One-Hundred-Knuckled Fist (9 page)

When Ren told Maggie he’d triple mortgaged their hovel to buy twenty acres of bluestem grass for his fourteen sheep, she hacked off her curly blonde ponytail and threw it in his porridge. “Might as well take this, too,” she said. He should’ve started by telling her how his life had changed, how he’d become a better businessman, hence a better all-around man, hence a better potential father, and all for the price of admission to the weekend shepherding seminar, Baba in the Black. The host, Tommy Two Bags of Wool, had swooped his purple robe like a magician upon entering the stage. He’d told the audience, “It’s not just your sheep that are your sheep—though your sheep are your primary sheep. You must dream big, guide the arms of your loved ones—who are your secondary, metaphorical sheep—into the extra-large sweater sleeves of a better, woollier future.”

Maggie turned her face to the front door, and Ren plucked her ponytail from his breakfast and sucked the strands clean. He snuck her hair into the robe pocket nearest his heart. Her newly bobbed hair quivered as she pulled her oversweater over her undersweater and then disappeared out the door. He liked Maggie’s hair short. It reminded him of the second week after shearing season, when
they had coin to spend and budding curls replaced naked, scabbed sheep flesh. But the extra coin always ran out quickly.

Ren had staked his land, his right to a better, woollier future. It wasn’t just for him but for Maggie, for the family they’d been trying to make for years. Ren would fill their pockets with coin and make them rich and happy, and Maggie’s belly would balloon. Their perfect future sprang easy as dandelions from his newer, better grass.

Ren grabbed his staff and headed to the sheep pen and led his fourteen sheep the three miles to his new rolling hills of green. Green like Maggie’s eyes, which shimmered most in the electricity of twilight, as on the days when he used to return from shepherding and she’d be waiting, her naked thighs leaning against the glowing threshold of their home. Her thighs never awaited him now that she part-timed at her brother’s flute shop. That could change soon.

The new field dipped into a basin guarded by gray slate walls that blocked the western wind. A stream trickled from the east, and it sounded like diamonds tinkling into a woolen sack. Ren guessed that’s what it sounded like. He’d never actually heard diamonds tinkling, nor had he seen a diamond. He had seen sheep molars. And now he listened to them grinding, grass turning to mush, sliding down throats. The song of profit. The whisper of coat growth only a fifth-generation shepherd could decipher.

Shepherding was in his blood. Thanks, Papa Ander. Thanks, Grandpa Nork. Their inept philosophy of sitting and twiddling thumbs and waiting for the flock to flourish to that impossible goal of twenty sheep had led to this moment of perfect evolution, this moment when Ren would realize their failed dreams. Now that he had the land, the lambs would come. Winona, his head ewe, chewed steadily.

Ren plopped onto a boulder, took a deep breath of his sweet new future, and thought about Maggie. Soon she’d be rolling naked through seas of fresh wool. Her fingers would be smooth again, freed from the calluses of flute carving, and she’d run them over his chin, down his sternum, past his waist, curl his red pubic hair.
Ren pulled the side of his robe over his erection. But he was alone in the vast basin. He threw back his robe and allowed his erection to jettison upward, the same direction his business would grow.

Ren gazed over his basin, imagined wobbling newborn lambs, could almost hear the tinny jingle of their bells. The jingle grew into a clanging. The lambs stumbled out of his dream. Over the crags of the basin, a man waved a stubby sword. He wore a rusty breastplate, chain mail gauntlets, was barefooted and mud smeared. Their eyes met, and the shoddy soldier sprinted toward him. Ren reclosed his robe.

“Did I miss it?” the soldier asked. Ren studied the man’s mud-kissed chubby cheeks, dopey eyes, blond fuzz over his lip. He was nothing but a child of a man. “Am I late for battle? Fighting for the honor of Finneus the Third’s land, slayer of giant salamanders.”

“I think you’ve lost your way, son,” Ren said.

“Thank the fifteen and a half gods above, then. I’m on time. Fuck’s sake, I’d say I’m early.” He sheathed his sword.

“This is grazing land.” Ren leaned sagely against his staff. “There’s no battle to worry about. You can run along.”

“Nope.” The soldier pushed his fists into his back and swung his hips, stretching. “This has always been the place.”

More clanging rang from the basin lip. Another man emerged, waving a halberd.

