Sacrifice

by Farris, John

  Mine was the only car in the half-moon of parking lot near the summit of the mountain. A couple of flights of steps took me down to the level of a limestone jut with the area of a tennis court. It was enclosed by a four-foot concrete wall with a pipe railing on top of that. The drop here was a nearly perpendicular three hundred feet.

  I got out the binoculars and sighted in on a covered bridge at the north end of the lake, about three-quarters of a mile away. The binoculars moved the bridge to within a couple of hundred feet. The bridge was about one hundred sixty feet long and spanned a rocky stream that splashed down into the lake. River birches and wild mountain laurel grew thickly to the edge of the water below the bridge.

  I saw a fit-looking gray-haired couple in jogging suits on the trail. They disappeared into the bridge and emerged eighteen seconds later in the misty early-morning light; they were setting a good pace for themselves.

  No one else appeared on that part of the trail for seven minutes. I lowered the glasses and rubbed my eyes. When I focused on one end of the bridge again I saw Bobby and then Sharissa, probably twenty yards behind him but running well on the packed red clay of the wide trail.

  At the mouth of the bridge he looked back at her; he seemed to be laughing, but I wasn't sure. She slowed momentarily, then sprinted the last few yards after him and disappeared from my view.

  Ten minutes went by. Twelve. They didn't reappear. No one else came along. It was stressful holding the binoculars steady. The sun was higher, and there was no breeze. I heard a hawk in the sky.

  I began to feel light-headed. The sweat that ran down the side of my neck was cold. I was breathing through my mouth, but still not getting enough air.

  When I saw them again they were walking. Each with an arm around the other at the waist. Sharissa leaned against Bobby. They stopped and gazed down at the tumbling stream. Then Bobby put his arms around her and they kissed, again, or so I assumed. What else would they have been doing for so long under cover of the old bridge? Sharissa had her back to me. Bobby's big hands slipped down inside the waistband of her shorts. Holding her like that, a hand spread on each cheek, he pulled her very tightly against himself. And she didn't resist. Up on her toes, Sharissa clung to him like a moth on a screen.

  I put the binoculars back in the case and went up the steps to the parking crescent, the sun in my face. There was nothing more I wanted to see there, or needed to think about. The moments of vertigo had passed. I was neither bitter nor angry. I could never be angry with my daughter. I couldn't find it in my heart to blame Bobby, either. They both were possessed, and too young to believe that any harm could come of it if they really loved each other. They would never know what they were about to do to me.

  The sickness swept over me so quickly I was almost helpless: the rising gorge, the indescribable, gagging vileness. I was able to stop and keep my foot on the brake while I opened the door, leaned out and vomited in the road. It was almost like losing blood; I had the sensation of my life receding, draining away in a violent whirlpool. I heard a terrible moaning that turned into a yowl of misery, of unbearable grieving. Nothing animal nor human could have sounded like that: it was a cry from a threatened soul, from the torment of limbo.

  My agony ended soon enough, and was replaced by a throbbing in my skull, by bleakness. And a vaguely dreadful sense of unreality, as if I were separated from all that was familiar in my life—the streets of Sky Valley, the interior of my store—by a thick pane of glass. Everyone who spoke to me sounded distant to my ears. My skin tingled from time to time. I would touch something—a pen, a doorknob—and want to touch it again, caress it, to be sure it was actually there. I smiled more than I usually do, a strained, unfelt smile as I went about my daily routines.

  Two service calls, old customers. The van wouldn't start; it was the ignition again. I'd just had it worked on. I got out and went back into the store feeling apathetic. Then, suddenly, I was shouting on the phone at Vince, the service manager at Sky Valley Ford-Mercury. When I put down the receiver of the phone Scott Bisco, my good right arm, was staring at me from across his worktable.

  "They wonder why everybody is buying Japanese these days. Twenty-four thousand miles on that van, and it's been in the shop six times."

  Bisco reached into a back pocket of his Levi's and tossed me a set of keys. "Take mine. I raked it out the other day."

  "Thanks, Scott."

