Nothing Save the Bones Inside Her

by Clayton Lindemuth

  “Come on,” he said. “Let me give you a lift.”

  She’d walked to town six times over the last three weeks, and each time, the Fairlane had been parked at London Cleaners, off to the side where the owner parked. Once as she left the grocery Chambers stood in the entry and nodded at her while adjusting himself with an air of great confidence, as if there was nothing on Earth so mundane as Emeline’s opinion.

  His hair was short on the sides but greased on top and teased forward up front. He looked good, driving alongside her, calling, “C’mon, Emeline; let’s just talk a minute.”

  She turned while she walked. “Do I know you?”

  “I’m Brad. Been off to the war, and then places.”

  “I remember you. You stole frogs from biology and hid them in the girls’ restroom.”

  He grinned.

  “You set off the fireworks in the boys’ restroom. You hang around restrooms too much for me.”

  “Aw, that was just fun. Let me give you a ride. I’m going to the cleaners and you’re going to the grocery. They’re practically side by side.”

  The empty road stretched another half mile before town.

  “War’s been over four years,” she said. “Where you been, all that time?”

  “Places. All over.” Still driving, slowly he leaned across the front seat and unlatched the door.

  Her eyes measured the diameter of his arm. “Where are you staying?”

  “The Y in Dubois, ‘til I get a place.”

  “Why not with your folks?”

  “I hate the bastards, that’s why.” He looked ahead and though he continued to match her speed, was silent.

  “I didn’t mean to pry. I’d like a ride, thank you.”

  Chambers stopped the car. Emeline climbed onto the seat and flattened her skirt.

  “I won’t stay in Walnut long—that’s a guarantee,” he said. “Just until I get my bearings.”

  He seemed intent on some thought that he couldn’t shape into words. Emeline enjoyed the breeze. A moment after she entered the car, Brad parked in front of Prescott’s Grocery. “I’d take you home, but I’d be late for work.”

  “I’m used to walking. Thank you for the ride.”

  “Just a second. I want to take you to the drive-in.”

  “Ask me later.”

  Chambers took her hand and held her stare a long time before releasing her.

  Inside the grocery, Willard Prescott stood behind the counter, his brows knit. His watery eyes followed Emeline as she moved from aisle to aisle. Basket filled, she stood at the checkout.

  “How’s your Pappy?” Prescott said.

  “He died yesterday.”

  Prescott shook his head. “That cancer’s no good at all.” His fingers tapped register keys. He opened his mouth and then closed it, then gave her the slip.

  She passed him a few bills.

  “You be careful with that fella from the cleaners. I saw you come from his car—you don’t have anyone to keep an eye on you, so I don’t mind telling you. That one ain’t right.”

  She had been careful. Or thought she’d been careful.

  Emeline wiped her eyes and rubbed Rebel’s belly. “You mangy puppy dog.” She pulled a flake of plaster from the edge of the cast. Rebel climbed to three legs and licked her face.

  A breeze came from the lake. She’d spent so many hours making the house livable that she hadn’t yet found a few moments’ holiday at Lake Oniasont, other than her wedding night by the fire. Emeline reminded Rebel to eat his breakfast then wandered across the lawn and down the slope to the pebbled beach. Tiny waves rippled; the lake stretched three quarters of a mile in the shape of a stretched grub worm.

  Hills rimmed the northern and southern shores; the land sloped steeply to the water and the slow press of time abetted the water as it ate the earth, until the grade became steep and the roots lay bare. Trees leaned and by the time they were ready to die from old age the water had gently eroded the earth from their roots and they collapsed to the water, here and there, log bridges to the depths.

  The eastern and western shores were not so forbidding. Angus had said on their engagement night that his family lived beside the lake two hundred years. It probably didn’t change anything if it was true that he was a McClellan, for they had been there just as long. Angus hadn’t mentioned it since the funeral.

  Emeline walked to the ashes where they’d celebrated beside a blazing campfire, and stood on the matted grass. The fire had burned for hours, far longer than Angus could wait.

