by JL Bryan
“What are you looking at?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Tommy said. “Can I help?”
She looked at him for a second, catching her breath. Then she nodded.
“Okay, Tommy,” she said. “Help me find Pap-pap’s money.”
“Money?”
“He’s got a bunch of cash in here somewhere,” Mrs. Tanner said. “Now we need it.”
“Where do I look?”
“Anywhere. Start anywhere. Don’t worry about making a mess.”
“Okay.” Tommy looked around the old man’s room. Where might he hide money?
Tommy looked under the bed first. There was a tackle box and a tool box, and the implements inside each were old and rusty. He found a photo album and flipped through it, thinking that it might be a good idea to hide money behind the pictures. He didn’t find any, just a bunch of faded photographs of Pap-pap when he was younger, with people Tommy didn’t recognize.
Mrs. Tanner moved on to the closet, checking the pockets of Pap-pap’s coats and shirts.
The rattling sound of Mr. Tanner’s truck approached the house, and Mrs. Tanner straightened up. She raced back to the dresser and slammed each of the drawers.
“Get out of here!” she growled at Tommy. “Go on and get washed up.”
Tommy ran down the hall to the bathroom. He didn’t know what was coming, but for sure Mr. Tanner had a punishment in mind by now. He scrubbed his face, hands and arms. He looked at the splintery handmade cross over the sink, and he prayed for protection against Mr. Tanner.
“Where is that boy?” Mr. Tanner shouted from the front door. “I’m ready for him now. The Lord has spoken to me.”
“He’s up here,” Mrs. Tanner called.
Tommy crept out of the bathroom. Mrs. Tanner was hastily folding the clothes she’d flung into the cardboard boxes. As Mr. Tanner clomped up the stairs, Mrs. Tanner heaved the mattress back onto Pap-pap’s bed and slid it into place.
Mr. Tanner paused at the front of the upstairs hall, his boots and jeans spattered in mud, his cowboy hat tipped back to reveal his angry face. His boots thudded on the boards as he approached. He glared at Tommy, who cringed by the door to Pap-pap’s room, and then at Mrs. Tanner kneeling on the bedroom floor, folding clothes.
“What are you doing alone with him, Courtney?” Mr. Tanner asked. “What were you two getting up to?”
“Nothing, Mr. Tanner,” Mrs. Tanner said.
“Why are you in Pap-pap’s room?”
“I was just neatening up. Getting things squared away.”
“And who told you to do that?”
“You always want me to do things without you telling me,” Mrs. Tanner.
“This ain’t one of them,” Mr. Tanner said. “Put it back just like it was.”
“But— ” Mrs. Tanner said.
“Like it was!” Mr. Tanner grabbed Tommy by the sleeve and pulled him down the hall towards the stairs. Tommy stumbled along and fought to keep his balance. “And you got to come to church with me. You got to pray.”
Tommy didn’t want to go to church, but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t want a whupping.
Mr. Tanner took him downstairs and out the back door of the house, past the stables, and out past the goat pen.
“They say it was just a heart attack,” Mr. Tanner said. “Well, the Devil covers his cloven tracks, don’t he? I said don’t he, boy?”
“I guess so.”
“What’s that?”
“I don’t know, sir,” Tommy said.
“I knew something was wrong with you,” Mr. Tanner said. “From the day you got here. Right from your baptism. I told my wife, that one’s been touched by Satan himself.”
Tommy didn’t say anything.
Mr. Tanner had left the local church after getting into a dispute with the pastor. In fact, he’d gotten into disputes with every pastor and preacher in the county, often by standing up in the middle of a Sunday sermon and shouting fiery criticism about the church, its leadership, and its interpretation of the Bible. Mr. Tanner had his own peculiar religious ideas, which nobody else seemed to care about, at least not when he was screaming them in the middle of their church.
Since he couldn’t find a church to his liking, he’d cleaned out the ancient gray barn near the back of the property. Beyond it were the corpses of even older buildings that had collapsed long ago, blown over by the prairie winds and left to rot, their wood gone dry and brittle like bones in the sun. The gray barn itself was too decrepit for any working use, but Mr. Tanner had nailed a cross on top of it and held service for his wife and foster children there each Sunday. Sometimes other days, too, as the mood struck him.
