The man looked suspiciously at the bill, finally set a Miller bottle atop it and pulled it toward him. “He’s gone,” he said shortly. He kept his eye on the bill but still didn’t touch it.
“How long ago?”
The bartender turned pointedly to serve another customer. I waited, trying not to lose my temper or my nerve. Still he ignored me, finally crouching to attend to some business behind the plywood counter. A few more minutes passed.
“Sheriff lookin’ for him too,” a voice announced beside me. I looked up to see a weathered man in a faded Harley T-shirt. He lit a cigarette, holding the pack out to me and then sticking it back in his pocket. He raised his chin to indicate the bartender. “He ain’t gonna tell you nothin’.”
Another man poked his head over the first’s, staring at me appraisingly. “Brownen just left with another gal, young lady. But maybe I can help you.”
I smiled tightly, shaking my head, and looked back for the bartender.
“Yessir, he sure did. ’Nother yankee,” the first man was saying. “Hey Jo, you bringin’ in tourists these days?”
Scattered laughter. The bartender stood and looked at me with dangerous red eyes. I nodded once, turned and fled.
The crowd at the door let me pass again, though this time their voices followed me as I walked back to my car. I did my best not to run; once inside I hit the autolock and sat for a moment trying to compose myself. After a minute or two the faces in front of the roadhouse had all turned away.
Still, I didn’t want to sit there, and I sure didn’t want anyone to follow me. When I started the car I drove behind the Black Cat, hoping to find a way out, and that was where I saw them.
She had changed her clothes. Now she wore tight jeans and a red blouse, and cowboy boots – surprisingly worn-looking boots, even in the cracked circle of blue light from the single streetlamp I could see how old those boots were, a working man’s boots, not some rich urban lawyer’s. They were leaning against her RV, arms crossed in front of their chests, talking. Once she threw her head back and laughed, and the man looked at her, confused, before he laughed too. He was tall and good-looking, with dark hair and a neatly trimmed beard. He glanced at my car as I drove by, but Irene Kirk didn’t even look up. I knew without a doubt in my mind that he was George Brownen.
Abandoned railroad tracks crisscrossed behind the road-houses. Next to them stood a burned-out warehouse with the rusted logo RED CHIEF flapping from a pole. I shut the engine, killed the lights and sat, watching Kirk and Brownen, trying to imagine what they were saying. Was she doing some kind of research, pretending to be one of her hard-luck clients? Or did she just have a taste for rough trade? The thought made me grimace, and I slid down in my seat so there’d be no way they could see me.
Only a few more minutes passed before she slapped the front of her van and started for the door. Brownen waited, called something and pointed across the lot. I knew he was trying to get her to follow him to his truck. But Irene only laughed, slinging her slight frame up into the driver’s seat and leaning over to open the other door. Brownen waited another moment, until she turned on the headlights. Then he walked slowly to the RV and climbed inside. Very faintly I could hear barking, and then that was swallowed by the van’s engine and the crunch of flying gravel as the RV pulled away.
I followed them. I knew it was crazy but I felt reckless and pumped up after my visit to Jojo’s. Plus there was nothing to worry about, really; there was no way they could recognize me, cruising a safe distance behind them, and back inside my car I felt invulnerable. I don’t know what I was thinking – probably nothing more than some misplaced voyeurism, or maybe a hope that they might stop somewhere and I could see where Brownen lived.
A rusted double-wide trailer on the outskirts of this failing oil town . . .
That would be how I’d write it up but they didn’t go to Brownen’s place. They headed north, toward the Interstate and the mountains, then turned onto a gravel road that ran parallel to the highway. I slowed until there was a good distance between us; it was easy to keep them in sight. There was no other traffic. After a few minutes we were in open country again.
They drove for a long time. I rolled down the window to catch the night wind, heavy with the smell of wild sage and the ubiquitous taint of petroleum. I didn’t turn on the radio, from some faint ridiculous fear that they might somehow hear it.
