“Why are you here?” she says. “Why are you looking in the garage?”
“Want to see that truck.”
“I wish he’d sell it.”
She takes a drink of blue juice and crosses her arms. Her glass sweats. I can’t lie worth a shit. I got nothing to say, and she won’t leave me hanging around gawking through the garage window. She shifts. Looks at the ground, then me.
“Why you want him to sell it?”
“It’s junk. All the time either at the garage or the body shop. What people must think, seeing their accountant in a vehicle like that.”
“He put it for sale?”
“You here because you want to buy his truck?”
“Nah. Wanted a word with my flesh and blood. I’ll stop by later.”
“Well, he won’t sell it anyhow.” She shifts her weight and throws one leg forward. Got her elbow tucked at her hip. Slut stance. “Why don’t you come inside and have a drink?”
I’d ruther drink an oak keg fulla chicken shit than bounce in the sack with Eve. But a drink…
“What you got in the glass?”
“This?” She sips. “Blueberry Kool-Aid and Bacardi.”
“I’ll have the Bacardi.”
“Come on in.”
I follow her. Look across the lawn. The neighbors must be inside they houses. She walks with the swagger of a woman thinks a good wiggle erases thirty years. She holds the screen door open with her hip, and after I follow inside kicks off her sandals by the coat closet.
“Make yourself comfortable, Baer.”
She stoops to a base cabinet and I get the distinct feeling she chose her angle to give me a straight view down her shirt. Comes up with a bottle and parks it on the counter. She opens a cabinet and I swipe the bottle from below her. Spin the lid on my flask and fill it.
“Help yourself,” she says.
“Appreciate you.”
A little spills on the counter. The bottle got just enough to top me off. “You got a rag?”
“I’ll get it.”
I sip from the flask. She looks at the empty bottle. Forces her face into a smile.
“Why don’t we go in the other room?”
I pull the curtain on the front door and nod at a neighbor across the street, standing with crossed arms behind a picture window. “I did that, people’d think we fucked.”
A quarter mile gone, I turn and look back. Woman gives me the willies.
Chapter Fifteen
It’s dusk. I sit on a stump and watch the fire under the boiler. This ain’t a pickup night; don’t expect business, and I ain’t had company since God shat the town of Gleason. With all that’s gone between Stipe and me I got to suspect something’s coming. Only thing keeps dread away is knowing if I see bad news first, somebody else gets the surprise. And I got an advantage.
Just same, I keep my head hunkered into my shoulders. The hair on my neck stands anyway, on account of that cussed sniper out there, somewhere, watching. Or maybe Stipe’s got something else up his sleeve.
Mae tried to kiss me like I wasn’t family—and her ex, Cory Smylie, been getting his drugs off the same fella buys most my likker.
Interestinger and interestinger.
Every girl I ever knew had a screwed-up head; Mae’s no different. Got to wonder how she’ll feel getting grocery money from me, now that I turned away such a bold invitation. She ought to feel like a dolt, but I hope she don’t feel so stupid she lets the kids go hungry.
The steam-rattle’s a few notes shy of perfect. Inside the boiler, corn mash bumbles around excited and alcohol busts into steam. The water part’s a little more lackadaisical, and that’s stillin. They’s pure magic about to drop from the copper tube.
I had any sense I’d fetch Smith off the sleeping bag and reassemble it. Don’t do no good in clean pieces. Fred wanted to come out the tarp and I got sidetracked.
I drug him out, crate and all. He got good ears, and if Stipe’s boys is in the woods, Fred’ll make sure I know. He keeps his face after the heat like he appreciates the smell of fire or the orange glow teases through his scabbed eyes. He sighs a lot and I sigh with him. No such friend like a loyal dog. Never in a foul mood, never holds things over my head, like it was my fault he got stole and fought in the pit. Though it was.
