‘I hurt my hand,’ he’d said. ‘See that, Sheriff?’ He’d held his cut palm up to be seen. ‘I need stitches.’ He couldn’t remember then when he’d cut it. He didn’t remember cutting it. But it was bleeding all the same. ‘I need a bandage, Sheriff!’ he’d shouted, his voice rising like the anger, so thick and sour in him.
The sheriff had just stared at him as though not comprehending. So he’d shouted it again to get his message through the other man’s thick skull. ‘Get me a bandage, you cunt!’ he’d yelled. And the sheriff had just sat behind his desk and watched him.
‘Rose Saunders is gonna need a hell of a lot more than a bandage,’ Sheriff Adams had said at last, his voice cold. ‘May God have pity on your soul, and may your jury fry you.’
A grey squirrel darts down one of the taller pines and scurries across the grove, disappearing into the tall prairie grasses beyond. The day’s humidity sticks to Jasper, like a second skin. He watches as sweat forms on Katie’s neck and brow, dampening the tiny hairs that have fallen across her face. Slowly he turns to Joanne, the anger in him still burning. He’d almost forgotten she was there, he’d been so caught up in his telling. Her jaw trembles. He wants his words to stay inside him now, feels he has frightened her, has said too much already, but somehow he can’t stop his story spilling out.
‘I drove her out into the prairie to an abandoned oil site. Far out, where no one bothered to go no more. Way out,’ he gestures west, ‘where the prairie gets so dry it starts to turn more to desert.’ He rubs his swollen jaw, once more choosing his words with care. She is just a child, he reminds himself. He swallows. ‘There was this shack out there. Near where they’d been drilling. Not much to look at, just this little building with some old tools left in it.’ Beside them, the creek gurgles as tiny bugs skim across its surface. Leaves and sunlight and his swollen face reflect in the mirror of the water where it stills.
‘There’s a reason why folks don’ like me,’ he says softly. ‘I ain’t a good man, Joanne.’
He can see the fear grow in her eyes, and he’d be lying if he said a part of him didn’t like it. He doesn’t want to scare her, he doesn’t want her to fear or hate him, but old habits die hard, and the fear in her eyes thrills him just a little.
But something about it scares him too. Unsettles him more than he’d like.
‘What did you do to her?’ He can barely hear her whisper it’s so soft.
‘No!’ Katie is on her feet again, this time crossing the stream to them, water splashing up around her thighs. ‘If you tell her this I swear I’ll make you sorry!’
‘Oh, yeah?’ He laughs. ‘You’ll make me sorry?’ His rage swells up again, colouring his inside black. There is no world beyond his story, beyond this battle of wills. He sees again Rose’s naked body bound and helpless before him, lying on that dirty ground. Sees the tools he beat her with. The others he forced inside her. She wouldn’t look at him while he fucked her. That had angered him. That’s what he’d wanted, really, for her to look at him like she used to, back when they were sweethearts, back when they were young and she’d been his and not everybody else’s. So he’d taped her eyelids open. With this black electrical tape he’d found there in the shed. He’d taped them so she had to see him. Had to look at him while he fucked her and fucked her harder again.
Dark sour laughter erupts from him once more. ‘You’ll make me sorry?’ he repeats, the anger in him pumping, throbbing, like a second pulse. ‘Then you listen good to what I done: I raped her. I fucked that girl within an inch of her life. Fucked her till the sun come up. I beat her while I fucked her. Must have hit her with every tool in that shed. And let me tell you now, I didn’t once feel sorry.’
A tiny chickadee chirps high up in the trees. Breathless, Jasper stops. Pulse still racing.
Katie has stopped mid-stream and is standing in the shallow water. Tear tracks run down her cheeks. A nervous fear clouds her eyes. The fear of a woman that can be overpowered. His favourite kind of fear. She is very beautiful to him in that moment. He likes the way her pulse shows in the tremble of her throat.
A twig snaps.
Joanne.
His heart stops. A tiny moan escapes him. How could I have said so much? How used those ugly words? His throat tightens as he turns to her, his face freshly smarting as horror twists his bruises with new pain. She cowers from him, frightened, but it’s too late now, the anger’s out, and he can’t yet reel it in.
‘Did you kill her?’ Joanne’s voice is barely loud enough to sound.
