Near the Bone Page 5

  “It’s public land, yes,” William said, “but it’s dangerous up here this time of year, especially if you don’t know what you’re doing. The weather can turn in a second, and there are a good many bears, and they can be aggressive.”

  The stranger gave William a half smile that did not reach his eyes. “Thanks for your concern, but I’ve had plenty of experience. What are you and your daughter doing up on the mountain so late in the season?”

  He glanced at Mattie, who quickly turned her gaze to the ground. The stranger had dark curly hair that peeked out from under his knit cap. She saw that just before she looked away.

  Mattie felt William swell up beside her, his anger a palpable thing.

  “She is not my daughter. She is my wife,” he said through his bottom teeth.

  If William had spoken to her like that, Mattie would have shrunk away, because that tone was a warning of what would come next. But the strange man didn’t seem to feel the danger, because when Mattie dared look up again, she found him watching her curiously.

  He seemed to take in their clothing for the first time, for he asked, “Are you Amish or something?”

  “No,” William said, and Mattie thought, Oh, stranger, please run away, can’t you tell that my husband is about to explode and when he does he will hurt you, he will hurt you like you’ve never been hurt before.

  The stranger then looked from William to Mattie and back again, and said, in a very skeptical tone, “Your wife?”

  He didn’t wait for William to respond but instead addressed Mattie directly. “Do I know you? You look so familiar.”

  Mattie froze, because William had said not to talk to the stranger, but the stranger had asked her a question and if she didn’t answer, it would be rude. William might punish her later for being rude but he also might punish her if she talked to the stranger. Her jaw felt stuck in place, paralyzed by indecision.

  “You don’t know her,” William said, shifting so the stranger could no longer see Mattie’s face. “We aren’t from this area.”

  This was a lie, of course, a bald-faced lie. Mattie knew William didn’t want the man to know they lived on the mountain.

  “What high school did you go to?” the man persisted, trying to see around William’s shoulder. “Your face—”

  “You should move on from here as soon as possible,” William said, and something about the way he shifted the rifle in his arms made the stranger go still. “There are bears.”

  “Bears,” the stranger repeated, his voice flat.

  Mattie didn’t need to see his face to know he didn’t believe William.

  “Let’s go,” William said to Mattie, grabbing her arm and pulling her away.

  She felt her husband’s anger in the clench of his fingers around her arm.

  “Don’t you dare look back at him,” William growled. “Don’t you tempt him with your wiles. I know you wanted him. You’re nothing but a whore, Martha, like all women are whores.”

  Mattie didn’t protest, didn’t say that she hadn’t thought of the man that way. No matter what she said, William wouldn’t believe her.

  He’s mad because the stranger thought I was William’s daughter and not his wife.

  She knew William was much older than her, of course—she wasn’t certain exactly how much, but there was at least twenty years’ difference between them. His hair was more than half gray, and he had wrinkles around his eyes.

  That stranger, though. He was young like me. Close to my age.

  And he thought he knew me.

  Mattie risked a quick look backward, wanting to see the stranger’s face one more time. He wasn’t looking at Mattie and William, though. He stared up at the cliff face, at the place where Mattie and William had come from just before they’d met the stranger.

  Don’t go in the cave, she thought. The creature will catch you.

  Mattie looked back just in time, for when they reached the cover of the woods again, William thrust her away roughly and turned again toward the stranger.

  “I ought to shoot him right now,” William snarled, raising the rifle to his shoulder. “A man ought to know better. He ought to respect another man’s property. He oughtn’t have looked at you like that when you belong to me.”

  “No, don’t!” Mattie cried, curling her hand over his arm.

  “What, you don’t want me to shoot your lover? Get your hands off me, Jezebel. I have every right to kill him and you. You’re mine, Martha. Mine to let live or let die. Mine in every way. And if any other man thinks his plow will sow your fields, he will by God pay for that disrespect.”

  Mattie knew William would beat her when they got home—knew because the man had glanced at her and she glanced back, knew because William felt insulted, knew because William was already angry and worried about the creature, knew because the stranger had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. All of these sins would be Mattie’s fault, as all the things were always her fault. The pain was coming. She knew that.

  And because her punishment was inevitable she dared to defy him, to keep her hand curled around his arm just above his elbow.

  She dared to say, “I don’t care about him, William, truly I don’t. I would never look at any man but you—”

  “Liar,” he spat. “You’re a bitch in heat, like all women are.”

  “—but if you kill him, then people will come, lots of people, they’ll come searching up the mountain to try and find him and you don’t want that, do you? You don’t want lots of people crawling all over the mountain because of the bear, that’s what you said, but if that man goes missing, then there will be even more people, there will be . . .”

  She trailed off, trying to think of the right term. It was something she knew from long ago, but couldn’t quite recall.

  “Search parties,” William said.

  “Yes, search parties,” she said. She ought to have known that term, search parties. There was something about them that was important, important to her, but she’d forgotten. “So you shouldn’t kill him because of that. I don’t care about him at all, William, not at all, but you don’t want search parties here, do you?”

