Ashes Read online

  Ricky wondered. Maybe the husband had a wife who controlled the television, the radio, the refrigerator, the garage, and wrote large charity checks to the animal shelter. Maybelle gave him his pills and a glass of water. He swallowed, grateful.

  “I read that he was an accountant,” Ricky said. “Just like me.”

  “Takes all kinds. The poor woman, you’ve got to feel sorry for her. Closes her eyes to go to sleep and the next thing you know, the man she trusted and loved with all her heart—”

  “—is standing over her, the lights are off but the knife flashes just the same, he’s holding the handle so tight that his hand is aching, except he can’t feel it, it’s like he’s got electricity running through his body, he’s on fire and he’s never felt so powerful, and—”

  Maybelle’s laughter interrupted him. “It’s not a movie, Ricky. A wife-killing slasher isn’t any more special than a thief who shoots a stranger for ten bucks. When it comes down to it, they’re all low-down dirty dogs who ought to be locked up before they hurt somebody else.”

  “Everybody feels sorry for her,” Ricky said. “But what about the husband? Don’t you think he probably feels sick inside? She’s gone, but he’s left to live with the knowledge of what he’s done.”

  “Not for long. I hear the D.A. is going after the death penalty. She’s up for re-election next year and has been real strong on domestic violence.”

  “He’ll probably plead temporary insanity.”

  “Big surprise,” Maybelle said. “Only a crazy man would kill his wife.”

  “I don’t know. With a good lawyer—”

  “They’re always making excuses. He’ll say his wife made him wear a dress when no one was looking. That he had to lick her high heels. That she was carrying on with the pet store supplier. It’s always the woman’s fault. It makes me sick.”

  Ricky looked at the carpet. The stains must have been tremendous, geysers of blood spraying in different directions, painting the walls, seeping into the sheets and shag, soiling the delicate undergarments that the wife no doubt wore to entice her husband into chronic frustration.

  “Ricky?”

  Her voice brought him back from the last reel of his fantasy film and into the living room.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Better,” he said, lying only a little.

  “Ready to go back to the grocery store?”

  “Yes.”

  “And not forget anything this time?”

  He nodded.

  After shopping, getting all the items on the list, he sat in the grocery store parking lot and re-read all the newspapers hidden beneath the seat. He looked at the mug shot and visualized his own face against the grayish background with the black lines. He pored over the details he already knew by heart, then imagined the parts not fleshed out in the news accounts: the trip up the stairs in the silent house, a man with a mission, no thought of the act itself or the aftermath. One step, one stroke at a time. The man had chosen a knife from the kitchen drawer instead of buying one especially for the job. It had clearly been a crime of passion, and passion had been missing from Ricky’s life for many years.

  He looked at the paper that held the wife’s picture. He tried to juxtapose the picture with Maybelle’s. He failed. He realized he couldn’t summon his own wife’s face.

  He drove home and was in the kitchen putting the things away when Maybelle entered the room.

  “You’ve stacked my cottage cheese three high,” she said. “You know I only like it with two. I can’t check the date otherwise.”

  “There’s no room,” he said.

  “Take out that stupid watermelon.”

  “But I like them when they’re cold.”

  “Put it in the bathtub or something.”

  He squeezed the can of mushroom soup he was holding, wishing he were strong enough to make the metal seams rip and the cream spurt across the room.

  “I put dinner on the table,” she said. “Roast beef and potatoes.”

  “Green peas?”

  “No, broccoli.”

  “I wanted green peas.”

  “How was I to know? You’ll eat what I served or you can cook your own food.”

  “I guess you didn’t make a cheesecake.”

  “There’s ice cream in the freezer.” She laughed. “Or you can eat your watermelon.”

  He went to the dinner table. Maybelle had already eaten, put away her place mat, and polished her end of the table. Ricky sat and worked the potatoes, then held the steak knife and studied its serrated edge. He sawed it across the beef and watched the gray grains writhe beneath the metal.

  Maybelle entered the dining room. “How’s your food?”

  “Yummy.”

  “Am I not a good wife?”