He didn’t want to be the one to have to tell her this. He hadn’t intended to tell her everything. And yet he feels he’s started now. There is no turning back. Her sister drove him to it. Yes, he tells himself, she pushed him across the line. And yet it thrills him to talk about it. To relive what he done. He had not expected to so enjoy the telling. He could talk all day if only they would listen.
‘I dug a grave,’ he says softly, pushing his anger down, forcing his voice again to what he hopes sounds kind. ‘Out behind that shed a bit, near enough where they’d stopped drilling.’ He looks from girl to girl as though searching for their understanding. ‘I couldn’t have taken her back home. Not in the condition she was in.’ He looks down at his hands again. A tiny ant crawls over his left thumb, and he watches it a moment before wiping it to its death with his opposite hand.
He looks up and into Joanne’s big, scared eyes. Truly like a doe now, he thinks, and no doubt as quick to startle. He struggles to soften his voice so as not to frighten her further. ‘I didn’t kill her,’ he says gently, the rage seeping out of him. ‘But I meant to. I had it in my heart to kill her.’ Leaves rustle as wind blows. ‘These two employees for the oil company called round the site early that morning. Found me ’n’ her beside that grave I dug. I managed to get back to my pickup ’n’ drove back into town. It weren’t long, though, till they had me locked up.’
He falls quiet, letting silence fill the spaces between them. A long moment passes without sound. ‘Thing is,’ he says finally, ‘after I dug that grave out there, it raised some suspicions ’bout how that old oil site was bein’ used ’n’ they found two other bodies out there, buried in shallow graves. Both young girls, both pretty, too, judging by the photographs the papers printed.’ He looks down. ‘Only charge they had on me was what I did to Rose, but folks round here started sayin’ I must have done them other girls, too.’ He pauses. ‘I reckon most still think I did.’
‘Didn’t you?’ He’d almost forgotten Katie was still there he’d been so focused on Joanne’s eyes the last while. The startled look in them. Katie’s angry words cut into him, but he does not let her rile him this time. He watches Joanne instead. Watches as she starts to look at him differently. Like he’d known she would. Like in his heart he’d prayed she wouldn’t.
Eventually he whispers, ‘What do you think?’
The fear in Joanne’s eyes muddies them, none of their usual shine. She swallows. ‘I don’t know what to think.’
His broken face twists into a crooked smile, swollen jaw hurting as it does so. ‘Sometimes,’ he says softly, ‘I don’t know what to think myself.’
‘Bullshit,’ Katie says, stepping onto the bank and pulling her sister up by her arm. ‘Come on, Lady, let’s go.’
‘Go where?’ She’s frightened and confused, brow furrowed.
‘Home.’
Joanne rises, fear still darkening her face. He catches her wrist as she turns to follow her sister, careful not to grip it too tightly. ‘Do you hate me now?’ he snarls, the anger in him so quick to rise, so quick to turn him man to beast. Instantly he regrets the wild in his tone.
Slowly, she shakes her head. ‘I dunno,’ she whispers softly. Tears gather in her eyes, but do not fall.
Her words prick him. Pinch him. Catch his breath. He’d been certain she would hate him after knowing what he’d done. He clutches her wrist more tightly. Closes his eyes a long moment, then opens them. ‘You don’t hate me?’
Confusion wrinkles his brow between his bruised temples. ‘Aren’t you afraid of me?’
‘I don’t know,’ she whispers, and shakes her head again.
Desperation rises in his gut, mixing with hope. A feeling foreign to him. He needs her not to hate him. Needs her not to grow up just yet, not to look at him with a woman’s eyes and a woman’s judgement.
‘Are we friends still?’ His voice sounds husky, too caught up in his throat.
Wide eyes blink back at him, dark with fear. ‘I don’t know,’ she whispers again, her words so soft he can barely hear her.
He tries to smile, to reassure her, but it hurts too bad, and his twisted, swollen face smarts with the effort. ‘Ain’t we friends still?’ he asks again, the desperation boiling up as panic. He grips her wrist tighter.
Her body recoils from him. ‘Uncle Jasper?’
‘Yeah?’
‘You’re hurting me.’
He drops her wrist instantly. Grabs her and pulls her to his chest and holds her there against him. ‘I’m sorry,’ he gasps. ‘I’m sorry. I would never hurt you.’ He smooths her hair with his calloused hands.
