by Beth Lewis
‘Come on,’ Jenny tugged at my shirt.
‘Where?’
‘Wherever he is going.’
But we heard the rumble of the Plymouth engine and the screech of hot tyres and knew it was too late to follow.
Curiosity burnt my insides. The news, whatever it was, would be all over Larson tomorrow, remoulded and warped to fit the speaker. But I wanted to know first, wanted to know the truth, the real story behind the inevitable rumours. Whatever it was had emptied the station. Samuels would be busy for days, even longer no doubt. That meant more time for Jenny to descend into her darkness, to talk and plan and obsess over Mary Ridley. Once she had her fist around an idea, she’d punch you with it until you gave up. At least I could say we tried to speak to Samuels. Maybe that would be enough for now.
We left the station and the sun disappeared behind a heavy plume of cloud. Meagre rain struggled through hot air, turned the grey asphalt polka-dot black.
‘What now?’ Jenny asked, fidgeting on the sidewalk, wringing her hands, jumping from foot to foot.
‘Go home, I guess.’
‘I don’t want to go back there. She’ll be steaming drunk by now. Let’s go to the Fort. Maybe Rudy will be there.’
Once we were out of town, on the long road home, the clouds let rip. The light rain turned heavy, streaming straight down in fat lines and the sharp musk of the earth rose all around us, sweeter and richer for the dry summer heat. On the road ahead, a few hundred feet past the turn-off to Briggs’ farm track, I saw a shape in the streaking rain. A car waiting in the verge, two tyres on the road, two on the grass.
A Ford. The Ford. Even in the gloom, even squinting against the driving rain, I knew it, I’d recognise it anywhere.
‘Death,’ I whispered. My blood turned to ice inside me, the warm rain froze as it hit my skin, my hair, my face, the ground around me. I was marked. I was stalked.
‘What?’ Jenny said. ‘What did you say?’
I grabbed Jenny back. Both her shoulders in my hands. ‘Do you see it?’ I shouted. ‘Do you see Death? There! Look!’
‘I don’t see anything,’ Jenny said, squinting against the glare and the rain.
‘It’s right there.’ But the more I strained my eyes against the weather, the more the pale grey car seemed to fade into the rain.
‘Come on,’ Jenny said. ‘We have to get under cover.’
I didn’t take my eyes off the road, let Jenny drag me to Briggs’ track until I almost tripped over a rock and had to pay attention. The car had been there, I knew it.
Just your mind playing tricks, Johnny boy.
I’d seen it. Hadn’t I?
When I looked back, I saw only the dreary grey of heavy rain, the same grey as the car, as the pale horse. I was seeing things, had to be.
Jenny snapped at me. ‘Earth to John! What’s wrong with you?’
And the world was back in focus. The wheat bent under the deluge and the dry ground turned to slick, oily mud. But we were lightning through the fields, dodging raindrops and swaying corn stalks, and then we were at the pathway to the Roost, soaked through and out of breath. We slid down the slope and ran for the Fort. The rain beat against the leaves like a million tiny drums, turning the covered valley into a sweaty jungle. Finally inside the Fort, the fat drops rang from the tin roof, filled the shack with off-key music and, now out of the rain, my sister’s laughter.
‘It hasn’t rained like this for years!’ she said, wringing out her hair.
‘It shouldn’t last long.’
But it did. The rain kept up for the better part of an hour but the Fort was well built and kept everything out. I kept thinking about the corn, how it hated the rain, and how I would string up the tarps in time for the next storm. We sat in silence for a while, reading some of Rudy’s superhero comics and playing a few rounds of rummy. We didn’t talk about what might have happened in town to set the sheriff’s station so on edge and I didn’t mention the pale car, what it meant. Jenny was fragile enough with all this Mary Ridley business, I couldn’t throw a whole other heap of crazy into the mix.
I heard something outside and dropped my cards.
Wet, slapping footsteps, running toward us.
Then the door swung open and Rudy barrelled inside, slamming the door behind him.
‘Oh man,’ he said, panting, lying on his back on the wooden boards. ‘Am I glad to see you two!’
‘Why?’ Jenny asked.
I reached down to pull Rudy up but he waved me away. ‘Leave me! I’m drowning!’
