by Jeff Hull
That was great. Because nobody had ever done that for him before. There was more time, there on the couch, Jenny with her hand on the back of his head, her face close to his. They kissed more. They talked. Some of the things mattered. Some was the confetti of tiny laughs that made them feel part of the same procession, one they both understood would march toward a bed together.
* * *
It was not a party, really. Just some junior boys with some beer on the night before Thanksgiving and a bonfire down in a coulee. Josie would not have come if she hadn’t had sex with Mikie five nights before. That, she understood, was why she went—a need to make something more legitimate, a need to make something not cheap. That and it seemed so obviously someplace Matt Brunner would not be. Because Josie doubted that Mikie LaValle and Arlen Alderdice and Wyatt Aarstad would know enough to invite girls to their gathering, she made Britnee Mattoon come with her, and Britnee brought Ainsley Martin and a sophomore cheerleader, Brailey Ridenour.
Ridenour? the boys always said, hell, I’ll be done in a couple minutes. But Brailey was a good sport. She was a rodeo girl, pole racing and goat roping. Brailey had punched a boy in the nose at a party her freshman year because he made a joke about goat sex. After that, the ride-an-hour jokes became more a form of tribute than denigration. As it turned out, because the party was on Wyatt’s place, his cousin—and Josie’s teammate—Jocelyn was also there, and she’d brought a friend.
The girls outnumbered the boys. Josie and Britnee and Ainsley and Brailey drove together in Brailey’s pickup. They had bottles of Twisted Tea that Brailey somehow wrangled, and they were singing “Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy” as loud as they could. For the first time in a while, Josie felt good. Clear, is what she felt. She was with her girls, doing something she wanted to do. Josie was happy that Mikie didn’t start the night possessive.
“JoFreeze,” Mikie had said, all hip-hop, when she walked up. When she and her friends climbed out of the truck, Josie could see that Wyatt and Arlen were impressed. Four other boys were standing around a fire pit, all sophomores and freshmen.
Behind them a stand of cottonwoods glowed like tall ghosts in the firelight. She knew the other kids, but none of them well. Of course she played volleyball and basketball with Jocelyn Aarstad and they could talk and would. But after some easy hellos, Josie, Britnee, and Brailey knotted up, drinking from their bottles, watching the firelight lick at the darkness around them.
Mikie came over, bumped fists with Josie, said, “You guys need drinks? You have drinks. Tell me when you need drinks.”
It got awkward from there. Mikie went back to Arlen and Wyatt. There was no music, just the crackling fire. The sparks shooting into the dark sky. Except where the fire melted in, there was snow on the ground, and the girls all wore Carhartts and mittens. The boys didn’t seem to know what to talk about and so made dumb jokes and laughed more than they wanted to. Josie and the girls she came with huddled and talked about why they were there. They all felt cold.
“I promised,” Josie said.
“What promise?” Britnee said. “Why Mikie? You’re gonna get his ass shattered by your boyfriend.”
Britnee didn’t know what had happened with Matt. Josie had told nobody. She said, “I don’t want to be one of those people.”
“You mean people like us?” Britnee said.
“I don’t want to be one of those people who don’t do things and don’t talk to people because certain people say they shouldn’t,” Josie said. “You’re not like that, are you?”
“Don’t judge me for my judgments,” Britnee said. They laughed and clinked bottle necks.
Nothing changed for a long while. On the ridges above them coyotes yipped, trying to convince other coyotes of something. The smoke rose from the ring of firelight into near-perfect darkness. Probably there were stars overhead but you couldn’t tell near the fire.
The boys had piled a stack of wood as big as a boat, and it was dry enough to spit and snap and shoot streamers of wobbly red sparks into the darkness. Josie could see her girls were losing attention. They’d spent so many weekends of their lives at dozens of parties that looked just like this—pickups, a bonfire, dark empty coulees all around—but the boys here were too young. Nobody snagged an interaction. She felt like she’d organized a mercy mission and everybody arrived to find charity work really boring.
Then Mikie wandered over again. “Ladies,” he said, “I just want you to know that we’re working with shortcuts to mood elevation, if anybody thinks that would be fun.” He acted like the emcee of the party, confident and goofily smooth.
