The Marrowbone Marble Company

by Glenn Taylor

  On this cold night, he answered Ledford’s question on work. On deeds. Staples said, “Look here. ‘Thou art the doer, I am the instrument.’ And this is real important for you, Ledford, because you’re the type that needs to keep himself busy.” The tip of his nose was red from the chill, and there was pipe ash caught in his beard. “Now, busy like a businessman isn’t going to cut it. Nossir. You’ve got to be busy like a bee, in the service of something besides I. See what I mean?” He grabbed Ledford by the coat sleeve and kept walking. “You will only beat back what’s chasing you if you forget about yourself. You work for your family, for your God, for those around you that need it most. Never for yourself.” He put his hands back in his pockets. “Should’ve worn my gloves,” he said.

  Ledford flicked the cherry off his cigarette one-handed and stuck the butt in his pocket. “But what if the work a man does isn’t real?”

  “How’s that?”

  “Office work,” Ledford said. “I’m not workin for anybody but those whose pockets is already lined, as far as I can figure.”

  “Then quit,” Staples answered. “You don’t strike me as the type to fall in with the scotch-and-bridge crowd, Ledford. Get out while you can.” They were coming up on Fifth Avenue, Rachel’s Episcopal church.

  “Let’s double back on Sixth,” Staples said.

  The younger man had questions. “Were you ever—”

  Staples had stopped walking.

  Ledford turned back to him. Staples was squint-eyed and studying the church. Ledford looked there and saw, huddled against the double doors, the outline of a man.

  “That doesn’t seem right,” Staples said. He ascended the staircase. Ledford followed. The man’s hand protruded from his shirtsleeve at a peculiar angle, pale and knuckled against the concrete. His neck bent hard against the door, and his winter coat lay beside him in a heap.

  “That’s a dead man,” Staples said as they got within five feet.

  Hair grew wild and white from his earhole. His skin looked blue in the moonlight. “That’s Lucius Ball,” Ledford said. He took a knee and pressed his hand to his father-in-law’s neck. Cold. There was blood on his chin. More beside him on the ground, mixed with vomit. Ledford stood and hung his head.

  “Drank himself to death,” Staples said.

  Ledford nodded.

  “I am sorry, Ledford.”

  “What was he doing here?” Ledford looked back down Tenth Avenue. The vomit outside Chief Logan’s. He’d stepped around it. He’d had a bad feeling. Now here was Lucius Ball, at the doors of God’s house.

  “Refuge,” Staples said.

  “What?”

  “Refuge. Sanctuary. The church doors should have been unlocked.” Staples stepped forward and tried them. They did not give. Lucius’s head slid a little from the movement. Both men watched him as if he might move again. “You ought to get home,” Staples said. “Let’s get to the police and then get you home to Rachel.” He put his hand on Ledford’s shoulder.

  Neither of them were uncomfortable in the company of a dead man.

  “All right,” Ledford said.

  On the way down the stairs, he stopped. He turned and looked up at the steeple. It was tall and skinny, and it tapered toward the sky like a shiv, waiting on something to fall.

  THE VERY REVEREND Thompson joined them for Thanksgiving dinner. He felt a sense of shame for having locked the doors of his parish. It was a practice begun during the Depression, after someone had beaten in the communion cabinets and stolen all the silver.

  For her part, Rachel had not shown emotion upon learning of her father’s death. The night prior, when Ledford sat down beside her on the bed and gave her the news, she’d said nothing. Instead, she kicked off the bedsheets and walked to the bathroom. She stared at herself in the egg-shaped mirror, took out her bobby pins, and brushed her hair for a half an hour. When she’d finished, she hollered, “Thanksgiving will still be Thanksgiving.”

