A Dark Path

by Robert E. Dunn

  “Are you so sure it’s his fight?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, whatever this is, wherever it goes, I think it started a long time ago.”

  “Of course it did.” Duck looked at me with sad, rheumy eyes. “This is the Ozarks. The oldest feuds are the only ones that really matter.”

  “Tell me about this one.”

  He did. For two hours, Duck talked and told me secrets from the past. He alternately enraged and devastated me. One generation, it seems, always keeps their secrets from the next one, even as they lay the terrible burdens on their shoulders.

  We could have talked another two hours—if my phone hadn’t rung, we might have. It was the sheriff calling. Cherry Dando was badly hurt and in the hospital.

  * * * *

  Dando was in surgery. Outside in the waiting room were the two people I needed to talk to most—the sheriff and my mother. Carmen was crying. When she saw me, she rushed forward and threw her arms around my shoulders. She buried her face in my neck. Her tears rolled in fat drops under my collar. I didn’t know what to do. After a long, one-sided embrace, I put my arms around her. I wasn’t prepared for how much I needed her touch—even in tragedy—maybe especially then.

  “What happened?” I asked, to hold back the sting of tears.

  “Rath,” the sheriff answered. “He uh. . . he hurt Mr. Dando pretty bad.” His speech was careful. Sheriff Benson always had a good presence with victims. He lost the vulgarities, and the colorful idioms. It reminded me just how professional his tenure had been, despite having me as his loose cannon. This is the part Billy would be good at, I thought.

  “Why?”

  Carmen released me and backed away. “It’s my fault.”

  I waited.

  “Because of what happened,” she added, “and talking to you. I told him what had happened so long ago. . .what Johnson had done to me.”

  “Cherry confronted him?” I asked.

  She nodded, then dabbed her running nose with an already soggy tissue.

  I retrieved a new tissue from a box on a table. Waiting rooms are all the same. So much pain can be summed up by bad magazines and tissues sitting on a table.

  She took it, then wadded the tissues—old and new—together to dab again.

  “Did Rath admit to it?”

  “Admit it?” Carmen shook at the thought. “He laughed about it. Johnson told Cherry everything. He pushed the shameful details in his face. I told Cherry, but Johnson made him see it. Then he beat him simply because he could.”

  “Why was he free?” My question went to the sheriff. It got no answer. Then I turned back to Carmen and asked her, “Did he tell Cherry why it happened?”

  “Johnson Rath never needed a reason for cruelty.”

  “But he had one. Or he thought he did, didn’t he?”

  My mother lowered the tissue from her face and looked at me with my own eyes. It was like looking into a broken mirror. “You want all the secrets don’t you?”

  “There’s no reason for secrets.” I intended it kindly. “No reason for shame.”

  “It was a different world, even a few years ago. It’s always a different world and always the same down deep.”

  The sheriff was listening carefully.

  “Earl Turner told me about that land and the history of white jealousy.” I was talking to him. “He never mentioned the name Rath. But they were one of the families that tormented the blacks. It was about money and power and race. Cash had the power to raise one over the other. The Rath family was one that could not accept being less than any blacks for any reason.”

  “I never knew.” Sheriff Benson had a belly-punched look. I’m sure he was thinking if he knew more, things would have been different.

  “That had nothing to do with me.” The way my mother said it—it could have been warning or imploring.

  “It had everything to do with family, though. Didn’t it? Your family.”

  “Yours too.” Definitely a warning that time.

  I almost laughed, but there was nothing funny. “You have no idea how little that shames me.”

  “Please?” Her request, small and fearful, reminded me of the same word from Johnson Rath, when he thought I would kill him.

  “My mother’s maiden name is Patee,” I told the sheriff. “Funny, I never knew that until Duck told me.” I filled him in on what I learned from Janice Carter.

  Carmen wouldn’t look at me.

  “Over a century of hate—all to bring us here,” the sheriff said, shaking his head. It looked old and fragile without the hat.

  “I’m going to bring Johnson Rath in.” I informed him. Since we can’t prosecute, I can’t promise what shape he’ll be in.”

  Sheriff Benson snapped his head up, suddenly alert. Not just alert, wary.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “I should have told you.”

  “What?”

  “Johnson is in custody. Two deputies are with him here, in this hospital.”

  Before I could ask anything more, or begin to understand, Billy walked into the waiting area.

  He was bruised and bloody. On his temple was a thick bandage that ran into the hair line. There was a hitch as he walked—as if he was trying to hide what should have been a limp. There was no insulated cup of soda in his hands. They were cut and ragged looking—with visible stiches on two fingers. Every knuckle was an open wound.

  “Billy?” My feet remained planted. The only thing keeping me from running to him was myself—and I hated knowing that. The only thing worse was the feeling that he knew it as well. “What happened to you?” As soon as I spoke it, my question felt like another wasted chance.

  Billy smiled shyly, then looked at his hands. When he looked back up, it was to the sheriff. “If you don’t need me anymore. . .” He approached the older man, then handed something over. The exchange was hidden by their bodies.