  Mattie didn’t dare look anywhere except William’s face. He still had the rifle trained on the stranger. Mattie saw death in William’s eyes, a longing to pull the trigger, to avenge his insulted manhood.

  A muscle twitched in his jaw. Then he abruptly dropped the muzzle toward the ground. Mattie hastily released his arm and took a step back.

  “Search parties,” William said, glancing at her. She thought she saw something move across his face, something like fear, but it disappeared in an instant and Mattie decided she must be mistaken. “This has been a wasted day. There are chores to finish. I should have been out hunting stores for the winter instead of wasting my time on this bear that frightened you yesterday.”

  The creature hadn’t frightened Mattie the day before—at least not right away. She’d only thought the death of the fox had been odd. But it was going to be her fault that William had wasted his time today, and she was sensible enough not to remind him that he’d decided that very morning that the bear was a threat.

  That was why they’d spent the day away from their usual tasks—because of William’s decision, not hers. She didn’t remind him, either, of the creature’s strange behavior—the cave of bones, the pile of organs. She wanted to go home and forget all of it. She hadn’t shaken off the nausea completely and she wanted to lie down.

  Not that William would allow her to rest, of course. Resting was for when her chores were finished. Resting only came after she’d done her nightly duty for her husband.

  William stalked away from the meadow, taking huge strides. As always, he moved forward without checking to see if Mattie was behind him. He expected her to follow, and that was that.

  Mattie looked back at the stranger one
more time, and found he wasn’t where they’d left him. He was climbing the slope toward the caves.

  What if the stranger finds the bones and is interested in the creature? What if crowds of people come up to the mountain to find out about it?

  William would be furious if that happened. Though perhaps one of those people would take Mattie away, if she asked.

  William said you belong to him and nobody could take you away. A wife belongs to her husband.

  But what if somebody did take her away? What if somebody with a kind face, kind eyes like that stranger had, what if somebody like that helped her? What if she could find the place again, the place where Heather was?

  William said that place isn’t real, it’s a dream, a dream sent by the devil to tempt you away.

  She stared at the back of his jacket, at the graying hair he kept cut close to his head, at the huge hard hands that swung at his sides. One of those hands held the rifle, and Mattie had a sudden burst of insight.

  He never taught me how to use the rifle because he doesn’t want me to use it on him.

  Mattie would never do that. She would never hurt her own husband. Would she? She didn’t think she would do that. She didn’t want to hurt him. She only wanted William to stop hurting her.

  What would have happened if she’d asked the stranger in the meadow to take her away?

  William would have shot you both dead on the spot, that’s what.

  He was going to beat her when they got home. Probably worse than he had in years, Mattie knew. He was angry about so many things at the moment, and all of those things would be attributable to her somehow.

  She heard his breath, harsh and fast, and knew without seeing his face that he was remembering everything that happened earlier and arranging it to his liking.

  Mattie turned her eyes up to the trees, wanting to see anything except William’s back, the angry set of his shoulders, the corded veins in his neck.

  She halted, her mouth suddenly dry, shaking her head because it didn’t seem possible that she was seeing what she thought was there.

  Up above, hanging from nearly every tree, were animal corpses. Most of them were small animals—chipmunks and squirrels and possums and field mice—but some were larger. She saw at least two foxes and even a lynx.

  Each animal was arranged neatly over the path that Mattie and William followed. There were one or two animals per tree, each one tied to a branch by a bit of its own viscera.

  Like Christmas ornaments, and the thought made her sway on her feet, for a memory pushed through the fog in her brain.

  The enormous Christmas tree in the living room, far too big for the space, and all the pretty colored lights winking, the silver star on top and the piles of gifts underneath wrapped in red and green paper.

  Christmas, and one pile is for me and one is for Heather. There are our stockings with our names on them. One says HEATHER and the other says SAMANTHA.

  “Samantha,” she whispered. “Not Martha. Samantha.”

  “Mattie!” William roared.

  She looked at him, not really seeing him, still seeing the blurred outline of a name on a stocking, and it wasn’t the name he’d called her all these years.

  “Mattie!” he yelled again.

  She shook away the stocking, the ornaments, the girl who might have been called Samantha. William had gotten much farther along than she, and he beckoned to her so that she’d catch up.

  Mattie remembered the animals then, all the little rabbits and rodents hung in a row, like strange breadcrumbs showing the way to the meadow.

  “William,” she croaked, her throat hardly able to say his name. “William.”

  He stomped back in her direction, and she knew she should be afraid, because his face said that he wasn’t going to wait until they got home. He was going to punish her right then.

  She swallowed, pointed up, tried to make the words come out as he closed in on her.

  “The trees, William,” she said, but her voice was so small and far away, it had dried up in her throat, and half of her was still under the Christmas tree, staring at the name on the stocking.

