Horns

“Gone,” Terry said, flinching and then blinking rapidly, as if someone had dashed a handful of cold water in his face. “Jesus, I need to get out of here. If I’m ever going to work again, I need to get the fuck out of this joint.”

“That’s right. This conversation is gone, and so are you. Take off. Drive home, and tell Mom and Dad you missed your flight. Be with the people who love you, and have a look at the newspaper tomorrow. They say they never report good news, but I think you’ll feel a whole lot better about your life after you see the front page.” Ig wanted to kiss his brother’s cheek but was afraid-was worried he would discover some hidden deed that would make him rethink his desire to send him away. “Good-bye, Terry.”

HE GOT OUT OF THE CAR and stood back from it as it started to move. The Mercedes rolled slowly forward, crushing the tall grass before it. It went into a big, lazy turn, circling behind a great heap of rubbish, bricks, old boards, and cans. Ig turned away then, didn’t wait to see the Mercedes come around the other side of the midden heap. He had preparations to attend to. He moved quickly along the outer wall of the foundry, casting glances toward the line of trees that screened the building from the road. Any moment now he expected to see headlights through the firs, slowing as Lee Tourneau turned in.

He climbed into the room beyond the furnace. It looked as if someone had come in with a couple buckets of snakes, tossed them, and ran. Snakes slid from the corners and dropped from piles of bricks. The timber rattler uncoiled from the wheelbarrow and fell with an audible thump to the floor. There were only a hundred or so. Well. That was enough.

He crouched and lifted the timber rattler into the air, hand under her midsection; he was not afraid of being bitten now. She narrowed her eyes in a sleepy expression of affection, and her black tongue flicked at him, and for a moment she whispered cool, breathless endearments in his ear. He kissed her gently on the head and then walked her to the furnace. As he carried her, he realized he could not read her for any guilt or sin, that she had no memory of ever having done a wrong. She was i

He leaned into the chimney and set her in the stinking blanket on the mattress. Then he bent over her and lit each of the candles, creating an intimate and romantic ambience. She settled down into a contented coil.

“You know what to do if they get by me,” Ig said. “The next person to open this door. I need you to bite and bite and bite. Do you understand?”

Her tongue slipped out of her mouth and lapped sweetly at the air. He folded the corners of the blanket over her, to hide her, and then set upon it the smooth pink soap shape of Gle

Ig eased himself out of the hatch and pushed the door almost all the way shut. Candlelight flickered around its edges, as if the old furnaces had been lit once more, as if the foundry were returning to life. He grasped his pitchfork, which was leaning against the wall just to the right of the hatch.

“Ig,” Terry whispered from behind him.

Ig spun around, his heart lunging in him, and saw his brother standing outside, rising on his tiptoes to look through the doorway.

“What are you still doing here?” Ig asked, flustered by the sight of him.

“Are those snakes?” Terry asked.

Terry stepped back from the door as Ig dropped through it. Ig still had the box of matches in one hand, and he flipped them to the side, onto the can of gas. Then he turned and jabbed the pitchfork in the direction of Terry’s chest. He craned his head to look past him, into the dark field. He didn’t see the Mercedes.

“Where’s your car?”

“Behind that pile of shit,” Terry said, gesturing back toward a particularly large mound of trash. He reached up with one hand and gently pushed aside the tines of the pitchfork.

“I said to go.”

Terry’s face gleamed with sweat in the August night. “No,” he said.

It took Ig a moment to process Terry’s unlikely reply.

“Yes.” Pushing with the horns, pushing so hard that the feeling of pressure and heat in them was, for once, almost painful-a disagreeable soreness. “You don’t want to be here, and I don’t want you here.”

Terry actually staggered, as if Ig had shoved him. But then he got his feet set and remained where he was, an expression of grim strain on his features.

“And I said no. You can’t make me. Whatever you’re doing to my head, it has its limits. You can only make the offer. I have to accept. And I don’t accept. I’m not driving away from this place and leaving you here to face Lee alone. That’s what I did to Merrin, and I’ve been living in hell ever since. You want me to go, get in my car and come with me. We’ll figure this out. We’ll figure how to deal with Lee in a way where no one gets killed.”

Ig made a choked sound of rage in his throat and came at him with the pitchfork. Terry danced back, away from the tines. It infuriated Ig that he couldn’t make his brother do what he wanted. Each time Ig came toward him, prodding with the fork, Terry faded out of reach, a weak, uncertain grin on his face. Ig had the helpless sensation of being ten years old and forced into some backyard game of grab-ass.

Headlights wavered on the other side of the line of trees that screened the foundry from the road, slowing steadily as someone prepared to turn in. Ig and Terry both stopped, looking up at the road.

“It’s Lee,” Ig said, and focused his furious gaze back on Terry. “Get in your car and out of sight. You can’t help me. You can only fuck things up. Keep your head down, and stay out of the way where you won’t get your ass killed.” Urging him back with another thrust of the pitchfork and at the same time putting one last blast of will behind the horns, trying to bend Terry.

Terry didn’t fight this time but turned and ran, through the tall grass, back toward the midden heap. Ig watched until he had reached the corner of the building. Then Ig pulled himself through the high doorway and into the foundry. Behind him the headlights of Lee Tourneau’s Cadillac were sliding through the air, slicing the darkness like a letter opener cutting into a black envelope.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

NO SOONER HAD HE PULLED himself into the room than the headlights swept through the windows and doors. White squares of brightness streamed over the graffiti-covered walls, picking out ancient messages: TERRY PERRISH BLOWS, PEACE ’79, GOD IS DEAD. Ig stepped away from the light, to one side of the doorway. He removed his coat and threw it into the middle of the floor. Then he crouched in the corner and used his horns to call to the snakes.

They came from the corners, fell from holes in the wall, skated out from under the heap of bricks. They glided toward the coat, sliding over one another in their haste. The overcoat squirmed as they gathered beneath it. Then it began to sit up. The coat rose and straightened, and the shoulders began to fill out, and the sleeves moved, swelling, as if an invisible man were pushing his arms into them. Last rose a head, with hair that twisted and spilled over the collar. It looked as if a long-haired man, or perhaps a woman, were sitting in the middle of the floor, meditating, head down. Someone who was shivering steadily.