  He made an appreciative mumble around a mouthful of food.

  “I’m going upstairs,” she said. “I’m going to have a nice, long bath and then put on something silly and slinky.”

  Ricky nodded.

  “I’ll be in bed, waiting. And, who knows, you might get lucky.” She smiled. She’d already brushed her teeth. Her face was perfectly symmetrical, pleasing, her eyes soft and gentle. He felt a stirring inside him. How could he ever forget her face? Ricky compared her to the murdered wife and wondered which of them was prettiest. Which of them would the press anoint as having suffered a greater tragedy?

  “I’ll be up in a bit,” he said. “I want to do a little reading.”

  “Just don’t wait too long. I’m sleepy.”

  “Yes, dear.”

  When he was alone, he spat the half-chewed mouthful of food onto his plate. He carried the plate to the kitchen and scraped the remains into the garbage disposal. He wondered if the husband had thought of trying to hide the body, or if he had been as surprised by his actions as she must have been.

  The watermelon was on the counter. Maybelle had taken it from the refrigerator.

  He went to the utensil drawer and slid it open. He and Maybelle had no children, and safety wasn’t a concern. The knives lay in a bright row, arranged according to length. How had the husband made his decision? Size? Sharpness? Or the balance of the handle?

  If he had initially intended to make only one thrust, he probably would have gone for depth. If he had aspired to make art, then a number of factors came into play. Ricky’s head hurt, his throat a wooden knot. He grabbed the knife that most resembled the murder weapon shown in the press photographs.

  Ricky turned the lights low, then carried the knife to the counter. He pressed the blade to the watermelon and found that the blade trembled in his hand. The watermelon grew soft and blurred in his vision, and he realized he was weeping. How could anyone ever destroy a thing of such beauty?

  He forced himself to press the knife against the cool green rind. The flesh parted but Ricky eased up as a single drop of clear dew swelled from the wound. The husband hadn’t hesitated, he’d raised the knife and plunged, but once hadn’t been enough, neither had twice, three times, but over and over, a rhythm, passion, passion, passion.

  He dropped the knife and the tip broke as it clattered across the tiles. The watermelon sat whole and smooth on the counter. Tears tickled his cheeks. Maybelle was upstairs in the dark bed, his pillows were stacked so he wouldn’t snore, the familiar cupped and rounded area of the mattress was waiting for him.

  The husband had been a crazy fool, that was all. He’d cut his wife to bits, no rhyme or reason. She hadn’t asked for any of it. She was a victim of another person’s unvoiced and unfulfilled desires, just like Maybelle.

  Ricky spun and thrust his fist down into the melon, squeezed the red wetness of its heart. He ripped the rind open and the air grew sweet. He pulled at the pink insides, clawed as if digging for some deeply buried secret. He was sobbing, and the pulp spattered onto his face as he plunged his hands into the melon again and again.

  A voice pulled him from the red sea of rage in which he was drowning.

  Maybelle. Calli
ng from upstairs.

  “Ricky?”

  He held his breath, his pulse throbbing so hard he could feel it in his neck. He looked down at the counter, at the mess in the kitchen, at the pink juice trickling to the floor.

  “Ricky?” she called again. He looked toward the hall, but she was still upstairs. So she hadn’t heard.

  He looked at his sticky hands.

  “Are you coming to bed?”

  He looked at the knife on the floor. His stomach was as tight as a melon. He gulped for some air, tasted the mist of sugar. “Yes, dear.”

  She said no more, and must have returned to bed in her silly and slinky things. The room would be dark and she would be waiting.

  Ricky collected the larger scraps of the watermelon and fed them into the garbage disposal. He swept the floor and scooped up the remaining shreds, then wiped the counter. He wrung out a dish cloth and got on his hands and knees, scrubbing the tiles and then the grout.

  The husband had harbored no secrets. A pathetic man who made another person pay for his shortcomings. He was a sick, stupid animal. Ricky would think no more of him, and tomorrow he would throw the newspapers away.

  He washed his hands in the sink, put the knife away, and gave the kitchen a cursory examination. No sign of the watermelon remained, and his eyes were dry, and his hands no longer trembled.

