by Billy Coffey
“You’ve no place to tell me what’s right,” I said.
Justus took his hands from his pockets (they were clean; I didn’t know whether that made me feel better or worse) and placed them side by side in front of himself.
“You’re true on that,” he said. “We’s standin’ right here, Jacob. Don’t you see I’m tryin’ t’help you? Take me on inside, I’ve no fear. I’m ready to stand in judgment for the wrong I did. It’s you who ain’t.”
The shopkeepers gave up their ruse of sweeping. Their brooms now hung limply from their hands. Down the sidewalk, Bobby Barnes and the rest of the men stared. Justus clenched his fists when I moved my hand, but I only adjusted my hat. I turned to the door and walked inside, leaving him on the steps.
Kate stood by the window rubbing the smooth skin on her throat. She held a tissue in her hand. “Alan Martin called. He got a copy of the paper somehow. Said he’s coming down to talk to you. I sent Zach out back to calm down. He was on the sofa when you came in for the paint. I didn’t . . .” She rubbed her throat again—her way of trying to keep in what meant to get out. “I didn’t want him to see you have to do that.”
I nodded. “Thanks.”
“What did Justus say?”
“Wanted to know what happened to turn me yellow.”
“You’re not a coward, Jake. No one believes that.”
“Fifty people on the sidewalk and somebody with a half-empty can of spray paint would say different.”
Kate’s chin trembled. She took a step toward me and stopped. It was as if she wanted to move closer but had to stay away. “I’m so sorry, Jake. It’s all my fault. I know Lucy ran away. She was having problems with her daddy, and Johnny Adkins broke up with her. I think Clay found out what they were doing and Lucy said she was getting even and it was my book, Jake, it was my stupid book. I wrote her name down and now I’ve lost her like Phillip’s lost.”
“No,” I said. “That’s not true, Katie.”
“It is, Jake. All I’ve ever wanted to do is leave him behind, Jake, but he won’t let me. And now you’re dreaming of him. He’s haunting me, and he’s hurting you because of it. Please forgive me.”
And though there was nothing to pardon, I said I would. I would pardon Kate anything. Forgiveness is an easy thing to offer when it’s all you’ve ever wanted to receive.
“I’m gonna go in my office,” I said. “Pack some things up.”
“What do you mean?”
“Big Jim’s having a meeting tonight. Town’s lost faith in me. They’re going to call a vote, Kate. I won’t give that man a chance to fire me. I’m quitting.”
Kate’s voice cracked, “Jake, no. You can’t let that happen because of me.”
I shook my head. “It’s not you. I’m tired, and I just want to put an end to it all. We’ll stay until we can sell the house, then go someplace else. Stanley maybe, or Camden. Make a fresh start.”
“Jake, this is home.”
“Not anymore. I’m tired, Kate. I’m tired of trying to be someone I’m not, and I’m tired of trying to fit in with a town that’ll always compare me to my father. I’m tired of coming up short, and I just want to start over again.”
I went to my office and pulled Bessie from my belt. She went atop a desk that held nothing more than a lamp, a telephone, and two scuff marks in the left corner where I’d rested the heels of my boots every afternoon. I placed my boots there now. I figured that was all I could do.
A fresh start. That’s what I’d said. I’d never dreamed of leaving Mattingly, but now it made perfect sense. Maybe everything from the nightmares to Taylor to Justus to Trevor’s articles to the COWARD on the door wasn’t so much God punishing me for my sins as it was God trying to get my attention. Trying to help me.
Telling me to move on.
Maybe that’s what Phillip meant when he’d said I was hanging on too tight. That I had to let go.
I heard the sounds of boots on the foyer’s floor and looked up to see the top half of Zach’s cowboy hat coming toward the office. He sat in the vinyl chair across from me and leaned back, shooting his heels to the corner of the desk.
“Hey, bud,” I said.
“Hey, Daddy.”
His face was vacant, though his black eye leaked tears. A thin runner of drying snot ran from his left nostril to his ear.
“You okay?” I asked.
