Dark River Road

by Virginia Brown

  God. A sudden lump made it impossible for him to speak. He had a fleeting memory of a hot summer evening and a tiny scrap of fur that lay in his palm, the smell of mimosa blossoms and Mama’s lavender, and how it’d felt to know something that small and helpless depended on him.

  “I’m on my way.”

  Cinda looked over at him when he stood up.

  “I need a ride to Memphis.”

  She didn’t ask any questions, just nodded.

  CHAPTER 43

  Lights were on in the Callahan house on Peabody. Mikey had taken Shadow there when he realized he was dying. For all that he was twenty years old, Mikey had no sense of reticence in showing how he felt. He was a mess. Dempsey had once said that Mikey knew how to grieve, that it was a gift. He’d been right. Chantry envied him that.

  Shadow lay in one of those big, expensive dog beds made especially for older dogs. His breathing was shallow, eyes closed, and his paws twitched a little like he was running after rabbits in his sleep.

  Miss Pat stood in a corner of the kitchen where they’d put Shadow’s bed because it was the warmest place in the house, and after giving Chantry a brief hug, went back to stand beside Miss Bettie. Mikey paced back and forth, tears wetting his cheeks; he nodded at Cinda, but didn’t speak to her. He was too gone in his grief for simple courtesies.

  “I don’t want to let him go, Chantry.” Mikey looked at him like he could do something, like he could keep Shadow from dying. Blue eyes that reminded Chantry too much of Mama were wet, bright, and Mikey sounded almost like a little kid again.

  “You’ve got to,” Chantry said, shorter than he meant to, but it was just out there. He went over to the dog bed, knelt down beside Shadow. He’d lost weight since the last time he’d seen him, the ribs sticking out in that way old dogs have sometimes, belly loose and pouchy. The injured leg with the scars still faintly visible stuck out at an odd angle. Big paws twitched, and a low moan sounded deep in Shadow’s throat, like he’d treed something in his dreams. Muzzle lips blew out softly.

  He wanted to touch him, to stroke one of the soft ears, but didn’t want to wake the old man if he was comfortable. Maybe he’d just fade away. That’d be the kindest thing. But just in case, he’d brought what was needed to ease his way. It’d be the last thing he could do for him, the kindest thing. Experience had taught him that there came a time to every living thing when it was just best to let go. And he’d had to tell people that keeping their pet alive past time to let go bordered on cruelty. Just like it did with people. Death was inevitable. There weren’t any loopholes or escape clauses. Making it easy was the ultimate act of love.

  But telling others that and doing it himself felt light years apart right now.

  Then Shadow stirred, opened his eyes and lifted his head, and looked right at him like he’d been waiting on him to come. He whined softly, his tail thumped, and Chantry saw that look in his eyes that said he knew it’d all be okay now that he was there. Chantry started to cry. He couldn’t believe it. Tears shot out like he’d been holding them back all his life, and a sob tore from his throat that came from deep in his chest. Oh God, no, oh God, he was making an ass of himself right here in his grandparents’ kitchen in front of Cinda and everybody. And he couldn’t stop it. He just couldn’t.

  Somehow he was sitting on the floor holding Shadow in his arms, stroking him the same way he’d done as a kid out there in that dog pen beside the garage, telling him that he loved him, that everything was going to be okay, that he’d take care of him. He wasn’t thirty, he was fourteen again, and he loved that dog. He loved him enough.

  He didn’t know how he did it, but somehow he got the needle loaded, found a vein, and eased Shadow from this world into the next.

  Then he went outside into the cold winter air and cried like a baby. Like he’d lost his best friend. Like he’d lost his mother . . . he cried until he threw up in the rose garden. It was the dumbest damn thing he’d ever done in his life. He’d tried to avoid emotion all these years and it’d caught up to him anyway, ambushed him when he didn’t expect it, when his defenses were down.

  Time passed; then he heard the back door open. Cinda came out, sat beside him where he’d slumped exhausted onto the chaise that’d been covered for the winter. She didn’t say anything, just sat close, sharing his grief like she’d done the day they’d buried Mama. They sat that way for a long time, and somehow it felt better just knowing that she was there.

