The Ninth Commandment
Another story from my fiction writing class, part of the new and critically-acclaimed Shit I Wrote series.
The Ninth Commandment
Folks should have suspected foul play when the Cooper’s coonhound brought home the baby head. Jasper didn’t know it was a baby head, of course, on account of it wasn’t alive and making sounds or smells like a human baby anymore. It was just a dead piece of flesh, and he was just a dog, so nobody got mad at him for being disrespectful and carrying it around in his mouth like he did. Nobody blamed him for dropping that head on Ellie Mae’s kitchen floor one evening while she was rolling out dough for biscuits. Nobody blamed him for staring proudly at it, for thinking that it was something Ellie Mae and Theo might have wanted.
Ellie Mae didn’t even look at what he’d dropped when she heard the dull thud of rotting meat and bone hitting her floor; she just said, “Jasper, you’d better take that filthy thing back outside right now!”
Jeb Pillman and Theo were playing cards at the kitchen table, and Theo said, “Mae, I reckon that’s the head of an infant.”
Ellie Mae turned around and looked at the head and sighed, “Cripes, dog, have you gone and murdered a baby?”
“Nah,” said Jeb, who had picked up the head and was holding it in his hand, considering it seriously, like he was Hamlet and the infant had been poor Yorick. “This baby’s been dead for a while. See, he’s gone all soft and oozy.” Jeb squeezed the head gently, testing its ripeness. “I’d guess a coupla days.”
Jasper sat at Jeb’s feet, begging for the head back, so Jeb waved it in front of his face a few times and then opened the porch door and tossed it as far as he could into the fading daylight.
“Jeb,” Ellie Mae scolded. “That’s somebody’s baby’s head, you know. They’re gonna be wantin’ it back, now.”
Jeb waved her off. “We’s playin’ fetch, Mae. He’ll bring it right back. That’s the point of the game.”
Nobody had reported a missing baby head, was the problem. Theo and Ellie Mae checked around the next day, and of the twenty-six families in Gaynesville, none had recently lost any part of any child.
“Was it a boy or a girl?” asked Ira Green, who acted as town crier and kept up contact with the town criers from Shawnesskee and Bull Creek. “I’ll see who’s missing what.”
“I don’t know, it was just the head,” said Ellie Mae.
“Well,” said Ira, “keep your eyes open for the rest of it.”
Before she could begin her search in earnest, Jasper dropped a foot on the porch one afternoon while Ellie Mae was hanging the wash on the line.
“How long has it been dead?” she asked drily when she plopped the foot down on the kitchen table in front of Jeb.
He took up the foot in his hands and examined it, pulling it close up to his face and then holding it far away again, to better gather every bit of information. “Well, now, I’d guess about four or five days, at most. You see how it’s all gray here-” he pointed to the ragged edge where it had been severed from the ankle “-and the maggots have really gotten to it pretty bad. This here foot’s all but full of maggots on the inside, look.”
“Yeah it sure is,” agreed Ellie Mae.
“I reckon he’s taken to the cemetery or somethin’,” Jeb said as he leaned back in the chair and gestured to Jasper with his thumb. “You might have to tie him up nights until the new dirt settles.”
“Tomorrow before church we can check to see if anyone’s been dug up,” Ellie Mae decided. She went back outside to finish hanging the wash and Jeb followed. He waved the foot in front of Jasper’s face for a moment, then lobbed it towards the hay meadow.
Ellie Mae put her hands on her hips and said, “Honestly, Jeb!”
“Mae, he’s bringin’ it back right now! Ain’t you, Jasper? Such a good boy!” Jeb tackled Jasper when he arrived and wrestled with him for the foot, and Ellie Mae rolled her eyes and returned to her hanging.
The next morning Ira Green approached Ellie Mae and Jeb as they poked around the cemetery. “What’re y’all doin’?” he asked casually.
“Lookin’ to see if anybody’s been dug up recently,” said Ellie Mae.
“Jasper’s been bringin’ some parts back to Mae ‘n Theo’s place,” Jeb said, then brought a pinch of soil to rest on his tongue.
