by J. Thorn
His father considered this. "Maybe that's true, but there ain't no excuse for not tryin'."
"You did try," Pete told him. "You looked after me pretty good. I ain't wantin' for nothin'."
A small bitter smile twisted his father's lips. "You wantin' for plenty, boy. Some of that I can't do nothin' about. Some, I reckon I could've fixed."
Pete frowned. "Well...it ain't too late, Pa. We got time."
At that, the weak smile vanished from his father's face. His eyes widened as he glanced from the bottle back to the door. "That's the trouble, son. I got a feelin' we don't."
*
He had promised himself he wouldn't scare the boy, but after a good deal of thought and a great deal of whiskey, Jack had realized there was no way around it. If the Merrill clan were coming, better Pete know, so he would at least have the chance to run. He set the now empty bottle down between his chair and the fire, and let his hands rest on the polished walnut stock of the rifle. He'd kept the weapon in pretty good shape all these years, better shape than anything else, his son included. Jack was truly sorry for that and he'd meant what he'd told the boy. There was so much else he wanted to say too before time ran out, but no matter what way he came at it, the words wouldn't come. Even now, with the hounds of hell thundering a path to their door, he couldn't tell his boy he loved him. And maybe that was because he didn't. There was no doubt that he cared for Pete, and worried after him constantly, but years of disappointment, self-loathing, and resentment for the child he secretly held accountable for the only two women he'd ever loved abandoning him, didn't allow those seeds to blossom into a full flower of adoration. In truth, he'd never wanted a kid, and had been doing just fine avoiding the whole problem until he'd met Annabelle, who been nurturing one in her womb. Even so, he'd figured he'd adapt just fine to the role of parent, even if she ended up doing most of the raising. But then she went and died on him soon as that child drew its first breath. For almost fifteen years he wallowed in self-pity and thoughts of up-and-leaving, reasoning that someone would find the kid and take him in, and to hell with whatever they thought of him for deserting it. He was no monster, and it would have been a bald-faced lie if he'd ever claimed he hadn't taken a shine to the kid. But though on paper it would always say Jack Lowell was a father, he knew in his heart he wasn't equipped to be one. Someday, he'd known, that kid would wake up and be alone. It would kill him to do it, but staying would be worse for them both.
Then he spotted Louise Daltry in town, being guided around Jo's Diner in preparation for her first day's work. Aside from waylaid vacationers, or guys from the forestry department, strangers were rare in Elkwood, so the arrival of Ms. Daltry, come all the way from Mobile and an abusive husband, was the talk of the place that whole summer. But from the moment Jack set eyes on her caramel-colored skin, high cheekbones, swept-back hair and soft lips, all of which were presided over by a pair of golden-brown eyes that paralyzed him whenever they strayed to his booth, he knew he'd never be concerned with her past. Only her future interested him, and in particular, whether or not she'd ever in a million years consider sharing it with him.
He smiled, just a little, and rubbed a calloused thumb over the rifle's trigger guard.
"Who's comin', Pa?"
We're moths in a killin' jar, he thought as he tried to summon a smile of reassurance for the boy that felt more like an expression of pain. Just like your Momma said.
The best day he could remember in his sixty-odd unremarkable years started as the worst. He'd been hungover, his head stuffed with cotton. The sour taste in his mouth had resisted his attempts to wash it away with toothpaste, then coffee, and finally a breakfast of toast, egg, bacon and grits down at Jo's. Even the presence of Louise, dressed as she was in an immaculate white blouse and blue jeans, looking as beautiful as he'd ever seen her, her skin radiant in the same morning light that skewered his eyes through the slats in the blinds of the diner's plate glass window, couldn't raise his spirits. He'd argued with the boy the night before, over what he couldn't remember, but he remembered striking him, and more than once, so on that day, while the smells of fat and bacon on the griddle turned his stomach and the whiskey hammered his brain, guilt gnawed at his guts.
"Someone went a few rounds with a bottle and lost," Louise had said, surprising him out of his self-pity and he'd looked up to see her sitting across from him, arms crossed on the table, head cocked slightly, a small smile on her lips.