I busted my watch when I was a kid. A Mickey Mouse job, with big-gloved hands swinging around his body. I was tom-fooling on my bicycle. Saw something coming up I didn’t like and clamped the front brake, flipped the whole shebang. I wailed ‘til Ma come running out to see how many bones I broke. Like any kid, I was made of rubber. I cried and cried and showed Ma my busted watch. She give me a good shake and when that didn’t work, laughed at how silly I was. She said, “I seen some stupid fish but you’re being a dumb bass.” But I knew she’d saved up for that watch and it was special, her being able to give it to me.
A fella can’t rely on a good person’s grace to get him out of justful guilt. So when Fred grumbles as I rub between his ears, and beats his tail agin the crate, he’s got a helluva lot of grace going to no good use. He was my responsibility to look after. It was my fault he was stole, and fought, and blinded, and left within an inch his life.
You got to own guilt. Even when it don’t sit good.
The copper coil spits into the jug and the sound rattles me loose. The logs under the boiler glow red. I shove a couple chunks of split maple and nudge the last with my toe. Take the lantern to the jug and watch the shine drip out like a spigot has a bad leak—not a drop, not a stream, but a bunch of drops come out together, and stop ‘til the pressure builds, and spurt some more.
Jug’ll fill in fifteen minute. I’ll strain it through charcoal to pull some of the oils. Looks like soapy water when you don’t, iridescent and purple-tinged, and anybody don’t know his likker’ll have a case of the ass over you selling booze make him go blind. That’s ignorance; them oils is nothing and sometimes I drink it that way out of pure happy laziness.
But get boys thinking they’ll go blind, and you’ll see how attached a man is to his eyes.
A horn bleats up at the house.
Shit.
I got the fire just right and the mash cooking. Likker dripping in the jug.
Horn sounds again, long steady blare gets louder ‘til the whole woods is ready to come shut somebody up. I grab a stick, push the fresh logs off to the side.
“Guard the fort, Fred,”
Right, says Fred. I’ll keep a lookout.
I head for the house with a dim flashlight. Prefer to do business in daylight but the universal signal says a man wants likker, he lays on his horn ‘til the likkerman comes. I sneak inside from the basement, and climb upstairs.
It’s a white truck.
I slap my hip. Left my Smith at the still site. House is dark. Don’t keep anything in here but a rifle but that’ll work. You don’t handle likker business without something shoots bullets.
The horn bleats again. The door slams. I slip down the hall, pop the lock on the cabinet and pull out a three oh eight Winchester with a nine power scope set over open sights. Like I’ll need either. Crack the bolt, check the brass.
Business calls.
I throw the front door open and from his shape it’s flesh-and-blood Larry.
“Ah, big man with a gun. You son of a bitch,” he says. “Come after Eve like you come after Ruth?”
“Nah. I fucked Ruth.”
He steps toward me with fists like mallets. Stops. “What the hell do you want coming by my place?”
“Come by for you.”
“But you went inside with Eve.”
“You backslid, brother. I don’t want a damn thing with her.” I ease down the steps and he shifts sideways, like he’ll jump one way or the other to keep me from scooting past.
“What you driving here?” I shine the flashlight to his truck.
“What?”
“What kind of truck you got?”
“You—what the hell? My truck?”
/> “I come by your place for a look. Eve said it’s a piece of shit mostly in the shop.”
He’s quiet while I approach, and his eyes start to glow and I got a tickle all over my arms and the back of my neck. He come to raise hell and now he’s playing defense. In so many years watching some of the goat-fuckinest liars you ever saw, they rarely do it cocky and strutting. I could count the times on one hand. The rifle set Larry back, and he’s thinking deceit.
Or, I ask about the truck and he’s all of a sudden leery?
Should’ve come right out with “You steal my dog?” But now he’s red and sparking it don’t matter what he says, it’s all suspect. I hold the flashlight to the truck bed. The grooves is wore to the metal and they shine. No blood.
“What the hell? Get away from my truck. Or are you going to try to fuck it, too?”
I get on my knees. Look up in under. Flashlight’s dim enough I can’t get a good read on the grime.
Footsteps, quick. Larry’s boot finds my gut with a lot of pissed-off behind it. I’m sucking.
“Shit, Larry.”
“You stay away from Eve! I’ll bust every bone you got.”