Mr. Tanner pulled open the creaky barn door and waited for Tommy to step inside.
The inside of the barn church was already lit by a few candles. The rough, handmade benches faced towards the front of the church, where a big cross of nailed-together willow limbs hung on the wall.
Under the cross was the wooden platform Mr. Tanner had built from two-by-fours. Beside that was another platform, which held the baptismal pool, which was really just a dirty old bathtub.
Like each of Mr. Tanner’s foster children, Tommy had to be baptized within a day or two after he arrived. This involved the whole family coming out to the church, and some prayers by Mr. Tanner. Then you had to take off all your clothes and get in that cold water while Mr. Tanner dunked you again and again, saying he was casting out your devils and putting God inside you.
Tonight, Luke, Jeb and Isaiah were already here, dirty from working in the pasture. Luke held a length of rope and smiled at Tommy, while the two other boys glared. Tommy wondered if he had to be baptized over again. But Mrs. Tanner wasn’t here, and she never missed anything at church.
“Luke, the rope,” Mr. Tanner said.
Luke nodded. He threaded the rope through an iron eyehole mounted in the wall above the willow cross. Then he grimaced as he bound Tommy’s hands together.
“What’s going on?” Tommy whispered, but nobody answered him.
Luke pulled the rope taut, raising Tommy’s hands in front of him.
“Jeb,” Mr. Tanner said.
Jeb stepped up to Tommy and unbuckled his belt. He pushed Tommy’s pants down, leaving Tommy shaking in his underwear in front of everybody, embarrassed and terrified.
“Kneel,” Mr. Tanner said. “Kneel before God. And beg for His mercy.”
Tommy knelt on the dirt floor of the church. It was hard because his bound hands were stretched in front of him. Luke pulled on the rope, raising Tommy’s hands even higher above his head, and then he tied the rope to one of the wooden posts holding up the barn roof.
Behind him, he heard Mr. Tanner unbuckle his belt.
“Say you’re sorry,” Mr. Tanner said.
“I’m sorry,” Tommy whispered. The leather belt cracked across his backside, and Tommy yelped in pain. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”
Mr. Tanner kept whipping him. Tommy cried and repeated how sorry he was.
“Now stay there and pray,” Mr. Tanner said. “Pray for the Devil to get out of you. Or I’ll have to exorcise him myself.”
Mr. Tanner and the boys left.
Tommy knelt in the dirt and cried, his arms stretched taut above his head. They were already starting to ache.
They left Tommy alone in the church all night, shivering with cold and pain.
Chapter Three
Pap-pap’s body came back the next day. Tommy, who had been untied so he could attempt to do his morning chores with his weak and aching arms, watched Mr. Tanner, Luke, and Jeb unload the cheap pine casket from the back of Mr. Tanner’s truck. They carried it into the gray barn-church. Mr. Tanner was going to conduct the funeral the next day, and then they would bury Pap-pap in the yard next to the church.
Tommy went to bed before supper. He hadn’t gotten much work done, either, but nobody harassed him about it. They all acted like Tommy didn’t exist.
After going to bed so early, Tommy wok
e just after midnight, when he heard a floorboard squeak in the hall. Then another one. Someone was trying to sneak down the hall. Tommy could tell because he’d done it so many times, trying to go to the bathroom without waking anyone. Tommy loved the deep hours of the night, when he was the only one awake.
He looked at the other bed. In the moonlight, he could see all three boys were there. And Mr. Tanner wouldn’t be tiptoeing around, he’d be clomping and banging as always. So it had to be Mrs. Tanner. Or a burglar. Or a monster.
Tommy lay very still and listened. He heard the squeak on the third stair, then the seventh stair. It was someone leaving, not someone coming. It had to be Mrs. Tanner.
He slipped out of bed and walked to the room’s one small window, which looked out on the weed-and-dirt front yard. He watched Mrs. Tanner step down off the front porch and pull on a pair of boots.
A station wagon trundled up the front drive. Mrs. Tanner raced toward it, waving her arms. She leaned in at the driver’s side, and the driver immediately turned out the headlights.
