Harvest of Bones

by Nancy Means Wright

  But the hex ring. Tried to get the ring off, he did; he didn’t want it buried with his brother. Let Denby go to the devil! But it wouldn’t come, got stuck above the knuckle. So he pulled a jackknife out of his pocket—arrowhead he’d dug up, kept for good luck, came out with the knife. He sawed off the finger. Then, remembering things—bad things—his blood up, he raised his hand and jammed the arrowhead into his dead brother’s chest. Clear as day he could see it now.

  But then the old lady’d come out of the house—blind or not, she’d smell him, know it was him. Think he’d killed Denby—though he’d just come to test the milk. And suddenly sick to his stomach, blood on his hands, he’d dropped the finger in the stream, ring and all.

  The old lady turned back then, into the house, and Alwyn filled in the hole. Seemed suddenly he should do something for a blood brother—though he was glad, glad, wasn’t he, to see the last of Denby?

  But blood was blood. So he covered him up. For Ma. Ma would’ve wanted it. Then he drove off. He wasn’t telling the police—they’d think he might of done it. Wasn’t him drove Denby’s truck in the creek, no. That’s why he wrote that letter to Glenna Flint—though he never really saw her do it, just figured.

  “Hey, kidnapper, hey, poisoner—got any poison candy, hey?” Still here, those devils. He scrabbled in the dirt for the ring. But one of the tormentors found it first, held it up; it gleamed gold in his fingers. “Finders keepers,” the fiend yelled, and, shrieking, danced away.

  “Gimme it. It’s my ring. Stop, stop!” He stumbled after them, but already they’d reached the road. Enraged, beside himself, he chased them, screaming. Till the pain swallowed him up, his chest on fire, breath gone, and he fell, facedown, in a muddy rut.

  * * * *

  Today was Halloween, and Fay wanted everyone there; she didn’t want kids coming to surprise her alone, deface her new front door. She’d put on a full-length glass door from Grossman’s going-out-of-business sale. Glenna objected, of course; she’d almost walked right into it, thinking it was open to the air. “I could’ve killed myself,” she complained. “You’ve got a whole outdoors there, so why bring it into the house?”

  “But think of winter. Aunty,” said Hartley. “Think of how nice it will be to see the snow falling past that door and you’re inside all cozy and warm in the house.”

  “You can’t ride a horse in the snow,” said Aunty. “Well, not anymore. It’s deeper than it used to be.”

  “Hell,” said Mac, who sat crunching a hot dog between his yellowy teeth, “the Northeast hasn’t got half the winters it used to. I remember some years the snow up to the eaves— you couldn’t ride at all that winter, Glenna. Who you kidding? Only peace I had was when you couldn’t ride. You had time to make supper now and then.”

  “It’s snowing out now,” said Fay. “Well, a little anyway.” She pointed to a few plump flakes drifting past the glass door. “Stick around and you can see who’s right, you or Glenna,” she told Mac, and Willard Boomer smiled, sitting at the kitchen table, sipping mulled cider.

  But Mac was up; he was heaving his battered old Depression-era suitcase by the front door. He clomped back into the living room to wait for his taxi; he was heading back to New York City, to the old journalists’ home. Fay had lost another boarder. First Kevin Crowningshield—on bail in Chicago to bury his wife; now Mac.

  At least Aunty was staying on. Fay had promised Hartley’s parents that she’d take care of her. They’d pay her, of course, but she’d even do it without pay. “To the death,” Fay told Willard, who looked a bit panicked. Willard was spending the evening, having brought a bagful of lollipops for the trick-or-treaters—he loved Halloween. “I’ve got my mother and you’ve got Glenna,” he whispered in Fay’s right ear. “Should we move them in together—work something out with us?”

  Fay didn’t know. Too many things happening at once. She needed time, to clear her head. Ever since they’d found that skeleton in the horse hole, things had been happening so fast, she was running behind, like in one of those frustration dreams. Well, tomorrow she’d see Ruth, get all the details. It seemed two men—maybe three—had had a part in Denby Bagshaw’s death: first, Mac, hitting him with that shovel; then Kevin, finishing the job—something about being blackmailed. Personally, she was sorry about Kevin. She’d rather liked him; he was good-looking, the right age. But it seemed they all had something wrong with them. If they hadn’t spent their whole lives hatching eggs and ignoring women, or unscrewing their artificial limbs at night, why then it turned out they’d killed somebody—though this was an affair of passion; she knew that much from Ruth. Shouldn’t passion count for something?

