The Far Empty

by J. Todd Scott

  Dupree seemed to read his mind. “Well, like me, Judge. Like me.” Dupree cracked his knuckles, echoing like his entire body was breaking. “You know, Chris Cherry’s girl thinks he might be stepping out on her, maybe even with that teacher of yours. Pretty Melissa ain’t a happy camper, not at all. Lonely.” Dupree hung on to the last word for far too long, in some weird way making it echo in his own damn mouth. “Maybe you should sniff around that for a bit, or I should.”

  He cut Dupree off. “Has Chris been spending time with Anne Hart?”

  Duane grinned, happy, like he’d gotten blood from a scab. “Probably more than both of you might be comfortable with. You better slip in there before he does, if you get my meanin’. He’s a young buck. But you and I? We’re jus’ old. Young pussy don’t pay as much mind to us anymore, does it? Not willingly.”

  “Is there a meaning here, Duane? Is there a point to all this?”

  Duane leaned forward, breathing hot and heavy, grinding like a diesel engine changing gears. “There’s always a fucking point. You taught me that. Always a goddamn point.”

  “Then get to it, Duane, or get the fuck out of my office. Don’t come back until you don’t look like dog shit. Or don’t come back at all.”

  Duane rose up, nearly knocking over his pop can. “You don’t talk to me like that now, not like that.”

  He didn’t move, he didn’t blink—just pointed a quick finger at Duane’s chest. “Goddammit, you sit down, or I’ll whup your ass the way your daddy once did.” He wiped his hands on his pants, like he was wiping Duane off them. “You do remember how your daddy wasn’t just plum crazy, but liked nigger dick, too? Hell, everyone knew it. When he was drinking bad, he’d give up his ass for a few dollars to buy his next bottle. He was popular in Van Horn, down in Stratton. That was your daddy, Duane, crazy and sucking nigger dick or a whiskey bottle, it didn’t make any real difference because deep down inside he was equally partial to both. And when he wasn’t doing that, he was whupping your ass because you weren’t worth a nickel and change. He put your mother in an early grave with his antics, and nearly you as well. It all runs deep, Duane, and if I hadn’t stepped in, kept an eye on you and damn near treated you like my brother, like my son, you’d be crazy or already dead or sucking nigger dick, too. So, you raise up out of that chair again? It better be because you’re going to kill me. Otherwise, keep your ass planted and your goddamn mouth shut. That’s the point, Duane, the only point.”

  Duane hung in the air, propped up by hands turning white on the desk. He looked as if he’d been struck, whatever fury and anger having built up in him suddenly spent, gone, drained all out on the floor. Slowly Duane sat back down, still shaking.

  It was a risk pushing Dupree in his state, a monstrous risk—the exact size of it difficult to judge, like looking up at a mountain from its shadows, but it had to be done. He couldn’t let Duane blow sky-high right here in the office, within earshot of the world. “Now, I assume there’s a real reason you’re here. Whatever it is you really came to say. So say it respectfully, and then get the fuck out of my office.”

  Duane nodded, ran a sleeved hand across his mouth, left a wet trail on his cuff. “Yeah, yeah, there’s a reason, a damn problem.”

  He raised his eyebrows, waited.

  “You need to open your damn eyes, Judge. Stop messin’ with that teacher. I think we have a problem right here, right now, with Cherry.”

  “We don’t have problems. Indian Bluffs? He’s nearly off that. Not paying any more attention to it. No one is. There’s nothing to find.”

  “Not that, the other thing. Those two who were here . . . who got burned.”

  Tense. “Who says that, Duane? Who says they were here in Murfee?”

  Duane stared ahead, right through him, eyes dark and bloody at the same time. Shark eyes, dangerous. Yes, it had been risky to push Dupree, and the Judge wouldn’t do it again.

  “That’s the problem, Judge . . . what I found out, when I was talking to Melissa . . .”

  • • •

  Duane was long gone, the office empty, except for his stink, hanging over the chair he’d occupied.

