Angel of Death

by Ferguson, Alane

  But Cameryn wasn’t listening. Instead, she looked at the evergreens marching toward her, their gnarled trunks visible at the base with their branches crossed as if in warning. Stop! they seemed to say. Think this through! For the hundredth time she wondered if she was doing the right thing.

  “Nervous?” Kyle asked.

  “Yes. Excited, too. And scared and terrified and everything else you can think of all mixed together. On top of all that, though, I guess I feel guilty.”

  “Guilty? Why guilty?”

  “I feel guilty about not telling my dad. I keep thinking I should call him—”

  “Don’t do it! Don’t tell him anything until after you’ve talked to Hannah.” Kyle’s voice was adamant. “Cammie, it’s only fair to listen to what she has to say before you decide what’s next. If your dad comes, then Hannah won’t be able to tell you the truth. And that’s what you want to get at, right? The truth?”

  “Yes, that’s what I want,” she replied softly.

  “I know it’s not exactly the same, but this situation sort of reminds me of my dad. My mom never talked when my dad was around and then—boom—one day she left. Just out of the blue. I wish I could have heard what my mom really thought before she went away. But my dad ran things in our house, and I didn’t want to go against him and then . . . it was too late.”

  “You know, you never talk about your dad, Kyle. What’s he like?”

  Kyle shrugged. “I don’t know what to say. My dad’s one to play his cards close to his chest. Except with his dog— he loves that animal. Last night he called and told me he fed Skooch a whole steak right in the motel room.”

  “Wow. He sounds nice.”

  “Except he’s different with people. Like with Mr. Oakes— did I tell you my dad wanted me to drop out of Scouts because he decided Brad had too much influence over me?”

  “No.” Cameryn looked at him, her eyes wide. “When did that happen?”

  “A while ago.” Kyle’s hands tightened on the wheel as he said, “That’s just the point. I decided what I wanted to do, and that’s what I did. That’s what you should do with Hannah. See her by yourself, and then decide.”

  “You’re right.” Once again she was grateful to lie back in the current and let Kyle make the choice, because her mind was so thick with thoughts she couldn’t sort them anymore. She would stay the course and see Hannah alone. The next bridge, the one where she told her father, would happen later. She’d cross it when she got there.

  Kyle took a sharp right and pulled into a circle of dirt. Beyond it was a log house, two stories high with a steep-pitched green metal roof. The pathway led to a step up and then a wooden deck that wrapped around the house, and at the south end the ground dropped away to a small open field below.

  “It’s beautiful here,” she breathed.

  “If I’d known you were coming, I would have straightened up,” he said, sheepish. “It’s not too clean since we’re a couple of bachelors now. Actually, it’s mostly just me.”

  “It’ll be perfect. Hannah won’t care, and it’ll be private. ”

  “That’s for sure. There’s no one around for miles and miles.”

  The door was unlocked, and when she walked inside she realized Kyle had been correct; the house was not clean. It wasn’t as messy as it was dirty. A film of dust covered everything, muting colors. There was a stack of newspapers yellowing in one corner, next to a huge fireplace, and beside that a pile of wood shedding bark. The fireplace wall was made of split rail. On it, high above, hung taxidermied animal heads watching her with glassy eyes. A deer with a huge rack, an elk, a moose, even a buffalo stared at her silently. Cameryn, who hated stuffed heads as a décor, asked, “Do you hunt?”

  “Not me. My dad does. Me and my mom couldn’t stand these things, so we took them down one week while my dad was gone trucking. You should have seen his face when he got back. He pitched a holy fit, and they’ve been up ever since. Do you want some water?”

  “No thanks. Is that your father?” she asked, pointing to a picture on the wall. It was a photo of an aging cowboy, perched up high in his big rig. Grinning, he had one hand on an enormous steering wheel, the other draped over a dog sporting a bandana around its neck. The man’s teeth were yellowed—cigarette-stained, she figured—and did not look well cared for. A straw cowboy hat had been wedged into the dash, its brim frayed. She never would have put this scrawny man together with Kyle; they seemed so opposite.

  “Yeah, that’s the old man. And his beloved dog. He won’t be back for ten more days. Which is fine by me.”

  “Your dad doesn’t look like you.”

  Kyle looked at her strangely, as though he was seeing, and yet not seeing her. Once, when her class had studied bald eagles, she’d learned that the birds possessed a protective inner eyelid, a thin membrane that covered the eye while the eagle tore into its prey. Back then, that was how she’d pictured Kyle. He, too, seemed to possess a kind of inner eyelid that obscured average kids from really registering in his line of sight. Seen, but not seen. That look, the one she’d forgotten, reappeared now as he turned back to his father’s picture. All expression had drained from his face until it appeared almost blank.

