Mark Spragg - Bone Fire

He’d stopped twice for coffee, and now the boy was asleep on the seat. His cell phone vibrated in his shirt pocket.

“Hello,” he said, keeping his voice low.

“You’re my hero.”

“Pardon me?”

“For a lot of reasons,” she said, “but tonight especially, for going down to get Kenneth. Really, Barnum, I’m thankful for everything you’ve done for my boys, and for me too.”

He lowered the window a little more. He put the blinker on, taking the two-lane off the interstate. “I never did anything I didn’t want to do,” he said.

“Now you’re just being modest. You’ve lifted us all on your shoulders, and you know you have. Or you should.”

“Are you home?”

“You’re the only man in the world who could’ve unlocked the universal love at my core. I’m sure I don’t say that enough.”

“You aren’t at the ranch, then.”

“I’m going to try harder. I’ve made a vow.”

“Can you tell me what’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong. Everything’s better than I thought it ever could be.”

“You aren’t hurt?”

“I’m fine. Just a little bit stranded right now.”

Kenneth shifted on the seat, but didn’t wake up.

“You’re broke down is what you’re saying.”

“The mechanic said it was going to cost seven hundred dollars to fix. Can you believe that? Him trying to take advantage of me?”

“Where are you?”

“Just over in Idaho.”

“I’m not driving over there.”

“It would only be maybe seven hours if you go through Yellowstone. Eight max. It’d be fun.”

When he came around the bend by the river, a slant of light was cutting over the guardrail and into the trees across the highway, and he tapped the brake, slowing down.

“If you brought Kenneth it’d be like a vacation.”

“I think there’s been some kind of accident,” he said.

“I know you’ll come,” she said. “I know you won’t be selfish.”

“I’m getting off now.”

Kenneth came awake when he pulled onto the shoulder, and he told the boy where they were. He told him to stay put and handed him the cell phone. “Call 911,” he said.

He ran past the skid marks and the splintered posts and stepped over where the guardrail was twisted and broken. He started down slowly, but the embankment was loose, slick from the rain, and he had to slide. There was the odor of gasoline and burned rubber, of broken sage and gouged earth, and at the bottom of the slope the car had come to rest on its roof. The windows were shattered, the domelight on, a side panel torn away. He recognized the car and now could smell the blood. Jean was on her side by the front fender, trying to drag herself away. She was talking quietly, not screaming or moaning, just speaking normally as if she were having a conversation.

She turned to him when he knelt beside her, her face so misshapen, so awash with blood, it could have been any woman in the world, he thought, but it was Jean.

“I’m right here,” he said.

She reached out, the other arm wrenched back at an unnatural angle. “Crane?” She sounded relieved. Like he’d been gone for a while, and just now come home.

“Yeah,” he said, trying to hold her still, but she was slippery with blood. “I’m right here.”

“I so fucked this up.” She relaxed into him.

“You’re going to be fine.”

Blood welled from her mouth, and she gagged and spat, but managed to take a deep breath. “I love you,” she said. “I’m sure of it now.”

He bent close enough that she could understand, each word spoken clearly. “I love you too,” he said.

THEY WAITED A WEEK and held the memorial service at the Horse Creek Community Hall off 343, where the borrow ditch was shallow enough that people could line their outfits along the highway’s shoulder once the parking lot filled up. The sky was dark, low-hanging and muggy enough to rain, but it never did. Reverend Harrison from the Missouri Synod Lutheran officiated, invoking the soul’s reunion with the divine so effectively that a good portion of the mourners felt a sense of ease, reasoning that if Jean could be allowed entrance to heaven, they would be as well. Marin selected the hymns. The crowd stood while they sang, the men in freshly pressed jeans and sports jackets faintly smelling of dry-cleaning fluid, their hats held at their waists, their foreheads pale as ivory. Some had ties knotted around their necks. Some had shined their boots. The women wore their best dark dresses and the children fidgeted, stealing sly smiles from one another, their thoughts reeling through the possibilities of a summer afternoon. Einar sat very straight on his folding chair in the front row with his hat turned up in his lap, Marin on one side and Griff and Crane on the other. It was over at three.

Half the crowd followed Crane and Griff back to the house and the women carried in their covered dishes, arranging them on the table in the kitchen, slicing a ham and setting out buns and soft drinks, brewing an urn of coffee. Crane had a keg of beer out on the sunporch, iced down since dawn.

They gathered in knots across the lawn and in the kitchen and living room, talking together about how Crane might get along without her, remembering funny conversations they’d had with Jean, laughing quietly, finally settling into observations about the weather, cattle prices, remodelings. Only Griff stayed back to help clean up.

“I should’ve had something to say.” Crane was sitting at the table, his suit coat hanging on the back of the chair.

Griff was bent at the refrigerator, stacking the last of the casserole dishes inside and smoothing the strips of masking tape with the owner’s last name printed out.

“I could’ve told a story about when we were first dating. Something like that.”

She sat with him at the table. “You want another coffee?”

“Will you stay for one?”

She filled their cups at the urn. “That was a nice-looking woman you were talking to.” She was stirring sugar into her coffee.

“I talked to a lot of women today.”

“The one who was flirting with you. Wearing a blue dress.” She stood and dragged the two black garbage bags leaning against the counter out onto the sunporch and sat down again. “Is she the one?”

“No, it wasn’t her,” he said. “And the one it was isn’t anymore.”

She toed her dress shoes off.

“Anyway, your mother and I lasted longer than you probably thought we would.”

“You were the record,” she said.

He got up, lifting the ham out of the refrigerator and peeling the plastic wrap back. He stood at the counter picking glazed pieces from the rim of the plate, nibbling. “I don’t know why I’m still hungry,” he said.

“Maybe that’s why we never really tried very hard at the father-daughter thing.” She sipped her coffee. “I guess you knew I didn’t think she’d keep you around all that long.”

“I could tell.”

She filled her cup again. It felt good to have her shoes off. There were still red creases where the straps had cut across the tops of her feet. “She thought it would’ve been better if I hadn’t lived out at the ranch.”

“I could’ve made more of an effort, though.”

She shrugged. “I didn’t either.”

“You were just a kid then.”

“I never was,” she said, “not really.”

She stood again, reaching up under her dress, hooking the waistband of her pantyhose and pulling them down over her hips. When he realized what she was doing, he looked out the window.

“It doesn’t mean I don’t care about you.” She was sitting now, wadding the hose onto the seat of the chair to her side. She crossed a foot up on her knee and scratched at the arch.