‘I’ll throw you in Big Lake, that’ll show you drowning, you fruit,’ I said and a blush formed on my cheeks, the memory of Gloria pulling me out of Barks, the first kiss.
‘Did you guys hear?’ Rudy said, up on his elbows, blond hair flat and dripping. ‘There’s been a car wreck. A real bad one.’
Jenny straightened, shuffled closer to Rudy. ‘Where? Did someone die?’
Rudy nodded. ‘Two I think. Don’t know who though. Samuels called Perry and the old man to bring out the tow truck to the trainyard.’
‘The trainyard? The one near Gum’s?’ I asked.
‘Uh-huh. They said someone parked on the tracks and wham!’
‘Oh my God,’ Jenny said, eyes blazing with curiosity, obsession. ‘Who do you think it was?’
Rudy shrugged. ‘Guess the ole Larson rumour mill will let on tomorrow. But the old man said Samuels thought the car was there on purpose, you know. Dad said, “What kind of retard parks on train tracks to take a nap, huh?”’
I swallowed. ‘That’s a real bad way to go.’
Rudy and Jenny kept talking but a stark, terrible thought hit me. Two people in Larson were dead. Momma and Eric went to Gum’s all the time. It wasn’t crazy to think they went on a sauced-up joyride and ended up at the trainyard, fell asleep in the truck like they sometimes did. I felt sick deep in my gut and wanted to hurl up the nothing I’d eaten since breakfast. Instead I grabbed the backpack and wolfed down a square of cornbread, soggy in one corner from the rain.
Jenny and Rudy both stopped to look at me.
‘Hungry there, lardass?’ Rudy, still lying down, kicked my shin.
That’s when I noticed the rain had stopped. Something gnawed at my insides after seeing, or not seeing, the pale Ford. Now, with this trainyard news, I felt lost, needed to speak with someone who wasn’t going to laugh at me.
‘I’ve got to go,’ I said, mouth full of cornbread. ‘Got to see the pastor and borrow a book off him.’
Right then, I didn’t care that I was lying to my sister and my best friend, I just wanted out.
‘Jenny, you’ll be home by dark, right?’
She nodded.
‘Rudy, make sure she gets there?’
‘You got it, chief.’
‘I’m not a baby, John, I don’t need a chaperone,’ Jenny whined.
‘Please?’ I said. ‘Just let Rudy walk you home.’
Rudy swung his arm around my sister. ‘Just you and me, doll. I’ll treat you right.’ Then he winked at me and laughed.
‘See you guys later,’ I said and rushed out of the Fort.
The leaves still dripped and the clouds hung black in the sky. My shirt and shorts stuck to my skin and a cold prickle ran through my hair. Stiff-limbed and shivering, I headed for the road. I came out of the trees, felt like I was emerging into a new, different world. Toward town and off to the right, the white Larson water tower rose and, between that and me, the peak of the church spire. To the far north of the church, the tip of the Easton mill’s grain elevator, owned by Mark Easton’s father. That grain elevator was part of Larson as much as the water tower, the church, the asphalt coating the roads, the pancakes in the Backhoe and it would endure, despite Mark’s draft. Those high parts of town were my landmarks, my touchstones. I could never be lost. To me, Larson was a loop, you left on one end of Main Street but always found yourself at the other, no matter how far you walked. It comforted me to always be so close to home. Home is where the heart
is, Momma always said, and where it’s left unprotected. The best things always happen at home, she says, and the worst.
I kept an eye out for the pale Ford all the way to town but it never showed. Now, more than ever, I was convinced that car was not what it appeared. It was always there, right where Death touched down in our town. Mary Ridley. The two poor souls at the trainyard. Who else? Who next?
Finally, after it felt like I’d been walking for days, I reached the church. It was Saturday, late afternoon, so it was a long shot he’d be there, but I found Frank in his pulpit, practising his sermon for the day. He didn’t see me at first as he boomed out the words, fist closed and shaking up at the heavens. It gave me a shiver to watch him, without him knowing I was there.
‘Idle talk, like idle hands, are tools of Satan himself,’ he cried, his powerful voice resounding off the walls. ‘Proverbs teaches us to keep private matters private and I say to you, my good friends, do you want hands in your underwear drawers? Do you want hands pulling out your secrets and flashing them to the whole town? No you don’t! No, ma’am, no sir, no child, you do not.’ He stabbed at the air with one rigid finger.
