by Jane Bradley
“West. How the fuck’s a dumb-ass like you know east from west?”
“ ’Cause the sun was in my eyes. I couldn’t hardly see where I was going, and I had to keep going ’cause I was leading the way.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where the fuck were you going if you were leading the way?”
“I didn’t know for sure. I just knew there were these abandoned farms out there. There used to be a trailer out there. That’s where I used to go when I bought my weed. Then I went one day and they were gone. I didn’t know if they got busted or just moved off.”
“Okay, abandoned farms. Someone used to sell weed in a trailer. You have any idea how many empty farms and trailers there are out there? I need numbers, routes, street names!”
“I told you I don’t know.” The detective glared into his eyes as if he could pull a number out of them if he stared hard enough. Mike thought about that night. “I saw a field of blown-down trees. Like a whole bunch of trees had just been blown over, like dominoes. Must have been a storm. Something blew down all those trees. I remember driving past that.”
“On your right or left?” the lady said.
“What?”
“The blown-down trees, were they on your right or left when you were driving?”
Mike thought a minute. “On my right.”
The chick nodded and wrote something down.
The detective sighed. He shook the back of Mike’s chair. “You got any idea how many fields of blown-down trees we have around here? This is hurricane country, you shit.”
“I’m just saying what I saw.” He wouldn’t say he was stoned and he didn’t know where the hell he was. He didn’t say he was so scared of pissing Jesse off that he just kept driving, hoping some good spot would turn up. “I’m just saying I drove past those blown-down trees for a little way. Then I turned down a little dirt road, a road I didn’t know.”
“Right or left?”
“I don’t know. I thought I was supposed to turn right, but nothing looked familiar, so I thought maybe I took the wrong right. Or maybe I took a left. I was trying to get to that road that had the trailer, but maybe they moved the trailer. Nothing was looking right to me. And then I got on this road, and I thought it would take us somewhere, and we kept going in circles. I kept driving, looking for a way out of the circle, and I just kept coming back to the same clump of trees.”
“How the fuck do you know one clump of trees from another clump of trees?”
Mike closed his eyes, worked to see it. “This one, it had some old tire near it. Some old tire leaning against a tree. And there was this purple stuff growing in the field.”
“Purple stuff?”
“Like weeds maybe. It didn’t look planted, looked more like a clump of weeds. I’d drive forward, think I was going somewhere, but I’d keep circling back to this clump of trees.”
“A circle road,” the detective said. “You were fucking fucked up, weren’t you? They don’t have circle roads in fucking farm country. It’s always left or right on those farm roads.”
“I know,” Mike said. “And yeah, I was fucked up. Just a little bit stoned, and when you’re high anything can look like anything. So I was lost, and I knew Jesse was getting more pissed off every minute, so when I saw this little gap between the trees, I took it. I thought it might lead to some other road, and it was another little road. A road so fucked up and old you could barely get through it, but it was a road, and it led to a field. When we were leaving, I saw a little brick house back up behind a line of trees.”
The detective looked at the floor, sighed. Mike hoped he was a little pleased with something he’d said. Then he jerked up, got in Mike’s face. “A lot of fucking roads lead to fields in farmland. And little brick houses everywhere.” He stood, and Mike braced for a hit to the back of the head just the way he did whenever Jesse made a sudden move.
But the room stayed still. The detective settled back in his chair. The guard stood, his face blank. And the chick and the sheriff were texting on their cell phones.
“I’m sorry,” Mike said.
“I know you’re sorry,” the detective said. “Sorry as hell.”
Hell, he thought. His granny was always praying he wouldn’t go to hell. And he let her go on praying because that gave her some kind of comfort. He never told her that he didn’t believe in a heaven or a hell. He thought we died and that was it, like a candle burned out. Or maybe it was like they showed in the movies; spirits just hung around because for some reason or another they didn’t want to leave this world. He thought about the blue-truck lady. Katy. He knew she was still hanging around. He could still feel her sometimes, her hand on his arm, saying, “You need to know my name.” Mike looked up at the detective. “Tell her momma I’m sorry. Tell her I’d do anything in the world to change what happened that day.”