  They stayed the night, and the next morning, he went with Mikey to leave Shadow at the vet’s until they could bury him. Mikey wasn’t sure where he wanted to bury him, a pet cemetery down near the state line maybe, but Chantry knew where he belonged.

  “Bring him home, Mikey. Back to Cane Creek. He was born there. Before he got hurt he loved to run those fields and woods.” Chantry didn’t know why he’d said what he had, only that it felt right somehow for Shadow to sleep in the rich delta earth of Sugarditch.

  Mikey looked at him. His eyes were still a little red. He nodded. “I’ll bring him this weekend. The vet said he’d keep him here until then for me.”

  Chantry didn’t say much on the drive back to Cane Creek. He thought about all the time he’d missed with Shadow, and regretted that. He’d been loved, cared for, but he felt now like he’d let him down somehow. Let himself down because he’d put distance between them. Damn, he’d been such a coward. People thought he was brave but he knew better. It hadn’t been bravery that made him do most of what he had, and he’d wasted so much precious time trying to keep from getting hurt that he’d lost more than if he’d let himself feel.

  Just like with Mama. He’d shut her out that last year. Kept her at arm’s length, not let her close to him because she might betray him again. He hadn’t stopped loving her, just stopped trusting her. Maybe that was the same thing. He’d been so stupid. And then it’d been too late. Time had run out before he could forgive her. But maybe it was really himself he’d never forgiven.

  Cinda turned off 61 Highway and onto Highway 1. They’d be home soon. He had to say what he was thinking quick or he’d run out of time and lose his nerve.

  “I’d never do anything to hurt you, Cinda.”

  “I know that.”

  “It’s always been you.”

  She slanted a look at him, and he couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Maybe it was the wrong time. But he’d started it now and wasn’t going to stop until he said what he had to say.

  “It’ll always be only you. For me, anyway.”

  Silence fell. Brown fields and withered kudzu vines flashed past. Then she nodded.

  “It’s always been just you for me, Chantry. We can get through this. We have each other to lean on. I love you.”

  Yeah. He’d hoped she’d say that. For the first time that he could remember, it felt like he might win this time. He looked at her and smiled. “I love you enough.”

  Five minutes after they got back to the carriage house, armed police busted in the door and arrested him again. It wasn’t until he’d been processed at the police station that he found out they’d discovered blood in his car. Quinton’s blood.

  Chantry began to sweat then. Someone was trying to frame him. That had to be it. There was no other explanation for that blood being in his car. Unless Donny Ray had got it there somehow when he drove him home, and he doubted that.

  Donny Ray denied taking him home, and his work buddies backed him up, said that Chantry had disappeared before ten and they thought he’d either gone home or gotten a room. So how the hell had he gotten home? Maybe he’d driven home by himself. But if he’d done that, it didn’t explain the blood in his car.

  Unless he’d had a blackout and really killed Quinton.

  That thought made him sick.

  Bud Casey showed up before Captain Gordon could really rake him over the coals. Chantry was glad to see him, and more glad to see Gordon leave the interrogation room. Bud sat down at the table across from him.

  “How’s it going,
Chantry?”

  “I’ve been better. And I could use a cigarette about now.”

  “Sorry. Smoke-free environment. Thought you’d quit anyway.”

  “I did.” Chantry looked beyond Bud to the two-way mirror. He wouldn’t put it past Gordon to break the rules and listen in, and knew he wasn’t the only one thinking that. “Maybe I should take up the habit again.”

  Bud scribbled something on a legal pad and turned it around. Did you do it?

  He looked up at him and shook his head. Bud smiled and nodded. “Had to ask.”

  For a minute, the only sound was Bud scribbling on the yellow legal pad, then he pushed it back to Chantry. He’d listed the key points against him: Quinton’s blood found in his car, an argument earlier with Quinton, a long-standing public feud that had resulted in Quinton hitting him had been televised all over the county.

  Pretty damning.

  “And in my favor?”

  Bud just looked at him. Oh great.