Overhead the moon was setting, bright as a streetlamp. The stars looked white and surprisingly solid, like salt spilled on a black table. As I drove the land slowly began to rise around me, gentle hills at first, hiding the rolling farmlands and the dull orange glow on the horizon that marked Ardmore to the south. The air streaming through the window was warm and sweet. I was composing my article in my head, thinking how Lyman had enough grisly photos that we wouldn’t need much text. Far ahead of me the RV’s taillights jounced and swam, twin meteors burning across the darkness.
I don’t know when I realized that we were back among the stones. On some unconscious level it must have registered – I’d been climbing steadily for a long time, the prairie somewhere in the soft darkness behind me. But suddenly I jerked upright, as though I had drifted asleep at the wheel.
I hadn’t: it was just that it was a shock, to look out the window and suddenly see them like that. In the moonlight they looked more like tombstones than ever. No, not tombstones, really, but something worse, infinitely more ancient and incomprehensible: barrows, menhirs, buried ossuaries. Lyman’s comment about dragon’s teeth didn’t seem so stupid now. I stared out the window at those meticulous rows of bleached sharp spines, and wondered if it was true, if those stones were as ancient as he’d said.
When I looked up again a moment later I thought I’d lost the RV. In front of me the cracked road twisted until it disappeared in the blackness. The van’s lights were gone. I had a jolt of panic, then sighted it: it had turned off to the right and parked. It sat on a high ridge overlooking the lines of stones, its rounded bulk silhouetted against the moon on the edge of the world.
Absurdly, I still wanted to follow them. If they’d been watching at all they must have seen the car behind them still, I cut my lights and pulled to the side of the road to park. I was in one of those tiny deep clefts poked into the strata of limestone and scrub. No one could see me, although they might notice that my car had abruptly disappeared. I waited a long time, striving to hear something above the soft hissing of the wind in thorny brush and the staccato cries of a nightjar.
I finally got out of the car. The air felt cooler here. Something scrabbled at my feet and I looked down to see a hairy spider, nearly big as my hand, crouch in a pocket of dust. I turned and began to walk quickly up the rise.
In a few minutes I could hear voices, surprisingly close. As I reached the top of the little hill I crouched down, until I was half walking, half crawling through loose scree and underbrush. When I reached the top I kept my head down, hidden behind a patch of thorns.
I was close enough that I could have thrown a stone and hit the side of the RV. Another sheer drop separated us, a sort of drywash gully. The ridge where they were parked was a little lower than where I crouched. Between us marched three rows of stones, sharp and even as a sawblade. I heard faint music – Irene must have put the radio on – and their voices, soft, rising now and then to laughter.
They were walking around the van. Irene kicked idly at stones. The wind carried the acrid smell of cigarette smoke from where Brownen followed her. I tried to hear what they were saying, caught Irene pronouncing something that sounded like “wife” and then Brownen’s laughter. I peered through the brush and saw that she was carrying something in one hand. At first I thought it was a whip, but then I saw it was a stick, something slender and pliable like a forsythia wand. When she slapped it against her thigh it made a whining sound.
That sound and the thought of a whip suddenly reminded me of the dogs. I swore under my breath, squatting back on my heels. And as though the same i
dea had come to her, Irene headed for the back of her van. She walked slowly, almost unthinkingly but somehow I knew that this was calculated. She’d meant all along to let those dogs out. It was the reason she’d come here; and suddenly I was afraid.
For a moment she stood in front of the door, staring at where Brownen stood with his shoulders hunched, looking at his feet and smoking. Behind her the moon hung like a silver basket. The jagged hills with their lines of stones marched on, seemingly forever, the stones dead-white against the grey earth and somber sky. Still Irene Kirk waited and watched Brownen. She didn’t stand there hesitantly. It was more like she was thinking, trying to make up her mind about something. Then, with one sure motion she threw the door open.
I had thought the dogs would bound out, snarling or barking. Instead first their heads and front paws appeared. There were two of them, sniffing and whining and clawing at the air. Big dogs, not as large as mastiffs but with that same clumsy bulk, their heads looking swollen compared to the rest of them. I heard Irene’s voice, soothing yet also commanding. Brownen looked up. There was no way for me to tell if he was afraid, but then he dragged on his cigarette and ground it out, shoved his hands in his jeans pockets and looked quickly from Irene to her animals.
