The Last Days of Summer

by Vanessa Ronan

  It’s only when she speaks that he realizes it’s now he who hums.

  ‘Uncle Jasper?’

  He glances at her. Keeps on peeling.

  ‘Why didn’t you like Josh?’

  ‘I got no problem with the boy.’

  They peel again in silence. ‘Uncle Jasper?’

  ‘Yeah?’ Voice gravelly.

  ‘What’d Josh mean when he said that thing about diggin’?’

  The carrot feels cool in his palm, its outside so rough still but the inside polished smooth. Like a different vegetable altogether. He turns to her, unsurprised to find her eyes wide upon him. He’d known they would be. He can feel when her eyes are on him; he has grown to know her at least that well. He hadn’t expected the openness of her face, though, as she looks trustingly up at him. That childish innocence clouded by all the mystery of woman that’s slowly seeping in. No, that he hadn’t quite expected, and it stuns him, the innocence of her, the beauty she will one day grow to be, despite her awkwardness now. He doesn’t want to tarnish that. Sometimes it seems that everything he touches stops shining.

  ‘Why was he thinking of diggin’?’ Joanne asks, big eyes searching his. ‘What was he lookin’ for?’

  Jasper swallows. Forces a smile. ‘He ain’t thinkin’ of diggin’. That was talk is all.’

  ‘You offered him a shovel.’

  ‘I did.’ A peel falls loose and hits the bowl barely making a sound. He can feel her eyes still on him.

  ‘What’s buried?’

  He pauses. ‘A treasure of sorts, I guess.’

  ‘Buried treasure?’ Voice shrill with excitement.

  He glances at her, frowning, then away. ‘You could call it that.’

  ‘Like a pirate?’

  He peels a long strip of orange skin. Watches as it falls into the bowl. ‘Different kind of treasure.’

  ‘Oh.’ Her brow furrows in thought as she falls silent again, and they switch to snapping the ends off a pile of green beans. He likes the crisp snap of the beans, the gentle thud as the discarded ends hit the sink. A sound that’s barely sound. The clock ticks. Somewhere in the house a floorboard creaks and falls silent. She turns back to him, brow still deeply furrowed. ‘Is it valuable?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The treasure.’

  He tosses the green bean he holds into the pot and reaches for another. Rinses it beneath the running tap. ‘It ain’t worth money if that’s the answer you’re after.’

  ‘Did you bury it?’

  He snaps the end off the green bean, pulling its stringy green spine. Tosses it aside and reaches for another. ‘A lot of folks round here seem to think I did.’

  ‘Did you?’

  He looks at her a long moment. Forces a tired smile that even his own lips don’t trust. ‘What do you think?’

  She shakes her head. So much innocence in those eyes. Wider even, maybe, than a doe’s. ‘I dunno what to think.’

  He nods. ‘That’s a good way to be, Doe Eyes. You stick with that.’

  His breath catches, afraid to make a sound. He hadn’t meant to call her that. Not out loud. For a moment she freezes, brow deeply creased, then her face glows as she beams up at him.

  It’s a long time before they speak. Josh is driving too fast, and she wants to tell him to slow down, but Katie’s afraid that if she breaks their silence he’ll just start yelling at her, so she holds her tongue. Bites it for a while, but then they hit a pothole, and the whole pickup lurches, bouncing up off the road. When it comes down again, loose gravel spins out from under the wheels, hitting the pickup’s body with tiny hollow thuds. Another pothole throws Katie forward. She catches herself against the dashboard, using the heels of her hands to brace herself. Bites her lip as she’s thrown forward, her teeth lightly nipping her skin. A single tear runs down her cheek. Hot, sticky, she wipes it away. Josh doesn’t notice, eyes glued to the road before them, or if he does, he doesn’t show it. There aren’t streetlights on these back-country roads, so the road before them is visible only in tiny bursts illuminated by Josh’s high beams as they hurtle forward. Looking out of her side window, Katie can see nothing but the dark stretch of prairie around them. They pass no other cars.

