The Incurables Read online

  He laughed, but his eyes were still cruel as hell.

  “How’s your mama doing? Lovely lady. Haven’t seen her in some time.”

  “She’s alive still, if that’s what you’re asking. Just waiting for her true love to come home.”

  “Ain’t we all, Scent. Ain’t we all.”

  And now the sheriff took a deep breath and spat it out and Scent could smell the gin and cigars and pussy.

  “You heard about that fellow who got shot up the other day.” It was a statement more than a question.

  Scent licked her lips and shrugged her shoulders. “I might have seen something about that.”

  “Hell of a thing. Had a wife and a couple of kids. Had a good job at the filling station. Can’t imagine what he was doing at a motel room in the middle of the day. Can you?”

  A chuckle and Scent pictured the fat man good and dead and felt the bile rise in her throat. “Don’t know, Sheriff. Maybe he just wanted to get away from his family. The nagging and noise, you know?”

  Sheriff Barton grinned, his bleached teeth blinding. “That’s a hell of a thought, Scent. Women can be trying, don’t you think?”

  “I do.”

  “Take my wife. She cooks okay, and occasionally she’ll mop the floor, but when it comes to other things—”

  “You like to visit someone like me.”

  A slow nod. “Sure. Someone like you.” Then Barton yawned, stretching his arms like he were shooting an arrow. When he looked at Scent again, his eyes had lost all humor. “The thing is, Scent, this fellow also had some brothers. Three of them. Mean sons of bitches. Each one of these fellows would just as sure strangle a fellow as they would say hello. Grady Holland, he’s the oldest of the three. Some would say the most mannerly. Of course, wasn’t but two weeks ago when he took a brick to this fellow’s skull over a game of darts. Poor fellow ain’t dead, but he’s hardly living. Not enough evidence to finger him—nobody would testify—but we’re pretty clear on what happened. A pattern, you know. And, like I said, his brothers are worse even. They’ve wreaked plenty of havoc, caused much blood to spill. And if it was a woman they had problems with…well, things could get plenty ugly. Hate to even think about it. Say what you like about them fellows, but they loved their brother plenty. Can’t say I understand completely, but you know how things are with family.”

  Scent narrowed her eyes and chewed on the inside of her lip. “Why are you telling me these things? About his wife and kids? About his brothers?”

  “Just figured you’d be interested. Not about his wife so much, but about his brothers. You know, in case you know anything about who did this. Give her a little heads-up. Wouldn’t want them boys getting rough with her, you know?”

  “Well, I don’t know a thing. Never heard of the fellow.”

  And now the sheriff got in nice and close, the back of his fingers rubbing up against Scent’s tits. “I figured so much, Scent. You’re a good girl, an angel really. But those brothers might get the wrong idea. You know how these things are. I suppose it would be helpful to have somebody like the county sheriff to guide them in a different direction.” Then he leaned in and whispered in her ear: “You let me taste your sweet pussy, and I’ll take care of the brothers for you.”

  Scent slapped his hand away and moved backward a step. “I ain’t that kind of a girl, Sheriff.”

  The sheriff smiled the smile of the devil, his face reddening, his gray eyes twinkling. “Oh, I think you are, Scent.”

  They went to the sheriff’s house because his wife was at her sister’s for a game of bridge. It was the biggest house on the nicest street in town. Maples and oaks lined the walkways and, other than a couple of abandoned lots with weeds growing and windows broken, there wasn’t a sign of poverty. Barton stepped out of the car and walked around back, his pristine black cowboy boots echoing on the pavement. He stood in front of the passenger-side window and smiled that terrible smile—bleached teeth stuck in a lantern jaw—but didn’t bother opening her door.

  Scent pushed her way outside and stood wobbling on the sidewalk. Sheriff Barton grabbed her arm and squeezed and then the two of them walked up the pathway of the neatly trimmed lawn and into his house.

  She hadn’t been in a house like this before. Not with the shiny black wooden floors. Not with the plush leather couches. Not with the fancy paintings on the walls. And suddenly she got very sad. Sad at the way she’d been living. A goddamn shack infested with filth. Splintered wood and peeling paint. And all because of her mother, the goddamn bitch. The money was there! The fucking money was there! And once she had it, she could live like this.

