Free Winter's Bone by Daniel Woodrell

enough, this’s bound to happen.”

    Ree opened the door, lowered one foot, said, “You sayin’ Dad’s in there burnt to a crisp?”

    “I’m sayin’ that’s the last place me or anybody else seen him. That’s what I’m tellin’ you.”

    She stepped out, eyes on the house, boots in snow.

    “I’m goin’ up for a look.”

    “Whoa, whoa, whoa! No, you ain’t! Get back in here. That shit’s all
poison
, girl.
Toxic
. It’ll eat the skin clean off your bones and wilt the bones, too. It’ll turn your lungs to paper sacks and
tear holes
in ’em. Don’t you get nowheres near that fuckin’ house.”

    “If Dad’s in there dead, I’m collectin’ him and carryin’ him home to bury.”

    “Stay the hell away from that house!”

    The snow on the drive to the house was unmarked by boot or hoof or claw. Ree hustled up the slight rise, glancing backwards at Blond Milton. He did not give chase and she slowed. She kept at a distance from the walls, began circling in the pure snow. One wall had flown into the yard. Windows had exploded and the frames dangled, blackened with glass fingers clinging. The charred wood smelled. There were other acrid smells. She circled through snowdrifts to the back. There was a trash pile topped with a cap of snow. Big brown glass jugs, cracked funnels, white plastic bottles, garden hose. She edged slowly between the trash pile and the house. She could see well enough. The kitchen sink had snagged on floorboards falling through to dirt and the curved faucet poked up amidst the blackened wood. Horseweed turned white stood chin-high in the floorboard holes. There were humps of ash where furniture had been. A round wall clock had cooked black and fallen in the heat to become puddled across the stovetop. The stove was wedged partway down a hole in the floor and . . . horseweed. Horseweed turned white stood chin-high in the floorboard holes.

    Ree eased back from the house, whirled on her heels, and walked briskly to Blond Milton.

    “We can get.”

    “You did right to not go in there.”

    “You showed me the place’n we can get now.”

    “It’s always a bad deal when these things blow. Jessup’n me maybe had our tussles, but he was my first cousin still. I’ll see whatever I can do for you.”

    She did not speak all the way home. She gouged herself to keep from speaking. She counted barns to keep from speaking, counted fence posts, counted vehicles that were not pickup trucks. She bit her lips and clamped with her teeth, counting for distraction while faintly tasting blood.

    Blond Milton took the rut road that led to his side of the creek. He parked near the three houses. They got out and stood beside the truck. He said, “I know losin’ Jessup leaves you-all hurtin’ over there. I know it’s a lot to handle. Too much, probably.”

    “We’ll make do.”

    “Me’n Sonya talked about it’n we feel we could take Sonny off your hands. Not Harold, I don’t reckon, but we’d take Sonny. We could help you that much.”

    “You
what?
”

    “We could take Sonny for you and raise him up the rest of the way.”

    “My ass, you will.”

    “Watch your mouth with me, girl. We’d raise the boy way better’n you’n that momma of yours can, that’s for certain sure. Maybe on down the line we’d take Harold, too.”

    Ree started walking fiercely toward the narrow footbridge. He snatched at her arm from behind but she spun away. On the flat bridge she paused and called, “You son of a bitch. You go straight to hell’n fry in your own lard. Sonny’n Harold’ll die livin’ in a fuckin’ cave
with me’n Mom
before they’ll ever spend a single fuckin’ night with
you
. Goddam you, Blond Milton, you must think I’m a stupid idiot or somethin’—there’s horseweed standin’
chin-high
inside that place!”

15 

    R EE SLAMMED the door behind herself and stomped past the boys, clomping loudly to the closet in her own room. She reached behind the rank of skirts