‘Let go of her!’ Katie screams.
Joanne pulls away from him as her sister wraps her in her arms. Frightened eyes blink up at his. ‘You wouldn’t still hurt nobody, Uncle Jasper, would you?’
He hesitates. He remembers still how good it felt pushing himself inside Rose, watching the fear in her eyes grow, how good it felt to hit her, and how she’d laughed at his first blow when they’d been driving still. He’d had to hit her a second time, harder, to knock her out so he could drive her to the oil site, could bind her hands and feet. He looks at the little girl before him now, her innocence tarnished. He wishes he could take his words back. Just a few of them. The rougher ones her sister drove him to. Her windblown ponytail glows in the patchworked light. If she isn’t an angel, he reckons, he don’ know what is. ‘No,’ he says softly, ‘I don’t still intend to hurt nobody. I’m all done with trouble.’
They are almost to the truck when he grabs her wrist.Hard. Joanne’s walked up ahead of them, and Katie instinctively gasps to scream when she feels his hands upon her. But one of his hands is over her mouth, and even if she were to scream, she realizes, no one but her little sister is around to hear her. There’s no one out there for miles.
‘Don’t scream,’ he snarls, ‘or I will hurt again.’ His breath is hot on her ear, her neck. She can feel his words as he speaks them, his lips are so close to her ear.
Ahead of them, Joanne bends down to prod a crayfish hole with a stick. Jasper slowly removes his hand from Katie’s mouth. She still wants to scream, but she swallows the urge back down. His other hand still grips her wrist tightly. She can feel his short, jagged nails cutting into her. She tries to twist away, but his grip holds strong. ‘You’re hurting me,’ she whispers, still trying to twist away.
‘Good,’ he growls, his voice still low, his breath still hot upon her. ‘You ’n’ I need to talk.’
Her heartbeat quickens. ‘ ’Bout what?’
‘ ’Bout what the fuck happened to my face last night,’ he snarls. ‘What the fuck else do you think?’
His nails dig deeper into the soft flesh inside her wrist. Her heart pounds inside her chest. She wants to cry out. ‘I don’t know anythin’,’ she stammers.
‘Bullshit.’ His words spit at her. She can feel the heat of the sun warm upon her face.
She turns slightly to look at him. His eyes have gone dark with rage. ‘Uncle Jasper, I swear,’ she stammers, ‘I don’t know nothin’.’
‘You know who was there. I’d bet good money, too, you knew they was comin’.’ His eyes judge her, and she can see he finds her lacking. ‘It’s a shame,’ he hisses, ‘something so pretty as you can never be trusted.’
‘Are you gonna hurt us?’ Her throat feels tight and dry. She has to struggle to get her words out. She looks up ahead to where her sister still bends over the crayfish hole prodding it with a stick. At that moment Joanne glances at them and waves, then looks back down. She must not have seen, Katie thinks, how he’s holding my wrist. She wonders where her mama is. Thinks of Josh.
‘I would never hurt her,’ he says gruffly. ‘You keep actin’ like we ain’t family ’n’ I can’t make you that same promise. Now,’ he says, ‘you know who all was there last night, don’t you?’
She nods.
‘ ’N’ you knew they was comin’ for me, didn’ you?’ He twists her arm back behind her, his nails still cutting into her flesh.
‘Yes,’ she gasps, ‘I knew.’
‘Good,’ he says, ‘that’s progress.’ He twists her arm further behind her back and she gasps again, just a little, at the pain. ‘Now,’ he whispers, lips so close to her ear that she can feel his breath still, can feel his words upon her, ‘you tell that boyfriend of yours ’n’ his coward of a father ’n’ all their pipsqueak friends, the only one of them got beef with me is Eddie. If he wants me gone, he can come face me like a man. You got that?’
She nods.
‘Good.’ He releases her arm and she staggers forward, clutching her wrist. ‘You pass that on,’ he says, ‘ ’n’ you might want to think twice before you decide whose side you take.’ He walks on past her then, up the path towards her sister. ‘What’d you find there?’ he calls, his tone shifting softer, brighter, like a whole different man.
Joanne looks up and smiles. ‘There’s a crayfish in there! If you lean down, you can see ’im.’
