The Hush

by John Hart

  “You like this, don’t you?” He was muttering now, switchgrass sawing at his hands as he pulled himself through the mud. “Probably watching me right now. Sitting in some tree…”

  A foot broke loose with a sucking noise, and Jack worked along the trail, staying where the grass was tall and tufted. He’d known Johnny since they were seven, and even now, after so many years, struggled with the idea that his best friend owned all this.

  Don’t know why he’d want to …

  Just mud and bugs and …

  Jack crested the last hump of dry ground before water stretched away and the sun sank low enough to paint it all with perfect color: the orange water and distant hills, the trees and green earth and sun-kissed granite. In that light he saw Hush Arbor as his friend did, as he’d seen it himself when they first crossed the swamp. They’d been fourteen at the time, a couple of kids with no business so deep in the wild. But they’d come nonetheless; they’d stood in the same place and seen the same view.

  “Jesus Christ.” Jack palmed sweat from his eyes, still breathing hard. “How could I ever forget?”

  * * *

  By six forty, Johnny had everything ready. A camp table and chairs stood on hard-packed dirt at the edge of the glade. Bourbon was on the table. Enamel plates held cheese and smoked venison; a nine-pound catfish was ready for the spit. The cigars were more than he could afford, but they didn’t screw around with cigars, he and Jack. That was a promise they’d made a long time ago.

  Cheap booze, cheap cigars …

  They’d go hungry first.

  It was a silly promise, a boy’s boast; but they’d lived by it since high school, and Johnny would not be the one to break the streak.

  Stretching out his legs, Johnny laced his fingers behind his head and closed his eyes, smiling. The air was warm; a light breeze moved.

  In the swamp, Jack went down again.

  * * *

  The trail firmed at last, and Jack slowed as open water fell away and sycamores and cypress leaned out, close enough to touch. He wanted this part to go right, so he moved quietly through the twig rush and scrub.

  Just this once …

  He ghosted onto dry land, the cabin a wink through the trees. Johnny sat at a table beyond the ferns, barefoot in faded jeans with both eyes closed and his face tilted to the sun. His hair was longer than the last time, and for an instant Jack felt the old jealousy. Johnny was angular and strong, and had the kind of face that even men looked at twice. He wasn’t movie-star handsome, but striking was too small a word. With the tan and dark eyes, he looked like a hero from old stories, the kind who fought with swords and got the girls.

  Jack’s gaze fell briefly to his own misshapen arm. Hanging from his left shoulder, it looked like the castoff from a ten-year-old boy. The suit sleeve swallowed it; even the fingers were too small. It’s how people had known him, growing up. Oh yeah, the kid with the screwed-up arm. Only Johnny understood that talking about it made it a nonissue, that joking was even better.

  And Johnny was close now, legs stretched out, eyes still closed. Jack stopped under the last tree and bounced a pebble on his palm. The throw had to be just right—not in the face and no blood, but hard enough to sting like a mother. That’s how it had been since they were kids.

  Who was quietest?

  Who had the better arm?

  He smoothed a thumb across the stone, and Johnny spoke as the good arm went back.

  “Don’t do it.”

  “Goddamn it, Johnny.” Jack lowered his arm, not surprised but genuinely bothered. “How do you do that? You do it every time. It’s not right.”

  Johnny opened a single eye. “You make a lot of noise.”

  “Does raising my arm make a lot of noise?”

  Johnny got to his feet and lifted the bottle of bourbon. “Don’t worry about it. Come on. Have a drink. You look like you could use it.”

  Jack stepped from the shadows, still troubled by the unnatural way Johnny seemed to always know. The sound of footsteps, sure. Cracked twigs and sucking mud. Jack could see that. How did Johnny know the very second he was about to throw?

  Every time, Jack thought, but could be more specific than that.

  Seventeen times in the last three years.

  Before that, Jack could catch him unaware at least half the time; and that had been the pattern since childhood. Sometimes Johnny saw it coming. Sometimes he didn’t.

  So what was different now?