My fingers is twisted in the trigger guard—caught a rock and peeled skin. Get my hand out the metal and I’m on all fours, ready for the next. I’ll bust off his leg and shove it so far up his ass his sac’ll gag smelling his toes. He stands back.
“I mean it,” he says. “You’ve been a snake your whole life. You come around my woman again and I’ll kill you.”
I get to my knees. I’d like to kick his ass from here to the lawn chair but I got another thought.
He climbs into the cab. The window’s down. “You ain’t going to shoot me, you fucking snake?”
“Nah, I won’t shoot you.”
He grinds the shifter.
“Larry?”
He looks.
“Turn in the yard there, so you don’t back blind on the road. The turnabout’s there like it used to be… just grown up in weeds.”
He holds my look, and if ever there was a time I was spewing red and shooting enough juice to spark a powder keg from twenty feet…
Larry finds reverse, pops the clutch, and swings the truck over the weeds. Blows rocks out his back tires and spins to the road. It’s been enough weeks the moon’s near full again, but the damn thing ain’t up yet. Tailgate’s all the same color, but without the moon, the angle, who knows?
But at the turnaround I shine the flashlight close to the weeds, and sure as shit, oil.
Back at the still, Fred says, I worry.
“I do too.”
Yeah, he says, but you can see em coming.
I settle on the stump and his words sit on my shoulders. Kick logs back deep in the embers. Tap the boiler. Five, ten minute she’ll make steam. But why wait on the fresh stuff when they’s vintage under the tarp?
Wailing on a car horn, again. Larry? Nah—don’t sound like a truck. Sounds like a rabbit feeling a wolf’s teeth; blares and don’t stop. Fred perks.
“I’ll go see. Don’t trouble yourself.”
He rests his head. One day I’ll fix a leash so he does more’n lay around all day. Once he heals.
Put Smith back together in four seconds and slip it to my hip. Grab a gurgle a shine. Head for the house. Inside, I look through the window. Headlights is off—beat-up Tercel.
Mae.
The vehicle backs away. I step outside, down off the step and she don’t see me ‘til she’s clear back to the road. The car sits. She’s going to make me walk all the way. Never know what a girl’s got on her mind. Not after she tries to plant a smooch and you back away.
She rolls down her window and I stoop. She looks ahead but the angle don’t hide a fresh beating.
“Cory do that?”
She nods. Stares.
I look. All three kids is in the back seat. “Pull in the drive here and let the kids out and play. Then you can tell me exactly why Cory Smylie needs murdered.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Yeah, he’ll stop on his own, will he? You expect something different, but I been telling you five years.”
“So now you get to say you told me so?”
“Come on back to the house.”
She reverses to the step and parks. Kids tumble out rattled. Not in the mood for play. I sit on the step and hold my arms out to Bree and Morgan. Mae has Joseph.
“C’mere, girls. C’mere.”
I coax em in my arms. Plop em on my lap. Nuzzle each.
“Guess you two saw some ugly today.”
They’s silent. Heads press to my shoulders.
“You prob’ly know by now, the world ain’t made of candy. But this’s what you got to understand. Bree, Morgan—look at me, now. Look in my eyes.” Reluctant. “C’mon girls. You need to know.”
They look, eyes big unblinking moons.
“Your momma’ll be safe from here on out. And so’ll you. Cory won’t do this no more.”
They bury they heads again and I rub they backs. Mae leans on her trunk.
“Tell you what, girls. It’s about time for the fireflies to come out. I’ll give you a dollar each if you can catch me one.”
Neither stirs.
I lift the girls off my lap. “Catch me one them firebugs, girls. Catch me two. They’s a Ball jar in the shed, bottom shelf. Run along.”
They wander away.
“It’s too late in the fall for fireflies,” Mae says.
“Prob’ly. But it won’t hurt the girls to look and I’ll give each a dollar anyway.”
Mae pulls her skirt closer to her knees. “I wish I knew where all the men like you hide.”
“Woods. Stills. You call the police?”
“Gleason police don’t want anything to do with the police chief’s son.”
“Yeah. You got a gun?”
“I’ve said enough about guns. Not with kids in the house.”
