chuk, like a freight train. “So what’s the second message? They check that bus?”

  “Got the bus driver stopped in Burlington. Your Mac was on it all right, fit the description—if it was Mac.” Fallon couldn’t let go of his old assumptions.

  “It is Mac,” Colm said, excited. “You said ‘was.’ He got off, then?”

  “In Burlington. Driver saw him walk off, um, brown scuffed suitcase. Doesn’t know ... um .…”

  “What direction? Jeez. It would have to be Burlington, Vermont’s big city. Though better than Montreal. Look, I got a photo, too. Get the Burlington cops on the hunt.”

  “Get your ass down here, then.”

  “On its way,” and Colm hung up. He took a deep breath, smelled the lemon polish the cleaning lady had lathered on the old mahogany woodwork, the claw-footed tables. At least it helped dispel some of the formaldehyde. The house was dark even in daytime. He thought longingly of Ruth’s farmhouse, its wide pine boards, the white walls, the smell of apples and doughnuts. The smell of Ruth .…

  “You’re not leaving me.” It was a statement. Colm’s father had a “new one” coming in; they wanted “the works”: open casket, old guy, complete with glasses on his nose—he’d been a librarian. “The back’s bad today, worse’n yesterday. Rain coming, that’s why. But I’ll need help with the embalming.”

  “Dad, you’ve got to get an assistant. You can’t count on me so much; we’ve discussed all that.” But his father didn’t trust anyone new, didn’t have the energy to teach a newcomer, wasn’t comfortable with strangers. Colm had seen that a month ago when he’d hired someone on his own. The fellow had been through mortuary school, worked for his father two weeks; left when his father found the hundredth “fumble,” as he called it.

  “I’ll be back, Dad, soon’s I can. I’m just going up to Burlington to talk to the police. They’ll do most of the running around. Call up your crony Ed Murphy; he can help lift at least. I have to go, Dad, or my efforts in the city are down the drain.”

  “I told you so,” his father said.

  Colm ignored the comment. “We got a missing witness here, and Glenna Flint’s life may depend on him.”

  “And where is she?” his father asked.

  Colm sighed. “That’s another chapter. Police are working on it.” And he walked down the narrow front hall, one foot in front of the other; had to keep going, though his father sighed loudly behind, started coughing as Colm got to the door. Bad back, bad cough. It did worry Colm, to tell the truth.

  “When’re you gonna think about retiring?” He flung out the question as he heaved open the massive front door—and shut it mercifully behind. He knew the answer. His father would die with the embalming fluid on his hands. Then who would embalm Dad? Not Colm! Jeez.

  * * * *

  It was Glenna’s hair; Fay was positive of that. The officer didn’t have the hair from the bushes in hand—but white? How many white human hairs were crawling through the bushes up there on the mountain? They’d found a few gray hairs, too, but Glenna didn’t have a gray hair left in her head. “That gray could belong to the guy who grabbed her,” she yelled at the departing officer.

  He didn’t turn. He didn’t need some nutty female telling him his business. In his handkerchief were the hairy scrapings from Glenna’s pillow—along with cat hairs, no doubt. Glenna had a brush, but it had been left behind at Rockbury. And then, she hardly ever used it.

  Hartley and Gandalf clomped into the living room and flopped down: Hartley on the sofa, the greyhound at her feet. Hissing softly, Glenna’s cat, Puffy, leapt up on the curly-maple breakfront—you could see its claw marks. At least the dog stayed off the chairs—more or less. One pounce and the sofa would sag on the floor, as well. But the days were growing shorter, the air colder; November was just around the corner. Fay was in long pants. She had two pairs that she rotated: jeans and tan corduroys. Her daughter Patsy had undoubtedly appropriated what she’d left behind in Cabot: They wore the same size. When Patsy was a teenager, Fay would reach for a shirt or pants to wear for the day, only to discover them on their way to the local school.

  “Aunty’s dead,” said Hartley, banging her head back against the horsehair. “I know it. Some guy’s got her locked in his trunk, and what about Aunty’s lungs—all those Chesterfields she used to smoke, till I got them away from her? If we get that guy, I’m going to squeeze him dry, vein by vein.”

  She strangled the air with her stubby hands, kicked up her blue-jeaned legs. “And it’s my fault. I did it. If I’d left her there in that Rockbury place . . . But I couldn’t do that, could I, Fay? Leave her there with all those crazy people? Aunty’s not crazy. She’s just, just...” Hartley couldn’t think of the right word. Her hands made frantic circles in the air.

  “No, you couldn’t,” Fay agreed, patting her on the head. “It wasn’t right. Aunty belongs here. In her own bed.”