  “Don’t worry, Chantry, tight spots are my specialty. I always liked pulling rabbits out of hats.”

  “If you can pull this off, it’ll be a damn good magic trick, that’s for sure.”

  After a night in jail, Bud got the judge to grant him bail after the arraignment, a feat of magic that defied the prosecution’s charges he’d fled custody. A few hours and a hundred thousand dollars bail bond later, Chantry was released from police custody.

  Cinda met him outside the courthouse, and he’d never been so glad to see anyone. It was one of those unusually warm winter days, and they stood there for a minute.

  “Didn’t really need that ten thousand dollar CD anymore anyway,” Chantry said, trying a joke that went flat, and she nodded.

  Sunlight made her hair gleam. “Chris is back. He and Tansy are on their way from Tunica. They got in last night.”

  She looked tired. Faint circles smudged her eyes. He wanted to hold her but didn’t want to get too close until he’d had a shower. He smelled like the jail, that peculiar odor that permeated everything and took way too long to fade.

  Not much got said on the way home. It was still early afternoon when he unlocked his door and went inside the carriage house. It’d been tossed pretty good. Drawers open, stuff strewn around, even a few holes in the walls where they’d searched for the murder weapon. It hadn’t been found yet, but they were pretty sure it’d be some kind of skinning knife from the look of the wounds. Quinton’s body had been sent down to Jackson for a full autopsy since Cane Creek didn’t have the facilities for it. Besides, he’d been an important man and they wanted everything done meticulously. Even had a crime team sent up from the capitol to investigate. News vans clogged the streets again. He tried to remember what peace and quiet had been like, but it eluded him.

  He’d just gotten out of the shower when someone knocked at the door again. He was getting pretty damned tired of telling reporters No comment, and yanked open the door ready to give someone hell. Dempsey stood there looking at him. Behind the old man, some guy with a camera popped a few photos before he could get Dempsey in and shut the door.

  “Fuckin’ vultures,” he muttered. “Hope they didn’t bother you too much.”

  Dempsey shook his head. “Not much bothers me lately.”

  “You okay?” He looked at him more closely. Fatigue lined Dempsey’s face, and his hands shook slightly.

  “Chantry, boy . . . there’s things I got to tell you. Hard things. Wanted to see you first, since you got drug into all this mess.”

  “What’s going on?” Chantry slicked his wet hair back from his face, picked up a sweatshirt and pulled it over his head. “Is Tansy okay?”

  “She will be now.” Dempsey crossed to the couch and sat down, folding his long body into the cushions with the air of a man consumed by weariness. “Maybe I haven’t always done the right thing, but it wasn’t for lack of tryin’. Always thought the best sermons were those lived and not preached, but maybe I shoulda listened to a bit more preachin’. Life has a way of showin’ you your mistakes when you don’t expect it.”

  What had the old man tied up in knots like this? Sudden dread seized Chantry, and he went to sit down on the couch. “You’re not sick, are you?”

  Dempsey looked up at him and didn’t say anything. Jesus. A cold chill went down his back.

  “Dempsey—”

  “I can prove it wasn’t you killed Bert Quinton. Just wanted to let you know before I went down to the police station, so’s you wouldn’t worry no more about it.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “It was me that done it, Chantry. I kilt him.”

  Chantry couldn’t think of a thing to say. He just looked at Dempsey real close like he could see inside his head and know if he was telling the truth or not. But he’d never known him to lie. Not even to save someone else.

  Spreading his large hands atop his knees, Dempsey blew out a sigh and shook his head. “Didn’t mean to do it. Didn’t go there to kill him. Just wanted to make him promise he’d leave my baby girl alone. Don’ matter none who her real daddy is. She’s mine just as sure as if I planted that seed. That’s all I wanted to do. Just make him promise.”

  He could almost see the scene, Quinton already mad because of everything he’d said to him earlier, looking for an easy target to vent his anger on, and Dempsey showing up. Probably looking like he did now, angry and worried. Words coming hard from him.

