‘Coward!’
‘Bastard!’
‘Cunt!’
Louder with every step he takes.
‘You come down here, you son of a bitch!’
The stairs squeak as he passes over them. He pauses a moment to let the old house settle around him. Something about the cool wood of the steps against the soles of his feet calms him just a little. Downstairs is flooded with light. They’ve parked up around the house in a semi-circle, high beams still on, filling the house with light. He walks forward, blind, knowing this house, trusting where his feet must lead him. It’s like he’s a teenager again, sneaking out in the dark, except this time the world is all light. Too light. He does not belong in such a world of light. And yet he walks forward, hand up to try to shield his eyes. He fumbles a moment with the screen, then again trying to find the door knob. He opens the door. He knows that, if they were so inclined, they could shoot him, right there, spotlight nearly upon him, framed by the open door, illuminated by their high beams. A nearly perfect target, he reckons, yet he still walks forward. He stops in the centre of the porch, hand still up to shield him, eyes still blinking, fighting to adjust.
There are four pickups surrounding the house in a rough semi-circle. One, he recognizes as the truck Katie climbed into beside her boyfriend just a few nights before. Another, he sees, is the same deep blue truck he’d spotted when he was first home and walking the back roads. Eddie Saunders’ truck. He does not recognize the other two vehicles, a rusted-out old Chevy it’s hard to guess the colour of, and an old green Ford that’s best days clearly are behind it. He cannot tell how many men there are: the high beams off the trucks are too bright to see much else beyond them, but he’d guess, from the shadows he can decipher, maybe fifteen. Maybe more. Eddie’s truck is parked up right in front of the house, dead centre in Mama’s garden. Three of Mama’s rose bushes lie uprooted, tyre tracks pressing them into the dry earth. Jasper does not take the time to assess what other damage may have been done, but inside he feels a sadness settle, unlike those in his life that he has known before. He feels a new affinity with the garden, looking at it destroyed, the beds he only just weeded with his own bare hands.
That garden was his mother’s pride and joy.
The jibes and jeers fall silent as Jasper emerges from the house, the silence he steps into almost more frightening, more deadly, than the shouted angry sounds that lured him out. Some of the men are holding shotguns. Others rifles. Some just baseball bats. Eddie Saunders stands front and centre, his Winchester semi-automatic casually slung over one shoulder. ‘Well, well, well,’ he says. ‘Look what scum we’ve found here.’
Jasper slowly reaches above and pulls the cord on the porch light, hoping to illuminate the faces in the darkness before him. Light spills onto the lawn, brightening the deep shadows of the closest men’s faces. One hand still shades his eyes from the intensity of their high beams. ‘You mind turnin’ those lights down, boys?’ His voice is even. ‘There’s a woman ’n’ child sleepin’ inside.’
Eddie’s laugh cuts through the darkness. Others follow suit and chuckle, but it’s his laugh that sticks in Jasper’s ears, repeating, burning. ‘Since when do you give a fuck,’ Eddie snarls, ‘about anybody but you?’
Jasper scans the men before him, looking for familiar faces, but most stand in front of the glow of the high beams, their faces blacked out and lost in shadow. ‘This here’s my property,’ he says firmly. ‘Y’all weren’t invited. I suggest you find your own ways home.’
Eddie laughs again, but it is far from a happy sound, and Jasper cannot make out his expression. The high beams off the trucks turn all the men into silhouettes, shadows of themselves. ‘Speaking of invitations,’ Eddie laughs, ‘I don’ myself remember us all invitin’ you on back.’
‘This is my home. I don’t want trouble. I ain’t back for that.’
‘What are you back for? A bit of free pussy? Back to finish off what you started, you sick fuck?’
Jasper closes his eyes and lets the words absorb into him. Become him. You sick fuck. Yes, he thinks, I am. He smiles. ‘What’s wrong, Eddie? You didn’ miss me all these years?’
