by Tabitha King
“Did not,” Ricky said. “Never did. Who said I did?”
“O-liv-i-a thought maybe you got ‘em and kep ‘em.”
“She’s a goddamn liar,” Ricky said. “Kep ‘em herself, I bet.”
“You heard him, O-liv-i-a,” Rand said.
Liv shook the fresh sheets over the bed. “Maybe there was never anythin’ there.”
“Maybe,” Rand said. “Maybe I oughta let Ricky worm it outta you.”
Liv bent over the bed, tucking it in.
“There was something there, Mr. Nighswander,” she said. “A whole lot of narcotics. Your basic collection of heavy-duty painkillers. Now do you want your nasty little brother and that pathetic thing out there overdosing themselves? If you do, I’ll show where it is this minute. I don’t give a goddamn if they kill themselves with it.”
“Hey,” Ricky said. “You hear what she called me.”
“Shut up,” Rand said. “I can’t think with you running your fat mouth.”
Ricky sulked and Liv finished making the bed before Rand spoke again.
“Ricky,” he said, “take a couple a these blankets and you and Gordy go bunk on the living room floor. Get that fire going again. It’s all we got for heat tonight.”
“What about them pills?” Ricky asked.
“You don’t need ‘em,” Rand said. “Here, take this jug. That’ll kill some pain.”
“All right!” said Ricky and hustled off with the jug.
“Sure you don’t want to put some of them pills in that jug?” Rand asked Liv.
“Love to,” Liv said, “but you’ll have to get it back.”
Rand laughed. “Ain’t you got no compassionate feelings for poor old Gordy’s blisters?”
“A little,” Liv said. “I could spare him a pill or two.”
“I’d appreciate it,” Rand said. “Ricky devils him too much. He ain’t responsible, you know.”
“I need to go to the bathroom,” Liv said.
Rand nodded. He sat down in the rocking chair and shook loose a cigarette. It was the last one in the pack. His face in the flare of the match was very tired. If she had done nothing else, she had worn him down.
Liv slipped into the bathroom and locked the door behind her. She extracted a couple of Darvocettes and a pair of Darvon 65s from her socks. She swallowed the Darvon capsules herself, and then brushed her teeth, washed her face, and then her thighs, where Rand’s semen had dried. She urinated in the sudden luxury of privacy. Her water burned in passing, making her conscious of having been used and used hard. There was blood in it, like threads of red ink. Debits. Someone owed someone something.
When she came out, she handed Rand the two tablets. He ducked his head by way of thanks and left her alone in her bedroom.
She slipped into the bed. It was warmer. The electric heaters weren’t giving off anything anymore. It was going to be very cold in the bedrooms before morning.
Rand came back. “I checked the kid,” he said. “He’s still sleeping.”
“Amazing,” Liv said. The Darvon was beginning to work. Pulling her under. It was like being good and drunk. Cement overshoes. Taking her right to the bottom of the deep, the deep something. The currents bore her upright, and lifted her hair from her scalp. It drifted into her eyes. She swayed with the current until it was rooted inside her, and she no longer even knew she swayed.
PART THREE
… whatever the mute winter of your teeth or the hate of your eyes,
whatever the warfare of perishing beasts who guard our oblivion,
in some dominion of the summer, we are one…
… hurl yourself into your grief like a dove, like snow on the dead…
—Pablo Neruda,
“The Woes and the Furies”
Chapter 15
FIREFIGHT
Rough Cut #7
Myrna Ratcliffe is picking up her living room. It is not the room it was late last summer. Dust on the mantelpiece, a litter of playthings, a laundry basket spilling over with unfolded towels and clothing, a subtle degree of disarray, reflected in Myrna herself, who wears a wrapper with a ripped pocket, and fuzzy slippers.
"Damn kids," she mutters as she stoops to pick up crayons strewn across the rug, and scraps of paper covered with childish scrawls.
