Bone Gap (18 page)

But she did.

She said, “The beast isn't enough.”

He was at her side in a fraction of a second, hands on her shoulders, lifting her from the chair, pulling her into his stony embrace. His breath was cold and musty as a mausoleum, but she endured it until he finally, finally closed his eyes, his lips an inch from her face. She pulled the knife from the folds of her brocade gown and plunged it into the white flesh under his jaw, where it sank all the way to the hilt.

FINN JABBED THE SHOVEL INTO THE EARTH, STAMPED ON
the footrest, tossed the dirt over his shoulder, jabbed, stamped, tossed, jabbed, stamped, tossed. Sean had not believed him, Jonas had not believed him, but Petey had believed him, had shown him how much. He'd fallen asleep with his nose in her hair, breathing her scent, holding on to her as if she were the only sure thing, the only real thing he'd ever known.

It had been this way for the last four nights. He could dig postholes for the rest of his life. He could dig his way through the planet and come out the other side. Maybe he could even find Roza. Maybe—

“Dude, we're not drilling for oil,” said Miguel.

“What? Oh, sorry.”

Roza liked Miguel. The first time Miguel had come over to the house after Roza arrived, she had broken out in a grin so wide that Finn and Sean thought she knew Miguel from somewhere. But Miguel said no, he'd never seen her before, because there was no way he could have forgotten a girl who looked like
that
. “Like what?” Finn wanted to know. “There's no hope for you,” said Miguel.

They wrestled another gnawed and splintered post from the ground. They heaved a new one into place, set it in concrete. Then they sat in the yellowing grass to rest for a minute.

Miguel inspected the old post. “Looks like a bull went after this one.”

“Don't the Rudes have a bull?”

“The Rudes
are
bulls. Maybe they're the ones who have been charging the fence.”

“Wouldn't surprise me,” said Finn. “Where's Mustard?”

“Went down by the road to herd the girls again.”

Finn tented a hand over his eyes. “Amber with them?”

Miguel shrugged.

“You don't want to talk to her?”

Miguel plucked up a handful of grass, sifted through it as if looking for something he'd dropped. “You don't want to talk to me?”

“Huh? We talk every day.”

Miguel threw the grass, brushed off his hands. “When you think about it, building this fence is crazy. Animals will keep climbing over it, or under it, or chewing their way through it. All kinds of animals. Maybe even ones we didn't know existed.”

“Okay,” said Finn.

“So, you're really not going to tell me?”

“Tell you what?”

“That you saw him. The guy who took Roza.”

Finn opened his mouth, shut it. Said, “How did you know?”

“This is Bone Gap. Everybody knows.”

“Do you believe me?”

“You're a dumbshit.” Miguel hauled himself to his feet, brushed the dirt off the seat of his jeans. He moved to the next post and attacked the earth with his shovel. Finn remembered a day in the third grade when one of the Rude boys had accused Finn of stealing his Swamp Thing action figure, and the boys had jumped Finn during recess. Miguel charged the boys, pinwheeling his ridiculously long arms, taking out at least three Rudes before a teacher could put a stop to it. Miguel said no way Finn would steal. Finn wasn't a stealer.

Truth was, Finn
had
swiped the Swamp Thing. His mother never had enough money for toys. Sean made him give it back the next day.

Finn picked up his shovel and started digging alongside Miguel. For a while, they didn't speak.

Then Finn said, “I'm meeting Petey at the Chat 'n' Chew later. I could ask her about Amber.”

“We're not in fifth grade.”

“You don't want me to ask her?”

Miguel stomped on the edge of his shovel, levered up a wedge of earth. “I didn't say
that
.”

As he sat at the counter of the diner waiting for Petey, nervously drumming his fingers, the black mare huge and agitated at her tether outside, Finn wondered what the hell he'd been thinking. The lights were too bright, the seat beneath him too worn and loose, ready to dump him to the floor. He'd wanted to meet Petey in public so that everyone could see them, could see how real they were to each other. Now it seemed as if he was just asking for trouble.

“Hey! Sidetrack!”

“What?”

A waitress, hair dyed red as new brick, was standing in front of him, holding up the coffeepot. “I been calling your name since the earth cooled. What's a girl gotta do to get your attention?”