  They almost miss their turn. A small dirt road that leads down to the creek. One of those roads you have to know about to find, and even then at night it’s hard to spot. A road too small to have been mapped or named. Their tyres squeak and burn as Josh cuts the turn too sharp. The kind of turn that leaves black skid marks on the pavement. Katie has to brace herself not to fall into Josh as they turn. She wants to fall into him. She usually would. She wants this whole stupid thing behind them. But it’s not that simple. Nothing seems simple any more. So she holds onto the door handle, the leather of it smooth, cool in her palm. Josh grips the steering-wheel tight enough to turn his knuckles white. The radio is off.

  The road is narrow now, scarcely wider than the pickup, and Josh is forced to slow a bit as they ease downhill. The only incline for miles. The only thick growth of trees for miles, too, as branches reach out, scratch at the sides of the truck, and attempt to reach through the open windows as the truck rolls past. The creek is different than the prairie. It’s a bit of a drive north, but worth it all the same, their hidden oasis tucked into the beginnings of hill country. Trees grow thick along the creek bank, tangled roots twisting around each other in their quest for water. Vines hang down from some of the taller trees, and long thick beards of white moss from some branches – kids often use the vines to swing across the creek or to swing out and drop down into the water when the creek is swollen high enough. It’s been a good few weeks since the last rainstorm, though, and the creek is low, tangled roots along its bed even more exposed than usual. There are more rocks around it than sand. In the day, the foliage is thick enough that the shade stays nice and cool. At night, nearly all the stars are blocked by overlapping leaves.

  There are a couple of other trucks already parked along the creek bed. Light from a fire flickers where it dances further up the bank. The murmur of voices and laughter drifts to them, carried on the wind. Josh pulls up off the dirt road and cuts the engine. Turns to open his door. She catches his wrist before he can, his hand that’s still on the steering-wheel. ‘Josh?’

  He says nothing.

  ‘You OK?’

  He turns to her then, but she can’t see his face. It’s too dark in the pickup. ‘I don’t want you livin’ with that creep.’

  She lets out a breath too long held. Collapses back against her seat, hand coming up to press her palm against her forehead. ‘God, Josh!’ She can’t keep the annoyance from her voice. ‘We’ve been over this!’

  ‘You want me to just pretend I’m OK with it?’

  ‘No …’ She presses the heel of her hand further into her forehead. Can feel a headache starting.

  ‘It ain’t right, what he’s doin’.’

  ‘Oh, yeah? What’s he doin’ that’s so wrong?’

  ‘Men like that should die in prison.’

  She takes her hand down and looks at Josh’s profile. A tiny bit of moonlight illuminates his features enough for her to see the anger chiselled there. ‘He ain’t that bad, Josh. Yeah, he gives me the creeps, and he’s got this weird laugh, and he’s a bit odd and all, but I mean …’ Her voice trails off. She thinks of Uncle Jasper earlier in Esther’s shop, touching those women’s panties. Of the look on his face when he touched them. The look on his face when he noticed her watching him. She thinks about how his eyes ran up and down her legs while she sat on the porch waiting for her toes to dry. Thinks back to photographs in newspapers long ago. ‘I don’t know,’ she whispers finally. ‘I don’t know what to think. I’m scared sometimes, Josh.’ Her voice cracks then, falters, and she can feel the tears burning behind her eyes, and suddenly his arms are around her, and she knows it’s going to be OK, surely everything is going to be OK. He holds her like that for some time, saying nothing, stroking her long blonde hair. She can still feel t
he anger in him, tense in his arms around her, but at least his arms are around her. She feels safe.

  At length she whispers into his chest, ‘Did you hear ’bout Esther Reynolds?’

  His hand pauses on her head. ‘No.’ His words cautious, guarded. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘He grabbed her by the face. Scared her real bad, I think.’ She sniffs back a sob. ‘Joanne saw it.’

  ‘In town?’

  ‘Yeah, in her shop.’

  ‘Did he hurt her?’ His voice has gone real quiet.

  ‘I don’t think so. Not bad anyway.’ Her voice chokes up again. ‘I don’t know …’

  ‘It’s OK …’ He presses her tighter to him. ‘It’s OK.’ He strokes her hair again. Pulls her from him gently to sit her up so he can see her. Takes his index finger to lift her chin so their eyes are even. ‘He ever hurt you, baby?’

  She chokes back another sob. ‘No.’

  He searches her eyes. ‘You sure abou’ that?’ The intensity in his gaze frightens her a little.

  ‘Yeah, I’m sure.’

  ‘He ever touch you none?’