She drops the crayons into a tin box on the magazine-heaped coffee table, and balls up the paper to stuff into the other pocket of her wrapper, the one that isn't ripped. She stacks a pile of coloring books and shoves it onto the shelf of the coffee table. Straightening up, she presses her lower back with her hands. She surveys the room and closes her eyes and shakes her head. She picks up a hi-ball glass from the coffee table, sips it, and then sinks cross-legged onto the rug in front of the hearth. Staring into the fire, she plucks from her pocket the little balls of paper she has accumulated, and begins to throw them into it. When they are all gone, she sighs, and takes another sip of her drink, and clasps her hands in her lap.
"You know what," she says to the fire, "you know what, Emery Ratcliffe. I hate you."
"Hot damn," says the man behind her. "That mean there's a chance for me?"
Myrna, turning, is cut off in mid-scream by a hand clapped over her mouth. The man's other hand is under her chin, jerking her backward. Her struggling opens her wrapper and the top button of her pajama top. He flips her onto her back on the rug easily, and shows her a knife. He lifts the hand from over her mouth slowly.
"Court," she breathes. "Thirteen years, and you come back, like a fairy godmother's curse."
Court settles back on his haunches and tugs a forelock of his coarse hair. "Yassum, Miss Myrna," he says.
Myrna sits up calmly and tugs her wrapper and the pajama top closed.
"I ain't scared of you, Court," she declares. "You already did all the bad you can do to me."
Court strokes his mustache. "I ain't got no quarrel with you, Miss Myrna," he says. "I want a word with Rat, is all."
"You and me both," Myrna said. "Can I have my drink?"
Court looks around, stretches for it, hands it to her.
She takes it without thanks and drinks. The first swallow is painful; she touches her throat.
"My apologies, Miss Myrna," Court says.
Myrna looks at him contemptuously. "You can stuff your apologies up your skinny white ass," she says.
Court taps the tip of the knife on his teeth and sighs. "S'pose I've got that comin', Miss Myrna. Well, never mind. Just you tell me where Rat is, and I'll be going. I'll be happy to tell him you're pissed at him."
Myrna stares past Court at the fire. "I don't know where Rat is, and don't ask me no more."
Court squats silently for a long moment. Then he moves close to Myrna and puts an arm about her.
"You wouldn't lie to me, would you, Miss Myrna?" he asks.
She jerks away from him. He grabs her wrist and twists her arm behind her. Myrna cries out in pain. The front of her pajamas gapes open again. Her left breast is almost entirely exposed.
"Where is he?" Court demands.
"I don't know," she wails. "I don't know." She breaks into sobs.
Holding the knife against the side of her face, tightening the pressure on her wrist, he says, "Let's be reasonable, Miss Myrna. I'm gonna cut those cute little kids of yours into stew meat if you don't tell me, right this goddamn minute, where the fuck Rat is."
"You touch my kids," Myrna says, "and you're a dead man."
Court smiles and hauls on her arm. She winces.
"What do you want Rat for so bad?" Myrna asks. "I know what I want the son of a bitch for, but what you want him for?"
"We got old business to settle," Court says.
"That the business you settled with Jackson?" Myrna asks.
"What do you care, Miss Myrna. You hate Rat yourself. I heard you say so."
"I got a good reason to kill Rat," she says. "What's yours?"
Court strokes her bared breast. "He's a murderer," he says.
"Get your
hand off my tit," Myrna says.
Court laughs.
"Rat's a son of bitch for running out on me, but he ain't no murderer," Myrna says.
"This was a while ago. Probably he's forgot all about it. Someone he murdered in the war."
"Anybody Rat killed in the war, he killed in self-defense. He never murdered anybody," Myrna insists. "You the murderer. You done Jackson, Denny said so."
Suddenly she has Court's full attention. "Corriveau? When'd you see him?"
"I didn't," Myrna says. "He called the day Rat left."
"They're together then."
"I don't know."
Court releases her arm. She rubs her wrist and grimaces. Casually, Court drapes an arm over her shoulders. She casts a distasteful glance at his hand hanging loose over her collarbone. She tries to pull the front of her pajamas together. Court smiles, and hooks his arm around her throat and jerks her backward, unbalancing her. In one smooth motion, he pushes her flat on the floor and straddles her. She stiffens under him and tries to wriggle free. He drops over her, the back of one arm across her throat, and places the point of the knife under her right eye.
