No more bubbling breaths came from the crumpled body. No moans or groans. No noises at all. No singing as she was accustomed to do every evening. After the meal was eaten, and the table cleared, her voice would sound sweetly through the gloaming as her children prepared for bed. No soft words of encouragement about homework, chiding him even if Mikey didn’t see a need, knowing he wouldn’t use any of it once he started riding the car into the ground.
She’d always pestered him to do his best, to continue until he solved every problem, carried him through the learning curve until he wasn’t happy unless he had the best grade possible. Until he felt he had worked his hardest, given his all.
She led by example, her own high school diploma framed and in pride of place over the rolltop desk along one wall, the same desk where she sat to write weekly letters to her people. Where she sat to read the letters received in return, her laughter ringing through the house, voice calling out for them to come listen as she sounded out the voices carried to them in an envelope, interpreting the Louisiana patois for her Kentucky-raised children.
No noise. No sound. No life left in her body.
Flayed and destroyed, she had laid in her own blood and died while he’d stood on the porch, cradling a shocked and scared Tabby. He’d failed to protect either of the women in his life.
***
Mike sat on the edge of the porch, legs dangling, his feet pounding in time with the blood pooling in them. The pain had eased in this position with no pressure on the cuts. Slivers of glass had been extracted by long tweezers wielded by Davy’s Aunt Barbra. Once done, she had drenched Mike’s feet in kerosene, not warning him first so the pain hit like an out-of-the-dark sledgehammer. It had taken all his strength to not howl and scream. Instead, he’d flung his head back, his closed eyes streaming tears into the hair on the sides of his head. With clenched teeth, as they had been so often today, he’d waded through the waves of pain until at last, they’d shallowed and stilled like water in a river’s wide bend.
Barbra had wrapped his clean feet in absorbent batting, tied into place with strips of kitchen towels, torn and destroyed for this use. Darrie had dug in their parents’ dresser until he’d returned with a pair of Pa’s socks, and Barbra had carefully threaded Mike’s feet into the oversized tubes of cotton. She’d folded them on his calves until they’d threatened to cut off his circulation, declaring at that point, “Should hold ‘em in place. You stay off those pegs, boy. Gonna need some healin’ before you can do much walkin’.”
From where he sat, he could see into Darrie’s backseat. Mike used the angle to keep watch on Tabby, trying to make sure she didn’t wake up alone. Darrie had herded him from the house, planting Mike where he sat before Darrie took off, running as fast as he could over the ridge and to the next house over, the Masons’, where they had one communal phone for five houses. They were an odd family, with the older generation fixated on a particular version of God not everyone understood. But, at least his friend Davy was normal as far as Mike could tell.
Barbra had come back with Darrie, along with old man Mason. Sheriff department cars started showing up about twenty minutes later, their trip up the mountain telegraphed with glimpses of their whirling bubblegum lights. An ambulance had come up the vehicle-lined lane later, the driver parking off to one side, leaving plenty of room for even more cars to roll into the yard. Every lamp in the house had been lit, and each man entering the room carried a brilliant flashlight, those casting shadows across the yard through open windows and doors. Darkness moved and writhed as it shifted and changed, fleeing from the illumination carried in by men. Men who, at a glance, were so much like Mike’s daddy had been, it freshened the pain of his loss, even more grief and agony tying themselves to what had happened.
Radio chatter from the cars scratched at his ears from a distance, updates on the scene rolling out to multiple departments across several counties. The company had no record of a man meeting the description Mike had provided and had no history of sending anyone up to evict the family of a man recently killed in their mine. The implication the company would never, ever think of doing something Mike knew to be their play at trying to keep the Otey family from reaching out to the papers with the story. Mike didn’t believe for a moment the man wasn’t who he’d claimed to be; he had the smell and feel of the company, rotten and greasy to the core.
