Nothing Save the Bones Inside Her

by Clayton Lindemuth

  “Well, we got to try.” Chambers turns on his heel.

  “You’ll die!” a woman hollers, “like that young fella not a week ago.”

  Bandman places a hand on Chambers’ shoulder. “There’s nothing we can do, son.”

  A fire truck arrives. We watch with the others. More neighbors gather.

  “Hardgrave—what are you doing here?”

  Sheriff Heilbrun stands a few feet away, hands on hips, head level, badge glowing orange.

  “Came from Oil City and saw the fire. Chambers here was driving, and pulled in to see if we could lend a hand.”

  “Oil City?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Just come from down east a ways myself.” He rests his hand on my shoulder and leads me from the group. “You see all them deer in the field by Shuggart’s place—musta been a thousand glowing eyes. You see that?”

  “Wasn’t lookin’. Dozed off. Long night.”

  “What’s going on in Oil City?”

  “Oh, a little speculation.”

  “Why you coy? I’m trying to figure out why I’m seeing you at a house fire again, and you ain’t telling me a damn thing I need to hear.”

  I lower my voice. “There’s a crew in Oil City fights dogs. Spent half the night looking for a turnoff that don’t exist. I got bum directions, and that’s a separate score. But me and Brad here pulled in to help. If that ain’t the truth, God can strike me down.”

  Heilbrun removes his hat and brushes hair from his forehead. “These damn Pittsburgh boys, again. I’ll lay odds the Pitlakes are inside with .22 caliber holes in their heads.”

  “No one we talked with saw a getaway car, but that fella Brad knows—”

  “Joe Bandman.”

  “—Bandman said he saw two fellas take off around the back.”

  He gets drinking and he’s different… Down the page: It’s like the tree is his mistress. Or Master. I can’t tell. When I first came here he said he didn’t like to tarry at the Devil’s Elbow. Now it’s where he finds his rest.

  Emeline rustled back to a page two-thirds of the way through the diary. She pressed her thumbs to her eyes, blinked several times.

  He said, ‘you’re getting on my last nerve.’ He beat me, again. Again. Who can I tell? Willard Prescott? I’m trapped. Cooped up in this god-awful house, don’t know anyone, anymore, and Jacob’s going to have the same life.

  The final entry, the only one with a date:

  December 6, 1956: I told Angus I’d take Jacob someplace, instead of having him grow up with an evil fool for a father. I’m leaving when he goes hunting. If I can make the truck start. He bought it with my money, anyways.

  Deet had said Angus shot Lucy Mae during buck season.

  Emeline climbed out of bed and tucked the volume into the closet corner. She placed her diary on top, and slid both back until shadows hid them.

  A slight gust lifted the curtain and she collected her thoughts.

  The truck door slammed.

  Emeline hobbled to bed and drew the covers. Footsteps echoed from the porch and the front door groaned. She should have locked Angus outside the house, but that would’ve only made him mad. Maybe he was drunk and would sleep on the couch.

  Footfalls pounded the stairs.

  She looked at the door—the lock was upright! His boots grew louder in the hall. The doorknob twisted. The door swung open.

  Angus stood with his head low and studied her. He looked at the rifle in her lap, pointed vaguely his way. “I was lookin for that.”

  “Why?”

  “What you need with a rifle?”

  “I heard noises outside—I’m not used to living so far away from everything.”

  “Well, gimme that, ‘fore you shoot yourself.”

  “You ain’t angry?”

  “Why the sam hell’d I be angry?”

  “You stand back a bit.” She waved the rifle at his belly.

  “You lost your damn mind?”

  “I haven’t lost my mind. It’s you that’s been acting crazy and I’m through with you. Sit in that chair and we’re going to discuss some things.”

  She rested the rifle on her legs again, with her finger inside the trigger guard. Angus studied the hammer, then his gaze found her face.

  “It ain’t cocked,” she said. “But that don’t take but a second.”

  “I done right by you. You’re about to piss me off.”

  “What happened to Lucy Mae?”

  “Cunt run off.”

  “I heard you shot her.”

  “Who said?”

