Woe to Live On: A Novel (16 page)

We could not have a fire. It was clammy in the ground. I stared at Jack Bull’s arm every little bit, studying it from all the angles as if I might understand what I saw. What could I do? I was ignorant but I knew it, so I would not play the fool by applying medicines of my own invention just to appear smart.

I reckon I looked wounded, too, dragging my sluggish leg about. Sue Lee sat next to me and whispered, “He is bad, but how are
you
feeling?”

Her concern startled me. I did not reply.

“Your leg,” she said. “It must hurt.”

“Oh, it does,” I answered. “I’ve been here before, though.”

“Can I help it?” she asked. There were dirt streaks on her cheeks, and her skin had bleached to a noble shade of pale.

“No.” I patted her arm. “Try to rest yourself.”

Her head shook and she grinned tightly.

“I doubt that,” she said.

As time passed I thought of many things. Old Evans had went to Heaven instead of Texas, and a childish notion came to me: I wondered if we could bury him. It was out of the question, but I thought of it still. Such a Christian act might have soothed me, but they are so hard to perform when you are surrounded by circumstances.

The Federals did not come. This surprised me. They had to know we were somewhere in the neighborhood. Perhaps they figured we had fled. A pleasant thought would have been to think they found us so fierce they would rather avoid us, but I knew it was not true. About the same amount of courage was in them as in us, and there is no use in tall-talking to the contrary.

But this day was not to be our last, for whatever reason. As is the way with days, this one passed. Night fell. We lit a small candle. The dugout went from twilight chill to midnight cold. Jack Bull was buffeted about by agony, and fever gripped his person and made him do rambling talk. Most of his utterances were predictable—moans and so forth—but a few whole sentences splattered out of him.

“Do you hear the fish?” he asked of no one this side of Eternity.

I could hardly stomach it. He was bad off, and any improvement was days away.

George Clyde said, “Maybe I should try to get us a doctor.”

“Where from?” I asked.

“There is one in Kingsville.”

“That is fifteen miles. You can’t cover it in one night.”

“I know that, Dutchy.” Clyde just wanted to be doing something. His energy was immense. “But I could lay up near there, then try to drag him back the next night.”

“He may not want to come.”

“Oh, I reckon he’ll come. I have a special way of asking that works real good.”

“Ah,” I said, and nodded. “That might do.”

We sat in the gloom and pondered this proposed venture. I didn’t believe it could work. There were guns in Kingsville, and Missouri doctors were not new to this sort of situation.

“Will you take Holt?”

“No,” Clyde answered. “Less men, less noise. Besides, if I can’t get the doc, I’m heading on to Captain Perdee’s. Holt’ll help you and the widow.”

“I wish you luck,” I said.

In not much longer than it takes to tell it, he was gone. He rode off through the timber toward Kingsville, maybe to shanghai some mercy.

As he left, hope was with me, but I was getting suspicious of it, and did not toss a big embrace around it.

None of us were finicky eaters but dirt did not set with us, so we ate potatoes. There was no fire to bake them in or boil them over, so we ate them raw like apples and dreamed they were peaches.

Jack Bull Chiles could not chew. By the morning light I assessed his weakness. It was all he was was weak. The
wound needed to be dressed and flushed by hot water, but there was none.

He had to eat.

“Sue Lee,” I said. “We have got to feed him.”

“I know, I know,” she said. She was a run-down female. “But how?”

“The only way there is. Holt, toss me a tater.”

When he tossed it, I caught it. I began to chew on the small dry thing, mashing my jaw over and over ’til I spit out a kind of white pap into my hand.

“Hold his head up,” I said.

Sue Lee and Holt squatted at Jack Bull’s side and raised his head. His lips were cracked and big black half moons were beneath his eyes. With two fingers I scooped the pap and stuck it in his mouth. He sputtered but swallowed, so I did it again. Little slobbers lit on his chin. I kept up the scoop-and-swallow work as long as he would take it. It was not for long. Hunger was not his main sensation.

We left him to rest as much as he would. Weird words were mumbled by him and nowhere in the dugout could you hide from them. They found you.

I went outside. There was no special thing to see. The wind smelled clean. The whole world was off from there, beyond the trees and sight.

The dugout plank creaked and out came Holt. He joined me on the dirt. He patted my back. He took slow breaths.

“I wonder,” he said, “did you ever watch the rabbit? That is a pretty thing up close. Big eyes and a face that has changes in it, feelings like. It’s got big fancy ears and is just a pretty
thing but I still eat it. And it comes to me that I eat the pretty thing ’cause I am hungry.”

“You tell interesting tales, Holt.”

“Well, that’s all of it.” He touched my shoulder. “Jake, that arm is done for.”

“Oh, I know it,” I said. It was true. “I hoped it wouldn’t be.”

“It is done for.”

“Maybe George will bring the doctor. He may see something we don’t.”

“Naw,” Holt said. “I reckon he’ll see what we see.”

Possibilities ganged up on me. I felt clabbered by guilt, for only my dainty hopes had kept that arm from being took away sooner. Now Jack Bull was even weaker.

“Not now,” I said. “We’ll give George a chance first.”

“The longer you wait,” Holt said softly, “the harder it gets on the man.”

“Oh, hellfire, will you just shut up on that? God damn it all, Holt, just give me peace for a while.”

He laughed a rough one.

“Why not the moon?” he asked.

More pap was scooped as the day passed. I hoped to raise his strength. Sue Lee timed it out and we fed him regular as a babe.

Me and Holt switched off on keeping Federal watch. I thought of Texas and wished we were there and not any of us shot. If only wishing made it so, cripples would dance wild reels on tabletops and lots of good times would be had.

With no preamble at all Jack Bull began to speak.

