DEAD MAN’S CURVE

The first thing we did was dig up the dead coyote. In the deep freeze of winter, the only earth that moves is earth that’s been moved before. So when you need to move a pile of dirt, it’s going to be one on top of a coyote. They’re the only road kill that gets buried. Anything smaller dries up or gets scavenged in a day, and anything bigger—you take it home and eat off it awhile.

And they’re always jumping in front of cars.

The thing hadn’t been buried deep, but it would have to do. It stuck to the frozen hole and came away in pieces, brittle bones punching through parchment skin and fur dust. We crumbled it into a cluster of sagebrush and set it all on fire. Gave it a quick salute. Just in case.

We rolled the limp driver into the second-hand hole. Had to fold him up a bit—knees up by his ears—but he just fit, and we covered him with crumbling, frozen slag, more rock than dirt.

“Well,” Ed said, rubbing at the spot where his prosthetic chafed his thigh, “’bout all we can do ’bout that.”

“Did you check his cards?” I tossed the spade into the back of our squad patrol truck, burying it in a layer of empty cans.

Ed quit rubbing his leg and pulled a ratty Tyvek wallet from his pocket. He cupped a hand over the radio mic on his shoulder, rubbed his thumb over the switch to make sure it was off.

“Benjamin Macey. 34. Iowa. No picture of kids or nothing. No one will miss him.”

“How far you think we are from the last one?” I asked.

“Not five miles,” he said.

I spat in the dust. It froze to the stones. I dragged the heavy-gauge chain from behind the truck cab and hitched it to the back. The metal stung my hands.

The car was beaten in on the driver’s side, broken and twisted. Dry pieces of prairie grass stuck in every seam.

“Taking this one to the usual place?” Ed asked.

“Same as the others.”

Ed limped over and helped ratchet the chain around the twisted axle. The POS rattled like a bone cage as we dragged it up the side of the bluff, whipping it around the switchbacks to Dead Man’s Curve. We disengaged the chain and gave the car a good shove. It knocked itself to pieces all the way down the mountain, spraying bits of metal off into the trees. It flipped at the bottom and landed in the front seat of the red minivan from last month—we dug up a lot of old holes that day. Big holes and little holes. No one left to miss them.

At least a dozen vehicles cluttered the gorge, the mountainside glittering with their leavings. Ed and me, we put every one of them there. Got to put them somewhere. Can’t leave the prairie ditches lined with old metal, with hood-ornament headstones, with evidence. At least people drive these switchbacks a little slower these days. All those steel carcasses, better than a posted sign. But it’s not the switchbacks they should be worried about.

Ed nudged me. A trail of dust rose behind a vehicle along the road out on the open plain below. The dust cloud churned with a tangle of black birds—crows, oil-slick rainbow feathers flashing through the dirt like a back-alley burlesque.

“Was a pretty shallow hole this time,” Ed said.

We watched as the speck—that old Winnebago—slowed past the site of the accident. The cloud of crows dropped, clawing at the loose dirt over Benjamin Macy 34 Iowa.

The speck peeled out, spraying dust over the inky pack. It tore off across the plain and disappeared behind a bluff.

“Was him, all right.”

I slapped the binoculars from Ed’s hands. They jerked on the end of the nylon cord around his neck. “Course it fuckin’ was.”

The crows raised their own cloud of dust. Single birds lifted, having had their fill of Mr. Macey, and trailed off around the bluff where the old Winnebago had vanished. Back on his tail.

“Better radio in another abandoned wreck at Dead Man’s Curve,” I said. “Where’d you get that?”

“It was in his glove box.” Ed spun the barrel of a large revolver.

“Well, be careful, or you’ll blow off another foot, or worse.”

“Be fair, Cap, that weren’t an accident.” He slid the cylinder open and counted bullets.

“There’s no anti-venom in lead, Ed.”

“Worked, though. Blew that rattler and his venom into the next county.” He spat and thrust the barrel though his belt. “We gonna chase him?”

I shook my head. “Waste of time.”

“You could let me drive. Should be able to catch a ratty old camper.”