The scuffing of shoe leather on the porch behind him shook him from his brown study, and he turned to see Darrie making his way towards Mike. The glass embedded in the soles of his brother’s boots scratched the wood with every stride. Using the railing as a handhold, Darrie settled into place beside Mike, legs draping over the edge of the surface. “Newmill said it will be a few days before we can stay here again.” James Newmill was the county deputy who had been here the longest, first to show, probably be the last to leave. His face showed more strain with every passing minute. Mike turned to look out across the yard again, surprised when he realized the glow in the distance was the false dawn of the rising sun.
Mike watched as the crew from the ambulance came towards the house, a long board held in one man’s hands. Darrie said, “Mister Mason said we can stay with them for a spell. They’ve got an empty place in their compound.” Glancing around, Mike realized the strobes on all the cars had been turned off, no longer washing the house and barn with undulating red and blue lights.
He sucked in a breath, focusing back on the car Darrie drove, determined to watch over Tabby as she slept. With a stretch of the spring, the door behind him opened, men’s voices murmuring in the stillness of the breaking dawn, even the birds quiet for now. From the corner of his eye, he watched as the men carried a still, draped form strapped tightly to the board, now balanced between the pair.
“We should leave soon. Newmill said if there’s anything you need from inside before we go, to just tell him and he’ll get it for you. He’s going to pack a bag for you and Tabby, but is there anything else you need, bud?”
The men handled the board with care, placing it gently on a gurney; the board, in turn, strapped into place much as the body was. When the wheels unlocked, the rolling stretcher hit the bumper of the ambulance, and the legs folded neatly underneath, the whole mechanism sliding into place with a click and a thud. A deputy closed the doors, slapping the back of the vehicle with one palm, the noise startling in the silence. Turning his head, Mike watched as the big vehicle rolled forwards, slowly navigating between the cars still scattered across the yard, gaining speed as it neared and entered the lane, headed down the mountain and back into town. The light bar on top of the rig dark, siren silenced. No need for urgency with their burden.
“Anything, Mikey?”
“Mike,” he corrected his brother, his eyes traveling back to Tabby, finding her still sleeping. From beside the barn a chicken clucked, then the rooster cleared his throat with a squawk before letting loose with a loud crow. “Cock-a-doodle-doo,” Mike echoed, then lifted both hands, putting them on the railing and resting his forehead against his arms. “Call me Mike, yeah?”
***
Cap in hand, Mike stood in the front waiting room of the company office, staring blindly out the window. He had been standing there a while, the scene in front of him seldom drawing his attention as it changed only slightly while men moved back and forth, working the coal elevator belts. Trucks trundled back and forth, a chaotic pattern to the movements.
A noise came from behind him, and he turned to see the pretty receptionist who’d let him into the office standing beside her desk. Leaning slightly to one side, she had the fingers of one hand resting on the flat surface, supporting her weight. He could see one foot moving, her ankle rolling and then she shifted her weight to the other foot, repeating the motions. The high heels of her shoes evidently not the most comfortable, but she had found a way to make it through. That was all he had to do now, find a way to survive, to cope with whatever was coming next. He had to make it so he and Tabby would have a place to stay. The c
uts on his own feet gave him a kinship with the receptionist on a different level; stinging and throbbing from him standing on them so long, they were another thing to be endured. Just gotta make it through.
“Mr. Dixon can see you now, Mike.” She hesitated, and then continued, her soft voice filled with compassion as she said, “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
Ma’s funeral had been three days ago. Her murder a week ago. His birthday a day ago.
He knew it chapped the company’s butt when the local police couldn’t label Ma’s death anything other than murder. When the company representative had been bold enough to ask for proof, the coroner said there was no way she had split herself open, hips to sternum, especially after somehow miraculously managing to lay no fewer than forty-five cuts up her back, and none of those angled to fit her reach. Not knowing Mike was within earshot, the old man, elected and not appointed to his office of coroner, went on to tell the rep in a scathing tone, “And Mrs. Otey certainly did not rape and sodomize herself in such a way to cause significant internal trauma.” At the thought, an image of Ma lying on the sitting room floor slashed through Mike’s mind, and he knew he’d flinched in a way the receptionist saw because she made a sympathetic noise.
