Winter's Bone

“Shit, Jessup’s just about the best crank chef these Dollys and them ever have had, girl. Practically half famous for it. That’s why he pulled them years away up in the pen, there, you know. It was sure ’nough proved on him that time.”

“That was last time. You got to prove it on him every time.”

“That won’t be no hard thing to do. But this noise, this noise ain’t even why I’m here. Why I’m here is, his court date is next week and I can’t seem to turn him up.”

“Maybe he sees you comin’ and ducks.”

“Maybe he does. That could be. But where you-all come into this is, he put this house, here, and those timber acres up for his bond.”

“He what, now?”

“Signed it all over. You didn’t know? Jessup signed over everything. If he don’t show for trial, see, the way the deal works is, you-all lose this place. It’ll get sold from under you. You’ll have to get out. Got somewhere to go?”

Ree nearly fell but would not let it happen in front of the law. She heard thunder clapping between her ears and Beelzebub scratchin’ a fiddle. The boys and her and Mom would be dogs in the fields without this house. They would be dogs in the fields with Beelzebub scratchin’ out tunes and the boys’d have a hard hard shove toward unrelenting meanness and the roasting shed and she’d be stuck alongside them ’til steel doors clanged shut and the flames rose. She’d never get away from her family as planned, off to the U.S. Army, where you got to travel with a gun and they made everybody help keep things clean. She’d never have only her own concerns to tote. She’d never have her own concerns.

Ree stretched over the rail, pulled her hair aside and let snow land on her neck. She closed her eyes, tried to call to mind the sounds of a far tranquil ocean, the lapping of waves. She said, “I’ll find him.”

“Girl, I been lookin’, and…”

“I’ll find him.”

Baskin waited a moment for another word to be spoken, then shook his head and walked to the top step, turned to look at her again, shrugged and started down. Dollys lugging meat paused to watch him, openly staring. Blond Milton, Sonya, Catfish Milton, Betsy and the rest. He waved to them and none moved a twitch in response. He said, “That’d be the best thing, girl. Make sure your daddy gets the gravity of this deal.”

4

NEAR DUSK the snow let up. The wood of the house tightened in the cold and creaked and both boys had scratchy throats. Their chests jumped pumping out coughs. They had sniffles and voices becoming froggy from sickness. Ree sat them on couch cushions laid beside the potbelly, under the hanging clothes, and threw a quilt over them.

“I told the both of you to put your goddam stocking hats on, didn’t I? Didn’t I say that?”

Mom’s evening pills did not tamp her as far down inside herself as the morning pills did. She did not stumble so wretchedly after concepts that squirted away from her time and again, but had occasional evening thoughts come complete and sit on her tongue to be said, and as the sun faded from a day she might release a few sentences of helpful chat or even lend a hand in the kitchen. She said, “There’s whiskey hid in a ol’ boot on my closet floor. Any honey anywhere?”

The whiskey was Jessup’s, kept hidden from the boys, and Ree fetched it from the old boot. She had to stand on a chair to find a long-forgotten honey jar on a high shelf. The jar held an inch or two of crystallizing honey. She poured whiskey on the honey, then said, “This enough?”

“A dollop more. Stir it good.”

Ree stirred with a tablespoon until the crystals dissolved in bourbon, then raised a gob and held it to Sonny’s mouth.

“Swallow. All of it.”

Then came Harold’s turn, and as he swallowed somebody knocked on the door. Ree glanced at Mom, who got up from her rocker and shuffled away into her dark room without turning on a light. Ree went to the door and opened it with her boot wedged behind as a stopper should a stopper be needed.

“Oh. Hey, Sonya. Come in, why not.”

Sonya carried a large cardboard box that had venison on a long bone jutting above the rim. Sonya was heavy and round, with gray hair and fogged glasses. She had four children grown and gone and a husband who still looked good to plenty of gals in these hills and knew it, so she could never banish suspicion from her face. Blond Milton stood fairly high amongst the Dollys and Ree knew he’d shared some hours on the sly with Mom years back, hurtful hours that Sonya had yet to forgive.

“Didn’t want you-all to fear we’d forgot you for good.” Sonya set the box on a chair. She clasped her hands and peered into the shadows of the house, noted the mess. Her nose wrinkled, her brows arched. There was a snap sermon said in the way she held her hands clasped against her bosom. “Got meat for you. Canned stuff. Some butter and such.”

“We can use it.”

“How’s your mom gettin’ to be?”

“Not better.”

The laundry hung dry and the boys coughed.

“You poor thing. I’ll have Betsy’s Milton haul across a rick of wood for you-all. Looks like your pile’s burned low. We seen the law was over here talkin’ to you this after.”

“He’s huntin’ for Dad. Dad’s got a court day next week.”

“Huntin’ Jessup, is he?” Sonya lowered her glasses and looked up at Ree. “You know where he’s at?”

“No.”

“No? Well. Well, then, you didn’t have nothin’ to tell him. Did you?”

“Wouldn’t never tell if I did.”

“Oh, we know that.” Sonya turned to the door, opened it on the cold night, paused. “If Jessup’s court day ain’t ’til next week, I kind of wonder why was the law out huntin’ him for a talk today? Wonder why that would be.”

Sonya did not wait for a response, but spun outside while pulling the door shut and quickly descended the steps. Ree stared from a window until Sonya reached the narrow footbridge and crossed the creek. She picked up the box. Her arms went around it and her hands locked. Good smells long lost to this kitchen returned with the box and spread as she carried it to the counter. Sonny and Harold hacked, sniffed, snorted, but shot up together from beneath the quilt and rushed to the food. They opened sacks, hefted cans, kept croaking, “Oh, boy, oh, boy.”

Ree saw four days inside that box. Four days free from hunger or worrying about hunger returning at daybreak, maybe five. She said, “I’ll be fixin’ deer stew tonight. That sound good? Both of you two need to watch how I make it. Hear me? I mean it. Haul them chairs over here and stand on ’em with your eyes peeled and watch every goddam thing I do. Learn how I make it, then you both’ll know.”

5

SHE’D START with Uncle Teardrop, though Uncle Teardrop scared her. He lived three miles down the creek but she walked on the railroad tracks. Snow covered the tracks and made humps over the rails and the twin humps guided her. She broke her own trail through the snow and booted the miles from her path. The morning sky was gray and crouching, the wind had snap and drew water to her eyes. She wore a green hooded sweatshirt and Mamaw’s black coat. Ree nearly always wore a dress or skirt, but with combat boots, and the skirt this day was a bluish plaid. Her knees kicked free of the plaid when she threw her long legs forward and stomped the snow.

The world seemed huddled and hushed and her crunching steps cracked loud as ax whacks. As she crunched