Bone Fire (25 page)

On Capitol Avenue he stood at the curb waving to the people on floats and horseback, to the older kids in the marching bands, and when the men came zigzagging down the street throwing handfuls of candy from little scooters tricked out to look like turtles, he fell to his knees and filled his cap with packages of M&M’s, wrapped taffy and miniature Baby Ruth and Butterfinger bars. There were people sitting on coolers and in lawn chairs, and at the corner a woman slouched in her chair cradling a baby in her lap. When she smiled he offered his cap, and she took a piece of candy.

“Thank you,” she said.

Her shirt was lifted up from her waist and he could see the bottom curve of a breast, the baby’s mouth pressed into her. She held a hand above his head to shade the side of his face, his cheeks contracting and relaxing as he suckled, an eyelid fluttering.

Then people were folding their lawn chairs and milling out into
the empty street, the sidewalks draining. He looked around for McEban.

On the drive to the rodeo grounds he kept busy raking through his candy, finding the pieces he thought might melt.

“Did you get any Junior mints?” McEban asked.

“There’s some SweeTARTS.”

“I don’t want anything sour.”

He somehow got his cap back on his head even though it was still half-filled with candy. “Did my mom do that with me?” he asked.

A fire engine from the parade pulled alongside them, and the driver was drinking a beer.

“You mean like the lady at the parade?”

He nodded, feeling his face warming.

“Yes, she did.”

He leaned back against the seat and closed his eyes. He tried to imagine what it must have been like, if his mother would’ve tasted different than other women, but the embarrassment only deepened.

The rodeo lasted all afternoon and they ate plastic boats of corn chips topped with cheese and chili, sipping cans of warm Coke.

They went to the carnival in the evening, and McEban bought a roll of tickets that allowed them to go on any ride they chose, and they tried the Kamikaze and the Gravitron, and felt pukey and brittle afterward and were satisfied to use the remaining tickets racing around and crashing into each other in bumper cars. The man who took their tickets at the gate had a tattoo of vines and flowers that covered his whole face and the sides and top of his shaved head, and Kenneth tried not to stare but he couldn’t help it.

The next day they went to the parade again, then to the rodeo in the afternoon. It was two days now and they hadn’t seen a single person they knew.

McEban tapped him on the top of the head. “You okay?”

They were walking back across the parking lot, weaving through the cars and the press of people, the sun glaring off the rows of hot metal.

“I don’t remember where we parked.”

“But you’re having a good time?”

“It’s harder than I thought it would be.”

McEban stepped in front of him, squatting down so they were on the same level. “You need to go home?”

He shook his head.

“You look like you do.”

He thought he must have the dumb expression he got sometimes. He made his face perk up. “I’m having a really good time.”

“You’re sure?”

He nodded, smiling, and when McEban stood up he took his hand and that helped. It made it not so noisy and crowded and hot.

That night they went to an outdoor concert to hear a singer named Taylor Swift and were surprised she was a woman. She had long blonde hair and wore cowboy boots and a shimmery black dress. She danced across the stage while she sang, at times so vigorously he thought it was a miracle the dress didn’t fly off, or parts of her out of it. He especially liked her arms. They were thin and long and whiter than her pale hair, and when she reached up over her head while she was dancing it was like she was pointing out something special in the dark sky above them.

The next morning he had diarrhea, felt dizzy and weak, and his stomach hurt. McEban got him settled back in bed and told him not to open the door to anyone, that he’d be gone just a little while, and when he woke again McEban was sitting on the edge of the bed unwrapping a thermometer. There were plastic shopping bags on the floor between the beds.

He held the thermometer under his tongue while they watched the clock, and when he didn’t have a fever they sat together at the
table by the bathroom door, using plastic spoons to eat chicken noodle soup from white paper containers. Then he got back in bed.

That evening he felt well enough to sip a ginger ale and they went out for dinner. McEban made him order mashed potatoes and a chicken breast without the skin.

