by Frank Bill
Meat browned in the small skillet that lay over the thick wire shelving Van Dorn had torn from the fridge after the fuel disappeared. Placed over the wall of limestone he’d picked and piled to construct the circular fire pit.
Next to the slices of loin, canned potatoes popped within the hog fat he’d spooned from a mason. Carried from the house and laid on the ground next to him. Upon the bank, Dorn sat with the .30-30 across his knees, watching the riverbed below. Inhaling the flavor from the pop and sizzle of fat. Thinking of his grandfather, who spoke of hogs being raised on chestnuts and slop. Of how it created the toothsomest meat but made the white lard cook into a black oil, scorching the flavor. So they incorporated a diet of corn for a month or better before butchering them. Causing the fat they yielded from the hog to stay white and not cook into a black burn.
On his grandfather’s farm, Dorn recalled the screams and squeals from hogs. Of them in the wooden pen, a floor concocted of shit and mud. Dorn stood waiting, watched his grandfather and father corner one after another, banding their fronts and hinds, held tight while Dorn sliced the swine’s balls off. Laid them on the wooden rail where they appeared like two fleshy baseballs. Then cut the hog loose, letting it run in the pen with its bloody fold of skin hanging that looked near a rotted cloth. Mountain oysters or lamb fries, his grandfather would joke. They’d castrate the hog to help fatten it before the butchering. Once the hogs were fattened, they loaded them in the rusted bed of his grandfather’s truck, metal bars welded, homemade, to jail the poor squealers for their travels to another farmer’s place to be processed.
Now, forking the meat in the pan, turning it to fry evenly, Van Dorn wondered about the other faces. Thought of them being loaded on the truck, if they were being hauled off for butchering.
Sitting the fork down, closing his eyes, he made the images out, patched and filthy. Some were young boys. Eyes plumbed with sags. Lips peeled. Others behind the bars were young girls. Daughters. And older females. Mothers. Opening his eyes, he slid on the thick cotton glove, protecting his hand from the heated handle. Removed the pan from the fire. Let it lie out on the rock, away from the flame. With night he could travel the land. Maybe work his way toward English or Marengo. Search for these men who took people. Find their encampment. Where they rested. But then what would he do once he found them and those whom they took?
Knifing a hunk of loin from the skillet, savoring the taste of deer, he chewed and thought about that night they’d returned to Indiana. About the man who held up the Widow. The moments he’d tried to bury but could not. Instead they infested his mind like the enslaved faces in the back of the flatbed.
THEN
Horace never fell. A hole bored into a side wall. Somehow missing the glass of a bay-sized window.
The pistol rattled to the tile with the shuttering body that followed. Van Dorn eyed the man laid out sideways. Horace grabbed the .45. The female arched over the counter, still holding an axe handle she’d blindsided the man’s skull with. Horace huffed air and slanted words with vehemence to the man on the floor. “Threaten me, my boy, now comes consequence!”
Van Dorn watched the man grit his teeth with his father’s bootheel realigning his teeth. Coloring his gums. Crooking his cavity for air and words, replacing words with grunts and slurs.
Stepping back from the man, Horace glanced at Van Dorn. “Veer your face south, son.” Next an explosion came like hail to a vehicle. Brass bounced onto the floor. A mess was created. The man’s image spread over the floor with a mural of bone, muscle, and brain.
The female screamed.
Everyone’s ears rang. Afraid to breathe, Van Dorn twisted his view back to the man. Studied his splayed features. From his perspective there was no twitch or pulse of fiber.
Horace towered over the man, held the smoking pistol in his bloody fist, and said, “Stupid son of a bitch forced my reaction.”
Movement came around the counter, the female dragged the axe handle behind her. The three of them stood staring at the man’s swells of crimson that had become his detonated appearance. A pool of nerve tissue and blood widened in its shape. Stained the floor with its expired tint.
Van Dorn could hardly believe the ease of violence.
“Lord God,” the female said, “you showed him his end.”
“Dumb-ass pointed a gun at me, threatened my son. No one lays a threat nor a hand to my blood except me.”
“You’ve made that clear.”
