Outland

by Kiernan Kelly

  After we had Fargo settled, fed, medicated, and he'd drifted off to sleep, Hank and me sat at the kitchen table and talked about what to do next. Folks were calling all the time, wanting to know how Fargo was doing, and when we'd be opening Outland again.

  "They think they won, Beaver. Bellows and the rest, they think they beat us."

  "I know, but it ain't a contest, Hank. We got to think about Fargo..."

  "That's just it, Beaver! It is a contest -- a contest of wills. We opened the place because folks needed somewhere to go, and Bellows shut down everywhere else. If'n we stay closed now that Fargo's home, folks are gonna think he shut us down, too. That poor kid got beat as a warning to us, Beaver. If'n we don't reopen, his pain will have been for nothing."

  "We'll leave it up to Fargo, then. We'll tell him the whole truth, and let him decide," I said, and he nodded. It was time to tell Fargo about Ashley. I couldn't say I was looking forward to it, though.

  We waited until after dinner, and after we dosed Fargo with his painkillers again. Then we sat on the edge of his bed, one on each side, looking at each other, both waiting for the other to begin and neither one wanting to. Hank held a box of Kleenex, just in case.

  Fargo looked from one of us to the other then focused on me. "Beaver, what's wrong?"

  "Fargo, we need to talk to you about Ashley," I began. Fargo's eyes grew wide and he sat up straighter, reaching for my hand, blood leeching out of his face like water through a kitchen drain.

  "He's dead! They killed him!"

  I saw the horror in his eyes and felt a righteous anger flood me. I plunged right in with the whole sorry truth. "No, Fargo. He ain't dead, although if there was any justice in this world, he would be. He didn't even get a scratch on him. Fargo, Ashley was in cahoots with the bastards who beat you. It was Sanford Matthews and his friends. They paid Ashley to let them get to you. He set you up, son. They were planning to kill you, and he knew it all along."

  "No! You're wrong! That ain't it!" Fargo cried, shaking his head. He looked to Hank. "Tell him, Hank. Tell him that ain't it!"

  "I'm sorry, Fargo. Beaver's telling you the God's honest truth. We didn't want to say nothing while you was in the hospital. Beaver wanted to, but I talked him out of it. That was my decision. Maybe we should've told you then, but you were so sick, in so much pain..."

  "He loves me!" Fargo sounded desperate, and tears welled up in his eyes. "He told me so! I don't know why he ain't been around. Maybe he's sick, or hurt..."

  I couldn't take it, couldn't stand to hear the pain in Fargo's voice or see the stricken look on his face. I stood up, walked to the window and looked out, although I couldn't tell you a blasted thing I saw. I wanted to hit something. Better yet, I wanted to hit someone. Behind me, I heard Hank talking.

  "I know it, Fargo. He lied to you, hon. Those men who beat you? They thought you was dead. He thought you were dead, too. He only called the ambulance because he saw you were still breathin', and he got scared."

  "You're lying!"

  "Oh, baby, I wish I was," Hank said softly. I heard a nose blow, although I didn't know if it was Fargo's or Hank's.

  "Why? Why would he do that to me?"

  "I don't know, hon. Money, I guess. Who knows why people do the things they do? I'll tell you what, though... you got friends here, Fargo, people who really love you. Me and Beaver, Jethro... Hell, boy, Skeeter's been to see you every damn day, and calls every night. You're not alone. You don't need that boy."

  "I love him," Fargo said softly, and my heart broke all over again.

  "We know. It's hard. It'll get better, but right now, it hurts." Hank was always good at finding the right words to say, much better than me. I had to try, though.

  I forced myself to walk back to the bed and sit down, taking one of Fargo's hands. "We're here for you. You're family, Fargo We'll always be here for you, you know that, right? No matter what, you'll always have us."

  "I know, Beaver. It's just... I don't know whether I want to cry or go out and find Ashley and beat the shit out of him. I love him... but I hate him right now, too."