  But Kevin Crowningshield never put Denby in that hole, he’d said. So how could they prove Denby was dead after Kevin hit him? She asked the question aloud, and got an unexpected answer.

  “Oh he was dead all right,” Willard said, reaching for a hunk of Fay’s pumpkin bread. “Mmm,” he murmured.

  “What? How do you know? Were you there?” She gave him a skeptical smile.

  “Why yes,” he said. “I came to repair the sign, you see. All that rain, you could hardly read the lettering. They still had syrup to sell back then; the old mother put it up.”

  “And you saw Denby Bagshaw’s body and you knew he was dead?” Fay was slightly incredulous.

  “Without a doubt. I felt for a pulse, you see, and there wasn’t one. I know how to do it. When my uncle passed on...”

  “Uh-huh. Then what did you do?”

  “Well, I saw the old lady coming out of the house. She was practically blind. Oh dear, I thought, she might stumble over the body—the shock of it for a lady! So I dragged it over to that hole—to get it out of the way, you see; it wasn’t far. Besides, I saw it was Denby Bagshaw. Something bad must have happened, I thought, for someone to strike him like that. And I knew he’d have deserved it. Oh, indeed he would have. You see, it was Denby Bagshaw driving that truck that killed my sister! So I dropped him in. I’d have filled it in, too, but there wasn’t time. The old lady saw me—my shadow anyhow. I waved at her. I told her I’d come to fix the sign, and she said, “Well, get to it, then”—she wasn’t one for long conversations. So I fixed the sign. And I left. I passed Glenna riding back down the road. I waved, as I recall.”

  “She waved back?”

  He hesitated, swallowed the pumpkin bread. “Well, I really couldn’t say. It was getting dark, you know, hard to see.”

  “But this is incredible. Simply incredible,” Fay said. Jesus, she thought, there had to be four guys involved here! “So who filled in that hole?”

  Willard spread his hands; he didn’t know.

  “And you never reported it. To the police.”

  Willard gazed up at her, his eyes innocent as a blue sky. “I didn’t want to upset the teakettle,” he whispered, glancing into the next room, where Glenna lay. “Break up a family. In case she’d done it.”

  “Oh, Willard,” said Fay. “You sentimental, eccentric old fool.”

  Willard put his hand on her knee, and she let it stay. Her mind was racing ahead, though: If she had to put up bail— well, what better use for the Philadelphia widower’s fur coat?

  “Hey, Mac, your taxi’s here.” Hartley and Gandalf burst through the door; Gandalf, bright with snow, skidded on clicking nails to his empty dish. “Sure you want to go, Mac?” Hartley shouted at the living room. “I mean, we’d love to have you stay. Right, Fay?”

  “Sure,” said Fay, “we’ll build an addition. Get out your credit card, kid.” Personally, though, she’d be relieved when the girl left to go back to school. Though Hartley was talking of transferring to the local college, right here in Branbury. Jesus.

  Well, all right, the girl could help walk the dog. It was killing Fay, running that greyhound up and down the road. Keeping him out of other people’s corn. And now he had some stomach bug, a sensitive tummy after the bad stuff he’d eaten in his racing days. Though when Hartley suggested she might take Gan
dalf back to Poughkeepsie, something in Fay balked. She remembered the license plate on that New Hampshire car that had brought him here. Live Free or Die. For some reason, it had printed itself on her mind. Gandalf belonged here now. The way Glenna did. They were two victims, set free. No, she probably wouldn’t marry Willard, even if he asked her. At least, not for the moment.

  When Mac got in the taxi, she waved good-bye at the window, then turned, to see Glenna at the glass door, watching. She wondered what the old lady was thinking.

  But Glenna just stood there, squinting out as the taxi zigzagged its way down the drive, a hand under her chin, as if she’d keep it propped up, come what may. And then she wheeled about on her fuzzy pink slippers and said sweetly, “Time for a little scotch?”

