Speck hurried to catch up with her. “I want to help you,” he said.
She stopped abruptly. “Then leave me alone. I appreciate you wanting to help. But this here, this little mark on my eye, it’s a pimple, a scratch. If you want to help, leave it alone.”
Speck reached his arm as if he meant to wrap it around her, but she backed away. “What are doing? Didn’t you hear a word I said?”
“I’m not afraid.”
“You should be,” she said. “Go on. I’ll find what I need.”
Calvin sat at the table in the middle of the yard smoking and gazing absently into the clear blue morning sky. He turned abruptly and grinned slowly at the boy until Speck turned away.
“Where you been?” John Talley asked, coming out of the sawyer’s shack. “If you’re running off like that without any notice, I got no use for you. You’d be better off gone.”
“I’m here to apologize,” Calvin said. “I know it was sudden. But it couldn’t be helped. I had business, a personal matter. I hope you can appreciate that.”
“What I’d appreciate is if we could cut some lumber,” the sawyer said.
That morning they hauled and cut more timber than Speck and his father had for the previous two days. The boy had to race to keep up with the older men. The two of them winched the pine logs onto the sawmill carriage, and then while John Talley kept an eye on the big blade Speck and Calvin would move around to the other end to buck the cut timber as it came off the saw.
“We keep this up, we’ll strip these woods bare in no time,” John Talley said to Calvin. “Glad you come back.”
“Ask and ye shall receive,” Calvin said. “I do believe in that.”
Calvin and Speck hustled another log down onto the carriage. “How ’bout you, boy, what do you ask for when you say your prayers at night?” Calvin said.
“Nothing,” Speck said.
“I don’t believe that,” Calvin said. “Young, healthy boy like you must want a lot of things. I know I did when I was your age. Still do.” He stopped to wipe the sweat from his face with his shirtsleeve, watching Speck from behind the crook of his elbow.
“I doubt I want what you want,” Speck said.
The saw screamed and sent up a cloud of sawdust that settled down on Speck and Calvin, who had moved to the opposite end of the mill to catch the ripped lumber.
“How ’bout it, boy,” Calvin said, effortlessly swinging a ten-foot pine plank down off the mill. “You think the man above sent us here?”
The boy was sweating, trying to keep pace with the older man. “I thought it was the fella from the collection yard,” Speck said, and he loaded the plank onto the wagon bed.
“Maybe you get that smart mouth from your mama too,” Calvin said.
Just then the saw made a terrible screech as its teeth bit deep into the hard heart of the log. The blade stopped, but the tractor engine kept growling. Speck grabbed a piece of scrap board and reached in to push it against the log.
John Talley came running from around the far end of the saw, waving his arms. “Cut it off!” he screamed.
Calvin ran to the tractor and pushed in the throttle.
The sawyer grabbed Speck by both shoulders. “Don’t ever reach in to that machinery,” he said. “You know better. That old mill’s touchy. Any trouble, that’s it. You shut it down. You hear?”
Speck tossed the scrap aside, and the sawyer and Calvin rocked the log until they inched it away from the blade. Across the yard, Marcy called from the doorway of the main shack.
“Dinner’s ready,” John Talley said.
The men and Speck sat outside at the rough table and waited for the girl to carry the plates to them. She was flushed when she finally sat down. Calvin attacked his food while John Talley said grace. The girl wiped her forehead with the back of her arm. A strand of brown hair stuck out from under her hat and was matted across her pale brow.
“This is real good,” the sawyer told Marcy, his mouth full of cornbread. “You ain’t eating?”
“Not hungry,” Marcy said. “I just need to sit awhile.”
“And I need some pepper,” Calvin said.
She stood and began to make her way back to the shack, but halfway across the yard she slumped to her knees. Speck stood, but he didn’t move when he saw how Calvin looked at him.
John Talley waited for the hired man too, but Calvin continued to eat. “You think you might better see to your daughter?” the sawyer said.