Mike moved first one foot then the other, legs stiff from being locked in place so long. He headed to the back of the room, towards the door that led into further recesses of the building. While the door stood open, the gaping entry wasn’t inviting. Knuckles to the wooden frame, he asked for permission to enter. Darkness past the threshold seeming denser than it should be, layers of shadows trailing across the floor. “Come in,” was called from beyond the door. Gravel-filled and hard, the voice was a man’s, rough with years of sucking down coal dust.
Stepping into the room, Mike saw who he assumed must be Dixon. A tall man dressed in a thick, dark blue shirt, a darker section of fabric on his left breast showing where a name patch had been removed not long ago. Mike’s gaze fell to Dixon’s hands, one of them extended for a handshake, ready to grip and squeeze hard. He hadn’t always been a manager, the mountain’s blood still inked into the knuckles of his fingers, callouses visible even before Mike’s palm met his to feel them. Dixon squeezed, not gentle, but not intending to cause harm. A man’s greeting.
“Otey.” A greeting of another kind, this one passing through lips that barely moved. Dixon seemed to be a man like his pa had been, holding words and trust close to his chest. Mike nodded, waiting. Dixon had called for him, asked him here and set the time. The entire show was his, so Mike was biding his time, waiting to see what this was about, praying it wasn’t his worst fears. Dixon didn’t leave him wondering long. He immediately turned to the subject, proving he knew exactly how dire Mike’s situation had become with the death of both parents. “You turned sixteen. An adult now. Got a mouth to feed in addition to your own. You need a job, I got a job for you.”
“Done.” He didn’t have to think about this even a second, because if the company was offering him a job, it meant he could keep Tabby in the bedroom their ma painted, and sleeping in the bed their pa made for her with his own two hands. Keep her surrounded by as much of their parents as possible, for as long as he breathed. Remind her with every waking moment how loved she was, how precious they had held the life of their baby girl.
“You don’t know the job.” This was an observation, made not in surprise, but more like resignation. Dixon knew Mike had to take it, didn’t have any options other than this, and without any other words, he efficiently communicated his displeasure at the pressure applied.
“Don’t matter,” Mike spoke the truth. Tabby was all that mattered, and Darrie had only two more days before he shipped out for Basic. Two more days for Mike to sort out a life for himself and their sister, putting something into place to allow Darrie to go ahead with his plans and leave without worry weighing him down. Mike would do anything to make things better for them. Family. “Need it. Seems you’re offering it.” He shook his head, sweeping his arms out to the side for a moment before they dropped back down. He chewed the inside of his cheek a minute. “We got a done deal.”
Dixon looked at Mike for a moment, then his head tilted to one side, the corner of his mouth pulling down. Thoughtfully, if a shout could be called thoughtful, he shouted, “Tina, bring me the blue folder.”
From the front room of the company office, Mike heard surprise in her voice as the receptionist shouted back, “The blue one?”
“Yeah,” Dixon called, confidence now infusing his voice, “the blue one.”
Appearing in the doorway, she held two folders in her grip, pressed against her chest, arms folded across them. One a dull brown, the edges of a dozen papers showing along one side, angled in untidily. It was a folder that had seen a lot of use. The top edge discolored, slick with oily nervousness that had bled into the material from sweaty palms, owners anxious about handling the lightweight cardboard. The other was a dark blue, thicker, stiff with newness. The accordion bottom expanded and swelled by the contents. A flap tied in place with a thick red string wound around a large, flat button held it closed.
Dixon reached out and took the blue folder from her, then nodded at the door. Wordlessly, she turned and exited the room, carrying the rejected one away. Mike wondered at the contents of the brown folder, but only for a second because Dixon twisted his head to look at Mike. Dixon stared without saying anything, fingers moving to the string as if they’d completed the motion hundreds of times, capable of solving the folder opening puzzle without Dixon’s conscious assistance.
