by Penn Gates
“I'll ride in back,” Cash says. “Make sure he don't find a way out." He looks down at the man coldly. “I oughta let you try. Maybe you'd break every bone in your body rollin’ out of the truck and you could lay there like road kill 'til the buzzards come for you.”
Nix has already climbed behind the wheel when Cash bangs on the back window. She slides it open so she can hear him.
“Turn it around. We're not doin’ this on St Clair property.”
“Where then?” she asks. It's stopped raining, but thunder rumbles ominously and the air has grown still as death.
“Just drive. Make it at least six or seven miles from here and then start lookin’ for a likely place we can go off road.”
The trip seems way too short, maybe because Nix takes full advantage of the fact that speed limits are obsolete. She slows down only when the odometer tells her they've traveled seven miles. Creeping along at 30, she spots an old logging track leading back to a high woods. It's exactly what they're looking for. She pulls in and the truck bounces and rattles its way toward the trees. The wind is kicking up now, but the large trees offer some protection. She comes to a full stop and jumps down from the cab.
The perp is thrashing around the truck bed now, not in anger but in panic. He's finally figured out there's not going to be any miracle. He has less than half an hour to live.
Cash vaults over the tailgate before lowering it. “He's not gonna go easy,” he says. He stands there for a second. “Last chance, Nix. Wait here.”
She shakes her head angrily. “You can't carry him alone. And anyway, I'm putting a bullet in him, too.”
“Why? To prove you're tough? I already get that.”
“If we do it together, we share the responsibility.”
“It don't work that way, Nix,” he says slowly. “It only means two people feel the guilt instead of one.”
“That's still sharing,” she says stubbornly and takes a deep breath. “We're partners. We made this decision together—and we’re going to do the rest together, too. That's just the way it is.”
He looks at her for so long she thinks he's formulating another argument to discourage her, but finally he says, “If that's the way you want it. Let's get him out of the truck—and watch it. He'll try to kick.”
They spend a long time carrying their burden twenty feet further into the woods. The condemned man struggles frantically every step of the way, and they need to stop frequently to readjust their hold on him. Finally Cash just drags him until they come to a small clearing with a large tree on the other side of it. It takes both of them several minutes to get him bound securely to the thick trunk.
Cash pulls out a small can of day-glow spray paint, the kind they use to mark trees for cutting, and makes a small circle on the rope over the left side of the man's chest. “That's our target,” he says. “Chest shot won't be as messy as the head.”
Nix nods silently, not trusting herself to speak in a normal voice, and together they walk back across the clearing.
Cash pulls his gun, and Nix follows suit, taking the position used on the target range.
“On the count of three,” he says.
Nix wishes the perp would shut up and act like a man. She's trying to make this an impersonal act of justice, but part of her wants to shoot him because listening to his desperate animal noises is making her sick, not only to her stomach, but in her very soul.
Their guns fire at exactly the same moment and the man sags against the ropes, jerks once, and is still.
Cash walks slowly to the body and feels the neck for a pulse. “Gone,” he says. He stands looking at the wound. “Both kill shots—within a quarter inch of each other.”
Nix holsters her gun and walks back for the shovels while Cash loosens the corpse from the tree. By the time she returns, she's feeling lightheaded. She drops the shovels and rests her hands on her knees, head forward, until she regains her equilibrium.
Cash frowns. “What's wrong?”
“Just bent over too fast, I guess. Blood rushed to my head. I'm OK.”
He starts to say something, stops, and begins again. “We'll dig the hole in the middle of the clearin’. If we can stay clear of tree roots, it'll make the job a hell of a lot easier.”
The wind is strong now, so strong it penetrates the dense woods around them. Thunder rumbles like a cannon firing a warning shot before the rain begins. They dig in silence and, as the rain starts to fall in earnest, the hole fills with water. Operating under some primitive impulse that the dead must be buried deep to protect the living, they keep going until Nix can't see over the sides of the hole. Cash climbs out and pulls Nix up after him before rolling the corpse over the side, still bound. It lands with a splash, face down in the water. He makes no move to follow and arrange the dead man in a more traditional pose.
“I got nothin’ to say,” Cash says. “You?”
Nix surprises herself by walking to the edge of the grave. “You lived like a rabid coyote and you died like one,” she says to the corpse. “May God have mercy on the souls of your victims while he gives you what you've got coming. Amen.”
“Nice prayer,” Cash comments.
They fill in the hole quickly, straining against the weight of the muddy clay while the rain beats on their backs.
“Let's go then,” Nix says, as they tamp down the last shovelfuls. She wants to get as far away from this place as possible and forget how to find it ever again.
“Hold up a minute,” Cash says, grabbing her arm. “Just stand for a second. Let the rain wash off the mud.”
Nix closes her eyes and lifts her face to the sky, but she can still see the image of Cash behind her eyelids, shirt covered in blood mixed with the mud of a grave.
There's a deafening clap of thunder, and the air seems to glow violet with electricity.
“Time to go,” Cash says. “If lightnin’ strikes one of these trees, I don't want to be under it." He holds out a hand. “Keys—I’m drivin’.”
