The sky between dissolving stars grew colorless.
Thick and brown with tannic acid, the sluggish waters of the creek flowed noiselessly over their sandy bed. The fish—the stunted sunfish and carp of the barrens—began to drift up from their murky holes to feed on insects caught on the surface. Occasionally, a young perch would clear the water, landing with a splash, explosive in the prevailing hush. Then broadly circling ripples would spread across the width of the stream, lap softly against the crumbling banks, and vanish.
At the water’s edge, a large shape grew gradually more distinct—a man on the bank. Unmoving, he’d stood thus for some time, staring at something lodged upon the rocks.
The dawn light began to glint off tangled yellow hair that stuck out beneath his soiled hunting cap. Al Spencer was a big man, six and a half feet tall. Grizzled face too large, watery eyes too far apart. His whiskey belly bulged under a plaid jacket. Shoulders hunched, he studied the thing in the water; then he peered back into the still-dark pines. Good. Wes was nowhere in sight.
The stream threw off a grayish light that sloshed across the bank. He took off his jacket, folded it and laid it carefully on the sand; then he kicked off his shoes and slipped off his suspenders. The rest of his clothes made a neat pile.
Naked except for his cap, he waded into the stream, slipping on rocks slimy with green moss. The corpse was rigid, shifting almost imperceptibly in the vague current. Al grabbed it by one arm and yanked it around.
The boy’s face had become a bloated abomination. Dark hair floated, soft as seaweed, spreading around the head, and gelid eyes had swelled from their sockets, yet clung, opaque as jelly-fish. A huge tongue engulfed blue lips. Even the neck had expanded, become a puffy, waterlogged trunk slashed with purple wounds that leaked thin fluid. The green T-shirt, too tight now, rode up and exposed the round white stomach.
There was a watch on the left wrist.
Al crouched low in the shallows, the water warmish on his genitals, and with furtive gentleness, pried the watchband off the swollen wrist, over the stiffened fingers. Barely glancing at it, he slipped it onto his own wrist. Then he stuck his hands in the dead boy’s pockets but found nothing. He giggled—other things had swollen too. With a quick heave, he flipped the body over onto his stomach and fished out the wallet.
It contained twelve dollars, some pulped identification, and a graduation photo of a girl. He squeezed the money in his palm and tossed the wallet into the creek. It floated for a second before it opened and spun downward.
Splashing back to the bank, he climbed out, dripping, stuffed the loot in his jacket and picked up his pants. Then he stopped, thoughtful. It was wrong to just leave the body there. He took the pocketknife out of his pants and with long strides sloshed back into the creek.
He flipped the corpse onto its back and launched it into the center of the stream. Flies kept trying to settle. Snicking open the jackknife, he waded after it.
The blade was thick with rust.
Slowly, the woods took on color, pinkish light blazing first at the tips of the pines, then shimmering along the trunks.
He plunged the blade deep into the distended stomach, and the corpse splashed under. It bobbed, and a stiffened arm struck his thigh. Foul gases escaped as he stuck the knife in again, neatly slitting the belly. The gash burbled, and he gagged on the stench. Immediately, the body began to sink, trailing fat bubbles, fluid spreading like smoke through the brown water.
He waded back to the shallows and clawed up a slime-haired rock, breaking a thumbnail in the process. “Shit.” Grunting with the weight, he returned to where the body hung just below the surface. It drifted slightly, eyes trailing. He positioned the rock and dropped it on the chest.
The birds were beginning to make a racket as he clambered back onto the bank and shook himself like a dog. Dressing, he smiled the mild smile of a man who has completed some trivial yet satisfying task. Finally, he put the jacket back on and patted the pocket, feeling the damply wadded money.
Already, the sky was so bright it hurt his eyes. Hiking back toward camp, he sucked on his broken nail, tasting blood and foulness.
With the morning sun slanting across the corrugated roof, the heat in the ambulance hall soon reached oven proportions, even with the garage door up. A few feet beyond the blindly staring ambulance, Doris sat at a card table with Larry Jenkins, a trainee.
“This one’s from a call we had a couple weeks back.” Doris raised her voice to be heard above an old window fan that stood on the cement floor. “We picked up this guy down at that new construction site. You know the one? That development out by Batsto?” Steam swirled from a Styrofoam cup and mingled with the smoke from her cigarette.
Yawning, Larry reached for the report. “Bad?”
She checked the card. “Just a metal sliver in his hand. Lots of blood though. You should have heard him yelling. We took it out for him, bandaged him up, took him over to the clinic at Mount Misery for stitches.”
Considering what to show him next, she flipped through reports, found the one about the man who’d fallen on the chainsaw—over a week old now.
“Is this everybody?” Sounding disappointed, Larry glanced down the list of volunteers.
“And, oh yeah, whenever you pick anybody up from the construction site, you got to make sure somebody there follows you to bring the guy back.”
“I thought you had more women working this thing.”
Walking through the hatch, Jack Buzby sauntered over to the table. It had been his idea to get his buddy Larry involved. They did everything together, almost. Both were volunteer forest-fire wardens, and both worked for a roofing company owned by Larry’s uncle. “How’s little Larry doin’, teach?”
“Man, would you quit it with that ‘little’ crap?” All five foot six, one hundred and fifteen pounds of him bridled. When angry, his nineteen-year-old face vividly displayed the thick cloud of freckles that covered it.
“He’s doing all right, I guess. Let’s see now. You know calls are in clear speech, right?” She shuffled through blank forms and looked up at Jack. “Christ, it’s hot. Who am I running with today anyhow?”
“Athena and Siggy.”
“Sig?” She groaned. “Oh shit, the fate worse than sex. It’s not bad enough they bleed all over me, I have to be in a close space with that smell? What’s the matter, don’t I live right?” As Jack walked away chuckling, she called after him. “Forget I said any of that.”
“Said what?” He got a Coke out of the refrigerator and strolled back outside to the hot blue morning.
Larry picked up an accident card, and Doris glanced at it. “Athena filled that one out.” She took it from him, holding it gingerly between fingers brown with nicotine.
Watching her read it over, he felt she expected him to say something. “Uh, I hear she’s real good.”
“Clear head that woman’s got. Not like some.”
“She really black?”
She raked him with a look.
“I only ask because she sure don’t, uh, look like no…I mean, do they, uh, have a lot of accidents out at that site?”
Her gaze relaxed. “Almost every day, seems like, and they always call us. One of the foremen is a buddy of mine.” She crushed out her cigarette. “Tell you the truth, I don’t know why they haven’t had a fatality out there yet. They’re all a bunch of alcoholics anyway.” Leaning closer, she added, “They’re claiming there’s been a lot of sabotage by locals. Ropes cut halfway through, that sort of thing. Pineys jealous over the jobs, I guess.”
Larry nodded, thinking she had a real nice build for an old broad. He breathed in her perfume. Strong and pungent. And oddly familiar. Old Spice? He fanned himself with an accident report.