  * * * *

  It was snowing lightly when Ruth returned from the hospital where Colm and his ambulance crew had taken Alwyn. Marna, from the Healing House, had found him, though even then it was too late: a case of massive heart failure. Alwyn was dead on arrival—a kind of poetic justice? She’d suspected that Alwyn had something to do with Denby’s death. Was he the one who had jammed the arrowhead into Denby’s chest? The police had found a cache of Indian relics in his cellar. And was it Alwyn who’d filled in the hole? Well, they’d never really know now.

  There were two cars in her driveway; she recognized Isis’s white van, wondered what the woman was doing here, how they’d gotten the wheelchair in the house. Then she spotted another familiar car: Sharon’s ’84 Honda. But Sharon was supposed to be in Burlington today, at a home-schooling conference. Ruth’s grandson wasn’t two yet, but Sharon wanted to be ready. Vic greeted his mother at the door.

  “It’s Sharon—she’s having the baby,” he said, sounding mildly interested, as though it were one more cow having one more calf. “And the midwife is out delivering another one. So Sharon called that wheelchair person. She’s been here a couple hours, I guess. Tim and Joey got her upstairs. Jeezum. It was like moving a tank.”

  “But it isn’t due for another week,” Ruth protested. “Jack isn’t back from Alaska yet. He’ll have to be called!”

  “She did. Sharon called him. She was mad. She said it was his fault he’d miss the birth.”

  “Well, it is. He waited too long.” And she started upstairs.

  “Mom. Wait. The vet called. And she’s coming over. With the hawk. We’re going to let her loose.”

  “Now?” Ruth paused in midstep. What else could happen today? And wasn’t it Halloween? Lord, who was going to hand out candy when the hordes came?

  “I’ll wait for her on the porch, Mom. Please?”

  “Of course. Of course you don’t want to be here.” Ruth flew down the steps again, hugged the boy. What was a birth compared to a freed hawk? The trauma of letting it go. She thought of the bull calf again (dung and death...). “All right, darling. You wait out there. I’ll put out a flag—have we got one? Well, a white tablecloth anyway, when the baby’s born. So you can come back in. Get ready for Halloween.”

  Upstairs, there was a long moan, like a train rumbling through a tunnel. Ruth’s heart leapt into her feet; she took the scuffed steps three at a time. Was the room ready? She’d meant to move out, sterilize, change the sheets. Where had she been? What had she been doing?

  But already the room had metamorphosed. Candles burning in a window, the floor spotless, Ruth smelled Murphy’s oil soap—Sharon’s work. And there in the double bed she had once shared with Pete was Sharon, propped up on three pillows, naked from the waist down, legs wide apart—but at rest, the contractions slowing for the moment.

  “They’re coming every two minutes now,” Sharon said, looking knowledgeable, looking beautiful with her honey-colored hair spread out on the pillow. Isis, at her side, pinch-hitting until the regular midwife got there, said, “She’s doing fine. She’s fully dilated now. Your girl is strong. The baby’s hammering at the gates. It will go well, I promise.”

  But Ruth knew that. She and Pete had produced strong, independent women. She didn’t regret marrying Pete, did she? Even though he’d left. But that was another part of her life now. She and the children were on their own. Pete was like a piece of the puzzle that had broken off. She had to let it lie. When Pete came tonight, she’d tell him so.

  She knelt down to hug her daughter. Sharon was twenty-seven—was it possible? It had happened so fast, her chunky little curly-haired girl grown into a woman, a mother. And for the second time. But Sharon was grabbing her tightly now, impossibly so, holding on for dear life, grimacing, groaning.

  “That’s a good one, a good one. You’re getting ready to push,” Isis was shouting, and Ruth felt the pain gather in her own body, felt herself heaving, splitting. But bearing no fruit.

  Suddenly, there was a new commotion, a door slamming downstairs, the head midwife sailing in, arms filled with emergency equipment, oxygen tent—in case—and Ruth didn’t know what all. The noise picked up in the room, with both midwives urging, “Push, push now,” and Sharon shouting, “Stop ordering me around! I need another pillow. I want soy milk. Someone get me a glass.” Sharon was boss now; she was in charge of the birthing. They’d have to obey.

  “I’ll get it,” Ruth said, and dashed downstairs. What else was she good for but to run errands?