  “You like my little pad? Queen Anne. Built back at the turn of the century when this town meant something. Back before the oil fields dried up like my old lady’s crotch. Damn near everything in here is original. Original floor and moldings. It’s nice, ain’t it?”

  “Yeah,” Scent said, sighing. “Real nice.”

  “But you ain’t seen nothing yet. Come on into the bedroom. We got satin sheets and everything. You ever been screwed on satin sheets?”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “Well, shit. Today’s your lucky day.”

  It wasn’t but five minutes later that Scent was lying facedown, ass up on those satin sheets. Barton pulled his trousers off, but he kept on his socks and shirt and his badge. He was having a grand old time, whooping and hollering and yee-hawing. “Now ain’t this something!” he shouted. “I’m a big, big man!” Scent, for her part, was far, far away, thinking about her father and how he’d done her wrong, thinking about Durango and the sweetness of his lips, thinking about Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley, humming “I Don’t Care if the Sun Don’t Shine.”

  Fifteen, twenty minutes and she wanted it to end, not because she was in pain, but because she was bored as hell. But Barton was persistent and wasn’t going down without a fight. Now try her on her back, now try her on her stomach. Skin slapping skin, welts forming, hair tugged from head.

  Well, I don’t care if the sun don’t shine.

  I get my lovin’ in the evening time

  When I’m with my baby.

  Hours and months passed by before Barton finally was ready for his crescendo, and he shouted out, “Oh, baby, it’s gonna be a big one! You ready, baby? You ready for the big one?”

  And Scent, in a voice as flat as a Texaco road map: “Oh yes, big boy. Give it to me. Give it to me, please.”

  He gripped her shoulders, fingernails digging into her skin, and released a howl, but this magic moment was splintered when the front door slammed open, footsteps pattered across the hardwood floor, and a woman’s voice echoed through the hallways.

  Chapter 14

  Cock instantly flaccid, Barton’s eyes widened like some electroshock patient, and his face drained of color. “Jesus H. Christ almighty! I do believe that’s Rose Barton!” Without pausing for a good-bye kiss, he rolled off Scent’s pulsing flesh and tumbled to the floor, his dick flopping against his inner thigh. Slapstick comedy as he tried pulling on his trousers with little success.

  The footsteps in the hallway got louder and Barton slid across the floor and grabbed the door handle. From the outside, Rose twisted and said, “Ken, you in there? C’mon, let me in.”

  “Now you just give me a minute, Rose. I’m wrapping a birthday present for you, and I can’t let you see.”

  “Birthday present? But my birthday isn’t for another three months.”

  “You wait outside. I’ll come and get you in a minute, you hear?”

  Rose stopped talking but Scent could still see her shadow beneath the door.

  Barton pointed at the window and hissed, “You gotta climb out that window. Come on now!”

  Scent barely had time to grab her clothes before Barton was shoving her toward the window, his badge unclasping and clattering on the floor.

  “C’mon, Kenny. What’s going on in there?”

  “Go away, Rose!”

  But Rose didn’t go away. Th
e bedroom door creaked open and Scent was halfway out the window, while Barton, that whoring and boozing lawman, yanked on his trousers, his normally impeccable gray hair now badly disheveled.

  His wife had beautiful red hair fancied in a bouffant, and she wore a pretty Doris Day dress. A fancy pearl necklace strangled her throat. When she saw her husband, the county sheriff, struggling to get his clothes on, when she saw that little whore, buck naked, escaping through the window, she first covered her mouth with her hand, muting her scream, then, after a two-bar rest, charged across the floor, pulled herself through the window, and toppled to the lawn below.

  Around the house and into the neighborhood they ran, Scent clutching her secondhand clothes, Rose Barton screaming bloody murder. They didn’t get far, however, when Rose’s high heel snapped in the gutter and she collapsed to the cement, bloodying her knee and skinning her hands. Scent kept on running, getting catcalls from an eight-year-old wearing a Yankees hat, getting scolded by an old woman pruning her bushes.

