Crow pulls the rabbit inside out in front of us. Sinew snaps and pops. All that life and oh what little fur. No blood. She sets aside the lungs for Benny. They look like dragonfly wings soaked in water. She sets aside rabbit babies, and I close my eyes. Creator, I did not know she was pregnant when my hands took her. The babies look like toes. That’s when I turn to look at the sign that’s always hung up in the living room: “Benny’s: Because it’s all about collateral.”
It smells like Old Trailer in here. Benny’s not fast anymore and there is something wrong with his eyes. It’s like he has to look at something twice now to see it. He is holding his side and wincing. He still has his fat wallet in his front pocket so you can’t rip him off, but he’s grey now, all of him. Crow had me rip a bedsheet apart into strips and is putting boiled yarrow and bear grease onto white gauze.
This will suck the poison out.
Benny got stabbed his last day in. What they laced his blade with is travelling inside of him, like porcupine quills hunting for his heart. Crow used the same medicine on my dad when his time was coming. The tattoos on Benny’s hands look dusty. He has scars all over his old, shaved head.
“How much, boss?” Torchy asked.
“Eight,” Benny says softly.
I draw two circles of fire touching behind my eyes so I don’t forget this and realize both brothers have grown their hair long. Torchy has a scratch and poke tattoo that says “Dogrib” along one wrist to his elbow and “Forever” on the other. Both are beautiful and I bet Sfen did them.
“C or K?” Sfen asked.
Benny motioned with his lips for Crow to take the boiling pot off the burner. “K.”
Crow puts a lid on the pot and we take turns marvelling at her face tattoos. She has chin stripes and the back of her hands are blurred and marked as those of a death comforter. She’s marked the old way—with sinew sewn through her skin laced with suet the colour of blue—and they say her name was earned through fire.
“We work alone, Benny,” Torchy said.
Benny looked at him and whispered, “Not anymore. Come back when you’re done,” he says.
He motions to Crow and she starts to set the table.
“Why does Radar have to come with us?” Torchy asks, watching me. He’s called me that for years.
“My boy’s here to make sure you two don’t fuck up.” He curls his lips. “So don’t fuck this up.”
The brothers listen and look at each other as they pull on their jackets. Crow puts water on for Benny’s tea.
Ever since I was a kid, Benny’s looked out for me. He’s been gone for four years. Mom’s been sick for one.
“Start my truck.” He points with his lips to where his keys hang. “Flinch…”
Sfen takes them and they leave but not before I see that famous buffalo jaw hilt in the small of his back. Under his belt. Sfen: the one who loves men.
Benny runs his hand over my hand. “Jesus, look at the size of you. You got bigger. Why didn’t you stay at my house?”
I’m getting fat again. This always happens before I grow even taller. I’m like a Christmas tree, Benny told me once. I zig. Then I zag. I lean down. “There was police tape.”
He nods. “I’m sorry. Your heat rash is back.”
He pushes my jacket back and it’s true: my skin is ruddy all over me.
Crow looks up at me and I turn away. Do not meet her gaze.
I have this flash of Crow watching me from the trees. Not below and under. But hanging upside down from the top. Her feet broken, snapped around the branches. Her eyes open in darkness.
He nods again. “You sleep here tonight, okay? Your old room. Crow will fix something for you.”
“Mahsi.” That would be nice. I’m at Mom’s. Alone. “Why are you sending those two?” I ask.
“If Lester starts anything, let them finish it.” He wheezes. “Remember what happened last time.”
I make myself not. Creator, you know I’m trying to live my life like a prayer. I nod. “Sfen has a knife.”
“It’s for show.” He squeezes my arm. “I thought about you every day.”
I’m shy to look at him. We have to learn each other all over again.
“You stay with me now. Be my hands and eyes.”
I nod.
“Crow,” he motions. She hands me a stick of rat root. I take it, careful to not touch her hands. “Don’t trust Lester. No matter what. I met a man on the inside who said Lester’s got a young woman with him. A lot of your Aboriginal sisters go missing every year in Canada. They say there’s a network. My buddy on the inside said men are using black medicine to snare them. Over two thousand now.”
Crow stills at these words.
His eyes search her, then me. “Get that money. Speak to the girl. Check her out. Let me know what you think.”
I nod and put the rat root in my jacket pocket. It’s still warm from the old woman.
“You are the gentle way for me now,” he says. “Crow saved my life once. She’ll do it again. She’s looking for an apprentice.” Crow pauses as she puts the bowls out, looks down, and sighs. I don’t think they’re talking about me.
“I’ll get your money,” I say. I’m not sure what to say about the girl.
He nods and holds his side.
