The Long Count

by JM Gulvin

  Trembling slightly, Ishmael returned his attention to the river. ‘The long count,’ he uttered finally. ‘That’s what Isaac called it. Said he’d overheard the old man talking about how it was back in the day with Sergeant Morley. Memorial weekend, they sat up drinking whiskey and telling war stories, and Isaac heard them talking about when they were training in Georgia, how they’d grabble for catfish and the locals told them there was the short count as well as the long.’ He tried to gesture but with the chains on his wrists he could not. ‘All depended on what was going on underwater and how long someone could hold their breath. Isaac told me the old man was slurring his speech he was so drunk, but he could still work out what he said.’

  Glancing beyond him to the river Quarrie considered where James was swimming still.

  ‘That’s not all he told you though, is it?’

  Ishmael’s lip was trembling. His eyes were not dull anymore, they were moist.

  ‘He told me he heard Dad say how the wounds he’d told us he’d gotten in Africa were stab wounds given him by his wife. Not our mom but another woman, one he was married to before, someone we’d never met. Isaac heard him tell Mr Morley how she took his blade one day and gutted him like a pig. We were supposed to be sleeping but they were right there under the window of our room and Isaac was awake. He heard the old man talk about being married before. He said how he always meant to leave her because she was nuts already, but then she caught him and Clara in bed together and it saved him the bother.’ The tears in his eyes spilled onto his cheeks. ‘Nobody knew she was carrying me though, and, by the time they found out, Clara was pregnant too.’

  Quarrie looked over at Clara who was watching them intently. ‘Isaac heard your dad say all this to Sergeant Morley?’

  Ishmael nodded. ‘By the time I woke up my life had changed completely. Me and Isaac, we weren’t twins anymore; we weren’t even full-blood brothers. That’s why they named us like they did. Ishmael and Isaac, half-brothers like in the Bible. The way he said it, the way Isaac told it to me that morning, he was goading me with how he was the one with family and I was the son of a fucked-up bitch who tried to murder our dad.’

  Tears rolling he looked again to the river. ‘You should’ve seen him. You should’ve heard him – Isaac, I’m talking about. Up at dawn he’d dug out this old newspaper cutting about the train wreck from someplace so we hit the highway with our thumbs out and that’s when he starts in.’ He shook his head. ‘Not talking, it wasn’t talking, it was taunting is what it was. Oh, he was having the time of his life. He could be like that sometimes, though to hear Clara talk he was such an angel, butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.’

  Dragging his chains he scraped both hands across his face. ‘Anyway, you’re right. We never went near any cornfield. What we did was hit the blacktop and hitch a ride in a truck with this old Mex who pulled over and we hopped in. Didn’t seem to matter to him how we were so young and all, I guess things were different back then.’ Falling silent he buckled his little finger so it looked as though half of it was gone. ‘He told us he was headed south, said he’d take us as far as we wanted to go and we jumped out a couple of miles from this spot. We hiked the rest of the way, and when the cops were looking for Isaac later nobody heard from the Mex, so they never knew this is where we’d gone.’

  ‘Pablo,’ Quarrie said. ‘That truck driver’s name was Pablo. The caretaker at Trinity, right?’

  Ishmael nodded. ‘When they brought me down there I saw his missing finger and I knew I remembered him.’

  He shifted his weight on the rock, gazing down at the railroad cars once again. ‘All that day he would not let up – Isaac, I’m talking about. All he did was laugh at me, keep on with the jibes and piss me off. He went on and on, making out he was superior on account of everything our daddy had said. I wasn’t kin to him anymore, not properly anyhow. I wasn’t blood kin to our mother at all, and Isaac just loved the fact that the old man had one cold eye on me to see if I was going to turn out like his first wife.’

  His gaze clear suddenly, he looked from the river to where Clara had moved closer so she could hear everything he said.

  ‘I’m sorry I did what I did. Down at the hospital, I’m sorry I hurt you, and I’m sorry I shot my dad. I never meant to do any of it. I never meant to hurt anybody because I never believed what Isaac said.’ His voice was breaking. ‘But they took me away from Houston. They took me down to Trinity and I saw that old caretaker, then they sat me down with Miss Annie and she told me her baby’s name. After that I knew it was true. I knew her baby was the one Isaac had been talking about all those years ago.’

