Jesmyn Ward - Salvage the Bones

“I said”-Rico points his finger at Skeetah and China, who pants at his side-“where’s my puppy?” He walks toward Skeet and the boys, who have moved into a loose cell around Rico and Jerome. Marquise is bouncing on his toes, curling his hands. If I were a boy, I would fight like Marquise, I think.

“No,” says Jerome. “My dog didn’t lose. Most it is is a draw.”

“I gives a fuck what you say,” says Rico, his finger now swinging to Jerome, his eyes on Skeetah. “And I want the white one.”

“It’s a draw. It’s a tie.” Randall blocks Rico, stands in front of Skeetah. He rolls his shoulders, grabs the stick in one hand, swings it wide and holds it like a baseball bat. Everyone is drawing together in a knot, tighter and tighter, black against the day. “You can’t decide it.”

“Yeah,” Skeetah says. “We can.” He unhooks the dull heavy chain from China’s neck, smiles; she smiles with him.

How you going to fight her? Randall scream-whispered at Skeetah after Rico started laughing and led Kilo across the clearing to rub him down. She’s a mother! The boys and their dogs spread around the circle of the clearing; the knot loosened, frayed. And he’s a father , Skeetah said, motioning toward Kilo, and what fucking difference does it make? China nosed Skeetah’s side. Her titties , Randall said. Are for the puppies, and you don’t have to worry about that , Skeetah breathed. The puppies, Randall said, what about the puppies? We all fight , said Skeetah. Everybody. Now leave me the fuck alone so I can talk to my dog , he said.

“Randall?” Junior and Marquise’s little brother have scampered down from their mimosa tree. “Skeetah going to fight China?”

“Go back to your tree,” Randall says, “I mean it. Up.”

“Go ’head,” I tell Junior. “And don’t come down til it’s done.”

Junior picks up a stick, throws it at Marquise’s little brother, who wears a bright green shirt dusted with pink flowers from the tree and jean shorts with creases. His mother did that , I think.

“Don’t fall,” I say.

“All right,” Junior huffs, to let me know that I am getting on his nerves, and then they are running away.

Marquise is speaking loudly in the kind of voice that wants to be heard and saying that he thinks Rico is a bitch, his dog is a weak bitch, and hell naw Kilo didn’t win. Big Henry is shaking his head, rubbing his forehead over and over with his sweat rag. Jerome is agreeing with Marquise, loudly. I can see why they are cousins. Boss is lounging again at Jerome’s feet, bleeding faintly, tongue out, grinning again. Blood runs in his eye and he blinks. Kilo lolls on his back in the straw, curving into a C again and again. Randall is swinging his stick back and forth, again and again, like a golf club now, catching vines, ripping them down from their branches. He looks at me, his upper lip tight.

“Well?” Randall swings, and the stick flings up dirt and dry pine needles. “They’ll die. Fucking camp! ” he spits.

Across the circle, Manny is watching us. When the dogs were fighting, rolling like the spokes around the wheel of the clearing, gnashing and struggling muscle to muscle, tooth to tooth, it was easy to narrow my vision, to avoid Manny. Manny’s eyebrows are together, his eyes are big; they almost look sorry. I tell myself I don’t care and imagine myself tall as Medea, wearing purple and green robes, bones and gold for jewelry. Even though it feels awkward, I pull my shoulders back when I walk toward Skeetah, who is on the edge of the clearing in a cluster of ground palms, kneeling, whispering into China’s ear, rubbing her so hard her skin slides in ripples with his hand. Skeetah smooths her, talks to her. Her fur looks silver in the shade. China is standing very still, staring across the clearing. Skeetah’s tongue darts out of his mouth and a razor I did not know he had in his cheek flips out and over the tip of his tongue before he sucks it all back inside. He is reciting something, and he is saying it so fast that it sounds like he is singing it. China White , he breathes, my China. Like bleach, China, hitting and turning them red and white, China. Like coca, China, so hard they breathe you up and they nose bleed, China. Make them runny, China, make insides outsides, China, make them think they snorted the razor, China. Leave them shaking, China, make them love you, China, make them need you, China, make them know even though they want to they can’t live without you, China . My China , he mumbles: make them know, make them know, make them know .

When Skeetah faces Rico across the clearing, he has left China’s chain on the ground and taken the chrome from her throat. She stands at his right leg, ears up, tail straight, and nothing moves on her. I cannot even tell if she is breathing. She is white, so white. She is the pure white heart of a flame. Kilo is all red, all muscle, a moving heart in the clearing. He barks high, once, and Rico unclips his leash and slaps him. Kilo runs.

“Go,” Skeetah says.

China shoots across the clearing before Kilo can get to the middle, and she meets him with a searing growl. There are no snaps to legs or faces for her. There is only Kilo’s neck. She rises with him, slings her head forth, and bites.

“Watch her, son!” Rico yells.

China grabs Kilo at the back of the neck again. She sinks her face into him. When she draws back, her jaws are shut, and she rips fur. She gasps like she is drawing a breath, and she dives in again with her teeth.

“Come on, Kilo!” Rico yells.

She would burrow into him with her head like a worm tunneling into red earth.

“Kilo!” Rico yells.

Kilo dives from the drive of her head. He latches onto China’s leg. It is a weak move, easy, and I think that Rico has taught him this.

“Now shake her, boy!” Rico screams.

Kilo is shaking her. China is boring with her head again and again, turning what had been a shawl into a bright red scarf, but Rico is pulling at her leg, rippling from side to side; his muscles boiling so his fur is no longer earth, but water again, a red flood. He growls with each jerk, but the last one, as China swallows his ear and the side of his face with her sharp jaw and bites, slides into a squeak.

“Grab her!” yells Rico.

Skeetah refolds his arms, bows his head. China kisses the side of Kilo’s face, a face-tonguing lover’s kiss, mother to father, deeply.

“Fucking grab her!” Rico yells.

“China!” Skeetah calls, and China lets Kilo go even though he still gnaws at her foot. She looks back at Skeetah as if to say, I am coming, love, I am here.

“Kilo!” Rico yells. He grabs Kilo by the back legs and drags the dog toward him. Kilo smacks open his lips as if he has just eaten something he likes, and China’s leg comes free. She is bounding toward Skeetah, her smile red like smudged lipstick. The blood on her leg is a crimson garter.

“Fuck! He don’t even have to drag her,” Jerome says.

Rico wipes at Kilo’s neck until the blood looks less like a scarf and more like a necklace. He studies his dog, who breathes so hard he sprays the ground with spit and blood, his nose to the earth. Manny kneels next to Rico, whispers. I know that whatever Manny is saying is showing the meanness in him, that he is Jason betraying Medea and asking for the hand of the daughter of the king of Corinth in marriage after Medea has killed her brother for him, betrayed her father. Manny’s mouth moves and I read, She ain’t shit, ain’t got no heart. He looks at China when he murmurs, but it feels like he looks at me.

“You ready?” asks Skeetah. China stands next to him, heedless of the blood speckling her sides, her lips firmly sealed, her ribs billowing and clenching. She stands evenly on the leg Kilo has chewed, which is red and gummy and raw above the joint.