  She stood in the shade of an old walnut tree, larger than any she’d ever seen. That night it loomed above, a black mass blotting the stars. Angus spread the blanket flat at the trunk, out of the firelight, and staked his claim on Emeline where the ground smelled of blood. In receiving him, Emeline staked her claim as well. Angus was now the father of the child that grew within her. She felt a tinge of remorse for not being honest, but the Lord hadn’t addressed the matter of paternity, only the larger issues of her faith in Him and her marriage to Angus. As for remorse, she’d have to wait for the Lord to tell her to feel it. Otherwise, this was His plan. Her role was to obey.

  Stepping under the walnut tree’s shadow was like stepping into dusk. Moss grew on the north side of the bifurcated trunk. Above the crotch, the limb on the hill-facing side extended horizontal with the ground and offered an inviting view of the lake. She pressed her fingers into the craggy bark and scrambled to the lounge-like limb.

  Aboard, her legs dangling, she pressed her hand to the tree. A cloud crossed her mind. Her skin tingled as if chilled by cold raindrops and she beheld a visage of Brad Chambers: pale, suffering, bleeding at the leg. His breath came in tight gasps and his half-lidded eyes were weighted with accusation.

  She released her grip on the walnut tree and the image vanished.

  Suddenly aware of the creased bark stinging her skin through her thin dress, she leapt to the ground and stumbled. Ahead was a massive rotted stump surrounded by gangly birch trees vying for sunlight. Emeline brushed dirt from her shins and studied the ground, the lack of walnuts. Maybe Jacob had gathered them.

  She stepped to a sunken depression of grassless dirt. Though camouflaged with scattered leaves and fallen twigs, she could not mistake the shape, the lack of grass, the muddiness. It was a grave, small, as if for a child.

  Maybe Angus had buried his dog Ike here.

  Emeline studied the walnut tree and felt as if the Lord was speaking to her, but garbled in her mind. A chill ran through her and maybe this was what the Lord had predicted before she married Angus, that she would be afraid and would come to know evil. Her gaze moved along the trunk, skyward into the deep green canopy; the higher she looked the darker it became. She was aware of the moistness of the earth stuck to her palms and the living musk of the ground where her knee had torn it bare. Something about the tree attracted her, as if…

  She backed away. The Lord wasn’t in it.

  The farther she removed herself from the walnut tree, the righter she felt, and she wondered. Did the Lord send her to Angus so that she might win his soul away from whatever abstract darkness possessed it? Or Jacob’s soul? Deet’s?

  Men of God walked with Him, and Angus plainly didn’t. Maybe the Lord’s purpose was as finite and graspable as that—maybe her appointment was to save Deet for the Lord.

  Because whatever force was in that walnut tree, it wasn’t Him.

  Twelve

  “Hold her, now! Don’t let her drop!” I say. Inside the barn, Rebel thumps plywood with his tail. Deet stands at the tailgate, his fingers slide along the base of the cabinet saw. It’s six feet long and more than two wide with a cast iron top looks like a football field. Sturdy and precise, a gem of a table saw. I jerk the other end free of the truck and the saw drops a foot before Deet catches it.

  “Aw, shit Pap!”

  We shuffle across the barn floor; Deet’s back bows and his eyes roll back under the strain. He drops his end of the saw.
I ease the other side to the floor. Deet rubs his fingers. Rotates his shoulders. I wipe dust from the waxy iron table. “You got your breath? Thinking it ought to sit over there, a few feet off the wall.”

  “Looks pretty good right here.”

  “Let’s move.”

  I lift the table; my arms stretch at the joints. Deet struggles.

  “C’mon, damn you!”

  “I’m pullin’ my shoulders out.” Deet can’t lift the saw so he tugs and it slides an inch at a time. Again and again; finally the machine is in place. Deet slumps against the wall, un-sheathes his knife, and cuts a piece of torn skin from the side of his index finger.

  Over at the plywood Rebel beats hay dust into the air. I lean forward, take the brute’s head in my hand and study his bad eye, then his good one. He growls; I cuff his nose.

  Jacob arrives, interested in the saws but not the work of moving them. He stands beside the plywood. “Mrs. McClellan wants you to mend a cupboard.”

