Bull Head (21 page)

“We're going to hell, every one of us.” He climbed in the truck and waited for Neil and Terry to drive him home.

Sonny sat burning matches at the window when Bojan and Milica pulled up to their house. Sleet slanted in the twilight. They unloaded their truck, giggling with one another. The outline of a monstrous body lay slumped in the back, the head something awful and astonishing, its hulking rack weighed down on the tailgate. Bojan hauled the guns toward the house, stopped, set them down on the porch, turned toward the tree stump. He glanced around the yard, his forehead knitted in lines, and walked from one end of the yard to the other, as if the tree might have somehow been relocated or he had got his bearings wrong. His eyes narrowed into tight slits when he touched the fresh saw cut and smelled his fingertips. Bojan bent over to pick up a
handful of sawdust on the ground, examined it in the palm of his hand, and squeezed it tight before flinging it down. He slapped the stump with the heel of his fist and shouted something Sonny could not hear. Milica hurried out of the house, spun around and scanned the property before she saw Bojan pressing his head against both of his fists on the stump.

She put her hand on Bojan's shoulder, but he shrugged it away. He struggled to stand and picked up a rifle. Milica took the rifle from him and set it down on the porch. She embraced him, stroking his hair, his shoulders shaking against her. She kissed the side of his head and his cheeks and held him tight. Sonny blew out the lamp and sat in the dark long after Milica helped Bojan into the house.

In the morning, fresh snow glittered on the ground, covering the axe rammed into the log and the loose chunks of wood scattered around it. Sonny sat inside, back from the window where he couldn't be seen. He kept his eyes on Bojan's house, but there was no movement.

At noon he walked to the Inn, Bacon Face trailing behind him.

He sat down.

“Have you heard the—”

Sonny held up a hand to quiet Lorne. He pushed his coffee aside and studied the tabletop. Lorne glanced up from time to time from his newspaper.

The door opened; Milica stamped her feet on the mat. She unlatched the woodstove, tossed a log in, closed it. Her arm
brushed Sonny's. She nodded to Lorne, stopped at the election table, and surveyed the jars.

“I would like to nominate a candidate.”

“Sorry, the race is already underway.” Lorne shrugged his shoulders. “There's no more jars left.”

Milica stared at Lorne and then toward Sonny, but he kept his head down. She looked at the jar of pickled eggs and the one that held a pig's foot and walked to the bar, unscrewed the lid, stuck her hand in the murky brine to lift out a peeled, glistening egg. She shovelled it into her mouth and chewed. When she was finished, she reached in and grabbed the remaining eggs, ate one more, and wrapped the last two in a napkin.

“This one is empty,” she said, placing three one-dollar bills on the bar top. “I would appreciate it if you could wash it for me so I can nominate my candidate.”

Lorne rinsed the jar, dried it with a towel. “Here you go.”

Milica walked past Sonny again, the scent of freshly baked pie clinging to her. She placed the jar next to Sonny's, reached into her pocket, and dumped the contents of her change purse into the empty jar. She wrote “Bojan” on the back of a cardboard drink coaster and leaned it against the jar.

“Can I fix you a bowl of my world-renowned beans to help you celebrate?” Lorne said.

“No. Thank you. That will not be necessary.” She turned to Sonny, her hair neatly tied back with a dark leather barrette. “You are a miserable, old, lonely man who bleeds ice water. You broke our hearts. I hope you are truly satisfied.”

Sonny hung his head and picked at the table leg with his fingers.

“Please remove your wood from our porch. We will not accept your charity.” She opened the door and pointed first at Sonny and then Lorne. “You people are all savages.”

Sonny's face burned; he kept his head down long after he heard the squeak of the door close.

Sonny lay in bed unable to sleep, scratching his arms. Out on the porch, Bacon Face yipped in low gasps, half-barks punctuated by sharp breaths. Sonny looked across the room, out the window toward Bojan's house. He wagered the flannel nightie looked good on her. Bojan probably snored, kept her awake. That tree had to go. Would have destroyed everything around them all. He considered Bojan's ignorance, made worse by his awkward English. He lay back and closed his eyes, but he couldn't shake the sight of Bojan slumped against the tree stump, clinging to it, hollering into the night. Bacon Face's snorts died down until the night stilled. Sonny prayed for sleep to come.