  “Thanks,” he finally said. “I’m glad I don’t look like Mr. Donny O’Neil. Actually, I look like my mother. She’s a blonde, too.” Running his hand over his mouth, he said, “You know, I wish I could do something useful. I’m feeling a little bit strange here, like I’m invading your space. Would you like me to leave?”

  The truth was, she did want him to go. What was about to play out was so personal, so frightening, she didn’t want any witnesses. Although she’d thought of a way, she wasn’t sure it was all right to ask. Kyle had already done so much.

  “I can see you’re thinking,” he said. “I see the wheels spinning. What is it?”

  “I—I guess I didn’t believe Hannah would be here so soon. I don’t know, maybe I didn’t think she’d actually come to Silverton at all. But the point is, she’s almost here and I’m empty-handed.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m meeting my mom for the first time and I don’t have anything to give her. I know it’s kind of hokey, but I’d really like to give her some flowers.”

  A smile split across his face. “That’s an awesome idea,” he said. “Except I don’t have any. I could run to town and get some roses.”

  “Not roses.” Cameryn pictured the letter she’d received from Hannah, the one with the delicate watermark of an iris. “I’d like to give her irises. A huge armload of irises. But the only place that carries them is that specialty shop at Purgatory. That’s a ways away and . . . is that too much to ask?”

  ”Not at all. I know which shop you mean. It’s the one where the rich people go.”

  “Which means it’ll cost a lot, I know. But I really want to do this. Do you think you could—? ”

  “Of course. I’ll use my credit card.”

  “No,” she protested, “I’ve got money—”

  “Don’t worry about it. I think I can make it there and back in forty minutes. An hour, tops. And the truth is, I don’t mind having something to do.” His keys jingled as he pulled them out of his pocket. Leaning over, he kissed her on the top of the head. “You sure you want me to go? Last chance to change your mind!”

  “I think it might be best.”

  “All right. Help yourself to the refrigerator, although there’s not much more than cold pizza. Bathroom’s through that door over there, and the TV remote’s on top of the coffee table. Let’s see, you can go see my goats if you want—they’re out in the pen. Just stay away from the chickens in that back coop. That’s my dad’s, and he doesn’t like anyone out there.”

  “Not a problem.”

  “If you want to use my computer it’s upstairs in my room. The desk over there is my dad’s, so . . .”

  “No worries. I won’t touch it.”

  “Great. I’ll be back in a flash.”

 
With that, he was gone. As his car’s taillights blinked through the trees, Cameryn realized how alone she was. Standing at the window, staring out, she looked at the pines and the darkening sky. A wind had kicked up, and she could hear the trees sigh as their tips swayed. The sound was mournful, like the organ at St. Patrick’s. She felt pricks on her skin as she heard another sound: a rustling from the kitchen, and then she saw a reflected flash from behind her streak across the glass. As she whirled around, a dark shape leaped onto the top of the television, and a large, green-eyed gray cat stared at her, its whiskers drooping onto its paws.

  “Good grief, cat, you about scared me to death. What’s your name?”

  The cat blinked. Stretching out a hind leg, it began to lick its paw.

  If only she could be like that cat, she thought. No worries beyond yourself.

  She began to pace. Below the mounted animal heads was a cuckoo clock, one that looked as though it had come from Germany. At the bottom of the pendulum swung a pinecone. She watched it click back and forth, counting the seconds. After that she got a glass of water and sipped it, but her stomach closed against it and she set it on the small rolltop desk. Then she wandered back to the picture.

  Donny O’Neil had a wrinkled, weathered face and eyes that stared blankly at her from the photograph. Something nudged her mind, but she didn’t know what. As she studied the picture she heard a crash, and turned just in time to see the cat lift its paws daintily over the water glass it had just knocked over on the desk.

  “Dang it!” she cried. Racing into the kitchen, she grabbed some paper napkins and ran back to blot the water, which ran in a tiny waterfall between the slats of the rolltop. She could hear it drumming onto papers, like drops of rain. Rolling back the top, she saw it was worse than she thought. Papers were getting wet, ink smearing, edges curling—she picked them up and let the water pour off of them. Cursing under her breath, Cameryn realized that the napkins weren’t enough, so she ran to the bathroom and grabbed a towel. Blotting, fanning, she tried to save as much as she could. It took her several moments to realize the paper she was holding was Kyle’s, written in his square hand, and the teacher who had given the assignment, the teacher who had composed the comments scrawled in red across its top, was Mr. Oakes. The story was some sort of fiction; she could tell that much from skimming it. But it was the notes that caught her eye. She knew she shouldn’t read them, but she couldn’t resist. Mr. Oakes had inspired Kyle as a writer, after all.

  This paper is technically masterful, and I feel it shows, as always, your intense ability. On that merit alone I have marked you an A.

  Cameryn smiled, because Kyle was a straight-A student in all his classes. It made her proud to see his talent acknowledged by a teacher.