  “No, go on,” Sheriff Benson told him. He put a hand on Billy’s shoulder. “You did a job of work—and did it well.”

  “Thank you, Sheriff.” Billy turned and nodded to Carmen. “Ma’am.”

  “Thank you for saving my husband,” she said to him. “Thank you for stopping Johnson Rath.”

  “Billy?”

  He looked at me and gave a slight nod. I thought for a second he was going to call me ma’am, too. He passed me—headed for the door.

  “Billy.” That time I whispered.

  He stopped. But he didn’t turn or look back. Just as quietly as I had spoken, he said, “I don’t feel much like talking now.” Billy left.

  I turned around. My mother was pulling more tissues. Sheriff Benson was staring at his boots.

  “What happened?” I asked the sheriff.

  “Billy offered a solution.”

  “What solution?”

  Sheriff Benson looked sideways at Carmen. “I don’t guess it matters who knows now. Johnson is staying in jail this time. Then prison.” He drew himself up and took a deep breath. “The informant problem. Billy suggested someone who might be an asset to the DEA.”

  “Billy knows a guy.”

  “Yeah. It wouldn’t be the same. Not like building a compound the DEA can wire. But Birch was getting a little burned out on Johnson Rath and his big plans.”

  “So why didn’t Rath stay in jail?”

  “Billy had the name. He had the relationship. He had the plan to set things up.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Billy also had conditions.”

  “Conditions.” The word caught in my throat, a hard and bad tasting knot. “What did he hand you?”

  “You know what.”

  “Show me.”

  Sheriff Benson put a gnarled old hand into his pants pocket and pulled out brass
knuckles.

  “The old ways,” I said, accusing.

  “It’s an old feud. You said so yourself.”

  “There’s something neither of you know. Carmen?” My mother was sitting beside the tissue box and staring at the one in her hand. “Carmen?” I asked again, gently.

  “Yes?”

  “You were there that night, weren’t you?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Yes you do. You set everything up. You wanted Cherry looking for silver. Doing anything really but working with his old friend, Johnson.”

  “I already told you that.”

  “You said then you knew the story of the silver coins being buried there. You didn’t say how.”

  “So what?”

  “Did you tell Tyrell how you knew?”

  That time she didn’t defend or deflect. She dabbed at the snot dripping from her nose. Then she sniffed it back and stared at me.

  “Did you offer to trade the information? For his uncle’s truck? For an introduction to his father?”

  “Nobody knew which one was the father. The whole club had his mother. A son shouldn’t know that, but he wanted to know. He wanted to meet them. I set it up—in exchange for information about the graves. But he lied. There was never anything.”

  “How many of the Nightriders showed up?”

  “I don’t know. I made Cherry take me out of there. Tyrell said he wanted to meet them and talk. But he started saying things about DNA and finding the real father.”

  “You thought there would be violence.”

  “You tell some of those men they have a black son—and that you’re going to make it public—there’s sure to be something. Mostly, I was afraid it would come out we were related. I was ashamed.”

  She and I looked away at the same time. My gaze met the sheriff’s. “I’m sure Roland Duques was one of the bikers that showed up. I heard him talking about being set up.”

  “Roland is—”

  “The guy Billy knows.”

  Chapter 18

  Billy didn’t answer my calls. He wasn’t at home either. There was one other place to look. The drive gave me time to think about all the ways I’d let him down.

  Billy had never held back or made me wonder about what he wanted from me. He was the kind of a man who presented himself as exactly as what he was. At the same time, he accepted me for who I was—even if who I was—was a drunk or a victim.

  I didn’t—couldn’t—do the same for him—not in the way I presented myself—not with the support I gave him.

  Golden hour was blooming on a wilted world when I found the farm road I needed. I took the turn a bit too fast, but never hit the brakes.

  At that point I wasn’t clear on who I was trying to save. I wanted my own guilt assuaged, yes—for pushing Billy away—for accepting his help as a drunk—then for hiding what had driven me to it from him. More than anything, I felt guilty about the violence he’d done to Johnson Rath. It should have been me. More than anyone, I know how violence changes someone.

  The road turned to a series of low, sharp hills. On the second one, my big GMC launched. For a few moments I was in the air with no control. It was exhilarating. The sensation of freefall was a release. Then came the reality. My truck returned to Earth in the rising trough of the next hill. The impact was hard. Tires crunched into loose rock and dirt—that turned to brown smoke on impact. There was no traction. I spun the wheels one way—then the other—looking for any measure of control.

  As my truck’s rear end slid around to the left, and the front end headed for the weedy ditch on the right, the tires finally bit. I steered into the skid. My back tires swerved into line just as I topped the next hill—and missed a tractor by inches.

  Every flight has consequences.

  And that was what I was afraid of. It took a near-fatal accident to make it clear to me. Like everything else in my life, my fears about Billy were really about me. I told him that he wasn’t the right kind of man to be sheriff. I said it because I wanted him to remain what I needed. The worst thing about it was—I may have driven him to violence—to be more like me.

