Norman Partridge - The Man With the Barbed-Wire Fists

Two. Now two, as the second night was born, a silent twin to the first. Only two, as again I twisted rings and plucked muscles and put the hollow man to sleep. Just two, as my wings beat the night and I flew once more from the sooty chimney to the ravine that stabbed a river.

There they sat, as before, grizzly and fox. And there I watched, waiting, with nothing left to do but listen for the sweet arrival of the leaden hour.

Grizzly chopped wood and fed the fire. Redbeard positioned blackened pots and watched them boil. Both planned silently while they ate, and afterwards their mute desperation grew, knotting their minds into coils of anger. Grizzly charged the dying embers with whole branches and did not smile until the flames leaped wildly. The heat slapped at Redbeard in waves, harsh against the pleasant brandy-warmth that swam in his gut and slowed his racing thoughts.

“Tomorrow mornin’,” blurted Redbeard, “we’re gettin’ away from here. I’m not dealin’ with no crazy hermit.”

Grizzly stared at his ax-blade reflection and smiled. “We’re gonna kill us a crazy hermit,” he said. “Tomorrow mornin’.”

Soon the old words came, taut and cold, and then Grizzly sprang through the leaping flames, his black coat billowing, and Redbeard’s fox-head cap flew from his head as he whirled around. Ax rang against knife. A white fist tore open a black lip, and the teeth below ripped into a pale knuckle. Knife split ebony cheek. Blood hissed through the flames and sizzled against burning embers. A sharp crack as the ax sank home in a tangle of ribs. Redbeard coughed a misty breath past Grizzly’s ear, and the bigger man spun the smaller around, freed his ax, and watched his opponent stumble into the fire.

I laughed above the crackling roar. The ice dogs scattered into the forest, barking, wild with fear and the sour smell of death.

So Grizzly had survived. He stood still, his singed coat smoking, his cut cheek oozing blood. His mind was empty—there was no remorse, only a feeling that he was the strongest, he was the best.

Knowing that, I flew home happy.

There was not much in the cabin that I could use. I found only a single whalebone needle, yellow with age, and no thread at all. I watched the veined window as I searched impatiently for a substitute, and at last I discovered a spool of fishing line in a rusty metal box. Humming, I went about my work. First I drew strips of the hollow man’s pallid skin over his shrunken shoulder muscles, fastening them along his backbone with a cross stitch. Then I bunched the flabby tissue at the base of his skull and made the final secret passes with my needle.

Now he was nothing. I tore the metal rings out of his neck and the hollow man twitched as if shocked.

A bullet ripped through the cabin door. “I’m gonna get you, you bastard,” cried Grizzly, his voice loud but worn. “You hear me? I’m gonna get you!”

The hollow man sprang from the rocker; his withered legs betrayed him and he fell to the floor. I balanced on the back of the chair and hissed at him, spreading my wings in mock menace. With a laughable scream, he flung himself at the door.

Grizzly must have been confused by the hollow man’s ravings, for he didn’t fire again until the fool was nearly upon him. An instant of pain, another of relief, and the hollow man crumpled, finished.

And then Grizzly just sat in the snow, his eyes fixed on the open cabin door. I watched him from a corner of the veined window, afraid to move. He took out his ax and stared at his reflection in the glistening blade. After a time Grizzly pocketed the ax, and then he pulled his great coat around him, disappearing into its bristling black folds.

In the afternoon I grew fearful. While the redwoods stretched their heavy shadows over the cabin, Grizzly rose and followed the waning sun up a slight ridge. He cleaned his gun. He even slept for a few moments. The he slapped his numb face awake and rubbed snow over his sliced cheek.

Grizzly came home.

I hid above the doorway. Grizzly sighed as he crossed the threshold, and I bit back my laughter. The door swung shut. Grizzly stooped and tossed a thick log onto the dying embers. He grinned as it crackled aflame.

I pushed off hard and dove from the ceiling. My claws ripped through grizzly hide and then into human hide. Grizzly bucked awfully, even tried to smash me against the hearth, but the heat only gave me power and as my legs burned into his stomach Grizzly screamed. I drove my claws into a shivering bulge of muscle and brought him to his knees.

The metal rings came next. I pinned them into his neck: one, two, three, four.

After I had supped, I sat the hollow man in the rocker and whispered to him as we looked through the veined window. A storm was rising in the west. We watched it come for a long time. Soon, a fresh dusting of snow covered the husk of man lying out on the ridge.

I told Grizzly that he had been my favorite. I told him that he would last a long time.

RETURN OF THE SHROUD

Professor Jacob Hearthstone listened to Dr. Taoka’s words, mentally translating them with a slight bit of difficulty. Though the Japanese language was second nature to Hearthstone, he still had trouble deciphering terms not used in everyday conversation, and such was the case with the surgeon’s medical jargon. But Hearthstone realized that words were not the important thing here. Anyone familiar with the niceties of Japanese culture could ignore the words, concentrate only on Taoka’s body language, and easily recognize the true intent of the surgeon’s visit.

Dr. Taoka was here to beg forgiveness.

Hearthstone closed his eyes and let Taoka’s quiet words engulf him. Cloaked in the surgeon’s explanations were effusive excuses beyond number. The professor sighed mightily, and Taoka began to speak faster.

The true hell of it was that the surgeon’s explanations made perfect sense. After all, Dr. Taoka had come to Hearthstone with high recommendations and an excellent reputation among the most conservative elements of the Tokyo medical community. But Hearthstone, unfettered from the chains of logic and reason during his bride’s long illness, had an increasingly difficult time processing information that should have made perfect sense.

The old man fought his suspicions, watching the surgeon’s lips twist as he stumbled over a particularly difficult explanation. Dr. Taoka was not a butcher, he told himself. The surgeon could not be an avenging murderer. He was exactly who, and what, he claimed to be.

And yet…

Taoka was skilled in the use of blades. Hearthstone had watched him from the gallery above the surgery, had seen him take the scalpel from the towel-covered tray, the tray that, covered, existed in shadow. With his own eyes Hearthstone had watched the surgeon put blade to flesh — the flesh of Hearthstone’s bride — and he had noted the familiar intensity that burned in the man’s eyes.

If man he was.

Hearthstone fought against his powerful memory, but a memory that cataloged even the most minor impression could not be dammed. Everything came flooding back. The blade. Taoka’s eyes. The cotton mask that had covered the surgeon’s mouth. Hearthstone had watched the thin material puff out with an exhalation; he’d seen it draw back with Taoka’s next breath.

The mask had drawn tight against a lurid grin. Of that, Hearthstone was certain. And at that moment, standing alone in the gallery, the sibilant hint of a Beethoven sonata issuing from stereo speakers below, Hearthstone had remembered another blade and another woman.