“She’s all right,” Calvin answered, and he leaned over his plate and spooned in another mound of beans.
“She’s hurt,” Speck said. “You did this.”
Calvin’s fist, still holding the spoon, pounded the table as sudden and sharp as a thunderclap. “What do you know about it? If I say she’s fine, she’s fine. You can just stay the hell out of it.”
“I won’t,” the boy said. “This ain’t right. You’re a goddamn criminal.”
The sawyer straightened his spine. “That’s enough,” he said. “You, boy, hold your tongue.” He turned on Calvin. “And you had best remember why it is you’re here. I need help with this timber, but you can just keep on going down the line if you mean trouble.” And he went to help the girl back to the table.
Speck could see the storm pass from Calvin, at least for the time being. His smile showed his stained teeth and pieces of his dinner.
“She’s overcome by the heat,” the sawyer said. Then he looked at Calvin. “What happened to that eye?”
“She fell out of the bed,” Calvin said. “She ain’t used to sleeping in a bed. She was turning in her sleep and fell out. Them things happen.” And then he continued to eat beans like he didn’t have a care in the world.
“You’re a goddamn liar,” Speck muttered.
“I told you, that’s enough,” John Talley said. “We’ve got work to do. But she’s got to get that eye seen to. Speck, I want you to take Marcy to the doctor.”
“She don’t need no doctor,” Calvin said.
“I don’t understand you, mister,” the sawyer said. “Your girl is hurt. If you don’t care no more for her than that, then maybe you should be on your way. Maybe we’d all be better off. Right now, though, she’s going to the doctor.”
“Go on, then,” Calvin said, and waved them off.
Marcy said she didn’t want to go to town. She was feeling better. But the sawyer made her get in the truck with the boy.
As they pulled onto the main road toward Perrine, Marcy told the boy again not to take her the doctor. “I’m fine,” she said. “Really.”
“If you don’t go,” the boy said, “I’m taking you to the sheriff. I may go myself anyway.”
“You can’t do that, Speck. You don’t understand.”
“What I don’t understand is why you put up with him.”
“I tried to tell you, I’m his daughter,” she said. “I don’t have anyplace else to go. And he ain’t a bad man, really. He’s just rough.”
“Only an evil man could do such a thing. Especially if he’s your father. Where did you come from? Don’t you have people who could help?”
“The kind of trouble I was in, they wouldn’t want no part of. I can’t tell you, Speck, what it was. Can you just not ask me to tell?”
“But you’re not in trouble now. You don’t owe him. You could tell him to leave. You could stay here.”
“With you? How would your daddy like that? You think he’d welcome me just moving in with you?”
“You heard what he said. He wouldn’t turn you out.”
“And I’m supposed to just tell my own daddy that he’s going and I’m staying? He’s not the type that’d just leave. And say you and I did go away—it ain’t that easy. He wouldn’t rest till he found me. And nothing and no one would stand in his way.”
“Maybe I could, I don’t know … do something.”
“Speck.”
“He hurts you.”
“He’ll hurt you worse.”
�
�We could run him off, my dad and me.”
“Your daddy’d have done that long ago if he cared about such things.”
“There must be something.”
Marcy touched the boy’s face. “Don’t say no more,” she said. They were nearing the town. Marcy leaned over and almost in a whisper said to the boy, “If you could find us something to drink, maybe we could find us a peaceful spot and just talk like friends.”
It didn’t take much liquor for the boy to get drunk. Marcy didn’t try to stop him when he kissed her, and she helped him when he fumbled with his pants. It took him only a couple of seconds, and even then he didn’t know at first when it was finished.
“That was real nice,” Marcy told him.
