The Pines (21 page)

“Don’t start. He’s all right.” Barry counted money and grumbled about Steve not leaving enough. “He’s always doing favors for me.”

“Oh, yes, just terrific.” She blotted water with more napkins. “So full of the milk of human kindness he slops over. Are we going to talk about your partner all night? Let’s go. I’m not hungry anymore.”

Ernie crumpled shut the end of the bag and scraped a shallow hole in the sand. He buried the wrappers, a little worried about animals scenting the food.

A lot of stuff he’d had to throw away, things that needed to be cooked, like rice and instant mashed potatoes. Useless. But the ground meat had been devoured raw, the potato chips reserved for breakfast. The rest would be rationed, because he didn’t like exposing himself the way he’d had to in getting this.

He sloshed the carton of milk around in his hand. He drank deep, though it was hot, already souring. Then he lay back and rubbed his stomach, full now for the first time in days. Gazing up at the stars, he wondered anew at their hugeness. He had trouble getting comfortable, his clothes stiff with sweat and dirt and other things. Tomorrow he’d rinse them in the creek, maybe. But soon he began to drift off, hazing, the weariness in his body flowing out his arms and legs, running off into the dry earth and carving a channel, until the depression of sand in which he lay became a burrow in the mountain of the night.

The outpost was a tiny structure, and dust made the shuttered window hard to see through. A single candle barely lit the room within.

The face of the man inside wasn’t clear. Did he glance at the window while getting his pants off? The watcher drew back slightly. But the man turned away and peeled off his undershirt, the faint light glinting from the sweaty hairs of his back.

Beyond him, the woman stood almost out of sight. She lifted something from a small table, held it to her ear with a childlike gesture. The window glass muted her words.

“…never like that…”

“Never liked what sound?” The man’s voice carried. “Ticking?” Folding his pants, he laid them over the only chair, then pried loose his wallet and removed a small packet. “That why you never wear one?”

She put down the watch and stepped forward into the light.

Breath stalled in the watcher’s throat. Her body—molded with warm shadows—took on a slender grace that clothing usually denied it.

“I keep telling you, you don’t have to use those. After Matthew, I had my…you don’t have to use that.”

Looking downward, her companion only smirked.

“…guess the reason I don’t like…hear the time going like that…ticking away so you can’t ever get it back…can’t ever catch up…” Dreamily, she seemed to speak more to herself than to the man, though her eyes never left the heavy, sweat-oiled body. Did she wonder briefly when he glanced at the window again? Probably not. She just sat on the narrow cot, waiting. At last, the man came close to her, pressed himself against her with soft, shadowed movements.

“…hear something just then?” She rose abruptly. “Out there?”

But he knew she could have seen only a smoky reflection of her own nakedness against the perfect void.

Breathing hard, he made it back to where he’d left the car, having rolled it, lights off, as close to the squat fire-brick structure as he dared. Pulling the door closed carefully, almost silently, he sat at the wheel and squirmed in sweat, his erection almost painful.
She shouldn’t be doing this.
Her car was parked beneath the window, and unclear forms moved beyond the pane.
She’s too
good for this.
He swigged from the bottle.
Besides, somebody might
see.
He bit the back of his hand to keep from laughing.

Light flickered at the window. Naked, the man moved back and forth, slowing for a moment with his back to the glass.

Needing air, Steve rolled down the car window and listened to the gentle rasp of the night, to the endlessly ticking throb of the crickets, to the faint rustle of black foliage. He wondered if he dared creep back to his hiding place. He knew that soon Barry would begin the noises, and if he listened closely, he might even hear her, hear the gasping sob of her breath. It could be worth the risk.

Heat lightning flickered on the sky, and he was drenched with sweat.
I’ve got a fever. For weeks now, been so sick.