He'd nodded and given her the usual perfunctory responses, and when he'd forced himself to look at her, he was struck, not only by her beauty, but by the sense that she was peering past his facade, into the dark turbulent sea of his guilt, as if she recognized it because she'd swam in those waters more than once herself.
"Wanna talk about it?" she asked, and though he'd thanked her and shaken his head—I ain't much of a talker—she hadn't left, or taken those incredible eyes of hers off him, and at last he began to speak, slowly at first, then with more ease, until that darkness flowed out of him in a torrent he feared might wash her away and out of his life forever.
"The boy ain't yours?" she asked when he was done.
"He were already in the oven when I met my wife," he told her. "She never told me who the daddy was, and I guess it didn't matter. He was long gone when I showed up."
"Where's she at now?"
"Dead. She died givin' birth to 'im."
"I'm sorry."
"Yeah, me too."
That day had broken down some barrier between Jack and Louise he hadn't realized existed. It had been more than just the protective bubble that surrounds each and every man and woman when in the company of people they have no reason to trust. He got the feeling Louise had seen something in him he hadn't known was there, something that appealed to her. Though in hindsight, he thought maybe suited her might be a better way of putting it.
"Pa, say somethin'..."
She'd loved him for a time, and they'd been happy, but if he was honest with himself now, he could admit that he knew from the moment she stepped foot into this house, and their lives, that she wasn't going to stay. It wasn't because she didn't love them. She just wasn't a homebody. After eleven years of living with a man who'd beaten her senseless with whatever object was close at hand whenever she dared sass him, she wasn't willing to be owned again, or tied down to relationships that were just waiting to go sour. In walking out on that sonofabitch, she'd found her freedom, and though he'd sensed her restlessness right from the start, had known she would never stay, Jack had allowed himself to ignore the reality of it until it smacked him right in the face two years after the day she'd moved in.
We're moths in a killin' jar, Jack, she'd said to him when he'd come downstairs to find her with a single suitcase at the open front door, an unfamiliar car with a tall handsome black man at the wheel, engine idling, waiting for her. You leave that lid screwed on tight, we're gonna die sooner'r later. Best just to set us loose while we still know how to fly. Then, without another word, she'd kissed him and walked out the door, leaving him with an eternity to think of all the things he should have said but didn't.
Now he turned and looked at the boy who was not his blood, the boy he wanted to love but couldn't.
Then he looked down at the rifle.
Set us loose while we still know how to fly.
"Somethin' we gotta do, son," he said, and slowly rose from his chair.
-9-
Deep night came and with it long shadows that crept inexorably toward the Lowell farm.
The Merrill clan was among them.
Aaron had parked the truck at the foot of the hill and killed the engine then joined his father and Luke in walking the long straight path up the rise to where the Lowell farm sat brooding in the dark. The twins stayed in the truck, along with the body parts they had wrapped in plastic, surveying the night for signs that the old farmer and his boy were fleeing, or that there were flickering lights burning the bellies of the clouds on the horizon, foretelling of tr
ouble's advance on them if it turned out they were too late.
Luke said a silent prayer that they weren't.
He carefully scanned the wide open areas to their right, where nothing sprouted from the dead earth, and listened to the hissing of the corn in the field to their left. Those sibilant whispers seemed like voices, but he had heard such things enough to tell the difference should a human voice be among them.
Making no attempt to be quiet, Papa-in-Gray, now dressed in a frock-like gray coat—which the kids acknowledged as his preacher garb, for he had told them once he believed himself a messenger, despite his failure to be inducted into a legitimate order—led Luke and Aaron to the door, the fluttering light within assuring them that someone was home, even though the truck Luke had seen earlier was nowhere in sight. Its absence worried him. Where were they if not home? With the Sheriff? The doctor? Luke let his eyes fall to the blade gripped in his father's right hand, the tip of the ivory handle a pale smudge in the dim light. As a child, he had watched his father sharpening that curved six-inch blade, had marveled at the craftsmanship, but had feared it also, and with good cause. Some years later it would be the instrument they would use on his genitals.