‘Well, I’ll be …’ He takes the stick from her and leans down over the dirt smokestack that leads down into its burrow.
Joanne looks down the path at Katie. ‘What’s takin’ you so long?’ she calls, and turns back to her uncle.
Katie’s heart smashes against her ribs. The world spins. She wants to sit down. She wants to cry. For a moment, she wants her uncle to look at her with a fraction of the kindness that fills him when he gazes at Joanne. Then her insides sour. Her wrist burns. It’s not fair. She wants him never to touch her again. She wants to scream. She blinks to stop the world spinning, to stop the tears falling. Somehow she finds the strength to smile at her little sister. ‘Come on, Lady,’ she calls, walking on past where they crouch beside the crayfish burrow, ‘let’s get you on home.’
Lizzie hears his pickup on the country road long before she sees it. It stands out a mile anyway, she reckons, what with the bright red colour of it. She does not rise, though, when she first hears it, nor does she after she’s turned and seen the truck approach. She didn’t expect his visit, but a part of her is not surprised. She wipes her dirty hands on the jeans she wears. Uses the back of her wrist to wipe the sweat from her brow, then the same hand shades her eyes as she watches the truck approach. She doesn’t stand till the pickup’s pulled up her drive already. She turns then, following it with her gaze and body, lowering her hand that previously had blocked out the sun.
‘Afternoon, Reverend,’ she says coolly, as the large man opens the door to his cab and squeezes himself out from behind the steering-wheel. A chime goes off with the door held open. Beep, beep. Beep, beep.
‘Afternoon, Elizabeth.’ He descends from his pickup and slams the door shut behind him. The sudden silence of the beeping makes the day sound newly quiet. He stands a moment, both hands made into fists, fists held to his hips, his elbows pointing out. Softly he clucks his tongue. ‘My, my,’ he says, ‘sure is a shame what happened to this here garden.’
‘I take it you already know what happened, then.’ She eyes him warily.
He hesitates. ‘I confess, yes, I heard.’
‘Why are you here, Reverend?’
He looks around at the scattered flowers by their feet, the crushed bushes, the tyre tracks that criss-cross through them. ‘May I come in?’ he asks.
‘I’m afraid I ain’t much in the humour today, Reverend, for a social call.’
He nods, still surveying the damaged garden spread before him. ‘I’m sorry, Elizabeth, to just
drop in like this.’ He flashes his brightest smile, and she watches as it falls.
‘No, you ain’t.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘You ain’t sorry one bit, Reverend. You called on down here for a reason. I ain’t got time to waste today ’n’ I don’t plan on wastin’ your time neither. Why don’t you just tell me what it is you want?’
He swallows. His fat face flushes red, though from embarrassment or the heat, she cannot tell. ‘All right, Elizabeth,’ he says slowly. ‘I’ll cut right to the chase if that’s what you want. Yeah, I know what happened here last night. And, yes, before you ask, I knew that it was comin’ too.’
She takes two short strides across the ruined garden to him and slaps him once, hard across the cheek. Hot, angry tears well in her eyes and threaten to fall. ‘You bastard,’ she hisses. ‘Mama thought you were her friend, but I can’t name one nice turn you ever done this family.’
A darkness passes over his face, the same way a lingering cloud blocks out the sun. ‘I’d be careful, if I were you,’ he says softly, ‘just how many enemies you make.’
‘Are you threatening me, Reverend?’
‘No.’ He shakes his head. ‘Simply offering you some friendly advice. That’s why I’m here, Elizabeth. Because I was friends with your mother, whatever you might believe. ’Cause she didn’t deserve what she was put through. She was a fine good Christian woman, your mother. A fine good Christian indeed, ’n’ I don’t want to see no harm come to you ’n’ your girls. I mean that, Elizabeth.’
Sweat runs down her spine to gather at the small of her back. She can feel it soaking into her blouse. She knows she must stink of body odour and earth. With a dirty hand she wipes her brow. ‘Would have been nice,’ she says coolly, ‘if you’d given us a head’s up on what was comin’.’
Pity fills his eyes, and she hates him for it. ‘You must have known,’ he says. ‘Surely you knew some sort of trouble must be comin’.’ She does not answer him, and he falls silent. ‘Is he here?’ he asks at length.
The Last Days of Summer Page 26