He’s talking about you, Johnny, my head said. All those shouts of ‘freak’ and ‘killer’. He was talking about me, telling all those busybody townsfolk, all those cawing crows outside the beauty parlour, all the Darney Wills and gossiping kids at school, to stop it. Stop their chatter and their hurtful words. A swell of warmth grew in my stomach, up to my chest and cheeks, and I was smiling as he carried on.
‘Rumours buzz around this town like flies on dung and I say to you, this must stop. Idle talk, people. The sin of the loose tongue. We are one people. We are a community and we must join hands, come on now,’ he clasped his hands together, showing the empty pews what to do. ‘Join hands with your neighbour beside you right now. Love thy neighbour, trust thy neighbour, for we are all God’s children under this burning sun.’
Then he trailed off, read from his notes and recited a few words with different emphasis, clasped his hands together in a different way.
I coughed from the back of the room and he jumped.
‘Good Lord, John!’
I walked up the aisle. ‘Sorry, Frank. I didn’t mean to intrude.’
He shook his head, a slight bloom of red on his cheeks. ‘No, no. It’s no intrusion. What are you doing here on a Saturday, shouldn’t you be off with your friends?’ As I got closer, he saw the state of me, t-shirt still damp in places, huge streaks of mud on my legs and shorts from sliding down to the Roost. ‘What happened?’
‘Oh nothing,’ I said. ‘You told me to tell you if I saw that car again. The grey Ford.’
His eyes burned into mine at the mention, and he stepped off his podium, came right up to me.
‘Where did you see it?’
‘Just outside town. Jenny and me were walking home and it was sat there on the side of the road, in the rain.’
‘Did you see a driver this time?’
I shook my head and he put his arm around my shoulders.
‘You were right about the car,’ I said, the knowledge sat inside me like a stone, weighed me down. ‘It is Death, I think. The first time I saw it was just after we found that woman, again today … I heard something happened at the trainyard.’ Momma and Eric might be cut to bloody shreds. ‘We moved the girl’s body last year. It’s like we let Death in. Opened a door and now he’s following me. It always seems to be there when something happens. Something bad.’
‘All right, John, calm down. I’m sure it’s some joyrider. I heard about the trainyard, terrible, just terrible. Two kids, I heard.’
A great rush of air escaped my lungs. Kids. Not Momma. Not Eric. Thank you, God.
‘I shouldn’t have scared you with Revelations,’ he said and guided me back up the aisle, toward the doors. ‘Steer clear of the car, you hear me? You tell me when you see it, every time.’
‘I will,’ I said as we got to the exit. He patted me on the back and shook my hand.
‘It’s just a car, John, with a real person driving it. Nothing to worry about. Will I see you and your sister at tomorrow’s service?’
I tensed. I didn’t like sermons. Felt like I was being yelled at for no reason and I had chores on the farm to tend. With all that rain, I’d have to check the barn for leaks, clear out the drainage channels. All sorts.
‘I’m not sure,’ I said, voice weak with excuses. ‘Jenny isn’t feeling too good, you see, I think she’s coming down with something rotten and I’ll need to take care of her at home.’
Protect her from a sodden Momma more like. ‘And I have chores, you know.’
Frank smiled. ‘Of course. Give her my best.’
I said I would and left. As I walked back home, I was on high alert for the Ford. I wanted to confront it, storm up to the window and demand an answer, punch the guy right on the nose if he talked back. But the appeal of that plan quickly waned. What if it was truly Death and that’s exactly what he wanted me to do? One touch from his bony hand and I’d be dead meat.
When I got back home, Momma’s truck wasn’t there. I went in through the back door, found a note from Eric on the counter. Hey kiddos, heading out for a pair of frosties. My famous mac n’ cheese is in the oven, you know what you do. Be good, peace, E.
Nothing from Momma. Never anything from Momma. Jenny was in the family room and I called to her.
‘There’s mac n’ cheese. You hungry?’ I said.
Jenny trotted in, hair twisted up in a towel, wearing a clean t-shirt and the flared jeans she made with Eric.
