The River at Night(45)

With his hands, Dean scooped a whitish paste from a can and rubbed it into the deer’s skin.

“What’s he doing?” Sandra asked.

“He’s braining the hide. Using the brains of a moose we killed the other day. They’re full of lecithin, which as you may know is a fat. Wonderful for curing hides. You see, we use everything here: fur, sinew, flesh, and bone. We never waste.”

“Can you help us get back to town?” Sandra said, unable to mask a touch of hysteria in her voice. “Can you tell us where we are? We won’t tell anyone about you.”

“Of course.” Simone speared the cooked root from the hot ashes and took a cautious bite. “Dean will accompany you in the morning.” Dean looked up at his mother, a flash of alarm in his eyes. “It’s pretty simple where we are. By river, we’re thirty-five miles or so to Grindstone, with lots of rapids between here and there. Very difficult. Don’t recommend it. Over land, we’re about the same distance west of Portage. But the woods are very dense. You’ll be lost without a compass or Dean to show you the way.”

Dean’s tools—a palm-size rock and shard of bone—dropped from his hands. He signed, “No, I will not kill women. No, no, no bad Dean.”

With all my will I kept my face blank. My heart slammed so hard against my chest that for several moments I couldn’t hear—a muffled roar filled my ears. A cry escaped my lungs as a cough and I feigned the need for a sip of water. My friends looked at me, questioning, but I kept my eyes on the flames that still sizzled with the fat of the vermin we had just eaten. I clenched my fists, fingernails digging bloody half-moons into my palms.

Simone pushed herself from her knees to her full height and approached her son. Looming, she looked half again as big as he was. She signed down at him, her hands moving in big, clear gestures. “You started the fire.”

He stared at her, hands still.

With a hiss of disgust, she coyly flipped her hair back from her face. “You know that brings them,” she signed. “Now, we have no choice! I don’t know what’s going on with you. I can’t trust you anymore.”

Dean shook his head, picked up his tools, and bent down to his work.

Simone smacked her hands together, a shockingly loud sound. Dean looked up, his mouth a grim line, his eyes full of fright. She signed quickly, close to his sweating face, “You kill them or we lose everything. Do you understand?”

His hands shook as the rock and bone dropped once more to the blood-soaked ground. “Nice ladies,” he signed. “Nice ladies. Never seen nice ladies.” He rocked on his haunches, pulled at his hair. “I like them, the women. Pretty. Listen to them talk.”

Simone took a wide-hipped lunge toward him. She raised her hand over his head, but brought it down gently and patted his back. “Dean is a bit shy, I think,” she said over her shoulder. “But he’s happy to take you. He says he’s looking forward to it.”





29


So . . .” Simone said, looking me up and down, chilling me, “you are interested in seeing the inside of my home?” A night bird cried out as it flew above our heads and dropped down toward the river.

“Looks like a work of art to me,” I said.

Her eyes glimmered under the rim of her filthy orange hat as she tried to parse what I was up to, which was trying to find out what sort of weapons she had, or any other secrets that might save us, but in the end she shrugged her assent. I guess everyone is house-proud, even those who live surrounded by the heads of animals dripping gore onto their yard.

We all ducked through the hobbit-size car door and stood up inside the twelve-by-twelve-foot space, instantly leaning sideways in sympathy with walls that tilted toward the forest. It took a moment to adjust to the smudgy semidarkness. A pus-colored knot of tallow that looked as if a child had molded it nestled on a ledge of bark by the window, yellow flame sputtering. A tattered black book, perhaps a Bible, lay open on the rough wood floor. The place reeked of wet wool, pine sap, and animal urine. A clay oven sat lumpen in the center of the place; ringed metal tubing, possibly an old dryer vent, looped out of the top of it and disappeared through a hole in the ceiling. Shelves—some made of wood, some of stretched animal skin—lined one wall from floor to ceiling. Jars packed with nuts and seeds, dried berries, all manner of twisted and agonized-looking tubers, crowded the shelves, all thoughtfully organized. The car windows, set into the building with some kind of a dark clay substance, fish-eyed the view of the trees outside and reflected the flame from the little candle, filling the place with an almost cozy glow. Against the wall near the door leaned a longbow, a saw, an ax, and at least a dozen arrows fitted out with feathers at the nock.

“Some fixing up still needs to be done,” Simone said, “but, it’s home to us.” She busied herself straightening two tattered sleeping bags on the floor.

Sandra coughed. Pinched the back of my thigh. When I turned to her, she raised her eyebrows and head-gestured sideways. Something hot pink protruded slightly from between the jars of berries. Her cell phone case.

“It’s nice,” Sandra said. “Very homey.”

From her hands-and-knees position on the floor, Simone turned and cast Sandra a sharp glance before returning to her work. She pushed herself to her knees and appraised us, eyes gleaming in the candlelight. “You four will sleep outside by the fire. Dean can give you some hides to keep you warm.” She groaned as she got to her feet, bent down double, and pushed open the door to leave. “Coming?”