  They all joined hands in the kitchen. A prayer circle to offer thanks for their blessings and understanding for their losses. Little Mary walked inside the circle, tapping knees as she went, saying, “Duck duck duck goose.” Baby Willy slept on the porcelain tabletop, wrapped in a flannel blanket and wedged between the wall and a five pound can of Karo. All heads bowed. Reverend Thompson held the hand of young Harold Wells, who held the hand of his mother, who held the hand of her husband, who held the hand of Don Staples, and so forth. Harold kept one eye open and used it to see what white folks did when they prayed. The words sounded both different and the same as those spoken in his church. Staples had both his eyes open. He winked at the boy, who quickly shut his in response. Reverend Thompson said, “Through Jesus Christ our Lord to whom, with thee and the Holy Ghost, be all glory and honor, world without end, Amen,” and they all repeated his final word, raising their chins off their chests.

  The turkey was called a fine bird by all who partook of it. Lizzie Wells spoke quiet thank-yous to compliments on her cranberry dressing. She checked the time and worried on being late to her father’s table.

  Staples asked Harold about the first grade, about his take on the game of baseball. “I like it,” was all the boy would say.

  “How about ole Chuck Yeager,” Reverend Thompson said at one point. There was gravy on his cheek and his eyeglasses needed cleaning.

  “They thought he’d blown himself up when the barrier broke.”

  Truman became the topic of the hour, and all speculated on whether or not Senator Kilgore might well make a run at the White House in a year.

  “My brother Bob could fill Kilgore’s empty seat, I’d imagine,” Staples said. “Specially since Bob’s rear end is ample enough these days.” They all laughed, Mack the loudest. Harold smiled with food in his mouth. He appreciated an adult’s use of such terminology. Don continued, “He’ll probably smell this here turkey you’ve brined all the way across Eighth Street, Rachel. Be here by six to pick it to bone.”

  Rachel smiled. She had her hands clasped under her chin. A calm had come on her since Lucius crossed over.

  Ledford loved the way her crow’s-feet came when she smiled. He put his hand on hers. He knew she was glad her father was gone. It meant one less worry on her mind. She’d loved her daddy, but he’d loved only things.

  It was tradition in Rachel’s family to dry out a Thanksgiving wishbone for a full year before pulling on it. After sweet potato pie, Rachel took the old wishbone from the kitchen window and replaced it with the new, grease-shined and chunked with meat. Harold and Mary would face off this year, the younger one with help from her mother.

  Harold bent his knees and smiled at the toddler. Rachel gripped the bone with her. “You two close your eyes,” she said. Mary giggled. She scrunched her nose at the boy whose knuckles brushed her own. Eyes shut, they pulled, and everyone clapped when the little bone snapped.

  It had split dead center at the apex. None in attendance had ever seen such a break. Rachel asked Harold for his half and held them aloft, side by side. All leaned in and eyeballed. “I’ll be durned,” Ledford said. The halves were precisely equal in length.

  Young Harold, who had squeezed his eyes as tight as he could, asked, “What does it mean?”

  No one answered him. Willy began to cry from the nursery, and little Mary, having lost interest, ran and tripped over the loose kitchen threshold. She landed on her chin and began to wail. Ledford went to her, Rachel to Willy.

  Harold looked to his parents for answers. His mother licked her thumb and wiped at the crumbs on his cheek. “It means both your wishes come true,” she said.

  Harold looked around her to Reverend Thompson, who sipped from a coffee cup with his pinky extended. “Is that right?” Harold asked him.

  “Yes.”

  Staples watched the boy. It was clear he had put some thought into his wish. “What did you wish for?” he asked.

  “Can’t tell or it won’t come true,” Mack said.

  “That theory’s been dispr
oved,” Staples answered.

  The boy didn’t speak for a moment, and then he said, “I wished I could play for the Dodgers, like Jackie Robinson.” But this was a lie. Harold had wished nothing of the sort. As he’d pulled on that dry little bone, he’d asked God to help his daddy find the man who’d burnt a cross on their front lawn, and that when that man was found, to forgive his daddy for shooting him between the eyes.

  IT WAS THE day after Lucius Ball’s funeral that Ledford accompanied Bob Staples to the Bonecutter place in Wayne County. Bob drove a Ford Sportsman with an airtight convertible top. The car wore wood door panels like a boat. Inside, the two men shared Thermos coffee and Bob talked about his plans to run for office. “Next year’s elections won’t be like any we’ve seen before,” he said. “And I’m talkin about everywhere.” Bob’s foot was heavy on the pedal, and he didn’t watch the road when he spoke. “My brother has told me about your stand on the rights of Negroes, and I’ll tell you what, Ledford, high time is here.” The tires kicked rock hard around the wheel wells and Bob swerved off the shoulder.