“You saying I can’t drive?”

“No. I’m saying you always drive and we never caught him.”

“And we’re never going to catch him—not chasing after. Just like them damn birds never have.”

“He has to stop sometime.” Ed rubbed his leg.

“Closest I’ve seen him to stopped is when he slows to shake those birds off onto his kills. He’s trying to outrun them. Hoping the fresh kill will give him time to get away. Scavenge or be scavenged.” I climbed into the driver’s seat.

“So you’re saying what?”

“We have to wait for him out front of where we know he’s going to be.”

“He’s all over these roads. How we going to know where he’s going to be next?”

“Well, idiot, he’ll be wherever the next body is buried.”

***

Problem was, the next body run off the road by the mad Winnebago was buried in a fluffy pile of airbags, powdered like a baby’s bottom—and crying like a baby, too, when we pulled him from his mangled Prius.

“What do we do now?” Ed asked, fingering the revolver in his belt.

“Shut up, Ed. Sir, if you can walk all right, I’m going to need your license and registration.”

The heaving man hauled himself upright and stumbled back to his car, the back of his tweed trousers clinging, dark and wet.

“Think the birds will eat him anyway?” Ed stood on his good toes, whispering in my ear.

“No, Ed, I don’t.”

The powdered man returned with his papers. Ed paced around the wreck while I read over his stats. “Portland? You a hippie?”

The man raised his hand to his head. “No—other Portland—other coast. Lobsters, not whales.”

“Wales? Ain’t that another country?”

“I said shuttup, Ed!”

Ed fished through the cans in the back of the truck and pulled out the shovel.

The lobster man raised his eyebrows. A goose egg had started swelling above his eye.

“Looks like you hit your head pretty hard, Mr. . . . Brooke.”

He prodded his forehead with his fingertips, swaying on his feet.

“You’re not drunk, are you, Mr. Brooke?”

“No! I’m not. I’m just on my way to look at a house in Arizona. I never even saw him till he was right on top of me.”

“You get a look at the driver?”

“No. He was moving too fast. I was watching the road.”

“Did he have a pack of birds after him?” Ed leaned on the shovel, stirring up a pile of loose rock.

“Birds?” Mr. Brooke looked to me, touching his head again like maybe he’d hit it harder than he thought.

“That’s deep enough, Ed.”

“No it ain’t.”

“The chain, Ed.”

Ed threw the shovel like a javelin and it crashed into the bed of cans.

Mr. Brooke jumped a foot in the air, shaking. He folded his knees and sat right down in the road.

“He’s not going to slow down if he’s got nothing to shake those birds off onto.” Ed rubbed his leg like he was trying to start a fire. “You got kids, Mr. Brooke? Family?”

Mr. Brooke shook his head.

Ed put a hole in it.

***

“He ain’t even buried, really.” Ed kicked dirt over the shallow hole, trying to cover up the soiled seat of Mr. Brooke’s tweed trousers.

“I don’t think the birds care much, Ed.” I threw dirt over Mr. Brooke, aiming for Ed’s boots. “Shouldn’t have shot him. You’re taking this too far.”

“And you don’t never take things far enough. No one’s coming looking for this one. He’s a lone wolf—coyote. Roadkill. No one will miss him.”

“The birds might have come anyway—might have been good to see if they did or not. Might have been useful information.”

“You said you thought they wouldn’t.”

“Do I look like a goddamn expert on man-eating birds?”

“Yeah, you kinda goddamn do!” Ed kicked a clod of frozen dirt with his bum leg, sending it scattering across the road. “And I don’t reckon he’d thank us if them birds ate him alive.”

“Hurry. Get in the truck and haul that wreck away.”

“How come you’re the one gets to stay?”

“You can’t catch a moving car on one leg, Ed.”

“I’m not going to catch him. I’m going to shoot him.”

“You’ve done enough of that for one day, now get up to the Curve.”

“You’re welcome, Cap,” Ed said. He ripped the shovel from my hands and tossed it in the truck again.

He sped off toward the bluff, the battered Prius rattling behind, trailing road dust and airbag powder.

