Rust and Bone Read Online Free PDF Page A

dime from that distant vantage, was freezing over in the evening chill; tiny red pinpricks represented my bloody hand prints on the ice. The splintered bones pulsed: I’d broken forty-five of fifty-four.
    I push off the floor and lean against a sawhorse, waiting for the teeth to align and the gears to mesh again. Nicodemus circles somewhere to the left, dancing side to side, weaving through blue shafts of shadow like animate liquid. Some bastard kicks me in the spine, “Get up and fight, you pitiful son of a bitch.” Standing, I wonder how long was I down. Eight seconds? No ref, so nobody’s counting. A pair of hands clutch my shoulders, shoving, the same voice saying, “Get out there, chickenshit.” I strike back with an elbow, impacting something fleshy and forgiving. A muted crack. Those hands fall away.
    Nicodemus advances and hits me in the face. He grabs a handful of hair and bends me over the sawhorse, pummeling with his lead hand. The skin above my eyes comes apart, soft meat tearing away from the deeply seamed scar tissue. Blood sprays in a fine mist. I blink away red and smack him in the kidneys. He pulls back, nursing his side. Knuckling the blood out of my eyes, I move in throwing jabs. Nicodemus’s skull is oddly planed, a tank turret, deflecting my punches. His fists are bunched in front of his mouth, arms spread in an invert funnel leading to the point of his chin: a perfect opening, but not yet. Reaching blindly, he entangles my arms, pulling me to his chest. He rubs his hand wraps across my eyes and I wince at the turpentine sting. I snap an uppercut, thumping him under the heart.
    The hospital room walls were glossy tile, windows inlaid with wire mesh. Jake lay in an elevated hospital bed, shirtless, chest stuck with EKG discs. Outside a heavy mist fell, making a nimbus around the moon and stars. Teddy’d visited the emergency ward earlier, taking one look at my hands and saying I’d never box again. I was on Dilaudid for pain, Haldol for hysteria. My mind was stark and bewildered. A machine helped Jake breathe. His father sat beside the bed, gripping his hand.
    â€œIs he—will he be all right?”
    â€œHe’s alive, Ed.”
    Steve’d never called me that before. Always Eddie.
    â€œIs he … will he wake up soon?”
    â€œNobody can say. There was … damage. Parts shutting down. I don’t know, exactly.”
    â€œWe were … holding hands. He broke away. He’d never done that before. It was so strange. We were holding hands, then he didn’t want to do that anymore. It’s only human. I let him go. It was okay. I thought, He’s growing up, and that’s okay.”
    Steve smoothed the white sheets over Jake’s legs. “The golden hour. It’s … a period of time. Three minutes, three-and-a-half. The amount of time the brain can survive without oxygen. Only a few minutes, but the doctor called it the golden hour. So … stupid.”
    â€œI’m so sorry.”
    Steve didn’t look at me. His hands smoothed the sheets.
    I stalk Nicodemus, keeping left, outside his range. His eyes shot with streaks of red, their wavering gaze fixated on the darkness beyond me. I stab forward, placing weight on my lead foot and twisting sharply at the hip, left hand rising towards the point of his chin.
    When I was a kid, a rancher with a lizard problem paid a dime for every one I killed. I stuffed geckos in a sack and smashed the squirming burlap with a rock.
    When my fist hits Nicodemus it sounds an awful lot like those geckos.
    The punch forces his jawbone into his neck, spiking a big bundle of nerves. My hand shatters on impact, bones breaking down their old fault lines. Nicodemus’s eyes flutter uncontrollably as he falls backward. He falls in defiance of gravity, body hanging on a horizontal plane, arms at his sides, palms upraised. There’s a strange look on his face. Not a smile, not exactly, but