  ‘No, he never touched me! What you gettin’ at?’

  ‘Nothin’.’ He pulls her to him again. ‘Just worryin’ ’bout you is all.’ He kisses her on her forehead, real soft, his hand behind her neck, now resting where skull and spine meet. There’s something reassuring about just feeling his hand there. Someone hollers from by the campfire, the sound of their call and the laughter that follows carried upstream on the breeze. Josh and Katie instinctively look over. ‘You wanna go join the others? Ray’s meant to have beers.’ He smiles at her, his voice gone back soft again.

  She feels her own smile break and spread. ‘Oh, he’s got beers, does he?’ She playfully pulls at the collar of Josh’s shirt.

  He’s grinning now, full on, teeth white in the moonlight. ‘Yeah,’ he nods, ‘that’s right.’

  ‘Well, then, I guess we’d best go over.’ And she leans across the cab to lightly kiss his lips. She can feel the anger easing from him as his body starts to relax.

  There’s nine of them round the campfire. Hank Trident lit the thing right in the centre of a large boulder to stop any chance of the fire spreading. That’s how dry things are. One spark and the whole prairie could go up. Or that’s what Hank’s told them anyway, and his daddy volunteers at the fire station so he ought to know. The boulder sits right at the edge of the creek bank. Usually, when the water’s at normal levels, the stream comes right up high on the boulder so that you can sit on it and let your feet dangle down deep into the cool creek water, but everything’s gone so dry lately that there’s a good couple feet between the top of the boulder and where the water starts. Dark lines on the rock hint where the water should be. It’s too late now for fireflies, but the mosquitoes are out, and every now and then someone stands up swatting and cussing before moving closer to the fire to seek refuge in its smoke.

  Ray Credinski brought beer, just like he’d promised, and somehow or another Kristen Maylor got her hands on a bottle of tequila her folks had brought back from somewhere across the border, the other side of Brownsville. There’s a worm in the bottom of the bottle that makes the girls shriek. The boys act like they aren’t bothered, when truth is there’s few among them that truly want to drink that worm.

  When Katie and Josh stroll up hand in hand, the whole campfire goes quiet. That awkward silence, like a conversation’s just fallen short. Katie can guess what the topic must have been. News travels fast in a small town. And a convict released, anywhere, is pretty big news. A chill finds its way down her spine and she shudders even though the night is warm.

  ‘Hey, Katie. Josh.’ Ray slaps him on the back. ‘ ’Bout time y’all showed up!’ He hands them both beers, and Josh pops the tops off them with his teeth, and everyone whoops and hollers. An owl calls from further down the creek bed, its voice echoing off the rocks as it travels away from them, their noise and their fire, bad for its midnight hunting. Emma Golepi gives Katie a swig from the tequila bottle. For a moment she thinks she can see the worm’s eyes looking at her through the glass as she drinks, its twisted golden brown body floating there in the liquid before her. Katie wonders what it tastes like, who will end up eating it. The tequila burns her mouth, her throat, and she coughs after the bottle leaves her lips, and everyone laughs. There is something nice, Katie thinks, about laughter shared between friends. Nothing nasty in the sound. Not like Uncle Jasper’s. Katie coughs again as the tequila goes down, her face screwing up at the sour aftertaste. She can feel the trail the liquor’s left inside her, raw and burning from lip to gut. She takes another swig and feels it follow the same path. Josh grabs the bottle from her and takes a long swig, then lets out a big whoop, shakes his head, pulls her in and kisses her, and everything tastes like tequila, and everything burns. That good burn. She likes the taste of alcohol on her boyfriend’s tongue. The burn of both inside her. Her head is spinning, but she’s not drunk, not yet. Voices swirl around her, mixing with the flames of the campfire. For a moment, everything seems good again. Seems normal. She closes her eyes. Feels the heat of the fire on her face. The burn of the tequila still raw inside her. The creek just barely gurgles, it’s so low, and she has to strain to hear it. Crickets sound, then silence on its banks. Far off a coyote howls, and she can feel the call inside her, reaching up to that sliver of moon.

  ‘So what’s it like, anyway, living with a madman?’

  Katie’s eyes pop back open.

  ‘Ray!’ Emma smacks his arm and everyone giggles nervously.