I climbed into a pile of sage in the ditch, opposite the shallow grave. The ground froze my ass, but the sun heated my head under my hat. Sweat ran down my neck and froze in my collar.

A patch of sky grew dark—the rising cloud of dust kicked up behind the tires of the Winnebago, flashing with black crows. The engine grew louder. I pulled my stiff legs under me.

I heard tires grind on the dirt road. The racket of birds made my ears ring so I almost couldn’t hear the Winnebago slow. But I saw the birds drop, heard them scream, clawing at the ground. When they tore into Mr. Brooke, I smelled his blood and the contents of his bowels.

I sprang from the sagebrush onto the road, swatting at dark feathers, coughing on dust. The single glowing eye of the Winnebago’s only taillight guided me through the dirt cloud. Wind blew like a cyclone.

I ran, reached, and grasped the handle of the narrow back door and pulled myself onto its flimsy doorstep.

The door bent when I pulled, but clung to the frame at the latch. I yanked my baton from its holster and beat at the cheap aluminum lock.

He noticed me then, or seemed to, because the camper began to sway and swerve. I clung to the back of it like a bride in the bitch seat and braced my feet against the metal bars of its tilted stairs. Finally the door opened enough so I could fit both hands inside and work at the latch. Its metal folded, and it swung open.

I hung out to the side, peering in around the edge. My view was a dark tunnel, odd shapes black against the sun pouring through the windshield.

Behind me, crows blanketed the ground, swarming over the late, unlucky Mr. Brooke.

I dragged myself into the dark Winnebago.

The camper rocked like a station wagon at lovers’ lane, shaking on its axles as it tore across the road. The air inside clung hot and close with that strong smell of parchment and fur dust that clings to my hands now, always.

To my left, a mattress lay mostly rotted, eaten away by a dark stain. A film of filth coated the shelves and counters, all a uniform dingy grey.

Up front, in a tattered seat, the driver pulled at the wheel, swinging it around and tossing me over, dumping me into the reeking bed, then crashing me through a particle-board tabletop.

I steadied myself as I climbed toward the back of his stringy salt-and-pepper head. He never turned to me. His mirrors were all dark, like the crows had filled them—stopped them up with their bead eyes.

I reached for him. My fingertips brushed the back of his head and dry, greasy chunks of hair peeled away, uncovering a scalp as grey and spotted as a fossil.

The Winnebago tipped up on two tires as it swung around a sharp curve in the road. It shuddered as the tires skidded against the dirt.

I fell against the back of the driver’s seat, wrapping my arm around the driver’s bony chest. His arms jerked. The wheel spun. The camper left the road with a jolt that threw us both to the floor, tangled in each other’s raking fingers. We rolled toward the front of the cab as the Winnebago thundered down an embankment.

His rags tore like paper. His skin came away in my hands. He smelled like dry mold and feathers.

The front of the camper caved in with a roar and a rain of powdered glass and splintered metal.

***

A tumbleweed rolled across my face, snagging in my beard. Light drove like a spike through my head as I peeled my eyes open.

The Winnebago sat wedged between two aspen trees. Bits of pale, rusty paint peeked out from under layers of dust and dead leaves. Dry, dead stalks of milkweed hung from the wheel wells. Bindweed wrapped it, tying it to the copse of aspens. It had grown up though the holes in the rusted hood and coiled around itself, then frozen dry.

I patted myself down. A lump on the head and a few bruises. Probably a cracked rib or two. I cursed my way to my feet and walked over to the wreck.

Old, burnt flecks of metal curled away from its sides. They were cold to the touch. I walked the length up to the driver’s window, crushing frozen weeds under my boots.

A stone-colored pile of bones sat slumped in the seat, wrapped in rags, its forehead resting against the crooked steering column. The salt and pepper hair hung in loose patches: the same hair I still gripped, wrapped around my knuckles, tangled in the same bits of rag.

“Captain!”

I hollered, nearly wet myself. I flicked my radio on. “The fuck, Ed?”

“The hell have you been? I’ve been driving all over the county.”