  “Deet.”

  “And you believed him!” Angus rapped the dresser side with the base of his fist. “I knew he was after you. And I knew you give him what he wanted.”

  “That’s not what we’re talking about.”

  “I’m talkin’ about it.” He stood. She lifted the rifle. He stepped closer. “I say we’re talking about it. I treat you good. You’re the damn fool busted your leg and trot that pussy in front of Deet’s nose.”

  She ratcheted the hammer. “You remember when the marriage is over, right? Death do us part? You ready for your freedom?”

  Angus combed his hair with his hand. “I know things’ve been rough with your leg, but damn, Emeline; you was coming around. And look at my arm. This ain’t been a picnic.”

  “I’ll be on my way tomorrow or the next day. I’ll move myself, thank you, and send some boys with the pastor to come get the tools from the shop, and it’ll be like you and I never saw each other. Until then, you can sleep on the sofa downstairs, and cook for yourself.”

  He stood. “Why don’t you put the gun down, Em?”

  “And you’ll need to tell Chambers to move out of my house. Tomorrow.”

  “Maybe we’d best sleep on it. Look, I’m a-backin’ away. Put that down?”

  Angus stepped through the open door into the hall. He smiled, closed the door, and his boots clomped down the hall.

  Emeline listened, leaned forward, and when the house was silent, lowered the hammer to half-cocked. Heart racing, she limped across the room as quietly as she could. As she reached to the lock, the bedroom door burst open. Angus lunged through, punched her jaw. She sprawled to the floor. The rifle spilled from her hands and slid. She felt a loose tooth in her mouth, tasted blood. She spat both to the floor.

  Angus clomped into her path to the rifle. She kicked away on all fours.

  “You gonna pull a gun on me in my house?”

  His foot lashed to her hip and she pitched. He lifted the rifle. Pointed at her.

  “I oughta end this! I swear I oughta right this very damn second.”

  “Do it.” She looked past the barrel sight to a black pupil circled with a bloodshot white. The lamp cut steep shadows in his cheek hollows. She glimpsed Jacob at the door.

  “Why don’t you?” she said. “Show your last son how a real bastard handles his wife.”

  Angus glanced at the door, and Jacob. “Outta here, boy.” He leaned the rifle into the molding at the closet, tossed a blanket from the top shelf over his shoulder. Looking at the floor, Angus grinned.

  He stood over her and reached down. She shrank. He picked up her bloody tooth and held it up so she could see. “This is the toughest thing in your body,” he said.

  Angus placed the tooth back on the hardwood floor. He grabbed the rifle from the wall and vertically smashed the stock butt to the tooth. He lifted the butt and with his index finger wiped away the gritty residue. “That’s a lesson in frailty, Em. There’s nothing stronger in you.”

  Rifle in hand, he left.

  Shaking, scarcely breathing, Emeline listened to his footsteps fade. She climbed to her feet and locked the door.

  Emeline woke with a start to silence and a warm breeze through the window. Her jaw ached. Her hip was tender and her eyes were swollen. Her first thought was of Lucy Mae’s diary, her second, the likelihood Angus would shoot her the minute she stepped outside. Would he at least try to get
her on the grass? She crept to the bathroom and splashed water to her eyes. The house was empty and the Fairlane was parked out front. The truck was gone. They must have gone out for more supplies, more barrels.

  She thought of the envelope with the old photo and the machinery—the still. That’s what Angus was doing. That’s why he took the rifle to the woods.

  Why hadn’t he already killed her? Was it him, or Jonah deciding her fate?

  Emeline lifted the telephone. She dialed the operator and asked for Hannah Kirk.

  “This is Emeline. I need a favor.”

  “How are you, Dear? Are you okay?”

  “Who are those people that go looking for moonshiners?”

  Emeline parked Chambers’ Fairlane in front of the bank and entered. The echoes of her feet on the floor brought to mind the last time she was there. She half expected Angus to grab her wrist. The same teller stood behind the same brass grill.

  “I’m here to withdraw a hundred dollars.”

  “Do you have your bankbook?”

  “I don’t have one. But that didn’t stop you last time.”