"I'll tell you who they murdered, Miss Myrna. They murdered a little girl named May. About your size, actually."
Myrna trembles. If she was not afraid of Court before, she is now.
"I know how to bring Rat home, Miss Myrna," Court said conversationally. "I know how to bait a little trap for Ratty."
"I ain't interested," Myrna says, with bravado that Court reads as bluff.
Court lifts himself onto his elbows. "I'm going to do to you what they did to her," he says.
"Who?" Myrna asks. "Who done what to who?"
His free hand tugs at the sash of the wrapper, the waist band of her pajamas.
She tries to push his hands away.
He slaps her viciously, so hard she hardly makes a sound, and afterward lies stunned.
He is ripping her pants off. She starts to draw up her knees protectively.
"There's just one of me," Court gasps, "so you ain't gonna be raped the way they raped her, but I am going to crucify you, Miss Myrna, like they did May, and I won't have to look for Rat no more, 'cause he'll come to me."
Myrna rolls her head from side to side on the carpet and stares at the ceiling. "You gonna do what they done," she says. "That your idea of justice? You be a murderin' rapist, too?" She laughs bitterly, and lifting her head with great effort, spits at Court.
Court freezes. Spittle trickles down his face. "Why not?" he asks her. "Why shouldn't I?" and begins to weep.
When Pat woke up, curled up on the front seat, the windows of the car were curtained with snow. Except for the evidence of the dashboard clock’s advance from eight to five, it might still have been night. Snow had blown in through the tiny crack he had left at the top of the window on the front passenger side and dusted the dashboard, the top of the seats, the steering wheel. It had gathered more thickly in corners and crevices on the dash, and in the bend of the seats.
And on Sarah, stirring in the backseat.
Fearful of the exhaust, they had done without heat. Their breath blew white in the cold. Pat tried the nearest door, the driver’s side, where his feet pointed. It was frozen. He kicked it open and climbed out. He struggled through the snow to the nearest bush, turned his back to the car, and urinated into the falling snow. At least he was able to see where his urine yellowed the snow. The visibility had improved enough for him to see he was, as he had feared, only feet from the Pondicherry Causeway over the narrows. He could distinguish the causeway from the lake by the lines of its guardrails, welting the white surface of the snow. The causeway was only a few feet higher than the lake. Big boulders every few yards broke and rose above the guardrails. High caps of snow teetered on their crests and occasionally collapsed before a shift in the wind.
On the passenger side, which had been in lee of the wind, the snow had risen to the hubcaps. Snowdrifts sealed the doors, veiled the windows, and crept long fingers over the hood, on the driver’s side. Getting back into the car, accumulated snow fell into it through the open door, littering the seat. Pat stopped to brush the seat and clear the hinges and door frame.
Sarah rested her elbows on the back of the front seat.
“I really have to go, daddy,” she said.
“Sorry, kid,” he said. “You’ll have to use Mother Nature’s restroom like I did.”
Sarah sighed. She slid over the back of the seat. “My doors are frozen, too.”
Pat held the door open for her. She staggered in the deep snow.
“This is so gross,” she said.
Pat laughed. “Don’t let the frost bite.”
Sarah laughed.
Pat went around to the back of the car, and shoveled snow with his hands to free the exhaust. Fortunately, his gloves were thick, foam-lined skiing gloves. Sarah skittered back through the snow. Pat slid back into the front seat, next to her, and they huddled together in the front seat, sharing their body warmth. After warming the ignition key with his breath, he inserted it. The starter ground a few seconds, caught, and died. He forced himself to wait, counting off two full minutes by the clock. Then he tried again, and this time, the engine caught and roared. He felt like roaring, too.
“It started!” Sarah shouted.