  Tomorrow, summer would be over. It was the end of something, and the beginning of something else. Maybelle was waiting, and he might get lucky. Ricky went to the stairs and took them one step at a time, up into darkness.

  ###

  THE MEEK

  The ram hit Lucas low, twisting its head so that its curled horns knocked him off his feet. The varmint was good at this. It had killed before. But the dead eyes showed no joy of the hunt, only the black gleam of a hunger that ran wider than the Gibson.

  Lucas winced as he sprawled on the ground, tasting desert dust and blood, his hunger forgotten. As the Merino tossed its head, the horns caught the strange sunlight and flashed like knives. Lucas had only a moment to react. He rolled to his left, reaching for his revolver.

  The ram lunged forward, its lips parted and slobbering. The mouth closed around the ankle of Lucas' left boot. He kicked and the spur raked across the ram's nose. Gray pus leaked from the torn nostrils, but the steer didn't even slow down in its feeding frenzy.

  The massive head dipped again, going higher, looking for Lucas' flank. But Lucas wasn't ready to kark, not out here in the open with nothing but stone and scrub acacia to keep him company. Lucas filled his hand, ready to blow the animal back to hell or wherever else it was these four-legged devils came from.

  But he was slow, tired from four days in the saddle and weak from hunger. The tip of one horn knocked the gun from his hand, and he watched it spin silver in the sky before dropping to the sand ten feet away. Eagles circled overhead, waiting to clean what little bit of meat the steer would leave on his bones. He fell back, hoping his leather chaps would stop the teeth from gnawing into his leg.

  Just when he was ready to shut his eyes against the coming horror, sharp thunder ripped the sky open. At first he thought it was Gabriel's trumpet, harking and heralding and all that. Then Lucas was covered in the explosion of brain, bits of skull, and goo as the ram's head disappeared. The animal's back legs folded, and then it collapsed slowly upon itself. It fell on its side and twitched once, then lay still, thick fluid dribbling from the stump of its neck.

  Gunsmoke filled the air, and the next breath was the sweetest Lucas had ever taken. He sat up and brushed the corrupted mutton from his face, then checked to make sure the animal's teeth hadn't broken his skin. The chaps were intact, with a few new scrapes in the leather.

  " 'Bout got you," came a raspy voice. Lucas cupped his hand over his eyes and squinted as a shadow fell over him. The man was bow-legged, his rifle angled with the stock against his hip, the white avalanche beard descending from a Grampian mountain range of a face.

  "Thank you, mate," Lucas said, wiping his mouth. "And thank the Lord for His mercy."

  The old man kicked at the carcass, and it didn't move. He spat a generous rope of tobacco juice onto the oozing neck wound. Flies had already gathered on the corpse. Lucas hoped that flies didn't turn into flesh-eating critters, too. Having dead-and-back-again sheep coming after you was plenty bad enough.

  "A stray. Third one today," the old man said, working the Remington's action so that the spent shell kicked free. He stooped to read the brand on the ram's hip. "Come from Kulgera. They never could keep 'em rounded up down those parts."

  Lucas struggled to his feet, sore from the sheep-wrestling. He found his hat and secured it on his head, then returned his revolver to its holster. "If you hadn't come along when you did—"

  The man cut in, his eyes bright with held laughter. "Hell, son, I been watching you for five minutes. Wasn't sure which of you was going to walk away. I'd have put two-to-one on the Merino, but nobody much left around to take the bet."

  Lucas thought about punching the stranger in the face, but Lucas was afraid his hand would shatter against that stone-slick surface. The man must have seen the anger in Lucas' eyes, because the laugh busted free of the thin lips, rolling across the plateau like the scream of a dying wombat.

  "Never you mind," the man said, slapping the barrel of his Remington. "I'd sooner sleep with a brown snake than watch a man get ate up."

  He held his hand out. It was wrapped in a glove the color of a chalky mesa, stained a rusty red. Lucas took it and shook quickly, feeling a strength in the grip that didn't match the man's stringy muscles.

  "Name's Camp," he said.

