Nothing Save the Bones Inside Her

by Clayton Lindemuth

“Good Lord, child. Why?”

  “The father.”

  “Angus...”

  “Brad Chambers.”

  “I see.”

  “I don’t think you do. He—”

  “It was against your will?” Fleming said. “That doesn’t change anything,”

  “If you don’t take it out, I’ll find someone who will.”

  “Emeline! Sit... You don’t know... I worked at the hospital in Pittsburgh. I saw young women—no! Listen! I saw them arrive, bleeding, dying, because of the work of back alley butchers. Doctors, so called, who used bicycle spokes, coat hangers, Lysol. Knives! I saw a girl, your age, passing feces through her vagina because a butcher put a knife in her. This is what you risk.”

  “Then you must help me.”

  “I am not God!” He stood.

  She lumbered to the door and slammed it. He thrust it open, called to her as she crossed the sidewalk.

  “Emeline, don’t!”

  She stopped. “Will you help me?”

  He raised his wrists as if bound.

  She climbed inside the Fairlane, jerked the door. Ten minutes later she swung into a driveway at a small square house with a roofless porch up on cement blocks. A chained dog growled by the steps and a curtain moved. At the door, Jenny Holifield—prom queen—emerged.

  Emeline blinked away a film of water on her eyes and opened the car door.

  “Emeline? What—you dear! What’s happened?”

  “You have to help me.”

  Jenny hugged her. “It’s been so long! I heard you got married.” Her face clouded. “What kind of help do you need?”

  “I’m pregnant.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I know you can help me.”

  The hug ended. Jenny recoiled. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “You—you and Butch—”

  “That’s a lie!”

  “Just tell me where to go. I’ll never breathe a word. You have to tell me where you went.”

  “C’mon,” I say. “And bring the whiskey.”

  Chambers stands beside the truck, his arm resting on the roof. A jug of whiskey sits on the hood. The truck bed is loaded with empty fifty-five gallon drums.

  “We got to get the boat down, and then you can go. I don’t know what kinda work I’m gonna have making it sea worthy.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Got a hole.”

  “What kinda hole?”

  “Maybe a bullet hole.”

  “Out on the lake fishin’ for bass, you run into a U-boat.”

  “I didn’t call it a torpedo-hole, shithead. Musta been a deer hunter fired off a round in the air and it landed in my barn, is all I can figure.” I twist the cap on the whiskey jug. Chambers reaches and I pass it.

  “Still think we’d have an easier time of it rolling these barrels through the woods.”

  “That’s why I’m running this operation.”

  “Who decided to store a boat in a barn loft?”

  “Stupid-assed son of mine.”

  “That’s a little harsh. I mean, you bury him tomorrow, right?”

  “None too soon.”

  “What’d he do to get you so riled?”

  “Don’t worry yourself, y’hear? Just take this rope, tie it off on that beam, and toss the slack over the middle joist. Once you get the boat tied, push out, and I’ll belay her down.”

  “With one hand?”

  “All right; I’ll hold on ‘til you come down and belay.”

  “What if that support breaks and the boat falls on you?”

  “Then it wasn’t seaworthy, and we’ll roll them barrels through the woods. Gitcher ass up there.”

  Chambers climbs to the loft, drags the boat to the edge. “You want to toss that rope?”

  I pitch the hemp coil. In a minute, Chambers has the boat tied at the mid support, and the rope lobbed across the center joist. I wrap the end around my arm, grip it, and tense up, in anticipation of the falling boat’s momentum.

  “You ready?”

  “Ease her out a bit, and I’ll take the slack, see?” I step aside from the boat’s likely arc. It teeters on the edge.

  Chambers slides the boat into the void and I skip back until it swings across the barn bay, too damn close to the table saw.

  “Whoooee!” The jolt lifts me. I kick off and the prow barely grazes my side. Chambers rushes down.