  He got up and went over to one of his favorite pictures, black and white and very old, of a man in a small white hat, playing faro in a saloon in Pecos, one hand poised near where he wore a gun. In that old stained photograph the saloon looked hot, noisy, full of commotion, but the man in the center sat calm. It was one of the only photographs taken of James Brown Miller, known as “Killin’ Jim” or “Killer Miller”; later “Deacon Miller” for his habit of attending the Methodist church and wearing a long black overcoat even in the worst of a Texas summer. Miller had been polite—a God-fearing man, a family man. He didn’t drink or smoke, but was a wizard with a scatter-gun. He killed his first man, his brother-in-law, in 1884, with a shotgun blast to the head. He took to wearing metal under that long frock coat for protection, and was responsible for the deaths of at least twelve people, although Miller himself claimed he’d killed more than fifty. He’d killed for sport or for money, charging about one hundred fifty dollars a head. An angry crowd finally lynched Miller in Ada, Oklahoma, and his last words were, curiously, Let ’er rip, as he stepped off the scaffolding.

  • • •

  He lifted up Miller’s picture, careful. Hidden behind it was a small safe. He spun it open, reached deep into its snake mouth, where there were two small cellphones. One was older, given to him by Chava’s people, the one and only time he ever met them in person. After that, they talked to him only if he called from that phone, refusing to answer if he called on anything else. They were shadows. But they’d stopped calling since things had gone south—all thanks to Rudy Ray.

  There hadn’t been a card game back in Jim Miller’s day that hadn’t involved a little sleight of hand, accusations of it. That’s why in his one known photograph, Miller was playing with one hand on his gun. It was the nature of the game and everyone knew it: gain an edge, take an edge, or be cut by one.

  The second phone was newer, but the same as the other, more or less—just different voices, different shadows, on the other end; just someone else dealing out the cards in the same crooked game. He turned it over in his hands. Deacon Miller had killed for sport and money. He’d killed for those reasons too, and a few others. The reasons never made it easier. Just doing it enough did.

  14

  CHRIS

  Chris was about to call Anne just to say hi, when his radio popped. It was Miss Maisie, letting him know an alarm had been tripped over at BBC. It happened every now and then, kids trying to get into the school, or more likely, onto the field at Archer-Ross Stadium. Usually it was enough to roll slowly through the lot with the emergency lights flashing, just in time to catch a glimpse of a shirtless kid hightailing it over a fence, tripping, laughing. Next morning someone might find a few crushed Lone Stars, a used condom. It was cold out tonight, though, hardscrabble winds, sharp enough to cut your breath away. Any kid screwing around out there was really desperate for a good time.

  The sun had gone down a couple of hours earlier, but the edges of the surrounding mountains and mesas remained, sharp and tilted, cutting against the sky. They stayed there, stubborn, like the afterimage off a flashbulb. They trapped the setting sun’s rays in the higher reaches, reflecting that dying light against the dark. He might never love Murfee, but at times he did love this place: the old ghost towns, the high desert; the mountains and valleys and cliff walls. The daylit sky when it was only the color of salt or sand or chalk. All the empty beauty of it—an incredible hardness made up of so much nothing.

  When he rolled up, he hit his lights, circling the big lot. There was nothing to aim his spotlight at, so he didn’t. He went around in loops like the fall carnival merry-go-round. Up close, in the dark, Archer-Ross was as high as the Chisos, so circling it was like driving the length of a great sunken ship, resting at the bot
tom of the ocean. He was about to radio Miss Maisie, let her know it was probably nothing, when there was a flash to his left. It caught his eye so quick he hit the brakes too hard. He revved the truck, brought it around with the tires protesting, scanning the length of the stadium. After his conversation with Garrison, Archer-Ross, already huge, was now ominous and twice as large: Who do you trust? Everything extended into the dark around him, surrounded him—the whole place a black concrete maze.

  • • •

  He punched his spotlight, used it to paint the parking lot and the stadium walls. There, right there, he caught a figure walking toward his truck, trapped by the sudden white light. Hands raised, smart enough to stop even without knowing how Chris had spooked himself—how he’d already drawn his gun and was aiming it through the windshield. The hands were up, no gun, no gas can. Nothing. Just one man in a hooded sweatshirt, waiting for Chris. Not even a man—younger than that, a kid. Chris knew who it was; knew that sweatshirt, had seen it or one just like it a hundred times. Caleb Ross. He put his gun away before Caleb got into the car. The boy still might have seen it pointed at him, though. If he did, he didn’t say anything.