  Then his fists were on her, and she didn’t remember any more.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Mattie woke coughing, a cough that became a choke, and she’d swallowed enough blood in her time to know her mouth was filled with it. Her head bumped along the ground, snow in her hair and seeping down her neck and under her coat. She’d lost her hat. A cruel hand clamped around her ankle, yanking her along on her back like she was a sled being pulled by its string.

  William halted, looked back over his shoulder at her, his eyes full of contempt. He released her leg, letting it drop to the ground. Mattie cried out.

  “Get up, you useless little bitch. Now that you’re awake you can walk yourself home.”

  Mattie stared up at him, then past him to the trees overhead. There were no more animals. William must have dragged her out of the creature’s territory.

  Or maybe it just hasn’t finished marking all the trees. Maybe it’s trying to mark every one in the forest.

  “Get up, I said.” He kicked her in the ribs, and she rolled to one side, every bit of her aching. “Sun’s going down in a couple of hours and I’m not carrying you home.”

  Mattie spit a mouthful of blood into the snow. It looked shockingly red—like a bull-flag, like lipstick, like a stop sign.

  Red means stop, she thought. Red means I can’t go on anymore.

  But she tried to rise up anyway, tried to push her rubbery legs into place. She couldn’t manage it and fell back into the snow again.

  William grabbed the front of her coat and pulled her up so that her feet dangled somewhere near his knees. His face pressed very close to hers, all his bright burning anger gone now, replaced with ice.

  Mattie would rather have had the burn. The ice always hurt more.

  “You listen to me now, Martha. You only got what you deserved, and since you deserved it, you will walk home on your own two feet. If you don’t keep up with me I will not return for you. If you are not home by bedtime it will go worse for you when you do arrive. You are my vessel to do with as I please. Do you understand? Now walk.”

  He dropped her and there wasn’t a chance in the world she’d catch herself, as broken and disoriented as she was. Mattie crumpled to the ground.

  She felt like she had no bones anymore, and everything around her spun in all directions at once. That’s when she noticed she could only see out of one eye.

  Mattie carefully probed the area with her fingers. Her left eye was a swollen mass, so tender to the touch that she cried out.

  “I said walk,” William said.

  Mattie looked up at him, pushed vaguely into the snow to help herself stand, but only managed to make little snow piles on either side of her body. Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes. They made her swollen eye sting.

  “I can’t,” she whispered. “I can’t stand up. Please help me. Please.”

  She reached for him, her hand trembling.

  He glared down at her for so long that she thought he might relent. Then he spun on his heel and strode away.

  “Wait,” Mattie said, but her voice wouldn’t get loud enough for him to hear. It was only a tiny thing that whispered.

  She touched her neck, whimpered at the slight pressure. He must have choked me, she thought. I don’t remember.

  William was disappearing quickly. He seemed very distant to her already, his brown coat and trousers blending in with the trees.

  Mattie felt the first stirrings of panic.

  Don’t leave me, don’t leave me, I don’t know the way home.

  She’d never come this far before, never been allowed to. The cabin was down the mountain from where she was, that was all she knew. William had set the pace and the path.

 
Why, oh why hadn’t she paid more attention? Why had she let her mind wander? She’d never been like that when she was young. When she was young she’d drink in everything around her greedily, tucking every sight away in her mind so she could remember it later.

  (They were moving through the dark woods fast, so fast, but what she could see she promised herself to remember. She’d remember so that she could find her way home.)

  But where was home? That she couldn’t remember.

  Home is the place where they called you Samantha.

  Samantha, Mattie remembered. Samantha.

  Samantha struggled. Samantha fought back. Samantha ran away.

  Yes, she ran away from William but he caught her and put her in the Box. The Box was where bad girls went.

  “If I don’t get home soon he’ll put me in the Box,” Mattie said to herself.

  She had to stand up. She had to. But how will you find your way home?

  Stand up first. Just stand. Then walk. Then worry about how to get where she needed to go.

  But it was no good. No matter how she rolled and pushed and struggled, she couldn’t get on her feet. After several minutes she lay in the snow, panting, unable to do anything except gaze up at the too-bright sky and the dark silhouettes of the branches against it.

  Trees, she thought. The animals in the trees. William doesn’t know.

  (It doesn’t matter because William is going to be safe in the cabin with the warm fire and you’re going to be out with the night and the cold and the creature that strings animals up like decorations)

  The creature. She needed to get away, get inside before it found her. It wouldn’t even need to hunt her in the state she was in. It would just scoop her up and take her back to the cave and rip her to pieces and sort all those pieces like a child organizing its building blocks by shape.

  Get up, Mattie. Get up before it finds you.

  She rolled to her stomach, propped herself up on her elbows, then used her elbows to dig into the snow and pull herself forward, dragging her legs behind.

  It was painfully slow going. Her body felt like it wasn’t attached to her brain, like it wouldn’t respond to the orders she gave it. Every few inches she stopped, her breath hard and fast. She felt the throb of her heart against the snow, thought sometimes it might beat right through her ribs and stay there, an offering for the thing in the woods.