The whining grew louder. The dogs still remained at the edge of the van, crouched like puppies afraid to make the little jump to the ground. And then I realized they were afraid. When Irene took a step towards them their whining grew louder and they fell over each other, trying to race back into the van; but then she raised that slender wand and called something. Her voice was clear and loud, but I had no idea what she said.
The dogs did, though. At the sound of her voice they stopped. When she repeated the command they turned and leaped from the cab, their great forms flowing to the ground like black syrup poured from a jug. Big as they were they looked starved. Even from where I crouched I could see their ribs, the swollen joints of their legs, and the silvery glint where one still wore a cruel collar around his neck. Sudden panic overcame me: what if they scented me and attacked? But running would only make it worse, so I bellied down against the coarse ground, praying the wind wouldn’t turn and bring my scent to them.
And the dogs seemed to want to run. They started to race across the narrow ridge, but once again Irene shouted a command, her switch slashing through the air. As though they’d been shot the dogs dropped, burying their muzzles between their front paws like puppies. Irene turned her back to them and walked towards Brownen.
She walked right up to him, until her hands touched his sides. He drew his arms up to hold her, but I saw how his eyes were on the dogs. Then she thrust her pelvis against his, ran her hands along his thighs and up his arms, until he looked down at her. His head dipped; moonlight sliced a grey furrow across his scalp. I could no longer make out Irene’s face beneath his; and that was when she raised her hand.
The slender switch she held hung in the air for a moment. When it dropped I could hear its whistling, so that I thought he’d cry out as it struck his shoulder. But he didn’t; only looked up in surprise. He started to draw away from her, puzzled, his mouth opening to say something. He never did.
As smoothly as the dogs had poured from the back of the van, Brownen fell to his knees. For an instant I lost sight of him, thought I was looking at another of the stony cusps stretching across the hills. Then I saw him; saw what he was becoming.
A wail cut across the hillside. I thought it was Brownen at first, but it was one of the dogs. At Irene’s feet a dark form writhed, man-size but the wrong shape. In her hand the switch remained, half-raised as though she might strike him again. The shape twisted, as though struggling to get up. I heard a guttural sound, a sort of grunting. My stomach contracted; I thought of running back to my car but that would mean standing, and if I stood there would be no way of pretending that I hadn’t seen what had become of Brownen. In another moment it was too late, anyway.
Irene Kirk stepped back. As her shadow fell away the figure at her feet squirmed one last time, tried to rear onto his hind legs and finally rolled onto all fours. It was an animal. A pig: a boar, one of the things I’d seen that afternoon, slaughtered on the Laurens ranch. In the moonlight it looked immense and black, its grizzled collar of fur seeming to cast a sheen upon the ground beneath it. It had tusks, not large but still vicious-looking, and surprisingly dainty feet ending in small pointed hooves. There was no man where Brownen had stood a moment before; nothing but the javelina and Irene Kirk, and crouched a few yards away her two dogs.
My eyes burned. I covered my mouth with one hand, retching, somehow kept from getting sick. I heard a high-pitched sound, something screeching; when I looked up the javelina had darted across the ridge, heading towards the car.
“Jimmie Mac! Buddy!” Irene’s voice was clear and loud, almost laughing. She raised her wand, pointed at the boar scrabbling through the brush and yelled something I couldn’t make out. I raised myself another inch, in time to see the two dogs burst from their crouch and take off after the javelina.
Within seconds they had it down, within the shadow of the RV. Their snarls and the peccary’s screams ripped the still air. I could hear its hooves raining against the metal side of the van, the dogs’ snarling giving way to frightened squeals. The sharp odor of shit came to me suddenly, and a musky smell. Then it was quiet, except for low whimpering.