  He turned from Clara to Quarrie again. ‘That day down here I told him he was full of shit and I didn’t believe a word he said. I told him I was nobody’s half-brother and his mother was the same as mine. I told him he was making it up and his jokes had always been sick. I said to him how he would pay for it if he didn’t let up because I was stronger than him.’

  ‘What happened?’ Clara spoke now, her voice shaking. ‘Ishmael, please, it’s been fifteen years. You have to tell us what you did.’

  Head bowed Ishmael did not answer. ‘I didn’t mean for it to turn out like it did. I didn’t mean to be killing people, not Ms Gavin or Briers, and especially that girl at the mission house. I figured God wouldn’t damn me for what I did to my dad, because he was firstclass sonofabitch.’ Lips pursed he shook his head. ‘It don’t matter how much I plead with him now though, he ain’t going to forgive me for shooting that kid.’

  ‘Ishmael,’ Clara said. ‘You have to tell us what happened. This river, those railroad cars – you have to tell us what you did.’

  Looking up at her he shook his head. ‘I didn’t do anything. That’s the point. I didn’t do a thing. Catfish …’ Lifting both chained hands he tried to point to the water. ‘A catfish is what it was. Down there among that wreck we felt the vibration of a fish thumping its tail. Isaac said that had to be a flathead so he went down to try and see where it was burrowed up.’

  ‘And what did you do?’ Quarrie said.

  Ishmael looked at him. ‘I started counting. Isaac said he could hold his breath for a while but he didn’t know what was going on down there so I had to make a count and it couldn’t be long.’ Eyes closed, his voice was shaking. ‘But all of what he’d told me was in my head. Filling up all the space, there was no room in there and I couldn’t think straight to be counting, what with worrying about what he said.

  ‘So I lost the count and started again. And then the same thing happened – all of what he’d told me bubbling up to confuse me again. I didn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe it. So I lost the count and started again.’

  Sobbing like a child he hung his head. ‘By then Isaac was stuck and I was so absorbed in my thoughts I didn’t even notice the way the water was boiling up. Soon as I did I dove down but I couldn’t save him. His foot was trapped between a tree root and a piece of wreckage and I couldn’t get him clear no matter what I did.’ Breaking off for a second he wiped his eyes. ‘Isaac, he was thrashing around like a fish. Trying to shout to me, he was trying to shout with bubbles coming out of his mouth. He was sucking in river water. He looked at me and he was sucking in river water, had a hold of my shoulder, fingers digging into my skin. I tried to get his foot free but I had no breath so I come to the surface to gulp some air and I dove back down again. He wasn’t thrashing anymore, he wasn’t sucking in water; he was swaying back and forth like the wind was blowing him. His eyes were open and his hands reaching out like he wanted to grab me but he was gone already. My brother was dead.’

  The sobs overtook him completely. For a moment Quarrie looked on, then he laid a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘I couldn’t get him out,’ Ishmael said. ‘I couldn’t bring him up and what was I going to say even if I did? There was nothing I could say. I’d let him drown on account of what he said to me fixing in my head.’ Helplessly he gestured. ‘I swam back to the bank and lay there thi
nking how there was nothing I could do. I don’t know how long I stayed there but in the end I got a ride back the way we’d come. I didn’t hitchhike, I stowed away in a farm truck that pulled over so the driver could take a leak. He never knew I was there. He just took off into the brush and when he climbed back in the cab I was already hiding in the bed.’

  He got to his feet, almost stumbled with the chains and Quarrie had to take his arm to stop him toppling all the way down the bank.

  Looking up at him Clara was crying, tears working her cheeks. ‘There was no cornfield, no game of hide-and-seek?’

  Ishmael stared at the railroad cars once again. ‘No,’ he said. ‘There was just me and my brother, that river right there, and a count that went on too long.’