“WTF?” Britnee actually said.
“There’s pot,” Josie said.
“I’m not smoking pot,” Ainsley said.
Britnee looked at Josie. “Are you smoking pot?”
Josie smiled, held her hands up, a definite maybe. Britnee slapped her shoulder. “Josie Frehse, are you smoking pot?”
“I’ll do it,” Brailey Ridenour said.
“What?” Britnee said, that two- or three-syllable, sing-song are you kidding me what. “When did all my friends become dope fiends?”
Ainsley said, “What is wrong with you people? What is wrong?” She grabbed Josie by the arm and swung her from that inner circle. “Smoking dope? Really, Jos?”
“Not really,” Josie said. She didn’t mean that.
“All you girls? Where was I?” Ainsley asked. “When did this happen?”
“Ainsley,” Britnee said. “You really need to try this. Just try.”
“No!” Ainsley said, and she stomped away to the other side of the fire.
Mikie produced a one-hit pipe and packed it. He lit and hit it. Re-packed. Handed it to Josie. She cocked her head, looked right at Britnee, and put the pipe to her lips. Mikie held the lighter. Josie burned her lungs, showing off with too deep a hit. Gagged up a thick plume of smoke.
Nobody mentioned it. Brailey said again, “I’ll do it.” She got the next hit. Mikie packed another one for himself and burned it. Then Britnee said, “Good god. Give it to me.”
Headlights spilled over the coulee bank and turned into a pickup truck coming to the party. For a while, every fifteen minutes or so, new vehicles arrived. Two hours after Josie arrived, the party had swelled. Her brother was there, though she stayed away from him because she was sure he would know she was high. Josie was standing arms-over-shoulder with Britnee, who was saying, “This from a guy who nine times out of ten people will say the movie is better than the book.” She was talking about the guy she met on Tinder, a guy from Spokane. An older guy.
She wasn’t saying how much older. Josie would worry, except that Spokane was such an unreachable place. As a really high person, Britnee having a secret lover there seemed fine. There was a lot of talking around the fire. Josie wandered, talked to Jocelyn, made conversation with Wyatt Aarstad. She smoked again with Mikie and Wyatt and Arlen Alderdice in the dark away from everybody else. Britnee spotted them and came straight over, wanting more.
After a little while they were all standing and talking about many things. Wyatt Aarstad was saying, “You think about it, a hundred years ago I would have shot you as soon as looking at you. We wiped all you fuckers out and it was easy.”
And then Mikie was saying, “The way it was with the tribes—before all you fuckers ever showed up—they knew the exploits of famous warriors who went out and did brave deeds. They knew who counted coup, who stole horses. They talked about it formally. Now, what do white people know? You know the exploits of famous people who pretend to be people who do brave deeds. Actors. Clint Eastwood.”
Josie couldn’t disagree, but also couldn’t care. She was stumble-around wasted. She looped an arm over Britnee and they stumbled around without going anywhere and laughed at each other.
Then Britnee stumbled with a little purpose away from everybody else and said, “Josie, can I ask you, can I please ask you?”
“You ask me everything,” Josie said, maybe jerking the arm a
round Britnee’s neck too hard.
“Are you hooking up with him?” Britnee said. “Because I do not understand. I don’t … you are the girlfriend of Matt fucking Brunner. Like why—seriously why—would you even thinking about hooking up with Mikie LaValle?”
“I’m not thinking about that,” Josie said, because it was the easiest thing to say and, at the moment, completely true. As if to prove Josie had done the right thing, within moments Britnee started breaking down the colors in the fire. And then she started doing what Josie knew she would do—wandering over to Josie’s brother and wrapping her arm around Jared’s neck and laughing at everything he said. Maybe a half hour later, Josie found herself standing by Mikie. She said, “You guys are throwing a pretty good party.”
He didn’t say anything.
“This is kind of a coup,” Josie said.
“Is that an Indian joke?”