“We went off the road. Guess I was out a while. Years, by the look of it.” I poked at a loose plate of bone on the skull, and it fell away into the cavity.

“You get him?”

“Yeah, he’s dead.” I released my finger from the mic button. “Too dead,” I whispered.

“Where are you, I’ll come get you.”

“I think we’re off behind Rodger’s Bluff. In a group of aspens just past the bend.”

“Be there in ten.”

***

“Did you check his cards?”

I shook my head. Felt the pressure of the blood pulse in the bruises on my forehead.

Ed reached into the cab. The skull wavered on its spine, jaw swinging, as Ed dug around the body. He pulled his hand back wrapped around a stained leather square.

“Nathan Jones,” he read, “43. Nebraska.”

“Kids?”

“Yeah. Three, looks like. Older boy, two girls.”

“Somebody out there missing him.” I tugged at the back door of the camper. It fell away from its hinges, but the weeds held it in place. “Somebody’s out there looking.”

“This can’t be the same camper, Cap. This one ain’t running, let alone running folks off the road. My guess is he ran this guy off years ago, and we just never found ‘em.”

I gave up on the back door and walked around to the front. “It is him, though—that’s him.” There was nothing left of the passenger side windshield. Bits of red cloth hung in ribbons from the edges of broken glass. “This is the same camper—I know it.”

“It ain’t in two places at once, Cap.”

I pulled a piece of shredded cloth from the glass and felt the tightness in my chest wring those cracked ribs. “This here is a man divided from himself, Ed. He’s everywhere at once.”

“Let’s get back on the road,” Ed said, slipping the wallet into his pocket. “I’m driving, this time—least till we get your head looked at.” He slid behind the wheel, propping his peg leg against the gearshift.

We headed back around Rodger’s Bluff, out onto the open plain.

“Surprised we never got a call in on that old camper, ‘specially for a family man,” Ed said. “All those kids, missing their dad.”

A family man. Thinking hurt. “How are your kids, Ed?”

Ed glanced at me, eyebrows raised. “Oh, fine. Andy—he can shoot a hole clear through a quarter at a hundred yards. Ben’s so good with the horses he could talk one off a cliff, all sweet-like. May’s got her first boyfriend—nice kid . . . You should get you some, Cap.”

“Some what?”

“Kids. Family. Someone to miss you when you’re gone.”

I nodded, but it made my head spin. My vision grew cloudy. “I think I may have hit myself harder than I thought, Ed. Having trouble seeing.”

“Aw shit!” Ed shouted, laying his foot on the gas.

“Jesus, Ed, it’s fine.”

“No, it’s not—it’s him and his damn dust cloud.”

I spun in my seat and my head kept spinning, but I pinned my eyes down on the mangled front grill of the Winnebago. It sped up behind us, pouring dust into the sky. The glass of the windshield was dark, but I caught a flash of that salt-and-pepper behind the dash.

Ed gripped the wheel, tires sliding in the dirt. The Winnebago loomed large to the left. It felt like the very road itself tipped and dumped us onto our roof, rolling across the prairie. The siren lights shattered. The roof folded in. The shocks shook us like an angry rattlesnake as we landed back on the wheels.

I rested my forehead on the dashboard, waiting for the world to stop spinning. I heard Ed, then, panting like a thirsty coyote. Heard him grunt. There was a whine building in him that set my teeth on edge.

I opened my eyes as much as I dared—saw Ed heaving his shoulder against the caved-in driver’s door. It crushed in on him like a tin can, pinning his good leg down to the seat. It didn’t look so good anymore. He pounded at the door.

“Hold on, Ed, I’ll get the saw from the back.”

“Them damn birds are coming!” He clawed at the edge of the window, his nails folding back.

“Just a minute, buddy, I got you.” I fumbled at my door handle.

“Hurry, they’re coming!” His eyes rolled from me to the mirror.

“I don’t think they’d eat you, Ed—though thanks to you, I can’t be sure.” I staggered out of the truck and leaned on it, sliding along to the tool chest in the back. The Winnebago’s dust trail faded off down the road.