  “I got it,” he says, lifting the sides. “Cut her some slack…”

  “Keep her steady.” I let the rope slip around my arm and through my hand, and Chambers lowers the awkward mass to the floor. I flex a cramp out my hand and Chambers studies two holes, one in the bottom and another in the side. Both from the same bullet. Chambers looks at the loft, and then to the boat. He holds up his hand, as if making a few spatial calculations, and rotates his arms while turning his body and craning his neck to watch the loft.

  “Your theory’s ass backwards. It wasn’t a shot from outside coming in and down; it came from down here. See the way those splinters splay in on the side and out on the bottom?”

  I face the open barn door. “Well, he musta been standing in the orchard to get the right angle. Hell of a shot.”

  “If he was aiming at your boat—but shit like this is always accidental. Fella in my unit had a bullet come inside his steel pot, swish around his head, and leave out the front, the same direction it came from. Knocked him out and we thought he was dead. You could see the gouge the bullet left, all the way around the inside of the pot. Luckiest prick I ever saw.”

  “No shit.”

  “Mortar took him out a few days later, but bullets couldn’t touch him.”

  I flick splinters from the bullet holes. The wood is solid. Thoroughly fixable.

  “How you gonna repair a hole like that?”

  “Drill, glue a plug, and reinforce from the inside. Then seal her with a thousand coats of varnish.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Mostly.”

  “You mind if I run into the house and get a glass of water? I’m about to choke on dust.”

  Emeline dropped potatoes into a pan of boiling water. A boot slid on the floor. She spun. Brad Chambers stood behind her, close. She stepped sideways and he mirrored her.

  “What—?”

  He spun her shoulder, seized her wrists so tightly her fingers tingled. She saw his pores and stubble, sweat and dust on his skin; his breath smelled of whiskey and his teeth were gray. He leaned closer until she couldn’t bend farther away, and pressed his lips to hers. She clamped tight.

  Nose to nose, he said, “Just wanted to tell you we’ll be together real soon.”

  “Let me go.”

  “I’ve half a mind to take you right here. You’ve got to be achin’ for me about now, married to that stinking piece of shit for three weeks.”

  “I’ll scream.”

  “He’s in the barn drilling holes. He wouldn’t hear, and if he did, I’d step up my plans. Be bouncing you from the bed-springs this very night.”

  “Why are you doing this? Go away!”

  Emeline searched the counter. She stood too far from the knife block. Water boiled on the stove a couple feet away…

  “I see your little mind working. Got you thinking. You just don’t know how much I love you. I’ll be showing you soon. Real soon.”

  He released her wrists and snugged his forearms around her back; one hand dropped to the round of her behind and he pressed his groin to hers. He sought her mouth. She dropped her chin to her chest and turned her face.

  “Go! Leave me alone! Go!”

  “Shhh. That’s a good girl. Shhh.”

  “Stop!”

  “Shhh. There you go. Easy. I’m gonna loose you, but we’ll be together soon. Don’t do anything stupid. Shhh. Good girl.”

  His shirt pressed her face. She smelled sawdust. “The Lord or I one is going to kill you.”

  He snickered. “Ain’t you four aces?

  Thirty S
even

  A mile back a side road off Route 64 on the other side of Walnut, the town cemetery inters the dead on a hill surrounded by forest. Trees steal in on mossy green headstones that jut from the dirt like hands flagging a friend’s attention. Among them are brick-sized markers put up for kids. A dirt lane leads to a wide open field where the newly dead go.

  I drive with a bottle of walnut whiskey on the seat between me and Emeline; Jacob rides in the bed of the truck. We ain’t spoke since leaving the farm. I swing the steering wheel, hold it with my knees, and ratchet another twist. We bounce around the uphill corner.

  Pastor Denny, the cemetery foreman, and the undertaker’ve been in communication; those three and maybe Sheriff Heilbrun are all I expect to see. No need for a funeral. Deet had no friends and I’d ruther keep the money for a couple things I got in mind. So Pastor Denny’ll deliver a few words and then the whole miserable experiment called Dieter will conclude.

  Down the hill a casket rests on sawhorses. A pile of dirt sits in front of the grave. Men and women wearing black fill several rows of chairs; more stand at the fringe. I study the vehicles cluttered about the entrance road.