Quaking from neck to heel, the woman reached with the axe handle. Jabbed the man’s body like a young child testing a dead animal’s bloat. Nothing returned. No rise or fall from his cage.
“He’s one dead son of a bitch.”
“Thought he’s gonna try and kill me and my son.”
“You twisted the tides.”
A rank smell crept among the store. An off-color pool seeped from beneath the man’s center. His bladder had fallen. Horace shook his head, turned his eyes to the female, asked, “You gonna phone the law?”
“Hell no,” she snapped.
“It was self-defense. I’d no other means.”
“Ain’t disputing the facts. He’s a month out of the pen. Know’d no other skill than robbing folks.”
“You know’d him?”
Walking around the body, the female studied the sinking of his shape. Stopped and said, “Know’d him, I married one of his brothers. A man who dowager’d me. But left me the family’s store we’s standing in.”
Surprised, Horace looked to the woman. “You’re telling me this retch was robbing his own?”
“Was his intentions, yes. Until you and your boy walked in on his attempt. He wasn’t good for much. None of them Alcorns are unless it involves hassling a person that ain’t white. Except my husband, Alex. When he married me their family tree was peppered with some culturing. I ain’t white and I ain’t black. I’m what they call half-and-half, or mulatto.”
Horace said, “Them?”
Laying the length of wood upon the counter, the lady wiped her nervous palm against her pants leg. Offered it to Horace. “Call me the Widow Alcorn.” Pointing to the man, the Widow said, “This one here that you showed his end was named Gutt.”
Horace shook his head. “The boy and myself did not come for trouble. Call the law. I’ll take whatever consequence they offer.”
“Cain’t. His brother finds out he’s shot dead in my store, they’ll as soon kill you and me. Hide us where no cracker-headed badge’ll look.”
Horace’s complexion grazed confusion. “You can’t leave him lying about the tile for everyone to see.”
As though she’d devised it before Horace and Van Dorn had entered her store, the Widow spoke calmly. “No I can’t. I’ll be needing you and your boy’s hands.”
Passing to the rear of the mart, the Widow opened a door. Disappeared for a moment. Came back with a gun-magazine-sized cut of plastic. Unrolled a tarp next to the body that sounded like thunder as it crunched and she spread it open, created an enormous square.
“Time ain’t something we got much of. But sooner you help me roll his dead ass up, I can mop his remains from the tile, toss his ass in your truck, have you and your boy follow me to my place, bury him deep.”
Holding the .45 down his side, Horace looked to Van Dorn and asked, “It’s your choice, Dorn. We help her get rid of this man, we’re seared for life. Or we walk out. Drive to Johnny Law’s, I turn myself in.”
Dorn swallowed the bitter taste of decision; his ears no longer rang. But his heart pounded. Arms ached as he hugged the lunch meat that sweat a cold spot through the cotton of his shirt. Glancing to the loss of life before him, then to the Widow, Dorn wanted out of this place. He thought about his father. He’d learned him of surviving life. Never abandoned him like his mother. Dorn stepped toward the counter. Dropped the food upon it, exhaled, and said, “Gonna need some gloves.”
Rushed, the Widow walked over to the shelves of food and supplies. Removed two sets of gloves from a c
hrome carousel. Handed them to Horace and Van Dorn.
Sliding the leather gloves on, Horace told Dorn, “Boy, sometimes life don’t care much for us, beginning to believe we should’ve never encroached back over the Ohio River.”
Horace and Van Dorn tried the best they could not to step their boots into the expanding pool of blood, and dropped groceries as they rolled the warm body onto the tarp. Taking in Gutt’s ripped-apart complexion.
Pulling a set of car keys from Gutt’s front pocket, the Widow placed them into her own, with a key chain dangling a Nazi swastika. Horace shook his head, told the Widow to get some tape. Grabbing a roll of gray duct tape from a shelf, she, Horace, and Van Dorn wrapped the body up like a burrito, taping and sealing the ends, snugging the canvas to the cadaver.
A sickness festered and bubbled within Dorn’s stomach. The insides of his mouth watered but he held back the bile. Horace eyed Van Dorn and told him, “Let’s get him to the Ranger.”
