Ashlight

For as long as I can remember, it has been Brother and me. His face is the only one I have ever known. I have lived inside its furrows and ridges, watched the years wrap around him and eat him away.

There are others, of course. Figures in the distance, their outlines blurred by heat shimmer, but I’ve never seen their textures. They know better than to come near the fence. Brother has made sure of that.

But one day, while I was out washing the pot over the basin, I saw her. A moss-green dress at the edge of the dust-field, hiding in the trees. She came every day to watch me.

I had no green dress. I wonder if my mother had a green dress. Brother says we never had a mother.

Brother is the one who does the trades. I am the older one, I remind him, but he says I always do the trading, and I say okay. He wraps up my silver hand mirror with a cloth. His mask obscures what is familiar; only the desperate eyes of a stranger remain. He leaves me on the porch and walks away through the dust field toward the clawing trees, his gloved hand on the wire. He does not seem to see the woman. Maybe she is a ghost to him.

Once, a man tried to approach our fence. He had a fried-crow body that matched the wounds on his face. He wanted to tell us of the Saviour.

We do not care to be saved, Brother said, patting the gun at his hip. When the man came closer, Brother fired into the air, and the hungry dust swallowed the sound.

The man looked at me. Please, he said. He was crying big tears like Brother cried once at the beginning of memory.

Don’t you speak to him, Brother warned.

I said okay and went inside to grind the oats for supper. From the window, I watched the man stagger toward the clutch of trees. The woman in green watched also, just out of sight. He ignored her, as all men do. Women are better ignored, Brother says. This is advice from the past. We are all ignored now.

It is November, and on the few days it cools enough to walk at dusk, we trace the fence line. It is my job to look for holes. Rust takes everything, never satisfied.

I said I smell rain.

Rain is not in the forecast book, he said.

But I saw lightning in the ceiling of the sky and black clouds bruising.

The forecast knows better than you, he said.

Still the air was heavy with iron. And, in time, droplets ran down my skin. A rare feeling. Our cow lay down in her bald patch of grass, ribs like half-sunk rocks. I said we should go back to open the buckets, but Brother said no, it is not raining, though his hair clung to his head. A drop slid into the corner of his mouth, and he met it with his tongue.

It was dark when I caught my foot in a hole. I fell, my arm grazing the fence’s teeth. It stung, fierce.

I said I am hurt.

It is only a scratch, he said. I would know if you were hurt, and you are not hurt.

I carried my arm inside. Great globs of red like thinned jelly ran down my arm, dripping onto the floorboards.

Blood, I said.

Brother shook his head. You are not bleeding. There is nothing there.

But it stained across the table. I pressed my hand against it, showing him.

He struck the table with his fist. Stop this. You know you see things that are not there.

The boards trembled. The lamp shivered in its glass. I thought of the crow man, of the woman in the trees. My mind turned uneven, a wheel with broken spokes. Still, Brother said you are not hurt. 

I said okay and went out to hang his shirt to dry.

Over three days and nights I lay trembling in our bed, the air so dry it scoured my throat. My fingers grew stiff, forearm shining red like the sky when the world burned. I ground the oats one-handed until the pestle slipped from me.

When I came to, Brother was bent over my arm. He squeezed it, and I pulled away, hissing. For once, his eyes narrowed in worry.

Yes, he said. Something is wrong.

The words filled me like water. He saw it. He saw me. I reached out and touched him. So, we can get medicine. From the traders. From someone? I begged.

There is no medicine, he said. No lotion. No pills. All gone.

But in the books—before they were burnt...

Herbs, maybe, he muttered. Then he straightened. Set his mouth like the horizon. There is only one way. It will need to be cut off.

I held up my hand, swollen and trembling, feeling the breeze across my fingers from the open window. But isn’t there another way? Herbs, you mentioned herbs.

What grows? he said, throwing his arms open.

I cried.

He pulled his knife from his stained boot and set it on the table, its edge catching the lamp like a sliver of eye. His face, the only map I’ve ever known, was tender. He meant it as care.

I looked down. The wound bled again because of his touch. My arm echoed warmth. Droplets on the floor. My body spoke louder than he could.

I rose and ran to the door, undoing the latch. The night was windless, the dust lying like ash across the ground. I was sweating and shivering. Brother did not follow.

My breath tore in my chest as I ran to the woods. Maybe she would be here. Maybe she would know…anything else.

I saw her, yes. The woman in the green dress waited for me in the moonlight, waving me forward.

Breathless, I reached the tree, reached for her, but my good hand found no dress. It found only a large bag hanging there, the kind meant to be green, but at night looked the color of ash. Beneath it, a ribcage slumped in the weeds, the last of her held together by wire and dust.

I turned back. Brother stood alone on the porch. The lamp at his side lit only the knife, a pale line against the dark. He watched me in silhouette. He raised his hand. I lifted mine.

I said okay.