  I gently took Fargo into my arms and held him as he struggled to accept what we'd told him. I felt Hank's arms wrap around us both, and we sat together like that for a long time. Fargo finally pulled away, swiping at his eyes and nose.

  "I should have known he was lying to me. I thought he was cheating on me. Thought he was meeting up with some guy over in Twilla, but I guess it was Matthews."

  I should have been surprised to hear it, but I wasn't. Everything Ashley told us had been a lie. Matthews hadn't threatened him to get him to go along with their plan. It had been the money all along. Maybe there was more going on in Ashley's pointed little head besides getting his greedy hands on a paltry hundred bucks, too. Maybe he was jealous of Fargo, of his relationship with us, or maybe Ashley just had a few screws loose in his noggin. I didn't know, and probably never would. All I did know was that he'd been in on the plan to attack Fargo, maybe right from the beginning, maybe for as long as the bar had been open. I felt the truth of it in my bones, and it made me even angrier, which up until that moment I didn't think was possible.

  "Fargo, they attacked you to get to us, to me and Hank," I said, gritting my teeth. That was the truth, too. I knew it in my heart. I saw Hank's head snap up, but I didn't pay him any mind. "I'm sorry you're the one the fucking cowards picked to hurt. Should've been me. I don't know why they didn't come after me and Hank, except that we're almost always together and it was easier to get you alone."

  Fargo understood immediately. I didn't even have to spell it out for him. The boy had a bright mind, and that's a fact. "They did it so you'd close Outland, ain't that right?"

  "Yes, sir. I reckon so."

  "And you did. You closed it to stay with me in the hospital."

  "Right again. We didn't mind, though. You're more important, Fargo," I was quick to say. The last thing I wanted was for him to feel guilty about Outland closing. Hank nodded in agreement.

  "I'm home now. We can open it back up, right?"

  "That's up to you. Me and Hank discussed it. If'n you're good with it, then yeah, we'll open next weekend. If not, that's okay, too. We'll understand, Fargo, and wouldn't blame you one bit. Those men ain't the type to give up. They'll be back for round two."

  "Oh, hell no! I don't care! We ain't staying closed! They can kiss my ass if they think I'm scared of them just because of a little ol' throw-down!" Fargo was getting riled now, funneling some of the anger and hurt he felt toward the people who really deserved it -- Matthews and Bellows, Ashley, and the rest of them. "They won't catch me by surprise again, I'll tell you what! I'll rip their fucking heads off!" His words sounded slurred because of his wired jaws, and his tears continued to fall, but we got the gist of it loud and clear.

  "Okay, okay. Settle down, now. You'll bust open your incision, Fargo. Lay back, take a few deep breaths," Hank said, gently pushing Fargo down. "We'll open Outland again. Things will turn out fine, you'll see."

  I hoped with all my heart and soul he was right, but something told me it wasn't over. Not by a long shot.

  Chapter Seven

  The weather was in a fickle mood the day we trundled Fargo into the truck and drove him down to the Meridian police station to file a formal report about the attack. One minute, the sun shone so brightly it seemed to wash the color out of everything it touched, bleaching trees, the roadway, vehicles, and houses white. Then gray clouds would suddenly skid across the sky, casting the world into shadow for a few minutes. Raindrops speckled the windshield for a while, before the sun returned and quickly dried them.

  Jethro came with us to tell what he knew about Ashley's involvement. He sat stone-faced on the back seat, staring out the window. I think he blamed himself for being the one to bring Ashley to Outland in the first place. Nonsense, of course – none of us blamed him a lick. Ashley had fooled him, too.