Lorne asked if Sonny had seen the latest polls.

Sonny glanced at the election table cluttered with oversized jars, his full of pennies. Most of the candidates had significant amounts, except Bojan. Just the pennies Milica had left the previous day. A sliver of bark lay inside against the glass, and several beetles crawled over one another.

“Neil and Terry,” Lorne said.

Sonny tapped the side of the jar. “Has Milica seen this?”

He could not sleep. His head droned with random thoughts, none of which Sonny could corral into a single coherent idea. He tossed and turned to relieve the itching on his arms and legs and imagined that the beetles were gnawing away at his house, crawling over his skin and burrowing into his bed, chewing his flesh. He slipped out of bed, got dressed, grabbed a heavy balled-up wool sock tucked away at the back of the dresser, and stepped outside.

The sharp air stung his face and refreshed him. Bacon Face lay in a tight curl on the doormat. He lifted his head. “Sshh, you keep put.” Sonny took a deep breath through his nose and exhaled through his mouth, the fog of his breath a thin veil over the stars above him. He set off across his property to Bojan's house, studied the stump for galleries but saw none. No beetles, either. He went to a nearby tree, pulled out his pocketknife, and cut into the bark. The sap leaked out slow and dense. He smeared it between his palms, inhaled the musk of the old tree. His father had once told him that sap, like blood, is eternal. It courses through you like blood, it runs through the land; it was here before you were born, it will flow long after you are gone. Sonny buttoned his jacket against the cold.

The front door of the Inn was locked. He walked around to the back and tried a window, but it was fastened. He punched it with his elbow; the glass shattered the silence and crumbled to the floor. Sonny unlatched the window, lifted it, swung his leg over the sill, and climbed inside, his boots crunching on the broken glass as he waited for his eyes to adjust to the dark.

A streak of moonlight trickled in. He made his way to the
election table, grabbed Bojan's jar, and shook it. The beetles scattered about. He picked out the pennies and dumped them into his own jar, then carried Bojan's jar to the restroom, emptied the beetles into the toilet bowl, and flushed. Sonny tore his name off the jar and replaced it with Bojan's, sandwiched between the Invisible Candidate and Casey the Goat. He dug into his pocket and took out the wool sock, reached inside, peeled off five twenty-dollar bills, and dropped them in Bojan's jar, and then scrawled a note to Lorne about the broken window, instructing him to take what he needed to replace it, and to give the rest of the cash to Bojan. Sonny left the roll of money on the bar beside the stuffed dog, and climbed out the back window.

The night clear. Moonlight like buttermilk. Stars scattered like a pinch of salt. The snags and ruins on the mountain gleamed like ghosts in the forest. He'd kept his promise to Norma not to fell widowmakers; never considered he'd be the widower instead.

Bacon Face greeted him on his porch. Sonny lifted him, careful to use his legs to absorb the dog's weight.

“You're getting stocky on me.” He backed into the door and pushed it open, carried the dog to the bedroom, and set him down on the bed. Bacon Face's tail tapped against the mattress. He rolled onto his back and squirmed back and forth, turned over, his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth, open in a strange grin. He sneezed and licked his front paws.

“Don't be getting too comfortable. This is a one-shot deal, okay?”

Sonny unlocked the drawer on his nightstand and slid it open, reached for a dusty shoebox fastened by rubber bands. They broke and fell away, the elasticity gone. He lifted the lid and
pulled out a hand mirror with small jewels inlaid on its smooth back and ran his fingers along the teeth of the matching comb, set it down, and picked up the talcum powder. Unscrewing the lid, he raised the powder-puff and inhaled. The once strong floral fragrance was now musty. He sniffed it again, placed the powder-puff inside, and screwed the lid tight. He pulled out the silk handkerchief, unwrapped each of the four corners, and turned the hairbrush over in his palm where a few strands of long dark hair poked out. The filaments were soft and delicate between the pads of his thumb and forefinger, but he was afraid of breaking them and stopped touching them. He closed the drawer, the key jingled it its lock hanging from the hasp, and placed the mirror, comb, talcum, and brush on top of the nightstand, climbed into bed, and lay next to Bacon Face.