Winter's Bone

“Dad! Dad’s Capri was over across the bridge! He took off toward Bawbee—see them taillights?”

“You sure it was him?”

“It’s our car.”

“Ree, we’re still sort of a little bit stoned—you sure you saw him?”

“I ain’t so stoned I don’t know our own goddam car when I see it! And that’s what I just fuckin’ saw— let’s get after him.”

Gail leaned over and began to tuck herself away, button her blouse.

“Well, you’ve got to finish changin’ Ned’s diaper, then. You do that’n I’ll chase. Or else you’ll have to wait a minute while I do.”

Ree sniffed the scent of baby shit in the air, looked at the yellow smear, the helpless drooling face, then reached beneath Ned and pulled him and his fouled diaper onto her lap.

“I got him.”

Gail put the truck into gear and lunged forward across the bridge. She drove slowly past the line of waiting vehicles with the people standing about and two hogs yet running around, then stomped the gas pedal flat and chased her own headlights up the thin winding road. She got the speed up to where the high-set old truck felt loose and tilty on the turns. If you lost the road there was no shoulder and it was a smashing drop into lonesome wooded gullies. She kept her foot heavy on the gas and crossed into the far lane on tough curves.

She said, “I’ve lost them taillights.”

“Get around this bend’n maybe we’ll see him ahead down in the bottoms.” Ree was trying to wipe Ned’s butt with a blank section of the dirty diaper while jolting about in darkness inside a speeding truck that leaned toward tilt on the curves. She aimed her swiping fingers at the baby soil but her hands bounced about and she felt her knuckles sink in muck and slide across smooth skin. She wiped her fingers on the diaper, raised Ned a bit, and swabbed his baby butt until it looked close enough to clean in the shadows. “I don’t see taillights nowhere now.”

The truck said warning stuff on the turns in a grating metal language. The tall shifter shook about angrily and the black knob ducked away from Gail’s hand until she let up on the gas pedal. “Man, I can’t go this fast!” The truck coughed and heaved as it lost speed. “That’s too fast for this ol’ thing to go safe.” The road was black to the eye and always turning, one long dark loop dropping sharply toward the bottoms. The truck passed between glum forests of plucked trees and clots of shivering pine. “It won’t do no good for nobody if we slide off this goddam ridge.”

“Ugh—where’s a clean one?”

“Clean one what?”

“Diaper.”

“It fell to the floor, there, by your feet.”

“I don’t trust myself to stick in pins rollin’ around like this.”

“He sprung for some store-bought kind. They don’t call for pins.”

Black ice lay slick where the road bottomed, and the truck slid a surprise twist sideways and completed most of a circle before rubber found dry asphalt again and Gail yanked the squealing tires straight. She yelped and slowed fearfully to a shambling pace, then suddenly stopped altogether and sat trembling, overlooking a steep bank of scrub and a frozen cow pond. Her pale hands remained choked around the steering wheel. Beyond the pond there were shorn open acres of stumps and snow and deep drifts built against stacks of felled trees. She bowed her head to the wheel. She said, “Sweet Pea,this ain’t what we got stoned to do.”

During the brief spin Ree had clutched Ned bare-assed and squirming to her chest. She’d held him fast with both hands while whirled about to slam her shoulder against the door and smack her cheek against the window glass. Now she cradled his head to her chest with one hand and spread the diaper on her lap with the other and felt an odd blush rise on her face. She started to laugh with relief and said, “Well, you never do know for sure what you’re gettin’ stoned to do. That’s a big part of why you do it.” She calmly began to wrap and fold the diaper snug around Ned’s voiding spouts and he smiled a winning toothless smile. “I think he looks a way lot more like you than him, know it?”

“Me, too.”

“Especially if his hair comes in red.”

“Floyd’s momma prays against that happenin’ every day.”

At lower speeds the truck grumbled and lurched awkwardly at times. In the bottoms beside the river lay the best growing dirt in the region. The houses near these unshapely stretching fields were burly and flush, with young trucks in the driveways and paid-off tractors in the barns. Chopped cornstalks poked above the snow, and useless old tassels and shucks had blown into the wire fencerows and stuck to the barbs.

Coyotes began calling down the moon.

Ree held Ned tugged to her side and said, “Let’s get on home. This is no good. I mean, why would he be runnin’ if he saw me wavin’?”

18

WHERE REE slept the night shadows seemed never to change. A yard light across the creek cast a beam at the same angle as always through her frosted window. She sat up in bed listening to The Sounds of Tranquil Streams while watching the same old shadows and vanishing sprites of her own boring breath. She raised two quilts and draped them across her shoulders while the stream tumbled chanting around a rocky bend and she considered forever and how shadowed and lonely it would likely be.

In Ree’s heart there was room for more. Any evening spent with Gail was like one of the yearning stories from her sleep was happening awake. Sharing the small simple parts of life with someone who stood tall in her feelings. She stretched flat and turned the knob to quiet the stream. Counseled by midnight and a clutched pillow she eventually eased into sleep.

Knocking sounds pulled her awake. There was no radiant heat this far from the stove and she stood on the cold wood of the floor and looked out the window and saw the antique truck. The frigid air raised bumps on her skin as she went toward the knocking.

Gail said, “He told me if I was goin’ to stay out this late, I might as well stay out all night. He took Ned to his folks’n shut the door on me.”

Ree waved her inside and threaded through the dark to bed and crawled yawning under the heavy quilts. Gail sat on a chair and began to undress. Her breathing floated welcome ghosts into the air. Caked mud broke loose when boots thumped to the floor. Jeans and socks were dropped in a bunch on top of the boots. She fidgeted on bare feet and rubbed at the skin of her shoulders and arms, looking down at the bed.

Ree held the quilts pulled wide, patted the sheet, and said, “One log alone won’t hold fire.”

19

THE NEEDED skill was silence. Along the dangle of knotted branches gray squirrels crouched utterly still as the day roused. They were alarmed by every sound but not long alarmed by any. The dawn air held the cold of night but there was no breeze and squirrels soon lost their fear of the new day and moved out along the branches. Easy meat for the table with naught but silence and a small bullet required.

Ree and the boys sat with their backs propped against a large fallen oak, butts on gathered leaves, boots in thin patches of snow. Trees were yet in shadow down low but fresh sunlight warmed the upper reaches. Ree noted a squirrel standing upright on a high sunny branch and slowly raised the rifle and popped a shot. The squirrel squeaked mortally and spun a loop on the branch, hind claws scraping at bark for a final grip before falling limp to ground. Harold budged forward to retrieve the squirrel but Ree held him back. She shook her head and whispered, “Leave him lay. They all run into their holes hearin’ that shot, but if you stay still’n quiet they’ll come right back out in a few minutes. We want two more.”