The Bone Tree

by Greg Iles

  Sheriff Dennis leans forward, his eyes burning with long-suppressed rage. “That cuts two ways, brother. I owe these motherfuckers from way back. They come at me tonight . . . I’ll kill ’em. You can sort out the mess with a judge in the morning.”

  This prospect doesn’t excite me, but I raise my hand and pat him on the shoulder. “Just watch your back, okay?”

  “Just be at my office at seven A.M. You don’t want to miss their faces when I slap that meth on the table.”

  I can’t help but smile. “You’re right about that. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Hey, wait,” he says as I pop the door handle.

  When I turn back, Walker is holding out his hand to me. In it gleams a gold star with Concordia Parish Sheriff engraved in the metal. He’s taken the star from his own chest and offered it to me.

  “I can’t take that, Walker.”

  “Hell yes you can. In case you beat me to my office tomorrow. Consider yourself a sworn deputy.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, I take the badge and slip it carefully into my pocket. “Thanks. Remember what I said, now. Watch your six.”

  Dennis grins and gives me a quick salute. “Adios, hombre.”

  CHAPTER 46

  BILLY KNOX HAD been drinking bourbon at his desk for so long that he’d started talking to the big stuffed razorback standing against the opposite wall. Forrest had planted the spear in that animal’s back as deeply as he’d planted the metaphorical one in Billy’s. Surely there was a rule against asking a man to betray his own father in order to succeed, or even to survive? But rules meant nothing to Forrest. They never had.

  Billy had expected his dad to give him hell when he heard the chopper taking off without being told why, but all Snake had done was walk into the study and ask where the bird was headed. When Billy denied knowing its destination, his father had accepted his answer and disappeared. But Billy had known that couldn’t be the end of it.

  Sure enough, as he sat staring at the glazed eyes of the hog, the study door opened and Snake stepped into the room wearing a black sweatshirt and weathered Levis. He raised his right hand in greeting, then took a seat across the desk from his son.

  “You’ve made a hell of a dent in that whiskey,” Snake said. “Something bothering you?”

  “Nah,” Billy lied.

  A fleeting smile crossed his father’s features. “Listen to me, boy. I’m not gonna fill you with a bunch of bullshit. I’m here because we’ve come to the fork in the river.”

  Billy stirred from his anesthetized stupor. “What do you mean?”

  “No games, son. You know what I’m talking about. We’re at the place where some go one way, and the rest go the other. Forrest means to leave all this behind him. And by ‘this’ I mean ‘us.’ He wants to go with the moneymen and the power whores in New Orleans and Baton Rouge. He thinks he can step right up into that life and it will be great. And he’s gonna tell you that you can do it, too, if he hasn’t already.”

  Billy wished he would simply pass out, so he wouldn’t have to lie anymore. He could hardly believe that three days ago he’d been trying to hire Jimmy Buffett for his forty-fourth birthday party. Now he couldn’t imagine celebrating anything, except staying out of prison.

  “The truth is,” Snake went on, “you’d do better in that world than Forrest ever would. Because Forrest has got something in him that you don’t.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Self-destruction.”

  Billy blinked and leaned forward. “What are you talking about? Forrest is the most careful guy I know.”

  “You think that because you don’t really know him.”

  “What? I’ve known him all my life.”

  Snake reached out and took a slug straight from the bourbon bottle. “How much do you remember about Granddaddy Elam?”

  “Not much. I remember that weird hat he’d wear, like something from pilgrim times. The Scarlet Letter or something.”

  Snake chuckled darkly. “Yeah. He was a lay preacher, and he wore that thing to impress the suckers. God only knows how many offering plates he robbed and children he fucked in that old hat.”

  Billy blinked in surprise, unsure that he’d heard correctly. “What are you talking about?”

  “Nothing but life. The truth of it. And one truth is, when your own daddy fucks you in the ass, you ain’t ever the same.”

  When your own daddy fucks you in the ass . . . ? “Are you saying Uncle Frank was molested by Granddad?”