The next morning he was fine, but they decided to skip the rodeo and spent most of the day parked out on Happy Jack Road watching the jets take off and land at the Air Force base. In the late afternoon they sat in the back of a bookstore, taking turns reading in whispers from
King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table
.

At dinner he told McEban he was ready to go home.

“I’m with you on that,” the man said.

They were waiting for the lemon pie they’d ordered.

“I kind of mean now.”

“Are you feeling sick again?”

McEban held his hand against the boy’s forehead, and then the back of his hand against the side of his neck. “You don’t feel warm.”

“I don’t want you to be mad.”

“I’m not even a little bit mad.”

The waitress set down their desserts and freshened McEban’s coffee.

After she left McEban said, “I can’t remember who we’re supposed to go listen to tonight.”

“It was Def Leppard.” Kenneth finished his milk.

“Are they girl singers or boys? We got fooled last night.”

“I don’t know. I just liked the name.” He was patting the meringue down flat with his fork. “I’m kind of sick of sweet stuff,” he said.

“You don’t have to eat it.”

“You never said anything about the trouble I got in.” He was sitting very straight in his chair.

“Was that one of the reasons you thought I was mad?”

“It was the main reason.”

McEban looked over at their waitress, acting like he was writing on the palm of his hand so she’d know to bring their check. “I hate to disappoint you,” he said, “but I pretty much forgot about you being an ex-con.”

“Rodney and I stayed up and watched a prison movie one night. It was the only movie we watched the whole time I was there. Don’t you think that’s kind of weird?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Did you know donkeys kill more people every year than plane crashes?” He was relaxing again.

“Was that in the movie?”

“It’s just something Rodney knows about. Like Walt Disney being afraid of mice. He told me that too.”

They went back to the room and took off their boots and napped for an hour. Then they packed and checked out and started north.

He’d stopped twice for coffee, and now the boy was asleep on the seat. His cell phone vibrated in his shirt pocket.

“Hello,” he said, keeping his voice low.

“You’re my hero.”

“Pardon me?”

“For a lot of reasons,” she said, “but tonight especially, for going down to get Kenneth. Really, Barnum, I’m thankful for everything you’ve done for my boys, and for me too.”

He lowered the window a little more. He put the blinker on, taking the two-lane off the interstate. “I never did anything I didn’t want to do,” he said.

“Now you’re just being modest. You’ve lifted us all on your shoulders, and you know you have. Or you should.”

“Are you home?”

“You’re the only man in the world who could’ve unlocked the universal love at my core. I’m sure I don’t say that enough.”

“You aren’t at the ranch, then.”

“I’m going to try harder. I’ve made a vow.”

“Can you tell me what’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong. Everything’s better than I thought it ever could be.”

“You aren’t hurt?”

“I’m fine. Just a little bit stranded right now.”

Kenneth shifted on the seat, but didn’t wake up.

“You’re broke down is what you’re saying.”

“The mechanic said it was going to cost seven hundred dollars to fix. Can you believe that? Him trying to take advantage of me?”

“Where are you?”

“Just over in Idaho.”

“I’m not driving over there.”

“It would only be maybe seven hours if you go through Yellowstone. Eight max. It’d be fun.”

When he came around the bend by the river, a slant of light was cutting over the guardrail and into the trees across the highway, and he tapped the brake, slowing down.

“If you brought Kenneth it’d be like a vacation.”

“I think there’s been some kind of accident,” he said.

“I know you’ll come,” she said. “I know you won’t be selfish.”

“I’m getting off now.”

Kenneth came awake when he pulled onto the shoulder, and he told the boy where they were. He told him to stay put and handed him the cell phone. “Call 911,” he said.

He ran past the skid marks and the splintered posts and stepped over where the guardrail was twisted and broken. He started down slowly, but the embankment was loose, slick from the rain, and he had to slide. There was the odor of gasoline and burned rubber, of broken sage and gouged earth, and at the bottom of the slope the car had come to rest on its roof. The windows
were shattered, the domelight on, a side panel torn away. He recognized the car and now could smell the blood. Jean was on her side by the front fender, trying to drag herself away. She was talking quietly, not screaming or moaning, just speaking normally as if she were having a conversation.