“Darla?”

The waitress's mouth twisted. “Now, who else would it be?”

“But, your hair.”

“Oh, yeah! You like it? I wanted something different. Better than the blond, right?”

“Right!” said Finn. “It's really . . . red.”

“Want some coffee?”

Finn nodded, pushed his cup toward her.

“I didn't expect you to say yes. You never drink coffee,” said Darla.

“A little tired.”

“For good reason, I hope,” said Darla.

A flush burned in Finn's cheeks. “Just studying.”

“Studying, my butt,” said Darla. “It's the summertime.”

“I have tests and stuff. For college.”

“Uh-huh,” Darla said. “Which is why you're blushing.”

“That's sunburn.”

Darla lifted the coffeepot toward the window. “That's some animal you got out there. She some sort of racehorse?”

“I don't know,” Finn said.

“She's a big girl.”

“Yeah.”

“I never saw a girl that big. Or a boy even.”

“Yeah,” said Finn.

Darla put the pot back on the burner, grabbed a dishrag, and wiped the counter. “Heard you ride a lot at night.”

“Where did you hear that?” Finn said, his voice sharper than he'd intended.

Darla stopped wiping. “Maybe you should lay off the coffee. You're getting awful jumpy.”

Finn pushed the cup back toward Darla. “Maybe you're right. Can I have lemonade instead?”

“Sure thing,” Darla said, whisking away the offending cup.

Finn took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. He hadn't been in the Chat 'n' Chew in months, not since Roza. Roza had loved the Chat 'n' Chew. She loved the food, the bustle, the gossip, which she said reminded her of home. Finn didn't know where “home” was, exactly. Sean had never asked how she'd gotten to Bone Gap. Sean said that if she wanted to tell him, she would tell him. Sean said that there are certain questions you don't ask, even if the people of Bone Gap wouldn't stop making up stories.

“People talk,” Roza had told Finn once, while they huddled in a booth over ice cream sundaes. “They say which boy does Roza love.”

“What do you mean?”

Roza waved her spoon. “Sean, Finn, Finn, Sean.”

Finn almost choked on his cherry. “That's stupid.”

“They say which girl does Finn love, too.”

“They do not.”

“Yes. I hear. I listen.”

“Most people don't listen.”

“People look, they don't see.”

“That too.”

Roza plucked the cherry from the top of her sundae, dangled it in front of Finn. “You see bee girl.”

He took the cherry. He knew something, too. “You see my brother.”

“He not see me.”

“Yes, he does,” said Finn, both embarrassed and pleased that they were talking like this, as weird as it was.

She leaned forward. “The people talk right now. They say, look! Roza and Finn! Together! Maybe they go kiss! Maybe they get married!”

Finn laughed. “We're too young to get married.”

“Maybe we kiss, though.”

The flush burned the top of his ears. “You don't want to kiss me.”

“No matter. They like story.”

Even though Sean had warned him, he couldn't stop the words from spilling out: “Speaking of stories, how did you get to America? Where were you before you came to Bone Gap?”

She laid the spoon carefully on her napkin but did not speak.

“Never mind,” he said. “I don't need to know. I'm sorry.”

She gazed at him so intently that he could not escape her gaze.

She said, “You don't look at me.”

“People say that I don't look at anyone.”

She grinned, one tooth ever so slightly crooked. “You look at Petey.”

Finn had shoveled back three more spoonfuls of ice cream while Roza laughed. “Is okay. I like her. Fierce like queen. You have blessing.”

Fierce like queen.
Darla plunked the lemonade in front of Finn, startling him out of his daydreams. His hands slid down the
sweating glass. He swiveled on the seat, scanning the restaurant for Petey. Maybe coming here today, meeting Petey where all these people would make up their own stories about them, was a bad idea. And then Jonas Apple dropped into the seat beside him, and there were no maybes about it.

“Darla,” said Jonas, nodding. “Sidetrack. How are you folks doing this evening?”

Darla slid a menu over to Jonas as if Jonas needed to see it. Jonas played along, scanning the thing as if there was suddenly something new there—rabbit cassoulet, filet mignon. Finn hunched over his lemonade, fighting the urge to knock Jonas off his stool.