The woman across the room straightened in her chair. Mike thought she might jump up and come at him again, but she just said, “That’s not good enough, saying you’d like to go back and change a thing. That’s just some lie you say to comfort yourself because you know damn well nobody gets to go back and change a thing.” She stood, and the sheriff stood with her. She glanced at the sheriff, then gave a quick look to Mike as if she could barely stand the sight of him. “I’ve had enough,” she said. “I’ve got all I need.”
She turned toward the door, and everybody jumped up fast to let her out all quick and easy, as if she were the boss, as if she were the woman really calling the shots here. Mike watched until he saw the back of her head go out the door, the sheriff following, nobody looking back. Then the door was shut, and the detective leaned close into him. “Think you’ve had enough?” he said.
“Yeah.”
The detective grinned, punched his arm just the way Jesse did. “Well, I’m just getting started here. There’s something I think you left out. Like how was it, looking at the dead girl in a field, leaving her there, and getting back in your car? How was it to park her truck with a tank full of gas on a road that led to that poor dead girl’s favorite place to be? How was it to know what your screwdriver, or maybe it was your granny’s screwdriver, what it did to the dead girl? My guess is it was your granny’s screwdriver because we all know you don’t really have a damn thing she didn’t give you.”
Mike was thinking how it was his granny’s screwdriver—he’d taken it from her junk drawer to keep in his car. But he wouldn’t say that. He just let the detective keep on going because there was no other choice.
“How was it to drive to your granny’s house and eat the last of her fried chicken, make an egg sandwich for that son of a bitch? How was it to mooch all you could from your granny’s kitchen while you were thinking she was too deaf, too stupid to know a thing about what was going on in her house? She knew you two fucks were up to no good, but she didn’t say anything because the poor old thing loved her Mikey, didn’t she? She had no idea of the truth of what her little Mikey could do. She thought her little Mikey was really a good boy, thought he’d just been led down the wrong path by some hoodlum. That’s what she called him, ‘some hoodlum.’ She couldn’t dream up what kind of monster he could be. She didn’t say he was the devil like you keep saying he is.” The detective punched him again, as if he needed to punch to get Mike’s attention. “If he is the devil, Mikey boy, if he really is the devil, then my guess is he ain’t done with you yet. You never gonna be free from the reach of Jesse Hollowfield. That is, if he is the devil like you believe.” He sat smiling. Then he looked up at the guard. “You believe this shit?”
He turned, kicked Mike’s chair. “I told you, I’m just getting started. You tell me what it was like to be Mike Carter the day you left that girl to rot in the ground.”
Mike looked at his hands, the skin around the nails all cracked and dry, his nails filthy, and his wrists scraped from where they liked to yank the cuffs too tight. He knew he’d never be free of Jesse, knew it just the way
he felt Katy Connor right there beside him at times. There would always be Jesse, laughing, sneering, punching at him any way a spirit could. Jesse would be saying, I might be gone from this world of yours, but I’m here, you little snitch, you ain’t ever gonna get loose of me. And there would always be that lady, tears in her eyes, saying something about how it felt like a dream. He wished it was a dream. He wished he could forget her touch on his arm, but the memory wasn’t in his mind, it was there in his skin. He could cut the arm off and he’d still feel her always. Mike put his head down on the table. He wanted his granny. He wanted anybody to say any kind word. He hadn’t heard a gentle word from anybody since that day he’d seen his granny wailing, making that screaming sound only some dying thing can make while she crumpled, fell to the floor.
