Barbed Wire Heart

by Tess Sharpe

  “You’re just gonna leave this mess behind?” Daddy asks.

  I’m almost to the shed door when I turn back to look at him. Cory’s whimpering on his knees in front of Duke, terror in every convulsion of his body. In a second, he’ll be pissing himself.

  “I’m not like you,” I tell him.

  I push the doors open, stalking out into the light and fresh air, away from the dark, away from the death, away from Daddy, back to Will.

  Shots echo from the shed, but I don’t stop.

  I keep walking. And maybe, just maybe, I’m relieved to hear them.

  There’s more of Daddy in me than I’m willing to admit.

  Forty-Four

  June 8, 12:30 a.m.

  By the time Will and I pull into the trucking yard, the late shift has left, and the next shift won’t show up for a few hours. I drive around the back, toward the far corner of the yard, where a few of Duke’s extra trucks are parked. We get out of the Chevy, and Will rests against the hood, staring out at the sky. Busy sits down at his feet, leaning against his legs, her eyes contented slits.

  I walk over and stand next to him, and he puts his arm around me, drawing me close. There’s just the barest chill in the air that’ll be gone with the rising sun, but it feels good to be next to him.

  “The keys are in the blue truck,” I tell Will. “Where’s your bike?”

  “They chased me down on 299,” Will says. “I spun out trying to avoid becoming roadkill. It’s probably still on the side of the road if they didn’t chuck it off a cliff into Nelson Creek.”

  “You sure you don’t want to go to the hospital?”

  “I’m fine,” he says. “I’ve probably got a few broken ribs, but I can deal. Bobby’s all rage and no plan, and Bennet pulls his punches.”

  “Of course he does,” I say. “Did you see Carl at all?”

  He shakes his head. “It was just the two of them. But Bobby spent a long time on the phone talking to him.”

  I’m grinding my teeth, thinking about all the ways I want to make him pay.

  “Harley,” Will says gently.

  I close my eyes. I have to ask. “Did you break? Did you tell them anything about Duke?”

  “God, no,” Will says, surprised I’d even ask. “You think I would?”

  “Bobby’s a mean son of a bitch,” I answer. “I was worried he was gonna cut you or burn you or something.”

  “Well, you rescued me,” Will says, and any other guy, I think, would resent it just a little. But he’s looking at me like he’s proud, like he loves me, like he’s grateful.

  He’s always been the bigger man.

  “You helped,” I say.

  He grins, then winces when his lip splits farther, blood gathering at the corners.

  “You need to get to Burney,” I tell him. “It might not be too late.”

  Duke could still be alive. I have to call Brooke to tell her it’s safe now.

  To ask her if he’s still breathing.

  “You should come,” Will says.

  “I can’t.”

  I need to finish what I’ve started. I have everything I need to take both Buck and Springfield down, and I need to move before they stop panicking and start thinking.

  “You still should.”

  He’s right. But too much has already gone wrong. I have to set it right.

  “Please go for me,” I say. “I want him to have some family with him.”

  “I’m not who he wants,” he says, and he says it gently. He doesn’t want to hurt me, I know that, but it pierces all the same. Because Duke wouldn’t hate me for not being there, but he would hate the reason why. “You gonna tell me what you’ve got planned next?”

  I shake my head. I walk over to my truck and grab Busy’s service vest and leash from the cab. “I need you to take Busy, too.”

  He swallows audibly because he knows what that means: Whatever I’ve got planned next, it’s too dangerous to risk her.

  I can’t put her in the crossfire. She’s done enough for me all these years. I want her with Will. With Duke. Safe.

  “Come here, girl.” I crouch down so Busy and I are eye to eye. I clip on her leash and I scratch behind her ears. She grins at me, licking my free hand. There’s dried blood all over it. I don’t know if it’s mine or Will’s.

  “Hey,” I whisper, petting her head compulsively. I want to bury my face in her side and cry. I want this to be over already.