  Stepping into the clearing, Jack took in the table and the food and his friend’s sharp grin. The eyes were intense but bright, his hair wavy and unkempt and long enough to brush the collar of his shirt.

  “Jack Cross, Attorney-at-Law.” Johnny moved into the ferns, gave Jack a hard squeeze. “Goddamn, I’m proud of you.”

  Jack returned the pressure, then stepped back, embarrassed. Johnny rarely showed affection, and its expression touched Jack’s heart in complicated ways. “Thanks, Johnny. It’s been a long road.”

  That was a bitter truth, and both of them knew it. Jack had clawed from a ruined childhood in the space of six months, and Johnny was one of the few who understood the engine that drove such rapid, irreversible change. Guilt. Regret. Juvenile incarceration.

  “Welcome,” he said. “Sit, sit.”

  Johnny gestured at the table, and Jack took a chair as Johnny poured bourbon and passed a glass.

  “Bright lights and better days. I’m glad you came.”

  Jack touched Johnny’s glass with his own. “Did I have a choice?”

  “Always,” Johnny said; but there really was no choice. Twice a month they met for dinner, once at Jack’s and then here. That was the pattern, and neither of them broke it. “Why the suit?” Johnny asked.

  “Huh?”

  Johnny sat across the table. He swirled bourbon in the glass and pointed with a finger. “Why didn’t you change clothes?”

  “Court ran late. I didn’t have time to go home, and wasn’t about to be caught in that swamp after sunset. I’d get so lost, not even you could find me.”

  “Ah, you’d manage.”

  Jack sipped, and looked uncomfortable. Lies always made him uncomfortable.

  “So.” Johnny leaned back in the chair. “Court.”

  The comment sounded innocent, but Jack wasn’t fooled. “Okay, fine. Your stepfather called and asked me to stop by the house before coming here. He had a lot to say; it took some time.”

  “Let me guess. He’s worried about me.”

  “He says you showed up black and blue and cut halfway to the bone, that you could have died alone in this place.” Jack held up a thumb and forefinger. “He said that far as he could tell, it was about this close, that you were busted up and bleeding and that you’d damn near broken your back.”

  “Do I look that bad?”

  Johnny swirled bourbon in the glass, and Jack frowned because Johnny appeared to be fine. The smile was easy and amused, one eyebrow slightly raised. “Clyde wants me to convince you to move back home, or to town, at least. He says this has gone on long enough. He says your mother—”

  “Don’t bring my mother into this.”

  Jack refused to back down. “He says your mother has nightmares of losing another child. That it’s affecting her happiness.”

  “She only thinks she wants me close. You’ve seen how it is when she looks at me.”

  “Maybe.”

  “You know it’s true.”

  “It’s time to come home, Johnny.”

  “You think you can convince me?”

  “I think you need my help, and that because of that you should listen to me more than you might normally do.”

  Something moved in Johnny’s eyes, and it was stark and dangerous and quick. “Are you blackmailing me?”

  “Do you need my help or not?”

  Johnny put down the glass, and the hard eyes softened. “Maybe.”

  “Is that why you showed up at my office, unannounced? Why you frightened and offended my assi
stant? Because maybe you need my help?”

  Johnny rolled his shoulders. “I was just messing around.”

  “She wanted to call the police.”

  “Come on…”

  “You threatened to break my arm, Johnny. She said, and I quote: ‘He’s the single most intense man I’ve ever met.’ She’s met a lot of men, Johnny. Judges. CEOs. Whatever you said or did, you worried her.”

  “That’s ridiculous. You’re my best friend.”

  “I know that. She doesn’t.”

  “What do you want from me, Jack? What do you want me to say?”

  “I want you to be honest.”

  “Aren’t I always?”

  “Not about this place. Not all of it.”

  Johnny stared off at darkened trees and distant water. “Will you help me or not?”

  Jack considered the contradiction so evident in his friend. Johnny was the most independent soul Jack had ever known, but his need showed; it showed in the stiff shoulders and unmoving gaze, in the unnatural stillness. “How broke are you?”