Nothing moved in the station now, and he knew they lay on the cot against the wall.
Why do I do this?
He squeezed his eyes shut and the tears burned like acid.
I don’t want…sweet Jesus, help me…always been a decent man.
His left hand went to work, and the furious mechanical movements caused the seat to squeak slightly.
Why do I do this?
Blood pounded into his face. His neck muscles tightened, cramping until he thought they must burst. His teeth clenched. His face turned upward, beseeching, a silent howl.

Crickets surrounded the car, and soft-bodied things battered at the window of the outpost.

His movements became spastic, wild. Hurting himself, he grunted, and finally fluid warmth spurted in slow beats as from a severed artery.

Shuddering and damp, he reeled with nausea. The foul thickness of the air choked him, and tears burned down his face. His stomach lurched again.

He barely got the door open in time. Always, it was like this, and dimly he realized—wet and trembling as bile splashed the sand—that the sickness came mostly from his straining to resist, from his efforts to fight this fierce longing.

All around him, the night breathed.

Wednesday, August 5

Here, beyond the outskirts of town, shacks were few and mean.

Early in the day, the little girl had been set outside to get some sun…and forgotten.

When little Molly Leek stroked it, the cat in her lap stirred, purring fitfully before curling back to sleep, and Molly smiled, the late afternoon sun warm on her small, blind face. She loved her cat.

She bent to kiss it. The cat smelled wonderful, and it gurgled in token protest when she hugged it.

“Don’t go gettin’ all rambunctious, fella. Your old man’s prob’ly just run off with some hooch girl.”

Though still early, the gin mill had already begun filling up with men, old men with grayish skin, some with front teeth missing, young men with scabs on their faces, their arms smeared with grease and motor oil. Through the open door came the choke of a dying car. Sometimes the engine would turn over. Banging followed, then deep-voiced advice, then the noise of a wrench applied to metal with more determination than skill.

“Ain’t that the damnest thing, the way we jus’ never found no trace a him?” muttered a younger man to no one in particular. “Shot a dog though.”

Periodically, Wes would grumble about his father in tones both aggrieved and resigned. The rest of the men had grown pretty bored with it by now.

“Them damn dogs was up at my place t’other night,” one of them said. “I let ’em have it wi’ some birdshot. My ole lady was cookin’ dinner. She says they was tryin’ to come right inna door!”

“Mamma?”

The air felt damp, and Molly shivered slightly in the growing dusk. Behind her, she could hear her mother screaming at the other kids in the shack. She sounded drunk again. Obediently, Molly stayed on the crate, some distance from the smell of her home.

She missed her cat. It had left her as the sun faded, and it wouldn’t come back, no matter how she called. Her stomach felt like a yawning ache in her middle now, so long past dinner. She’d never been left out this long before. She considered trying to make her way back to the shack, but she’d been told to stay put and her mother might beat her again if…

A wave of foulness swept toward her with a sudden breeze, and the child went rigid. She heard a rustling sound, deep in the underbrush.

Something crunched, circling her.

“Mamma!”

The warped grain of the wire-spool table resembled a coastal map, swollen lines edging ocean-dark stains, the continents pocked with burn craters. His cigarette smoldering, old Dan Jenkins glowered into the flame of a kerosene lamp, feeling the hot, sweet drifting of his mind as it floated on the booze, feeling all solid thought dissolve with the blurring of his vision.

“So anyhow, we left ’im there wi’ his guts in both hands.” Al threw back his head and roared, showing off rotting back teeth. “Cryin’ like a baby into his innards.”

Old Dan craned his corded neck to listen as he leaned forward, getting the sleeve of his long undershirt wet with spilled rum. As he sucked on the cigarette he’d just rolled, his single discolored eye focused on the yellowed nudie calendar—a decade old at least, tacked above the planks that served as a bar—and on the meat cleaver that hung from a nail alongside the calendar. He glanced around at the men who sat on the barrels and crates scattered about the dirt floor. Most were locals, the rest from neighboring shantytowns with names like Collier’s Mill, Tom’s Grave, Slabtown. Shotguns leaned against the walls, even more than usual.