  “Not just Frank. Frank, some of the cousins, God knows how many kids in Elam’s various flocks . . . and me, of course.”

  It was all Billy could do to stop himself from disgorging the liquor he’d drunk. “You?”

  “Sure. I was there, wasn’t I? And I was too little to stop him. That’s all old Elam needed, boy.” Snake shook his head and sucked his teeth the way Robert Duvall sometimes did in the movies.

  As far as Billy was concerned, this was no longer a two-way conversation. His father had the floor. Snake seemed to sense this, because he began to speak without prompting.

  “When that kind of shit happens to most people, they either bury it and move on, or it buries them. I’ve seen it bury people. We had a cousin who killed herself when she was fourteen. But Frank . . . he buried it. Most people never suspected a thing.”

  “And you?”

  Snake waved his hand. “I’m different. I didn’t have to bury it. It’s like prison, you know?”

  Billy’s stomach rolled again. He did know, and he didn’t want to be reminded.

  “That kind of shit’s generally gonna happen when you’re inside,” Snake said, “and if it does, it does. Ain’t no different than getting stabbed or having your head stove in, if you look at it right. Except it tends to happen regular until you find yourself some protection. Anyway . . . Frank buried what your granddaddy done and moved on. But it was always part of him. You follow?”

  “I guess.”

  “See, what people sensed in Frank was this burning thing, but cold at the same time, like a cold flame. Some things he did during the war—crazy, heroic things—I knew it was that pain driving him. Even if he didn’t know . . . I did.

  “But it’s a funny thing, Bill. You can hate the person who does that to you, and yet still become like them. It’s like you absorb part of them with their damn spunk—part of their black soul. Especially if you’re young.”

  “Daddy, I don’t think I—”

  “Oh, you’re gonna listen,” Snake said. “You’ve got to hear this. See, when your old man does that to you, the way Elam did us, it can turn you inside out. At some level, you realize that you came into the damned world through that man’s dick. Then you find yourself lying under him with a pillow or a sock stuffed in your mouth, screaming while he’s shoving it into you. . . . That’s about as painful as it gets, in every meaning of the word. That’s what taught me the first law of the damned universe.”

  “Which is?”

  “Pain begets pain, boy. If that ain’t in the Bible, it ought to be.”

  Billy looked at the liquor bottle, but when he nearly lost his supper, he focused back on his father. “Daddy, why are you telling me this?”

  “I’m trying to save you. And myself. People think I’m crazy, I know that. Hell, I like ’em to think that. It makes life easier in a lot of ways. And I may be a little crazy. Who ain’t? But I’m crazy like a fox, Billy boy. Because I always rein it in before things spin quite out of control. A crop duster don’t get to be my age without knowing how to rein it in.

  “But Frank . . . he was the opposite. Ninety-nine percent of the time, he was cool as ice. But one time in a hundred, he was gonna jump off the rails and do something so extreme you couldn’t believe it.”

  “Like?”

  “Hell, it don’t matter now. Things somebody like you couldn’t even imagine. My point is, Forrest has that in him, too.”

  Billy shook his head, not quite believing this.

&n
bsp; “You ever notice how he is with women?”

  Billy had heard stories, but he motioned for his father to continue.

  “Sure, I’ll slap a woman around if she gives me attitude,” Snake said, “and I like rough pussy. But Forrest is different. He’ll really hurt a woman, and worse, he’ll enjoy it. Not just physically either. He likes breaking women down.”

  “He’s been with his wife a long time.”

  “His second wife. The first one died. And it’s a good thing nobody looked too close at that. But there’s two reasons that second wife has lasted. First, he learned some things the last time around. He don’t let the demon all the way out with wife number two. But more important, that woman likes being broke down. She don’t show it, but she does. There’s women who love pain, son, and she’s one. She’s also got the same ambition Forrest does. She likes shopping in Dallas and New York with those trust-fund bitches from New Orleans.”

  “I don’t see where you’re going with this, Dad.”