Mrs. Tanner climbed into the back seat of the station wagon.
Tommy watched it drive along the rutted dirt track, towards the stables and barns, then around the corner of the house and out of sight.
Tommy pulled on a shirt and picked up his shoes. He followed after Mrs. Tanner, avoiding the squeaky spots in the hall, and the third and seventh step. She’d left the front door slightly ajar, so he did, too.
Tommy walked in the direction they’d gone, keeping himself to the shadows of the farm buildings as much as he could. The moon was bright overhead, leaving too little darkness.
The station wagon was parked next to the stable, with nobody inside. A crucifix hung from the rearview mirror. Tommy tracked them up to the church, where the barn door stood half open. Tommy circled around the barn, picked one of the knotholes on the side, and looked through.
Mrs. Tanner stood next to the pine casket, which was elevated on a pair of sawhorses. There were two other people with her. One was a very heavyset Mexican-looking woman in a loud dress, with bright scarves nested around her throat. She was shaking her head while Mrs. Tanner talked in a low voice.
The other person was the most beautiful girl Tommy had ever seen. She had deep, rich brown eyes and braided black hair, with skin that reminded him of butterscotch. She was about a year or two older than Tommy, dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt with a glittering butterfly on the front. She was chewing a giant pink wad of bubble gum.
“You bring us here, all the way out here,” the older lady was saying to Mrs. Tanner, “All this sneaking around, and you have only twenty dollars for pay?”
“There’s more,” Mrs. Tanner whispered. “A lot more. The old man told me. I just need to find out where. Then I can pay your fee.”
“What if he don’t really have the money?”
“He bragged about it. He said his son—my husband—had no idea. I need that money.”
“You going to keep for yourself?” the lady asked. “No telling you husband?”
“That’s between us,” Mrs. Tanner said. “I wiped this old man’s ass for the last four years. I want to get paid.”
The hefty lady sighed and eased herself down onto one of Mr. Tanner’s homemade pews. She spoke in Spanish to the younger girl. The girl blew a big pink bubble and shrugged.
“How much money?” the older Mexican lady asked.
“Lots,” Mrs. Tanner said. “Ten, fifteen thousand.”
“You pay one thousand,” the lady said.
“That’s too much!” Mrs. Tanner said.
“Maybe you find the dead man’s money yourself. Come on, Esmeralda. This lady is crazy.”
The girl shrugged and started for the open door.
“Wait!” Mrs. Tanner said. “Wait. Okay. If you can really do what they say, and you find the money, I’ll pay you a…a thousand dollars.” She almost choked on the words.
“Good.” The hefty lady pushed herself to her feet and approached the casket. “Open,” she said.
Mrs. Tanner took a deep breath. She lifted the lid of the cheap coffin and slid it to one side. The big lady looked inside the casket and curled her nose.
“How long?”
“About two days now,” Mrs. Tanner said.
“Is ripe.” She waved a hand in front of her face.
“Well, that happens,” Mrs. Tanner said. “Mr. Tanner doesn’t believe in embalming.”
The hefty lady sighed. “Esmeralda.”
The girl turned to face them, and she pouted. She said something in Spanish. Tommy couldn’t follow it, but from her tone and expression, she was obviously complaining.
The older lady—the girl’s mother, Tommy was guessing—snapped at her. The girl sighed and trudged over to the casket. She pinched her nose with one hand. Then she reached her other hand into the casket.
The girl closed her eyes.
“Wait,” Mrs. Tanner said. “She is the one who—?”
“Sh!” the lady snapped. “Silencio.”
Mrs. Tanner looked increasingly uncomfortable as the quiet minutes dragged on. She looked back and forth between the woman and the girl. She started clearing her throat every few seconds.
“Si, si,” the girl whispered. “I can hear him now. Questions?”
“The money,” Mrs. Tanner said. “Where did he hide the money?”
“The money…” The girl scrunched her eyes. She licked her lips. Tommy was already developing a serious crush on her.
“This isn’t working—” Mrs. Tanner said, but the lady cut her off with a glare.
“Yes, he hid the money,” the girl called Esmeralda said. “It’s in his duffle bag. From the Army.”