  There is, however, a troubling disconnect between intellect and emotion in your work. You have structure, yes, but your protagonist is strangely cold throughout the prose. In fact, all of your characters are without emotion altogether. This is a story about death. Your writing would be much deeper if you allowed yourself to plumb the depths. Draw from your life, Kyle. You have your own tragic life story concerning the death of your mother. Use that pain. Writing can be cathartic, and I encourage you to release the emotion inside on the safety of the printed page.

  Cameryn’s eyes widened. As she read the sentence through again and again, her heart began to pound in her ears. The death of your mother! Hadn’t Kyle told her his mother had left, just a few years before? And yet Mr. Oakes was clearly addressing a death. It made no sense. Why would Kyle lie? Especially to her?

  Puzzled, she picked up another paper, and another, carefully rifling through them for more written comments, but all she found were bills and letters addressed to Donald O’Neil. There were no other papers of Kyle’s. She chewed her fingernail and read the comments again. There it was, in black and white: the death of your mother. Still there. It had not moved. It became clear to her that Mr. Oakes had been mistaken. That was it—he’d tried to help Kyle and he’d gotten it wrong. It was an odd mistake, but mistakes happened. Or Kyle might have described his mother’s leaving as a death in and of itself. She nodded to herself. Yes, that could have been it. Having a mother disappear was like a death, as she knew only too well.

  She shouldn’t be snooping through the O’Neils’ papers anyway. It was wrong. It got her thinking sideways, misinterpreting things. Blotting up the last of the water, Cameryn pulled down the rolltop and replaced the damp towel. Hannah was coming and she needed to prepare herself, to focus on that one all-consuming fact.

  But it drummed in her mind: Kyle lied to me.

  If his mother really was dead, there must be a reason he hadn’t shared the story with her. She went to the couch, sat down, and crossed her legs. Maybe it had to do with his father, Donny. Maybe Donny had forbidden Kyle to tell the truth to anyone.

  Her knee jiggled. Placing her hand on her knee to quiet it, she sat for as long as she could, then stood, realizing she would have to move or she would burst. It was dark outside—what if her mother missed the turnoff to this place? What then? Pacing, she went to the television, to the wall studded with heads, then wandered back to the picture. For some reason it drew her. There was something compelling in that picture, but whatever it was skittered along the edge of her consciousness. She stared at it again, searching it for . . . what?

  Leaning so close her forehead almost touched the frame, she studied the photograph. Inside the truck cab were what she guessed to be wrappers and some empty cans. Her eyes focused on Donny’s face, then back to the cab’s interior. At the face, at the hat, then the dog. The face, then the dog. Intense, she studied not the man, but the animal. It was a German shepherd. A German shepherd with a double notch in its ear. It was hard to see in the grainy photograph, but there it was, two slices that almost came to a point, like the letter V. Only a week before she’d seen another German shepherd with a notched ear, and with a start she realized that that dog’s carcass from the side of the road had had the identical tan-and-black markings of the dog in the photograph. There was no doubt: The dog in the picture and the dog left at the side of the road were one and the same! Donny had told his son the dog was eating steak, but this was the animal she’d seen dead on the road, which meant— Donny O’Neil was a liar!

  As her mind captured this fact, a chill crept down her skin, snaked inside her to pool in the pit of her stomach. Brad Oakes. The dog. A man who lied to his son. A man who didn’t like Mr. Oakes. Scorched tissue. In her mind’s eye she saw the same grayed flesh, the pewter-colored muscles, the same empty eye sockets. Her father had blamed the dog’s missing eyes on scavenging animals, but what if he’d been wrong? What if there was another reason for the dog’s bizarre condition? And what if it had something to do with Kyle’s own father?

  Hardly daring to even consider it, she imagined the possibility. If there was a link, there had to be a mechanism to bring it about—that explosion of the eyes and the cooking of the flesh without burns had to come from a real machine. If that was true, then a mechanism like that might still be here, in the O’Neil home.

  No! She shook her head, hard. She was thinking crazy and she had to stop. But what if . . . ?

  Cameryn looked at the picture and thought of calling Justin, but reconsidered when she realized what might happen if she did. Donny getting grilled by Sheriff Jacobs and Justin. Kyle’s father would easily figure out the tip came from her. Maybe he’d tell Kyle he could never speak to her again! No, it was too risky. She couldn’t gamble on evidence as tenuous as a spider’s thread. There was only one way to answer her questions, and that was to find the answers herself. She’d look through this house to see if anything tied Donny back to Brad Oakes. Most important, she’d have to look for some kind of instrument that could destroy tissue. And she’d have to hurry.

  Doing a swift mental calculation, she figured Kyle would be gone for maybe half an hour more, but her mother might arrive sooner. There wasn’t much time.