  “What?”

  “She hollered when I was on my bike. Says a cupboard fell off’n the wall and busted open. Wants you to fix it.”

  Some kind of truce? An opportunity to question what I know? Or tell me what I don’t?

  I search the cross-supports above, empty save a bullet-shot rowboat. A white electric line runs from a light bulb to the breaker box on the bottom level, then to a single outlet posted on a vertical beam a few feet away. “I’m gonna have to rewire this whole place.”

  “We got an extension cord,” Deet says.

  I step into a grain storage room that I converted to a tool shed by building a table into the wall. Move greasy wrenches, screwdrivers, chisels, and rags until I find the extension; back in the bay, I stretch the cord from the outlet to the saw and drop the plug to the floor.

  Before moving the table saw from Margulies’ place, I removed the blade. I fetch it from the truck cab and hold it at an angle. The teeth fail to reflect light—the blade ain’t been used since Margulies last sharpened it. I slip the disc onto the arbor, tighten the reverse thread nut, spin the blade. At the back of the saw, I thump the triple belts. Connect the extension cord, come around to the front and flip the black switch. The blade whines quiet above the motor’s hum.

  In the corner of my eye, Jake drifts toward Rebel.

  “Somethin’ purty ‘bout the sound of a sharp blade,” I say.

  Deet comes to the table, tilts his ear.

  “You’ll know when you hear a dull one. Leastways I do.”

  “You gonna cut something?”

  I grab a warped pine board leaning against the door, look for nails, and slide it along the table saw’s fence. The blade spits sawdust to the floor. I press the kill switch and hand the board to Deet.

  “Let me try.” Deet stands in front of the saw, turns on the power.

  “You got to adjust the fence or there’ll be nothing to cut. Loosen here, and slide along the rails, like so.” I shift a few feet back. Jacob climbs the beam over Rebel’s pen.

  “Jake—no horseplay around the tools, y’hear?”

  Deet places the board on the table.

  “That’s right,” I say, “black is ‘on’. Press the board against the fence and flat to the table. Fingers clear.”

  Deet powers the saw and shoves the board forward. The blade twangs and the motor bogs.

  “Easy, feed it slow; let the motor catch up. Don’t get so damn close with your fingers.”

  Plywood claps against the floor and I spin to the sound. Jacob rolls on his back in the hay and Rebel scampers toward the bay door. I lurch after the dog and he skids into Deet’s legs.

  The blade plunks.

  “Shit!” Deet hops back, squeezes his thumb at the base. Blood runs like it’s poured from a cup. Rebel shoots out the door. I glance at Deet’s hand, then out the bay door—Emeline crosses the lawn and Rebel’s body wobbles as he runs full-tilt with a cast. He reaches her and worms on his back. Jake cowers at the back of the barn. I kill the motor and take Deet’s slippery hand. Blood hides the wound. His face drains white.

  “Aw, shit. Shit!”

  I sponge blood with my shirttail. “Lotta fuss for a half-inch of thumb. Go inside and have Emeline slip a bandage on it. We got two, maybe three trips yet and I want to be done by noon.” I turn. “Jake, fetch that dog. Then I’m gonna tan your fuckin hide.”

  Deet wanders down the dirt ramp. Emeline runs to Deet but watches me while she’s doing it. She takes his elbow in her hand and hurries him to the house.

  All that fuss. I step to the truck where a couple boxes of hand tools and the shaper still need unloaded. It’s an awkward machine with a pig iron frame supporting a cast iron table, got a motor mounted off the back. I jump into the bed and lug the shaper to the tailgate, then, standing on the barn floor, bear-hug the iron base and lurch to the far wall.

  Passing the table saw on my trip back to the truck I notice a mess of blood on the barn floor where Deet bled. I think on that blood, and other blood, and get a pinch in the back of my mind like it’s time to be getting on with things.

  Rope and wrists and such.

  Thirteen

  Emeline held Deet’s hand. “Hold your thumb under the water.” The basin splashed pink; his thumb ended with a flat spot at the last joint.

