Bone Dust White

by Karin Salvalaggio

  Outside, the wind has dropped and tiny snowflakes drift down from the sky. Something catches her eye and Grace turns toward the far side of the mill, which butts up against the Flathead River. A little girl walks in her direction. The child’s head is bent down and her hands are thrust deep in her pockets. Thick black hair hangs across her face. She is dressed fashionably, but her blue coat is far too thin and instead of snow boots, she has sneakers on her feet. It’s only when she gets closer that Grace realizes that this little girl is crying. Grace stands perfectly still, waiting for the moment the girl realizes she is not alone.

  The girl stops walking but she does not raise her eyes.

  “What are you doing here?” Grace whispers. She’s seen the girl with her grandfather, Toby, a few times but it was always from a distance. She’s never been this close before.

  The girl doesn’t respond. Her long black hair falls limp around her face. Grace wants to see this little girl’s eyes. There’s something about the chin and nose that remind her of herself. The girl continues to sob. She uses the sleeve of her jacket to wipe away the mucus and snot that collects on her upper lip.

  Grace finds a tissue in her bag and comes close enough to wave it in front of the girl’s face. “Take this.”

  The girl is obedient. She does as directed without talking back, but she still doesn’t look up. She mumbles thanks and blows her nose like a boy would—a long elephantine blast. She wads up the used tissue and crams it in her jacket pocket. Grace hands her another when she sees the girl’s shoulders start to tremble again.

  Grace leans forward, trying to peer around the girl’s veil of black hair. “Are you Hayley Camberwell’s daughter?”

  “My momma says I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.”

  Grace notes the fading light. A snowstorm is moving in. She doesn’t understand why the child is out here on her own.

  “Where’s your mom?”

  The girl wipes her eyes with the backs of her hands. “She’s not well. She had to stay at home.”

  Grace pictures Toby Larson’s aging features and sees nothing of herself, but his granddaughter could be her twin. Grace’s heart feels unbalanced in her chest. Hayley Camberwell might be her half sister after all. Grace stares hard at the girl in front of her, trying to figure out whether she should believe they’re related.

  “Do you know my momma?” says the little girl, more than once.

  “No, but I know your grandfather, Toby Larson.” She holds out her hand. “So we’re not really strangers.”

  The extended hand hangs suspended until Grace drops it, unacknowledged. They stay silent for a bit. The light dims further behind thickening clouds and the crows rise and fall in the trees that line the shores of the Flathead River.

  The girl looks up at Grace with fierce eyes. “You’re that girl from the news. My grandmother doesn’t like you much.”

  “Well, I’m a little different and people don’t always take to that. I’m Grace. What’s your name?”

  “Isobel.”

  Grace looks up at the darkening sky and decides that she has no choice but to get Isobel out of here. It isn’t safe.

  “I need to get you home,” she says, taking hold of Isobel’s arm and opening the door to her pickup truck.

  Isobel shakes her head.

  “It’s going to be okay. We’ll go find your mother.”

  Isobel pulls away. “I can’t leave. I need to get back to my sisters. I promised them I wouldn’t be long.”

  Grace glances around the empty mill yard. “Where are they?”

  The girl points toward the back of the mill. “They’re with my dad.”

  Grace bites her lip. She now knows who killed her mother. “Did he leave you on your own?”

  “He got upset and stomped off like he always does. I thought I’d better go for help.”

  “Do you think he’s still gone?”

  The girl shrugs.

  “Get in the truck. I’ll take you to your sisters.”

  The light is grainy gray between the buildings that encroach upon the narrow lane that runs toward the back of the mill. Grace keeps the headlights off and creeps forward. They round the corner and Grace comes to a stop about fifty feet before a line of trees. Up ahead a truck sits off to the side, resting on the soft shoulder and facing away from them. The lights are on and the engine is running. Grace leans on the steering wheel, thinking hard. “Seems like your daddy’s come back.”

  “You should know my daddy isn’t a nice man.”

