Bone Fire

Twenty-one

JEAN WASN’T THERE when he got home, and he looked for a note but couldn’t find one. He showered and shaved and stretched out on the bed and fell asleep with the windows open and a breeze coming through. He slept undisturbed for an hour and a half, and when he woke she still wasn’t home. He remembered vivid fragments of a dream in which he was flying, or falling, but couldn’t piece together any sort of narrative, wondering if the ALS was affecting his subconscious as well.

He pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt and went out to the kitchen to find something to make for supper, taking a Tupperware container of cooked rice from the refrigerator and layering the bottom of a bowl with it, then browning a package of hamburger and spooning it over the rice. He grated a hard cheese onto the hamburger and nuked it for a minute, then diced part of an onion and a red pepper, and dumped them on top. It was his favorite meal, something he’d made after school when he was a kid.

He carried the bowl to the couch in the living room, surfing through the channels while he ate. He ended up watching an episode of CSI: Miami, jeering at the story line as he imagined a lot of cops did.

After he’d cleaned up the kitchen and she still wasn’t home, he found her stash in the back of her underwear drawer and rolled a joint that he took out to the sunporch so he wouldn’t stink up the house. Having smoked dope only a couple of times in college, and never since, he couldn’t remember what was supposed to happen to him, but it was a relief, even briefly, to be focused on something other than his body’s deterioration. He sat back, waiting for it to kick in, and imagined Jean driving up and catching him, and when this scenario just made him laugh he assumed he was stoned.

He stayed out on the porch through the evening. When it was dark, he turned on the bug zapper hanging under the eaves and sat listening to the intermittent buzz of bugs frying and the sounds of the neighborhood winding down. The phone rang once and he let the machine get it, but the caller didn’t leave a message.

It was after midnight when he stripped out of his clothes and went to bed, and he wasn’t quite asleep when she came in, making no effort to be quiet. He heard her mix a drink in the kitchen, and when he opened his eyes she was standing in the bedroom doorway staring at him.

“Don’t pretend you’re asleep,” she said.

He folded an arm behind his head. The light was on in the hallway behind her, and he could see the outline of her legs through the thin material of her skirt. “You drunk?”

“Drunk enough to come home.” She walked into the room, set her drink on the dresser, pulled her blouse over her head and stepped out of her skirt. She threw her clothes toward the closet and took a sip from the glass, then put it back.

“What does that mean, exactly?” he asked.

“What does what mean?” She slid her panties down, kicking them toward the closet too, and stood at the foot of the bed, winging her elbows out to unhook her bra, tossing it after the rest. She cupped her breasts up and ducked her chin to blow back and forth across them. “Jesus, that feels good,” she said.

“What does it mean, saying you’re drunk enough to come home?”

She snorted a short laugh and walked to the window and sat on the sill staring at him, holding the cool glass of ice and whiskey and water against her forehead, her legs crossed at her ankles.

The light from the streetlamp turned the hair at the crown of her head amber and lipped just over her shoulders, falling in scallops on her left hip and thigh. He thought she still looked good but knew it really didn’t matter anymore. That part was over. “You going to answer me?”

She finished her drink, set the glass on the windowsill and stood away from the window. “You know damn well what it means.”

She was rotating her head in a circle like he’d seen pro basketball players do to loosen up before going back onto the court. She pulled the sheet away and stepped across him, straddling his hips, settling down on his limp cock. She paused as though she couldn’t remember what came next, then leaned forward and kissed him, her hips fidgeting. He could feel her breasts pressed against his chest.

“I know you can do this,” she said. “I need you to.”

She reached down between her legs, gripping his cock and working her thumb at the base of the glans, smiling like she would at a joke that wasn’t funny. She kissed him again, grinding her hips in punishing little circles and digging at his chest with her fingernails. When she checked again and his cock was still limp, she rolled off and lay staring at the ceiling. “That makes what?” she asked. “The last three times?”

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

She got up on an elbow. “Really?”

“I probably ought to try something. Viagra, maybe.”

“Maybe you should.”

She got up and pulled a black T-shirt from under her pillow. Stenciled on the front, under a white horse head with an orange mane, was Denver Broncos. The shoulder seams reached almost to her elbows and the hem hung mid-thigh. She retrieved her glass from the sill and went back to the kitchen, and he heard her making another drink.