I opened the oven and the smell of cold, melted cheese hit me. I smiled. ‘Cold?’
There was something clandestine in the thought of eating dinner food differently, like we were in charge, we were the adults. In that one small act, we were deciding how to live our lives, just like grown-ups do.
Jenny joined my smile, my thought. ‘With bread and butter.’
‘Coming right up.’
I dished up the food, left enough for breakfast if Momma and Eric weren’t home by then, and sat down to eat. It didn’t take long for the atmosphere to sink. Jenny stopped eating halfway into her plate, forked at a glob of cheese.
‘The sheriff won’t care about Mary now, will he?’
‘I doubt it.’
She sighed, eyes on her plate, pushing the lump of cheese around in circles. ‘But I still care.’
‘So do I.’ I care about you more and keeping you away from all this darkness. ‘Pastor Jacobs heard about the wreck, said it was kids in the car.’
‘Oh God,’ she said and fell silent for a moment. ‘Why did you want to see him so bad? It wasn’t to borrow a book because you didn’t come home with one.’
Shit. Rookie mistake. I shrugged it off. ‘I just had to talk to him about something.’
She glared at me. ‘I don’t know why you trust him. He creeps me out.’
I wanted to say, because he listens. Because he cares. You should give him a chance. But I didn’t say that. Frank was my own, personal Pigeon Pa and I didn’t want to lose that.
So I said, ‘He’s nice to me.’
She didn’t say anything for a while, picked some more at her food, then stood up, came over to me and threw her arms around my shoulders. A surge went through me and I hugged her back, her head resting against my neck.
‘Maybe it’ll stop now,’ she said. ‘Now they have something else to talk about. I don’t want more people calling me a freak. I don’t want them to throw stones again.’
Or thinking you killed someone. ‘I hope so. I’m going to go out and check on the corn.’
Jenny nodded as if she’d expected it. Always out in the fields, John, she’d say, careful or I might think you liked it on this shitty farm.
I ducked into the barn to get my shovel but spotted a leak in the roof, even though the rain had stopped, dripping right onto our ’55 corn picker. The picker was seized up, would need some love, but solid American-ma
de underneath. The picker was left here when my real pa left, a vicious-looking three-pronged machine for cutting and shelling corn, green paint faded and peeling. I didn’t have a tractor to run it but one day I’d buy Briggs’ John Deere and then there’d be no stopping the Royals. But that’s of course, if the damn thing didn’t get rust from a leaky roof. I threw a tarp over the picker and climbed the ladder to the hay loft. I hadn’t got halfway up when I heard Jenny calling from the barn door.
‘Come quick,’ she shouted up to me. ‘It’s Rudy!’
My heart leapt. Blood rushed all over me. Rudy, in trouble? Was he in that car wreck? No, of course he wasn’t. Then what? I rushed down and back into the house to find the phone on the kitchen table, long cord strung across the room. I let out all my air and put my hands on my knees.
‘Jesus, Jenny. I thought he was in trouble.’
‘Just listen.’ She picked up the phone, turned it so we could both hear.
A frantic Rudy shouted down the crackling line.
‘You both there? Shit, guys, you’ll never believe it,’ he said, out of breath from running up to the payphone at the end of Buchanan road. ‘My dad and Perry just got home and man …’ he paused and we heard him take giant gulps of air. ‘The kids killed at the trainyard. Holy shit, guys, it’s so messed up. The old man said they really had been there on purpose, the way the car was or something. Idiots parked right in the middle of the tracks and waited. Guys, Jesus, they know who it was, found ID or something. Fuck, guys.’
‘Rudy, spit it out, who was it?’
Another wheezing breath. ‘Mark Easton and Tracy Meadows.’
16
Mark and Tracy’s deaths changed Larson. They were the spark running along the fuse. The storm that came on the day they died didn’t leave. The heat waned as if the sun mourned along with the town and its absence let the rain come in sheets. More in six weeks than in the last six years. The town sank. The people with it. Corn maggots and blight invaded our fields, ruining any chance of a good harvest. No matter how hard I worked, how much my back burned from digging and re-digging drainage channels, no matter how sick I got from labouring in the pouring rain, I couldn’t beat the weather.