Seemed no one went out without a gun these days.

She fell from the crate.

A deep-throated roar exploded in front of her. From behind, a growl ripped.

What ever they were, there were two of them.

The child cringed, not knowing which way to crawl. Her hands pushed at the air all around her.

From behind came a snarled challenge.

The heavy breathing passed very close, and her fearfully questing hand found rough softness. With a sob of recognition, she threw her arms around the animal’s neck. The shaggy hulk pulled away from her, hackles up. Planted firmly in front of the child, the dog barked furiously into the woods. The barks sounded like cannon fire, and the girl fell back.

Finally, the rumble grew fainter.

Something brushed her. The wide tongue covered her face. Small grubby hands clung fiercely to the fur, while Dooley carefully licked every exposed part of her.

“Maybe it was the Devil.”

Smoke from the noxious local tobacco stained the air blue, and the room stank of urine and ashes. As always, the lamps had been turned way down to conserve fuel, and the room stayed dark and quiet. When some of the men did speak, it was either to argue the finer points of wire snares or to plan deer-jacking trips, but always silence lapped at the room, ready to seep back like the shadows before which their words became gruff noises, then faded altogether.

“Maybe the Devil got him,” Dan continued. “Hey, Al, ain’t there no more applejack? Dry Squad giving you trouble?”

“Nobody gives me trouble. Shit. Why don’t you get the hell outta here wi’ them stinkin’ shoes? Look at ’is! It’s all over ’is shoes! Go on. Get out!”

“Where’s your boy to night?” Dan kept his voice pleasant to the point of servility.

“What’re you talking about?” demanded Wes. “He’s right here.”

Dan blinked back the haziness. “Where da hell’d you come from?”

Slow shadows shifted in the corner, and Marl’s face glowed softly.

“Startin’ many fires lately?” muttered Wes.

There came the muffled thump of a whiskey jar set down carefully. A couple of regulars glanced at Al, then at Wes. The boy could be heard breathing. “Don’t you go botherin’ that boy,” Dan said in a low growl. “Don’t let his father hear ya.” A match flared as someone lit a cigarette, and the shadows jumped.

Old Dan nodded and gave the boy an encouraging if bleary smile, while reflecting on how funny it was that most of the regulars had such protective attitudes toward the kid, almost as though he were their own kin. Maybe it was the way people just naturally got around half-wits, feeling sorry for them and all. But that didn’t ring true. For instance, the Stewart loony took a lot of abuse, especially around here when he came cadging drinks. So maybe it was just that…He lost the thought when a farmer, already undoing his belt buckle, got up and swayed toward the door, leaving a good half inch of whiskey still in his glass. Dan looked around, then his gnarled hand shot out with the speed of a cobra. He bolted it, just a taste of burning sweetness.

Silence dripped through the room like something molten. The lean brown and white cat skulked through, belly low to the floor, tail twitching like a snake with a broken spine.

“You know what’s out there, boy?” Dan had already sidled up to the boy and begun his usual teasing. “There’s storks out there, four feet tall, that’s what.” Foul gasses bubbled in his damp breath. “They see a man, they fly right at him, spear him through the eyes, eat his brains out.” He made a stabbing motion at Marl’s yes, and the boy jumped back, as much from the smell as from alarm.

“D-dey ain’t real.”

“Sure is real. How you think I got this?” The old man fingered the pocket of hardened scar tissue where his left eye should have been. “That ain’t all, neither.” He leaned forward. “If’n the storks don’t get you, the Devil will.”

“Leave ’im alone,” another man muttered. “He’s liable ta throw one.”

“You know how big the Devil is? He’s big as a house, boy! An’ he got wings like a bat!”

Marl tried to pull away, but Dan had him by the arm, gnarled fingers digging hard into the tender flesh about the elbow.