“How’s it taste?” Ira asked.
Jeb made a thoughtful face. “Like dirt, I reckon. My grand-mammy used to tell me that flowers grow prettier over graves ‘cause the soil is sweeter, but every time I taste grave soil, it just tastes like regular old dirt.”
“That’s right disappointin’,” Ira said sincerely, and turned to Ellie Mae. “What else Jasper bring to you, besides that head?”
“A foot yesterday,” she said.
“The baby’s foot?”
“Nah,” said Jeb. “It was a grown person’s foot. On the small side for a man, wouldn’t you say, Mae?”
“I reckon so. Mighta been a boy.”
“Well,” said Ira. “Don’t look like any of our folk have been dug up. I asked over and nobody’s missin’ a baby, but I’ll sure check about the grown person’s foot.”
“I’m gonna have to bake you a pie for your help, Ira,” said Ellie Mae.
“Aw, it’s no trouble,” said Ira.
“That’s right humble of you, Ira, but I wouldn’t ever miss an opportunity to eat some of Mae’s pie,” Jeb said, winking at Ellie Mae, who blushed.
Ira smiled and said, “Not that I’m necessarily too willin’ to trust a man who eats dirt, but I sure wouldn’t turn anything away, if you were to make it for me. I’d sure appreciate that, in fact.”
“Jus’ come on over tonight and I’ll have it ready for you,” said Ellie Mae.
“Theo’s bound to get jealous one of these days, you keep cookin’ for men who ain’t him,” Jeb said, and winked at Ira, who smiled back.
Ellie Mae stepped between the men and linked her arms through theirs, and steered them, saying, “Let’s get you boys to church.”
That evening, while Ellie Mae was picking blackberries for the pie, Jasper trotted up and dropped a baby hand next to her feet. Ellie Mae looked down.
“I swear, Jasper,” she said, shaking her head, “I don’t know where you keep finding these things!”
Jasper sat. His tail was wagging and he was pawing the ground excitedly.
“Jeb!” Ellie Mae called, and when he didn’t answer, she sighed, picked up the hand, waved it in front of Jasper’s face once or twice, and side-armed it toward the pine trees.
“Jasper brought me the baby’s hand,” she said later, while she set the pie to cool on the windowsill and Theo and Jeb played cards at the table.
“Did he?” said Theo. “Where is it?”
“Well, I threw it for him,” said Ellie Mae, looking at her feet and smiling a little.
Jeb chuckled into his tumbler and said, “Good girl.”
Theo got up from the table and said, “I have a couple of things I want to get taken care of before it gets too dark. I’ll see you tomorrow if you’re gone by the time I get back in, Jeb.”
Jeb reached out his hand and Theo grasped it heartily, then stepped through the porch door.
Ellie Mae called to his back, “Ira’s coming by any minute to get this pie. Send him on in if you see him.”
“I was talking today with Bart Fisk, from Shawnesskee, and he’s heard of someone who might know about your baby head,” said Ira. His mouth was full of pie, and he took a long gulp of water when he’d finished talking, to clear his voice. “Seems folks up there know of a farmer whose daughter’s been missing goin’ on a week now. She went into town, I guess, and hasn’t made it back yet.”
“…Is she a baby?” asked Jeb.
Ira made a gesture to indicate ineffable bemusement.
“If she ain’t a baby, what’s she got to do with the baby head?” Jeb asked, speaking slowly and over-enunciating.
“Well, she was fairly pregnant, apparently,” said Ira.
“Supposin’ Jasper killed a pregant girl and ate her baby…” Jeb said dreamily, smiling slyly at Ellie Mae out of the corners of his eyes.
“Shut your mouth, Jeb,” she said sharply, smiling in her eyes, too.
“I suppose what happened,” Ira said a little more loudly, with an air of some authority, “was that she started to have the baby on the way to or from town, and died in childbirth, and Jasper - and I reckon a whole mess of other animals - got to her and ripped her apart, or ate her - you know how that happens. So if we can find the parts of them that Jasper’s brought back to y’all, I reckon we could return them to her parents and they can bury her right.”