  Scott's van was an old orange VW that leaned slightly to the right. Inside it smelled of dogs and gun oil, french fries and burgers, beer and weed and sweaty sin. An old rag rug covered most of the front seat. There was a shoebox on the seat, nearly full of random-size Polaroid snapshots. The lid was half off and I couldn't help seeing the contents. Mostly girls about Bisco's age or younger, showing off their private parts for the photographer, Bisco himself, I supposed. He apparently favored overweight girls with flourishing pubic bushes. Most of the photos appeared to have been taken at night, probably in the back of the van. The eyes of the young girls by flashlight were like the eyes of newly dead animals in the road.

  I put the lid on his epicene, trifling trophies. Bisco had two rifle racks mounted in the back. The racks were empty. But there was a .22 automatic in the seat partly under the pornocopia shoebox, not unlike the pistol that, in the hands of Ricky Gene Kindor, had nearly done me in. It looked oily, obscene, useful. I stared at it, but I didn't want to touch it. I had a sensation of coming back to earth with a little jolt; of becoming my old self again. I had survived the shooting. And that was a necessary reminder: regardless of circumstances, I knew I could survive anything.

  I was the first one up on Friday morning, and I had hot chocolate ready when Sharissa appeared in the kitchen at six-thirty. Caroline was awake, too; the shower was running in our bathroom.

  "Hot chocolate?" Sharissa said, appreciatively. It was a wintertime ritual in our house, but I seldom thought of making the drink during the hot months. I started with a bar of dark, bittersweet Belgian chocolate, which I melted in a double boiler, then added milk with two ounces of heavy cream and sugar, but not too much sugar.

  "I had a craving," I said. "And I thought you could use an energy boost. You looked a little peaked last night. Do you think you might be overtraining?"

  "No, I'm okay. I wanted to push myself hard this week; then I'll taper off a couple of days before the tournament."

  She sat down at the breakfast counter, hooking her feet behind the tall stool so that the muscles in her honey-colored calves stood out. She tasted the steaming chocolate. "Little stronger than usual, Dad."

  "Always takes me a few tries to get the recipe just right. Add a little milk, there's some left in the pan."

  "No, it's fine, really. Are you poaching eggs?"

  "Almost ready. Toast or English muffin?"

  "Half a muffin. Maybe just a bit of egg. Otherwise it's like running with a rock in my stomach."

  Sharissa adjusted the terry sweatband she wore at her hairline and drank more of her chocolate. The shower had stopped upstairs. I went to the back steps and hollered, "Breakfast!" to Caroline. She called back: "Ten minutes!" I took a roll of Canadian bacon from the refrigerator and muffins from the breadbox.

  "Where'd you go last night?" Sharissa asked me. "I heard you leave. It must have been after midnight."

  I turned and smiled at her. "Chocolate mouth," I said. Then I said, "I needed to go by the store and pick up a new manual that came from the factory. I've been meaning to read the darn thing for a month. You know how something nags and nags at you until you just have to do something about it?"

  "Jan Cassiday," Sharissa said grimly, naming her first opponent in the upcoming tournament. Then she gave her head a shake and smiled and crooked her strong right arm, making a fist and showing off her bicep.

  Bobby Driscoll rolled up in his brother's Maxicab just as Caroline hurried downstairs in a beige linen suit with big white buttons like Dagwood's. Sharissa, leaving most of her English muffin, slid off the stool and gave
her mother a kiss.

  Caroline said to me, "Coffee, and that's all I have time for."

  "I fixed you a cheese and bacon muffin," I said, "and you're not leaving until you eat it."

  "Well, okay," Caroline agreed, not unhappy to be bullied a little. "How do I look?"

  "Terrific," Sharissa said, with a little grimace, and pulled some stray hairs from a padded shoulder of Caroline's Suit.

  "Honey. What's the matter?" Caroline asked her.

  "I don't know." Sharissa rubbed her diaphragm in a slow circle. "Feels like something didn't go down right." She sighed and took another sip of chocolate as Bobby came in.

  "Hey, Mrs. Walker! Don't see much of you lately."

  "Four more days to Primary. Then I get my life back." Caroline nibbled at the muffin sandwich, approved, wolfed down more of it. Sharissa linked an arm with Bobby's, smiling wanly at him.

  "Sure you're okay?" I asked her.