Chapter 20
The motion of the truck, the sight of the road rushing under the tires—it all makes Nix feel dizzy and sick. By the time Cash parks in front of the machine shed and switches off the engine, she can't control it any more. “Oh God,” she groans, “I'm gonna puke.”
She makes it outside, but barely. Cash slides across the seat and jumps out the passenger side, but Nix is already struggling to her feet. He reaches her just as she staggers and almost falls.
“OK, I'll take it from here,” he says and scoops her up in his arms.
She wants to say she's fine. She wants to tell him to quit treating her like a baby. Instead, she buries her face in his shoulder and cries. And then she's so ashamed of crying that she keeps her face hidden there. It isn't until he sets her on her feet that she opens her eyes to see that he's taken her to the room behind the machine shed, the one he calls his shack.
“You need to get out of those wet clothes,” he says and hands her a blanket.
“I'm not—”
“Not a suggestion,” he says, as he unbuttons his sodden shirt and tosses it on the floor. He unzips his jeans. “OK by me if you wanna watch, but after I get out of the rest of this wet shit, I'll take yours off for you.”
“Turn around,” she says, and waits to make sure he has before she turns her back to him and peels off her own clothes. She quickly wraps herself in the blanket.
“Sit,” Cash says from behind her. He's pointing at a shabby upholstered chair next to a rusted potbelly stove.
“Where do you find all this stuff?” she asks, sinking into the chair and watching him build a small fire. “It's a little warm for that,” she comments, and then realizes she's shaking uncontrollably.
“When you're in shock, your body temp drops—especially when you get soaked." He pokes around in the stove. “Relax. You need some time to recharge before you face the curious crowd.”
“Yeah, like about a year." She leans back. “You got anything to drink?”
; “Matter of fact, I do." Cash rummages around in a cupboard that has one door missing and hands Nix a bottle. “Sorry. No glasses.”
Nix can feel the warmth spread from her stomach throughout her body almost immediately. She takes one more sip before handing the bottle back to him.
“Did I ever tell you my daddy was a moonshiner?” he asks before he raises the bottle to his own lips.
“You might have mentioned he liked to drink, but not that he made his own,” she says, accepting the offer of another sip.
“He didn't just make his own. He supplied three counties with white lightnin'. Seems like we moved that damn still every six months." Cash grins, the first good humor he's shown in days. “May be where I got my start with fixin' things.”
“Always a silver lining,” she mumbles, but her head is nodding. She feels so incredibly relaxed suddenly, as if someone has cut those damn strings that were making her jerk and dance through the past few days.
Why is it so dark? she thinks suddenly, and then realizes she's not sitting in a chair but lying on a bed under an old quilt. A quick check tells her that her original blanket wrap is still intact. Cash is sleeping next to her, although on top of the quilt, his breathing deep and rhythmic. One of his arms is thrown protectively over her. She's still groggy with sleep—or whiskey—and she can't think immediately what to do. Maybe she'll just lie here for awhile feeling safe and content. She can be outraged in the morning. In only a minute or two, she drifts back to sleep.
The next time she wakes, it's daylight, and she's alone in the bed. Cash has another small fire going and the smell of brewing coffee fills the air.
Nix yawns and stretches, then feels self-conscious as he turns and looks her way.
“I'll bet this is the most you've slept at one time in months—probably since Geezer.” He smiles. “Want some coffee?”
“Sounds great,” she says. She tries to think of something else casual and companionable to say, but the two words she's just spoken seem to be all she can come up with in the line of small talk. Before she can untangle herself from the double layer of covers, he's brought the steaming cup to her, along with his own.
“Relax,” Cash says, sitting on the edge of the bed. “I can see you gettin’ set to launch yourself like a slingshot.”
She sits up, carefully arranging the blanket. “Won't they be wondering where I am?" She colors. “Oh God, they will be wondering.”
“George came down here last night just before dark to make sure we were OK.”
Nix groans. “Was I sleeping in your bed by that time, or passed out in the chair reeking of alcohol?”
Cash appears to take her question seriously. “You were in bed, I think—because George sat in that chair while we talked." He blows on his coffee to cool it. “I don't know that he even noticed,” he says. “He's goin' through a crisis of his own.”
“George doesn't have crises because he has all the rules. All he has to do is follow them.”
Cash looks at her—a little sadly, she thinks. “Cut him some slack, Nix. He's only got the one reference book, and it does have some answers—thing is, you gotta match up the answers to the problems all by yourself. And George is findin' out that ain't easy.”
Nix sighs. She can see that smart remarks aren't going to deflect a conversation about George. “It's the whole execution thing, isn't it?”
“Yeah, but not how you think. He's not mad at us. He's feelin' like he betrayed his own beliefs 'cause he didn't speak up against the death sentence.”
“He must know it wouldn't have made any difference.”
“It would have—to him. He admitted he got so mad and disgusted after listening to—” He stops. “We never even got the guy's name, did we?”
“It's not like there was gonna be a tombstone,” Nix snaps, then continues more thoughtfully, “I wonder if even he knew who he was any more—or if whatever in him that was human just died somewhere along the way. If anything could ever make me believe in demonic possession, it's that bastard.”