“Flinch,” he says. “Lester has some gloves that belonged to Snowbird. Remember what he said?”
Crow stops to listen. I nod. The old man said I have ten thousand angels soaring above me, and above each one ten thousand more. All waiting, but for what?
“Bring them to us.” He holds his hand to his side and closes his eyes for a long time, as if he’s swallowing pain from deep within his body. “Don’t let those two see or touch them, okay?”
I look to Benny. “Okay.”
He points to my shovel. This is my in. “When you come back, we’ll eat. I want to hear what you’ve been up to,” he says and holds my reaching hand, giving it a careful squeeze. His grip is so weak I can almost hear the wind passing through what’s left of him. He holds his side, winces. “I’m serious: I’m home now. And I’m never going back.”
“Good,” I say.
He winces and nods. “My boy… I’m sorry I left you.”
I look to Crow and she turns from me. To this day, I can’t remember if she’s ever said a single word to me.
Her dogs are waiting outside. Four of them. They’re huge. Built to hunt bears. I walk out and they, ears back and low, let out a growl to keep walking. Maybe those gloves could help Mom. Torchy and Sfen smoke, waiting for me. I flick my hand for them to start the truck. They do. I’m too big to sit in the cab so I hop in the back of the truck.
We ride. People are run-walking with their gloves over their faces. I don’t feel it. Creator, I have never questioned why you gave me my size and the ability to not feel cold. Maybe it was so I could walk through fire for you. I asked Benny what it’s like at forty below without a scarf. “It’s like a dog bite to the face,” he said.
Fort Simmer. Benny once said that in this town you never have to use your blinkers because everyone knows where you’re going anyway. He also said the only people who ever knock here are the cops or Social Services, and that is true.
Torchy and Sfen. They used to have this battle plan when they were kids. When things were tough in their home—when their mom was being used as a human punching bag—they’d run into an old car they had in their back yard and they’d lock the doors. Sfen had a stash of Cheezies, a six pack of Coke and a blanket. That was in case they had to camp overnight.
We were friends for a summer but they were too crazy, so I let them go. I’m actually surprised sometimes that they’re still alive.
I think of my mom. “Have you given her permission?” the nurse asked me yesterday. “No,” I said. But then I thought about it. Yes. She just wants to be with my dad now.
Snowbird was a holy man. A chanter. Benny told me the day Snowbird was born seven wolves ran around his family’s camp. His father, out of fear, shot the lead wolf. Snowbird was born a mute. When he was four he decided to speak to his dad. He told him, “Dad, if you wouldn’t have shot that wolf, that leader. If they would have been able to come to me and speak to me and touch me, I would be able to bring the people back from the dead.”
Snowbird’s gloves had to be holy. The doctors had given up on helping my mom. I could tell. Last month it was quality of care. Now it’s just comfort. I still wasn’t sure what to do about the girl. Lester was a kind customer—a junior elder—when it came to me shovelling or hauling wood for him. He always gave me tips, sometimes gave me tea to-go with cups from the gas station. He had a stash.
Crow was different now. Their family has bone medicine. When Benny was younger, he brought her many offerings, more than anyone. My dad said it was the most curious thing: Benny brought Crow hornets’ nests that had been abandoned, and Crow would nod and put them in her tent. Powerful medicine, my dad said, if you know what to do. And she did.
Benny, I guess, wanted so badly to win the snowshoe contest that my dad had always won for as long as anyone could remember. The prize was one thousand dollars and most men in town trained for months for the glory of this win. With Crow’s help, Benny won. My mother asked on behalf of my father before he passed how they did it. She learned from Crow that she’d fed Benny caribou lungs and water from snow every day for four months. Maybe that was when their alliance began, for now her hair was laced with a spidery grey. When Crow came to walk her hands over the limbs of my dad and see how much time he had left, she told him a story. I was sad enough to listen but too young to remember all of it the way I learned to remember things with pictures now. She told him a story of when the world was new and how it used to be the caribou who had tusks and it was the walrus who had antlers. There was a trade and they welcomed each other into themselves.
I have always wondered since how the story went. Why and how did they trade, Creator? And were you there as a fox?
That was the summer Crow told my parents that I was born backwards. I felt myself fly out of my body when she said that because it was true, and I have been a ghost to myself ever since.
Maybe Snowbird’s gloves will bring Benny and my mom back.
Sfen kills the lights before we turn into Lester’s driveway and we stop halfway down. He’s now blocked where Lester’s truck should be, but it’s gone. We can see the TV flickering off the walls. Someone’s home. Torchy and Sfen open their doors slowly and quietly.
They motion for me to lead.
“Walk in front of me,” I grab Benny’s shovel and they do. Torchy gives his brother a look.