Then she was standing again in the doorway. “You know what pisses me off?”

“I guess not the whole list.” He folded his pillow behind his head.

She was leaning into the jamb with one leg bent up, pressing the sole of that foot against the opposite knee. It made for an odd silhouette, he thought, birdlike.

“You know what Viagra’s good for?” she asked.

“I think so.”

“Yeah, well I do too. It’s a real lifesaver for the assholes who are getting it someplace else. Every Tom, Dick and Crane can come trotting home with their limp dicks, whining about the heartache of ED. ED, my ass. Your only dysfunction is you’d rather fuck stray pussy more than me.”

“Funny, they don’t say anything about that in the ads.”

She sipped her drink. “I need to know something,” she said. “So I can keep everything in perspective.”

“All right.”

“I’d like to know when you think you might have the balls to tell me what’s going on.”

“That’s something we can talk about tomorrow.”

“You mean when I’m not drunk?”

“Yes.”

“Fuck you.”

She straightened her leg, leaning over into the opposite jamb, and he stood up and found where he’d dropped his clothes on the floor and stepped into the sweatpants and sat back down on the bed.

“You want to know the worst thing I ever did?” she asked.

“Tell me.”

“I really hate that tone of voice.”

“Go ahead. I want to know.”

She walked away, and he pulled the T-shirt on. She was sitting on the counter beside the sink when he came into the kitchen, the bottle of Jim Beam next to her. He sat at the table, and she leaned back against the cupboards.

“So, the worst thing I ever did?”

“I’m ready,” he said.

She parted her legs and, when he looked away, turned to spit in the sink, pulling the T-shirt down over her knees. She lit a cigarette from the pack by the bottle and dropped the paper match in the drain. “I wished you were dead. That’s the worst thing I ever did.”

He stared at her.

“I don’t mean fuck you, fuck me, I wish you were dead. I mean the whole nine yards, front to back. Smell the blood, watch the light go out of your eyes, appear appropriately heartbroken at the funeral, answer the condolence cards promptly and pack your shit off to the landfill.” She took a long drag from her cigarette, tilting her head back to exhale, staring at him down over her cheeks. “So how does that sit with you, Mr. Maybe-Viagra-Might-Let-Me-Fake-Fuck-My-Wife-Now-and-Then?”

His left arm and both calves were buzzing, and he tried to swallow and coughed. “Not great.” He cleared his throat, careful not to gag. That’s what frightened him most, the choking. He’d watched it happen to his grandfather.

“Good,” she said, “because I didn’t even get to the part about burning sage in every room of the house to run your fucking stink out.”

He wiped the spittle from the corners of his mouth. “Have you thought about me dying today?”

“Today’s not over with yet.” She drained her glass and poured it half full of whiskey, holding it under the tap for a splash of cold water.

“You’ve been drinking a lot, even for you.”

“Have I?”

“Yes, you have.”

She sipped the drink. “Why don’t you tell me what you expect me to do?”

“I guess I don’t know what to expect.”

“Jesus, you must fucking think I’m made out of iron or something.”

“I think you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. I still think that.”

“You’ve got a twisted way of showing it.”

“I haven’t been feeling well.”

“But well enough to fuck your ex-wife. That’s something, isn’t it? I’m sorry you haven’t been up to handling us both.”

“That’s not what’s happening.”

“Bullshit.” She drank down half her drink.

“It’s not like that with Helen.”

“Give it the fuck up, Crane. Janice Obermueller already told me she saw you two having dinner at the Olive Garden in Billings.”

They heard a car pull into the drive, then a door slamming shut.

Jean slid off the counter, staggering sideways toward the refrigerator before catching herself. “You want to know something? I really do wish you were dead. It would’ve been easier for you.” She stubbed her cigarette out in the sink, looking at him over her shoulder. “Because right now you’ve got to hate yourself even more than I do.”

They could hear a light knock at the screen door, and Jean pushed away from the counter.

“I didn’t make love to her.”

“Couldn’t, or wouldn’t?”

“I just didn’t.”

The knock again, still light.

“Come on in and join the party,” Jean called.