  Fargo was barely healed enough to tolerate the trip into town, and he
groaned every time I inadvertently hit a pothole, or braked a bit too suddenly. I tried to be careful, but I was wired tighter than Fargo's jaw, jumpy and nervous about going to the police. I remembered the disgusted look in the officer's eye, the one who came to the hospital to talk to Fargo, and wondered whether we were going to get hit with a whole station-full of that same contempt when we got to town. I worried more over how I'd react to it -- my nerves were as frayed as old, cat-scratched yarn -- and whether we were opening up a whole new can of worm soup by insisting on an official report.

  In the weeks that followed the attack on Fargo, I'd come to believe that making waves might just end up getting us all drowned, while Bellows and Matthews stood on the shore laughing at us. He had a lot more followers than I'd thought, including it seemed, several on the local police force. What would we do if the police turned their backs on us? Would it give people the notion they could strike at us with violence whenever they damn well felt like it?

  The thought was scary in a way nothing ever had been before.

  "Beaver, what the hell are you doing? Didn't you see that stop sign? Pull over, and let me drive!" Hank yelled when I hit the brakes at the last minute to keep from running the stop.

  "I saw it," I lied, although in truth, I hadn't. My mind was focused inward, going over a mental checklist, trying to remember every detail from the time Hank and I got the phone call from Ashley to the moment Fargo was released from the hospital.

  "Yeah, and I saw my life flash before my eyes just then. Keep your mind on the road, Beaver, before you get us all killed!"

  "You want to drive?" I asked peevishly.

  "Yes!"

  "Well, you can't. I am, so shut up and let me do it."

  By the time I pulled into the small parking lot on the side of the police station, all four of us were as bristly as a roomful of PMS-ing porcupines. Even poor Fargo, who was on pain meds and muscle relaxers and God knows what-all, slammed the truck door shut and shot me a glare that could've stripped flesh from bone.

  The Meridian Police Station was housed in one of the oldest structures in the area, donated to the town fifty years ago when its owner died. It'd been refurbished on the inside, but on the outside, it remained a two-story, whitewashed, clapboard house, with a slightly sagging, wraparound porch, and black shingle, steeply pitched roof. Two black-and-whites, both nearly as old as I was, were nosed up close to the side of the building. They were Chevys, and both had bubble lights planted square in the center of the roofs like big, red-and-blue pimples.

  We followed the narrow walk around the side of the building, up the front stairs onto the porch, and inside into the small reception area. The four of us crowded around the front desk and drew the attention of the officer on duty.

  "Help y'all?" he asked, swiveling in his chair to look at us. He looked to be around my age, maybe a couple of years younger. His hair was thick and curly, but receding at the temples, reminding me a little of a half-sheared sheep. Behind him, another desk held a radio base unit, and a computer. Papers and folders were stacked on the desk in a leaning pile. Framed photographs of groups of officers posing in front of the building hung on the wall, divided on either side of a long window. Stripes of light filtered through the mini-blinds, illuminated dust motes floating through the air.

  "Yes, sir. We need to file a report," I said. I motioned Fargo to come forward and saw recognition suddenly flare in the officer's eyes at the sight of his fading bruises. "This boy was attacked nearly a month ago, beaten and left for dead. An officer took his statement in the hospital, but he told us we needed to come down and file a formal report."

  "Yeah, I remember hearing something about this," the officer said, leaning back in his chair. His nametag read "Sgt. P. Smith." His eyes narrowed at us, dull, dark beads under heavy lids, his voice rough and gravelly. "We already investigated that incident. As I recall, y'all made some harsh charges against a few of our town's most upstanding citizens. You might want to think twice about tossing names around when you don't have any evidence to back it up. Doing that could buy y'all a lot of trouble."

  "Now, wait just a minute," I sputtered, bracing my hands on the counter. "What exactly did you investigate? Fargo was drugged to the gills when the officer came to the hospital to take his statement. He said we needed to come down here after Fargo was released to file a goddamn formal report!" I could feel Hank's hand tugging on the back of my shirt, but I ignored him.