  *

  Isaac’s remains were buried with his father in a grave Clara commissioned back in Fannin County. She was there for the service along with Nancy McClain and Mr Palmer, as well as Quarrie, Pious and James. Ishmael was granted special dispensation and he was brought over by armed guards from the hospital at Bellevue.

  When the service was over and the coffin in the ground, Ishmael tossed a handful of dirt. Quarrie tossed a handful, as did his son. Afterwards Quarrie took a moment to speak to Nancy.

  ‘How is he?’ he said, looking on as the guard walked Ishmael back to the hospital van.

  ‘He’s OK,’ Nancy said. ‘He’s Ishmael at least, and that’s a good thing. Ever since that day we brought him to the Red River we’ve seen no sign of Isaac, and the Ishmael you saw today is exactly how he’s been. He’s quiet, John Q; he’s not aggressive anymore, he’s contemplative and keeps himself to himself.’

  ‘No relapses?’ Quarrie said.

  ‘Not so far. It doesn’t mean there won’t be any, of course, but the therapy is getting better all the time. We’ve a new doctor at Bellevue who accepts the theory of Dissociative Identity Disorder and that’s reflected in the treatment Ishmael is getting. We’re not in the 1940s anymore, thank God. We’ve moved on, and what they thought back then about Miss Annie is not what they think now. If Ishmael does have a relapse we can walk him back to that day on the river as many times as we need to until he realizes that Isaac is dead and he kept him alive because he just can’t deal with the guilt.’

  Quarrie watched Ishmael climb into the van. ‘That’s good,’ he said. ‘I’m glad he’s doing OK, if only for Clara’s sake.’ He turned to Nancy again. ‘What about Miss Annie though? How’s she getting along?’ In his mind’s eye he could see her in that cell once more, surrounded by stick-like kids.

  ‘She’s doing pretty well,’ Nancy said. ‘She sees Ishmael from time to time. It’s part of her therapy and it’s also part of his. They know who each other is of course – that much at least was accomplished by Dr Beale the night it all kicked off. The new doctor allows them to play cards together once a week because that’s what Miss Annie likes, and Ishmael seems to look forward to it as well.’

  She glanced to where the driver of the van was waiting. ‘The truth is Miss Annie is better than she’s ever been. Now and again I catch a glimpse of the old Peggy I used to know and I’ve not seen her in twenty-five years. She’s still not allowed to mix with the other women and she’s on heavy medication, of course. But her room’s been painted and she’s finally given up that doll.’

  Taking Quarrie’s hand she gave it a gentle squeeze. ‘She keeps asking me when you’re going to come and visit though, and I’ve been meaning to call.’

  ‘Visit? You mean she remembers me?’

  ‘John Q, Miss Annie never forgets a thing. You told her your name and that you were a Texas Ranger and how you were there to protect her. She’s always asking about you.’

  Quarrie looked beyond her to where Pious had his arm around James’s shoulders, the two of them leaning against the door of his car.

  ‘Is that a fact?’ he said, squaring his hat and tracing a finger across the brim. ‘Well, if she’s waiting on me to visit with her then I guess it’s time I did.’

  Acknowledgments

  I’d like to say a big thank you to Robert Kirby and Ben Camardi who helped develop this every step of the way.

  Also,

  Angus Cargill, Katherine Armstrong and everyone at Faber & Faber.

  Matthew & Pamela White for all their support.

  My daughters Amy & Chloe for the Father’s Day cards and the map of San Saba County.

  And,

  A very special thanks to my wife Kim, who continues to back me come what may.

  About the Author

  Born in the UK, JM Gulvin divides his time between Wales and the western United States. He is the author of many previous novels, as well as Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman’s bestselling travel book Long Way Down. The Long Count is his first John Q mystery and he is currently at work on the follow up. He is married and has two daughters.

  Copyright

  First published in 2016

  by Faber & Faber Ltd

  Bloomsbury House

  74–77 Great Russell Street

  London WC1B 3DA

  This ebook edition first published in 2016

  All rights reserved

  © JM Gulvin, 2016

  Design by Faber

  Cover photograph © Iris Greenwell/Arcangel

  The right of JM Gulvin to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly

  ISBN 978–0–571–32380–7