  ‘Hell, no! I’m serious!’ He stands up. Firelight dances across his face. He’s not a bad-looking boy. If it weren’t for his acne he might even have been handsome. Katie can see why Emma likes him. He takes a long swig from his beer. ‘Ain’t nobody I known lived with a madman before ’n’ I wanna know what it’s like!’

  ‘Shut up, Ray!’ Emma smacks him again. Looks across the fire to Katie, ‘Sorry’ etched in her eyes.

  ‘Yeah, what’s it like? What’s he like?’ Kristen leans forward, dark hair spilling over her shoulder. ‘I bet he’s a total creep.’

  Josh snorts and stands up too. ‘You can say that again.’

  ‘No, he isn’t!’ Katie playfully throws an empty can up at Josh, who towers over her. He dodges it and laughter ripples through the group, subtle as far-off thunder. Katie’s not quite sure why she defended her uncle so quickly there. Like it came automatic. Maybe because of what he said to Josh about if he ever made her shed one single tear … She’s not sure. Seems wrong, anyway, how everyone’s against him. Seems wrong, yet inside she knows it’s justified. She shies away herself.

  ‘I met ’im the other day in the station when he first got off the bus. Seemed damn creepy to me.’ Eric Hayden takes a small swig from his beer. Lets it rest in his hands before him. He absentmindedly pushes his ten-gallon hat up on his head a little to scratch at his forehead. Lets the hat fall back down again, low over his eyes.

  ‘You actually met him?’ Kristen’s dark eyes shift to Eric as she swigs the tequila and passes the bottle further on round the circle.

  ‘Well … sort of. He bought a Coke is all. Asked after a job ’n’ I told ’im there was none goin’.’

  ‘Ewwww, can you imagine just seeing him workin’ in a shop somewhere? I’d die!’

  ‘What’s he like, Katie, for real?’ Hank this time. Usually the quiet one of the group. His folks farm longhorns west of town. A scar runs down from his nose and across both lips, mauled by a bull back in the fourth grade. He’s second cousins with the Reynolds. Everyone’s gone quiet, looking at her now, and Katie doesn’t like the feeling. She doesn’t want to be the centre of attention. Not tonight. Not for this.

  She looks down at her red toenails shining in the firelight. Her flip-flops are in Josh’s truck. The boulder feels smooth and solid beneath her bare feet. She focuses on her toes as she speaks. ‘He gives me the creeps a bit, but he’s all right, I guess.’

  ‘
Does he talk about prison?’ Beth Miller, sitting next to Kristen, leans forward, eager, hungry for gossip.

  ‘No, he ain’t really said one word ’bout it that I heard.’

  ‘That’s a bit weird, isn’t it?’ Ray takes another sip of beer.

  ‘He’s a hell of a lot more than weird, if you ask me.’ Josh swigs the tequila. Passes the bottle on.

  ‘Does he ever talk ’bout –’

  Katie cuts Kristen off: ‘No. None of us talk ’bout it. We can’t really. Joanne don’t know.’

  Silence round the campfire as they all take that in. The wind shifts, rustling the leaves above them.

  ‘Now that’s fucked up.’ All eyes turn to Hank. The firelight deepens the dark shadows of his scar. He shrugs. ‘That’s how I see it is all.’

  ‘How can she not know?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s real messed up.’

  ‘Are you gonna tell her?’

  ‘What about when school starts?’

  Katie’s head is spinning. The fire feels too hot. Somehow the tequila’s wound up back in her hands, that worm, floating in it, staring up at her. The way it moves inside the liquid, she can’t quite make up her mind if it’s alive or dead. It must be dead, she thinks.

  ‘Someone needs to go and teach him a lesson, if you ask me. Make sure he ain’t gettin’ back to his old tricks.’ Josh spits a big wad of chewing tobacco, back braced, tall, like he means business. His fists automatically coil and release by his sides.

  ‘Josh!’ Katie tries to say, but he’s not listening, and her throat locks, and all she can manage is a whisper that doesn’t even sound like his name. She feels tiny sitting there by the fire. Helpless. She watches as the worm floats across the ripples on the top of the tequila, bottle held loosely in her hand. Firelight turns the liquid gold. She wonders if that’s how tiny she’d look, cast upon some ocean. Or if she’d be tinier, some little speck in a world impossibly large.