Eddie looks down to his feet, slowly shaking his head. He clicks his tongue. ‘Jasper, Jasper, Jasper,’ he says. ‘What are we gonna do with you, huh? See, I was of half a mind to shoot you when you just came out there, but that’s too messy, ain’t it? That’s not really my style. No, I got a life to live ’n’ you ain’t worth givin’ it up for.’ Eddie spits a big wad of tobacco onto the ground beside him. It lands on an evening primrose, tightly closed for the night, stepped on and trodden down into its bed. ‘The problem is,’ Eddie continues, ‘I just can’t let her see you. I thought at first, maybe, when I heard you was gettin’ out you’d be wise enough not to come on back here. Thought you’d be smart enough to know when you’re not welcome. But, shit,’ he spits another large wad of tobacco, ‘you ain’t even smart enough for that. I thought then maybe the paper had it wrong a bit, maybe you’d come out of Huntsville all reformed ’n’ shit, so I gave you the chance. Didn’t I give him the chance, boys?’
Around him the other men murmur and mumble their agreement. ‘Damn right, you did,’ a voice shouts. A young man’s voice. Familiar to Jasper but hard to place.
Eddie nods, as though listening to, as though taking in, the men’s reassurances all around him. ‘It’s a real shame,’ he says, ‘they couldn’t fix you while you was locked up in there ’cause, frankly, I don’ see the point in keepin’ somethin’ alive that only causes misery.’ A murmur of agreement spreads from the other men. ‘You don’ keep a dog that bit someone alive, now, do you, boys?’ he says more loudly, his voice risen to carry.
Jasper stands with his hands shoved deep in his pockets. His shoulders hunch slightly. His face is a blank mask, cold, without emotion.
‘Now I don’ know about the rest of you,’ Eddie says, ‘but it sure ain’t right by me, this scum standin’ here, going to our church, shoppin’ in our town. You gave Esther Reynolds there quite the fright the other day, you know.’ He raises his voice again so it will carry. ‘Ain’t that right, Roy?’
‘Yeah, that’s right,’ a shadowy figure by Eddie’s side responds. Jasper would know that voice anywhere. Roy’s voice. He closes his eyes against the sting of that betrayal. Opens them.
‘See, we can’t have that.’ Eddie spits again, his tobacco juice disappearing into the blackness of the lawn. ‘We can’t have you goin’ round touchin’ folks, threatenin’ them like that. And I certainly can’t have you bumpin’ into my little sister.’ He pauses. The men around him hush. Like the whole night’s gone quiet. ‘It ain’t right, her goin’ through that.’ A murmur of agreement ripples across the lawn. ‘It ain’t right at all.’
Somewhere far off on the prairie an owl calls. No moon, but endless layers of stars light its hunt. Jasper wishes he could just lie down there in that ruined garden and gaze up at those stars. He wishes he was that owl off hunting. His familiar rage is rising in him, slowly coming to a boil in his gut. He knows he will explode soon. Can feel the anger building. Like before prison. Like before he learned to dumb it down. ‘What do you want of me?’ he snarls, stepping forward. One step at a time. Down onto the dew-soaked grass.
‘I thought we’d made that clear.’ Eddie half chuckles. ‘We want you gone, boy! Consider this here your goodbye party.’ He swings the Winchester off his shoulder and holds it ready before him. To his left, a shadowy figure taps the baseball bat against his open palm on repeat, filling the stillness of the night with a kind of eerie applause.
Jasper never sees the rifle butt that hits him. He feels his jaw disconnect and push to the far side of his face. A splitting pain straight after. He falls forward onto his knees. Tufts of grass beneath his palms feel wet with dew. There are shining stars before him, constellations on the lawn. He blinks. It’s been a long while since he took a hit like that. Even longer since he’d dealt one back.
The next b
low comes before he has the chance to right himself. A rifle barrel to his temple that almost brings his dinner up. The stars on the lawn spin faster. He does not raise his hands to fight back. A small part of him thinks it is fitting if this is how he goes. Jasper never was a fighter. Even with the rage inside him. He had always preferred to inflict pain. It wasn’t the fighting part that thrilled him, it never had been. It was how another body could recoil from his that had always driven him forward. He stops counting the blows. Stops differentiating between baseball bats and rifle barrels. The occasional fist or open palm, he does take note of, their blows slightly softer. His own pulse echoes in his ears, muffling his hearing. Like the whole world makes the sound of a heartbeat speeding up.
A shot reverberates, breaking through the pulse. So this is how I go, he thinks, and shuts his eyes. Another blow, a rifle barrel, to the nape of his neck. Another gunshot that booms through the pulse beat of his hearing. But he does not feel the bullet. Nor was there a bullet before. He opens his eyes. Or tries to. Blood cakes his eyelashes, sticking top and bottom lids together. His vision is blurry. The blows have stopped, though. There is space to breathe again around him. He inhales. A sharp pain cuts through his ribs and his eyes close once again as he falls forward.