“George said after hearing the guy talk about those girls as if what he'd done to them was nothin', he felt—a righteous rage, is how he put it." Cash glances at her. “Kinda felt the same as you—the devil was in that man and he wanted him destroyed.”
Nix isn't sure she wants her opinion and George's to coincide, but she ignores it and says, “So what's his problem? As far as I'm concerned, that's just what we did.”
“Slide over,” Cash says. “My back is killin' me after yesterday. I need to lean against something.”
Nix even hands him a pillow. “So George—”
“He says that after we'd gone, he remembered somethin’—that when the devil tempted Christ in the wilderness, Jesus didn't destroy him. He banished him from His presence. George said that's when he realized he'd been tricked by the devil into believin’ that evil could be destroyed by doin’ more evil. ”
“That's pretty convoluted reasoning,” Nix comments.
“You weren't raised in a religious household, were you?” Cash asks.
“My grandfather took me to church on Sundays, read me Bible stories, but it wasn’t, uh, his central point of reference." She takes a sip of coffee and realizes it's grown tepid. “I think that was the Farmer's Almanac,” she says, trying for a lighter note.
“Yeah, me neither,” Cash says. “I never can decide if that was a good thing or not. But for folks like George, the spiritual world is the one that's real." He gestures with his free hand. “This here—it’s like an obstacle course in boot camp to test us.”
“So, George feels like he failed that test?” Nix asks slowly.
“He does. And in George's universe, he's got to make that right.”
“I don't even want to know what that's going to take—do I?”
“He doesn't know yet, either. But prepare yourself. Whatever he decides to do, I don't think we're gonna like it.”
“I'll tell you one thing,” Nix says, starting to feel angry. “If he thinks he's going to spread religious paranoia around here, he's going to get my boot up his ass.”
Cash reaches out and touches the corner of her mouth with one finger. “I've always wanted to kiss you right there when you smile. Why don't you smile now for me?”
Nix doesn't move a muscle, has to remind herself to breathe, to concentrate on not spilling her cold coffee.
He leans closer. “The last time I saw you smile was back in May. Or it might have been when you were torturing the princess in her dungeon."
“Cash—” she groans, but she can't say more because he's kissing the corner of her mouth.
“Let’s get rid of these cups,” he whispers, taking hers away from her. Without turning, he drops them on the floor next to the bed.
He pulls her against him, but the damn blankets are in the way, and she tugs at them impatiently—until she realizes he's holding her hands so she can't.
“Nix, hold up for a minute,” Cash says hoarsely. “I gotta say somethin’ to you.”
“Now?" She squirms closer to him. “We can talk later.”
He pushes himself up on one elbow and looks down at her. “Now.”
She starts to turn away from him, but he pins her down so she can't move.
“Listen to me,” he says. “If we do this, everythin’ will change.”
“Why? It doesn't have to. So we're friends with benefits,” Nix says and sees a shadow cross his face. When it comes to words for feelings, I'm as much fun to listen to as a tone-deaf fiddler, she thinks. It's a mistake to even try.
“We're not livin’ in that world anymore. You said so yourself." He gives her a little shake. “We can't just hook up—because you told all of them it ain't allowed.”
He sits up and swings his feet onto the floor. “You have a choice here,” he says over his shoulder. The fact that he doesn't even glance at her as he speaks isn't encouraging. “Either we forget this whole thing—or we set an example.”
“What's that supposed to m
ean?” she says, hating the note of panic in her voice. She sits up so fast the blanket slides off her shoulder and she catches it just in time.
Still not looking at her, he says harshly, “What is it with you, Nix? Yesterday you said we're partners, that we share everything." He stands up and glares down at her. “Is that partner like one of your cop buddies, or partner like a man and woman committed to each other 'til death do us part? 'Cause I'm fuckin' confused!”
Nix opens her mouth, then closes it. She looks down at her hands, twisting the frayed edge of the quilt like she's trying to strangle it. “My grandfather was a widower,” she chokes out. “My mother was never married. Most of the cops I knew were married to the job, whether they had a family or not."
The quilt is blurry now and she brings up a corner and wipes her eyes. “Second time I've cried in the past twenty-four hours. I must be having a breakdown." She blinks rapidly, trying to hold back the flood. “I have no idea what the fuck I'm talking about. I'm totally clueless about relationships of any kind—unless they involve riding in a squad car.”
Cash sits down next to her again. “You already did the hard part, Nix. We figure things out together. We share good times—and the worst times. We trust each other." He reaches up and ruffles her hair. “I want to sleep beside you every night for the rest of my life. What do you want?”
Chapter 21
The dinner bell is ringing as Nix makes a half-hearted attempt to brush the last of the dried mud off her jeans.
“Quit stallin’,” Cash says. “It's been twenty-four hours since you’ve been around to tell them what they can't do. They must be frantic." He stands behind her and wraps his arms around her.
“Ha ha,” Nix mumbles. Twenty-four hours isn't enough to sort through all that's happened in the past week, and change has never been one of her favorite things. She can see what looks like every soul on the farm milling around the back yard, waiting for the two of them.