  “Yeah, you do. Because you think the same way. All that bullshit sounds exciting to you. You want to fly around with rock stars and gamble in the private rooms in Vegas. But I’m here to tell you, Forrest can’t live that life long without blowing it up. It’s just his nature.”

  “Why are you so sure?”

  “Because Elam got Forrest, too.”

  Billy’s face felt hot. “What?”

  Snake leaned forward, his eyes burning with conviction. “You only missed it because you were born so late. Elam died in ’66—right about the time he would have started on you. But not before he got Forrest, and also his big brother, Frank Junior.”

  Billy still couldn’t quite accept this. “Has Forrest ever talked to you about it?”

  Snake shook his head with regret. “No. I tried to talk to him a couple of times, but he wouldn’t have it. But I know. I’ve seen it in him, man . . . that same cold fire that was in Frank.”

  “Then you don’t know for sure.”

  “Yes, I do. Listen close now. I’m only gonna tell this once. Forrest’s big brother—Frank Junior—enlisted in the Corps in ’64, and he went to Vietnam in ’65. I can’t tell you how proud Frank was of that boy. Junior was the reincarnation of his daddy, a born soldier. All the news we got from over there was good. The race war had heated up pretty good over here by ’64, so we were pretty busy with the Double Eagles. Old Elam came and went like he always did. He was in his sixties, but he was still a rounder and still getting in trouble—sometimes with the law. Brody got him out of the pokey a few times, as a favor to Frank. Kept him out of prison.” Snake paused, reflecting silently, then went on.

  “In 1966, everything changed. Frank got a visit from a casualty team. Frank Junior had been killed. At a place called the Rockpile.”

  “I’ve heard about that.”

  “Not the real story, you ain’t. The government said young Frank had charged straight into machine-gun fire to save four members of his squad. He got hit getting the second guy, but he kept going back out. The fourth time he ran out there, the gun chewed him to pieces. There was talk of a Medal of Honor. In the end they gave him a posthumous Silver Star.”

  Billy actually had heard all this before.

  “You’d think Frank would be able to handle something like that,” Snake said, “as much war as he’d seen. But he started drinking, and he didn’t stop. He could always hold his liquor, but he was drinking enough to kill most men. Enough to put himself out every night. Then the letter came.”

  “What letter? About the medal?”

  “No. A letter from Frank Junior. He’d mailed it before he died. It had got delayed somehow, but it finally came.”

  “What did it say?

  Snake sighed and took another pull from Billy’s bottle. “Basically, Frank Junior told his daddy that he had no intention of coming back home. Junior was messed up in his head, he said; he always had been, but he’d never had the nerve to talk about it. But once he got to Vietnam, and saw war up close, he just didn’t care anymore.”

  “Because of Granddaddy Elam?”

  Snake nodded. “He told Frank that Elam had been messing with him since he was a little boy. The old bastard done everything imaginable to him, and he’d threatened to kill us all if Junior told his mama or daddy about it. And Elam was so damn crazy, that poor boy believed it.”

  “Jesus, Pop.”

  “Junior had made up his mind he was gonna push it in battle until he found some peace. He said he was gonna give the gooks all the hurt he could until his own hurt stopped.” Snake nodded once. “And that’s what he did.”

  Billy sat blinking in horror, not knowing what to say.

  “Something busted in Frank when he read that letter,” Snake said. “He blamed himself, see? And I blamed myself. Because I was scared as hell the same thing had happened to you.”

  “It didn’t. At least I don’t think it did.”

  “I know. I made it my business to find out.”

  “How’d you do that?”

  Snake dug in his pants pocket and brought out a bent cigarette, which he lit with an old silver lighter. He blew out a long stream of blue smoke, then began speaking softly.

  “Elam was preaching in East Texas when that letter came, but he was due home in a couple of days. I started checking on Frank every few hours, worried he might kill himself or something. But the day Elam was due back, I went over and found my brother a changed man. Frank was sober as a judge. He told me we were gonna talk to Elam. He told me to get a few of the boys together. Glenn, Sonny, a couple more, and have ’em at his house about dark.

