The Savage(15)

Standing, Horace stepped to the sink. Bent down, slid the curtain back that doubled as cabinet doors, where he found not a single bottle of bourbon but five half-gallon bottles. He grabbed one. Reached to the upper cabinet, pulled three clear glasses from it. Went back to the table, where he twisted the red lid that matched his eyes from the squared bottle and poured himself three fingers of ginger-colored liquid, then three for Van Dorn and the Widow.

He sneered at Van Dorn, nodded to the glass. “To help you sleep.” Then to the Widow he said, “I poured you a taste.”

“I cannot drink this early. I have a store to run. Traps to check. Things to tend.”

Horace sucked his glass empty, then reached for the Widow’s glass, took a sip, and asked, “How did your fella find his end?”

Glancing to the ceiling, the Widow thought for a second and then spoke. “On his way home from cutting wood. Had our other Chevy’s bed weighted full. Brakes went out when he was traveling down the gravel curves of Rothrock Mill Road, hit a tree head-on. All them ricks come through the cab. Crushed him. Died in an instant.” The Widow paused, then asked, “How about you, your wife?”

“It was the dope. Lost her to the meth and the opiates.”

“Some say a madness is coming to the land. If you follow scripture, it sure seems like end-times.”

“Scripture or not, madness is here. Me and Dorn seen the lives of the working scattered throughout the states we haunted, hoboing, camping in tents along streams, vacant homes no longer able to be afforded. Seeing the young who’ve no skill. Why I’ve raised Dorn in the old ways. Taught him some thieving. He can use his hands and his mind. I seen this foolishness coming long ago, when he’s about five we bought us a TV. Next thing I know we’s going to the grocery and he wants different types of cereal with each trip, not ’cause he likes them, ’cause he sees these commercials advertising different trinkets in the boxes.”

Dorn cut in with “Father takes our TV out into the field with his twelve-gauge, shoots it. Blows the tube to shards.”

Fried eggs with their greased whites lay piled on a large plate while the Widow dropped slithers of bacon into the skillet. In another cast-iron skillet, diced potatoes the size of silver dollars fried with hunks of onion and specks of pepper. The smells fed Dorn’s and Horace’s senses. Turning to Horace as he filled his glass once more, the Widow told him, “They’s no TV in this home, only a radio and an eight-track player. No need to worry. But this madness we speak of, me and Alex knew of a man who lived on down around the county forest, some say he’s crazed ’cause he says that he sees things before they occur. Sometimes in visions. Other times in dreams. Claims we should all be prepping for a wave of bad. Some say he’s a prophet, others a drunk with a warped tongue.” The Widow paused as the food popped and she took in the shadow that rattled her back door’s glass. “Shit, it’s Dillard.”

Van Dorn asked, “Who’s Dillard?”

“Gutt and Alex’s older brother.”

Like Dorn’s father, Dillard Alcorn was thick in size, hands similar to extra-large snow gloves, a tattooed frame similar to a shadow of a Mack truck, only it wasn’t a shadow. It was a man built from labor and hard living with auger-bit eyes that screwed into your mind and forced you to look the opposite direction if you were weak in the orbs and yellow backed.

When the Widow opened the door, Dillard towered over her, seeing a man and his boy who’d not been seen before at his sister-in-law’s home. He registered this information, brought his attention back to the Widow. Telling her, “Gutt never come home last night.”

“And this concerns me how?”

“You know I’s keeping a short leash on him since his release. His nose void of dirt. He’s family. Something your half-breed ass is still part of regardless of my baby bro’s passing.”

“Ain’t seen hide nor hair one.”

“He’s to have met me at Lisa’s last night in Corydon. But told me he’d something he needed to take up with you first.”

“Didn’t take nothing with me. You check with those he takes commerce with?”

“That I did, but he’s not been seen.”

Dillard was no fool. Knew something was amiss. Eyed Horace and Van Dorn.

“Who might be your company?”

“Those’d be my acquaintances.”

Gripping the inner jamb of the doorway, Dillard started to push past the Widow and questioned her as she blocked his passage. “Not gonna offer your brother-in-law an invite to your home? An introducing to your guests? Them flavors of breakfast is tempting my taste buds after being out all night looking for Gutt.”

The Widow laughed. Clamped strong to the jamb with both hands and said, “Only time you come around is to nose into my affairs of living, seeing as Alex is no longer alive. Don’t think I’m in the mood for your company nor introductions on this morning.”

Dillard was still eyeing Horace and Dorn; Horace impaled him with his eyes, the bourbon offering extra fuel to his cockiness, and Dillard asked, “Wouldn’t be the ones’d lost they direction, would it? Elmer says he came by the mart, seen you speaking with some folks and you wouldn’t open up for him to buy some smokes.”

Not veering his view from the doorway, Horace grabbed his bourbon. Sipped it and said, “Why don’t you ask us who we are?”