  “But, what account? I don’t know that you have an account.”

  “Angus Hardgrave.”

  “Hmm.” He turned, opened a card catalogue drawer, flipped through tabs. “No, Mrs. Hardgrave, I’m afraid Angus never added you. Just takes a short form, but it’ll have to be him that takes out the hundred dollars.”

  “Look, you fool. He just lost his arm and buried his son. You think he’s up for running errands? No. I’ll tell you why—”

  “Hold on, now…”

  “He’s holed up in the house and won’t come out, and if I don’t get my hands on that money, Deet’s funeral doesn’t get paid, Angus doesn’t get his medicine, and his eight-year-old boy doesn’t eat.”

  “Now, Mrs.—”

  “Do you know how embarrassing it is for a man that can’t read nor write, other than to scratch his name? Can’t you be decent, for once?”

  “One hundred. Just a minute. Please.”

  Emeline drove the Fairlane to a small lot by the Walnut macaroni factory and parked where forty cars camouflaged it. Maple trees lined the sidewalk; their roots lifted and cracked the cement slabs. Keeping her focus on the uneven surface, she limped a block and a half to the one-screen Orpheum Theater. The marquee read, An Affair to Remember.

  She studied it a long moment.

  The adjacent alley turned to cobble and emptied onto a parallel backstreet. Opposite, a block of brick houses with four-sided roofs, each a perfect replica of the next. She limped to Main and looked north and south, then at the end of the alley, leaned against ragged clumps of mortar.

  She turned to a rumbling engine and the sound of tires on gravel. A car with dual headlamps and a bumper like a dark smile swerved from the brick street into the alley. She pressed to the wall.

  The car stopped; she leaned to the open passenger window. The man looked straight ahead. His hair was grey and oily and too long, and his chest seemed propped on his belly.

  “You Emmy?”

  “That’s right, Doctor—?”

  “You got the hundred?”

  She nodded. He didn’t see. “I do.”

  “Get in.”

  A boy walked by on Main Street, turning his head as he passed. She touched the door. Hesitated.

  “You want help or not?” he said.

  She thumbed the release and opened the door.

  “Sit in the back. Lever’s on the side.”

  She flipped the seat forward, and struggled into the back.

  “Cover your eyes.” A black wool scarf lay on the seat. “Either that or get out.”

  She wound it around her face, smelled salt and sweat, wondered how many other girls’ tears the weave had absorbed. The car moved forward.

  “Lay flat on the seat.”

  She leaned. Wool fuzz prevented her from focusing through a gap at the bottom of the scarf. The car turned right and accelerated. North. After a short while, the driver swung left and she recognized the curve. The speed didn’t change for a long while. He was taking her to Dubois.

  The car turned right, drove straight, then left. Every few seconds it rocked a different direction. Finally, the car slowed, climbed a small grade, and the motor noise reverberated as if they had entered an enclosed space.

  “Sit up. Take off the scarf.”

  She slipped it over her brow. The car door opened and a woman peered in, maybe the man’s mother from her corpulent face and triple chin. Her eyes judged; her lips were blue.

  Emeline worked her leg out of the car; the old woman yanked her arm. Glared. “Don’t dilly-dally all day. We got to get you inside.”

  The man had stepped around the car and entered the house, leaving the front door open. Emeline stood under the carport and looked across the hood. The slope of the terrain and the boxed-in houses confirmed she was in Dubois. Oaks besieged the hillside community as if the settlement had been built before the land had been cleared, and afterward, removing the trees was too burdensome to bother. Not a single house had a lawn or garden.

  “What happened to you?” the old woman said.

  “I broke my leg.”

  The woman shook her head as if suffering a fool. The man stood inside the house. He wore a suit jacket with a baby blue tie that had brown food stains. He left the kitchen before she could study his face.

  “Inside, tramp.” the old woman said.

  Emeline climbed the cement blocks and crossed the threshold. The pungent combination of odors was hard to place. Maybe feet, maybe garbage. A long, thin, silver instrument gleamed on the sink drying rack, the only clean item in the kitchen. It caught light from the single bulb overhead. The woman followed and closed the door. Emeline felt a growing awareness that darkness surrounded her, as if upon entering the house, she had stepped into the shade of the Walnut tree.