“What is a C?” I ask.
Sfen looks up to me. “What?”
“I don’t know what C or K means.”
Torchy lights a smoke and scoffs. He’s pretending not to be afraid of me. I am twenty-two and still growing. “A C is 100. A K is a thousand.”
Two circles of fire touching. Those gloves. We could save Benny. Does Mom still want to be here?
Do not start anything. Creator, please give me the signs to not start anything. I know they call me The Finisher, but I am here to help. I am here to free the girl.
I unscrew the light bulb outside Lester’s house and Torchy nods to me to call for him. That’s when I see he has a baseball bat.
“No weapons,” I told him. “Don’t think I didn’t see your knife.” I say to Sfen. His mouth opens in surprise and I can tell he doesn’t want to be here.
“Never you mind, Radar,” Torchy grinned. “You got your reasons for being here, and I got mine. We’re getting that nine so do what you’re told.”
“Nine?” I said. “It’s eight.”
“Hell no,” Sfen said. “Benny said nine.”
The circles of fire touch even closer until they lock and I know they’re lying, trying to confuse me. They look at each other and I feel something pass between them. It raises my skin. Darkness. A whispered plan.
The porch lights turn on and the brothers step back into the darkness, vanish.
“Hello?” a voice calls. “Flinch?”
I look and there Lester is, peeking out his door.
“Hi,” I said. “Can I come in?”
“Sure,” he said. “Everything okay?”
I hold up my shovel and nod.
I leave the shovel outside. He lets me in and I close the door behind me.
“You’re out late,” he smiled. “Aren’t you cold?”
I nod. “I’m okay.”
I stand there and look around. There are pictures all over the wall of Lester and his late wife. She was a big woman with curly hair. In each photo, Lester beams. He has his arms around her like he is holding on for dear life.
“Thanks for shovelling last week. How much do I owe you?”
“Sorry,” I said.
He looks up. “Why are you sorry?”
“I’m not here for me,” I said.
“Oh?” he says.
“Benny’s back,” I said.
His face changes. I watch it. Lester goes from being a kind old man to someone younger, someone cunning. “He’s back?”
I nod.
“And you’ve come to collect.”
I stand to my full height. Why does it feel like there’s someone else in this house—standing near me?
“So you are the gentle way,” he says.
I nod again.
“How much did he say I owe?”
“Eight grand.”
He thinks about this. “I heard he got stabbed on his last day in.”
I wait.
“He’s hired the witch from across the river?”
I watch him as he makes his way to his freezer. I watch his hands. I watch his eyes.
“They used to be partners in fornication,” he says. “Are you sure you want to be a servant with that crowd? You could work for me.”
I’m quiet about this.
“How’s your mom?”
I won’t take the bait.
“I’m sorry,” he says and he watches me. “So what happens if I don’t pay up?”
“The brothers, Torchy and Sfen, are outside. Torchy has a bat. Sfen… a knife.”
Lester gets a flush under his throat that warms his cheeks. “You’re telling me those boys are outside?”
“They are,” I say. “And Torchy wants nine grand.”
“Just like that, huh?” he asks. “Benny’s back and it’s just like that?”
I nod. He knew this was coming. Where is the girl? I need to see her eyes.
“Okay,” he says and shows me his hands. “I’m going to reach into the freezer. There’s eight grand. I’m going to move slow. Do not hurt me. When I give you the money, I want you to give Benny a message.”
I watch his hands as I open my own. “Okay.”
“Tell Benny,” he says as he reaches into the freezer, “that I want to play him again and tell him that we’ll play double or nothing.”
He knows something, I think. Lester knows something about the world now that no one else does. I can see it in him. Creator, what is it? What have you given him or what has he stolen from you? Let me be your hands here.
“I’ll do that,” I say.
And that’s when the door opens behind me.
“Hello?”
It is a woman’s voice. I turn and see the face of a girl my age. She stands in a fur coat. Wolf. And red high heels. Her hair is up in a bun and she has dark skin. Her lips are painted red and her eyes jet black. She is not a pretty girl. Her nose has been broken once. She is round, heavy, sad.
Where have I seen her before?
And that’s when I feel something bad. Like my skin is being cut by cold and slicing ice. Like something’s scraping the insides of me and pulling my guts out with sinew snapping from crooked hooks across the room and behind me. I lean quick on the counter and Lester catches that before he looks at the girl with scolding eyes.
“I filled the truck,” she says. “But there’s a truck blocking the driveway. I don’t know what to do.”
I study her and realize that she doesn’t even see me. There’s something wrong with her. Is she blind? Deaf? She looks deaf—blind halfway through her eyes maybe. That’s the only way any of this makes sense.