Jonas slapped the menu closed. “I'll have some french fries with brown gravy, Darla. And an orange soda pop.”

“Coming up,” said Darla. She poured the pop, put the glass in front of Jonas.

Jonas unwrapped a straw, sank the straw in the drink, took a long pull. “Tastes like baby aspirin.”

Finn didn't ask Jonas Apple why he'd drink a drink that tasted like aspirin, as concerned as he was about drugs.
Have you been sniffing something? Jeez Louise, it's not meth, is it?
Finn watched Darla dance from one customer to the next, doling out food and drinks and extra ketchup. All around him, the people of Bone Gap jangled ice in their glasses, spooned soup into their mouths, talked about the weather, and how all the warmth and sunshine should have made for strong and healthy crops. But the sky was too blue and the earth was too dry, despite the brief rains that came and
went. The days seemed to last too many hours, and the nights were too dark and brought strange dreams. The corn, which had been so green and strong, was now striped with yellowing leaves. The vegetables were small and withered, the flowers leached of their color, confusing the birds and the bees. Something was off, something was wrong, very wrong, and they didn't know what it was, but they knew it wasn't normal because they had never seen anything like it before. Even Charlie Valentine couldn't explain, even Charlie could only look at the sky and the plants and shake his head. And because whatever it was wasn't normal and because none of them had never seen anything like it before, their eyes slowly drifted toward Finn bent like an inmate over his lemonade, the giant black mare jerking at her tether outside.

Yes, this was a very, very bad idea.

Darla slid a plate of fries drenched in gravy in front of Jonas Apple, watching with satisfaction as he popped a fry into his mouth. “How's the crime-fighting business these days?”

It seemed to Finn that Jonas made a show of not glancing Finn's way when he said, “Slow. A few break-ins. A couple joyrides. Some loud parties. We'll get busy when the monster truck races come.”

“Brings in the monsters,” said Darla.

Jonas laughed and pointed with a fry. “And when we have the fair, and those lunatics come down from Chicago and up from Saint Louis. If you ask me, it's the city types that bring the crime with them.”

“Who would want to live in the city?”

“They do have great pizza in Chicago,” Jonas said.

“I guess that's no small thing,” said Darla.

The rumble of a motor and the subsequent whinny of protest from Finn's enormous horse made everyone in the restaurant turn toward the door. Petey stepped into the diner, blondish hair wild as a thicket, wearing a short white dress that shone like moonlight against her skin. They gaped when she sat on the other side of Finn and gave his arm a squeeze. And such a buzz arose, a murmuring and whispering like the incessant yapping of the corn, that Finn wished he had never asked her here, wished he had never been so stupid as to think the people of Bone Gap would see her, see him, see the two of them the way Finn himself did.

“Why, hello there, Miss Priscilla,” said Jonas. “Bringing some honey for Darla?”

“Not today,” said Petey. For some reason, Petey didn't seem to be aware of the looks they were getting, or if she was, she didn't care. She was too busy glaring at Jonas Apple.

“You okay there, Priscilla?” said Jonas.

She ignored Jonas. “That's some color, Darla! What's next, a Mohawk?”

Darla laughed. “Your fella didn't even recognize me!”

To Finn, Petey said, “Get me a pop, okay? I'm going to try to tame this.” She gestured to her tangled locks. She walked toward the ladies' room, waving at this person or that one, thrilling, it seemed, in the attention.

Darla grinned as she poured Petey's pop and refilled Finn's
lemonade. “That Priscilla Willis sure looks nice in a dress,” she said. “Don't you think, Jonas?”

“I couldn't say.”

“Oh, don't be such a grump. You can too say. I bet if she got herself a good haircut . . .” She fluffed her own hair as if marveling over the magic a good haircut could do. “You two kids going somewhere?”

Finn frowned. He'd planned on taking Petey back to his house to meet Calamity's kittens, but he couldn't imagine saying that out loud. “Movies.”

Jonas popped another fry into his mouth, leaving a smear of gravy like a question mark on his chin. “Careful, Finn.”