  “What the hell are you doing out here?” Then, peering into the black behind Caleb, “Is there anyone else out here with you?”

  Caleb shook his head. “No, just me. I’m alone.”

  “You weren’t messing with anything? I’m not going to find graffiti painted somewhere?” Chris looked down at Caleb’s hands for paint on his fingers or on the edges of his sweatshirt. Caleb wasn’t that sort of kid, but nothing else came to mind. If there was a girl hiding out there in the dark, it was easy enough to admit it. If there was a boy, Caleb might have a lot of reason not to.

  “No, sir, nothing like that.”

  Chris searched the dark again. “Don’t worry about that sir shit. I need to know what you were doing. Then I’m going to call your father—my boss, the sheriff . . . remember him? Does he know you’re here?”

  Caleb gave him a look that was answer enough.

  “Where’s your Ranger?”

  Caleb said something weird. “It was my mom’s, right? So I don’t trust it. It’s over at the Pizza Hut, where I’m supposed to be, where my father thinks I am.”

  Chris let that go. “Look, you’re too smart for whatever the hell it is you’re doing right now. You’re the sheriff’s son. You know better than to screw around near the stadium. It has your family name on it, for chrissake. It’s about the only thing worth anything in this town.”

  “I know.”

  Chris dwelled on that, reading the heaviness in Caleb’s voice. He didn’t like what was there. “Damn, son, that’s why you’re here, isn’t it? You wanted someone to come out and find you.”

  Caleb wouldn’t catch Chris’s eye. “No, not just anyone . . . you. I knew you were on shift, I found out from Miss Maisie. If someone else had showed up, I was going to bolt.”

  Even more, Chris didn’t like where this was going, not at all. “Look, I’m taking you back to your truck, and then you’re going home.”

  Caleb settled into the seat, pulled back his hood, revealing dark, tousled hair. He was pale, thin; looked older and tired, too. “Please, I need to talk to you. There’s no one else. I made a promise. I need your help.”

  Chris started to say something, but Caleb’s face stopped him. “And no matter what, I don’t want my father to find out.”

  “You know, you could have just called. Miss Maisie could have given you my number.”

  Caleb nodded, his shoulders too thin for the thick sweatshirt. “I know, but it seemed too risky, too easy for you to ignore me.”

  Chris still felt the weight of his gun that had just been in his hand, pointed through the windshield. “And standing out here in the dark, pulling alarms or whatever, isn’t? Accidents happen, Caleb.”

  The boy’s eyes were deep, knowing. “Yes, they do.”

  They stared at each other across the truck, desert wind working the windows and door handles—ghosts wanting to get in and join them. Chris ignored them. “Okay, you have my attention.”

  “I wanted Ms. Hart to talk to you, but she wouldn’t see me.” Caleb rubbed his chin, at stubble that wasn’t there.

  Chris was taken aback. “What’s Anne got to do with this?”

  “My father’s interested in her. They had dinner the other night, his favorite place in Artesia. Did you know that? I think he met her once before. I’m sure he had a hand in bringing her here.”

  Chris didn’t answer, didn’t even know what to say.

  “Look, I know you’ve been talking to her, and since this involves her too, I thought she might help us all meet. Not just me, but a friend as well. I spooked her, though. She’s been avoiding me. After she went to Artesia, I got afraid she might mention it to my father, so I did all this tonight.”

  Chris felt heat at his temples, sparks. “How do you know I’ve been talking to Anne Hart? How much have you been sneaking around? You’ve been following me, her?”

  “This town isn’t that big, not nearly big enough. If I know, someone else does, too.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  Caleb shrugged. “I’m saying you grew up here, you have to remember what it’s like.”

  Chris nodded. “Consider me reminded. Now I’m getting you home.”

  Caleb put a hand on his arm. “No, this isn’t just about you and Ms. Hart. Not now, anyway. I want you to help a friend of mine. Amé Reynosa. America Reynosa.”

  The name didn’t mean anything to him.

