Black Water (3 page)

“Awright! Awright,” she squeaked through dry, parched lips. She’d figured where he was going even before he did. “It’s over, you win, I give up. I’m done. I’m broke, finished. I ain’t no match fer yer manliness.” Crocodile tears rolled down her pale, dirty little cheeks and dripped onto the bloodstained mattress. She looked over her shoulder at him. “I’ve learnt who’s boss. Please don’t hurt me no more. I honest t’ God believe yer tearin’ me apart inside. Please, Mista, you’re scarin’ me s’ bad I almost can’t stand it. You’re ‘bout more man than I can take and I promise if ya cut me loose, feed, and take care a me, I swear a solemn promise t’ God ‘n all th’angels in Heaven I’ll stay with ya’s long as ya live.”

He flipped her on her back. The cot was only inches from the floor so he spread her legs, snugged up close, put his elbows alongside her hips on the mattress, and leaned over, his face three inches from hers. “D’ya mean it?” he blubbered. At least, that’s what she thought he’d asked. His hot breath was as foul as his face, and she was scared shitless he was gonna try to kiss her on the mouth.

She couldn’t nod her head fast enough. “Yeah, I promise.”

“If ya really mean it, you ‘n me’ll get married.”

It was hard to understand a lot of what he said but she got the gist of it. She just looked at him, unsure of what to do. She had it in her mind that what he’d been doing to her for five days and nights was what married people did, so what was he talkin’ about?

“Awright.”

Mule was beside hisself with joy. The courtin’ was over and he was gonna have a wife!

“Whada we do?” she asked.

“Make promises, I think,” he said, earnestly.

“I awready done that. I said I’d stay with ya’s long’s ya live.”

His face contorted with what she assumed was a smile. “Yeah…I guess ya’ did! Whadaya want me t’ promise?” He was so excited he looked like an ugly, two-hundred-and-ninety-four pound four-year-old. But a lot dumber.

“Bein’ married t’you’s more’n enough fer me,” she lied. It was hardly a way to start a healthy, trusting relationship.

His little bug brain, softened by victory and half a bottle of hearty alcoholic beverage, convinced him she was telling the truth, and gigglin’ like a fool, unlocked the chain clamped around her neck but stood between her and the door just in case she changed her mind and bolted.

As of that moment, they were Mr. and Mrs. Mule.

Later that evening, during his second honeymoon poke and with him tanked up with enough inebriant to pickle an adult mastodon, Smoke whuffed out a lungful when he blacked out on top of her. Seeing her chance, she wraggled her top half out from under him, and by bracing her bony little shoulders agin the wall, shoved her new husband’s fat, drunk ass off the cot, thudding to the floor on his back. She stopped breathing when he started waving his arms around and raised one leg like he was trying to get up. Then he farted and passed out again. She took a second to catch her breath, and that’s when she noticed the big knife stuck in the table. Everthing else in the shack disappeared. It was all she saw. If it’d had arms and a mouth, it woulda been wavin’ and hollerin’ at her.

She stood up quick and fighting off a dizzy spell from lack of food, stepped to the woodpile stacked up next to the rough rock fireplace and picked up a hunk about a foot and a half long. She didn’t wanna take any chance he’d come to, so she got down on her knees, cocked the wood to the right with both hands, like she was about to swing an axe, and let her go, hard, alongside his right temple. Both his arms shot up, but then fell back. The only sign of life was a little trickle of blood from the gash in the side of his head and a blubbery, snottery noise comin’ out of his face.

Jumping to it before he could come around, she sat on the floor, braced her back against the edge of the cot, rolled him over on his belly, jumped up, and waggled the knife out of the tabletop. Then she picked up the hunk of wood she’d just conked him out with and laid it on the floor beside his head. She scooted around to the top of his head, sat back on her heels, jammed her knees up against the top of his shoulders, and pinched his head between her legs with his flattened face to the floor. Then she got a good grip on the knife handle and put the rusty blade’s pointy end on the neck bone where it fastened to the head bone. She picked up the firewood, gave the knife handle a good whack and then spider-monkeyed off a few feet, ready to bolt for the door just in case he come up bellerin’ and hollerin’.

But he didn’t.