“That Bobby Barnes is a mean snake of a liar.”
“Bobby’s just doing what Bobby does. It’ll be okay.” I took my heels down and placed my hat next to Bessie. My hand went to my chin. “Gonna have to get you to school, I guess.”
“I don’t wanna go today,” he said. “I just wanna go home.”
“Can’t yet. Got some stuff to do, and somebody’s coming to see me.”
Zach lowered his feet and studied his hands. “You paint that lie off the door, Daddy?”
“Didn’t get it off, but I covered it.”
“But you’ll fix it, right?”
“What do you mean?”
Zach leaned forward, knocking his hat askance as he did. He took it off and placed it next to mine. “Don’t matter if you painted over it,” he said. “It’s still there. An’ what if it rains and washes that new paint off?”
“What you think I should do, then?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Reckon you gotta get a new door, Daddy.”
I looked at him and smiled in that way parents often do—that slight upturn of the mouth that’s part amusement at the simple way their children see the world and part longing to see that same way. Those grins don’t often last long before they’re swallowed by a sigh. Mine lingered, though. And then it hardened.
Zach leaned forward and cupped his hand to his chin, mirroring me. His hat lay atop the desk next to mine, and his eyes matched the tired, puffy look of my own. It was as if he had become a key that unlocked a room of mirrors inside me, and everywhere I turned I saw myself truly. There were no sunken cheeks in that reflection, no silvering stubble or waning waistline. What I saw instead was the boy I once was and still remained—a youngling caught in the widening shadow of a Barnett name that for generations had been carried by men whose word was a bond and whose honor was unquestioned. Until the day I killed Phillip, I had carried that name well. Afterward I saw it as no less a mark than the one God put upon Cain.
Justus said he’d raised me a man, but that wasn’t true. He’d raised me to believe a man never stumbled. He never failed, never hurt, and if he did it meant he was something less. And now, looking at Zach, I realized I was teaching my own son something far worse—that it was better to run from the past than to face it.
I rose from my chair and reached for the plastic bag hanging from the bookcase. Zach moved back as I laid it across the desk. I undressed in front of my son, let him see every bone and crevice in my wasting body, and took the uniform from the wire hanger. I dressed slow, putting the shirt on first and the pants last. The silver BARNETT name tag glittered. I put my boots on and stood, holding my pants up with a hand. Zach watched as I tightened the belt as much as I could. Still, the clothes swallowed me.
“What’cha doing, Daddy?”
I reached for Bessie and tucked her into the small of my back. The extra bulge did what the belt could not. I thought my pants would hold.
“Gonna go get a new door,” I told him.
Zach followed me out. Kate looked up from her desk and said something I didn’t hear. I was too busy thinking about the door and Phillip.
How he’d said the door comes first, and the father comes next.
12
What Kate asked was, “Jake, what are you doing?”
She wanted to ask more (Why are you wearing that uniform? came to mind first, Exactly how much weight have you lost? a close second), but he had already crossed the foyer to the door.
Zach trailed close behind. His cowboy hat bobbed on his head, and there was a smile where tears had been.
“Daddy’s gonna get a new door,
” he said. “You comin’, Momma?”
“What?” she asked.
Jake paused at the entryway and turned. The space between them covered nearly fifty feet, yet Kate saw a fire in his eyes she hadn’t seen since their schooling days.
“You should stay here, Zach,” he said. “I don’t know how this’ll go.”
“Nosir,” he said. “I’m comin’ too.”
Jake nodded. He looked at Kate. “Might need you, Kate. You always had a way of calming folk down.”
She rose from her desk, leaving her open notebook behind. Jake took the steps down and turned a sharp right for the courthouse. Dozens of men had gathered there each morning that week to look for Taylor Hathcock. On that day it looked like hundreds. Kate knew why. Most of those men were fathers, and many had young daughters at home.
Justus stood at the top step. He pointed to the big relief map of the town and surrounding wilderness. Bobby Barnes stood beside him, nodding like a proper underling. His strides were long and purposeful. Kate broke into a jog. Zach ran with her. He laughed.