The detective punched his arm. “Told you, I’m just getting started here.” It might as well have been Jesse sitting there beside him, and it would be just the way it was with Jesse. He’d have to give the man whatever he wanted; he’d have to say the words he wanted, the words that would keep Mike sitting there, reliving it, telling every little thing he’d seen that day. He lifted his head, kept his eyes on his hands. “It all started when he spotted the lady in the blue truck. Her name was Katy. We saw Katy Connor walk into the Dollar Daze, and we waited.” He took a breath. This would take a long time. He knew he’d have to tell the story again and again. It would never be over. There would always be more Jesse Hollowfields in the world. Mike knew he’d have to take it. There was no getting out of this mean little world and into the great big world where things could be different. There was no getting out of the mean little world that had no ending, the world he and Jesse had made that day.
At Least There Are Some Mercies
Her head was here, her body there is what I would come to say when the coroner, the sheriff, when all others came to claim the remains. Her head was here, her body there, I would say, declaring a truth based on the scattering of bones, mud-caked jeans, a tuft of long, dark hair. Katy. I would like to say she passed from this world as naturally, as easily as the green slips from an oak leaf in autumn. Yes, there is a season for all things, but not this. I’d like to say she melted, as her mother came to say, melted the way snow steams in the heat of sun, sinks to the earth beneath. But broken, scattered, left to rot are the words I thought at the sight of her, the words that still bang around in my head, but I couldn’t say them, not to a mother, not to a lover, not to any of those who’d known Katy, whose smile could make anyone’s day an easier thing.
I knew I’d find her beyond that thicket of trees. Mike Carter had mentioned the field of blown-down trees, the circle road, the little brick house, the thicket. He’d called it a circle road, but Roy, he’d heard of a figure-eight road out there. So I had a good idea what I was looking for. I stood looking at the scattered remains of Katy Connor, and all I could think was I’ll have to tell her mother, but only after the coroner, the sheriff, and all the rest came to bag the remains, sift the dirt, and mark the crime scene. It wasn’t Roy’s county where I found her, so it was another sheriff I called.
When I set out that morning, I knew I’d find her, so I didn’t tell Livy my plans, didn’t tell Roy, didn’t even tell the REV crew where I was going, just told them I was taking a drive. Some things I like to keep to myself. There’s too many false leads that lift and break a mother’s heart when you’re searching, like that dog we found. I didn’t want this to be another dead-dog kind of lead. Sometimes it’s best to keep a hunch in your heart. The hunch gathers energy, doesn’t dissipate into the hopes and fears of whoever you might be telling. Sharing a hunch sometimes is like digging up the seed to see if it’s sprouting. Keep digging at things, they’ll never grow. Sometimes you just got to sit back, keep your notions to yourself, and approach the thing you want with great caution and respect that all things appear in their own time. Not yours.
I knew she was out there somewhere between the highways and the old farm road. Mike Carter had told us that much, but there were miles and miles of rough country. And the dog teams had gone down enough trails for Katy; they had been shipped out to search for a kid who was missing up near Raleigh. When we’ve run through the dog teams and the search crews, sometimes the searching just comes down to me. So it was just me that day. I’d circled and crisscrossed that farmland with all the loose clues that stupid kid, who was riddled with too much fear, could give. But when you’re on a search, you’ll take most what anyone can give. When I woke that morning, it was like something called me up from sleep said, Go. When I get that calling to go or stay somewhere, I always listen, do just what that little voice inside says. When I got in my truck, my travel mug of coffee steaming, I knew where I was going, that field of blown-down trees and the figure-eight dirt road. All the clues just clicked into place. She was there. I just hadn’t seen the path they’d led her down. I’d missed it somehow, but she was there.
There wasn’t much traffic in the dawn light of a Sunday morning. So it was a smooth ride through town and up over the Cape Fear River bridge. Hardly anyone at all on the other side of that river, and then no one out there, just me and the road and the few birds riding the air and flat farmland stretching east and west. Such a beautiful world for such horrors to grow. I remembered Darly. I don’t often think of Darly, but I could feel Darly that morning, so I knew I was close. I took my exit just south of Whitwell, went back to that two-lane highway, past the field of blown-down trees and on to take the right down the dirt road that led to the figure-eight road, and I drove it, looping around and around, watching for some kind of sign of something I’d missed. It’s not like there are a lot of figure-eight roads in the Carolina farmlands, so this had to be it. I knew. So I drove three times looping around, seeing nothing but fields and distant thickets of trees until I was dumped back out on the main dirt road again. In the brightening light, I studied the map, which was pretty useless when it came to charting farm roads, roads just cleared by the farmers making easier routes to the back sides of their fields. Maps can be useless in counties where any man with a tractor can make a road. We’d studied satellite views of the whole county, had narrowed the search down to three farms.