Dorn got the feet, Horace the head, lugged the heft of the deceased out the door. Darkness had saturated the land. No sound could be heard other than the hum of bugs swarming outdoor lights or vehicles traveling up and down old 64 off in the distance. Horace used one hand to lower the tailgate, support the body he half laid on it. Climbed into the bed. Situated his and Dorn’s gear, then maneuvered Gutt, placed him long ways, but had to bend his legs. Laid their wares atop of his body, camouflaged the lifeless passenger, and closed the bed.
Horace filled the Ranger with fuel. Backed it around to the side of the mart while the Widow sopped and bleached the blood from the floor.
Lights within the store disappeared. Out the front door came the Widow, who bolted the entrance behind her. Horace and Van Dorn sat without words in the Ranger with hunger rolling around their insides.
Through the rolled-down window, a set of keys dangled from the Widow’s left hand, then a carton of smokes released from her right, landed on Horace’s lap. “Camels is on the house. The food sweated too much. Can get new tomorrow. But now, someone’s gotta drive Gutt’s car.”
From the road behind the Widow, lights came slow with the crack and give of gravel as an old Dodge wheeled in. From inside a male voice hollered, “Widow? Guess you’s closed?”
The Widow turned, Horace jerked the keys from her reach, whispered to himself, “I’ll navigate.” He looked to Dorn. “You ride center behind her in the Ranger, I’ll follow behind you once this local gets his ass moving.”
“What if he don’t?” Van Dorn whispered back.
“Then we might need to help him find his route, he’s thieving our time.”
The Widow walked toward the man in the truck and spoke. “Yes I am, Elmer. You have to come back tomorrow around lunchtime or head to Marengo.”
Elmer rested an arm on his steering wheel, poked his head out the window, trying to get a closer look at whom the Widow was speaking with. “Who’s that you talking with back yonder?”
Van Dorn watched Horace slide the .45 from his waist. Keeping his eyes on the man as he mumbled through clenched teeth. “Don’t force my hand, old-timer. Go on and get.”
As he thumbed the safety on the .45, Dorn’s heart sped back up.
The Widow said, “Just some that has lost their direction.”
Elmer lowered his arm that rested on the idling truck’s steering. Reached for the latch of the door.
“Ain’t giving you any trouble, are they?”
Horace laid his left arm out the Ranger’s window, fingered the handle. Watched the Widow’s pace pick up and she told Elmer, “Lord no. They’s okay. But I gotta be getting along. It’s late. You need to do the same.”
“Don’t suppose you’d unlatch that door, maybe flip a light and grab me a pack of them Indian smokes so I don’t gotta hit a tavern?”
From the road another set of lights came. Sped on past, but slow. Horace pulled the latch of the Ford open. The interior light didn’t come on as they’d removed the bulb. Keeping the camouflage of night for when robbing homes. And Horace said, “Fucker can’t take an invitation, I give him a hint.”
“I can’t, Elmer, done told you I need to get.”
The Widow turned away, her face one part anger, the other worry. Meeting Horace’s eyes, she lipped no. Wanting Horace to stay in the truck. Gears in Elmer’s Dodge shifted. The suspension squeaked and he slowly twisted the steering, pulled back onto the road, drove on until his taillights disappeared. At the Ranger’s window the Widow said, “We take the back roads, shouldn’t be no concern for the law.”
Horace came from the truck, told the Widow, “My nerves need no more testing.” He glanced back at Van Dorn. “You shouldn’t have born witness to this, son. Another man having his life taken. For that I apologize.”
Dorn didn’t know what to say. But he guessed they did what needed done and slid into the driver’s seat.
Van Dorn watched from the side mirror as Horace walked to the rear of the store, disappeared around the corner where a GTO sat. A moment of uncomfortable silence passed. Then a door squeaked, slammed shut, and the hot rod screamed to life.
Starting the Ford, Dorn waited for the Widow, who drove up in a burgundy Chevy Silverado. Yelled out the window to him. “We going to the right, be cutting over a few roads, it’ll seem farther than it is but it ain’t.”