Lester’s brow furrows. “Where did you park?”
She looks through me and immediately at the floor. “Sorry. On the road. I did not know what to do so I parked it down the road. I’m sorry.”
I blush at how gentle this young woman’s voice is, how shy. I look at her again and realize that she is much like a younger version of the picture of Lester’s wife on the fridge. Is this their daughter?
“This is Flinch,” Lester says.
“Pleased to meet you,” she says and holds out her hand. She doesn’t look all the way up, like everyone else. “Happy full moon. I’m Crystal.”
But it isn’t. I take her hand. Is she stoned? Her fingers are so freshly painted that I can smell the nail polish. I’m not sure if I am supposed to kiss it like on TV or shake it, so I shake it once.
“Well, Flinch,” Lester says and hands me a stack of cash, shrink-wrapped. “You pass along my message to Benny about double or nothin’, and you tell that old squaw of his that I said hello.” He looks right at me and then gives me a dirty look. “Sorry about your mom.” He moves in the way of Crystal and helps her with her coat. I am being dismissed.
I leave and walk outside, puzzled. Drugs? What is wrong with her? Is she just shy? Is this medicine?
The brothers are waiting for me and I stop. “Drive. I’ll meet you there.”
“Did you get it?” Torchy asks.
I nod and feel so suddenly weak. “Go.”
“I told Torchy it was eight,” Sfen says. “I want you to know—”
“Go,” I repeat.
And they leave.
Benny will be mad that I didn’t get the gloves. The moment passes. Creator, you know I did all I could here. We’ll break in another time.
I walk to Benny’s and take my time. It isn’t a full moon. That’s the strangest thing of all. Was that code, Creator? I do not know if it was medicine. All I know is it was time to leave. Could I have done more for Snowbird’s gloves? I think about this halfway there, scanning the shadows and trees for the brothers and their ninja ways. No. I stop and think about this. No. There was nothing I could do. There was something in the house. Or someone else. Even before she got there. Those gloves must be in there. They must. Benny was gone for four years. That’s four years of hunger. Four years to dream and plan.
Benny must have called Crow from the inside. Is this about the 8K owed or is there more? A girl missing. Indian medicine. Someone’s daughter. A reward or a sale to a higher bidder? What’s in it for Benny? What’s his “in,” Creator? Show me.
I keep walking and see tracks from the brothers walking into and away from the house.
But wait: there is a third set. Someone walked behind them, after—stepping in Torchy’s footsteps. The dogs growl as I kneel. I go slow and make my way.
It looks like someone came with them or came after them, but whoever this was paused three times and looked back.
Suit shoes. Moolah shoes. White man shoes from a store in the south.
Who could it have been?
Crow’s mukluks stand in their rubbers in the porch, but I don’t see her jacket. No. It will be close to wherever she is. She has gone to bed. I hand Benny his money and he takes it, thumbs it. He already looks stronger. He hands me two one hundred dollar bills from the bills I hand him. He then points with his lips to the bowl and spoon waiting for me by the pot that smells so good.
“Eat. Tell me what you saw.”
“How much?” I ask.
He looks at me and acts more tired than he really is. “How much what?”
“How much are you being paid to find her?”
He looks at me and he’s the old Benny, focused, hungry. “Nothing. Did you see the gloves?”
I shake my head.
“Shit. Tell me what you saw.”
I take the money and grab my spoon and bowl. I move slow and think carefully of how I’ll answer. He’ll ask me three times to retell, retell, retell. That’s how he sees. I am his eyes again. I tell him everything before I sit down and eat, even about the scraping I felt. He listens and nods and tells me to eat when I’m done. That’s when I remember the one thing.
“What is it?” Benny asks.
“She said, ‘Happy Full Moon.’”
“So?”
“It isn’t.”
“What are you thinking?”
“Maybe that was code for ‘help me.’”
“I’ll tell the old woman in the morning.” He looks at his room. “Listen to me,” he says. “There are men in the world who are taking girls and shipping them far away, making them do things you never want to see. Lester’s what they call a gatekeeper to something called the Scream Factory. We’re going to stop him. We’re going to save that girl and then we’re going to find out who he works for.”
“But how?” I ask. “How do they get them?”
“They call them ‘Vampires.’ They’re handsome men, charming men. They ask these women out on dates and, of course, the lost ones say yes. The men show up and ask to use their bathrooms. Once they’re in, they’re in. They get down on all fours and sniff for hair, nail clippings, Kleenex where the girls have blown their noses. Once they have something of yours, they have you. After that, you’re in a spell. Soon you’re giving them your PIN numbers for your cards; you’re buying them a truck. You’re one of maybe twelve to twenty women they have under their spell, but it’s all leading the girls to something else.”