  They stay there watching the other truck. Grace can see the top of Isobel’s father’s head but nothing more. “I don’t see your sisters.”

  Isobel peers over the dashboard, rocking back and forth and squinting her eyes until she’s satisfied. “They’re only little. No way you’d see them from here.”

  “What were you doing out here anyway?”

  “He said we were going on a trip, but then he got real angry when my little sisters started crying for our momma.”

  “You’re scared of your daddy, aren’t you?”

  “He says my mom wasn’t well, but I could hear them fighting. I think he hurt her again.”

  Grace stares out the windshield for a while. She has no idea what she’s doing.

  She reaches into her bag. “Does your daddy have a gun?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” She narrows her eyes when she sees Grace’s pistol. “Are you gonna shoot him?”

  “Nah, I’m just going to talk to him.”

  Isobel turns toward Grace and lowers her voice. “Cause it’s okay with me if you shoot him.”

  Grace frowns. The words Isobel has just spoken don’t sit well on her sweet face. “I never knew my daddy.”

  “You’re lucky.”

  Grace looks at the girl again. “I want you to run up to the road to get help. Flag down a trucker if you have to. Tell them to call the police.” She closes her eyes and hopes she’s right. “And don’t worry, they’re nicer than you think.”

  “Doubt that, my daddy drives trucks.”

  “Just you wait. Everything will be fine.”

  Grace takes off her gloves and puts them on the girl’s hands. They flop over the tops of her slim fingers. She pulls Jared’s cap out of her pocket and slips it over Isobel’s head so it’s covering her ears. Without another word, Isobel slides away, easing the door shut with a soft click.

  Grace’s lonely boots crack through a thin crust of snow and sink a few inches into the road. The silent landscape envelops Grace like a dream and her breath escapes bone dust white. A voice inside of her screams at her to turn back, but her breath steams ahead impatiently. She walks through wisps of cloud, thinking about the family she now has—nieces, half sisters, and a father. Looking for comfort, she slips her bare fingers around the cold handle of the gun thumping heavily against her hip. Fresh snow falls hard and icy like darts, stinging her cheeks and painting the air between herself and Brian Camberwell’s truck with broad strokes of white.

  At the back bumper she follows a tentative hello with an apology for being late, but she finds it difficult to raise her voice higher than a whisper. The man sitting at the wheel doesn’t turn to acknowledge her presence. She says hello several more times, trying her best to sound casual. Those last few footsteps to the passenger door seem to take forever. She stands at the window and the top of her head barely skims the bottom of the glass.

  She looks on, detached, as her bare knuckles knock on the cold metal door. There is no response. She takes hold of the freezing handle and eases up onto the chrome running board so she can look inside. Through the thin layer of condensation she can see two children slumped on the seat next to their father. He’s sitting under the bright ceiling light, awash in an unkind glow. His forehead hangs heavy over his face and his jowls are as thick as earflaps. He mutters to himself, barely opening his mouth to speak. Grace strikes the glass with three short raps but he makes no move to invite her in. Left with no choice she backs along the side a
nd tries the door handle. An equal measure of fear and relief comes with finding it unlocked. The intense heat of the interior hits her immediately. The children stir in their sleep and their father’s gaze finds her at last. He has a gun in his lap.

  “Where in the hell have you been?” His shouts awaken Isobel’s sisters. Instead of crying the girls slide their young eyes from side to side, surveying the scene like seasoned pros.

  Grace can’t think what to say. She’s lost her nerve. She stares at the little girls, trying to find something familiar in their features, but she’s coming up short. Maybe I’m wrong about Isobel, she thinks.

  The man slams his big head back into the seat and it bounces forward like a basketball. “I asked you a question, Isobel.”

  Grace swallows hard. She looks back toward her car. Isobel is long gone. She can barely see her front bumper through the heavily falling snow. Isobel is safe, she thinks. At least that’s something.

  Grace reaches for her gun, stopping short of her coat pocket when Brian’s big head swings back at her like a wrecking ball. “I’m not Isobel,” she stutters. “I’m sorry. I’m late. It wasn’t easy getting away.”