  Deet jerked.

  “Keep it under cold water.” She hurried upstairs, flung open the hall closet, knocked brown bottles aside. Surely a house of country men had a bottle of Mercurochrome—there! She returned cradling gauze, bandages, and tape at her breast.

  Deet’s face had regained color; he leaned at the sink with his elbows resting on the basin edge, his hands joined together to staunch the flow and brace his thumb under running water. “Look how clean that blade cut. See that?”

  She dabbed the wound with a towel. Deet pressed his chest to her shoulder. He shifted his weight and a moment later his good hand rested on her hip.

  Emeline dabbed directly on the flat of the wound and Deet jumped. He faced away, his whole body rigid with pain.

  “That’s not a good idea,” she said. She dabbed a folded square of gauze into Mercurochrome and taped it over the top of his thumb, then wound it in tape. “You should sit down a few minutes and collect yourself. Have a roll. Just pulled out of the oven.”

  She gathered a knife and butter, and turned to the slap of the closing screen door.

  On the porch, Emeline looked toward the barn, then saw Deet trudging on the trail to the lake.

  Pine sawdust fills the air with a clean scent. I haul an awkward armload of hand planes and lathe chisels from the truck to the workbench in the old corncrib. Come out patting dust from my shirt and feeling it stick to the sweat on my brow. Emeline stands at the table saw right on top of a half cup of Deet’s blood ain’t yet soaked into the floor. Her pap bought these tools when she was seven and probly built her bedroom furniture with them. The way her eyes rest on the machinery, she’s thinking she swore before God to stick by my side ‘til one of us is dead—that was the vow—but everything is more real now that pap’s tools is in my barn. “Something eating you?”

  “You didn’t mention you were taking all this.”

  “I don’t mention when I take a shit neither. You want me to leave the whole wood shop to sit and rust? These tools mean business, and woman, there’s one thing you need to get planted in your head quick. Don’t let yourself be a burden.”

  “Business? What kind of business?”

  “Widow McClellan needs work done. There’ll be others.”

  “These are my Papa’s tools.”

  “Your pap’s dead.”

  She recoils like she didn’t know. She stares into my eye patch. “You have a good job at the well.”

  “A good job? Busting my back day in and out? Mind just a wandering. Drive two hours each way for the privilege? No man signs up for that less he’s got nothing better. These tools mean something better.”

  Emeline holds her hands behind her back. She moves sideways a
little, unwilling to retreat but unwilling to advance. “I didn’t see it that way.”

  “Come here, real quick.” I grab her arm. She smells of powder.

  “Don’t! Not here! Not now.”

  She pushes against my chest and I lock her close with an arm behind her back and use the other to grab everything good at once. She squirms as I lean in and when she gives up resisting I push her off.

  “One of these days you’ll get the side of your head knocked in.”

  “You’re my husband and I’ll obey you. But I won’t be had in a barn. Now we’re talking about these tools. You go ahead and move them if you want, but I want the furniture Papa built. We have space in the spare rooms.”

  My brow twitches. I adjust my eye patch strap cutting above my left ear, and feel a pinch where it crosses my temple. “This is the first you said about furniture. Let it rest. I’m moving the shop today.”

  “Don’t you want to know how bad Deet’s hand is?”

  “He nicked it.”

  “Took off the top of his thumb. Do you even know how to use these saws?”

  I cuff her good. She rocks sideways a step; her face is red and her eyes are hot and there’s something in this woman needs knocked out before it gets proud.

  “Mind who you’re talking to. Next time there’ll be a row of knuckles with it. Talk at me like I’m some dirt farmer.”

  Her eyeballs glow wild and I can make my hand print in red on her cheek where the blood come to the surface. She says, “Something I want to have a conversation with you about.”

  “A conversation.”

  “Yes. Since we married you haven’t once taken me to church on Sunday.”

  “Your math’s good.”

  “When we were courting you said you would take me to church, regular.”

  “Well goddam, woman. What’d you expect?”

  “Well, you’ve plainly given away your soul but aren’t you at least concerned for your sons?”