“And where is that?” Mrs. Tanner said.
“In the trunk of his car,” Esmeralda said. “In the barn. Not this barn, the one over there.” She pointed in the direction of the newer barns. “His car under a sheet. He used to fantasize about jumping in the car and driving away. With his money in the trunk. He dreamed he would escape.”
Tommy eased back from the barn. When he felt he was far enough away, he turned and ran.
Pap-pap’s old Buick was parked inside the same barn where Mr. Tanner kept the horse trailer. Tommy lifted the mildewed canvas sheet and pushed it back, revealing the Buick’s trunk. The car was a rusted heap, at least forty years old. It had been years since the car had its last chance of ever running again.
It was locked, and Tommy couldn’t find a way to open the trunk. He might be able to pry it open with a crow bar, but that would make a lot of noise.
“God damn,” Tommy whispered. He would have to go back into the house, up to Pap-pap’s room, find the car keys. All without making a sound, all before Mrs. Tanner and the others came from the church to check the car.
Tommy pulled the canvas back into place. He ran back towards the house, where he eased the front door open and left it ajar.
In Pap-pap’s room, he found the car keys next to the scum-filled denture jar. No one had bothered taking Pap-pap’s dentures out of them in over a year.
Tommy went out the back door, figuring Mrs. Tanner would soon be returning through the front, in search of the Buick keys.
Tommy jogged back toward the barn, but he heard a voice from inside. He ducked low against the building and listened.
“—can’t get this fucking thing open,” Mrs. Tanner grunted. “Christ. The keys are up in the house.”
Mrs. Tanner stepped out and Tommy hid himself around the corner. He held his breath. He forced himself to count to ten before peeking around. Mrs. Tanner had walked out of sight. The barn was silent.
Tommy ran into the barn. She’d left the canvas off the back half of the car. Tommy hurried to the locked trunk and began sorting through Pap-pap’s thick key ring.
“What are you doing?” a soft voice asked, and Tommy jumped.
It was the girl, Esmeralda. Tommy looked around, panicked, but didn’t see her mother or Mrs. Tanner.
; “Nothing.” Tommy found two keys with the Buick logo. He tried the first one.
“You have the keys,” she whispered.
“Quiet.” The first key wouldn’t slide in, so he tried the other one. There was a rusty squeal that sounded as loud as thunder to Tommy’s ears. Then he lifted the trunk lid.
A green U.S. Army duffle bag lay inside, among assorted junk.
“We have to go tell—” Esmeralda started for the barn door. Tommy caught her bare arm in his hand, and she gasped.
“Don’t tell anyone!” he hissed.
“Okay!” She shivered. She was terrified of him. His touch was probably giving her nightmares, and he felt bad about that. “Don’t hurt me, okay?” she whispered.
“Stay right there.”
“Yes, yes, yes.” She nodded. “Whatever you say.”
Tommy frowned and let go of her arm. He watched her for a second, to make sure she didn’t run or scream, but she just trembled and stared at him.
“Are you the devil?” she whispered.
“Yes,” Tommy said. He unzipped the duffle bag.
It was full of bundles of cash, each secured with a rubber band, and each bundle had a scrap of paper with an amount scrawled on it. The amounts were all in the hundreds of dollars, and he saw one or two that were over a thousand. Loose change sat at the bottom of the bag—a big handful of silver coins, plus one gold coin featuring an Indian head and an eagle on the back. “2 ½ dollars” it said, but Tommy thought it looked a lot more expensive than that. Pap-pap’s life savings.
“That is her money,” Esmeralda whispered.
“My money.” Tommy zipped the duffle bag and hoisted it over his arm. “I need it because I’m leaving.”
“Oh, no,” Esmeralda said. “My mother will kill me.”
Tommy stared at the frightened girl. He didn’t want to cause her problems.
“I don’t have much time,” he said. He closed the trunk as quietly as he could and propped the duffle bag against it. He unzipped it part of the way, then he reached inside.
“This is for you,” he whispered. He gave her one of the thousand-dollar bundles.
She gaped at it.
“Put it in your purse!” he said. “Don’t tell your mother until you’re a long way from here. Don’t give any money to the Tanners. Okay?”