  But it’s not, so I can’t.

  “You’re gonna go with Will, okay?” I tell her. I know she can’t understand me, but it makes me feel better.

  She whines and nudges my elbow with her nose, leaning closer to me.

  “You’re such a good girl,” I tell her, my entire face going hot and horrible at the idea of never seeing her again. “You’re the best girl. I would’ve never made it without you.”

  I force myself to stand up, clearing my throat, and meet Will’s eyes. “I need one more thing,” I say.

  And he must hear it in my voice, because his fists clench. “Harley…”

  “No, listen,” I say, the words coming out in a rush. “I made a will, at the start of the summer. It’s in my trunk upstairs. It’s all legal; a lawyer did it for me. Just make sure to do what it says, okay? Mo gets the Ruby and the lumberyard and the money to run everything. You won’t have to worry about her. And I’ve paid for Miss Lissa’s care. But the businesses, the house, the land…”

  “Don’t,” he says.

  “It’ll be yours,” I say. “If he dies and I die—”

  “Stop.” His voice cracks.

  I stop.

  He doesn’t beg me to go with him because he knows I won’t. Will’s always operated better without words. He bends, and his mouth’s on mine, and everything he can’t say is in his kiss. Before he pulls away, his silent message is spread across my lips: I understand, be safe, don’t you dare die on me.

  “I love you,” he says.

  “I love you, too,” I say. “Now go.”

  He goes. Because he loves me. Because he understands me. Because he knows it’s my fight, not his.

  I stand at the edge of the truck yard until his taillights disappear in the distance, and I know the feeling in my chest.

  It’s the feeling that comes only with the kind of goodbye that might be forever.

  I breathe in the feeling. I breathe it out.

  Then I turn, and get back to work.

  The church is small—one little steeple and neat rows of pews that have seen better days. The choir has to cram in the corner each Sunday, and when it looks like a singer’s about to fall down the steps, Pastor Evans is always saying “Just scoot over a bit more, please.”

  It’s Thursday, a bit after nine a.m., so it’s empty until eleven, when the Native Daughters of the Golden West have their meeting. I push the double doors open and walk inside.

  Every Sunday of my childhood, I was here, right across the aisle from Caroline Springfield and her boys. But I haven’t been back for a long time, not since Miss Lissa got sick and had to move to Fir Hill.

  I walk to the doorway to the sanctuary, the air thankfully a few degrees cooler than outside. A young woman with curly brown hair is standing at the pulpit, her back to me.

  I clear my throat.

  Molly Evans turns around, her blue-gray eyes widening when she sees me.

  “Harley,” she says, with a wariness I can’t blame her for.

  She owes me. And I intend to collect.

  I stay where I am, because it’s been a while since I’ve been in church and I’m not a fan of testing God in His own house.

  “Have you come to pray?” she asks.

  I look up at the cross behind her. “Not sure God would want to listen to me.”

  “He’s always listening,” Molly says.

  “He’s always watching,” I counter. “He knows what I’ve done.”

  Something flickers in her face, shuttered quickly, but I see it: concern.

&n
bsp; We have never been friends. We have a kinship, though.

  All this time, she’s kept quiet about Tripp. His father searched for him for more than two years before he started losing faith, and Molly’s held steadfast in her silence. She’s lived with the blood on her hands.

  It’s the smart thing to do, but there are times I worried that her concern for her soul would get the better of her.

  But God forgives. At least we hope.

  “If you’re not here for Him,” she says, “you must be here for me.”

  “I need your help.”

  She bites her lip, crossing her arms and looking at her feet. For a second, I wonder if she’s asking God for guidance. I wonder if He’s answering her.

  I’ve never been one for praying, even when I was little. I was brought up to believe—I think Duke felt like he owed it to Momma—but the Church of McKenna has always been my true faith. He’s made sure of that.

  “What do you need?” she asks.

  “I need the church van,” I say. “And I need you to drive it.”