I feel a cold seep into me and I don’t like it. It’s like we’re talking about Hell, Creator. I don’t like this.
And I feel that thing again: that plan. Darkness. Over two thousand women now in the starving mouth of hell. It passes through me and I catch a glimpse of hooks, rusty and cutting harnesses that lock, women bending backwards until the purple meat inside them bursts.
I think of Lester. His auntie is Bodacious.
“What is it?” He watches me.
“Lester. His auntie…”
“I’m meeting with her in the morning.”
“Do you need me?”
He shakes his head. “Go see your mom. Tell her I said hi. Tell her I will take care of you… Tell her that we’re going to start hunting the men who are hunting the women of this country.”
I hang my head and nod. Did Crow tell him about how much time Mom has left?
And that’s when I see it: behind him. It wasn’t there before but it is now: a samurai sword in its sheath. It looks old, not the pretend kind that you can get from the head shop van that comes every summer to sell glass pipes and flags. It looks real, ancient.
“Where did you get that?” I ask.
He turns and winces. “Card game.”
“When was this?”
“You just missed it,” he smiled.
So that would explain the tracks in the snow. I want to ask if I can touch it but know that I can’t. Not now. Not until we’re done. It will be my reward to take it out and feel it.
“Things are going to happen—and I mean this with everything I know—as I get better,” he says. “After your mom and after me… when you are free of this town, I want you to go to BC. I want you to work for some friends of mine. They call themselves the Night Crawlers. They’re like you: superheroes. They’re cleaning up the bad guys. Work for them in my name and you make this world a better place. You get on in years… the deals we make as men… the deals we make with ourselves… the deals we make with God and the world… Jesus, listen to me… these guys are doing research on this network and it’s global. I’ve told them about you. They need a giant like you to do what you do best.”
“And that is?” I ask and sit up.
“You bring peace in your own way. I’ve had years to think about it. In the wind of your thoughts, when you think about it… all the scores we’ve done. They’ve made the town safer, haven’t they?”
I think about it. All those bad men. All that blood. All the times I hit trying to put the meat back in. “I hope so.”
“My boy,” he said. “There will be a day when I’m gone, when your mom is gone. On that day you will be free. Go to them. Help this world. Haunt it in my name. We both know what you are.”
I don’t want to understand this now. I feel something pass through me that I don’t see. I take the bowl of rabbit soup and bow my head to pray. I will eat what I have killed to touch you, Creator.
In the night, I hear Benny cry out but it’s not in pain. It’s release. And I have a flash of Crow floating upside down above Benny, her long hair unbraided, sweeping over him. Her mouth open with tusks. She has four hands. Like dragonfly wings. Two we can see. Two we can’t. The ones invisible reach inside him, pulling the poisoned meat out and placing a hornet’s nest inside of him.
What offerings does he bring her now?
At eleven am the next morning, we pull into Lester’s parking lot. Lester’s truck was in the back yard. We block any escape. I sit in the back of Benny’s. It starts to snow so gently and the flakes are so thick, I can light them on fire as they twirl their way down.
I step out of Benny’s truck and stand behind Torchy and Sfen. Torchy looks at Benny. “You know he belongs to Bodacious, right?”
Benny takes a deep breath and holds his side. “Yup.”
I wince. No matter what was agreed, this will be hard and cold, what happens next for all of us. I feel it.
Torchy spits beside him. “This is gonna cost us.”
“It always does,” Benny says and looks at the silver sun. It was always his favourite, he once told me. When I miss him most, I look at it for him. When he was a child, no matter what happened to him, he always had the silver sun in winter to give him hope. “We’ll pay up. I’ve already spoken to her.”
“What does she want?”
“We’re to fill her freezers three times with moose and caribou.”
“Wow,” Torchy said.
“We’ll do it.” He places his hand on Torchy’s shoulder, the same way he used to with me.
And that’s when I know: I am no longer his disciple. He is already distancing himself from me.
“How do you want this to go?” Sfen asked.
“Watch the front of his house in case he runs,” Benny says. Sfen nods and takes off in a flash. “Crow?”
Crow kneels, squints at the sky and draws her fingers through the snow. The way she holds her wrists out, it’s the way women walk towards something they’re about to skin and butcher. “I know what to do.”
Benny looks at me and squeezes my arm. To see Crow, Torchy and Sfen working with him fills him with strength. “Do you want answers first or do you want to free the girl?” he asks Crow.
“Free the girl.” She rises and speaks to the group. “He has to tell her what he did. He has to admit it.”
Crow looks at the house. “Get her out here.”