  I didn’t stop for the frightened farmer. I did drive more carefully for the last mile. The fields on the driver’s side of the truck transitioned from hay to natural scrub. I steered through a gap in the fence, and followed tracks of beat down weeds to another gate. The gate was a string of barbed wire—strung and held in tension between two posts and a board—tucked into a wire loop.

  Billy wasn’t there. I went through anyway. It had been a long time since I had come here. Billy owned this land. At the back of it was a wall of limestone—a remaining piece of an ancient sea that had covered the Ozarks for millions of years. The land held a secret—a cave hidden behind a screen of honeysuckle and vines. It was in the darkness of that cave that Billy had kissed me for the first time.

  What do we give up when we choose to fly alone? How do you control a fall?

  I was sitting on the hood of the truck, staring at a cave opening that—I knew was there but couldn’t see—when my phone rang.

  It wasn’t until I heard it that I knew I’d been listening for contact. I should have checked the display. “Billy?”

  “Hurricane, it’s Duck.”

  Try to imagine my disappointment. “What do you want, Duck?”

  “You need to get out here.”

  “Here? Where? And why?”

  “My place. Ro’s back.”

  “I’ll talk to him later. There are other things happening.”

  “Things are going to be happening here.”

  “Call the sheriff.”

  “I’m calling you because Billy is on his way over here.”

  “He’s meeting Roland?” I slid off the truck’s hood. “I’m on my way.”

  “You need to hurry.”

  I was already racing across the uneven field when I asked, “Why, Duck? What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know. Roland looks desperate. He talks about making a deal. But he’s afraid.”

  “Is he armed?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Go talk to him, Duck. Take any weapon he has. But more than anything, just talk to him. Keep things calm.”

  “How?”

  “He’s your kid. You know how to talk to him. Make him remember how to listen.”

  I disconnected and concentrated on driving. When I came to the serpentine hills, I flew over them at dangerous speeds. I passed a tractor and waved—as I left the driver in a cloud of red dust.

  Roland Duques was the kind of person who didn’t want to be dangerous—but he was willing to make himself a party to other people’s danger—and it had gotten him trapped. Being trapped was dangerous.

  I didn’t know exactly what Billy was expecting from the meeting, but I had a feeling it wasn’t the same thing Roland was planning.

  * * * *

  I parked alongside Billy’s truck in the lot between Duck’s house and his barn. Duck and Roland were inside the barn. Bill was standing outside of the open door. They all turned to look as I got out of the truck. The tension in the air wasn’t only about me.

  “What are you doing here?” Roland asked as I approached.

  “I wondered that too.” Billy looked more curious than bothered. Either way, he didn’t look happy.

  “I called her,” Duck answered. “Thanks for coming, Hurricane.”

  “You don’t need to be here,” Roland said.

  “We’re working a few things out here,” Billy told me. “It might be best—”

  “You’re working things out. Are you sure Roland here, is working through the same things?”

  “What are you talking about?” Billy looked from me to Roland.

  Roland looked from Billy to me. “This doesn’t
concern you.”

  “Sure it does, Roland. I think both of you are dealing—without knowing all the facts.”

  “Keep your facts.” He managed to sound like he was sneering and whining at the same time. “The only thing that matters is what you do.”

  “And what you did.”

  He froze.

  “I didn’t. . .”

  “Then you have nothing to be afraid of.” I gave Billy my attention. “Roland was there Sunday morning. He’s feeling bad about what he did.”

  “They made me,” Roland blurted.

  “You killed Tyrell Turner?” Billy asked him.

  “No.” Roland’s eyes rimmed with tears. “No. But. . .”

  Donald Duques put a meaty hand on his son’s shoulder. The squeeze he gave was soft encouragement for hard things. “It’s time for the truth, boy.” He looked at me and added, “All of it.”

  “I didn’t kill him.” Roland slumped under the weight of his father’s hand and his own guilt. “They made me fight him. They said I had to.” Tears spilled over from the corners of his eyes and dropped in rolling tracks. “It wasn’t a fight. It was a beating. They said I had to protect their secrets. They said I had to do it because he was black. And I did it because I was afraid not to. They took pictures. They even took my shirt with his blood on it. It was all evidence to hold over my head. To keep me loyal.”

  Duck’s hand slipped from his son’s shoulder. The fall looked like it was a thousand miles. “Tell him,” Duck said. “I can’t.”

  “Tell me what?” Roland sniffed and wiped his snotty nose with the back of his hand.

  “Tyrell was looking for his father,” I said.

  “I know. They said the whole club raped his mother. That’s what they wanted to stay secret. Tyrell was talking about lawsuits.”

  “Did they tell you that your father was involved in the rape?”

  “He was already kicked out by then. Rath said my father was a race traitor.”

  “She was the one.” Duck spoke quietly. He didn’t look at his son. “Elaine showed me I didn’t have to be a stupid, racist, fuck—just because I had been raised that way. It was because of her that I tried to raise you without that foolishness.”