I turned back to the figure-eight road, saw no brick house, no heaps of trash. I stopped, thought maybe Mike Carter was lying. Then I thought he’d been too scared to lie, a little guy with a baby face, his hands shaking, he was so scared. Even with Jesse Hollow-field dead and a reduced sentence on the table, Mike Carter still shook. His voice quivered when he spoke. I could see him, how he must have been that day, driving the little rusted-out Datsun over the rutted roads while Jesse and Katy followed behind. He couldn’t have seen much from where he sat low in the seat in that car that had to be scraping ruts in the road with every turn.
Then I remembered that his granny lived around here. He’d probably walked these roads, crossed this farmland countless times to and from his granny’s house before he was old enough to drive or when that beater of a car was broken down. He walked these roads, I thought, the words springing up in my head like some big discovery. So I drove back onto the figure-eight road, pulled the truck to the side, grabbed my walking stick, got out, and walked. Walking, you can see lots of things easy to miss from high up in that seat of a Durango. I walked the loop toward the heart of that figure eight, where the roads cross and either way leads you back to the same place, the heart of the eight, nowhere. While walking, I saw the cornflowers blooming by the side of the road. Queen Anne’s lace. Purple thistle. A butterfly hung on the thistle, moved slowly as if drying its wings from the morning dew. Katy, I thought. Livy had told me Katy loved butterflies, any natural thing that had a lure of magic to it. Butterflies, I thought, watching its wings moving stronger now. I stood still, the way I knew Katy would want.
Then, in a blink, the butterfly was off, darted beyond my seeing into the trees, and then I saw it: the path. To the right was a little path mostly covered in leaves. I used my stick to push the leaves back, the
n saw a parallel path. This was no path; it was a farm road, just as Mike had said, a little tractor trail off the figure-eight road. No one had come here since the old farmer had died. Kids maybe, kids like Mike Carter looking for a place to get laid, get high, get any of those many things boys want when they’re out of sight. Cops never bothered to drive down this road. There was nothing out here but a fallow farm and thickets of trees where anything could happen, unheard, unseen.
Using my stick, I pushed on down that rutted trail until I saw a clearing ahead. I stood still, looked back to where the ground was level before it dropped to this rutted path that led to the clearing. They would have parked there, I thought, behind that thicket of trees. And the clearing. They would have made her walk to the clearing. From here. I looked down at my boots in the dirt. She stood here, walked there. They wouldn’t have wanted to risk driving the car or the truck down this rutted road. He made her walk to him there in the clearing. Her last road, I thought as I headed down the path to the clearing where she must have seen him waiting, knowing it was the end and she had no choice but to walk.
I swallowed against the crying that was aching in my throat. I thought, Don’t cry, don’t cry, the way I used to comfort Darly when some boy had broken her heart. Yes, even pretty girls get broken hearts. Don’t cry, I told myself, and I wiped at the tears running down my face, knowing this was the end. Again.
I walked down the rutted road, feeling the old sadness seep up, thinking, How will I tell this story; how can I tell it and try to keep the hurt back; how will I tell the hurt? And I asked myself again, the way I always do when I find remains, Why do I choose to walk these sorrowful trails? I could have been so many other things. I stood still, taking that in, thinking, This is my calling, and no one can walk away from that. You might try, but the calling keeps calling until you go back again and do what you must do. So I stood there, looked up from the ground to the treetops, and I breathed the sweet morning smell in the air. A blue jay squawked and moved higher in a tree, and I watched as another jay swooped. Then I saw, beyond the thicket of trees, the little brick house. I was exactly where I needed to be.