  "It's nothing. A little cramp. It'll pass. Mom, we're having company for dinner."

  "I know. I promise. I'll be here."

  "You mean Sergeant Butterball?" Bobby said.

  "Butterbaugh, and don't make fun of him. He's a friend. 'Bye, everybody."

  Caroline finished her muffin sandwich, licked crumbs from her fingertips, kissed me beside the mouth, and hurried out after Bobby and Sharissa.

  "Keep an eye on that right front tire," I cautioned her as the screen door closed.

  I had just finished straightening up the kitchen when I heard Bobby's truck in the drive again. I went outside. Bobby hopped out, shrugged, and went around to help Sharissa down from the high seat. Her color was bad. Her eyes looked sick.

  "She threw up," Bobby explained, getting an arm gently around her and helping her toward the house.

  "I'm gonna be okay," Sharissa protested. "I feel a little cold. I want to lie down."

  I said, "We'd better drive you over to—"

  "Uh-uh, I'm nauseated, that's all. Maybe I'm stressed. It'll pass."

  "I'll stick around," Bobby said worriedly.

  "No, go and run, Bob. I—it's like I have something stuck here." She placed two fingers under her breastbone. Her lips crimped. "Have to throw up again," she said dully, and lunged into the small bathroom next to the laundry.

  "She pushes herself way too hard," I explained to Bobby.

  "Yes, sir. That's what I keep telling her. Take a day off once in a while, chill out, you know?"

  Sharissa came out of the bathroom with a cold cloth pressed against her head.

  "Stomach's not so bad, now my head hurts," she mumbled.

  "Want me to help you upstairs?" I asked.

  "No, no, I can make it. Dad, my aim was bad in there."

  "I'll clean up."

  "Sorry. Bobby—"

  "I'll be back in an hour, keep you company. If that's okay, Mr. Walker?"

  "Sure. I'll stay until—"

  "Both of you," Sharissa said from the landing on the back stairs, "just go about your business, please. I want to lie down for a little while, but it's nothing serious."

  After Bobby left I went upstairs and looked in on Sharissa. She was sprawled on her unmade bed, wet cloth over her eyes like a blindfold.

  "Baby?"

  "Feeling better. Maybe I'll—sleep a little while."

  "Have Bobby call me when he gets here."

  "Sure thing. Love you, Dad."

  It took me less than a minute to swab the floor in the bathroom downstairs. Another minute to change into my mismatched jogging outfit. Nike shirt, Adidas shorts. I put on a baseball cap, a headband and wraparound sunglasses, and went outside to the car.

  Six minutes to seven when I pulled out of the driveway. And Bobby had about a six-minute head start on me. But, for a teenager, he was an unusually sedate driver, and of course Bobby's brother would have put several lumps on his head if anything happened to the Maxicab while Bobby was driving it.

  I didn't hurry either, on my way out to King Forest. I was familiar with Bobby's jogging routine and I knew where I would catch up to him.

  There were no cars in sight when I crossed the Little Chatooga, so I took a few moments to run the window down and throw the prescription bottle of codeine-based cough syrup deep into the slough. It was the codeine in the cough syrup I had mixed with Sharissa's hot chocolate that had caused an immediate allergic reaction. When she was younger she would break out in a rash, along with other, more violent symptoms: extreme shortness of breath, the feeling of something sharp and hard obstructing the diaphragm.

  Probably Sharissa had forgotten what brought on those attacks. But I wasn't concerned. I didn't think there would be any questions asked later.

  It would have been a risk to leave the car in either of the parking lots at King Forest. About three-quarters of a mile north of the main entrance I came across a boarded-up old general store and parked, out of sight of the state road, behind the ramshackle building. There was a FOR SALE sign on it that could explain my presence if anyone should come around.

  I took my small backpack from the truck and put it on. A dump truck filled with tree stumps roared by on the blacktop; then I crossed and entered the woods by way of a creek bottom. All around me roadside kudzu had overgrown the tall trees, turning them into dinosaur and dragon shapes. I followed the shallow, winding creek south, jogging when I could. But the light was still dim here and I had to keep an eye out for poisonous snakes, particularly when it was necessary to cross the hulks of rotting trees lying across my path.