  Molly relaxes just a little until she starts to spiral into the what-if. Because it sounds harmless. Until you consider who I am.

  Until you consider what I know about her.

  “Where exactly am I driving?”

  “To a house on Shasta Street.”

  “And what am I transporting?” Molly asks, because she’s no fool. She might’ve been naive once, but not anymore.

  “Do you trust me?” I ask her. And I hate to admit it, but there’s this burning in my chest, something like dread. I protected her once. Made her as safe as she could be, considering what she did.

  “Yes,” she says, and the relief is like aloe on a sunburn. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t get to know what we’re doing.”

  Her face is steely—when did that happen? It’s not like I’ve lost track of her since that night. I still saw her at church until I stopped going. But we haven’t really talked, because we had a dead body and tested faith in common, and that was about it.

  “I need to move some product,” I say.

  Her mouth presses together, her pink lips turning white. She wants to say no. She’s scared to say no.

  “It’s just taking it across town, Molly,” I say. “I can promise you it won’t be sold. Not one bit of it. No one will use it.”

  “Then what exactly are you doing with it?” she demands.

  “That’s my business,” I say. “And you’re better off not knowing.”

  She laughs, a short bark that robs the room of air with its bitterness. “That’s what you said to me last time.”

  I pause, biting at my lower lip, trying to think of what to say. If she turns me down, I’m going to have to take on a whole lot more risk than I’d like. “Do you regret last time?” I ask her.

  “I’m supposed to,” she says. It’s not an answer, and it’s not the answer.

  She’s not sorry and I’m not sorry and I doubt Brooke’s sorry, either. Molly did what she had to so she could stop Tripp, and Brooke did what she had to so she could get me there, and I did what I had to so I could keep them both out of jail.

  “But do you?”

  “No,” and it’s a confession, spoken to me instead of God, even though we’re in His house. She knows I won’t judge her. She fears He will.

  “It’s okay not to regret it.”

  “Says the criminal.”

  I shrug. “Doesn’t mean it’s not true.”

  “True and right aren’t always the same thing.”

  “I think deciding that’s His job.” I point at the ceiling. “Not ours.”

  Molly closes her eyes, pressing her hand to her mouth. “You make things so hard, Harley,” she finally says. “You are one of the scariest people I have ever met. But then you do things like taking care of the Rubies, and I know you keep the tent city by the river supplied with food, and you…just…you confuse me.”

  “It’s not that hard to understand,” I say. “I protect the Rubies because no one else will.”

  “But the sheriff—”

  “Doesn’t give a shit about domestic disputes.”

  “Then the church—”

  “Has absolutely no power. Your daddy’s harmless, Molly, but he’s not exactly fired up when it comes to taking care of women. Most men aren’t. Which is why we do what we do. Because your daddy, your people, they’ll make sad faces if they hear a woman’s being beat by her husband, but they’ll say it’s none of our business. Women come to me and Mo because they know we’ll make it our business. And I intend to keep on making it my business because I’ve got enough power to share.”

  “But there are other ways than violence,” Molly says.

  “You’re right. That’s why I’m here. By driving today, you’ll be helping me avoid a whole mess of violence.”

  Her eyebrows knit together. “I want to believe you,” she says.

  “Have a little faith,” I suggest.

  She rolls her eyes.

  “Hey, it paid off last time.”

  “You saved me,” Molly says. “It had nothing to do with faith.”

  This time, I’m the one frowning. Is that what she really thinks? It turns my stomach. It’s not the kind of credit I deserve.

  “I didn’t save you, Molly,” I say. “You saved yourself.”

  Her eyebrows knit together like that particular truth never occurred to her. “You—you got rid of him,” she protests.

  “Because you didn’t know how.” I need her to understand this. She stood on her own two feet and she took him out—because it was him or her.

  And there’s justice in that. There’s honor in it.

