My Brother's Destroyer Read online

  My Brother’s Destroyer

  Clayton Lindemuth

  Hardgrave Enterprises

  SAINT CHARLES, MISSOURI

  Copyright © 2013 by Clayton Lindemuth.

  Clayton Lindemuth asserts his moral rights as author of My Brother’s Destroyer.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission re-quests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at [email protected]

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  MY BROTHER’S DESTROYER/Clayton Lindemuth

  For Donald Lindemuth, the most virtuous father and role model a son could want.

  Chapter One

  I see the bastards ahead, fractured by dark and trees. Twenty—more. They voices led me this far. I touch the Smith and Wesson on my hip. They’s a nip in the air, harvest near over. Longer I’m still, colder I get.

  One of these shitheads stole Fred.

  Problems for him.

  I’m crouched behind an elm, pressed agin smooth bark.

  It’s dark enough I could stand and wiggle my pecker at em and they wouldn’t see. They’s occupied around a pit. Place swims in orange kerosene light with so many moths the glow flickers. Hoots and hollers, catcalls like they’s looking at naked women. Can’t see in the circle from here, but two sorry brutes inside are gutting and gouging each other. Two dogs bred for it, or stole from some kid maybe, or some shit like me.

  All my life I got out the way so the liars and cheats could go on lying and cheating one another. I can spot a liar like nobody. But these men is well past deceit.

  One of these devils got hell to pay.

  Fifty yards, me to them. I stand, touch Smith one more time. Step from the tree. A twig snaps. I freeze. Crunch on dry leaves to the next tree, and the next. Ten yards. If someone takes a gander he’ll see me—but these boys got they minds on blood sport.

  Sport.

  I test old muscles and old bones on a maple. Standing in a hip-high crotch, I reach the lowest limb and shinny. Want some elevation. See men’s faces, other side of the ring—and if I don’t see dogs killing each other, that’ll be fine.

  I know some of these men—George from the lumber yard, and the Mexican runs his forklift. They’s Big Ted; his restaurant connects him to other big men from Chicago and New York. Ted’s always ready to do a favor, and tell you he done it, and send a monthly statement so you know your debt. Kind of on the outskirts, Mick Fleming. And beside him is Jenkins. Didn’t expect to see the pastor here.

  “Lookit that bastard! Kill ’im, Achilles! Kill ’im!”

  Why looky looky.

  That’s Cory Smylie, the police chief’s son, shouting loudest. Cory—piece a shit stuffed in a rusted can, buried in a septic field under a black cherry tree, where birds perch and shit berry juice all day.

  I make the profile of Lucky Jim Graves, a card player with nothing but red in his ledger.

  The branch is bouncy now, saggy. Stiff breeze and I’ll be picking myself off the ground.

  I think that’s Lou Buzzard. The branch rides up my ass like a two-inch saddle and each time I move, leaves rustle. But I want to know if that’s Lou ’cause he’s a ten-year customer. Be real helpful if these devils was already drinking my likker. Little farther out and I’ll see.

  Snapped limb pops like a rifle. I’m on the ground and the noise of the fight wanes, save the dogs. Hands move at holsters and silver tubes sparkle like moonlight on a brook. These men come prepared to defend the sport, and got more dexterity than I could muster on two sobers.

  “You there!”

  Voice belongs to a fella I know by reputation, Joe Stipe. We’ve howdied but we ain’t shook. A man with a finger on every sort of business you can imagine, including mine. Got a truck company, the dog fights, making book, and a few year ago sent thugs to muscle me out of my stilling operation. We ain’t exactly friendly.

  Men gather at Stipe’s flanks as he tromps my way. “Grab a lantern there, George. We got company.”

  I sit like a crab. The light gets in my face.

  “Why, that’s Baer Creighton,” a man says.

  “Baer Creighton, huh? Lemme see.” Stipe thrusts the lantern closer.

  “That’s right.”

  “Don’t tell Larry,” another says.

