Harlan Coben

by The Best American Mystery Stories 2011

  “Deel likes sweet potatoes,” Mary Lou said.

  Deel turned. She stood in the doorway drying her hands on a dish towel. She said, “That ought to be a good idea, Deel. Goin’ huntin’. I wouldn’t mind learnin’ how to cook up a possum right. You and Tom ought to go, like the old days.”

  “I ain’t had no sweet potatoes in years,” Deel said.

  “All the more reason,” Tom said.

  The boy said, “I want to go.”

  “That’d be all right,” Tom said, “but you know, I think this time I’d like for just me and Deel to go. When I was a kid, he taught me about them woods, and I’d like to go with him, for old time’s sake. That all right with you, Winston?”

  Winston didn’t act like it was all right, but he said, “I guess.”

  That night Deel lay beside Mary Lou and said, “I like Tom, but I was thinkin’ maybe we could somehow get it so he don’t come around so much.”

  “Oh?”

  “I know Winston looks up to him, and I don’t mind that, but I need to get to know Winston again … Hell, I didn’t ever know him. And I need to get to know you … I owe you some time, Mary Lou. The right kind of time.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, Deel. The right kind of time?”

  Deel thought for a while, tried to find the right phrasing. He knew what he felt, but saying it was a different matter. “I know you ended up with me because I seemed better than some was askin’. Turned out I wasn’t quite the catch you thought. But we got to find what we need, Mary Lou.”

  “What we need?”

  “Love. We ain’t never found love.” She lay silent.

  “I just think,” Deel said, “we ought to have our own time together before we start havin’ Tom around so much. You understand what I’m sayin’, right?”

  “I guess so.”

  “I don’t even feel like I’m proper home yet. I ain’t been to town or told nobody I’m back.”

  “Who you missin’?”

  Deel thought about that for a long time. “Ain’t nobody but you and Winston that I missed, but I need to get some things back to normal … I need to make connections so I can set up some credit at the store, maybe some farm trade for things we need next year. But mostly I just want to be here with you so we can talk. You and Tom talk a lot. I wish we could talk like that. We need to learn how to talk.”

  “Tom’s easy to talk to. He’s a talker. He can talk about anything and make it seem like somethin’, but when he’s through, he ain’t said nothin’…You never was a talker before, Deel, so why now?”

  “I want to hear what you got to say, and I want you to hear what I got to say, even if we ain’t talkin’ about nothin’ but seed catalogs or pass the beans, or I need some more firewood or stop snoring. Most anything that’s got normal about it. So, thing is, I don’t want Tom around so much. I want us to have some time with just you and me and Winston, that’s all I’m sayin’.”

  Deel felt the bed move. He turned to look, and in the dark he saw that Mary Lou was pulling her gown up above her breasts. Her pubic hair looked thick in the dark and her breasts were full and round and inviting.

  She said, “Maybe tonight we could get started on knowing each other better.”

  His mouth was dry. All he could say was, “All right.”

  His hands trembled as he unbuttoned his union suit at the crotch and she spread her legs and he climbed on top of her. It only took a moment before he exploded.

  “Oh, God,” he said, and collapsed on her, trying to support his weight on his elbows.

  “How was that?” she said. “I feel all right?”

  “Fine, but I got done too quick. Oh, girl, it’s been so long. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s all right. It don’t mean nothin’.” She patted him stiffly on the back and then twisted a little so that he’d know she wanted him off her.

  “I could do better,” he said.

  “Tomorrow night.”

  “Me and Tom, we’re huntin’ tomorrow night. He’s bringin’ a dog, and we’re gettin’ a possum.”

  “That’s right … Night after.”

  “All right, then,” Deel said. “All right, then.”

  He lay back on the bed and buttoned himself up and tried to decide if he felt better or worse. There had been relief, but no fire. She might as well have been a hole in the mattress.

  Tom brought a bitch dog with him and a .2 2 rifle and a croaker sack. Deel gathered up his double barrel from out of the closet and took it out of its leather sheath coated in oil and found it to be in very good condition. He took it and a sling bag of shells outside. The shells were old, but he had no cause to doubt their ability. They had been stored along with the gun, dry and contained.