  Brian Camberwell watches her, his head dipping a fraction so that he might get a better view. His eyes narrow when he realizes his mistake. “Well, if it isn’t Dustin’s little friend. I thought you’d lost your nerve.”

  Grace stares at the gun on his lap and remains silent.

  Brian smirks. “I knew your mom. May she rot in hell.” He presses his palms into his eyes before reaching for the fifth of Jack Daniels resting on the dashboard. It’s half full and the label has been picked off at the edges. “You know, you’re lucky. If it had been up to me, you’d be dead by now. Did you bring the money?”

  “I’ve never told anyone,” she says, finally recognizing Brian from all those years ago. He was the driver who chased her away from Katya’s trailer out to the fence line where she’d hid in the shadows. “I never told anyone about those girls in the back of your truck.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’m fucked anyway.” He twists off the bottle cap and repeats the word fucked again and again between swallows. “Do you know what that feels like?”

  Grace wants to run but instead concentrates on the emptying bottle. She answers truthfully, “Yes, sir. I do.”

  “What do you fucking know? Bet you’ve never had a rough day in your life.”

  Grace decides it’s best not to argue. “I have the money.”

  He leans back. “And I have the photos.”

  “I don’t want them.”

  He lets out a low laugh that doesn’t sit right with his mood. He ruffles the hair of the girl closest to him and she flinches. “What are you talking about?”

  Grace’s shoulders are blanketed in white. She’s getting cold. “You’ve got a chance of getting away on your own but you’ll never manage with your daughters.”

  He shuts his eyes and takes a deep breath like he might be going underwater. “Tell me something I don’t know. I reckon half the state is looking for me by now.”

  “I promise I’ll take them someplace safe.” She hesitates. “They’re only little. You need to do right by them.”

  Brian Camberwell lunges forward and grabs his two remaining daughters roughly by the arms and pulls them close to him. He kisses them fiercely on the tops of their heads. Tears puddle in the shallow grooves beneath his eyes. He lets go and the girls melt back into the seat, the eldest of the two inching closer to the open door every time her daddy turns away.

  “It would have been okay if Isobel were here. I would have gone through with it.”

  Grace’s eyes dart to the gun on Brian’s lap. “Maybe you should take a walk and think things through for a bit.” She’s hoping he’s drunk enough to consider the suggestion. “I can look after your girls while you’re away.”

  “Do you think I’m stupid or something?”

  “No, sir,” she says, feeling her throat close.

  “Then don’t treat me like I am.”

  He takes another long drink, wrapping his big hand around the bottle, white-knuckle tight. Grace watches his Adam’s apple bounce around his neck like a rogue wave. He grimaces and chokes back what might be a sob. Snow melts from Grace’s hair and runs down her forehead. She pushes a damp strand from her face and he looks up at her.

  “Why are you still here?”

  Grace is unbalanced. Her toes almost slip on the damp ledge. She corrects her footing. “Your girls. I’ve come for your girls. You said you’d let your girls come with me in exchange for the money.”

  “You’re not taking my girls anywhere.”

  “But you said you wanted to do right by them.”

  “Yeah, and I could have if Isobel hadn’t run off. Had it all planned out.” He gestures to the suitcases piled behind him on the rear seats. “I was finally gonna get out of this shithole once and for all.”

  “What will you do now?”

  “Ain’t got no idea. No idea at all.”

  “I have the money with me. It’s in my truck. If you give me the girls, I’ll go get it.”

  “Why do you care so much about my daughters?”

  “I just don’t want to see them get hurt.”

  For a while Brian doesn’t say anything Grace can hear. He mumbles words to himself before drifting back to silence. Twice his chin drops to his chest. The second time she gestures to the girls and speaks softly. “You two come along with me. I’ll take you back to town.”

  Brian brings his fist crashing down on the steering wheel and his daughters scream. Grace grabs at the gun in her pocket but it’s tangled in the silk lining. She almost falls backward out of the truck, barely managing to hold on to the back of the seat.