  “He ain’t here tonight,” Stipe says. “What the hell you doing, Baer? Mighta got your dumb ass shot.”

  “I was hanging in the tree because you’s a bunch a no-count assholes and I’d rather talk to a bag of shit.”

  They’s quiet, waiting for something let em understand which way things’ll break.

  Not tonight, boys. But I’ll goddamn let you know.

  The hair on my arms floats up and static buzzes through me. I look for the man with a red hue to his eyes. Ain’t hard to see at night—it’s always easier at night—and it’s the one said, “Don’t tell Larry.”

  I don’t try to see the red, or feel the electric. Gift or curse, I subdue it with the likker. Got it damn near stamped out.

  “It’s just Baer,” Stipe says.

  The men disperse back the fight circle, where a pair of dogs still tries to kill each other. Stipe lingers, and when it’s just him and me, he braces hands on knees so his face is two feet from mine. I smell the likker on him.

  My likker.

  “Come watch the fight with us assholes.” Stipe looks straight in my eyes. “And later… you breathe a word of this place, I’ll burn you down.”

  “Didn’t come so I could write a story in the paper.” I crawl back a couple steps and work to my feet. My back and hips feel like a grease monkey worked em with a tire tool, but I won’t show it. We’s face to face and Stipe’s a big somebody; got me by a rain barrel. The fella give me the electric stares from the fight circle, that circle of piss and blood and shit and clay.

  Expected to see Larry here. After thirty years of meditation, I don’t know whether to blame myself for stealing Ruth or him for stealing her back.

  “I believe what you said about the newspaper, Baer,” Stipe says. “So what brought you to my woods?”

  I meet his eye for a second or two and take note of his bony brow. “Nothing to say on that.” I turn and after a step he drops his hand on my shoulder. Spins me. I get the juice like I stuck my tongue on a nine-volt. His eyes pertineer shoot fireworks. He’s so fulla deceit and trickery, he’s liable to shoot me straight.

  I lurch free.

  “You remember what I said. I’m going to burn you down. I’ll find every sore spot you got and smack it with a twenty-pound sledge. You’ll pull your head from a hole in the ground, Baer, just to see that awful sledge coming down one last time. You best get savvy real quick. Don’t mess with a man’s livelihood.”

  Heard rumors on Stipe going way back—how his truck company made lots of money after his competition died under a broke hydraulic lift with a sheared pin. Curious, is all. Got them lugnuts by his side when you see him in town, like he’s some president got a private secret service. Always some jailhound on the work release with a mug like a fight dog after a three-hour bruiser.

  “They’s no such thing as imp
unity, Stipe.”

  His look says he don’t ken my meaning and that’s fine as water. You’ll smack me down and every time I look up, I’ll see Fred. I’ll shove that impunity down your throat and you won’t know you’re filling up on poison. That’s what I’m thinking, but words ain’t worth a bucket a piss. I back away. His eyes is plain-spoke menace.

  I’m so torqued I got to look for my voice. “Ain’t quite time to call it war. But I’ll let you know.”

  I tramp into the woods and every square inch of my back crawls. I get far enough the static don’t bother me; bullets do, and if I was twenty years younger I’d run in spite of low-hanging limbs. But I’m fifty and my hipbone feels like it was dipped in dirt, so I stomp along and eventually I’m deep enough into the woods I turn.

  Stipe still looks my way, but him and his boys is all shadows, demons.

  Farther out, when the fight circle’s a slight glow through distant trees, I rest a minute on a log. They know I live and work at home. Wasn’t thinking I’d tip my hand just yet, but part of the curse of seeing lies is not being worth a shit at telling them. And knowing the bastard who stole Fred was in that crowd works agin my better judgment. It’s hard to hold your tongue while the plan sorts out—you want to let the bastard know something god-awful brutal is coming his way.

  I stand, work my joints loose. I come to Mill Crick and follow south a mile, and pause at my homestead, a tarp strung tree to ground, a row of fifty-five gallon drums, a boiler and copper tube.