  "Lucas," Lucas said. "Is 'Camp' short for something?"

  "Not that I know of. Just Camp, is all."

  "You're not Aussie."

  "Hell, no. Come from Texas, U.S. of A. Had to leave 'cause the damned place was perk near run over by Mexicans and Injuns. You know how it is, when the furriners come in and take over, don't you?"

  Lucas nodded, and said, "Things are crook in Musclebrook, no doubt." He walked toward his horse twenty yards away, to where it had fallen in a shallow gulley. Camp followed, solemn now. Nobody laughed at the loss of a good horse.

  The horse whinnied softly, froth bubbling from its nose. A hank of flesh had been ripped from its side. The saddle strap had broken, tossing Lucas' canteen and lasso into a patch of saltbrush. The horse's tail whisked at the air, swatting invisible flies.

  "Never thought I'd see the day a sheep could outrun a horse," Camp said.

  "Never thought I'd see a lot of things," Lucas answered.

  Camp spat again, and a strand of the brown juice clung to his beard. He was the first person Lucas had ever met who chewed tobacco. "Want to borrow my Remington?" he asked, holding out the rifle.

  "Mate's got to do it his own way."

  "Reckon so," Camp said, then turned so as not to see the tears in Lucas' eyes.

  Lucas drew the revolver and put two bullets in the horse's head. Vickie, he'd called her. Had her for six years, had roped and broken her himself. Now she was nothing but eagle food. But at least she wouldn't rise up tonight, bucking and kicking and hungry for a long mouthful of the hand that had once fed her.

  "Where you headed?" Camp asked when they'd reached the top of the gulley.

  Lucas scanned the expanse of plateau ahead of them. Finally he shrugged. "I was mostly headed away from something, not toward something."

  "Sheep's everywhere now, is the word. Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, all your big transport cities. They roam the streets scrounging for ever scrap of human cud they can find."

  "Even back Queensland?"

  "Queensland got it bad. 'Course, them damned banana benders deserve everything they get, and then some." Camp took a plug of tobacco from his shirt pocket that looked like a dry dingo turd. He bit into it with his four best teeth, then worked it until he could spit again. He held out the plug to Lucas.

  "No. You're a gent, though." Lucas was thirsty.
He took a swig from his canteen, thought about offering a drink to Camp, then shuddered at the thought of the man's backwash polluting the water.

  "I'm headed for Wadanetta Pass. Hear word there's a bunch holed up there."

  "I didn't know some were trying to fight," Lucas said. "I figured it was every mate for himself."

  He hadn't seen another person for three days, at least not one that was alive. He'd passed a lump of slimy dress this morning, a bonnet on the ground beside it. Might have been one of them pub girls, or some schoolmarm fallen from a wagon. The sight had about made him launch a liquid laugh.

  "You hungry?" Camp asked.

  "Nobody not? What the blooming hell is there to eat out here except weeds and poisoned meat? It was a fair go I'd have ended up eating my horse, and I liked my horse."

  "Wadanetta is thataway," Camp said, pointing into the shimmering layers of heat that hung in the west. "Might reach it before night."

  "Damn well better. I don't want to be out here in the dark with that bunch playing sillybuggers."

  "Amen to that." Camp led the way, moving as if he had a gun trained on his back. It was all Lucas could do to keep up.

  They walked in silence for about half an hour. Lucas' feet were burning in his boots. He was about convinced that hell lay only a few feet beneath the plains and that the devil was working up to the biggest jimbuck roundup of all time. First killer sheep, then a sun that glowed like a bloody eye.

  "Suppose it's like this all about?" Lucas asked.

  "You mean, out Kimberly and all that?"

  "New Zealand. Guinea."

  "Don't see why not. Sheep are sheep all over the world."

  "Even over in England?"

  "Bloody hope so."

  "Beaut," said Lucas. "That bugger, God, ought to be half sporting, you'd think."

  "Hell, them Merino probably would stoop to eating Aborigines. I heared of a country run all by darkies, hardly a white man there. These darkies, they worship cows. I mean, treat them like Jesus Christ come again."