  “Elam got home about eight. Me and Frank went by his house and went in without knocking. Frank told Daddy we had an operation set up. We was gonna lynch a nigger that night. Well, old Elam was always up for that kind of party, so he came right along.

  “We came out here to Valhalla and got in two boats. Then we headed to the Bone Tree. Elam was drinking moonshine from a clear jug. I still remember that, the jug in the moonlight. When we got to the tree, I climbed out with a rope, and Frank got out with a toolbox. Just as we got to the opening in the big tree, Elam stopped drinking long enough to holler, ‘Where’s the nigger, boys?’” Snake shook his head, a strange smile on his face. “I’ll never forget what happened next. Frank finally looked old Elam in the eye, and he said, ‘You’re the nigger tonight, Daddy.’”

  An electric chill raced up Billy’s spine. “Jesus Christ . . .”

  “Frank knocked the old man down to the ground, then squatted over him and told him about Junior’s letter. Elam tried to deny it, but what the hell could he say? Me and Frank had been through the very same thing with him, till we got big enough to push him off.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I didn’t have to do much. Frank had gone off the rails, boy. It was like we was back in the Pacific. He told Elam he’d betrayed his family and his vows to God both. And for that, he was gonna get a special punishment. Then he tied Daddy’s hands, dragged him inside that hollow tree, and hung him upside down by his feet. After Elam’d been hanging awhile, with his face all red and about to bust, Frank nailed him to the wood in there. He had some ten-penny nails in his toolbox, and he did old Elam just like the Romans done Jesus. Crucified him upside down, you see? He’d seen something like that in a book once. He said that was the only fitting punishment for a preacher who done what Daddy had.”

  “I saw those bones,” Billy said. “The only time I ever went there. You remember? You told me they were some nigger’s bones.”

  “Well, they ain’t. After Elam rotted, Frank wired ’em together and put ’em back up so nobody would ever forget what happens to somebody who betrays the group. But I didn’t want you knowin’ who it was, if I could help it.”

  “Does Forrest know about this?”

  “He knows,” Snake said. “Hell, he’s been to that Bone Tree more than any of us. But I didn’t finish the story. That night, while Daddy was hanging in the tree, we made
a fire outside it and sat talking, mostly about Frank Junior, but also about some of the things Elam had done to us as boys. To Mama, of course. Elam hollered till he lost his voice: first threatening us with fire and damnation, then begging for forgiveness. He begged for water, too, but Frank would just throw swamp water on him now and then to keep him awake I stopped going in with him after the first couple of times. Elam died just after dawn.”

  Billy looked longingly at the bourbon bottle in his father’s hand, but he knew he’d had enough.

  “The thing is,” Snake said, “killing Elam didn’t really help Frank get over his boy. He still blamed himself. From 1966 till the day he died in ’68, he was drunk. I think they only kept him on at Triton out of pity, because of Junior being a war hero. Dr. Cage even tried to get Frank to take a year off, but he wouldn’t listen. Frank was drunk the day that forklift dropped the pallet on him.”

  “You’re sure Elam molested Forrest the way he had Frank Junior?”

  Snake nodded. “He confessed it to Frank before he died.”

  “Goddamn.”

  “Forrest puts on a good front, Billy, but deep down, he’s got that demon in him. And you don’t want to hitch yourself to that.”

  Billy didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t tell his father what Forrest had said to him earlier. Snake might do something truly crazy. So he just said, “Thanks for protecting me from that, Daddy.”

  Snake grunted as if in protest. “I wish I could take credit for it. But I can’t. It was just dumb luck, like I said. You were lucky being born last.”

  Billy rubbed his jaw and tried to swallow. His tongue felt like a forty-year-old shag carpet. “You’re right about that. And I get what you’re saying about not hitching myself to Forrest. Is that what you came in to tell me?”

  “Most of it.” Snake leaned back in his chair. “But I also need something from you.”

  Billy nodded warily. “What do you need?”

  “Forrest’s got us walking blind into the Concordia sheriff’s department tomorrow. And for all we know, Walker Dennis has enough evidence to jail us the minute we cross the threshold.”