  “That Sukey, she told me what old man Quinton swore he’d do,” he said after a brief silence ticked past. “I saw her at the casino, and she came over and said I’d best tell Tansy not to come back to Miss’ippi for a while, that the old man had something bad he planned to do. And then I got you involved, Chantry, and I’m real sorry about that. I never meant to. But I had to get you home, you was so drunk, rambling on ’bout things, and I didn’t want to leave you there to get in trouble. Couldn’t trust you to stay in a room, so I just drove you home in your car. Had to leave mine at the casino. I just never thought it’d turn out so bad.”

  “I know,” Chantry said when Dempsey looked at him, and tried to think of a way out of this mess for the old man. Prison would be the end of him. He couldn’t let that happen. He looked—thin. Unsteady. Like he hadn’t ever seen him look before. Dempsey had always been lean, but wiry, stronger than most. Now he looked like he could be blown over by a good gust of wind. Dempsey nodded.

  “I’m goin’ to tell Tansy what happened. Just one more burden for her to carry, and lord, that child has had her share. She’s strong though, like Julia. Never turned a hair back when I told her about Ted Quinton bein’ her real daddy. Said she didn’t care. Said she already had the best daddy. Guess I did something right after all.”

  “Yeah. You were the best daddy I ever had, too.”

  Dempsey coughed and looked away, mouth working silently for a minute, and then he looked back with a smile. “I was always proud of you, Chantry. Like you were my own flesh and blood. I’ve been mighty blessed. Mighty blessed.”

  There it was between them, that bond that had been there since he was only a kid, and he felt a fierce surge of affection for the old man.

  “Look,” he said, “don’t go to the police station until you’ve got a lawyer. Tansy’s on her way here with Chris. She’ll get you a lawyer. Maybe you can plead self-defense, or whatever, but don’t say anything yet.”

  “Son, it won’t make no difference what’s said. Judgment comes to all of us. I kilt him even though I didn’t mean to, didn’t go there for that. There’s a law of retribution, and none of us can escape that.”

  He had his own doubts about that, since he’d seen folks get away with too much, but now wasn’t the time to say it. He shook his head.

  “If you go up there alone, Gordon’ll stick you so far under the jail they’ll have to pipe in daylight. There’s no hurry. Quinton’s already dead. A few hours more won’t hurt anything. Wait for a lawyer.”

  “Time ain’t my friend right now, Chantry. I sa
w those po-lice from down in Jackson snooping around where I dumped the knife. They’ll find it. And they’ll blame you. I can’t have that.”

  “It doesn’t matter right now.”

  “It matters. Chantry, boy, I don’t have much time left. I spent today seein’ my lawyer, gettin’ things in order. Don’t want to leave Tansy with a mess. Made out my will and got everything in place.”

  He shook his head. “Even if you’re convicted, if it was self-defense, that doesn’t mean you’ll get the death penalty.”

  “I already got the death penalty. Not from the law, but from God. I got the cancer, Chantry. Known about it for a while. Just taking my time getting things done, I guess. Old man Quinton was one of the things I needed to tend to before I die. Shoulda known he wouldn’t listen to reason. He never has. Said he’d take care of Tansy good, said he knew folks that wouldn’t think twice about teachin’ her a good lesson about what happens to nigger gals that mess around with white boys. I guess I got pretty mad then.

  “Quinton took out some little ole gun that looked like no more’n a pea-shooter, but it was pretty loud. He’d got old, I guess, and his aim was off. Missed me by a mile. That’s when I got so mad I couldn’t think straight. Had a knife I’d put in my coat, the one you keep up under your car seat. Don’t know why I took it in. Maybe I knew, deep down, that it was gonna be our last face to face. When he took aim again, I stuck him. He kept trying to shoot, and I kept stickin’ him. Tough old bastard, tougher than I ever thought he was, I guess. Wasn’t ‘til he fell out on the floor and didn’t move anymore that I knew what I’d done. And I knew I hadn’t taken care of everything yet, still had stuff to finish. So I left. Never tried to run away, always knew I’d turn myself in, and then I heard you’d come back and got arrested for it. So now I’m goin’ to do what I shoulda already done.”