  “Wonder who else gettin’ buried? Widow?”

  I watch the assembly below and swing the truck onto the grass between the first and second rows of headstones. My foot slips from the brake pedal and the truck grinds into a granite marker. Jacob stands in back and falls against the cab’s rear glass. Mourners turn their heads.

  I circle to the front. A three foot wide stone is on its side. Looks heavy. Rectangle of grime on the pedestal is stark against the polished pink stone. The grass and weeds around the rock base come and go with the season but the rock is close to eternal. Deet, my oldest son, is dead. True dead, never to come back and sass me again. I lean against the front fender and wobble at my shoulders. In the truck, Emeline has her head in her hands.

  A minute goes and Pastor Denny touches my shoulder. Sheriff Heilbrun approaches, head down, hands in pockets. He strolls to the front of the vehicle. I watch through the corner of my eye. After looking at the tombstone, Heilbrun opens Emeline’s door.

  “Who’s that group for?” I say.

  “They’re here for Deet. He was liked.”

  “Who knew him?”

  We walk down the slope. Emeline is at my side using the crutch Deet made. Pastor Denny motions to a row of empty chairs, and we take seats. Denny nods at the group and pulls notes from his pocket.

  “Angus, Emeline, Jacob. We are here this morning to express our sympathy. Life always ends too soon. Deet Hardgrave ran into a burning house to save the elderly Widow McClellan, and perished. Words fail us. Our attempts to express sorrow only frustrate us. Though there is a reason Deet Hardgrave died, we are not privy. So let us reflect on his life, console one another, and turn to God’s Word for our strength.”

  Denny lifts his face from his notes, shuffles the top page to the bottom. “Though Deet was not a church-goer, he was a caring and kind young man. He obeyed God and lived a Christian life. He knew one day he would stand before the Lord and accept the gift of unmerited grace. He has already passed through the gates and met his Maker. The scriptures tell us the Lord has found him blameless. In Timothy 4:8 we read: “Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.

  “Death is not sorrow; to the Christian it is triumph. Do not fear death, and do not fear for Deet. He had no fear. He had faith. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?

  “The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul.”

  The assembly mumbles the words with Pastor Denny.

  I sit with my back stiff and my head unbowed and recall a couple lines I learned when I was shitting fear on the ship to Normandy. “It matters not how straight the gate, how charged with punishments the scroll; I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.”

  Pastor Denny faces me. “Would you like to say anything before we lay your son to rest?”

  I’m pretty sure my boy fucked my wife. I look blank at him.

  “He was a good son,” Denny says. “A good boy.”

  Four men clad in work clothes stand beside the sawhorses and lift ropes that pass below the casket. With the box over the grave, they lower the rope hand under hand until the coffin settles at the bottom. They withdraw to the shade of an elm.

  Pastor Denny grabs a shovel and passes it to me. I drive it into the dirt mound, brace the handle against my side and lever the blade over the grave. Pebbles clatter on the casket.

  Emeline pulls my arm. She takes the shovel, rams the point into the pile of crumbly red clay and withdraws a heap. She chucks the load on the casket and fills the shovel again. I touch her shoulder, and Pastor Denny shifts beside her. She bumps his hip aside on the third shovelful. I step back and Doctor Fleming closes in, whispers, “Emeline? You’re going to hurt yourself.”

  “I’m going to hurt myself,” she says, stopping, leaning on the handle. “You haven’t followed very closely, have you doctor?”

  “This isn’t the time,” Pastor Denny says. “Let him go in peace.”

  I grab Emeline’s arm at the elbow and tug her away. She fights. “We’re gonna have words on this, woman.”

  She wrenches free and stumbles. I rear back for a kick and Heilbrun takes my shoulder and I gotto admit I lost my damn cool there a second. I face the men and women who’ve come to see off my son, and challenge each pair of eyes with my one. They look at me like I’m wrong.

  Heilbrun leads me up the hill. “Everything all right at home?”

  “What you mean by that?”