“Jake,” Kate said, “slow down. What are you doing?”
“My job.”
He didn’t break his stride. Justus looked up and saw their approach. The pause he gave was too brief for the crowd to notice, though the catch in his next words was enough to turn Bobby’s head. A county police car worked its way up Main Street and parked in front of the sheriff’s office. Alan Martin got out and walked inside.
Kate said, “Jake, Alan’s here.”
“He can wait.”
“Jake. Jake.” She reached out to grab him and missed, then took hold of him on her second try. Jake turned but didn’t stop. “I don’t know what you have in mind, but I don’t think this is the right time for it. Let’s wait until Justus sends them out to wherever they’re going, okay? Let’s just go back.”
“There’s no back, Kate,” he said. “Only way out’s through.”
They pushed through the crowd. Kate lifted Zach into her arms, fearful that he’d be trampled or lost. Justus stopped barking his orders. Jake took the stairs one by one as Bessie’s handle tapped the back of his leg. Kate remained below, conscious that both she and her son now stood between a crowd of angry men and the man the crowd blamed for why they were there.
Mayor Wallis and Trevor stepped out of the courthouse. Big Jim asked, “What’s this, Jake?”
Bobby smirked. “Well, cain’t you see, Mayor? Must be Halloweentime.” He looked at Jake and said, “That there’s a nice-lookin’ costume, little boy. Ain’t got no treat for you, though, seein’ as how I’m involved in man work. Don’t you go play no trick on me, now.”
Justus studied Jake’s uniform and pressed his lips into a fine line. When he spoke, his voice was soft. It may even have held a bit of wonder. “State your aim, Jacob. Say it well, for all to hear.”
“Justus Barnett, I’m placing you under arrest for the shooting of Bernard Wilcox, Harvey Lewis, and Clancy Townsend.”
Kate’s jaw went slack, as did Big Jim’s. Trevor took a step away.
Bobby said, “Now what’s this, Jake? You ain’t got no right doin’ this. You ain’t even gonna be sheriff no more.”
“I’m sheriff for now,” Jake told him. Then, to Justus: “Ain’t gonna read you your rights, because I don’t know them all. Don’t have my cuffs either. But I expect you to come along with no trouble. Don’t make me raise my hand, because I don’t know if I can.”
A low grumble rose from the men, coming onto Kate like a wave. Zach clutched her neck. What she did next was not out of her own fear, but the fear she felt in her son. She whipped around before the crowd could come forward and planted her feet firm.
“Dare anyone take a step,” she said. “Dare you all, and I will remind you there is another Barnett here, and she can rage as fierce as any man.”
The rumble ceased. Jake took hold of Justus’s wrist. Bobby reached to break the hold. Jake brought his free hand behind his back and pulled Bessie, flipping the handle in the air. Cold steel settled against Bobby’s neck. He drew his arm away.
“Mind your manners, Bobby Barnes,” Jake said. “And know your place.”
A grin lay on Justus’s mouth. Upon Kate’s as well. Bobby had been bested by two Barnetts that morning.
Justus said, “Best you best step away, son. Ol’ Bessie’s been a bit bucksome of late, an’ Jake looks a might shaky this morn’. He’s apt to slip and give you a shave that’s more than whisker.”
Kate looked and saw Justus was right. The fire in Jake’s eyes burned hot enough to reach his fingers. Bessie shook in his hand. Yet she knew her husband well despite what secrets he carried, and she knew what Jake felt was neither anger nor fear. It was hurt. Whatever of Justus’s strength and rightness never made it into Jake’s genes, they were still of the same blood. And yet Jake’s father had just called Bobby Barnes “son.”
Bobby nodded. Whatever words he had a mind to say stopped where Bessie’s blade met him. He backed away slowly.
Jake led Justus from the steps. The men parted before them. Only Mayor Wallis and Trevor followed. The rest were held at bay by their own shock and Kate’s backward glances. She and Zach went ahead and opened the front door of the sheriff’s office, mindful of the still-wet paint.