  “Where’s the money?” the woman said.

  Emeline pulled the bills from her purse. “What’s your name?”

  “Doctor’d go to jail if people found out he helped girls like you. Girls like you never think of that, do you? A barn owl breaks wind and a tramp like you spreads—”

  “Mother!” The man called from the side room.

  “Give me the money,” she said.

  Emeline passed the bills

  “Take off your underwear and lay on the table. Put your legs up. You’re used to that, right?”

  The table had a marble pattern with a rim of shiny aluminum. Emeline pushed and it wobbled; the pole legs slid on linoleum. She searched for grime or blood. The top, at least, was clean.

  “Press it up against the wall,” the woman said.

  “Right, okay.” She pulled her panties to her knees, slipped her good leg out, and slid over the edge of the table. Heat spread across her face. She looked at the door, at the drawn curtain. The lock.

  She reclined to her elbows, then all the way back. The weight of her hanging legs pinched her lower back. At least her dress covered her. The old woman lifted Emeline’s ankles to the platform and shoved her back. Her leg throbbed. She bit her lip, tucked her quivering hands below the arch of her back.

  The man shuffled into the kitchen—his soles scraped the floor as if rolling on sand. He stood at the end of the table, between her feet. “This will only take a minute.”

  Lord, if it’s your will, take this baby into your arms. I know I’m terrible but you made me. And if you don’t want the baby then I suppose it’ll wait for me in hell.

  “In a moment I’m going to install a small dose of a medicine. You won’t feel anything, not for the first twelve hours. After that, you’ll curse your existence. It will hurt like nothing has ever hurt you.” He nodded at her leg cast. “Worse than that.”

  “Will you take… it… out?”

  “You’ll deliver a stillborn. You’re a couple months along—it will look like very heavy clotting.”

  The doctor applied a cold and slippery lotion to
her, then stepped away. She heard him off to her left—maybe at the sink. Something clattered.

  “Maybe next time you’ll think,” the old woman said.

  Emeline closed her eyes and tears pressed out. She imagined holding her baby close to her breast, peering into its bright eyes and smelling its innocence.

  THE MEN WILL DIE

  She heard the voice but from where she couldn’t tell. It was like in the field talking to the Lord but more real, more present. What? Is that you?

  FAITH, EMELINE

  Lord?

  She recoiled. Something cold and smooth slid inside her. The instrument from the sink. The poison.

  Lord, where have you been? You used to talk to me all the time. You said to trust…

  BEHOLD

  Emeline could almost see the Lord—she groaned. Her mind seized. She suffered a blinding flash of awareness, like staring into dazzling white heat and peering for the source.

  YOU LOVE ME BUT YOU DON’T TRUST MY LOVE FOR YOU. DESPITE ALL I ACCOMPLISHED TO CLAIM YOU, YOU REBEL

  Emeline saw the white stone with Destroyer underneath, and in sudden series of images observed herself preventing the judgment of the Lord. As a tornado hurled the barn roof toward Jacob, Emeline turned on the porch light and screamed. The light allowed Jacob to escape. She saw Angus collapse on the floor after the Lord smote him at the oilrig, and she prevented him from bleeding to death by sewing him back together. She saw herself with her palm to the walnut on Devil’s Elbow and shame crashed through her. In that moment at the walnut tree she had decided she couldn’t trust the Lord to prevail. That was her greatest sin: professing her trust and immediately relying on her own ingenuity instead of the Lord’s promise. She frustrated the Lord at every turn, saving lives the Lord wanted rid of—and only His forbearance gave her another opportunity to be obedient. She had taken different footsteps than those the Lord had prepared, yet his grace reunited the divergent paths at the abortionist’s table.

  TRUST THAT I ALREADY SAVED YOU

  The fight had never been hers. She had aggravated the Lord greatly. The decision she made now would determine her fate.

  Emeline would trust the Lord in all things, in suffering, in death if it was His perfect will.