Van Dorn nodded. She took to the right. He and the father followed. They lined the back road like three sets of incandescents, mouth to ass.
Behind the wheel, Dorn thought of the world that was taken from Horace and him. Things he once thought genuine. The skills his father held with his hands, turning lumber into furniture, restructuring homes, hunting wild game, preparing it. Things Horace had been learned by his own father. And now they were lost in that world that drained men once good, forced their hands, wilted them to bad. Left them with a trail of wrong. Look at them, driving down this road with a murdered man in the bed of the truck. Following this female through the pitch-black night. Dorn’s heart throbbed and his lungs burned and he pressed an index into the CD player, which lit up. Spun a tune, Waylon Jennings singing “Lonesome, On’ry and Mean.”
Dorn wondered if they could trust this Widow. What if she was touring them into a fouler situation than already existed? And Dorn tightened his grip on the steering. His palm damp from nerves. Nosed the Ranger closer to the Widow’s bumper. Taking the winds and curves, hoping she was as trusting as she appeared. Hoped for someplace to rest. Someplace devoid of worry. The harder Dorn tried to wipe the bad from his mind, the worse the thoughts of what he’d watched his father do lulled through him. Knowing if they were ever caught, they’d be charged for the murder of another, and then what would become of them?
Oncoming headlights cut shadows down the faces that navigated the three vehicles. Dorn checked the rearview for someone to brake each and every time. Worried that one of them would turn around. Follow them. Fearing somehow they knew what he carried. But none of the passers did. Headlights drove on, disappeared into an abyss of back-road grit and timber.
The three vehicles progressed over the road as it snaked, dropped, and rose up and over the hills. In and out of the valleys. Trunks and limbs zipped past until the Widow braked hard, turned off Harrison Spring Road and onto a dead end, Jennith Lane. Where at the gravel’s end a cottage-style home sat. The yard lit by floodlights that showed antique parts. Tractor. Plow. Bailer. A road of potholes took them out to a mess of shack-like structures. The Chevy stopped. Van Dorn braked and slid the Ranger into park. The Widow got out of her truck. Her frame glowing phosphorescent in the Ranger’s lamps. She was attractive. Shapely, Dorn thought as she motioned for the father and him to do the same.
They were standing outside their vehicles, and the Widow pointed. “Park the GTO around back of the chicken coop. Let the Ranger ride down the rivets of tire tracks right there and kill the engine. We got us a long walk to carry Gutt, up into the woods along the river. Gonna get us some shovels from the milk house and a few traps to set after we
finish the dig.”
Horace wrinkled his complexion, questioned, “Traps?”
“For skunk. Need to make sure we cover what we bury, deter other animals and such away.”
The Widow walked into a shingle-walled structure the same pigment as blood. Came back from it carrying two triangle shovels and a calcified pick. Propped them outside next to the door. Went back inside, came out with the burn of a lantern and several links of chain attached to rusted metal mouths. Horace shook his head and mumbled to Van Dorn, “Hell’ve I gotten us into, boy?”
Van Dorn dug a Maglite from beneath the Ranger’s peeling-vinyl front seat. His bearings uneven but knowing he must show strength like his father. Must be strong. He pushed the light down into the denim of his ass pocket. The Widow rested the tools for digging upon one shoulder, the traps clanging from them. Her other hand led the way with the lantern. Dorn and Horace stepped to the rear of the Ranger, gloved their hands, pushed their wares from the lifeless mass. Horace motioned for Dorn to step back. “I got him, help the Widow with the tools.”
Horace lifted Gutt, broke him down over his shoulder. Dorn took the shovel and the pick from the Widow, placed them over his shoulder, and she led the way.
Humidity and heat delivered the pungent and repulsive scent that wafted from those who no longer breathed as Van Dorn and Horace trekked over the land that lay foreign to them. The Widow guided the two male shapes through the wilderness, panting within the night, twigs and branches marring and scraping their hands and faces and arms until they descended into a sinkhole with the circumference of a large swimming pool but maybe forty to fifty feet deep. Where in its bottom they lay the stiffening hunk of humankind to the side, began to dig at the scorched and hardened earth.