“Time for me to die a glorious death, pops.” The young soldier rushed toward the other man. Their weapons crashed just past Ren’s sheep Franklin. Franklin bleated at the men, trotted back and forth. Ren rushed toward the squabble but stopped when an arrow hissed into the earth in front of his sandals. Along the basin lip, a dozen archers drew their bows, let arrows sail. There were only two men with Ren in the basin. Wasted feathers and flint and wood. Tommy Two Bags of Wool would have had a good laugh at their foolish budgeting of resources.

More breastplates and muddy faces and swords and maces crested the lip. They shouted as they loped down the hills, hurdling Ren’s sheep. The sheep stared with slack jaws, black lips curled and
raised from the grass. They couldn’t concentrate, thus couldn’t eat, thus wouldn’t reach lamb-conceiving romance.

Arrows split the earth around Ren. His sheep remained frozen, watching the men, transfixed, orange eyes glazed. He prodded Whitey’s yellowed rear, jabbed his staff between Franklin’s eyes. Nothing. Ren’s stomach twisted. The breeze blew cold beneath his frock.

His fingers twitched around his staff. He thought about the clowder of flame-red bobcats that had eaten two of his ewes three years ago. He remembered the drop in his groin when he’d stumbled on to the ewe carcasses, bellies torn open and emptied. Maggie had wanted him to quit. But Ren fought back. The next time the clowder lurked into his herd, he’d pounced in front of them. He became huge and loud, a big show of screaming and flailing, a bigger show than even Tommy Two Bags could perform. The bobcats ran away as easy as that, at the mere show of danger.

He channeled that bobcat battle now. He screamed and growled, spit frothing over his lips. He twirled the staff over his head, swung blindly at the wind. His throat burned, and his ears buzzed. He charged at the man-boy soldier, who lay on the ground, bracing his sword against halberd strikes from a larger warrior. The man-boy winced toward Ren, eyebrows raised, a slice in his cheek leaking a trickle of red. The man-boy looked tired, older, transformed into an ancient visage of scowling fear.

A sliver of pity wormed into Ren’s chest. He latched his crook around the halberd and yanked it to the grass. The larger warrior ran away. The archers screeched like a murder of magpies and disappeared over the hill. Ren’s land became all green again except for a few glints of blade and arrowhead. The shoddy man-boy raised himself onto his elbows and curled his lips into a yellow-toothed smile.

“Hell if you ain’t the savior of the giant salamander–slayer clan, mister.” The man-boy reached his bloody palm toward Ren. “My ancestor’s would bless you, if they weren’t all dead and rotted.”

Ren offered the man-boy his crook and pulled him to his feet. “I don’t need your blessings.”

“My children’s runts will sing your praise.”

“And I don’t need any songs. Just peace and quiet for my sheep so they can make lambs.”

“That how it’s done? Just leave ’em alone? The wenches in town would be pleased as shit to hear that.” The man-boy laughed, clapped Ren’s shoulder. “Whatever you want, friend. You’re a piece of my freaking heart now. All will know who won back the land of my father’s father, slayer of Mighty Francis the Stump Plucker.”

“This isn’t your father’s land. I bought it.”

“Sure, Shepherd. We’ve won. You can graze here until the cows come home.”

“Sheep.”

“Sheep or cows or anteaters. Whatever you want, brother.” The man-boy pounded his chest and then slapped Ren’s. The man-boy departed toward the basin lip. At the slate crest, he hollered, “See you tomorrow.”

Before Ren could protest, the man-boy soldier was gone. He tried not to think about what tomorrow could mean while he wandered through the field, plucking arrow shafts. Across the basin, he noticed Franklin’s head dipped to the ground, still eating, and Ren was glad. At least one sheep would grow strong, would father fine lambs. When he neared, he saw that Franklin was licking a puddle of blood, his muzzle streaked pink, pink darkening to brown. He imagined lambs covered in tainted brown wool, stupid and dirty and worthless.

For just one moment, he allowed himself to miss his old half-acre plot, the sprouts of crab grass and pocks of dandelions. Maggie used to bring him lunch there. Her hair long and full of tangles from sleep, she’d recline in his lap, and he’d work a brush through her hair. They’d watch the sheep forage, and it was good. But that wasn’t production.

Maggie needed to know that her brother wasn’t the only success. Ren couldn’t just sit around combing hair, waiting for wool to grow. He fingered Maggie’s hacked-off ponytail coiled at the bottom of his pocket. It would sustain him until things took off and she could
quit the flute business and join him on the new land with his giant herd. One day in the future, he’d gift this chopped lock back to her, and she’d laugh and her face would redden. He’d tell her about these men playing war, and she’d laugh at that too, one day.