“I can’t move my leg!” Ed flailed in the cab, shaking the truck. His voice sounded tattered, like the screams holding there had ripped his throat.

I pulled the chest open and popped the latch on the saw case. I snapped the blade in place.

A gunshot burst inside the car, then three more. What was left of the windows crumbled.

“Ed!” I slammed the tool chest closed and ran to his door.

His fists pressed against his ears, his right hand wrapped around the revolver.

“Ed, what are you doing?” I started dragging the saw across the doorframe.

“Worked last time.” He slumped over in his seat, across the console.

“Ed?” I leaned on the saw.

Ed reached an arm over to the passenger door handle and heaved himself away from his seat, trailing blood and stretching sinew, skin, and muscle over the console and into the passenger seat.

I wrenched the door from the frame and tossed it into the ditch.

“You’ll have to drive now. We can leave that for the crows.” He pointed at his leg, still tied to his thigh with ropes of tendon and stringy cords of massacred muscle. Blood filled the bucket of the seat beneath him. His hand dropped into his lap. His eyes went limp in his grey face.

“Oh, fuck, Ed,” I said, pounding the roof of the car. “That shit never works twice.”

I tossed the saw back in the tool chest and pulled out the shovel. The cold wind turned the wet on my cheeks into a shell.

I paced up and down the road, sucking down breaths of frozen dust till I found a coyote grave. I opened it—a deep one. I wrapped Ed around what had been his good leg, right alongside the coyote. Gave them both a salute—just in case. I put the carbon steel leg in the tool chest. “They’re going to miss you, Ed. I’m going to miss you.”

Two of the tires had gone low, but the truck still drove, and I raced it back to the old Winnebago as fast as I dared go on the dirt, the dust from the dragging tires kicking up into my face through the hole where a door should be.

I backed across the field and hitched the chain to the back of the rusty wreck and dragged it from the trees. Door panels popped off into the tall grass as the camper scraped free. The skeleton shook apart as I pulled it up the embankment back to the road.

A spot of bright red shone in the dead patch of grass where the camper had rotted.

I climbed from the open driver’s seat and walked over.

Another body, dark hair, splayed, in a shredded red shirt and jeans. Just a kid. The driver’s boy. His skin had shrunk against his bones, smooth, untouched by crow or coyote. That old camper had shielded him—saved him from scavengers. Maybe that’s why the old man was always leading them away, drawing them elsewhere. Feeding them other things. Things no one would miss.

I wrapped him in the thermal blanket from the emergency kit and set him inside the Winnebago, back in the passenger seat, where he belonged.

The old camper tires had long ago rotted dry, but I dragged it down the road, plowing a furrow through the street.

I stacked their bones in the coyote grave with Ed. I covered them over with the dust I’d carved from the road. I piled dry sage bushes over the mound and set them on fire.

I dragged that empty camper right up the side of the bluff, yanking it around the switchbacks, and I dropped the thing over Dead Man’s Curve. It was a thousand dusty pieces before it ever hit the bottom, scattering itself over the cars it had chased down.

I dangled my legs over the edge and watched through Ed’s binoculars at the line of dust already cutting through the plain, its hungry little stowaways flashing their feathers.

A billow of dust rose as the speck—that same old Winnebago—stopped with a jerk at the grave. It idled. The dust settled around it. Crows circled above, their screams carrying up the side of the mountain.

They dropped, then, and fell on the camper. The screech of metal and the shriek of birds echoed off the surrounding bluffs till it sounded like the earth itself had torn open and hell was pouring through.

As the sounds faded, the dust settled, the air cleared, not a bird in the sky. Not a car on the road. No sign of the Winnebago. Just a rising column of sage smoke.

I stood, pulled Ed’s leg from the truck, and pressed the foot against the rear bumper, leaning on it, adding a leg of my own, shoved the truck over the edge. It rattled over, down, and settled in the scrap bowl.

I hitched Ed’s leg over my shoulder and hiked down the road, around the switchbacks, and stared out across the prairie. In the winter, everything looks dead. Everything snaps, if you bend it. Everything scavenges, and nothing worth missing is left behind.