Papa-in-Gray stopped by the door, then turned his head and slowly stepped toward the window.
"He there?" Aaron asked.
Their father leaned his face close to the dusty glass, his shadow sprawling over his sons. His nose brushed the window.
"Papa?" Aaron asked, the nervous excitement in his voice infectious. The air grew taut between them; the temporary reprieve the rain had brought banished now. It was balmy, humid, their clothes stuck to their skin, and with the heat came short tempers.
The old man seemed to stiffen, his shadow flinching as if eager to be free of the tension that held its host in thrall. Luke felt something twist inside him. Something was wrong. Even if instinct had failed him, it was compensated for by the sudden rage radiating from his father's body. Whatever he had seen in there had not agreed with him.
Luke swallowed. Was the house empty? Were they too late?
His father turned to look at him. At the same time, Aaron moved to take Papa's place at the window. He drew in a breath. Luke did not hear him release it.
"What is it?" Luke asked. Now that Papa's back was to the window, the warm light spilling out around him, his face was in shadow. Yet Luke could still feel his eyes on him, cold black things that reminded him of Momma's glare from her foul bed in the dark. If there had ever been any question of Papa's feelings toward him, there wasn't one now. Pure unbridled hate contaminated the air between them and Luke would not have been at all surprised had tendrils erupted from the old man's body and enveloped him, drawing Luke into his father's body where he would burn in the fires of contempt. He squirmed in the glare, until Aaron stepped between them, quietly walked to the door, tested the handle, and opened it. New light carved the dark.
"C'mon," Aaron said, and disappeared inside.
For a moment longer, Luke's father pinned him with that raging and yet unseen look. Then he stepped close, his breath foul in his son's face, and brought the knife up between them, the point pressed to Luke's belly. When Luke tried to back up, Papa's free hand clamped down on his shoulder.
"You best start prayin' for salvation," his father said, his eyes black holes. He dug the knife tip a little deeper, until it broke through Luke's shirt and pricked the skin. "If'n you don't get it, you gonna feel this blade in your asshole 'fore I cut you wide open and let your brothers feed on your still steamin' insides. You hear me?"
The blade pierced the skin and the sting of it forced Luke to take an involuntary step back. This time his father didn't stop him. Instead he straightened, sheathed the blade beneath the folds of his coat in a leather scabbard at his hip, and headed inside the house.
Luke stood there for a moment, staring at the open doorway, trembling. A circle of heat drew his attention down to his shirt, where a spot of blood was growing at his belly.
He put the knife away, Luke thought, his mind a confusion of emotions. There's no one inside. Darkness that was not of the night edged into the corners of his vision. It was tinged with red. At length, when it became clear he was not going to be summoned inside, he followed, entering the warmth of the house and shutting the door behind him. Instantly, he saw he was wrong. There was someone here.
"Take a good look," Papa sneered, and stepped aside. Beside him, Aaron watched Luke for a reaction, his face impassive.
Luke, head pounding, studied the man sitting in the chair by the fireplace. It was the farmer, Jack Lowell, the black man he had seen, with his son, loading the girl into their truck. Lowell was of no use to them now. A rifle lay on the floor, muzzle pointing toward the fire. The air smelled of gunpowder and singed hair. The old man's head was lowered, as if he'd fallen asleep, but the angle allowed all gathered to see the gaping hole in the back of his skull through which the bullet and brains had exited and painted the wall and window behind them in gray and red. Blood had pooled around the chair, the old man's checkered shirt soaked with it.
As Luke watched, heartsick, Papa dropped to his haunches by the chair and dipped his fingertips into the blood on the floor, brought it up to his nose, then rubbed it, as if testing the consistency of paint. Then he rose and looked at Aaron. "Still warm," he said. "Ain't been dead long."
Luke felt himself being wrenched in two different directions at once. Part of him wanted to take his knife and cut the dead man to ribbons, punishment the farmer would never feel, but might sate Luke's frustration. Another part of him wanted to turn tail and run, to get away from his father and the deepening sense of danger, to see how far he could get before they took him down. He did not want to be here, did not want to think about what they were going to do to him, and yet fear held him in place as surely as Papa's blade had done.