Darkness settled as Ren led his sheep two miles out of their way, to Tommy Two Bags of Wool’s cave. Why build an office, Tommy always said, when God leases caves? Caves saved on overhead. Ren pushed aside the vines covering the cave mouth, cleared his throat, said, “You open, Tommy?”

“A real business never closes. Sleep is for the unemployed, the retired, and the dead.” Tommy sprang from the darkness. “What can I do for my favorite shepherd?”

Tommy neared Ren as he spoke, almost touching his chin to Ren’s chest. Ren smelled fish and rhubarb on his breath, could see a pus-filled growth on his tongue when he licked at his red mustache. At the conference, he’d looked majestic under the lights of the stage from ten rows away.

“You sold me some bunk acres. There’re a bunch of idiots fighting there.”

“You’re imagining things.” Tommy’s eyes glared wetly in the moonlight. “You just need to change your visualization techniques. Daily success-envisionment meditation with my eight-part series of motivational tapes will change those fears into fantastic.”

“My eyes aren’t the problem.”

“Ah, yes, it’s the classic overworked-shepherd syndrome. You should try my patent-pending Calmative Cave Mushroom Caps. Relax you into oblivion. But they’ll keep you sharp, too.” The lesion on Tommy’s tongue flickered as he spoke. “Bottom-dollar deal.”

“I don’t need mushrooms.” Ren withdrew the arrow shaft he’d brought and lifted it to Tommy’s face. “I’m not imagining anything.”

Tommy snatched the arrow, pressed it to his nose, slid his tongue down the shaft. Then he chucked it over his shoulder, into the black cave.

“I appreciate you forwarding this concern to my attention.” Tommy gripped Ren’s shoulders. “You need to look at those salamander boys as an obstacle to overcome, an opportunity to improve your strategy. They are a gift.” Tommy released Ren’s shoulder. He pulled at his mustache. “But if it’s too much for you to handle, I can refund you two-thirds.”

“Why not all thirds?”

“The price of doing business,” Tommy said. “Or I could sell you some different acres for a few hundred extra. These ones are perfect and obstacle-opportunity free.”

Maggie’s brother could loan Ren the money, would insist on no interest and that would be so much worse. Maggie and Flann would laugh about listening to wool grow, while they sweated out five thousand more flute shafts, while they took lunch break and played with Flann’s three boys and two girls, and before break was over, Flann’s wife would pop out another son.

“I’m not buying more land. I just need a safe, quiet place so my herd can make lambs.”

Tommy snickered. “You should consider taking my lambing class, Mary Had a Little Lamb and so Can You.”

Ren reached into his pocket and twisted Maggie’s hair tightly around his thumb. Tommy smirked at him and then disappeared into his cave’s darkness. He rattled in the gulf of shadows and finally emerged holding out his palm. “Tell you what. A quick and easy fix. This will solve all your problems.”

Ren looked down and, to his horror, saw a flute. But this one was different than the ones Flann and Maggie made. Its metal shaft glinted in the moonlight. This was a flute Flann would have no idea how to craft. Ren loosened the noose of Maggie’s hair around his thumb.

“Next time you run into trouble, just give this sucker a blow, and poof, your worries will be eradicated. All for a low-low investment.”

“What’s the price?”

“Low-low
investment
, my wise friend. Not a single coin, but a
barter.” Tommy’s tongue flicked fast, seemed to brighten his face, so that Ren could see his sharp cheekbones, the wisdom lines in his forehead. “All I require is just one sheep.”

Ren needed another investment, and he could spare Franklin, surely, who was full of soldier blood and stupidity. So he made the exchange. Ren crooked the sheep and led him into Tommy’s cave. Tommy slipped the shiny flute into Ren’s pocket. When he withdrew his hand, Tommy was holding Maggie’s hair.

“Oh, this is a fine coat from a rare sheep.” Tommy smiled, rubbed the hair against his cheek. “Let’s toss this into the exchange.”

Ren yanked the hair from Tommy and stowed it back in his pocket. He clutched her hair in a fist as he departed. Now he had Maggie, his new land, and the flute that would fix everything else.

Maggie was sleeping by the time Ren found his way to their bed. One of her hands lay splayed next to the uneven chunks of hair on the back of her head. Red slices and brown scabs flecked her fingers, casualties of flute work. He pulled Maggie’s hair from his pocket and swept the curls over the wounds, because the right hair cured all that ailed. He believed that as hard as he’d ever believed anything.