  “Your brother is a wise man,” Ledford said. “He’s helped me a good bit.”

  They’d turned off 152 and were doglegging a steep county road. Knob Drop, Bob had called it. Do Not Pass, the sign said. Everything out here was steep, and every place name was followed by the word Branch or Fork. They passed a house where a man sold tobacco from the open trunk of a dead automobile.

  Bob slowed to twenty miles per hour. He pointed ahead. “Dead man’s curve,” he said.

  Ledford watched out his window as they rounded it. A drop-off of a hundred feet or more, no guardrail.

  Some trees had emptied their color. Others were dotted here and there, red and yellow. Mostly, the hills of Wayne County were the color of mud, and it rolled down their inclines uncontained by streambeds. The mines had opened up new punctures, and folks had grown accustomed to what spilled forth.

  “I aim to throw my hat in the ring,” Bob said. He’d slowed where muddy water crossed the road. The edges were crumbling away, the mark of habitual floodwater.

  “Which ring?”

  “Maybe Senate. Maybe governor.” The tires spun free for a moment, then found their footing. “She’s going to need a wash after this one,” Bob said. “Should’ve brought the wagon.”

  Ledford was thinking on senators and governors. It seemed to him they were usually white-haired and slicker than Bob. He looked down at the open file in his lap. Bob had told him to study up the case on the way. There was a letter from Maynard Coal & Coke dated February 1943 that read, in part, It is our belief that your property includes coal reserves that would be conducive to the new surface mining methods of extraction and we encourage you to join your neighbors in the economic benefits that this offer represents. There was a map of record from the county tax office. Tracts of land were sliced and numbered, lined and shaded. The Bonecutter tract was shaded the darkest gray, and it was the biggest plot by a longshot. 500 acre somebody had penciled under it. The letters dated 1944 and onward employed increasingly threatening language. A handwritten one said, You’ll sell or you’ll burn to the ground. Another letter claimed the Maynards actually owned the Bonecutter tract, and that they had the deed to prove it.

  Bob turned left on an ungraded road of dirt. Brown water rippled in potholes the size of tractor tires. Bob jerked the wheel right and left one-handed. He spilled coffee on his white shirt, cursed, and finished it off. Up and down they went, orchestrated by the thump and growl of axles and acceleration. “The Maynard boy that came up missing since the arson was bad from the get-go,” Bob said.

  “Is that right?”

  “The youngest boy, Sam. Was a Golden Glove welterweight at one point. But he drank. His daddy Paul is Wayne County sheriff. Good man.”

  “Do the Maynards own their own outfit?” Ledford shut the file and gripped the dash.

  “They do. One of the few operators who grew from nothing. There isn’t a New Englander on the payroll, even at the tippy top.”

  After a quarter mile, it seemed to Ledford that they’d been swallowed by the branches growing over the road. Up ahead, he saw an old barrier gate of the swinging variety. Wood with iron hinges and hardware. For a moment, Ledford felt that he’d been to this gate before.

  “These are good people, the Bonecutters, but they’ll put you on edge some at first.” Bob laughed a little. “Not even at first, really. More like all the time. But they’re all right. And they just want to keep what belongs to them.”

  Ledford hadn’t mentioned his suspicion that he was somehow kin to the Bonecutters.

  A man appeared from the brush behind the gate. He wore muddied brogans and blue jeans and a winter coat with the sheep’s-wool collar up. On his head was a flattened engineer’s cap whose grime had erased its stripes. The man undid a heavy chain and swung the gate open.

  “I think that’s Wimpy, but I can’t be sure,” Bob said. He gave enough gas to push them through, then held up.

  The man relatched the gate and walked slow to the driver’s door. He stooped a little to peer inside. There was a rifle over his shoulder.