Pat allowed the motor to idle for several minutes before turning on the heater. As soon as the warmth began, they both thrust their hands over the heating vents. Sarah giggled and sang snatches of “Light My Fire.” The hot air hurt. Pat flinched and rubbed his hands together to stimulate the circulation. Even then, he reveled in the heat, long enough to feel almost normal again. Then he put the car in gear. He didn’t really expect it would go anywhere, not in three feet of snow, and it didn’t. It shuddered and lunged and growled and whined and rocked when he really gassed it, but it didn’t actually move.
He idled it back and sat in the warmth a while longer. The road crews should be out again soon, with the improved visibility. But when would they reach the causeway? Should they wait for them, or walk? He tried to remember what there was for human habitation within walking distance. There was the marina, a yardful of boat sheds and a fuel pump. That was locked up and closed for the winter. The landing was public, but the snowmobilers and ice fishermen who used it wouldn’t be out today. The ice couldn’t be reached, and snowmobiles would founder and sink in this depth of soft snow. There were farms behind them, back toward Greenspark, the last one two or three miles ago. There were farms and houses on the other side of the causeway, beyond Little Partridge Hill. And closest of all, there were summer houses on the lake, some of them only a few hundred yards away, empty and unheated but a form of shelter, like a chain, leading toward Liv and Travis. The lake reached seven miles on one side of the causeway toward North Bay, where home was. There was shelter nearer, if they broke into the marina sheds, or made Little Partridge, but they could get to Liv and Travis directly just by hiking up the lake. It would be easier on snowshoes, but that was one need Marguerite had not foreseen.
“This vehicle isn’t moving until the road crew gets here,” he told her. “You want to stay here, or try walking up the lake? It’s maybe five miles as the crow flies. What you might call the direct route.”
Sarah shivered. “If we just stay here, the car will keep us warm.”
“For a little while, yes,” Pat agreed. “Then the gas will be gone and the battery will run out.”
Sarah ducked to peek at the gas gauge. “It’s almost empty.”
“Right.”
She sighed. “I guess this is when we have to do everything the hard way.”
Pat laughed. “I’m going to turn off the ignition, baby, and leave the keys in it. The road crew might need to move it.”
He turned the key and the engine died. The silence was huge.
“Come on,” he said to her and opened the door.
She slid out. Arm in arm, they picked their way to the overhanging branches, pruned t
o a man’s height, of an old spruce. It was miserable going, the first sample of what it would be in any direction. They were cold and hungry and stiff from sleeping in the car all night. But the world around them was ecstatically beautiful. It could kill them, Pat thought, would kill them, if it had the chance. In any event, it was and would still be beautiful. Nothing they did or didn’t do really mattered, not in the context of this place. Mostly, he decided, he really wanted to see Liv again and make sure she and Travis were okay. Resolutely, they left the shelter of the spruce tree and set off over the embankment toward the lake.
It was like climbing stairs built for a giant. One foot up, balanced on the other, shift the weight back until they felt the hard edge of the snow against the back of the knee, reach forward awkwardly with the raised foot, and bring it down, weight coming forward after it to drive it into the snow, and sinking, sinking so far that they had to fight falling face flat, and often did, until it seemed they were crawling, or swimming, up the lake, not through water, but through a malevolent powder. The causeway and the car disappeared in blowing snow before they had gone very far. Very very quickly, they were lost, though Pat did not say so to Sarah, and she did no more than cast anxious glances at him now and again. And as quickly, they were too numb to do anything but go on.
Walter McKenzie scratched his chest and yawned. His exhalation fogged the bedroom window. He rubbed the glass with the heel of his hand and squinted at the world outside. There was precious little to be seen except snow, fallen or falling, drifted, drifting, blown and blowing, hither and yon, so the only way a body could tell up from down and one thing from another was from safe inside, where the fix of things could be extrapolated into the out of doors. Walter shook his head. He pulled his wool trousers on over the long johns he slept in, and went down the back stairs, hand on the rail to steady himself, and taking care with his footing. The rubber treads on the stairs had loosened dangerously over the years, but Walter never thought to tighten them, or replace them, or just take them off, but compensated unconsciously by slowing his step and using the railing.