Lee Johnson - Nitro Mountain

Better off without that bitch.

He pulls out the handkerchief and dabs at his face. The hickory-handled shovel lies at his feet. Fog’s rising out of the valleys and the clouds are low. The sun breaks through for a moment, a psychotic lamp without location. He looks out over the rutted lot, across the eastern foothills toward where corpselike cattle sometimes nibble. The porch boards crack and squeak when he goes back up to get a better view of things. He grabs the binoculars off the table and scans South Hill and other possible sight points on the access. A chickenhawk screams somewhere in the trees. Nobody saw nothing. He tosses the binoculars down into the grass and they land beside Leon, who’s lying facedown in the trampled mud. Wind flicking his hair.

He moves carefully down the stairs, bends over to grab the shovel and retches. Slugs of blood and bile spatter the ground. With the handkerchief he wipes his mouth and eyes and walks over to Leon. A dark puddle has leaked out of the boy’s head. “You feeling any better?” he says.

It’s amazing how much blood can be in a person’s head. It’s caking Leon’s hair. “Isn’t that something.” He whistles. “You broke, huncher.”

He walks over to the shed in the side yard for more medicine. The door opens soundlessly on its truck-tire hinges, then closes on its own behind him. In the dark dirt-floored room he grabs a fruit jar of cloudy splo from a lower shelf and screws off the lid. Strips and spots of daylight shoot through the walls of warped wood into the dankness crammed with old gasoline cans, files worn smooth, chainsaw lube spilled and never cleaned up, mouse shit and dead camel crickets. An ancient possum turd in the corner half stamped by a boot toe. You can see the berry seeds in it. He closes his eyes, inhales and then takes a mouthful. Air wheezes out through his nose while he holds in the fire just like his uncle taught him. Let it fill your face till your head explodes. Why you think they call it splo, son? Don’t swallow till you think you’re about to die. While he’s standing there with his eyes closed and his mouth full, he hears something. He swallows, glances around, kicks the door open and spots the intruder in the light that pours in. A little field mouse hiding in the corner, paws in prayer.

“Just you in here?” Arnett says. He sets the jar on the shelf, takes the handkerchief from his back pocket and wipes his eyes. “Your humility reeks,” he says, then takes a gulp like the stuff was just water, holds the jar away, coughing, finishes it and throws it at the mouse, the glass smashing against the two-by-four sill. The mouse disappears.

Broad pain warms Arnett’s gut. It’s better than the sharp stabbing that’s been there. Whatever that shit was Leon drank him with — best to stay drunk now until it fades.

Leon’s still lying where Arnett brained him. Better clean this shit up. Make it so it never happened. He takes a cigarette from his shirt pocket, lights it and listens to the tobacco burn. Nothing’s wrong, right? He looks south, down to the snaking East Ridge. An unmarked piece of stone down there: his mother.

Elephants, Wesley once told him, show more respect to their blood than that.

“You’ll join her when it gets dark,” he tells Leon, then drops the cigarette into the blood and it hisses. He picks up the shovel. “This ain’t out of respect. It’s just I got some work to do.”

But he can still sense something. It smells like somebody’s watching. He stands there long enough for his shadow to shift an inch across the mud. An engine whines somewhere down on 231. Wheat grass in the pasture below waves like water from a gust of wind. A minute later the trees up here start rustling.

It’s raining now, and he’s on the porch watching it wash away the strange patterns of his boot soles in the dirt. Leon’s facedown in a growing puddle. It lasts all afternoon and that’s fine by Arnett. Flood the whole fucking world.

He’s got another jar he found in the shed, or that just came out of nowhere. He’s drunk. That’s a good thing, too, because the clouds are starting to move. Better get going. So much to do.

Leon’s face looks false. Then it looks too real, like it’s breathing. But he can tell the life’s gone. It’s nothing. It’s just he’s never seen it not breathing, that’s all.

He goes through Leon’s pockets. No money, just a glass bottle. Opens it and sniffs. “Goddamn. That’s my shit. Where’d you get this?” But as soon as he asks he knows the answer. He knows who gave it to him. He takes the shovel’s blade, pries Leon’s mouth open and pours in the last few drops of the stuff. “How’s that taste?” he says.

He can still sense something. Is it what’s left of Leon leaving?

No, probably ain’t nothing.

Larry stands hiding behind an oak on the western slope of East Ridge, watching Arnett dig. The storm cooled things off and the late summer sun has set clouds afire at the edge of the sky. He’d parked below on the access and was just starting to walk around and check things out when he heard something above him. Then he saw Arnett coming down through the cedars. He ducked behind a tree and hasn’t dared move since.

The back of his jacket is soaked from the climb, and the wind chills him. He watches Arnett light a cigarette off the one he just finished, kick the shovel into the ground and bring up dark earth.

The dropping sun spreads like a fan from the earth’s edge. It lasts a minute and then it’s gone, heating another world.

Far below off to the southwest, the town of Ashland starts glowing down in the basin, small house lights flicker on like the eyes of wolf spiders across a mowed field. His home and the Hickory are safe there in the valley, and that’s where he should’ve stayed. He wants a cigarette but the wind would carry the smoke and give him away. All of a sudden, as if Arnett heard him thinking, he turns downhill and pulls the shovel from the ground.

Larry crouches into the roots and moves farther behind the trunk. Why the hell’d he ever come up here? He should’ve learned by now he’s no good at creeping.

Arnett looks right past him, around him and then announces to no one in particular, “Shovel’s a funny thing. Get the whole job done. Multipurpose.”

Hands in the wet leaves, Larry holds his balance. His knees hurt. He’s out of shape, overweight, not even close to ready for this line of work. Not anymore.

Arnett takes a drag from his cigarette, then kicks the shovel back into the ground. With the sun down, darkness rises from the dirt and leaves and everything beneath. Larry’s eyes adjust as Arnett labors over the trench, and after a while there’s a pile of roots and dirt and rocks beside it.

Larry’s phone is on silent in his pocket. There’s not much service up here and you’re lucky to even send a text. Sharon’s been calling him from their landline. He should’ve thought to take a picture while it was still light, but he doesn’t really know how to do that. He’s got Turner’s number on speed dial, though. After too many late-night brawls at the Hickory, Turner gave him his personal number and said to call anytime, day or night, if he needed backup. Larry only calls when things get rough. He admires how fast Turner can clear a room, no gun required. Not to say the problems don’t escalate once Turner herds them out, but as long as the fighting’s outside the barroom, that’s all Larry wants. Anyway, the new cops would make this even worse. Ricky and all them — he doesn’t trust those guys.

Arnett’s almost up to his knees, cursing and digging, when Larry’s phone lights up through the fabric of his windbreaker. He unzips it a few inches and reaches in. Who else? Turner. But the connection will be lost if he opens the phone and answers. Wait to see if he leaves a voicemail. Which he doesn’t, goddamn it.