It was getting late, and they still had to go to the grocer’s to pick up supplies. The boy was too far gone, so Marcy drove to the store and parked the truck on the street a few buildings away. They both got out, and Marcy went on into the store with the sawyer’s list while Speck lingered outside. On the window of the grocer’s someone had pasted a single piece of white paper. The black type said:
Missing Girl—Mary Whitt, 14
If you have seen or know of a young girl with brown hair and green eyes unfamiliar in these parts, please contact Mr. C.W. Whitt R.R. #1, Big Fork, Ark. Or your Sheriff
Reward Offered
Identical handbills had been pasted on the windows of nearly every shop and office she passed on the street. Speck rested his head against the glass of the front door. Suddenly, he doubled over and vomited into the street. He stood up and wiped his mouth with his sleeve.
Speck went to wait in the truck, but before he opened the door a man in a white shirt and bib overalls came walking over from across the street. He held a stack of papers and handed one to a passerby.
“I hate to trouble you, son,” the man said to Speck. He had the leathery neck and hands of a farmer. “My name’s Whitt,” he continued, handing Speck a flyer. “I wonder if you’ve seen a strange girl around. Her name’s Mary. We heard she may have come this way.”
“What?” Speck said.
“I’m her father,” the man said. “I’m afraid she’s mixed up with some bad sorts. I’ve been looking for her. I want her safe, I guess you might say.”
Speck nodded, took the handbill, and backed away.
“Don’t forget,” C.W. Whitt said. “She’s dear to us.”
Speck folded the handbill and put it in his pocket and sat and waited for the girl. He knew that C.W. Whitt was Marcy’s father, and whatever it was that she or Calvin had done he had already forgiven. He could tell her, and she’d be safe, free to go back to wherever she’d come from. But then he’d be left to go back to the mill where Calvin was waiting. He knew Marcy was right, that Calvin wouldn’t just allow her to walk away. He was afraid of Calvin. But he was even more afraid of losing Marcy. The two of them could find a way so that they could be together.
The boy was quiet on the drive back to the mill, and so was Marcy. Finally, he took the handbill from his pocket and studied it. Marcy pretended not to notice the paper.
“This changes things,” the boy said.
“Changes what?”
“That farmer back there in town gave me this. This is you. He was your daddy. Whatever you did to him, whatever made you think you couldn’t go back, you were wrong about him. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be out searching the country for you.”
Marcy pulled the truck to the side of the road and took the paper from the boy. She read it several times before she spoke.
“I stole his truck and twenty dollars,” she said. “It was Calvin’s idea. He told me if I went back they’d throw me in jail.”
“Now you know better. We could just turn around.”
“There’s still Calvin. You seen him. You think he’d just let me go? You think he’d not bother you or your daddy?”
“Nobody’s looking for Calvin,” the boy said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that if he vanished from the face of the earth, no one would miss him. If he was to fall and hit his head on a rock stumbling through the woods, no one would mourn his passing. It’d be better than he deserved. I could make him just disappear.”
Before, when he talked about her leaving Calvin, it was just ignorance and fear, and he gave her no reason to trust him. She knew not to listen, for her sake as well as his own protection. Now, things were different. He knew full well what kind of man Calvin was, knew what danger he could be. He knew the truth about her. Killing was a sin, no matter what. But was it worse than keeping her from her tormented father? Was it worse than keeping him from Marcy?
“You can’t do it, Speck,” the girl said. “You’d be doing it for me, and I ain’t worth it.”
“To me you are.”
“But I wouldn’t be if I let you do this. I’m no older than you are, but I’ve seen enough to know that no one just disappears. The past don’t give up easy, no matter how far away you get from it. You think your daddy’d just let you walk away?”
“You could stay here. Without him here, you could stay.”
“I have to go back, Speck. And you have to stay.”
There was no sign of the sawyer or Calvin when Marcy and Speck pulled into the clearing.
“Quick,” Marcy said. “I’ll get my things, and then you can drive me back to town.”
Speck had grabbed the ax from the side of the building and was standing watch outside the shack when he heard the tractor engine start up and looked over to see Calvin move in place to hoist a pine log onto the carriage. When he glanced up and saw the truck, Calvin dropped the timber and headed directly for the shack. Before Marcy could get the suitcase back under the bed and hide the handbill, Calvin was at the door.
