*
Ah spent last night – the last night – perched in mah turret, looking out over the valley, watching the creeping night swallow up the township as one by one the house lights died.
Strange was mah mood or mah shifting of moods. It was like mah heart had begun to turn slowly in its cage.
Climbing the steps to the turret ah felt exhausted and more than a little edgy, having hauled six of the larger trip-snares across the marshes, floating them on two tyre tubes and lugging them into the swampland. There the ghost of mah father had appeared. He had flitted from tree to tree, keeping his distance as if he were afraid of me. He called instructions to me, which were only just audible because of the space he insisted on maintaining between us, but ah made them out to be, ‘Murder her!’ and ‘Stab at her!’ alternately. Mah initial response was to ignore him and so ah had set the traps and sought to leave that place of ghosts and God. Ah had thought of turning back and confronting him, and ah even did take a few steps toward him in order to breach the gap, but in doing so ah perceived more clearly the nature of the old man’s bark and ah changed mah mind and fled, leaving the tyre-tube raft behind me and scrambling across the marshfields, the turn of his words burning in mah ears.
‘Murderer! Saboteur!’ each syllable charged with venom and echoing through mah head, through mah bowels, as ah climbed into the turret.
‘Mur-der-rer! Sa-bo-teur!’
Ah reached into the pocket of mah jacket in search of a handkerchief to wipe mah brow. Ah found there a child’s little white glove and ah laid it out flat so that it covered the wounds on mah right hand. Ah inspected it. Ah held it close to the spirit lamp. It was clearly Beth’s glove, and it seemed to me to be the whitest thing in the whole world.
Ah remembered a dream ah had had. Of a glove. Of Beth. Ah squeezed three grimy fingers into the glove, and just before closing mah eyes ah glimpsed a slick, taut sky of the deepest blue, the moon a bloodless, flesh-coloured gash in its infinite expanse.
And mah heart turned, awash on warm waters then tossed on the shores of disgust. Ah opened mah eyes and looked again at the glove and all the whiteness seemed to have gone, smeared like everything else ah could see, everything else ah fucken touched, and ah noticed a rich crimson spot appear in the very centre of the glove, then grow in size and intensity, until ah had to cup mah own hand lest the pooling blood spill over. Ah bound mah hand in a handkerchief.
The glove. The blood. The moon. All signs not gone unheeded.
Ah flung the messy glove over the wall.
Ah looked down at the town and a cold stake of hate brought mah heart to a standstill as ah thought of the devilry Beth had done there. Thought of the devilry Beth done there. Thought of the devilry Beth done there.
And so passed the night, like that.
Down below – in the valley – all hell and ferocious vaultings of fire raged, sweeping through the cane-fields at a tremendous rate. A gusting south-westerly blew. Roaring walls of flame hissed and crackled, fouling the firmament with voluted bloats of evil black-green smoke.
Ah saw the valley as a great lake of dark oily blood, and me, sickle gleaming between mah teeth, taking elegant swooping dives into the claret, describing scarlet arcs through the steaming ether.
It was morning. Late morning. Celebration Day. The ‘burn-off had begun.
One crow, stranger. Two crows, danger. Three crows, a summons.
A gang of four black hecklers perched at equal distance along the sole dead bough of the gallows-tree. Four bad black birds!? Four? Double-danger Double-danger!!
Mah beasts paced, prowled in their cages.
This is the day! This is the last day!
Ah stretched mah arms outward and then upward, and as mah body fell prey to an excruciatingly delicious muscular cramp, ah allowed mah arms to flop to mah sides, mah body folding forward into breathless relief. Ah love cramps usually, but this one left me exhausted. Ah felt spent. Ah felt weak and sick and dirty.
Gradually the day’s business dawned on me and no longer did ah feel just exhausted and weak and spent and sick and dirty, but ah felt pretty doubtful as well, doubtful that mah reserves of courage were sufficient for me to unnertake such a terrific task. Ah mean, Christ knows, ah was no more capable of killing Beth than ah was of killing one of mah own flesh and blood – unless ah be fuelled with a little of His strength and determination, of course.
So, ah climbed down from mah turret – never had those steps been such a slow and serious obstacle – and began to limp and ache mah way through the shack.
Did ah tell you that mah beasts paced, prowled in their cages? And did ah tell you how they all fell silent when ah entered their quarters, and all about me ah saw dog-eyes wink derisively, fangs and flews snickering, how ah could smell the cold mockery of those brutes fill the sunless room? A blood-shitting anger coursed through me – a blood-shitting anger and a fearful shame – and ah threw mahself at one particularly smug kennel, kicking it all over the room and throwing it and striking it with mah bandaged fists and jumping up and down on it until the tea-chest split wide open and a swarm of blowflies rose from the opening like a dirty brown cloud. Smirk gone, the dog cowered at the bottom of the cage, covered in slimy straw and scared stiff, making no attempt to escape, even to move.
Ah walked a tense circle around the room offering the remaining beasts the chance to ridicule me, but not a peep sounded from their kennels and hutches and coops and cages. Nor could ah see the laughing eyes or the jeering dog-teeth anymore, and to tell you the truth, ah let out a sigh of relief as ah stepped on to the porch, glad to be out of there, the silence being a little too silent, a little too respectful.
Ah threw mahself down the porch steps and fell to mah knees in the middle of the yard, wringing mah hands and beating at the sky and wailing and reeling in the red dust and petitioning the Almighty with perfervid prayer.
Ah left Doghead a little before midday, covered in red dirt and still damp with the morning dews. Mah cheeks were raw and drawn and salt-stung. Mah wounds throbbed beneath the gauze bandages and ah hoped to hell they wouldn’t open up and become a problem.
As if the palm wounds weren’t a severe enough impediment, ah had badly barked mah knuckles while meting out dog-pain that morning and ah could feel them weeping and seeping and sticking to the bandages even as ah strode down the track toward Maine – toward town – toward her –
Rolling eructations of black smoke rose from the fields in thick, fat coils. They moved across the colourless sky and gathered together in the valley’s south-west corner like a herd of fretting buffalo. Fields yet unlit, heavy with the crop, rustled excitedly as they awaited the fiery lustration that would purge them of trash, whilst walls of flame romped hell-like through others, the scorching fire dying by way of its own paroxysm as suddenly as it had leapt alive, leaving the sky filled with wind-whipped cinders, sparks and flakes of black ash. Those crops already put to fire stood in silence, black and smouldering. Men coated in soot jockeyed around the perimeters of the crops, shouting oaths and orders into cupped hands. Groups of moon-faced children stood in craning clusters on the side of the main road, hypnotized by the fire, by its fastness, by its effervescent fury. Already the children were smudged and smeared by the very air that engulfed them. Trucks and trolleys moved slowly back and forth.