She laughed and he laughed and then she laughed at him laughing and, knowing she was stoned, found a piece of herself that wasn’t completely engulfed in the laughing that thought: he’s not being a jerk. It all seemed to be going easy. And then another set of lights rolled down the gravel road into the coulee and behind the lights she saw Matt Brunner’s pickup. The surety hit her like a sharp elbow in the solar plexus. Matt didn’t come alone.
Alex Martin and Waylon Edwards swung out of the truck, too. None of them wore coats, though the temperature outside had already dropped into the low twenties. They knew their arrival was a big deal. Alex and Waylon waded right in, but Matt stopped just outside the sphere of firelight, hands stuffed in his front pockets, looking around like he was trying to find something he suspected would be there, like he couldn’t go one step further until he verified his hunch. During that time, Josie tried not to look at him.
She was having trouble standing straight. Her throat felt tight from the weed. She stayed close to her friends, an arm around Britnee, a “don’t go” for Brailey. She had tried not to, but eventually Matt caught her looking at him. He let his eyes press her down, let her feel the weight of what he thought about her until she broke it off. Mikie, Josie saw, was in deep conversation with Wyatt Aarstad and Arlen Alderdice. They were, she had no doubt, offering up the voice of reason and he was countering with the voice of stoned.
What Josie would always remember about how things happened next was that everything seemed so far away. The dope was part of it, she would always know that, but she felt so removed in other ways. She watched what happened like she was peering at the scene through the cardboard tube from a roll of paper towels. She never moved to do anything to stop it.
From Matt arriving until the end, she never spoke to Mikie. Josie saw Matt take a stripped-out beer box, turn it upside down, and sprinkle some of the lighter fluid that had been used to start the bonfire on the bottom of it.
Then Matt lit it up, held it above his head, and patted his mouth with the palm of his other hand, high-stepping around in some mockery of an Indian dance.
“I’m on the goddamned warpath,” Matt said to Alex Martin. Both giggled and snickered. Then Matt sprinted over as if to plunk the burning cardboard onto Mikie’s head. Mikie batted it to the ground, flapping his fingers like he’d burned them.
“You don’t like my headdress?” Matt said. “Try to play along with you fucking redskins and look at what I get.”
Mikie looked right and left. People clumped and pressed in.
“Bad night to be an Injun, boy,” Matt said to Mikie. Matt seemed very pleased. He looked more energized than Josie had seen him in weeks. “Just like the old days,” Matt said. “White man gonna kill your ass.”
Part of Josie wanted to sacrifice herself to stop what she knew was next. She’d go home with Matt, let him do whatever he wanted to her if it meant the end of what was happening. But another part of her felt like one of those hawks she always saw floating just above the prairie, bumping and dipping over contours, reacting to things she was not touching.
She heard a new voice, Wyatt Aarstad, yelling at Matt. “Back off,” Wyatt shouted. “Get out of here. Nobody needs this shit.”
“I need this shit,” Matt said, and he rushed Wyatt and seemed to blast him to the ground. He looked around until he found Josie and, staring at her, said, “I’m so tired of this. I need to end this little fucker.”
Josie could hear the girls calling for Matt to cool out, back off, shut it down. Maybe one was Britnee. She hoped maybe it was Britnee. People seemed to still be saying things when Matt swung and hit Mikie and knocked him down.
“You’re so fucking dead,” Matt said.
He didn’t wait for Mikie to get up, but rushed in, kicking. Mikie twisted to crawl away and got to his knees and Matt stood over him and punched the back of his head. Nobody else moved. The fire licked portraits of all their faces from the dark. Josie would remember shock and surprise on some faces, but acceptance on others and, even worse, hunger. Matt’s arms swung in wide arcs, blurred by dark and firelight. He stopped to kick Mikie’s face, stomp on the back of his neck.
Mikie scurried like a rodent, flurrying to cover himself, cowered and hunched. Josie saw Matt grinning, his teeth pressing together in a frantic gleam. Matt letting Mikie get to his feet and grinning, if that’s what it was. And then two things happening at the same time. Mikie standing, pivoting. Wyatt Aarstad rushing up and grabbing Matt from behind, encumbering his arms for a moment until Matt, furious at the distraction, whipped one arm free. And also at the same time—all of it happening as if each action were layered on top of the other—Mikie looping his arm at Matt’s midsection. Matt’s face swiped to surprise and then to hurt.