  The sky was clear and the stars were out and the moon looked like a carved chunk of fresh lye soap, but it was bright, so bright you could see the ground clearly. The boy was in bed, and Deel and Tom and Mary Lou stood out in front of the house and looked at the night.

  Mary Lou said to Tom, “You watch after him, Tom.”

  “I will,” Tom said.

  “Make sure he’s taken care of,” she said.

  “I’ll take care of him.”

  Deel and Tom had just started walking toward the woods when they were distracted by a shadow. An owl came diving down toward the field. They saw the bird scoop up a fat mouse and fly away with it. The dog chased the owl’s shadow as it cruised along the ground.

  As they watched the owl climb into the bright sky and fly toward the woods, Tom said, “Ain’t nothin’ certain in life, is it?”

  “Especially if you’re a mouse,” Deel said.

  “Life can be cruel,” Tom said.

  “Wasn’t no cruelty in that,” Deel said. “That was survival. The owl was hungry. Men ain’t like that. They ain’t like other things, ‘cept maybe ants.”

  “Ants?”

  “Ants and man make war ‘cause they can. Man makes all kinds of proclamations and speeches and gives reasons and such, but at the bottom of it, we just do it ‘cause we want to and can.”

  “That’s a hard way to talk,” Tom said.

  “Man ain’t happy till he kills everything in his path and cuts down everything that grows. He sees something wild and beautiful and wants to hold it down and stab it, punish it ‘cause it’s wild. Beauty draws him to it, and then he kills it.”

  “Deel, you got some strange thinkin’,” Tom said.

  “Reckon I do.”

  “We’re gonna kill so as to have somethin’ to eat, but unlike the owl, we ain’t eatin’ no mouse. We’re having us a big fat possum and we’re gonna cook it with sweet potatoes.”

  They watched as the dog ran on ahead of them, into the dark line of the trees.

  When they got to the edge of the woods the shadows of the trees fell over them, and then they were inside the woods, and it was dark in places with gaps of light where the limbs were thin. They moved toward the gaps and found a trail and walked down it. As they went, the light faded, and Deel looked up. A dark cloud had blown in.

  Tom said, “Hell, looks like it’s gonna rain. That came out of nowhere.”

  “It’s a runnin’ rain,” Deel said. “It’ll blow in and spit water and blow out before you can find a place to get dry.”

  “Think so?”

  “Yeah. I seen rain aplenty, and one comes up like this, it’s traveling through. That cloud will cry its eyes out and move on, promise you. It ain’t even got no lightnin’ with it.”

  As if in response to Deel’s words it began to rain. No lightning and no thunder, but the wind picked up and the rain was thick and cold.

  “I know a good place ahead,” Tom said. “We can get under a tree there, and there’s a log to sit on. I even killed a couple possums there.”

  They found the log under the tree, sat down, and waited. The tree was an oak, and it was old and big and had broad limbs and thick leaves that spread out like a canvas. The leaves kept Deel and Tom almost dr
y.

  “That dog’s done gone off deep in the woods,” Deel said, and laid the shotgun against the log and put his hands on his knees.

  “He gets a possum, you’ll hear him. He sounds like a trumpet.”

  Tom shifted the .2 2 across his lap and looked at Deel, who was lost in thought. “Sometimes,” Deel said, “when we was over there, it would rain, and we’d be in trenches, waiting for somethin’ to happen, and the trenches would flood with water, and there was big ole rats that would swim in it, and we was so hungry from time to time we killed them and ate them.”

  “Rats?”

  “They’re same as squirrels. They don’t taste as good, though. But a squirrel ain’t nothin’ but a tree rat.”

  “Yeah? You sure?”

  “I am.”

  Tom shifted on the log, and when he did Deel turned toward him. Tom still had the .22 lying across his lap, but when Deel looked, the barrel was raised in his direction. Deel started to say somethin’, like, “Hey, watch what you’re doin’,” but in that instant he knew what he should have known all along. Tom was going to kill him. He had always planned to kill him. From the day Mary Lou had met him in the field on horseback, they were anticipating the rattle of his dead bones. It’s why they had kept him from town. He was already thought dead, and if no one thought different, there was no crime to consider.