  Bob said, “Mornin.”

  Ledford nodded hello.

  It was hard to know if the man nodded back or not. There was some movement, but it was subtle. The bones in the man’s face were right-angle sharp and ready to bust through skin, and his eyes spoke to the mastery of fear, the willingness to end a problem before it started.

  “This is Loyal Ledford, a friend of mine,” Bob said.

  Ledford nodded again. He watched the man’s face as the name registered. It was hard to read.

  “You want to hop in and ride the rest of the way?” Bob’s smile was timid, and he blinked double-time.

  “Nossir.” Wimpy stood up straight and walked ahead through the ditched wet leaves lining the road.

  They drove past him down the steep incline. Rounding a bend, Ledford beheld Bonecutter Ridge and his insides shuddered. The sight of it brought Guadalcanal straight back to him, the camelback cutting the sky at Bloody Ridge. Ledford’s breathing seized and he smelled scorched gunpowder and the effluvium of blown-open men. He tried to take deep breaths, settle himself.

  If Bob noticed, he didn’t say so.

  They came to the bottom of a long, wide hollow. It ran low through the mountains like a trench.

  The home sat at the head of the hollow. It was a single pen house of flat-planked logs, all different shades of gray. A bear hide, head attached, was nailed to the side. There was a sturdy-built outhouse ten paces out. Behind the house was a half-rotted crib barn, and next to that was a small, square dwelling. Bob cut the ignition and pointed to a scorched patch a ways off. “That was the newer home,” he said. “The one that burnt down.” Then he pointed to the little square building. “That was the butcher’s shop, I guess you’d call it. Where the hogs were quartered and all.” He pointed to the single pen house. “And this house here is original to the Bonecutter family. Built in 1798.”

  Everywhere, chickens pecked the dirt. Big ones and bantams, none the same shade. There was a small burial plot, fenced. Its headstones were crooked. Behind it, a gray goat clacked horns with a black one.

  They got out of the car. Ledford noted only a single window on the place, high up, square, and empty. One of the two doors opened and a man stepped onto the jutting rock foundation. He was identical to the one who’d greeted them, who now approached from behind. Same right-angled face bones, same eyes. Same engineer’s cap.

  “That’s Dimple,” Bob said.

  When they got closer, Ledford took note of Dimple’s scars. Plentiful. Deep. Skin where stubble should have grown. There was one on his cheek in the shape of a star that was no doubt the source of his nickname.

  Short introductions were made before they went inside and sat on four chairs in front of the big black cookstove. Wimpy sat closest and fed the embers. He blew through pursed lips until it caught, then pulled logs from their floor stack be
tween the stove’s cast-iron legs. He leaned so close he singed his eyebrows. You could smell it on the air.

  “There’s beans still hot if you’re hungry,” Dimple said. He chewed on a long kindling splinter.

  Both visitors said thank you, no. The water pot boiled up.

  Wimpy poured coffees all around. Ledford scorched his tongue on the first swig.

  They spoke about the Maynards, and Bob produced the file folder from his briefcase. He pointed to parts of the text and handed the folder to Dimple, who read intently.

  “They never did have nothin to go on,” Dimple said after a while.

  “And I don’t give a flat damn what anybody says otherwise.” He closed the folder and handed it back.

  “I believe you’re right,” Bob said. “I believe Paul Maynard would agree with you. Seems to me he’s lookin to leave well enough alone.” It was quiet. “That only leaves the matter of the arson, and this Sam Maynard that’s gone missing.”

  “Well,” Dimple said. “Paul Maynard knows better than to step foot out here, sheriff or not.”

  “And no one’s appeared to file a missing report on Sam.”

  “I don’t know about any of that.” Dimple worked his jaw in time with his heartbeat.

  “Has any Maynard made further attempt to claim any part of your acreage since Sam’s disappearance?”

  “No.”

  “Well, I wonder if the whole thing might just fizzle. If you two are content—what I mean is if they’re content to…” Bob thought twice on speaking his train of thought aloud. He’d gathered enough about hill justice to know when to keep his mouth shut.