  Johnny shrugged again, swallowed bourbon and dragged up a shadow of a smile. “Too broke to hire another lawyer.”

  “Is any of it left?”

  He meant the insurance money, so Johnny dug into his pocket and tossed a sheaf of bills on the table. Jack picked it up, put it back down.

  “That’s three hundred dollars.”

  “Three hundred and seven.”

  “What about the rest of it?”

  “Lawyers.”

  “All of it.”

  “Yep.”

  “Jesus, Johnny, you do have other options.”

  “Don’t tell me to sell land.”

  “You own six thousand acres.”

  “I won’t sell it, Jack. Not an acre. Not half an acre.”

  “I hear what you’re saying, but the math is simple. You can do nothing and risk losing all of this, or you can sell a thousand acres to save the other five. Even at fire sale prices, you’d have enough money to hire another lawyer. Hell, hire three. You’d have money in the bank and still be the fourth-largest landowner in the state of North Carolina.”

  “All that law school, and that’s your best advice? To sell?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?” Johnny put down his glass, the black eyes flashing. “To be drained and timbered? So some rich banker can bring his friends out to four-wheel and trophy-hunt and disrespect everything I love about this place?”

  The despair and anger were hard to watch. Johnny inherited the land on his eighteenth birthday, but other people had claims, too, and those claims had merit. Johnny won on the merits at trial, but the risks on appeal were legitimate. To keep the land, he needed a heavy hitter from one of the big firms. That meant five hundred an hour, maybe even six.

  “This was my family’s land, Jack, the last of it that hasn’t been chopped up and sold off and ruined. I won’t let it go without a fight.”

  “Okay, let’s forget the appeal for a moment. How will you live without money? What if you get hurt and can’t hunt? What about gasoline? Property taxes? Medical care?”

  “All I need is a lawyer.”

  “I’m five days into the job, for God’s sake! You need appellate work at the highest level.”

  “You’re capable enough.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “Because you finished college in three years and law school in two. Plus you’re my only friend.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “It’s what I have.”

  “Goddamn it.” Jack walked to the edge of the ferns and showed Johnny his back. “Can we just drink?” he said. “Can we drink bourbon and eat catfish and worry, tomorrow, about the rest of it?”

  “You owe me, Jack.” The words came as carefully as metal drawn from an unhealed wound. “I’ve never let the memories come between us, not in ten years. I’ve kept you out of that, kept it separate.”

  “I know you have.”

  “No one else can help me.”

  Jack nodded, five good digits on the glass, the small ones curled white. “The stakes are big, Johnny. Your land, your life.” He gestured at all of it. The forest. The water. “I’m not sure I want that on my head.”

  “Are you scared?” Johnny asked.

  “Are you kidding? I’m terrified.”

  Terrified was a big word between young men, and in the space behind it, Johnny showed a twist of a smile and sudden, startling sympathy. “Then don’t worry about it,” he said. “Tomorrow’s problem.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I am. Sit. Drink.”

  Jack did as he was told, and Johnny topped off the glass.

  Jack drank that down, too.

  * * *

  It was dead quiet when Jack woke alone in the cabin. He bolted up, heart pounding.

  What had woken him?

  He didn’t know, but felt horribly afraid, a scraping in his mind like nails on glass.

  Was it a dream?

  His feet touched the bare floor, and when he stood, the dizziness pressed him sideways. He leaned on the wall, but it was not enough to steady him. He tugged his shirt, bent at the waist. When he straightened, he felt his way to a chair by the window and fell into it, one hand on his chest, sweat slick on his face and neck. Pale light spilled onto the table, but all else was shadowed and gray: the corners and low places, the dead space beneath his chair. Looking through the glass, he saw mist in the trees, the weak light of a false dawn.

  “Johnny?”

  Opening the door, he stepped into a world so still, it looked painted. No insects called; the frogs were silent. A dozen steps carried him to a trail through the ferns, and then to a place beneath the trees. It was dimmer there, and cooler. Beyond him was the swamp, the smell of black mud and rot. Going there made no sense, but dreams never did, and this felt like a dream: the silver haze, the sense of choking. He wanted to wake in his own bed, but the mist was thinning and someone stood at the edge of the swamp.