She turned to him when he knelt beside her, her face so misshapen, so awash with blood, it could have been any woman in the world, he thought, but it was Jean.

“I’m right here,” he said.

She reached out, the other arm wrenched back at an unnatural angle. “Crane?” She sounded relieved. Like he’d been gone for a while, and just now come home.

“Yeah,” he said, trying to hold her still, but she was slippery with blood. “I’m right here.”

“I so fucked this up.” She relaxed into him.

“You’re going to be fine.”

Blood welled from her mouth, and she gagged and spat, but managed to take a deep breath. “I love you,” she said. “I’m sure of it now.”

He bent close enough that she could understand, each word spoken clearly. “I love you too,” he said.

T
HEY WAITED A WEEK
and held the memorial service at the Horse Creek Community Hall off 343, where the borrow ditch was shallow enough that people could line their outfits along the highway’s shoulder once the parking lot filled up. The sky was dark, low-hanging and muggy enough to rain, but it never did. Reverend Harrison from the Missouri Synod Lutheran officiated, invoking the soul’s reunion with the divine so effectively that a good portion of the mourners felt a sense of ease, reasoning that if Jean could be allowed entrance to heaven, they would be as well. Marin selected the hymns. The crowd stood while they sang, the men in freshly pressed jeans and sports jackets faintly smelling of dry-cleaning fluid, their hats held at their waists, their foreheads pale as ivory. Some had ties knotted around their necks. Some had shined their boots. The women wore their best dark dresses and the children fidgeted, stealing sly smiles from one another, their thoughts reeling through the possibilities of a summer afternoon. Einar sat very straight on his folding chair in the front row with his hat turned up in his lap, Marin on one side and Griff and Crane on the other. It was over at three.

Half the crowd followed Crane and Griff back to the house and the women carried in their covered dishes, arranging them on the table in the kitchen, slicing a ham and setting out buns and soft
drinks, brewing an urn of coffee. Crane had a keg of beer out on the sunporch, iced down since dawn.

They gathered in knots across the lawn and in the kitchen and living room, talking together about how Crane might get along without her, remembering funny conversations they’d had with Jean, laughing quietly, finally settling into observations about the weather, cattle prices, remodelings. Only Griff stayed back to help clean up.

“I should’ve had something to say.” Crane was sitting at the table, his suit coat hanging on the back of the chair.

Griff was bent at the refrigerator, stacking the last of the casserole dishes inside and smoothing the strips of masking tape with the owner’s last name printed out.

“I could’ve told a story about when we were first dating. Something like that.”

She sat with him at the table. “You want another coffee?”

“Will you stay for one?”

She filled their cups at the urn. “That was a nice-looking woman you were talking to.” She was stirring sugar into her coffee.

“I talked to a lot of women today.”

“The one who was flirting with you. Wearing a blue dress.” She stood and dragged the two black garbage bags leaning against the counter out onto the sunporch and sat down again. “Is she the one?”

“No, it wasn’t her,” he said. “And the one it was isn’t anymore.”

She toed her dress shoes off.

“Anyway, your mother and I lasted longer than you probably thought we would.”

“You were the record,” she said.

He got up, lifting the ham out of the refrigerator and peeling the plastic wrap back. He stood at the counter picking glazed pieces from the rim of the plate, nibbling. “I don’t know why I’m still hungry,” he said.

“Maybe that’s why we never really tried very hard at the father-daughter
thing.” She sipped her coffee. “I guess you knew I didn’t think she’d keep you around all that long.”

“I could tell.”

She filled her cup again. It felt good to have her shoes off. There were still red creases where the straps had cut across the tops of her feet. “She thought it would’ve been better if I hadn’t lived out at the ranch.”

“I could’ve made more of an effort, though.”

She shrugged. “I didn’t either.”

“You were just a kid then.”

“I never was,” she said, “not really.”

She stood again, reaching up under her dress, hooking the waistband of her pantyhose and pulling them down over her hips. When he realized what she was doing, he looked out the window.