‘Get the hell off my property!’ Lizzie’s voice. A tone he’s never heard her use. Don’t-fuck-with-me conviction heavy on every word.
Jasper blinks. The blood on his face feels warm. Sticky. The blood in his mouth tastes acidic, like stomach bile, but thicker.
‘Don’ get involved in what don’ concern you!’ Eddie’s rifle is aimed at where Lizzie stands on the front porch, their daddy’s old Hungerford semi-automatic held before her, barrel still smoking.
‘You gonna shoot me, Eddie?’ she says. ‘You go on right ahead.’ Her own rifle barrel is fixed on Eddie, though she scans all the men with her eyes. ‘I hope y’all are real proud of yourselves,’ she calls, ‘a whole gang of you beatin’ one man like that. What big men you are.’
Jasper tries to speak, but his mouth is too full of blood to get his words out right. Blood catches in and fills his throat and he is forced to swallow it. He struggles not to vomit.
‘You stay out of this, Lizzie. This here don’ need to concern you none.’ Roy’s voice. Which hand, Jasper wonders, was Roy’s? Which baseball bat or rifle barrel was held in that hand? He spits blood onto the grass before him. A pain in his side colours the world white. He closes his eyes. Struggles to reopen them.
‘I’d heed his advice if I was you.’ Eddie’s voice is cool and calm, a dangerous sound.
‘This here’s my property, boys,’ Lizzie says, her voice as hard as stone, ‘my home. You’ve vandalized my garden, trespassed on my land, and threatened my family. I’m well within my legal rights to pick you all off right now, one by one, if I so choose.’ She pauses a moment to let her words sink in. ‘And to tell you the truth, boys, right now I’m mighty inclined to choose just that.’
‘Now, Elizabeth, really.’ Chuck Ryan, Josh’s father, steps forward into the light, his son just visible behind him. ‘Why don’t you just step on back inside ’n’ let us men finish our business here?’
Lizzie cocks the rifle barrel, ready to take another shot. ‘Next time I fire this gun,’ she says, ‘I ain’t shootin’ up in the air. Now get the fuck off my land.’
‘You threatenin’ us, bitch?’ Eddie takes a step forward towards the porch.
She looks down the barrel at him, finger on the trigger. ‘Give me one excuse,’ she says, ‘I beg you.’ She takes a step forward, slowly descending the stairs, rifle still held high and focused on him.
Slowly Eddie lowers the aim of his own rifle. ‘All righ’,’ he says, nodding slowly, looking at the shadowed faces of the men around him. ‘All righ’, Lizzie.’ He chuckles lightly, an empty, hollow sound that further stains the darkness of the night. ‘You win this round. We’ll be on our way. But this sure as hell is far from over ’n’ you’d best be careful whose side you take.’ He spits a wad of tobacco onto the ground. It lands in the grass beside Jasper. Foamy. Frothy.
Jasper watches as tiny rainbows catch the light to form and reflect within the bubbles of the other man’s saliva. He reaches slowly out and lays his hand there on the grass. Right on top of Eddie’s spit. Feels wet, like dew, but warmer. Feels like everything has a pulse. His heart beats in his head so loudly. The grass has a pulse, the dew, even Eddie’s spit. He lifts his hand and brings it up to his chest, arching his head back, looking up to the sky with closed eyes. He rubs his fingers together till they dry. Then, slowly, a smile spreads across his broken face, trails of blood dripping from his nose and mouth. A cut on his forehead drips blood too, and he can feel it warm and sticky as it runs the length of his face.
Lizzie stands beside him now, rifle still raised and levelled on the men before them. ‘There ain’t never been a choice,’ she says.
June bugs beat against the porch light, their tiny bodies gently thudding as they bang against the bulb. Around them the prairie is silent, as though waiting for some unknown cue. There is no cricket song. No hum of July flies. It is Jasper’s laughter that finally shatters the stillness of the night. A sound more wild than had a coyote called. ‘You stupid, stupid cunts.’ He laughs, blood boiling up out of his mouth like foam. ‘You should have ended it. You should have killed me when you had the chance.’