“That shouldn’t be too much trouble. He’s been bringing me bits and pieces every day,” said Ellie Mae. Jasper was sitting at her feet, and she rubbed his ears , then said suddenly, “I wish I hadn’t thrown that hand for him earlier!”
Jeb chuckled. “He’ll bring it right back here, don’t you worry. That’s the whole point of the game.”
Ira noticed a light in the barn as he was stepping out of the Cooper’s kitchen. He hadn’t seen much of Theo for a few days, so he went to give him the news about the pregnant girl himself. The door to the barn was open and the light was coming from the back, from the big stall used for birthing calves.
“You in here, Theo?” he called brightly.
“Yeah, Ira,” said Theo. “Give me a second to clean up.” There were noises like a piece of wood being moved.
Ira peeked into the stall. Theo was placing a square of floorboards over a hole in the foundation. “Say, Theo, are those body parts in that hole?”
Theo turned around abruptly. “Huh?” he said.
“Is that hole in the foundation full of body parts?” Ira asked again. “It looks to be full of body parts, and the thing is, I came in here to tell you that I figured out where they came from.”
“Huh?” said Theo again.
“A girl from up Shawnesskee way, a farmer’s daughter. She was pregnant and she died in childbirth on her way to or from town, and they’ve been wantin’ to bury her right, so I sure am glad that Jasper found all those parts!”
Theo stared at him blankly, and Ira added thoughtfully, “And I sure am glad you had the good sense to store them all together, instead of throwing them for the dog like Ellie and Jeb’ve been doin’.”
“Well,” said Ira after a moment, during which Theo had continued to stare at him blankly, “I reckon we should get them all outta that hole and send them back home, don’t you?” He moved toward the trap door, and Theo opened his mouth as if in feeble protest, but did not make noise.
“Say, Theo,” said Ira, “these parts sure are in awfully good shape.” He held a piece of forearm up to the light and turned it slowly, examining it. “It barely looks like any animals got to her at all!” He smiled, then frowned and asked, “Say Theo, how’d you reckon she got so torn to bits by animals without looking like she was torn to bits by animals?”
Theo stared at Ira for a moment more, then sat heavily upon a bench against the wall. “I reckon I may have raped her,” he said on an exhale.
Ira asked tentatively, “After she’d died during childbirth?”
Theo shook his head. “No, Ira. She was alive then.”
“Oh, good,” said Ira, also on an exhale.
“Well,” said Theo slowly, “I don’t reckon it was so good, since I killed her after.”
“Well, no, that’s not so good,” Ira agreed.
“I felt bad about it, of course,” Theo added.
Ira was holding her head up to his face, and he said, “Oh, I reckon you did. I’d feel right bad about killing a pregnant girl.” He set the head back in the hole, and asked, “Why’d you rape a pregnant girl, anyway?”
Theo shrugged. “Well, with Jeb sleeping with Ellie Mae, I get sort of lonely, and I was really sort of lonely when she happened along.”
“Does Caroline known about that yet, by the way?” Ira asked.
“I bet not.”
“Well, I reckon even if she did, she wouldn’t take up rapin’ pregnant girls,” said Ira. His mouth was set but his eyes smiled slyly.
Theo looked at him so that he said, “I’m makin’ a joke, Theo! Lord-y.”
They both looked awkwardly at the floor for a few moments - Theo with his back slumped against the wall, Ira standing slouched - until Ira said, gesturing toward the hole, “Well, I reckon we should start packin’ her up, huh?”
Theo sat up straight and said seriously, “Well, no, Ira. I reckon I have to kill you, now.”
Ira looked at Theo for a moment, then back at the floor. “Oh,” he said. “I reckon I should’ve turned down Ellie Mae’s pie earlier.”
The next afternoon Jeb was helping Ellie Mae tie up the pole beans when Jasper dropped a hand on the ground between them. Jeb waved the hand in Jasper’s face a few times, then flung it out toward the road.
“Man alive, Jeb!” said Ellie Mae. “We’re supposed to be collecting those to send back to that girl’s family!”
“Relax, Mae,” said Jeb, touching her shoulder, “that was a man’s hand.”
