Little Wolves - By Thomas Maltman Page 0,72
knife. Once it was properly lobotomized, she lifted off the lid, rolled up her shirtsleeves, and scooped inside. Soon her hands reeked sweetly of the orange guts, but she didn’t mind the mess.
“What’s that supposed to be?” Logan asked after he turned off the radio. He’d carved his pumpkin to look cross-eyed, finishing with a gap-toothed smile. His pumpkin-bumpkin, he called it.
“What do you think?” Clara’s had moon-sliver irises. Long incisors dangled from the cavern of the mouth.
“Looks a little ghoulish for a fall festival at a church.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” Clara plopped handfuls of orange goop on the newspapers, carefully sorting seeds into a colander. She planned to dry the seeds overnight on wax paper, salt, and bake them crisp in olive oil tomorrow night. “But if you must know this is Grendel’s mother.”
“Ah, I should have guessed. Isn’t she the last monster old what’s-his-name has to fight?”
“She’s the second. There’s always another monster in epics. Until you die. It’s the third, a dragon, that slays Beowulf, leaving Wiglaf to moon over his body as an age of darkness spreads over the land.”
“Gloomy business, being a hero.” Logan thumped his gourd on the ground and wobbled it in the direction of Clara’s. “Prepare for battle, foul-smelling hell wench. It is I, Beowulf, wooer of maidens, mighty mead drinker, all around ass kicker. You will be smoten.”
Clara smiled. It was good to be here in the warm kitchen with him. This was the Logan who had made her laugh when they first started dating. “How will you smite me if you have no sword?”
“Oh,” he said. “I have a sword.”
She was about to say something really naughty, but just as she was making the last cut, a slit under the eyes to represent a scar, the knife slipped and swiped across her left palm. Clara didn’t feel anything. She lifted up her hand, fascinated. Bright blood mingled with cords of orange pulp that dropped wetly to the newspaper. Across from her, Logan said something as he reached for her. The knife clattered to the floor. Clara heard an oceanic sound in her ears, and she stood too quickly, making for the sink, wanting to wash the wound, and slipped on the slimy newspapers. She managed to twist as she fell, but still struck the linoleum hard enough that her breath was punched from her lungs.
Logan knelt beside her as she caught her breath. He wrapped a kitchen towel around her hand, pressing down to apply pressure. “You okay?”
She blinked up at him. “I think so.” Her other hand went to her stomach. At least she hadn’t landed right on it, but she couldn’t feel the baby. She shut her eyes and sent out a prayer. Are you all right? Mommy’s sorry she scared you. In answer, a wave of nausea made her rest her head on the cool floor.
She felt a stinging sensation in her hand as Logan dabbed at the wound. “Doesn’t look too deep,” he said. “I think we can bandage this, but you knocked yourself a good one when you fell.”
Clumsy girl. Look at what you’ve done.
“We should get you to the hospital, get you checked out.”
“You think so?” A new terrible thought branched inside her. What if there was no baby? What if the baby was lost? Here now, all Logan’s attention focused on her hand. What would happen to the fragile peace they had built once the baby arrived? And yet she was grateful when Logan insisted they go to the hospital to get her checked out.
The drive to Fell Creek took them into a starless dark split only by their headlights. The highway rose up out of the river valley, out onto flat, open prairies, passing isolated farmhouses, each huddled next to its own yard lamp and shelterbelt of trees. Clara shut her eyes and imagined what would happen if they just kept going past the hospital, past Mankato, all the way up to their old life in the Twin Cities. They didn’t talk, but Logan drove with one hand on the wheel, the other lightly touching her arm.
After the on-call doctor probed the wound with iodine and mummified it in fresh gauze, he bid Clara undress and put on a papery gown so he could check her for vaginal bleeding. The doctor was middle aged, a thick barrel mustache around his mouth, the ends like tusks. “Why don’t you wait in the other room?” he asked Logan in a firm voice.