  "There ain't no need to get ugly--"

  "Ugly! You want to see ugly, you take a gander at the photos of Fargo from when they brought him into the hospital!" Hank snapped. "They're all in Fargo's hospital file! These here are letters sent to Fargo while he was in the hospital. Hateful, all of them!" he continued, slapping a rubber banded bundle on the desk. "And this is the ribbon from the mess of dead flowers somebody kindly brought to the hospital room, too."

  I ignored Fargo's startled grunt -- we'd never shown him the letters or told him about the flowers -- and elbowed Hank to hush. "Officer, listen to me. There was a witness to the attack, a young man named Ashley Wills, and--"

  Smith swept the letters and ribbon off to the side. "These don't mean squat. You could've sent them yourselves, for all we know. As far as your witness goes, funny how he just upped and disappeared the minute we started looking for him, ain't it?" Smith said, talking over me. "We looked for this Ashley person, and couldn't find hide or hair of him. No forwarding address, no phone number, left owing his landlady a month's rent. You know what I think? I think this Ashley fella is the one who beat your friend there. Then he took off, and y'all are looking to turn the whole thing into a media circus, claiming hate crimes and what-not, maybe so you can sell your story to one of them TV talk shows."

  I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, my molars grinding as I fought to control my temper. "Ashley Wills is a little strip of nothing who couldn't beat his way out of a paper bag!"

  "Yeah, so you say. Don't mean it's the truth, though, does it? Don't have this Ashley person here to judge for ourselves. Besides, small men can be strong -- maybe your friend here was too drunk or stoned to defend himself," Smith said, tipping his chin toward Fargo.

  "I don't believe this!" Hank growled, pushing past me to get to the counter. "Now, you listen to me, you--"

  "Is there a problem here?" A new voice, smoother than Smith's, but still one that brooked no nonsense, broke in. "Sergeant Smith?"

  The voice belonged to a slim man with a pencil-thin mustache, at least a dozen years younger than the desk sergeant. He was carrying a mug of coffee and a half a dozen folders under his arm.

  "No, sir, Captain. No problem at all," Smith said. His eyes cut toward us, the warning in them clear. Open your mouths and I'll make sure you're cited for everything from going a mile over the speed limit to parking more than three inches from the curb from now until forever. He pulled out a sheet of paper from under the desk, and fished a pen out of the holder. "I was just going to take a report from these folks."

  I grabbed Hank's wrist and squeezed, a warning to keep his trap shut before we all ended up on the wrong side of the bars for a night.

  The captain shot us a look, but nodded and walked away.

  The sneer on the sergeant's face returned, although he took our statements without further comment. I figured he'd either promptly dump the report in his circular file the minute we walked out the door, or bury it under other paperwork, never to see the light of day again. I got the feeling the trip to the station was no more than a colossal waste of time and energy.

  "Got to have this typed up," he said when we were through, and I asked for a copy. "Check back in a week or so, and I'll let you know if it's ready."

  It wouldn't be, and we all knew it.

  The four of us were silent as we piled back into the truck. I started her up, but sat there staring at the police station as the truck idled. "Ain't nothing going to come of it, you know. I get the feeling that Sergeant Smith ranks beating on a gay man in
the same category as poaching deer or brewing 'shine. It happens, everybody knows it does, but one less deer or one more bottle of home-brew won't tilt the goddamn world off its axis, in his opinion."

  "Maybe we should get us a lawyer, Beaver," Hank said. I could feel his eyes on me, but I kept staring at the wall of the police station as if I could burn holes in it and set the sergeant's britches on fire. "Somebody who can make sure the police do what they're supposed to be doing."

  I sighed and met his eyes. "Maybe. Best to give it some time, I reckon. Maybe we should just let it go altogether. Without Ashley, we don't have any witnesses and no way to tie Bellows and Matthews to the beating. We'd just be pissing into the wind."

  "It ain't right, Beaver," Hank said softly. I could hear Jethro and Fargo murmuring the same in the back seat.