Alan Martin was on the sofa when they walked in. He stood when he saw Justus.
“Jake?” he asked.
“Be right with you, Alan.”
He led Justus past his office and down the hallway.
Kate put Zach down and said, “You keep the mayor and Trevor company, Zach. We’ll be right back.”
“I wanna come,” he said. “I wanna talk to’m. What’d he do, Mommy?”
Kate said, “He just got tired, honey. Like we all do. Now go.”
Zach shuffled away and asked Big Jim, Trevor, and Alan if they’d like a cup of water. Kate followed Justus and Jake to the cell. Jake pulled the door free and moved aside. Justus hesitated. To Kate, that pause was neither a denial of what was happening nor a refusal to accept it. It was more the kind of stop that comes when you find a place of rest at the end of a long walk.
He stepped inside. Jake closed the door so slowly that the locks barely clacked. Justus stepped forward and grasped the bars with his hands.
“I’m sorry,” Jake said.
Justus nodded.
“I’ll be back. Have to talk to the police about what Trevor wrote.”
“Talk to him like you talked to me,” Justus said. “Straight and true.”
Kate watched as Jake moved down the hall and called for Alan, who followed him into the office. She wanted to check on Zach but didn’t want to leave Justus. Seeing him in that cell made him look worn. Worn and small.
“I’m sorry too,” she said. “You should have just stayed away, Justus.”
“No,” he said. “It’s like you told the boy. I’m tired, Katelyn. Town needed me. My town. Reckon it’ll be yours and Jake’s to keep now, and the boy’s once he’s grown.”
Kate thought of what Jake had said about leaving.
“Never got to know the boy,” Justus said. “Zach. I know it’s my own fault, Katelyn, and keepin’ me from him was just as much my doin’ as yours. But I want you to know that that misery’s laid heavier on me than the men I shot. That boy’s my blood. You raise him up to be a good man.”
Kate gritted her teeth and swallowed. She would not let Justus see her cry. She would stand tall and face him with her chin up. She would be a Barnett.
The office door opened. Alan and Jake walked down the hallway to the cell.
“This is Alan Martin of the county police,” Jake said. “He’s gonna take you in.”
Jake took the key from his pocket and turned the lock. Big Jim and Trevor said nothing as Jake led Justus through the foyer. Moving shadows fell through the windows and onto the floor, evidence of the crowd that had gathered outside.
“You sure about this Seekins girl, Jake?” Alan asked.
“I
am. Kate knew the girl. She’ll vouch that she was having problems at home.”
“He’s right,” Kate said. She looked at Trevor. It was plain that he didn’t believe her. It was plainer that Kate didn’t care. “I was trying to help her, but it wasn’t enough.”
“And you have no information on Taylor’s whereabouts?” Alan asked Jake. “Because if you do and you’re not telling me, Jake, it’s aiding and abetting.”
“I don’t know where he is, Alan.” And before Trevor could speak up, he added, “I’m gonna chase down a lead, though. It’s a small one. I’ll let you know.”
“Okay. I’ll take Justus in and start a missing person’s report on the Seekins girl.”
They left then, Alan and Justus first, Jake trailing them. Justus passed his eyes over Kate. He smiled and settled on Zach. “Good-bye, boy. You have lion’s blood in you. Don’t forget that.”
They put him in the backseat of Alan’s car with much of the downtown in attendance. The only one smiling was Justus. Alan pulled away, leaving Kate at the window. She watched her husband tug at a uniform he thought had always been too big for him.
13
Had Taylor been looking through his binoculars just then, he would have wondered who the old man in the back of that county police car was and why that man was grinning so hard. He would have also seen another man wearing what looked like someone else’s clothes watch that police car go. He would have seen that man step inside the sheriff’s office on Main Street just long enough to say good-bye before climbing into a rusting Chevy Blazer and driving out of town toward the western mountains. But those magic spyglasses weren’t to Taylor’s eyes. They were beside him on the log instead. And though he was indeed gazing down over the town, all he saw was his own lonely self.