  After about ten minutes of this I came to a marked trail and then an unpaved service road. So far I hadn't run into anyone, but I heard, before I saw, a jogger laboring uphill toward me, and I stepped off into the cover of understory trees beside the road. The jogger looked like a former football lineman valiantly trying to shed fifty pounds. He was wearing headphones and wiping sweat from his eyes when he went past me.

  As soon as he reached a bend in the road I was on my way again.

  Four minutes later I arrived at the waterfall above the covered bridge. I made my way carefully down the dripping rocky slope beside the waterfall and stopped twenty yards from the north end of the bridge. I couldn't hear anything except the sound of falling, rushing water. I was breathing too hard: part of it was due to the fact that I was not in peak condition, but the real problem, I realized, was apprehension, or perhaps incipient panic. It was cool and sunless here, and I couldn't stop shuddering.

  A group of young church campers came raggedly along the path, urged on by their counselors, one a girl whose wholesome good looks and athleticism made me think of Sharissa. I turned away from them but otherwise didn't try to conceal myself. Seeing the girl gave my spirits a lift. I had better control of my heart rate by the time I turned back to the bridge and the lake simmering in the background. I took out my binoculars and focused on the opposite shore of the lake, on a crowded campground and the jogging path that eventually joined the road that crossed the covered bridge. I picked out several joggers through the early-morning haze and intervening trees.

  One of them was Bobby Driscoll, running alone. No other jogger was within a quarter mile of him. I estimated he would reach the bridge in a little more than four minutes.

  I was still shuddering. I had hoped to be fully collected, nerveless, for this confrontation, but there were too many variables that now filled me with doubt. My nerves wouldn't improve with waiting. The best course was not to stand around any longer, but to meet Bobby on the run.

  I put the binoculars away, beside the stolen pistol in my backpack, and went down to the red clay road, a little slippery in this place from drifting spray. I checked my watch and began jogging uphill through dark green pines. Sunlight would not touch the ground here for another two hours. I cast no shadow. My footprints were among a thousand others, barely discernible. The sound of the waterfall faded. I was alone with my life, my thoughts, in a state of fascination, preoccupied with deeds to come.

  "Bobby?"

  His head
was down, his flushed weightlifter's neck

  bulging from effort until I spoke; then he looked up in surprise and broke his stride on the path, less than six feet wide where we were about to meet.

  "Mr. Walker?" Bobby stopped then, jogging in place, while I closed the short distance between us. He smiled, puzzled; then his gray eyes flashed in sudden alarm. "Is Sharissa okay?"

  "It was just a little stomach ache; she'll be fine."

  "Oh." The smile returned. The uneven edges of his hair were beaded with sweat. A mosquito buzzed around his glistening forehead and he batted it away. He was two inches taller than me, probably forty pounds heavier. He wasn't wearing enough clothing to conceal any detail of his fine body. I admired the sculpted solidity, appraised the potential danger of him. "I didn't know you were going to run this morning. We could have come together."

  "Just an impulse," I said. I pretended to be more winded than I was. "Take a break?"

  "Okay." He didn't want to; I had interrupted his routine, but he was gracious about it. "Do you have the time, Mr. Walker?"

  "Seven-twenty-one," I said, glancing at my watch.

  "I need to finish up and be at the warehouse by eight-thirty. Or my uncle gets all over me for being lazy, you know how that goes."

  "Sure. I've got some water, if you want it. And I need to take a leak."

  I went off into the woods, hands tingling, blood pumping hard at my temples. After a second or two he followed me, and within a few more seconds we were out of sight of the path. I took my pack off and unzipped a side compartment, tossed a plastic water bottle to Bobby. We came to a shallow, dry ravine, littered with stones, in a small clearing. I walked to the edge of the ravine, the pack in my hands. I made almost no sound walking on the thick mat of pine needles. I thought that it was too quiet here. I heard only a few birds, the faint sounds of Bobby drinking from the bottle.

  With my back to him I took out the .22 caliber automatic I had stolen from Scott Bisco's orange VW van at a quarter to one this morning, while it was parked behind his girlfriend's apartment house. I dropped the backpack and turned to Bobby with the muzzle of the pistol centered on his chest. We were, I think, about fifteen feet apart.