  Caleb took a deep breath, released it like he’d held it for a long time, maybe forever. “I think you found her brother’s remains out at Indian Bluffs. Rodolfo Reynosa—everyone called him Rudy Ray. I wanted to believe it was my mom, but it’s him. It has to be. He worked for the Border Patrol and everyone thinks he got in trouble with the cops or drug dealers and ran off. No one really searched for him, no one gave a shit. Everyone thinks they know what happened to him, just like they think they know about my mom.”

  “And you’re not like everyone else, Caleb? You don’t think he ran off?”

  “No, no. He was murdered. You found him buried at that ranch, and I think I have a way you can prove it.”

  A Caucasian. Probably a Hispanic male, probably mid-twenties. Rudy Reynosa was a name Chris remembered, mostly from high school; a little bit older than Chris, but not by a whole lot. He might have heard it since then too, something to do with the things, the troubles, Caleb had mentioned. He never knew Rudy had a sister. “Okay, say you’re right, why was Rudy Ray murdered? Who killed him?”

  Caleb looked out the window, searching the same dark that had eluded Chris moments before. “I don’t know why, exactly, but Amé knows who . . . and I believe her.” Caleb pointed at Chris, let his arm hang there. A heartbeat later Chris realized Caleb wasn’t pointing at him, but at his chest. At the Big Bend County Sheriff’s Department star on his jacket.

  Chris heard him out, everything he had to say, while they drove back toward town. About an injury that Rudy had suffered as a kid, bad enough that it might still show up in a forensic exam, if someone knew to look for it. Also about a phone Rudy’s sister had kept full of mysterious phone numbers and one not so mysterious at all, possibly Duane Dupree’s. Chris thought there was even more the boy wasn’t telling him, didn’t feel yet he could tell him, but he’d heard enough.

  “What do you think? Will you help?” Caleb asked, and Chris said he didn’t know, needed time to think. Not much different from what he’d told Garrison. He planned to drop Caleb about a mile short of his truck. Caleb knew a place and guided him there, behind the Dollar General store. After they stopped, Caleb held on to the door handle like he was holding on for dear life, and maybe he was. “Thanks for listening and not shooting me back there at school.” Caleb had seen the gun after all. “After
this thing with Rudy Ray is over, I hope you’ll help me.”

  “With what?” Chris asked.

  “Finding my mom. She didn’t leave Murfee any more than Amé’s brother did. She’s still here somewhere.”

  Chris raised his hands. “Caleb, I . . .”

  Caleb stopped him. “Look, I know you don’t believe me, not yet, but when you prove it was Rudy Ray at Indian Bluffs, you will.” Caleb got out and stood beside the truck, alone in the dark, lost in it. “You know that place in Artesia where my father took Ms. Hart? He took my mom there too, all the time, and his second wife, Nellie, because I’ve heard him say it. Hell, probably Vickie as well. It’s been there forever, just like him. They’ve all gone there, and now they’re all gone.”

  “Jesus, Caleb, you don’t really believe your father killed your mother, do you?

  Caleb worked hard at the words, as if he had never practiced them, never really imagined saying them out loud to another person. “I know he killed her.”

  Before Chris could say anything else, his phone rang. He checked it, glanced at Caleb, who didn’t miss his look.

  Caleb’s eyes were wide, nervous. “What? Who is it?”

  Chris held on to the phone, ready to answer. “Get on out of here, get going now. It’s the sheriff . . . your father.”

  15

  MELISSA

  She was surprised when he came into Earlys. Whiskey Myers was playing on the radio, a band they both once liked, a long time ago. Chris was slow getting to the bar, stopping to say hello to a few of the regulars. Seeing him like this, she noticed he’d dropped a few pounds, not much, but his uniform didn’t seem as strained, as uncomfortable. He hadn’t shaved in a couple of days, so maybe he was trying to grow out a beard or a goatee. He had a goatee in ESPN The Magazine. That had been a great picture, a photo that made him look even taller and stronger than in real life. It’d been snapped mid-throw, his arm braided, taut. The football was still resting on his fingers, aiming upward, surrounded by the glow of stadium lights. If she hadn’t seen it in person, she never would have believed it was real.