  “You might go easy on her, Angus.”

  “Might not.”

  “You good to drive? Maybe I ought to have someone take the truck back for you.”

  “I got it here just fine.”

  “Saw a bottle on the seat.”

  “Didn’t want to lug it downhill and back up.”

  We stand at the truck. “Save that drink for the rocking chair.”

  “You gonna bring my wife up here, now that you got the whole town thinkin’ I don’t run my own house?”

  Thirty Eight

  As Emeline twisted from the sink her eyes sought the rifle that leaned against the trim by the door. Angus drank from a snifter of black whiskey at the table and Chambers sat next to him, between her and the rifle. His gaze rested so heavily on her backside she could feel it.

  A car door slammed outside and the chickens raised a ruckus. Emeline looked out the window. “How come the pit bulls don’t bark at strangers?” she said.

  “They don’t think much anything is a threat,” Chambers said.

  “Who’s outside?” Angus said.

  “Looks to be that insurance man.”

  “Ought to see if we can get a policy on Deet. There’s an idea.”

  Emeline scraped the bottom of the iron pan with a wooden spoon and turned the burner lower.

  Angus carried his drink outside, shook the short balding man’s hand, passed money to him.

  The scrape of Chambers’ chair focused her. She kept her gaze out the window. The rifle was at the door.

  “Won’t be long for us, sweetheart,” Chambers said. “Everything’s moving right along. I could’ve offed him just a little bit ago. I hope you forgive me for waiting. Wasn’t the right time. Don’t want questions, you know? Has to look right. But soon.”

  Chambers’ eyes were distant. A portal to an inverted mind: she said hate; he heard love. Why tell him anything? God had told her what to do. She mustn’t doubt. The Lord would provide the opportunity, and she would act.

  Through the window she watched Angus fold her life insurance policy on the roof of the car and tuck it into his pocket. He would now collect insurance money if she died. No matter how she died.


  “What’s so special about that ugly gray dog on the end?” she said.

  “Maul? He’s pure killer.” Chambers laughed. “That’s a story. That’s exactly why your old man’s gotta go. You think I’m nuts? No, I’m a schemer. I’m patient, and I get what I want. Your old man… he sits down at that tree of his and thinks… and whatever pops in his head, he just goes out and does. Whatever. He thinks an untested dog is going to whup a champ, so he bets a hundred bucks. Then he blows the man’s head off to steal the dog. See? Your old man is nuts. Keep your eye on him.

  Jacob sat at the table and chewed a chunk of beef tallow. Emeline followed his eyes to Chambers’ snifter of whiskey on the table.

  “I want that,” Jacob said.

  Chambers said, “You ain’t done nothing to deserve it.”

  “You wasn’t here a couple days ago, Brad.” Angus slid his half-full glass toward Jacob.

  “Where are you going that you need a rifle tonight?” Emeline said. “Another dog fight?”

  “No one’s gonna do me the way they done to Mitch McClellan—I’ll die before some government thief busts up my works. And that dog ain’t gonna fight ‘til I find a bitch that can keep from getting killed long enough to breed.”

  “That why you like him?”

  “That dog’ll kill anything gets close. If you was smart you wouldn’t even walk past the pen. He’s a dog killer, a man killer, any damn killer he wants to be. Christ, you burnin’ supper?”

  “I need you to lift the pot off the burner. I can’t.”

  “You got two arms.”

  “And both of them hurt from you and everybody else thinking I shouldn’t spade dirt on Deet’s grave! Look at that mark!” She exposed a flowering bruise on her inner wrist.

  “Give her a hand,” Angus said to Chambers.

  “Look!” she shoved her arm below Angus’s eye. “You ever think about how miserable you are, and the Lord only made you to cause harm and hurt?”

  Chambers lowered his snifter. “Whoa, Emeline! Glad to help.” Moving to the stove, he jostled her hip and stabilized her with a hand on the small of her back. “Easy; don’t topple over.”

  “Just take it off the burner.” Emeline limped away and threw an over-shoulder glance at Angus. He watched his drink.