Lester’s porch light turns on as he opens the door and stops cold when he sees us standing and that he is blocked in. “Benny,” Lester said. “I was just coming to see you.”
“Shut up,” Benny said. “Get your skinny ass out here and bring the girl.”
Lester is about to say something when he sees Torchy and me. “Fuck you guys. I paid you back—”
“Get the girl,” Crow orders and Lester backs into the house.
“I fuckin’ dare you to run,” Torchy said.
Lester walks out of his house in his winter jacket and Kamiks. Behind him walks Crystal. She has on her fur coat and boots. I start flexing my hands. They start burning and I feel the scraping inside again.
“You sonofabitch,” Benny said. “She’s like a young Pearl.”
Lester bows his head. “I know.”
So this is why I thought I saw her before. She isn’t Lester’s daughter. She looks like his dead wife, but alive and younger.
Crystal turns in our direction but looks blind. “Mom?”
Crow turns to her and is quiet. She sniffs the air once.
It is Crow who walks towards Crystal. “My girl, come to me.”
Crystal turns to Lester. She turns away from the group.
“My girl,” Crow says. “Come.”
Crystal starts to tremble in her coat and she puts her head all the way down, as far as it can go. “No.”
“Lester,” Crow says. “Come to me and bring her with you.”
The colour drains from Lester’s face. He takes Crystal’s hand and walks down the stairs towards Crow. “Who fuckin’ told you?” He looks at me, scathing. “The freak?”
Crow reaches out her hand. “Send Crystal to me.”
“Fuck,” Lester says. “I’ll leave town. I’ll leave today. I promise I never meant to hurt anyone. Once I started it, I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t give her back. Those gloves,” he says.
“I want them,” Benny says.
“I burnt them,” Lester says.
“You didn’t,” Benny says, his mouth open with disbelief.
“It’s not the only way,” Crow says. “Send Crystal to me.”
Lester looks at Crystal and then he looks at all of us. He looks terrified. “Go to Crow, sweetie.”
Crystal turns into Lester and trembles. “I’m scared.”
“It’s okay, sweetie,” he says. “I give you permission.”
Crystal walks backwards towards Crow and stops. She starts to cry. “What’s happening?”
“You come now,” Crow says, pointing to Lester.
Lester does as he is told. With each step, Lester ages. He drags his boots through the snow like he is on a death march. Soon, he is within grabbing distance of Crow and Crystal.
“Tell Crystal to face you,” Crow says.
Lester looks at his feet. “Shit,” he says.
“Do it,” Crow says. “We’re setting this girl free today.”
Lester takes a big breath and starts to weep. “Ever since Pearl died,” he starts.
“Shut up,” Torchy snaps. “Do what Crow says.”
“Face her,” Crow says.
Lester’s eyes fill with tears. “I’m sorry.”
“Do it,” Crow says. “You tell her. Get her to face you and you tell her what you did. Admit it.”
Lester looks at the group and then at Crystal who is staring at her feet, shaking. “Crystal,” he says, “face me…please.”
She turns in the snow. How she moves is unnatural. It is slow motion. She looks at Lester with glassy eyes.
“Baby girl,” he says. “I’m sorry.”
“Tell her,” Crow commands.
Crystal stares at him blankly. The life has gone from her eyes.
“I’m sorry.” He swallows hard. “I used Indian medicine to get you.”
She looks up at him and blinks twice. “What?” she whispers.
Lester starts to cry. “What did you say?” Crystal asks again, this time louder.
“I used black medicine to get you,” Lester says.
“You did what?” Crystal asks.
“I did a bad thing,” Lester says.
“You did what!” Crystal’s voice breaks as she yells.
Lester starts to breathe through his nose. He begins to shake. “I lost my wife years ago and I been—”
“YOU DID WHAT?!” Crystal screams. She looks at the entire group and I watch her eyes change. They are hers again. Lester hisses when he sees this and Crystal is upon him. She digs her fingernails into his face and begins clawing and pulling. “You did what to me? You stole me? How could you? You know I have no one. You know I’m an orphan. Did you rape me? OH GOD! How could you? HOW COULD YOU?”
As she claws his face, Lester does not resist. He yells as she tears his face apart with each clawing. Blood begins to rain in spots all over Lester’s Kamiks and the snow. I look away as Crystal begins to wail. I want to plug my ears so I cannot hear the sorrow in her cries. “I’m sorry,” Lester keeps saying until his blood mixes with his spit. “I’m shorry.”
I feel like gagging when I realize Lester is swallowing his own blood. I close my eyes when I start to hear Lester choking and gagging.
“Jesus,” Sfen says. He must have come running when he heard the screaming.
“Enough,” Crow says. “It’s broken.”