  Brian rubs his face with the palms of his hands, pulling his lower lids downward and exposing the soft pink flesh of the inner eye. For a few seconds he looks like a bloodhound. His voice is rabid when he speaks. “Get out of here,” he says, directly addressing his daughters for the first time. “All your whining is pissing me off. You sound just like your mother.”

  Like a lynx, the older of the two girls slides off the seat and slips straight past Grace. She’s running toward the main road before Grace has a chance to tell her where to go. The youngest sister, a blond-haired, blue-eyed girl, who Grace guesses to be four or five years old, is wearing not much more than a T-shirt and dungarees. She scoots back against her father’s side and tucks into the protective folds of his body.

  Her father smiles and puts his arm around his remaining daughter. “I guess this one wants to stay with me.”

  Grace glances back toward her pickup truck. She knows she’s lucky to have found two of Toby Larson’s granddaughters, but she wants all three. “What’s her name?”

  “Cybil. Same as my mom.”

  Grace tries it out on her tongue. “Cybil. That’s a nice name.” She gazes at the girl and smiles, hoping she’ll get something in return. “Your mom must love her to bits.”

  “My mom spoils her rotten.”

  “Must be nice.”

  Brian picks up Cybil and pulls her close, kissing her on the cheek and burying his head in the crook of her shoulder. Then he yells, “I told you to get out of here,” hurling the child toward Grace.

  Cybil’s dimpled arms spin out into the air. She slips off the seat and curls into a ball under the dashboard. Grace leans over her, grabbing her beneath the shoulders, but the child wedges herself into the small space and refuses to move.

  Grace struggles to keep her balance. “Come on, sweetheart. I’m taking you home.”

  Brian Camberwell’s voice sounds off like cannon fire. “You best get hold of her before I change my mind.”

  Teetering on the running board, Grace falls forward and her legs bicycle kick the empty air behind her. Cybil is as tangled as a ball of twine. Grace begs her. “Please. I won’t hurt you.” And then more quietly, “I’ll take you to your mom.”

  “I’m going to count to fi
ve,” he says, pushing his gun against Grace’s head so hard it feels like the barrel might bore right through flesh and bone.

  “Please, I’m trying my hardest.”

  “One.”

  Grace cowers under the gun’s weight. “Please.”

  “Two.”

  Grace crouches on her knees and bends low until her upper body is almost buried under the dashboard. She begs Cybil. “Come with me, sweetheart. Come with me now.”

  “Three.”

  “Please,” screams Grace as she strains against all that resistance.

  Cybil’s shoulder bones shift in Grace’s hands—a painful pop and the child’s face is next to hers, red, raw, and screaming. They fly out of the truck backward in a faltering arc. The icy ground cracks beneath them. Their bodies buck upward from the road in a kickback that leaves Grace breathless. Her ears ring in a single high-pitched note and her mouth hangs open, wide and begging. Winded by the fall, she only sees the frosty trace left by her screams. She tries to break free of the child’s weight but Cybil sticks to Grace’s chest. Her young face is buried in the red wool of Grace’s coat and her cries vibrate through the layers of fabric, making a determined line toward Grace’s already panicked heart. Grace begs Cybil to be still, yelling at her with a voice barely registering above a whisper. Seconds later they are both silent.

  Brian Camberwell has at last reached the number five.

  Grace swallows back every word she’s ever known. She rocks her head upward and expects to see him looming above them, gun in hand, but there’s no one in the empty spill of light. Nothing moves except for the round flakes of snow that drift down, lazy and slow. They melt against the bare skin of their faces but all around them the landscape is covered in another layer of white. Her leg is twisted at an odd angle beneath her body. The pain in her knee is so intense that Grace can barely breathe. She counts in her head down from ten again and again. All the while she cradles the girl protectively, but her arms are numb and her fingers paw ineffectually at the exposed skin of Cybil’s back. Cybil’s breaths are shallow and her eyes droop like snowbound tree limbs.