She was gripping the backladder of a chair, bracing herself, when the girl stepped into the doorway, the kitchen light reflecting off her eyebrow stud and the ring in her lower lip.

“I need to see the sheriff,” she said, nearly whispering.

Jean stared at her, weaving, then shrugged and dropped her hands from the chair. “I’m going to bed.”

She turned and lurched toward the bedroom, holding a palm out against the wall to steady herself, and he heard a picture fall in the hallway.

“I’m Janey Schilling,” the girl said. “My sister said you wanted to talk to me.”

They walked out around her car and he held the door open to the cruiser and she ducked in.

“I’m sorry it’s so late,” she said. “I saw your lights on, so I thought it would be okay.”

“I’m glad you did.”

She turned in the seat and pressed a hand up against the wire mesh separating the front seat from the back, then looked at him.

“This your first ride in one of these?”

She nodded.

“Go on ahead and put your seatbelt on,” he said, backing them around and thinking about driving out north with the windows down, through the troughs of cool air holding tight against the sloughs along the roadway, thinking that might put her at ease. But he didn’t know if she was crazy, in which case it’d be better to have her in the office, even if it scared her a little.

“I almost didn’t come over tonight. I almost just went back to Denver.”

“You’re doing the right thing,” he said.

“Anyway, I don’t sleep hardly ever. I’m up all the time.”

“Yeah, that’s me too.”

When he crossed the bridge east of town, a night hatch came up out of the willows along the river and the insects pocked the windshield like puffs of ash.

“I guess the fish’ll be biting on those bugs tomorrow.” She tried to make it sound conversational, like they knew each other.

“I don’t know the first thing about fishing,” he said. “Sometimes I act like I do, but I don’t.”

“My stepdad took me.”

“I met him.”

“ Benton?” She turned to look at him in the dashlights. She was fingering the ring in her lip.

“Your mother too.”

“Kayla just said you called and were looking for me.”

He turned onto the main drag and hit the switch to spray washing fluid over the windshield, the wiperblades streaking the insects across the glass. When he noticed the car idling in front of the office, he pulled into the lot next to the drugstore.

They sat staring across the street at the building, a bleak institutional green except for the northwest corner, now weathered down to the gray cinderblock. A raised “R” had fallen off the sign above the door: ISHAWOOA CO. SHE IFF OFFICE. Then Starla reeled out onto the front stoop with two younger women, all hanging onto and shushing one another between bursts of laughter. They loaded into her ’93 Pontiac, and she backed out and drove off. Crane pulled across the street and parked and got out, but the girl didn’t even open her door.

“It’s all right,” he said. “We’re just going in here to talk. I’m not going to lock you up.”

She walked with him past the lighted cubicle where the night dispatch sat.

“Evening, Pearl,” he said.

She looked up from her crossword-puzzle book, pink plastic barrettes in her gray hair, her hands thin and liver-spotted. “I had nothing to do with it,” she said.

“Never entered my mind.” He continued down the hallway, the girl following just a step behind.

“Did you know those people?” She was whispering.

“The tall one works dispatch during the day.” He threw the keys on his desk and dropped into his chair. “Every once in a while she and her buddies get shitfaced and come in to fire up the Breathalyzer and see what they blow. Like a competition.”

“Nice.” She stepped to the window beside the door and put up the blind, staring at the jail cells across the hall. “I’m not tweaking anymore.” She turned, hugging herself. “I been in rehab. That’s where I was when you were trying to find me.”

“I’m going to need to know what happened to your boyfriend,” he said, motioning toward the chair across from him.

She sat down, sucking on her lip ring. “If I start crying you shouldn’t worry about it,” she said. “I cry more than I used to.”

“That won’t bother me.”

She was knitting and releasing her fingers now, over and over, and when she saw him watching she laid her hands out on her thighs. “I didn’t have to come up here. Nobody made me. I was doing real good in rehab.”

“I understand that.”

“It was an accident.”

“All right.”

She looked over her shoulder.

“You want me to close the door?”

She nodded, so he got up and swung the door shut and returned to his desk.

She started to cry quietly. “I swear I didn’t know Brady had a gun.” She was staring at the floor. “I don’t think JC knew either.”

“You mean Brady Croonquist?” He tried to keep his voice natural, as she had when talking about what bugs a fish might rise to. “Jake Croonquist’s son?”

