“I left it up there on the ridge, right behind Shelton’s. I couldn’t drive in any further with the snow.”
I picked a blanket off the rocking chair and told Portis to turn around. I hadn’t been to see him in months and took quick stock of the cabin. The sum total of his furnishings remained a cot, card table, and rocking chair, all of which were fanned out to face the woodstove. There were shelves built into the wall behind the stove and they were lined with whiskey fifths, canned food, and jars of jerked meat—which I guess made it the kitchen. Behind the furniture there was nothing but crates of clothes and supplies, then a window looking out on the pines.
“Carletta would call this an open floor plan,” I said.
“There was no plan about it,” Portis said. “Rick Potter built this cabin as a hunting shack. I won its rights in a hand of cards not long after me and your mother quit. But yes, to answer your question, I do like it open. It’s better for energy flow.”
I felt the warm air prickle my skin when I took off my T-shirt, then wrapped myself in the blanket and stood by the woodstove. I shivered and told myself to ignore the sour, sweaty funk of the blanket. I reminded myself just how cold I’d been only moments earlier, out there in the night.
Portis bounced Jenna lightly on an arm. He drank from the whiskey and looked down at the baby from the corner of an eye. He puffed out his cheeks and made a farting sound. Jenna sputtered a bit, then cried a little softer.
“You don’t happen to have a phone, do you?” I asked. “Cellular or otherwise?”
“No,” he said. “I don’t believe I do.”
“Why does that not surprise me?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “But I’d love to sit down and discuss the matter further. I’d like to get to the bottom of your feelings on this issue, which are of great importance to me.”
“She’s calmed down,” I said.
“She run out of things to say,” he said.
“She likes you.”
“You don’t know nothing about it,” he said.
I took Jenna and the backpack to the card table. Portis had a little stack of pornos there, and of course they were the worst kind of filth. Portis was a miser even when it came to the purchase of his smut. You could tell because the covers had all these tiny pictures of sorry models, like they didn’t want you to look too close at any one.
I shoved that nastiness off the table and I could tell Portis was ashamed by how quick he gathered them up and stuck them on the shelf beside the canned food. I unfolded the blanket and set Jenna down on the table while Portis returned to his whiskey and lit a cigarette. He went to the door and peered out.
“I’ll go get your fucking rice-burner Tonka truck,” he said.
“It’s a Nissan,” I said.
“It is a product of the Orient,” he said. “No matter what you call it.”
“Uh-huh,” I said.
I peeled off Jenna’s clothes as careful as I could, but there was no stopping her scream. She yelled out and then for a few terrible moments made no sound at all. She just lay there with her mouth wide open, howling silent until her wind caught and she heaved and screamed again.
“My goodness,” said Portis.
There were streaks of urine and shit down her legs and it turned my stomach to look at it. I might not have had it in me to shoot Shelton Potter, or anybody else, but I should have done something with the mother. She smoked herself under, then lay there like a carpet stain while her baby cried out in the cold. What I should have done was grabbed her sorry ass by the hair and dragged her to the police myself.
I took to Jenna with the wipes but she was already covered in rashy burns. Her bottom was blistered terrible and there were bumps at the diaper line that flared red and oozed. There were welts beneath a crust of dried shit on her back and when I looked at it in the light I felt my throat catch. I thought I was going to cry again.
“What is it?” said Portis.
“Will you come here and look?” I said. “Please.”
Portis breathed in sharp when he saw and then I picked up Jenna’s legs to show him the backside.
“Jesus God,” he said.
“Do you think it’s infected?”
“I don’t like that ooze,” he said. “I can tell you that much.”
He had a pot of water warming on the woodstove and he dropped in a washcloth, wrung it out, and brought it back to me at the table. Jenna’s cheeks were wet with tears and snot and I put my hand on her stomach to steady her.
She howled and kicked her legs while I wiped. I wanted to drop that cloth and hold her but I grabbed her ankles and kept on. She pounded the table with her fists and when she went purple in the face Portis had to step outside.
I put a fresh diaper on when it was over and then took some blue footie pajamas from the backpack. They were clean and dry and I buttoned her up quick. Portis came back in when the crying was over, read the directions for the formula, and fixed a bottle.