“Where’s my father?” Speck said.
“Mr. Talley is up in the woods cutting timber. But my question is where the two of you have been, and what’s that you’ve got there, darling?”
Calvin ripped the paper from her hands, read the handbill carefully, and smiled. “Well, well, now. This is quite a little bit of news, ain’t it?”
Speck could see the wheels spinning in Calvin’s head.
“Looks like the cat’s out of the bag,” Calvin said. “Looks like somebody needs you more than I do. Reward and everything. Hoo haw. Well, sweetheart, I tell you what, I’ve never been one to stand in the way of family harmony. I think what this means is our time together is come to an end. It’ll pain me to part with you, it really will, but you’re worth more in leaving me than in staying. I think I’ll just borrow this young man’s truck here and the two of us can go and find Mr. C.W. Whitt and see about that reward.”
“I’ll not go another step with you,” Marcy said.
“Oh, I think you will. I don’t see how you or anyone else’s going to stop me.” He grabbed Marcy by the arm and pulled her outside.
Speck followed them. He raised the ax, and Calvin released Marcy, but he advanced toward the boy.
“Get inside,” Speck told Marcy. But Marcy followed as Speck began backing toward the saw.
“So this is how it is!” Calvin said. He had to shout over the roar of the tractor. “You think you can take what’s mine, boy?”
He careened around the saw and had to lean on the carriage frame for balance, but Speck stood his ground, and when Calvin came close the boy swung the ax wildly. Calvin leaned away, and the blade stuck deep into the log on the saw carriage. While Speck struggled to pull the ax free, Calvin steadied himself and pounced. He grabbed a handful of the boy’s yellow hair.
“You’ll pay now,” he growled. He let loose of the boy’s hair and stood catching his breath as if he was plotting just how to resolve things. The boy crouched by the side of the
Speck looked up just in time to see Calvin’s arm come swinging around at his head. He didn’t try to duck away; instead, he lowered his head and threw his weight against Calvin. Calvin’s feet gave way and he reached out blindly for someth
ing to catch him from falling.
The sound of the man’s hand crushed in the mill’s flywheel was no more violent than the snap of a pine bough. The sound Calvin made, though, was long and loud and anguished. After a moment of struggle to withdraw his hand, he dropped to his knees and then slumped against the carriage frame. Blood ran back down his wrist and arm and then into the sawdust.
His arm was drawn up into the machinery of the saw well past his wrist. He was moaning in pain. The boy went over and shut off the tractor. Marcy had reached the saw, where she watched blankly as Calvin’s eyes rolled back and his head dropped. His face had been red with rage a few seconds earlier. Now it was the color of weathered lumber.
“Do something,” Marcy said.
“He deserves it,” Speck said.
“He’ll die, bleeding like that.”
“What do you want me to do? He’s caught in the gears. I don’t think I can take it apart. There’s no time to go get help. We’ll have to take him into town. But he’s going to have to go without that hand. You decide. I’ll do whatever you say, but you tell me what to do.”
Marcy looked at Calvin, still slumped against the machine. “You can’t ask me to decide,” she said.
“You can leave him and we can go for help, or we can get him loose and take him into town. I’ll do whichever you say.”
“How’re going to get him loose?”
Speck pulled the ax from the log and showed it to the girl.
She breathed slowly, watching the blood run down Calvin’s arm and drip off his elbow into a pool beneath him. She held her head up. “Cut it off,” she said.
Speck didn’t hesitate. He raised the ax and brought it down. The first blow struck just above the man’s wrist and produced a dull sound followed by Calvin’s piercing shriek. The second one sounded only of metal and bone. Calvin made not a whimper.
They wrapped the ragged wrist in one of Calvin’s white shirts, and Speck tied a piece of twine high up on the wounded man’s arm to keep him from losing any more blood. He and the girl dragged Calvin to the truck and loaded him onto the bed.
“Get in,” Speck told the girl.
Miami Noir Page 7