The kitchen light spills warm and golden out across the floor, stretching towards the sitting room. She stands just in shadow, hidden in the hall. He sits in the middle of the room, his head tilted back to stop his nose bleeding. His profile is to her but even that looks newly grotesque, deformed around his jaw. ‘How’d you know they wouldn’t shoot you?’ he asks her mother. His voice cracks as though too long unused.
Her mother dips the cloth she holds back into the basin beside them, staining the water pink. She wrings it out before she wipes his face. ‘They all got families of their own,’ she says. ‘Life they’d miss too much locked up. Much as they hate you, they ain’t prepared to massacre our whole family.’
His bloody lips part in a broken smile. ‘You sure ’bout that?’
She cannot see her mother’s face.
A floorboard creaks beneath her feet and they both turn to her. For a moment Joanne wants to run. A scream catches in her throat, releasing as a tiny squeak. His face, full on, looks like a monster’s to her. His lips discoloured and swollen. His jaw, out of its socket, twists round too far on his face. Both eyes are narrow, swollen slits. Her lip trembles, looking at him. She wants to cry.
‘Come here, sweetheart.’ Her mother’s arms open, and she rushes into them, sobbing. Shaking. ‘It’s OK now,’ Lizzie coos. ‘It’s OK now, darling.’ With her hands she smooths down the tangles in her daughter’s hair.
When Joanne finally lifts her face from her mother’s arms, her eyes are still puffy, her breath shallow and jagged. She wipes snot running from her nose with the back of her hand, then wipes the back of her hand across her stomach, smearing the snot across her T-shirt. Her lower lip quivers. Slowly, Lizzie lifts her daughter’s chin to look her in the eye. ‘You’re OK now,’ she says quietly. A statement not a question.
Mutely Joanne nods. Tears swell in her eyes but do not yet fall. She turns to her uncle. He sits on the kitchen chair beside them, looking up towards the ceiling light. Her eyes widen as she takes in his injuries. The cuts on his lips, the cut by his brow, the angry swollen colour of his flesh. She’d never seen a fight before. Not like that. She’d seen the bullies at school picking on the smaller kids, and she’d seen the boys in the schoolyard have their scrapes as well, but usually the teachers pulled them off each other before anyone was truly hurt. James Tucker had a shiner back in fourth grade once from a baseball accidentally hitting him in the eye, and he’d let Joanne touch it while it was still bruised. It hadn’t felt like much. Just warm, and like puffy flesh. But James Tucker’s black eye was nothing compared to the swollen purple mask now covering her unc
le’s face. Looking at it makes her want to cry.
When she’d first woken up, she’d been scared. Straight away when the truck doors had slammed and woken her. She’d gone out into the hall. Had hid under the covers after Uncle Jasper told her to get back in her room. The voices scared her. The shouts. She didn’t understand what was happening. That was why she got up eventually and snuck to their bedroom window. She wanted to hear what the men were saying. She wanted to see who was there. She heard her mother rush down the hallway, footsteps heavy on the stairs. Shortly after, the gunshots sounded. One. And then the other. And then the trucks all pulled away.
It was still some time after that, though, before Joanne regained the use of her legs. Folded and bent beneath her where she crouched below her sister’s window. She couldn’t see much from there. Just the porch roof and a bit of the lawn before it. She’d seen the trucks all parked up in her granny’s garden, though. She’d seen the intensity of the light spilling from them. Crushed flowers all around them. She’d seen the hunched-over, crumpled figure of her uncle on the ground, a swarm of men upon him.
Now her lip trembles as she looks at him. ‘Are you OK?’ Her voice, choked with tears, is whisper soft.
He looks at her. Or, at least, she thinks he looks at her, but his eyes are so puffy, nearly swollen shut, that it’s hard for her to see his pupils. His lips try to curve up into what she knows must be intended as a smile. But with his jaw so twisted on his face, his skin so swollen dark and angry, there is nothing friendly about his face, nothing reassuring. ‘Don’t I look it?’ One swollen eyelid struggles to wink at her. It half closes slow motion and opens as though with great pain.
‘Can you see OK?’
He snorts. ‘Never seen better.’
Uncertainly, she perches on the edge of the kitchen chair beside him. ‘Does it hurt?’
‘Joanne. You stop pestering your uncle, you hear?’ Her mother’s tone is firm, but not cross.
The Last Days of Summer Page 23