By Jiggies! That did the trick! His gelatinous bulk had only given one quivery little shudder. She jumped back over, picked up the stick and whacked the knife again so hard that the handle was the only thing sproutin’ out the back of his head. In fact, she’d hit it so hard, the pointy end was stickin’ out the front of his throat just under his chin. There was even a nick in the wood floor. She stayed right there with both her hands wrapped around that hunk of wood, all cocked and ready to go. She didn’t trust the son of a bitch. He had to be playin’ possum.

But he wasn’t.

She couldn’t believe it had been that easy. She waited for him to jump up and come to kill his new bride who had just pounded a rusty knife through his neck bone.

But he didn’t.

And she was some little disappointed. Not that he wasn’t coming at her, but she’d expected, or maybe even hoped, he’d suffer a whole bunch on his way out.

No such luck.

She moved to his right side, braced her feet, one on the back of his head, the other between his meaty shoulders, and pulled out the knife. Then she turned his head over and jabbed the blade in the hole in the middle of his face where his nose oughta been and wiggled it around like a banger in a bell. Nothin’. Not a dang thing! Shit! Dead as a turd. Oh, well.

But even Mule would have to agree, she was good to her solemn promise to God and all the angels in Heaven—she’d stayed with him the rest of his life.

Being that Mule was damned near three hundred pounds, Smoke knew she wasn’t gonna be able to drag his deadweight carcass out of the shack by herself, and she wasn’t about to leave it in the middle o’ the floor, swellin’ up, stinkin’, and drawin’ flies. Scrabbling around a shed out back, she come on a dull, rusty old hatchet with a cracked handle, and along with it and the knife, put ‘em to good use, slicin’ and hackin’ him down to manageable, draggable chunks.

Four sweat-drenching hours after Mr. Mule’s last foul breath, the recently widowed Mrs. Mule was settin’ at the table, blood-spattered and tuckered out, smackin’ her mouth, runnin’ her tongue over her greasy lips, puttin’ the finishing touches on what little Mule had left of the possum stew, a raw patata, and a plate of red beans, soppin’ up the juice with a moldy biscuit. Seventy-five yards from the shack, a hundred-year-old, hundred-and-fifty-pound mossy-back was pulling meat off what used to be Mule’s big butt. The turtle didn’t seem to mind at all that his dinner didn’t have a nose. Meat was meat was meat.

Smoke assumed that by being Mrs. Mule, she’d earned widder’s rights and took up residence in the shack. What with a roof that didn’t leak too bad over her head and no tellin’ how much worth of Mule’s ex-girlfriends gruntin’ out in the yard, she was living in high cotton.

The next few weeks slowly oozed one to another and Smoke was getting soft, eatin’ regular and sleepin’ under a roof. Until one morning it occurred to her that somethin’ was wrong. Bad wrong. Having more pressing matters of late, it’d completely slipped her mind. When it did hit her, she sucked up like she’d been doused with a bucket of cold water. Shortly after waking in the mornings, she was gettin’ sick, ever day as punctual as the sun’s rising. Then later she just couldn’t get enough to eat. The little mole-heads Mule had tried to pull off her chest and make into titties were finally puffing up, sensitive and sore, deep inside. She ran her hands low over her belly and felt the slight bulge. She used to be able to suck in her guts to where it looked like she didn’t have any. Rib bones and nothin’ under ’em. Not now. Just when she thought she was shed of that noseless bastard.

It was
his
! Had to be! Wasn’t nobody else. He was the only one she’d ever been done to by. She pictured her guts churnin’, twistin’ around like a dyin’ snake, forming into somethin’. She felt its sharp-clawed little fingers grippin’ on her ribs like it was climbin’ a ladder. She shoved hard on her belly attempting to push it out like a stubborn turd. She stepped out the door and squatted and pushed so hard her face turned a purply red. She climbed trees as high as she thought she could jump out of without breakin’ a leg, hoping maybe she could joggle it loose, like hockin’ up a loogie. All that got her was blistery feet from climbin’ the trees and sore ankles from hittin’ the ground. Finally, too sore and too tired to climb another tree, she hobbled back to the shack, plopped down on the cot, and bawled her eyes out.