  Hartley sat up. “Now you’re criticizing me. You’re saying I should’ve left her here after I got her out of that place. But then they’d’ve come and taken her back there. You know that, Fay.”

  “I know that.” Fay picked up her hooking. She was hooking a cow design. Actually, it was Dandelion, looking ornery— that is, looking herself: head thrown back, tail up, eyes glinting cinnamon brown, with a touch of red in the centers. A pail knocked over in the right-hand corner, the milk a yellowy white that spilled out of the frame. It made Fay feel as if she had some control over the beast, hooking her into a rug like this.

  “It’s neat,” Hartley said, “that woman leaning over to pick up the pail. I like her orangy hair.”

  “That’s my daughter. She has light brown hair, actually, but she tints it orangy like that. She’s a pretty girl.” She corrected herself. “Woman. She’s thirty-one.”

  “No kidding? You don’t look that old.”

  “Yeah, yeah. She has a kid, too, a boy, ten years old. I told you that.”

  “Oh, well, my brain’s scattered these days. How come they don’t come here to see you?”

  “Another story.” Fay tightened her lips. “I mean, she’s busy: the kid, the PTA, that kind of thing.”

  “Then why don’t you go there? I’ll bet she’d like to see you. The kid would! So why don’t you?”

  Fay thought a minute. “Well, maybe I will. Maybe.” She got up. She could almost hear new questions forming in Hartley’s head. She didn’t need those questions. She went into the kitchen, put away the supper dishes, clattering them noisily.

  “If my mom was alive, I’d see her every day,” Hartley said, coming into the kitchen. “I’d live with her, take care of her, wouldn’t I, Gandalf?” She reached down to hug the greyhound. He nuzzled her hand, then rose and poked his long nose into Fay’s behind. Wanting a handout, of course. And Fay gave it—$3.59 a can.

  She poured herself a scotch. She hated the stuff, didn’t know what Glenna saw in it, but she swallowed it down anyway. Afterward, it felt good in the belly. Spread to the kidneys. She had to pee, ran upstairs. She’d go to Cabot tomorrow— did she dare? After all, Patsy’s house was only a hundred yards from Dan’s. Yes. She would. Surprise Ethan, her grandson— just for an hour. He’d be glad to see her, wouldn’t he? There was nothing more she could do for the old lady. Hartley would be here if they found Aunty.

  She sat on the cracked toilet and listened to the rain drizzle down through the pipes. By morning, it would turn to sleet, maybe, or snow; that was the forecast. And Glenna out there somewhere in it, was she? She could almost hear the old lady’s voice calling through the pipes. Calling for help. “Help me, Fay, hel-l-pp .…”

  ****

  Ruth was ready to leave for East Branbury when for the umpteenth time Zelda broke through the same pasture fence. “Yep, she busted right through where me a
nd Tim fixed it,” Joey reported. “You better go git her. Me and Tim got other work to do.”

  Tim was right: She’d assigned the jobs. Cut the corn in the east pasture, for one. They were already late; it had snowed an inch last night, the temperature plunging down into the twenties. They might not save what they had. Jobs heaped up on jobs—she couldn’t think straight. And on top of it all, Mac and Glenna both missing, and increased hysteria at the Healing House. How far did neighborliness stretch? She had her own life to think about, her family. Why was she running around to healing houses? What was Colm doing up in Burlington, chasing down an old man who didn’t want to be here in Vermont anyway? She shooed Vic’s chickens out of the barn—one of them, a large Rhode Island Red, flapped its reddish brown wings at her in protest, and she took the broom to him. Then, too lazy to walk, she drove the John Deere out into the north pasture. The day was brilliant with sun and snow and blue sky and red berries. She just wanted to sit down somewhere, drink it in.

  But Zelda had broken through into land she rented out for sheep—to her city friend, Carol Unsworth. Carol had planted alfalfa, a patch of corn. Zelda would make short work of that. There was no time to enjoy nature.

  Zelda swung her black head sideways at Ruth, as if to say, Ha. I got out, didn’t I? You can’t keep this old gal cooped up. A corn husk hung from her jaw; her mouth was moving sideways, her tail switching like a chorus girl onstage. “Chorus girl,” Ruth murmured. Pete had taken Ruth to a nightclub once in Montreal, their yearly outing. “See?” he’d said. “That plump one on the far right. She’s more desirable. Know why?” “Why?” she’d said, trying to please him, not really interested in why. Knowing why, actually. That plump flesh, for the grabbing. Pete had just laughed, poked her in the ribs, a good ole boy. She’d determined to stay in shape after that, not accumulate extra flesh. Well, the farm did that job for her, it wasn’t hard. She ran her hands down the sides of her breasts, her hips. Soft, but hard flesh, both at once. She was still in the running.