  Fred growls.

  “It’s me, you fucking brute.”

  Fred’s in shadows under the tarp. His tail taps the diesel turbine shipping crate he sleeps in. I hammered over the nails and reinforced the corners with small blocks, and it’s been home to four generations. If I was to pick the hairs between the boards, they’d be white like Fred, red like George, brown like Loretta, and brindle like Phil. All relations of his, though I couldn’t name the begats.

  His voice turns quiet.

  He’s got words and I got words and we know each other well enough to talk without losing hardly anything to translation. He knew it was me tramping into camp when I was a half mile out, most likely. He only growled to show disapproval, and now it’s done, he can go back to sleep.

  Poor son of a bitch needs it.

  Fred’s one of them pit bulls they like to fight so much.

  It was October third, the night that cleaved summer and fall. I gathered apples at the Brown place across the road in an orchard strangled in grapevine and hauled buckets back and forth to my still. Farmer Brown died a dozen years back and no one claimed the property. I was thinking on Fred, how uncommon he is, how he’d yammer for hours on any manner of subjects. He’d been missing three days.

  Neighbor farmers tilled the fields. I’d scrounged inside the house a dozen times, stripped some plumbing and recoppered my still, and helped myself to a few shingles—the loose ones at the edges. I stole Brown’s cast-iron bathtub and hauled it on his wheelbarrow to the brook below my camp. Then I carted enough lumber to build a platform above the mud and strike a post for a small mirror off’n Brown’s wall. Every night ’fore I turn in I scoop crick water into the tub, and haul a leather satchel of stones from the fire pit to take away the chill.

  I stole all that but me and Brown was tight and hell, he’s dead.

  They was a full moon that October third night but the clouds kept it smothered. I came around the house hauling two buckets of apples and headlamps flashed from the forest a half mile off, bright like God Almighty made em on the spot. They turned on the dirt road headed my way.

  I know them woods. Nothing there save a logger’s doubletrack that curves around a side hill where Joe Weintraub cut the hemlock to let the hardwood grow in. Seven year ago. Lost money on it, he said.

  The headlights came closer. Truck had a regular gasoline engine, not diesel. Swung onto the driveway.

  I dropped my buckets and dove. Headlights passed above. I crawled a dozen feet and scanned over the grass. The vehicle reversed, swung onto the yard, lurched forward and stopped. I couldn’t scope the make but the truck was full-size, white or silver. The left side of the tailgate glowed like a layer of dirt was wiped clean.

  A man jumped from the driver’s side, dropped the tailgate and pitched a white ghost, maybe a burlap sack of grain to the weeds beside the driveway. The door slammed, the engine roared and the rear wheels spat dirt.

  I waited.

  Taillights disappeared around the bend toward town. I dusted my sleeves and knees, grabbed a couple spilled apples. I looked at the white clump beside the driveway, then back at the house, then to the hill where the truck came from.

  Couldn’t pull my eyes from the ghost. It took the shape of a small body, hips, shoulder.

  I hurried, then stood with buckets straining my forearms and shoulders. Fred was slicked in blood, had a dark slash across his chest. Caked blood blacked his eye and his neck was splotchy. Blood smell cut the whiskey numb in my mouth and I could almost taste Fred’s bleeding. Could almost taste my dead dog.

  I dropped to my knees. Fred growled—he said, I’m alive you son of a bitch but you got to do something ’cause I’m pretty well whupped.

  I looked at the moon, shifted my shadow off Fred and catalogued the wounds. None looked fatal but he was almost dead. Them slashes was moist but the bleeding’d stopped—most sopped in his coat. He’d likely been defeated by running out of air. Temporary suffocation. Maybe they’d called the fight out of boredom.

  I looked to the road where the truck come out. Headlights glowed single file in the forest. Stipe and his boys. I vowed right then every one of em would meet a cruel end.