  “I knew and I didn’t know,” Deel said.

  “I got to, Deel. It ain’t nothin’ personal. I like you fine. You been good to me. But I got to do it. She’s worth me doin’ somethin’ like this … Ain’t no use reaching for that shotgun, I got you sighted; twenty-two ain’t much, but it’s enough.”

  “Winston,” Deel said, “he ain’t my boy, is he?”

  “No.”

  “He’s got a birthmark on his face, and I remember now when you was younger, I seen that same birthmark. I forgot but now I remember. It’s under your hair, ain’t it?”

  Tom didn’t say anything. He had scooted back on the log. This put him out from under the edge of the oak canopy, and the rain was washing over his hat and plastering his long hair to the sides of his face.

  “You was with my wife back then, when you was eighteen, and I didn’t even suspect it,” Deel said, and smiled as if he thought there was humor in it. “I figured you for a big kid and nothin’ more.”

  ‘You’re too old for her,” Tom said, sighting down the rifle. “And you didn’t never give her no real attention. I been with her mostly since you left. I just happened to be gone when you come home. Hell, Deel, I got clothes in the trunk there, and you didn’t even see ‘em. You might know the weather, but you damn sure don’t know women, and you don’t know men.”

  “I don’t want to know them, so sometimes I don’t know what I know. And men and women, they ain’t all that different … You ever killed a man, Tom?”

  “You’ll be my first.”

  Deel looked at Tom, who was looking at him along the length of the .22.

  “It ain’t no easy thing to live with, even if you don’t know the man,” Deel said. “Me, I killed plenty. They come to see me when I close my eyes. Them I actually seen die, and them I imagined died.”

  “Don’t give me no booger stories. I don’t reckon you’re gonna come see me when you’re dead. I don’t reckon that at all.”

  It had grown dark because of the rain, and Tom’s shape was just a shape. Deel couldn’t see his features.

  ” Tom—”

  The .22 barked. The bullet struck Deel in the head. He tumbled over the log and fell where there was rain in his face. He thought just before he dropped down into darkness: It’s so cool and clean.

  Deel looked over the edge of the trench where there was a slab of metal with a slot to look through. All he could see was darkness except when the lightning ripped a strip in the sky and the countryside lit up. Thunder banged so loudly he couldn’t tell the difference between it and cannon fire, which was also banging away, dropping great explosions near the breastworks and into the zigzagging trench, throwing men left and right like dolls.

  Then he saw shapes. They moved across the field like a column of ghosts. In one great run they came, closer and closer. He poked his rifle through the slot and took half-ass aim and then the command came and he fired. Machine guns began to burp. The field lit up with their constant red pops. The shapes began to fall. The faces of those in front of the rushing line brightened when the machine guns snapped, making their features devil red. When the lightning flashed they seemed to vibrate across the field. The cannons roared and thunder rumbled and the machine guns coughed and the rifles cracked and men screamed.

  Then the remainder of the Germans were across the field and over the trench ramifications and down into the trenches themselves. Hand-to-hand fighting began. Deel fought with his bayonet. He jabbed at a German soldier so small his shoulders failed to fill out his uniform. As the German hung on the thrust of Deel’s blade, clutched at the rifle barrel, flares blazed along the length of the trench, and in that moment Deel saw the soldier’s chin had bits of blond fuzz on it. The expression the kid wore was that of someone who had just realized this was not a glorious game after all.

  And then Deel coughed.

  He coughed and began to choke. He tried to lift up, but couldn’t, at first. Then he sat up and the mud dripped off him and the rain pounded him. He spat dirt from his mouth and gasped at the air. The rain washed his face clean and pushed his hair down over his forehead. He was uncertain how long he sat there in the rain, but in time the rain stopped. His head hurt. He lifted his hand to it and came away with his fingers covered in blood. He felt again, pushing his hair aside. There was a groove across his forehead. The shot hadn’t hit him solid; it had cut a path across the front of his head. He had bled a lot, but now the bleeding had stopped. The mud in the grave had filled the wound and plugged it. The shallow grave had most likely been dug earlier in the day. It had all been planned out, but the rain was unexpected. The rain made the dirt damp, and in the dark Tom had not covered him well enough. Not deep enough. Not firm enough. And his nose was free. He could breathe. The ground was soft and it couldn’t hold him. He had merely sat up and the dirt had fallen aside.