  The kitchen door slammed and Emily entered like a fresh wind. “Mom, it’s Dad. He’s here, at the inn. I went to ask for his room number. And the man said, ‘They. They are in room sixteen. He brought that woman with him, Mom. How could he do that?”

  She burst into tears, and Ruth put a hand on her shoulder. “It’s all right, I understand. Your father has to have a life, too.” And something caught in her throat.

  Upstairs, there was a shout, and Emily said, “What’s going on here?” and when Ruth explained, Emily cried, “Oh my God! Can I go up?”

  “Here. Take up this glass. She may throw you out. But if she does, try to understand. This is her show.”

  She followed Emily up. At the door of the bedroom, Emily paused, put her arms around her mother. The soy milk dribbled on Ruth’s shirt, but it was all right. “Mom, I love you,” Emily whispered, and Ruth burrowed her face into the girl’s neck.

  ****

  The veterinarian thought Vic would prefer to let the hawk go here, near the pasture where he’d been found. “This was her territory,” she said, smiling at the boy, and Vic nodded.

  “I found her in the east pasture,” he said, “over by the fence.” He pointed. “You know, flying around her mate. Though I guess they must’ve come from the mountain— where they got that poison.”

  “They have a wide range of flight,” the woman said. “You want to hold her? I brought an extra pair of mitts.”

  She helped attach the jess straps so Vic could carry the bird out to the pasture. He saw she was wearing sturdy boots; she

  strode right along beside him, while the hawk rode silent but straining on his mitt, like it knew something was about to happen. If only he could tame it... But the eyes were wild and unblinking, and Vic knew it had only one thought: to fly free.

  It was a beautiful afternoon for a flight—a light fluffy snow dusting the wild aster and the scarlet sumac. The trees that bordered the pasture were that golden brown color they got in November. The black-and-white Holsteins looked on as Vic and the hawk approached. Zelda was out in front as usual, the others grouped behind her, like they were painted onto a canvas.

  The vet unfastened the jesses from Vic’s mitt, and for a moment the hawk didn’t move at all, and Vic felt she’d stay, she’d stay with him! But the woman nodded, looking resolute, and Vic glanced once more into those fierce hawk eyes, and he knew what he had to do. He threw her up in the air and she let out a shrill scream and spread her reddish wings out full— like a huge unfurled fan—and soared upward. She was magnificent! Then she circled back, screeching—looking for her mate? Vic held his breath to see, thinking once more that the hawk might stay.

  But she flew upward again, and Vic�
��s heart beat like a hundred hawk wings as he watched her soar westward toward Bread Loaf Mountain, her tail feathers gleaming red in the late sun that was pushing through the snow clouds.

  * * * *

  Afterward, Vic ran to the barn to see the calves. He just wanted to see them, that was all. There were only three still in the indoor pen: two heifers and the bull calf. The bull calf was lying by itself in the corner; he whistled and it raised its head.

  “Don’t get to know it too well, Vic,” a voice boomed behind him. Hands pressed on his shoulders and he squinted up, to see Tim looking down at him, his cowboy hat riding on the back of his head. “Just don’t, now, I said,” and the hands gripped harder, then released, and Tim moved on out into the milk room.

  Vic stood there, feeling numb. He looked at the bull calf. There was a circle of white around the wide nostrils—it looked like a little kid that had dipped its head into a bowl of cream. Strands of hay hung from its moving jaw; it was lying in straw and dung. Vic was about to go when suddenly the calf stumbled to its feet and its eyes gazed into his own.

  Vic couldn’t seem to move his feet.

  “Vic? Where’n heck are you, Vic?” a voice called from the barn door. It was his friend Gerry Dufours; he was picking Vic up to go trick or treating.

  It doesn’t know, Vic thought, looking into the soft liquidy eyes; it doesn’t know.

  But Gerry called his name again, and Vic got up, and without looking back, he moved toward the sound of the voice.

  “Wait here,” he told Gerry, and ran up to the house. Wondering why a white tablecloth was hanging out the bedroom window. And then he heard a baby crying upstairs. It was a soft la-la sound; above it, the chatter of women. So it was here. Okay. But how was he going to get his costume? He had to pass that room. “Mom,” he shouted. But his mother held up a hand for quiet. She was in the kitchen, talking on the phone to his father.