  Two or three miles she ran without looking back. Out on the edge of town she came to Burnwood Cemetery, and she figured there was some metaphorical significance, so she plodded through the grounds until she came to a statue of a broken angel. Cursing her mother and her father and the sheriff, she got dressed in her whore clothes. Yes, whore clothes, because that’s who she was. A whore and a murderer, but there were worse things than that. Scent wandered through the graveyard, reading the epitaphs, thinking how all of these names were already forgotten, thinking how her name too would soon be forgotten, and it made her sad, so sad, so she slid down against one of the tombstones, and beneath lay the bones of Mayra O’Connor and she’d been a good mother and sister and daughter.

  Scent closed her eyes and slept, skull filling immediately with terrors, fingers clawing at the ground, bones and worms beneath.

  She slept for a hundred years, Ms. Van Winkle, and when she opened her eyes, a shadow fell over her. Panicked, worried it was Barton or his wife or, worse yet, the Holland brothers, she sat on her haunches, but it wasn’t an enemy, it was Durango, and from church she remembered that Paul’s shadow healed, and she wondered if his would do the same.

  “My love,” she said, and it was a strange thing to say.

  His eyes stared straight through her. “I was thinking he could operate on my father. Cut his brain right through.”

  “What? Who?”

  “You wanna walk? Me and you? Wanna walk?”

  And so they walked because there was nothing left to do, because they were both so lonely and lunacy was all around them and it was contagious, nobody escapes. Scent grabbed Durango’s hand, but it was damp with sweat and full of trembles. For a long time they didn’t talk and that was okay. A few men took an extra-long look at Scent, but she didn’t mind. Not as long as she was with Durango. She figured he wasn’t the savior, but maybe he could offer her some redemption. She was drowning in sin.

  “And where’s your old man now?” she finally said. “In the bar drinking again?”

  Durango frowned and spat on the ground. “No, ma’am. He’s in the woods. He’s mighty upset at the Lord. He’s mighty upset with me.”

  “Well, that ain’t right. You ain’t done nothing wrong.”

  “No. I don’t believe I have.”

  “What are you talking about with cutting brains? What do you mean by that?”

  “A doctor. Dr. Freeman. You heard of him?”

  Scent shook her head. “No, I haven’t.”

  “I saw him preaching down at the carnival. Not so far from where me and my daddy preach. He was talking about mental diseases and how he could cure them with a simple operation. He even showed it on a monkey. What do you figure?”

  Scent laughed. “I figure a monkey’s a lot different than a real person.”

  “But that’s not all. He was with this fellow named Edgar. The poor bastard used to kill people for kicks. The doctor gave him the operation and now he’s as content as could be. I saw it with my own two eyes. He’s saved thousands in fact, and I was thinking maybe he could save my dad, too.”

  “Maybe he could,” Scent said. “And maybe he could fix up my mom next.”

  The sun was riding low in a sky badly burned. A warm wind blew, bringing the scent of distant feedlots. Dirt and derricks all around. Another half mile or more and they came upon some railroad tracks, the hardened steel and spikes all overgrown with yellow grass. “The train doesn’t hardly ever come on this track,” she said. Then she pulled her hand from Durango’s and walked over to the tracks and sat down, folding her legs beneath her. “Come sit next to me.”

  Durango hesitated for a moment, adjusting his hat and pulling at his hair, before finally relenting and sitting next to her. Other than a few crows cawing in a nearby cottonwood, everything was quiet. Scent rested her head on Durango’s shoulder, and he stiffened.

  “You ever drink bourbon before?” she asked him.

  He shook his head no.

  “My mom’s a booze hound. Sometimes I get into her stuff. Scotch tastes like dirt. I don’t care for it. But bourbon’s got that sweetness to it. Just a few swallows and it’ll make you feel fine.”

  “My father drinks that stuff. Makes him mean sometimes.”

  “Sure it does,” she said. “If you drink it too much. It wouldn’t make you mean, though, Durango.”