  Deel tried to pull himself out of the grave but was too weak, so he twisted in the loose dirt and lay with his face against the ground. When he was strong enough to lift his head, the rain had passed, the clouds had sailed away, and the moon was bright.

  Deel worked himself out of the grave and crawled across the ground toward the log where he and Tom had sat. His shotgun was lying behind the log where it had fallen. Tom had either forgotten the gun or didn’t care. Deel was too weak to pick it up.

  Deel managed himself onto the log and sat there, his head held down, watching the ground. As he did, a snake crawled over his boots and twisted its way into the darkness of the woods. Deel reached down and picked up the shotgun. It was damp and cold.

  He opened it and the shells popped out. He didn’t try to find them in the dark. He lifted the barrel, poked it toward the moonlight, and looked through it. Clear. No dirt in the barrels. He didn’t try to find the two shells that had popped free. He loaded two fresh ones from his ammo bag. He took a deep breath. He picked up some damp leaves and pressed them against the wound and they stuck. He stood up. He staggered toward his house, the blood-stuck leaves decorating his forehead as if he were some kind of forest god.

  It was not long before the stagger became a walk. Deel broke free of the woods and onto the path that crossed the field. With the rain gone it was bright again, and a light wind had begun to blow. The earth smelled rich, the way it had that night in France when it rained and the lightning flashed and the soldiers came and the damp smell of the earth blended with the biting smell of gunpowder and the odor of death.

  He walked until he could see the house, dark like blight in the center of the field. The house appeared extremely small then, smaller than before; it was as if all that had ever mattered to him continued to shrink
. The bitch dog came out to meet him but he ignored her. She slunk off and trotted toward the trees he had left behind.

  He came to the door, and then his foot was kicking against it. The door cracked and creaked and slammed loudly backward. Then Deel was inside, walking fast. He came to the bedroom door, and it was open. He went through. The window was up and the room was full of moonlight, so brilliant he could see clearly, and what he saw was Tom and Mary Lou lying together in mid-act, and in that moment he thought of his brief time with her and how she had let him have her so as not to talk about Tom anymore. He thought about how she had given herself to protect what she had with Tom. Something moved inside Deel and he recognized it as the core of what man was. He stared at them and they saw him and froze in action. Mary Lou said, “No,” and Tom leaped up from between her legs, all the way to his feet. Naked as nature, he stood for a moment in the middle of the bed, and then plunged through the open window like a fox down a hole. Deel raised the shotgun and fired and took out part of the windowsill, but Tom was out and away. Mary Lou screamed. She threw her legs to the side of the bed and made as if to stand, but couldn’t. Her legs were too weak. She sat back down and started yelling his name. Something called from deep inside Deel, a long call, deep and dark and certain. A bloody leaf dripped off his forehead. He raised the shotgun and fired. The shot tore into her breast and knocked her sliding across the bed, pushing the back of her head against the wall beneath the window.

  Deel stood looking at her. Her eyes were open, her mouth slightly parted. He watched her hair and the sheets turn dark.

  He broke open the shotgun and reloaded the double barrel from his ammo sack and went to the door across the way, the door to the small room that was the boy’s. He kicked it open. When he went in, the boy, wearing his nightshirt, was crawling through the window. He shot at him, but the best he might have done was riddle the bottom of his feet with pellets. Like his father, Winston was quick through a hole.

  Deel stepped briskly to the open window and looked out. The boy was crossing the moonlit field like a jackrabbit, running toward a dark stretch of woods in the direction of town. Deel climbed through the window and began to stride after the boy. And then he saw Tom. Tom was off to the right, running toward where there used to be a deep ravine and a blackberry growth. Deel went after him. He began to trot. He could imagine himself with the other soldiers crossing a field, waiting for a bullet to end it all.