He wasn't going anywhere. They wouldn't let him. God wouldn't let him.
Aaron sheathed his own blade, shoulders slumping in disappointment. He looked up at Papa. "What now?"
Papa continued to study the blood on the tips of his fingers. "Luke said there was a boy, didn't you?"
"Yes sir."
"Find him."
*
In the last days of Abby Wellman's tortured life, her husband decided to kill her. He reasoned that the cancer was going to do it anyway, and in a decidedly less merciful fashion than he could with a needle and some morphine. As the only doctor within a thirty-mile radius, and being more or less a recluse since his wife had fallen ill, he doubted anyone would find her passing suspicious, or feel compelled to study too closely the means by which she'd found her eternal rest. If medical questions in Elkwood were raised, Wellman was the only one called upon to answer them, so unless someone went to the trouble of bringing an outsider in to confirm his story, there was nothing to stop him from going through with it.
And yet he hadn't. Instead, he'd watched his beloved suffer, knowing it wasn't right and desperate to save her. The morphine he administered was always the correct dosage, never too much despite how easy it would have been to increase it. He could even have told himself later that he hadn't been paying attention, or was an innocent victim of subconscious mutiny, but nothing stuck. Every day he let his wife writhe in pain because he couldn't take her life.
"It hurts..."
Presently, as he looked down at the young battered and broken girl in the same bed in which his wife had once said those exact words to him, the same look of pleading in her eyes, he wondered if it would be better to show her the kind of mercy he hadn't shown his wife. If the girl died, it wouldn't matter if the Merrills came. He would let them take the corpse if they so desired. Once the life was gone from the body, what remained would no longer be his concern. And with her dead, they would have no reason to hurt him, as long as he kept his mouth shut.
He shook his head and drew the fresh blankets up around the girl. He had disinfected her wounds, then stitched them, but it was not within his means
to give her the attention she so desperately needed. The damage to her eye was serious, as were the severed digits on her fingers and toes, but other than cleaning them, and applying pressure bandages and tourniquets above the amputations, he was out of his league. There was a good chance that if he didn't get her to a hospital soon, she would die.
She was awake, however, and apparently lucid, though given the trauma she'd endured, he didn't know how much of it was genuine and not just a reaction to the painkillers. What he did know for certain was that the girl looking at him now was not the same one Jack Lowell and his boy had brought to him. She was still pale, and dazed looking, but her pupil had returned to its normal size and her trembling was not nearly as severe.
Slowly, he sat back in his chair. "How're you feeling?" he asked.
"Hurts," she replied, in the small voice of a child who has just scraped her knee. It was so heartbreakingly sincere, Wellman found himself wondering if she had receded into madness to protect herself from the pain.
"I know, but we'll take care of you."
She blinked. "Where am I?"
"My home, in Elkwood."
"Elkwood?"
"Alabama. My name's Doctor Wellman." He offered her a warm smile, but resisted the urge to lay a hand on her, no matter how paternal the gesture was intended to be. After all she'd gone through, physical contact outside of the necessary medical ministrations might not be wise.
"Claire," she told him. "Claire Lambert."
"How did you end up here, Claire? I'm just guessing you're not from Alabama."
"Ohio." She winced as the pain fluttered within her. "Columbus, Ohio."
"You're a long way from home."
"I know. Can you call my Mom?"
"Of course," he said, but didn't think it the wisest idea. If he did, who was to say her family wouldn't pile on the next flight down and be here right when the Merrill clan decided to pay a visit? As bad as leaving Claire at the hospital and driving away was going to make him feel, putting the rest of her family in jeopardy was not something he was willing to have on his conscience. But having her contact information would help the doctors in Grayson identify her and they could take it from there. This in turn triggered the notion that although Sheriff McKindrey might be useless, the State Police might prove more helpful. But would they make it here in time to counter the tide of violence that must surely be bearing down on them? He resolved at least to try. But for now, he could only concentrate on one thing at a time, and so fetched a pen and some paper and jotted down the girl's address and phone number as she gave them to him.