“Jake,” he said. “You look sad.”

I went bug-eyed at him. He was awake and aware.

“We’re taking care of you,” I said, and scrambled to his side. “You can be mended.”

“Don’t lie, Jake. Don’t lie to me. I can see. I can see to my own arm.”

His fine American face was leeched dry of all emotion and interests save the drive to survive. The breaths he took were short and slow, as though fast deep ones would be beyond his control.

“George Clyde has gone for a doctor,” I said.

Jack Bull nodded wearily, then said, “I always knew we would be killed. One or both of us.”

“Well, that chance has always been there.”

“Do you recall the pies on Mother’s sill?”

“Of course. Those were good eating times.”

“That they were.” His big brown sick eyes went steady on me. “I always thought it’d be you, Jake. You dying. I was certain I would have to bury you.”

This revelation tantalized me.

“I wish you were burying me,” I said, but I knew I lied. It was strange how that hit me, too. I lied to my near brother, but I knew I lied and that freed me loose of some old notions I had fancied.

I didn’t want to die in anyone else’s place at all.

“Me, too,” he said. His good hand clutched toward me and patted my knee. This was to tell me he joked, I think.

“You ain’t dead, Jack Bull.”

A slack spell came over him and his lips hung limp and he closed his eyes.

Our chat had roused Sue Lee and she came over and said,
“I’m right here.” His eyes opened and he said, “Oh, good. Oh, good.”

An instant later he went back to the gone state he had generally been in. His recess from delirium had been brief.

His veins became black. The black blood inched up the inside of his arm. Holt pointed it out first, then we all crouched over the arm and watched it somberly.

“We’ll keep an eye on that,” I said. “It can’t be let go much longer.” I looked at the widow and she was just about destroyed by knowledge. “I might have to take it off as best I can.”

We sat around then, waiting for blackened veins of wronged blood to force me to surgery. The waiting was a chore. I felt my mushed knee to amuse myself. I squeezed the kneecap and nothing wiggled or stuck up sharply. It was only a terrific bruise.

“I wonder how Honeybee is,” Sue Lee said. She spoke dreamily. “That is a sweet little girl. Her elbows jiggle still. Maybe she is a little fat, but that Honeybee is sure enough sweet.”

“Don’t I know it,” I said. “Her voice does pleasantries to any song she tackles.”

“Oh, my, yes,” the widow said, almost brightly. “That child reads better than I ever will, too.”

An awesome responsible streak was in Holt. I saw him check on Jack Bull, then he said, “Now. It has got to be done now. The black streaks is pushing up to the armpit.”

Sue Lee grabbed my hand, her big whipped eyes practically speared into me.

“Can you do it, Jake? Can you do it for him?”

I nodded and thought about what must be done. My belly jammed with nettles. My head felt loose from me. I went
outside. The sun was gone. It was cold, cold, cold, and I knelt on the frozen ground and it all came up. It just all jumped up out of me and slopped to the dirt. I retched and retched and thought I never would quit—I had to cut him!

“Don’t think about it, Roedel,” Holt said from behind me. “Just do it. There ain’t no sliding around it. Just you do it or else I will.”

“Oh no you won’t,” I said. “His family raised me. I reckon it’ll be me who saws his rotten arm off.”

Back in the dugout I did things, but it was like it wasn’t the true me. My hands were busy and half smart and lashed a rope above the spot where I would cut and readied the blade.

“If he screams too loud we may all die,” I said. “Put a stick in his mouth. Don’t let him scream too loud.”

Holt put the bit in.

“Sue Lee,” I said, “sit on his chest and keep his jaws clamped on that stick. Holt, you shove him down wherever he starts to flop.”

I ran my fingers across Jack Bull’s face, and the skin had the feel of cabbage. I owed him so much. The whole life I had. I studied the arm and the fouled veins and laid the blade at the spot. Then, nerved up to the highest pitch I could summon, I began to saw.

The job was miserable.

I was no good.

Sue Lee held on tight to his jaw and Holt held him down and I held the blade and everyone made noises.

Oh, sweet Lord Jesus.

It was way down there past terrible.

T
HE KNOT ON
the rope was not enough of a bind, and loosened to leak Jack Bull Chiles. My world bled to death. I couldn’t get the cut burned closed. It was too moist. The smell was a horrible fact.

I guess I wept. I guess we all wept. Even Holt wept. It’s a useless reaction. No comfort at all.

We sat there all night. The wind made sad, tormenting sounds. Once, Sue Lee put her fingers to her hair, grabbed a hold and beat her head around like she was churning butter. She shrieked and I listened. I had nothing for her.

Words can’t match it.

Past a certain point I could not sit. I picked up the shovel and contemplated a grave. I wanted it to be inside the dugout where he had lived, not off in coyote-prowled timber. I measured a spot in the center of the dugout. There wasn’t much light, but I didn’t need much. I vented some bad feelings on the soft dirt. The shovel slammed down in my hands, gouging out little loads of dirt, which I flung to the corners. The clods pattered down like varmint feet scurrying over leaves. I beat a hole right into the ground, flinging dirt in the dark.

Sweat broke out on me. I relished the evidence of effort. I hung my tongue down and lapped the salty beads as they fell from my nose.

This was all there was to do.

The sun ignored our grief and kept to its routine. The lightened scene was harrowing. Sue Lee appeared awful and used up. Holt was far gone into pious reflection.

I gestured at the grave.

“Bury him,” I said. “Quick.”

For lack of alternatives, leadership fell on me. Holt and the widow began to roll Jack Bull toward the grave, spinning him across the dusty floor.

We dropped him down and threw his arm in after him. For some reason I kicked my satchel of mail into the pit alongside him. I think I was guilty about my luck. Then I eased a shovelful of dirt onto his chest.