  I carried Fred in my arms with his feet straight up and his head agin my shoulder and now and again dropped a kiss on his muzzle. It maybe pissed him off but that was okay. Give him a reason to stay alive. “You’re some kind of ugly,” I said, and Fred said, They’s no cure for stupid either.

  My house is across the road from Brown’s. I don’t go there but to store my likker in the basement. I put Fred on the kitchen table. Struck a match, lit a kerosene lantern that cast a wicked shadow on the wall. It was the first time I was in the house and didn’t ponder what Ruth touched last. Where she last stood. What she thought while she was standing there. Almost thirty year ago.

  I moved the lantern close to Fred’s head. His eyes was broke open and red.

  I stood there looking at him. Wondered if I was man enough to put him down, if I had to.

  Fred said, How ’bout you murder the evil cowards threw me in that ring instead?

  “You’re going to mend,” I said. “But I got work to do.”

  I carried the lantern back down the hall to the medicine closet. Filled my arms with cleaners, antiseptics, bandages. Set em on the table by Fred. In the big bedroom I dug up a pink tackle box sewing kit.

  My hands shook. I found a jug of corn whiskey and gulped. Spent three minutes putting thread in the needle. I cupped my hand and poured a half-shot of shine, then shifted to Fred’s side and held my hand over the big slash across his chest. Dripped whiskey on it.

  Fred growled.

  I emptied my hand into the cut and touched the ragged edge. “You hang in there a little while and I’ll patch you up right. Yessir.”

  I touched my wet fingers to the clots and clumps of dirt stuck to his coat near the wound. Gash put me in mind of a cut of meat from the butcher. I grabbed a clean cloth from a drawer, a bucket from under the sink. Went to the well out front and worked it ‘til cool water splashed, then washed my hands and filled the bucket.

  Inside, I held a soaked rag to the gaping cut. Fred’s throat rumbled but he understood if only one creature on the planet gave a shit for him it was me.

  I worked the cloth across ratty knots and clumps of blood. I soaked the rag in the bucket again and dripped water into the slash. Crust adhered to the edges like scorched meat to the bottom of a skillet, but the water worked it loose.

  “I’m
going to find who stole you,” I said.

  Fred said, Uh-huh.

  “And they’s going to be an eye for an eye come out of it.”

  Fred’s a survivor and he’s spent the last two week growing stronger. I step under the tarp and hunker beside him. “You doing good tonight?”

  Fred sleeps with his head on the left and his body curled to the right. I scratch between his ears, careful the scabs. I want to look over his cuts and slashes, his smashed-in eyes—but it’s night and I settle for feeling his busted body. Lot of heat from the slash across his chest.

  I pop the cork from a jug, cup my hand, pour a little. Work the wound. Fred growls—that hurts you ignorant bastard—and I say, “Easy, Fred. You know I love you.”

  I work shine into every wound save his eyes. Both is smashed so bad I shake when I look at em. Black jelly starting to scab. He sleeps with that mess agin the blankets like to get infected, but he about took off my hand last I daubed likker on his sockets. I’ll check again come morning.

  I got to see about the mash before I wash off the day’s stink.

  Anything with sugar makes shine. Fermented grain or fruit—apples, plums, strawberries—keeps the air stinky sweet. I lift the plywood lid from the first fifty-five gallon drum. Smell washes over me so thick it almost sticks to my clothes. The mash is apples and pears from dead Farmer Brown’s orchard. These big yellow apples got so much sugar you don’t have to add any to the mash. Just a cake of yeast and in almost no time you got to still or you’ll have thirty gallon of vinegar.

  Men don’t pay near as much on vinegar.

  I lift the lid on each barrel. They’s three of corn, and it takes longer. Different mechanics entirely. Them sugars is bound up tight. Got to cook the mash and stir it, keep it agitated, and if something goes wrong you got to add a five-pound bag of Pillsbury cane—but no more’n one. Two bags and you’re in sugarpop territory. The men that drink sugarpop’ll come for your ass, once they get over the evilest headaches they ever had.