The weeks, and then months, following Mule’s sudden departure were hard on Smoke as her pregnancy progressed, but she was unaware of the drastic changes in herself, psychologically. Before Mule, she’d made her own way—mostly stealing and gulling the easily manipulated men who paid for her favors, and adding turtles, mud bugs, and fish to her plate when she could catch ’em—but it was different now. Before, she’d kill somethin’ without a thought ‘cause it was food, ‘cause that’s what they’s for; she neither liked nor disliked it, it was just the way of things. Now, she made the poor creatures suffer first. It started with the hogs, chasin ’em down and hackin’ their noses off before they’s even dead with that short-handled hatchet she’d hacked Mule up with, but she’d run out of them for some time now. When they were gone, she went back to her old staple of turtles, mud bugs, and the occasional possum. There were instances now, when hungry or not, she caught somethin’ and tortured it, slow, just to hear it squeal and thrash in pain, strugglin’, wide-eyed while it died. Smaller critters, croakers and water dogs, she squeezed to death, popped ’em with her bare hands, and then just threw ’em away.

Smoke killed for hate. She survived for hate. She lived for hate and revenge. Little by little, her sanity dissipated and evaporated like the early morning mist. Late at night, she struck at her protruding belly in frustration. She’d slap it, picturing the baby asleep and jumpin’ up awake, then she’d listen real careful to see if she could hear it crying. She was frightened because there was times she thought she heard it, not crying, but talking. She’d smack her belly and hiss, “Shut up! Shut up!”

When she couldn’t get it to shut up (some nights it talked ‘til the sun come up), she’d threaten to cut it out if it didn’t let her sleep. She hoped the thing couldn’t read her mind ‘cause it was a bluff. Then she started talkin’ back to it; lay on the cot with her dress pulled up, her thumb and pointin’ finger pinchin’ the knife handle, and she’d casually drag the rusty blade, the one that’d done in Mule, over her belly and whisper babytalk. Coo to it that when its time come, she was gonna stick it with that very same knife before it took a second breath; that she was gonna feed it to the gators and snappers the same as she did with its hog-fuckin’, hole-in-his-face-where-a-nose-oughta-been father. That way its death would be a good thing, serve a righteous purpose. The gators and bottomfeeders would eat the demon baby, and then she’d eat them. The cycle of life. Survival of the fittest. Survival of the craziest.

One night, when fearful bad lightnin’ jiggered across the stormy sky and boulder-crackin’ thunder threatened to level the shack, the unwanted thing growin’ inside her made its intentions known. The thought of pounding out the hog fucker’s spawn all alone scared her bad, and so, reluctantly, with a burlap carryin’ bag over one shoulder, she left the shack. She was gonna go to a Seminole midwife she’d heard of that lived off about three miles to the southeast. She’d get her to help pull the thing out, and then, when the midwife was busy doin’ somethin’ else, Smoke would stick the knife in the piglet’s heart, twist it and turn it and listen to it squeal.

skweeeeee skweeeeee skweeeeee

She knew the midwife probably wouldn’t like that, but after she explained how the thing had been started by a hog-fuckin’ bastard that didn’t have a nose, she’d understand. But, understand or not, the piglet would be dead.

It started raining shortly after she left, thunder and lightning, gettin’ worse ever step she took. A hundred feet from the door, she was soaked to the bone. Her water broke with the first hard contraction, and she felt warm bloody ooze sliding down her skinny legs, staining the mud.

She’d always been able to get away from things that tried to pen her in, even if, as in the hog fucker’s case, it took a week and a stretch of the truth. This was different. There wasn’t any gettin’ out o’ this mess. Mule’s pecker was the biggest she’d ever seen and jammin’ it in her little hole hurt like Hell, but that goddamn thing wasn’t anywhere near as big as what was about to push its way out. She’d seen horses and cows and hogs and cats and dogs birthin’, how bad they’d suffered doin’ it, squealin’, bleetin’, and bleedin’, and for the first time in her life she was terrified. Even gettin’ caught by hole-in-his-face hadn’t terrified her. More than anything, it just made her mad. She knew there was a way out if she just waited long enough. But there wasn’t any way out of the shit she was in now, except to see it through to the nasty end. The thought of a thing right up inside her, clawin’ and scratchin’ its way out, drove her to shiverin’.

She waddled to a tree just off the side of the road, her arm slung under her belly. It’d dropped a lot lower than the day before, and it felt like it was about to pop. She let her bag slip off her shoulder to the ground. Then she grit her teeth, and, writhing in pain, pushed through another gut-wrenching contraction. When it passed, she cursed God, the storm, the hated pig-snouted demon inside her, and the smelly bastard that started it. She wasn’t gonna make it to the midwife now and she knew it. She’d waited too long. She knew, too, that sure as shit, she was gonna die under that tree. Ohhhhhh, how she wished Mule was still alive so she could pound another blade into his ugly skull.