Two papers retrieved from its depths, Dixon discarded the folder on the office chair, then walked forward and around the desk. He angled at the hips to lean back against the desk. Neither sitting nor standing, it was a simple lean for a casual conversation, as if Mike and Tabby’s lives didn’t ride on the outcome of this talk. “Need a trainee. Pay to start is not as good as shift work, but give me three months, and I’ll have you there. Have you there, and more, and when you check your paystub, you’ll remember this talk and see what I mean. It’s a good job. Has benefits you don’t know you need, but you do. Your sister needs you? Say she’s having a bad day, or gets sick? This gives you more flexibility, a chance to be there for her. Keeps you out of the hole, Otey.” His mouth closed, twisting to the side as he scrutinized Mike hard. “That’s important to me, because I counted your daddy as a friend, and I know it wasn’t a life he wanted for you.”
Mike nodded slowly, not yet certain if he was agreeing to something, or asking the man to continue talking. Whichever it was, it worked, because Dixon kept speaking.
“You take this job, it means keeping your mouth shut. About everything. Anything. Nothing you see or hear leaves your head.”
Like I’d snitch on the man signing my paychecks.
Dixon shrugged, gaze fixed on Mike’s face, and apparently reading his impatience with this proclamation, decided to lay it out. “Might seem like a little thing, but it is what it is. You see shit and talk about it, we got a problem. It becomes my problem? That problem ends with you in the hole.” Dixon shook his head. “But not takin’ a shift. And then where’s your sister?” Dixon paused a moment. “No, it’ll be good. Keep you where your family needs you to be. Give you what you need so you can do what you have to. But a big part of this is knowing you’ll keep your mouth shut, do as you’re told.”
The words didn’t surprise Mike. He’d heard stories about how dissenters were dealt with, the crunching of bones coming to a sudden halt at the bottom of a stone slide down a narrow shaft. “Company business. Not mine.” He didn’t shrug, didn’t shake his head, didn’t give Dixon anything other than his words, but he knew they had been accepted at face value when the man held the papers out to him.
“Go up front, get these filled out. Tina will need an ID if you have one…” He paused at Mike’s headshake, and then continued, “We’ll sort it out, see what you have, what your momma might have had in the Bible at home.” Then, exhibiting he h
ad an extremely thorough knowledge of everything in Mike’s life, he said, “You and Tabitha can stay in the house, Darren gets to head down to Fort Hood as he needs to, and everything settles down. Your life goes back to as normal as it can be, under the circumstances.”
Turning away, Dixon moved to the desk, giving Mike his back. Taking this as the hint it was intended to be, Mike went to the door and did as he was told, handing over what he had on him and taking a list of what was acceptable to bring back. Tina worked efficiently, making notes and copies of everything as she told him to show up on Wednesday, two days away, at eight o’clock to begin his first day. He listened intently, fingers working to put papers back into place in his wallet.
Focused on the task, because the wallet was new, a Christmas gift from two years ago, unused until that morning when he’d decided he was a man and knew every man carried a wallet, Mike nearly missed what she said. Nearly, but didn’t, so he caught her whisper, “Dixon is a good person, real good. But you need to watch yourself, Mike. No one, and I mean no one, is going to have your back in this. Tread water for as long as you can, but you get yourself to shore before you drown. You hear me?”
His eyes flew up to lock on her, but she was studiously not looking at him, hands working to tidy an already tidy desk. He waited, but she said no more, and eventually he grunted, then turned to walk out.
New games
“You get me?” From his position nearby, Mike listened as Dixon hissed the question between hard pants of air. The expression on Dixon’s face didn’t match the exertion, his features a mask of disconnected blankness. One hand was wrapped around the throat of a man, held by that grip against the wall of the alley behind a bar. The man’s answer was to turn his head with a wheezing breath, followed by the distinctive sound of a mute disagreement, the echo of ejected spittle hitting the wall and slapping down the alley.
Rebel Wayfarers MC Boxset 3 Page 69