“Take her to my house,” Benny says. “Torchy, Flinch, you stay.”
Crow nods to Sfen. “Let’s go.”
I cannot look at what is left of Lester’s face, but I catch a flash of meat hanging in a strip with an eye open.
“Get in the house, Lester,” Benny growls.
Torchy starts pulling on skin-tight leather gloves. Black ones. He smiles and looks at Benny. Benny nods. When things get bloody, he once told me, they get sticky.
How long have they been working together? I wonder. What don’t I know about them?
Benny holds my arm for support. “Get him in his house.”
Torchy does as he is told. He grabs Lester and starts pulling him into his own home. Lester starts howling.
“Think of your mom,” Benny looks at me. “We need those gloves.”
I look at him. His eyes are changing. No, I think. You need them. Just like Lester did but for something else. Something more.
“Those gloves could save me and your mom,” Benny says. I try to steer him around the blood slush from Lester’s face but he chooses to step directly on it. “Let’s find them.”
“And then?” I ask. I have to ask now. I have to know where I stand with him. This is part of one of his plans, something bigger than I can see right now.
Benny stops. “You and I are going to go through that entire house. In his basement we will find matchboxes in a shoebox filled with hair and nail clippings from every girl he’s ever stolen.”
My hands go numb. How does he know this?
“He’s the Keeper. Listen to me. Flinch, I need you to become the two-headed bear again. Call it. And we’re going to find those gloves.” I am so suddenly tired. All I want to do is sleep. It always starts this way when I call it—or it calls me.
My hands get numb and then the sirens start inside of me.
What did he used to call it when he was strong? His reign of blood.
“It’s okay,” Sfen says. “Wash the blood in the snow. Like this.”
I turn and see him crouch. Sfen washes his hands in the snow and holds them up. “See?”
Crystal stands crying. She then kneels and does the same. The snow is caked with blood. I see streams of blood running out of her own fingers. Crystal has snapped her own fingernails digging through Lester’s face.
The numbing travels through my legs.
“You’re safe now,” Sfen says. “You’re safe.”
Crystal begins to wail into her blood-slushed hands.
Benny walks back to his truck and slowly opens his door. He reaches behind his seats to pull the samurai sword in its sheath out. “Torchy,” Benny calls. “Whatever he’s used, it’s in the basement. Look for shoeboxes.”
I make my way into Lester’s. Torchy has already turned on the oven elements. The two big ones.
Lester is zip-clipped to a chair. “Are you sure you want this?” he whispers. “Get me out of here and I’ll save you.”
I must have left because I don’t remember if I did this or Torchy did.
I close my eyes and think. The way Crow marvelled at the girl, I know that she’s found her apprentice. But the orphan is not from here. Will her community even want her back? I look around and fill my nose with how fresh and clean the snow is before I start to make my way.
Torchy comes upstairs. “There’s a safe. I can’t crack it.”
Benny stands behind me. “Flinch?”
I nod. The bear is inside me now. Both heads. Looking.
I need to search for the signs.
I bow my head and listen. I listen with everything. The ringing starts behind my ears and behind me and moves to the front. I am vaguely aware that my hands are shaking and so are my legs. I’m vibrating across the floor.
“What the fuck?” I hear Lester say.
“That’s the thing,” Benny says. “That’s the whole thing. My boy is a god. I’ve seen him reach through walls and I’ve seen him reach through people. By the end of the day, Lester, he’s gonna reach through you.”
I open my underlids.
Benny is talking but it sounds like we are in a boat and he is underneath the water.
Show me, I pray, and a voice tells me to go downstairs slowly.
Come, a voice whispers.
The basement is empty, except for a room. In it is a computer next to a printer. Beside it is a shelf. On the walls are pictures. I only look once. Lester with girls. All of the girls Native. Everyone smiling.
Sure enough, there are shoeboxes in the wall.
I reach in and look.
There are balls of hair, soft hair, nail clippings, Kleenex where girls have blown their noses. Tampons.
I am hit with the smell of dead blood.
I close the lid. I close my eyes.
I still see a picture of a girl in a harness screaming.
I close my eyes and try not to remember this but it is already too late.
There are five other shoeboxes on the shelf.
I keep the one I looked into and walk up the stairs.
“How did you—” Lester asks. “How the fuck?”
“Shhh,” Benny says as I hand the box to him.
I’m weak. I lean against the wall and peek with one eye to see Benny looking in. “That’s my boy. That’s my miracle.”
Torchy and Lester look up at me like the full mystery that I am.
“What the fuck are you?” Lester asks.
I shake my head. The bear inside of my chest looks at him with four eyes.
I don’t even know anymore.