I let my breath out, so loudly I was sure they’d hear me. But the dogs didn’t move. They wriggled belly-down against the ground, as though trying to back away from the carcass in front of them. A few feet away Irene watched, her arms lowered now, her stick twitching against her thigh. Then she walked slowly to the animals.
The dogs groaned and whined at her approach, writhing as though chained to the wheels of the van. When she reached them her arm shot up. I thought she would strike them, but instead she brought the switch down upon the javelina’s corpse. The moon glinted off the slender wand as though it were a knife; and then it seemed it was a knife. Because where she struck the carcass slivers of flesh spun into the air, like a full-blown rose slashed by a child’s hand. Ears, lips, nose; gleaming ribbons falling around her feet like leaves. She was laughing, a sweet pure sound, while at her feet the dogs moaned and clawed their muzzles with bloody paws.
I couldn’t bear any more. Before I could stop myself I was on my feet and bolting, my feet sliding through the loose scree and dust swirling up all around me. Only a few yards away was my car. I jumped over a pointed tooth of stone, thought almost that I had made it; but then I was screaming, falling beneath some great weight onto the rocky ground.
“Janet.”
The weight was gone. Above me something blotted out the sky, and there was warmth and wet all around me. Then I heard kicking, and the dark shape whimpered and fell away. I threw my arm protectively across my face, groaning as I tried to sit up.
“Janet,” the voice repeated. I could see her now, arms crossed, a line creasing her forehead where a scratch was drawn as though with red ink. “What are you doing here?” Her tone was disbelieving, but also amused, as though I were a disappointing student who had suddenly seemed to have some faint spark of intelligence.
I said nothing, tried to back away from her. A dog lay at either side of her legs; in between I saw her boots, the worn creased leather now bloodstained and covered with a scruff of dirt. Blinking I looked up again. Her eyes were cold, but she smiled very slightly.
“I have to go now,” she said. I flinched as she raised her arms, but she only yawned.
Behind her the sky had faded to the colour of an oyster shell. The moon was gone and now only the stars remained, pale flecks like bits of stone chipped from the ground beneath me. In the ashen light Irene suddenly looked very old: not like an old woman but truly ancient, like a carven image, some cycladic figure risen from among the stones. I thought of Lyman talking about dragon’s teeth; of an ancient Greek hero sowing an army from broken stones.
And suddenly I remembere
d something. An absurd image, thrown back from some movie I’d seen as a child decades before. One of those grim bright Technicolor epics where toga-clad heros fought hydras and one-eyed giants, and sweating men groaned and yelled as they strove against the oars of a trireme. A woman on a white beach, a sea like blue ink spilling behind where she stood smiling at an assembly of shipwrecked men. Then her hands swept up, one of them holding an elaborately carved wand. In front of her the sand whipped up in a shimmering wall. When it subsided the men were gone, and she was surrounded by pink grunting pigs and snarling German shepherds that were stand-ins for wolves. She raised her arms and the wolves turned upon the swine, howling. I could almost remember her name, it was almost familiar . . .
“Good-bye, Janet.”
Irene Kirk knelt, bending over one of the dogs; and it came back to me.
Not Kirk. Circe.
I struggled to pronounce it, then saw how she held her switch, so tightly her fingers were white.
“Time’s up, Buddy,” she said softly. Her other hand grasped the dog by its collar, and I saw where something pale fluttered, a piece of tattered cloth wrapped around the leather. There was something printed on it; but before I could focus her hand moved, so swiftly the switch became a shining blur. The dog made a gasping sound, gave a single convulsive shake. When her hands drew back I saw where its throat had been cut, a deep black line across the folds of loose skin where blood quickly pooled over the paler knobs of trachea and bone. Frantically I pushed myself away from it, heedless of the other dog whining beside its mistress.
As quickly as she’d slashed its throat the woman stood. She took a step toward her van, then stopped. She glanced down at me, her eyes black as though hollowed in stone.
“Don’t think about it too much,” she said, her mouth curving slightly. Then she stooped and with one swift motion flicked the collar from the dead animal’s neck. “Or – ”
Her smile widened as she finished ironically, “Think of it as justice.”
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