The Ringing of Hawthorne

Rain poured down hard. Lightning flashed in the distance, and the sky overhead was growing darker and darker. Martha stood above the river looking down at the floating corpse of Ned Blackhorse. His belt had snagged on the branch of a fallen tree and he bobbed face down in the steady current like a pool toy. His arms were outstretched, creating a human crucifix. Martha peered down at the body, forgetting about her binoculars. The rain poured down hard and made hundreds of ripples around the body. Two turtles that sat on the log beside the corpse plopped into the water when Martha moved closer to the edge. The muddy lip of the edge crumbled under her weight and she fell nearly ten feet into the water below. The rim of the binoculars smashed into her upper lip when she hit the water and the gash bled intensely. She felt it swell up immediately and checked to see if any of her teeth had been smashed out as well. Her lip was numb and she tasted the saltiness of her own blood. It dripped from her lip down her chin, onto her shirt, into the water. She pressed her lip and it stung horribly. The rain poured down harder.

She cried and trembled in the cold water, just feet away from the corpse. Above her was nothing but a slick muddy wall, impossible to climb. The water came to her neck and she was able to stand firmly. She pushed some wet hair from her face and cried again from the throbbing pain in her mouth. The riverbed below her shook as thunder boomed overhead. Beyond the fallen tree was a low hanging branch that Martha thought she could use to hoist herself out of the river. It was on the opposite bank. She waded closer to the body where the water began to feel thicker, like oil. The smell of Ned’s corpse was strong and the water around him felt warmer. The striped flannel shirt he wore was torn and muddy and through the holes Martha could see the yellowing rotten skin of his back. His bare heels broke the surface of the water and were soggy and white.

She stood in the water an arm’s length away from the body. A lifeless hand bobbed in the water, the wrinkled fingers like soggy earthworms without color. His hands were alarmingly big. Wide badger palms. The kind of hands that could crush stones like sidewalk chalk. Martha found her own hand drifting out to touch the wide-nailed fingertips of the dead hand, and she closed her eyes when she touched them. She smiled awkwardly, the tear in her lip opening to drip more blood. Blood fizzled in her chest. An electric charge whizzed through her hand and up her spine, tingling, making the hair on the back of her neck stand up. Darkness came with a clap inside her head, a snapping feeling that made her ears ring. It pulsed, turning dark and then light, and each time Martha’s vision went black she felt a surge of tingling electricity rush through her body. It made her toes curl up and her thighs cramp. Ned’s dead hand was a magnet, a force of attraction that Martha could not pull herself away from. She was filled with his living scent, a smoky, earthy essence, like a barn horse, tree bark, oil-stained clothes. She felt the weight of his long dark hair, thicker than her own and gritty like a horse’s matted tail. His broad cheeks, strong jaw, wide brow, and firm gaze became her own. The dead fingers wrapped themselves around her thin wrist, her fist fitting like an egg inside his wide palm.

His voice was deep and strong in her head. He thanked her. Asked her of her cut lip. He said it would scar. She could feel how deep the cut was and the deformity frightened her. He asked of her fire dance. She said it was her own and it was for him. She asked him why he chose her river. It is a calm place. There is little trouble here, and the spirit is strong in this land, he told her. What do I tell of you, she asked. Who do I tell of you. The connection began to grow weak, his voice fading away, falling down a deep channel. Tell who you must, he told her. But keep me hidden from the world.

With these last words the Indian’s voice faded away, his force retracted from Matha’s body, sucked up like smoke through a chimney. The water level raised as the rain poured down harder and Martha tip-toed across the bottom of the river. The current was sweeping past her hurling sticks and clusters of dead leaves towards her head. When she reached the opposite bank and got ahold of the low hanging tree branch she paused to look back upon the body. The tree that held Ned in place bobbed in the rising water and the current lifted Ned from his snare, sending him afloat downriver. With one hand held tightly around the tree branch, she reached out to grab the body. There was no energy when she held his hand this time. The current played tug-of-war with his body and Martha held on as tight as she could. She let his hand slide from her grasp and his body was rushed away as if it was being drug by horses.