“So you’re making rape-dolls now, hey, Lester?” Benny says and stands to his full height. He hands the box to Torchy who has a look. Torchy closes his eyes and puts the box down like it is haunted.
It hits me that Benny is not sick. He is not sick at all. He is just biding his time. The way he takes his breath now, he fills his whole chest like a grizzly standing tall. Benny’s home. Just like last time. Benny didn’t used to call it his “Reign of blood.” He used to call it his “Rodeo of Blood.” He is home now, and there is no stopping anything anymore unless it is what he wanted. He nods to Torchy who produces four long, thin knives which he places in the glowing elements.
“So this is my sword,” he says. “I’ve been up all night researching it. It’s an emperor’s sword, designed to cut through three men tied up together. It’s been tested.”
He draws it cleanly, been practising. “Let me tell you what’s going to happen next,” Benny says to Lester. “I’m going to ask you three times the same question. You’ll lie. Everyone lies the first two times. And I’m going to let you.”
“Everybody lies, boss,” Torchy smiles.
“But it’s the third time I ask that’s important.”
“Mmm hmm,” Torchy nods. A muscle in his face jumps, he is getting so excited.
“Because if you lie to me the third time, we turn Flinch on you. My boy. My attack dog. Oh the things he can do.”
“My my,” Torchy purrs.
“The last time someone lied, they got—what—thirty staples in their throat, chest and forehead?”
I look away and wince at the memory of the last time I unleashed myself: I tore that man’s face into a starburst.
“I’m connected,” Lester says, with a low growl, like a lynx in a leg hold.
“Once upon a time you was,” Torchy grins. “Your Auntie Bodacious has given us until nightfall to make you talk.”
And that is when Lester knows that he is all alone in the world. All alone with us in a room with the stove elements popping, four thin knives that can bore and burn their ways into anyplace, and a samurai sword. He hangs his head and starts to sob.
“Where is the place they call The Farm?” Benny asks as he unsheathes his sword. “Who are the men working together to create Blood Mares? We know this is international and it’s connected to snuff and child pornography rings. We know law enforcement is probably involved—”
Lester starts rocking his chair. “No! No! No! Don’t make me tell you. Don’t. They’ll know. They know now.”
I freeze.
“They know we’re talking about them. They have eyes everywhere.”
“Bullshit,” Benny says.
“Look,” Lester says and points with his lips to the shelf. On top of it is a scrap of fabric tacked to a piece of wood. It is the eyes of a wolf that might have been on someone’s T-shirt once. “They’re watching right now.”
“They’re watching right now?” Torchy says. He gives the eyes the finger.
Lester starts to mumble and whisper something. Is he praying?
“Let them watch,” Benny says. “Let them see the sinnery of what we’re about to do to you.”
It is going to be like last time. Benny asked me to tape mattresses and pillows over the windows to block the sound. I bet he and Torchy have cartons of smokes in the truck. I catch myself wincing because if this is so, then this night is just beginning. We can last for days and days, stopping only to shower and eat and plan more pain, more punishment.
“Flinch?” Benny calls.
I start to unfold. It starts like this and it’s like a dogfight when I roar and hit and rip and snap, but I stop. Benny’s eyes. He’s scared. This is bigger than any of our “violence cures violence” campaigns.
Lester looks at all of us. “May your worst enemies raise your sons. And may your sons know the truth about all of you.”
I look at Lester and feel nothing. His heart could stop halfway through my first hammer. Maybe before I even hit.
“Okay,” Benny says calmly. “I’ll ask again…”
I am so suddenly tired. I’m about to let go and Become when I see the time: four pm.
This is when the shift change at the hospital happens. New staff. Supper in an hour.
Mom will be wondering where I am.
I hear a voice: “Make your life holy and useful,” my mom said to me this morning. “Make good choices.”
She smiles. It has been weeks since she smiled.
Oh, Momma. I’m so ashamed of what these hands have done.
“Flinch?” Benny looks at me.
I look at Lester who is now looking down. I bet that to him his whole life feels like dragmarks now. He’ll break quick and tell them everything.
And because of what we have opened, maybe everything for all of us now would be dragmarks.
I don’t want this. I know this now.
I don’t want to know any more about a place they call The Farm where they make Blood Mares. What if my size and what I am—I know I am a man of grace meant to hunt men of stone, but what about the angels Snowbird told me about? What are they waiting for?
I want my parents to be proud of me—from either side.
I want to be with my mom.
I want to hold her hand while she dreams of my dad.
“I don’t belong here,” I say.
“Told ya’,” Torchy says. “I told you Radar would fold.”
I close Lester’s door and walk past Crow.
I want my life to be holy and useful.
Momma, hold on.