He sank to his knees and cried out one short, sharp bark. Wyatt fell away from him. Mikie stumbled forward, stayed on his feet. In all her years of knowing him, Josie had never heard Matt cry in pain. At the very end he sounded like a wounded little boy, confused and unbelieving that the world could hold so much hurt. The knife seemed like some tool from a fantasy book, the shiny glint of stainless steel twinned with a dripping red shimmer of dark blood. She saw it only for a moment before Mikie put it back into whichever pocket or secret place it had come from without wiping the blade. She heard Mikie say, in a near mumble, “I gotta get out of here,” on his way to his car, which he drove away at what, to Josie, seemed like a remarkably controlled speed. They were a far way out in the country.
It would take volunteer EMTs a while to reach this coulee, this bonfire. The sheriff might be on the other side of the county, one hundred miles away. They would all have to live with this moment for a while until some adults came and lifted it from them. Matt bled onto the snow. Jared Frehse knelt with him, pressing his hand onto the wound, cradling Matt’s head. Josie knew she should go to him, too, but she felt frozen, placed. Moving did not feel like an option. Matt had stopped making any noise except heavy breathing.
Then that shuddered and halted and gasped, several breaths cut in half, finished in heaves. Josie could hear the burning wood crackling, popping, hissing, though the sounds seemed to have nothing to do with the shower of sparks pouring skyward. The undulating firelight lit and unlit bare cottonwood trees overhead, making them look like tall, faint figures taking turns leaning in to see what had happened, to see how Matt Brunner had died.
* * *
Caroline Jensen heard Mikie come in like she usually did. She heard the car, no different than any other time. Heard him fumble with the door. Drunk, probably. Stoned, probably. He spent a lot of his time stoned these days. She didn’t think any of these things consciously, just registered it all. A teenaged boy. How was she supposed to know how to deal with a teenaged boy? And she heard him in the kitchen, then in his bedroom, and then she was back asleep. It was hours later when the pounding began.
She woke again, the half-light of dawn brightening the square of window in her room. The trailer reverberated with shock and sound, and then somebody was yelling for her to open up or they would break the door down. She sat up in bed startled, could n
ot imagine what the fuck was happening.
“Caroline Jensen, open the door or we’ll break it down,” a man was shouting. He knew her. How did a man who would break her door down know her? She thought about the gun she kept in the closet, but then realized that if someone wanted to hurt her, they would have just broken the door down or come in through a window. It must be, she realized, police. She rolled from bed, thrust herself into a robe, hurrying out into the hallway as she twisted the belt. She glanced at Mikie’s room, saw the door open.
“Wait!” she yelled. “Don’t break it! I’m coming! Wait! Wait! Wait!”
Before she reached the door she saw the red and blue pulses of light on the ceiling in the kitchen. Mikie, she thought. An accident. Some kind of accident. But he was home … She unlocked the door and pulled it open to find Sheriff Rue filling the space in front of her. Two squad cars with light bars popping sat in the driveway. She could see men leaning over their hoods, rifles pointed at her.
“Where’s your son?” the sheriff asked.
“What happened?” she asked, but Sheriff Rue was by her already, marching down the hall, a deputy right behind him.
“Where’s his room?” the sheriff asked, though it was just a trailer and he went right to it. “Where is he?”
“I thought he was here.”
“Did he come home last night?”
“I heard him. What’s going on?”
“Get everyone in here, search all of it,” the sheriff said, then to her, “He killed somebody.”
Caroline didn’t believe that, because she was in no way equipped to believe that. She had heard something else, she thought. But something was wrong, very wrong, for so many people to be tearing around her house looking for her son. Mikie killed someone? That was not what the sheriff had said. Had someone killed Mikie? The sheriff’s breath was terrible—old booze and recent coffee, not enough tooth brushing. Maybe he should drink more water, too. Something rancid in his gut. One side of his mustache had some brownish stain on the tips near his mouth.