“And you won’t let me go string him by his nuts from a tree? That’s out, right?”
She smiles, coughs, and that presses out a fresh batch of tears. “Violence doesn’t solve anything.”
“Enough of it sure as hell does. Every time.”
The air is still and the girls straggle across the yard, stumped. At least the pursuit takes they minds off what they saw.
“What you want me to do? I’m no good at doing nothing.”
“I don’t know,” she says.
“S’pose you could haul the kids to Mars Hill a couple days. Give things time to shake out with Cory.”
“You’re going to go after him, aren’t you?”
“That’s why you came, Mae. Don’t tell me different.”
“It’s why I came.”
“Uh-huh. Visit your mother a couple days. You come back, you won’t have problems with Cory Smylie.”
Chapter Sixteen
Been a week since I fell out the tree watching Stipe’s dog fight. All this time I’m thinking if I had a sac the size of a three-week cabbage I’d have gone to work on that crew of dog-fighters with Smith.
That’s where my mind’s at.
Naw, I won’t go there and pull a six-shooter on twenty fellas rich with likker and surly from watching dogs rip each other to pieces.
Hell no. I’m going there to talk. See if I can’t get a couple pieces of information that’ll make the endgame clear.
Stipe won’t kill me with all his boys around. I’m banking on it.
They ain’t a trail between my camp and Stipe’s fight circle. I follow the crick, turn off, and hoof a mile-two ‘til their whoops and hollers guide me in. Gather my nerves with a healthy snurgle of shine, and sit on a boulder overlooking the lantern glow, and the men who come to see a few miserable dogs die. They dance around like leprechauns or gnomes or what’s his name… Rumpelstiltskin. Evil sons of bitches.
I ease up to the edge of the lantern light. Fight just ended. I look over the faces. Half these men’ve bought my likker at one point or another. Lucky J
im Graves, Pastor Jenkins, Chief Smylie, Stipe—he didn’t buy it, just took what I offered. George. I know most these men.
Henry Means carries a limp dog in his arms. Someone opens the pit gate, an oak shipping pallet. The man says, “He died game,” and Henry nods, solemn like he truly gives a shit.
“What you doing here, Baer?”
It’s Lou Buzzard, a regular buyer.
I swing a jug of shine. “Stipe here says I can come anytime, long as I fetch a jug.”
“I said two,” Stipe says. He tramps to me, clamps his jaws tight. All the men is silent. “But that was before you murdered Achilles.”
“Brown dog? Bullet hole in his eyeball? I never seen that dog.”
Stipe takes the jug from my hand. “You come for a dose of sledgehammer?” He looks around at the men, then meets my eyes again. “You got some gall, Creighton.” He comes close and leans into me. His voice is a whisper. His eyes is red and I got the electric all through me. “We got business to settle, you and me. Fire and brimstone.”
He smacks my shoulder like we’s old friends, and though I’m braced I fly two feet. I was right. He’ll kill me later. Not now.
I’m close enough to the pit I can smell it. It’s a place of death, and the odors is everything happens when a body dies. Blood, from weeks and weeks of spilling. Piss and shit stamped into the mud so the circle stinks like a witch’s kettle. Throw in a couple bat wings and chicken livers, fella could cast a spell.
“I want to know who stole my dog.”
Stipe’s face is flat, white like a can of Crisco what somebody drew a line across for a mouth and poked two fingers for eyes. “Make yourself at home, Creighton.” He grins, backs away, and points. “Get Stinky Joe in the pit, Hank. He’s up against Panzer.”
Stipe gestures and a fella I know from way back steps beside him. Stipe leads him a few yards away, leans to him and says something. Stipe looks at me and the man looks at me. He crosses his arms and nods, and wanders toward me.
“How you doing, Burly?”
“Better’n you, I suspect.”
Meanwhile, men shuffle at Stipe’s orders. The one called Hank nods, but comes for a hit on the jug first. Stipe pulls the cork and holds the mouth to his lips. He sputters and passes it. Hank beats another set of grasping hands and I’m all but certain everything’ll shape up the way I want. For Fred.
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