  Johnny?

  He didn’t know if the word escaped his lips or not. Sound died in the mist, and Johnny was unmoving. He stood in black water, shirtless in jeans that were wet from the knees down. The muscles of his shoulders rolled and twitched, and Jack hugged himself as he stopped at the water’s edge to watch his friend stare into a silence so complete, it seemed as if the swamp itself were holding its breath.

  “What are you doing, man?” No response or movement. “Johnny?”

  “Do you see it?”

  Jack followed his friend’s gaze; saw water and darkness and, far out, an island. “What do you mean?”

  Johnny pointed into the swamp. “Don’t you see?”

  “There’s nothing there. Come on, man.”

  But Johnny didn’t answer, and the arm stayed up. Looking again, Jack saw switchgrass and trees and, somewhere behind all that, a swell of light that was a rising moon. Jack stepped into the water to look at Johnny’s eyes, which were glazed and barely open. “Johnny, man. Hey. You okay?”

  Jack touched his shoulder, and Johnny blinked once. “Jack,” he said. “What’s happening?”

  “I think you’re sleepwalking.”

  “It’s cold.”

  Johnny wasn’t wrong about that. His lips were blue, his skin like ice. Even Jack felt it: the chill, dense air with no business in the damp and heat of an August swamp. “Do you remember how you got here?”

  Johnny said nothing.

  “You were talking to me. Do you remember that?”

  Johnny blinked again, and it was half speed. He dragged fingers across his eyes as if to strip off cobwebs.

  “All right.” Jack took Johnny’s arm. “You’re dreaming, man, that’s all. Let’s get you back to the cabin.”

  Johnny resisted at first, then drew a foot from the mud and turned for the shore. He allowed himself to be led, and for that instant Jack believed his own lie, that chance alone had brought them both to the edge of the swamp. But wit
h every step, it felt more like a falsehood. The world was hushed and heavy, the air as cold as something dead. That wasn’t an exaggeration. The temperature was falling by the second, Jack’s breath a sudden plume. “The cabin,” he said, and it was like a prayer. Because a deeper fear was descending with the cold—he felt it in his skin and along his spine, a prickling as if some dreadful thing was close. “Come on, Johnny.” Jack pulled hard, but his friend was rooted like a stump in the mud, pointing again as, beyond him, a hollow place appeared in the mist. It looked like no specific thing, but hung shapeless and still against the rising moon. Looking at it, Jack couldn’t describe what he felt, but it was as if all the cold and fear radiated out from that dull splotch of empty air.

  “Do you see it?” Johnny said.

  But Jack was pulling harder. He wanted light and heat, to be anywhere but this damn swamp. “Damn it, Johnny! Come on!” He added his small arm to the strong, broke one foot free and then the other. They moved slowly at first, then faster, dark water splashing, feet dragging in the mud. Jack was first from the water, and Johnny followed. He stumbled into the ferns, and when his feet touched ground, the cold and terror broke.

  Crickets called from the trees.

  Frogs, in the reeds, were singing.

  * * *

  Jack got Johnny to the cabin, but his friend moved as if held up by strings; dropped in the bed as if those strings were suddenly cut. Jack left him and checked the windows, the door. A breeze moved the trees outside. The mist was lifting.

  What just happened?

  Already, the memory was fading, fear lifting like the mist. Jack looked at the mud between his toes. That was real. So was the blood on his hands and feet, the scratches from where he’d fallen and run and fallen again. There was no lock on the door, so he wedged it tight and sat against it with his back braced. When dawn broke he checked Johnny and the windows. Ten minutes later he opened the door and stepped outside. His watch said 6:25. The light was watery, the morning hot and getting hotter.

  Why did that feel strange?

  The memories were there, but fragmented. He recalled air like ice, the fog of his breath.

  Jack peered through the trees and followed the trail to the swamp. The soil was damp under his feet. He touched a tree, and that, too, felt like the memory of a dream.