“I don’t know what his daddy’s name is.” She pulled her sleeve down over her hand and wiped her eyes with it. “Brady owns a ranch. I know that.”

“Was it his trailer?”

“He said it was safe, that nobody could come on his place without permission. But his house isn’t anywhere near the trailer. It’s way back up the creek from there.”

“I know where it is.”

“I was only there once. At his house.”

She held her hands up over her eyes and started to sob, rocking out over her knees. He walked a box of Kleenex around to her, setting it on the floor beside her chair and sitting back against the desk.

“You’re saying Brady’s the one cooking the stuff?”

She blew her nose, holding the used tissue in her lap. “It was JC and me, but Brady showed us how.”

“He set you up?”

“Yeah, but for a long time Brady just bought whatever anybody stole. So they’d have money if they needed to get high. Like he’d buy stereos or guns or computers, whatever. He’s got a barn full. JC used to help him take loads of it up to Billings to sell. One time they drove a truckload down to Denver.” She blew her nose again. “Brady used to always say he didn’t make nothing but profit, then a couple months ago he said he might as well make all the profit. That’s when JC and me started cooking for him.”

“I can’t help you if you’re going to lie to me.”

“I’m not lying.” Her eyes sparked, and then she remembered where she was. She looked to make sure the door was still shut. “I swear I’m not.”

“And nobody else was out there?”

“Just JC and me, and when Brady drove up I even waved to him through the window. Then there was this explosion and JC was on the floor, on fire and screaming. It knocked me down too, but I didn’t catch fire.” She was crying hard again.

He walked back around his desk and sat down. “It counts for something that you came all the way up here,” he said. “You’re sure you weren’t the one with the gun?”

She was sniffling and shaking her head. She wiped at her eyes. “Brady’ll kill me if he finds out I told you.”

“Nobody’s going to find out.”

She pushed her hair away from her face. “I just came up for my stuff. When I left I didn’t take nothing, not my clothes or anything. I left it all with my girlfriend.” She was trembling. “I don’t know why we even done it,” she said. “Mostly they cook it over on the reservation.” She was standing now, and he stood up too. “I don’t mean the Indians. They don’t. It’s other people from someplace else, and they sell it to the Indians and everywhere off the reservation, and Brady could’ve just bought it from them.” She pointed to the jail cells through the window across the hallway. “Can I go in there?”

“If you want.”

He stood outside the bars while she went in and sat down on a cot, hugging herself again like she was cold.

“You think you’re done with meth?”

“I’m trying to be,” she said. “You only got these four cells?”

“That’s it.”

Under the fluorescent lighting her face appeared hollowed, ghostly.

“I guess that’s all you need.” She tried to smile. “Unless you have to lock up your dispatcher and her friends.”

“Harley weekend’s a bonanza,” he said. “And the Fourth of July Rodeo.” He felt a wave of nausea rise and looked away, waiting for it to pass. He was careful when he swallowed. “You got any place to go?” he asked.

“I’m going back to Denver if you let me. My sister got me a job washing dishes at the restaurant where she works. She’s helping me study for my GED.”

“Come on out of there.”

She followed him back to his office. “Will I have to come back up here? To testify or something?”

“We’ll have to wait and see what you need to do. I’ll talk to the county attorney.”

“What time is it?”

He pointed at the clock on the wall. It was one-thirty.

“That was my girlfriend’s car I was driving,” she said. “She’ll need it for work in the morning.”

He took a form out of the file cabinet and handed it to her with a pen. “I want you to write out a statement,” he said. “Just what you told me about JC and Brady, and your sister’s address if that’s where you’re staying.”

She scooted the chair up to the corner of the desk. “Do you have a dictionary?”

“Just do the best you can.”

“My bus leaves out of Sheridan at three-fifteen.”

They both looked at the clock again.

“I’ll take you down there,” he said. “We’ll swing by and get your girlfriend’s car and drop that off, then I’ll run you down to Sheridan. We can get something to eat if you want. If you’re hungry.”

“Doesn’t your wife mind you working all night?”

“Not so much.” He pointed at the form. “Make sure everything’s printed out clear. So I can read it real easy.”

She bent over the lined, white paper, her tongue working at the ring in her lip.