Daniel Woodrell - Winter's Bone

“He’s right there, child. Underfoot, almost.”

“I don’t see him.”

“You’ve got to reach down’n tug him up for seein’. He ain’t floatin’ no more, but he won’t seem heavy.”

Ree removed Mamaw’s coat and flung it toward Tilly. She dropped to her knees and edged over the ice to the open place. She plunged her arm into the pond and screamed, screamed at the cold, but moved her hand all around. Her hand quickly felt thickened, insensitive and balky, so she pulled it out and stuck in the other.

“Go straight down, not over to the side like that.”

She felt something, something cloth, pulled hard. The light was partial but the main spot was bright. She knew that shirt. A green plaid flannel with the sleeves hacked off at the shoulders. Long johns underneath, with long white sleeves. The long johns felt like mud or moss or both in her hand. She tugged until she saw an ear, then turned her head and puked at the willow. She did not let go as she spewed.

“Here’s the chain saw.”

“What?”

“How else you goin’ to get his hands? They’ll know it’s him by his hands.”

“Oh, no, shit. No.”

“Take the saw—here.”

“No, no.”

The quiet sister held the light. Merab sighed big and loud, then came onto the ice lugging the chain saw and crouched beside Ree. “Don’t think of him as your daddy—just some guy. He’s just some guy.”

Tilly said, “Look away from his face.”

Merab said, “Jesus, shit, we’ll be here all night the way you’re doin’.” She jerked the saw started and leaned toward the shirt. “Hold his arm out straight, child, and I’ll make the cut.”

The saw pissed smoke and rattled and the smoke made dread wisps over the ice and the rattles filled the night. Flecks of meat and wet bone hit Ree in the face and she closed her eyes and felt patters on her eyelids. When the blade cut through, Dad’s body sank away from her grasp but she had his hand from the wrist. She spun and tossed it onto the bank near the sisters.

Merab said, “Why’d you let go? You’ll need both hands or sure as shit they’ll say he cut one off to keep from goin’ to prison. They know that trick. Reach back down there, now —quick. And be careful of his skin—that’s your fingerprints. Your proof.”

The ice gave as she stretched, and she fell into the pond. She felt Dad with her legs, bent into the water and raised him by pulling on his head. His skin felt like pickled eggs. She found the good hand and pulled it toward the chain saw. Her body was gone, she could not feel it below the neck, and a glow spread in her mind. She was on a distant tranquil shore where rainbow-colored birds sang and coconuts dropped bountifully to warm sand. The smoke and rattle, his other hand coming free, the return walk to the car a blur. The sisters peeled her soggy clothes from her frame and shoved her into Mamaw’s coat.

DAD’S HANDS brought sorrow and a blessing. Deputy Baskin was called and came for the hands the next morning. The sky was piled with bland clouds. Ree and Baskin met on the porch and he stared at Ree, wearing his big hat, with his lips rumpled, pinched tight. Dad’s hands bulged the blindfold-sack, and the burlap was still damp. Baskin said, “How in hell’d you come by these?”

“Somebody flung ’em on the porch last night.”

“They did? They knock first?”

“Nope. I heard the thump. Got up. Found ’em.”

“Uh-huh. I’ll go on’n act like I believe that, girl, out of regards for your grief’n stuff. You know, truth is, a lot of the time I actually sort of liked ol’ Jessup. He wasn’t always all that bad to be around. He could tell a joke good, at least. Amen.” He opened the sack, looked inside, twisted it closed again. “I reckon I’ll run these paws straight in to town, have the doc tell me if they’re his.”

“They’re his, man. It’s Dad’s hands.”

“We’ll know yes or no on that soon enough.” Baskin stood with his legs spread and his teeth nibbling at his dry lips, the burlap sack swaying. The brim of his hat shaded his eyes. “I didn’t shoot the other night ’cause you were there, you know. In the truck. He never backed me down.”

“It looked to me like he did.”

“Don’t you start sayin’ that to folks around here, girl. Don’t let me hear that’s the story gettin’ around.”

“I don’t talk much about you, man. Ever.”

He rolled the sack tight, rolled it into a compact brown bundle, and stomped down the porch steps. Without looking back at her, he said, “Sometimes I get so fuckin’ sick of you goddam people, know it?”

When the boys came home from school she told them that Dad was gone for good, dead, they wouldn’t see him again, not in this life. Both boys said they already pretty much knew, and Harold asked what heaven was like. “Sandy. Lots of fun birds. Always sunny but never way hot.”

The next day she cleaned Dad’s shed. Rakes and hoes stood in a corner. A punching bag of battered red leather hung chained from a wooden beam. The swaying chain had dug a deep groove into the wood. She kicked the bag. The chain rattled and she remembered how happy she always used to get hearing Dad whip that bag, rattle that chain, make the bag jump. The first year after he came home from the pen he’d spent hours and hours out here, day after day, punching away. He called the bag Hagler and taught her to punch it, too. The leather scraped her bare knuckles raw, and the gloves were so heavy she’d had to wind up ridiculously to heave even a slow round punch. The gloves still dangled by their laces from a nail in the wall.

When the boys came home she met them in the doorway, holding the gloves.

“Another thing you two’ll want to know, is how to fight. I can show you what Dad showed me. Knock the spiderwebs out of them gloves and I’ll lace you both up.”

The boys were very concerned about spiders, spiders inside the old gloves that’d come awake smelling the sweet blood in their young fingers and scurry from cracks in the stuffing to bite. They swatted the gloves against the wall, the potbelly, held them upside down and shook, stuck table forks inside and poked around. Ree pulled the gloves onto their hands, wrapped the laces around their wrists and tied them. Their hands were too small for the gloves but she tied the laces tight so they’d hold. She showed them the basic stance, left foot forward, left fist forward, right fist held back cocked beside the ear.

“Let your weight come along behind your punches, that’s”—she looked from the window to see Uncle Teardrop drive into the yard—“hang on a minute.” She held the door open for her uncle. The boys did not wait for further instructions, but leapt together and began belting each other, swinging and sliding on the wooden floor, ducking behind the couch, the chairs, shrieking as they hit and got hit. Teardrop came into the loud house looking tired, hair limp and uncombed, days of whiskers making his cheeks seem blued, wearing black pants with mud daubs at the cuffs. She tapped his arm, said, “Hey—have a seat.”

He watched the boys with interest. They flailed away with the heavy gloves, and both reddened in struck spots but neither bled. They began to tire quickly, swinging wild blows that fell three feet short of each other, and puffing.

“Bell,” she said. “You sit between rounds.”

Teardrop said, “How is it now over here?”

“Mom’s not good.” Ree gestured toward Mom’s shadowed room. “I think she knows.”

“I expect she knows more’n any of us think.”

“More’n she wants, anyhow.”

The boys were beside the kitchen sink, trying to get glasses from the cupboard while still wearing boxing gloves. Their cheeks were flushed and Harold sniffed. They punched the faucet open and held the glasses with bunched mitts.