  “If I hadn’t come along,” I say, “or if you hadn’t called Brooke, you would’ve found a way. You’re strong. Anyone who survives something like that is strong.”

  Her eyes are wet. Her shoulders draw up. She takes a deep breath and goes over to the pulpit, grabbing a pair of keys on it. “Let’s go.”

  Forty-Five

  I’m twenty when I make Daddy let Will go.

  It takes Will almost two months to recover from the gut shot. He doesn’t have a spleen anymore, but there’s no permanent damage to his kidneys, thank God.

  I barely leave his side, and I know it’s driving him crazy, but I don’t care. I get nervous every time he’s out of my sight.

  It’s weeks before we talk about it. And even longer before I ask the question that’ll change everything.

  I wait until it’s night. Until Daddy’s fast asleep. Until it’s just me and Will, the house quiet, safe.

  I sit on the edge of his bed, petting Busy as Will reads. He reads a lot, anything he can get his hands on. I’ve never been much of a reader, but sometimes he reads out loud, and I like that.

  Tonight, though, I just lie back on the foot of the bed, my head close to Busy’s, and listen to the soft twhick of the pages turning, building up the courage.

  “What are we doing to do?”

  For a second, I think either he’s not going to answer me, or he’s going to play dumb. But then I turn to look at him. There’s a look in his eyes I’ve never seen.

  A painful kind of hope.

  “I don’t know,” he says.

  And here we are: basking in honesty, in the unknown, in a future we were always too scared to plan.

  “You have to go,” I say.

  “I can’t.”

  Not I don’t want to, but I can’t.

  I can’t leave Gran. I can’t leave town. I can’t leave you.

  I’ve heard it all before. I’ve let him convince me, every time.

  No more. Not after this.

  “Do you want to?” I ask.

  His mouth flattens and his eyes glitter. “Don’t,” he says.

  “Listen to me.” I lean over and my hand’s pressing against his stomach, where the bullets went in. “You are going to die if you stay. If you go to college—”

  “He’s never going to let me go to college.”


  “If he lets you, will you go?” I ask.

  “He won’t,” Will scoffs, like the idea’s absurd.

  Before, I would’ve thought so, too. But now?

  Now nothing will stop me. Not even Daddy.

  “I’ll make him.”

  “It won’t work, Harley,” he sighs.

  It will.

  It has to.

  I wait a while. I convince Will to send in the applications. He spends hours on his essays, and he won’t let me read them when they’re done. I wonder if they’re about getting shot, if they’re about Desi, about growing up not knowing his dad or his tribe, about what Dan did to him. I hate that there’s this endless slew of bad things heaped on him to choose from.

  I wait. Until two big envelopes come. And then I knock on the door of Daddy’s office, my heart in my throat.

  Daddy’s office is messy—Miss Lissa wasn’t even allowed in here when she was taking care of the house. The walls are painted a dark red, with buck heads mounted side by side near the window. His big oak desk takes up most of the room. There’s a picture of Momma and me in his top drawer, and sometimes I catch him looking at it.

  “You need something, honey?” he asks, looking up from his desk.

  He wears glasses now when he’s at home, when he thinks no one’s looking. It’d be sweet…if anything about him was sweet. I used to think there was, deep down.

  I’m not so sure anymore.

  I set the envelopes down on the desk in front of him without a word. He glances down. “What are these?”

  “College acceptance letters.”

  His head jerks up. “For you?” he says, and there’s that sharp, dangerous edge to his voice already.

  I shake my head. “For Will. He’s done here.”

  Daddy’s still looking down at the envelopes. “And why isn’t he here in my office talking to me if he wants to go so bad?”

  My eyes narrow. We both know Will wants to go, he’s always wanted to, but we—me—my fucking existence in his life made it too hard.

  There are days I feel like I’m poison, the kind that kills you slowly.

  “He’s done,” I repeat.

  Daddy leans back in his chair, running a hand through his beard. “You don’t give the orders around here, Harley Jean. You are not the head of this family.”