  “I don’t suppose so.”

  “Wanna try some?”

  She lifted her head off his shoulder and stared into his dark, brooding eyes. Durango broke the stare first, looking down at the tracks, grabbing a piece of grass, and sticking it between his lips.

  “I don’t suppose I should,” he said.

  “C’mon. Just a little sip. So you can say you tried.”

  He didn’t answer, so Scent pulled out a metallic flask and unscrewed the top. She grinned her gap-toothed grin and took a long swallow, shivering as the bourbon slid down her throat. She wiped away spilled booze from her chin and handed the flask to Durango. The Messiah, the Messiah. Durango studied the flask for a moment and then brought it to his mouth. As soon as the flask tilted back, he began hacking, his face turning red.

  Scent laughed and laughed. Durango shook his head and then handed the flask back to Scent. Then, after a while, he smiled. She was pretty sure it was the first time he’d ever smiled.

  “You ever been to California?” she asked him.

  “No, ma’am.”

  “I’ve got money, Durango. Plenty of it. I just need to find it, that’s all.”

  They stayed on that track for a long time and Scent could hear Durango breathing and could smell his beautiful stink. And even though he wasn’t a real savior, maybe he could save her, someway, someway. And maybe they could live together in a pretty house with a pretty yard and pretty flowers and wouldn’t that be pretty. She grabbed Durango’s hand and placed it beneath her shirt, but he was too much of a gentleman to grab her tit, so they stayed like that as the sun set beneath the refinery towers, and she was so happy that both of them were happy.

  And then off in the distance a mournful train whistle, the sound of the town crying, but not them.

  “Don’t you just love that sound, Durango?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I think I do.”

  “Still a ways away, though. Couple miles by the sound of it.”

  A few minutes passed and the whistle got louder. Then, off in the distance, the silhouette of the train appeared against the forever sky.

  “I guess we should be moving then,” Durango said. “Don’t want to be getting in the way of that steel.”

  Scent moved his hand up her troubled skin. “You ever seen those old movies? The silent ones? The ones where the lady gets tied to the train tracks?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ve seen one of those.”

  “The hero always saves the girl, don’t he?”

  And now the whistle blew loudly, and the train barreled down the track. Durango removed his hand from beneath her shirt.

  �
�Let’s move from this track,” he said. “That train’s coming.”

  But Scent only shook her head. “I can’t move,” she said. “I’m all tied up.”

  When Durango looked down, he saw that Scent had managed to handcuff her left hand to the track.

  “Some men are kinky,” she said. “I use these cuffs on ’em.”

  “That train’s getting closer. That’s not too funny.”

  “Aren’t you gonna save me? The key’s in my purse.”

  Durango wiped away the perspiration that had dribbled into his eyes. The train was moving fast, blasting its horn, and this would be a hell of a way to go.

  He grabbed the purse and started fumbling through it. Scent watched with curiosity. She hoped he would find the key and save her. She hoped they could live happily ever after. But if he didn’t, she wasn’t all that afraid of death, wasn’t all that afraid of hell.

  Her worthless possessions were strewn on the ground. Hairbrush and wallet and cigarettes and tampons. Lipstick and gun and mints and vanity mirror. Durango finally found the key and tried unlocking the cuffs, but his hands wouldn’t stop trembling.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, “but I don’t think I can. My hands won’t work.”

  Thirty seconds away. Another loud horn blast.

  “It’s okay, Durango,” she said. “You’re a sweet boy for trying. It’s a funny way to die.”

  He tried it again, steadying his hand by grasping his wrist with his other hand. Finally, he managed to slide the key inside and twist and the handcuff fell away. He dragged her from that track and she wouldn’t stop laughing. Another five seconds at the most and the train whizzed by, ghostly faces peering from behind yellowed windows.

  They lay on the ground together, Scent laughing, Durango trembling. She pulled him close and kissed him, both of their eyes remaining open. When he tried pushing her away, she bit down hard, and his lip started bleeding. She used her finger to smear his blood on her own lips, then she stared at those dark, sad eyes and said, “Our blood, Durango. Our blood.”