A Single Shot

“Do that, John. When you give Moira her bag of goodies, ask her if she knows Obie—that’s short for Obadiah—Cornish—that’s like the hen!” He sticks out a hand, which John doesn’t take. “No shit, John, we might actually be acquainted, seeing as how a number a’ years back old Obie Cornish spent many a day busting his ass for peanuts around and about that old mountain you’re on. Though I’ve moved on to a more lucrative line of work, I’ll never forget those days, or that terrain. Jesus Christ, steeper than a hard-on, it was!” He pulls back his hand, places it onto the butt of his pistol. “Yup. Back in town after a lot of years, only to find out not much has changed, ’cept I understand you and yours had a string of bad luck. Money must be pretty tight these days, huh, John?”

“I don’t recognize you from a clump of cow shit,” says John.

The man laughs.

John walks past him into the kitchen, then over to the front door, his feet crunching against the broken glass. In the bedroom, the woman, in a low, throaty voice, starts singing a lullaby.

John opens the door and steps into the night, quieter even than when he’d stepped out half an hour before. “What about the bag, John?” asks the man. “Ain’t you gonna leave the bag?”

John doesn’t answer.

Descending the stairs, he has an odd feeling the man was never there. At the same time, he worries about being shot in the back. He glances in the bag and sees the meat and, beneath it, three rolls of cash, just as there had been.

The same dog starts barking again. This time, though, no one tells it to stop. A light breeze rustles the spruce trees; higher up, thin clouds blow across the moon. A pickup truck peels out from in front of the liquor store. John uses his key to open Moira’s car, then carefully wedges the bag beneath the accelerator, where Moira will be sure to find it.

TUESDAY

ON THE BACK of the dead girl’s neck, at the base of her skull, is a star-shaped birthmark. Had he seen it when he first discovered her, prior to turning her over? Couldn’t be! She had a ponytail and was wearing a hat. The rest of the time, she lay on her back. So how does he know it’s there?

Her breasts are milky-colored and large, the consistency of a soft pudding, more those of a mature woman than of a teenager; their centers are blood-red bull’s-eyes with cuspate nipples that, when sucked on, pop up like bulbs. He had not! When had he?

She has the hard, muscular calves of an athlete. A bike rider maybe. Or a field-hockey player. Her left knee, marred by a four-inch butterfly scar like that on his own right elbow, has been surgically repaired. The tissue is raised and slightly swollen, as if the operation was recent. Impossible for him to know! He certainly hadn’t removed her jeans! Why, then, does he recall the smooth, lacquered feel of her thighs? Her neatly manicured pubic bush, emanating the smell of apple-essence shampoo? The wet, musky taste of her?

In his sleep, John thrashes out with an arm, pushes open the truck door, and, with several empty beer cans and a schnapps bottle, tumbles onto the dew-covered grass surrounding the trailer, now convinced that his crime is more atrocious, even, than murder. His head hurts. His vision is blurry, though clear enough to see that the truck sits in the center of his unmowed lawn, a few feet from the trailer’s front door. He has no memory of parking it there. He can’t recall driving it home.

A damp, dew-marred morning breathes an earthen, fresh smell, slightly tempered by the odor of just-spread cow shit. Sitting like a pillow on the valley, fog obliterates the world past a hundred yards. Nobies’ electric barn cleaner drones beneath the bone-white canopy. Their yellow, toothless hound howls. John wonders if following his discovery of the dead girl he went into a trance-like state during which he committed horrendous, unforgivable acts he can’t consciously recall. The thought is nearly unbearable. He picks up the schnapps bottle and knocks himself over the head with it. The bottle’s refusal to break infuriates him. He flings it at the pond. The splash starts the frogs croaking. Two ducks lift off.

Drinking coffee later at the kitchen table, he consciously summons her face and finds it lacking in particularities, those individual nuances that make a person unique. This strikes him as being as sad almost as her death itself. He feels intimate with her, a closeness beyond his ability to understand. A familiarity that has nothing to do with sex. The coffee tastes bitter to him. He throws it out and opens his first beer of the day. He picks up a deck of cards, aimlessly shuffles them, starts playing solitaire. At the very least, he thinks, he owes her loyalty, which requires that in his memory she be forever preserved as the person she truly was and not as he dreams her. The implications of this are muddled and horrible.

The phone rings six times and stops.