Black's Creek

by Sam Millar

  ‘Oh, right …’

  ‘What kind of ideas, Brent?’ asked Horseshoe, his enthusiasm renewed.

  ‘Hurry up and finish the lemonade. I’ve got a little something I want to show both of you.’

  ‘Your cock?’ Horseshoe said, grinning.

  ‘What?’ Brent’s face turned menacing. ‘What the fuck did you just say?’

  ‘What do you want to show us, Brent?’ I said quickly, jumping in to defuse the situation.

  Brent glared at Horseshoe for a few seconds before answering. ‘C’mon. Let’s head over to Black’s Cemetery.’

  Horseshoe and I quickly jumped up and followed behind. I thought I saw a smiling Mrs Fleming peeping behind a curtain, watching me leave. Perhaps it was just wishful thinking on my part. Perhaps not.

  Black’s Cemetery was situated in the large forest area surrounding Jackson’s Lake. It always gave me the shits, even in daylight. I hated Halloween nights, because we always chose to hang out here among the dead, just to prove how tough we were. We’d be armed to the teeth, with BB guns and slingshots, hunting for squirrels or hares, pretending we were castaways, and that our very lives depended on capturing little furry creatures for food. In all honesty, we never managed to hit one squirrel or hare, despite the fact that the forest was teeming with them.

  ‘This’ll do,’ Brent said, forty minutes later, stopping beside an old uprooted tree badly gone to rot in the cemetery. The fleet of unattended tombstones – the ones still standing – were covered in moss, and fractured like decaying pirates’ teeth.

  Horseshoe and I watched as Brent dropped to his knees, digging at the soil cushioning the tree. From another tree directly to our right, a nosey squirrel, its tail curving into a hairy question mark, vigorously scratched its furry undercarriage and watched the three of us.

  ‘Disgusting,’ Horseshoe said. ‘If they’re not eating nuts, they’re scratching them.’

  ‘If you gotta scratch, you gotta scratch,’ I said, grinning.

  A few seconds later, Brent stood back up, a dirt-covered package in his filthy hands.

  ‘What’s that?’ Horseshoe asked.

  Brent gave us a meaningful look, and began denuding the package. He was grinning, like a magician performing a trick. A few seconds later, he revealed a gun, wrapped protectively in polythene. It stared out at us like a mummified fetus.

  Horseshoe looked ready to faint with excitement.

  ‘Whoa! Is … is it real, Brent?’ Horseshoe finally managed to say, once his mouth had started working again.

  ‘It’s real,’ Brent said, casually releasing the gun from the polythene enclosure. ‘A German Luger.’

  I was less impressed, having seen plenty of guns in my life, mostly courtesy of Dad’s work. By the time I was seven, I had handled my first gun, but it would be three long years after that before he permitted me to fire one – albeit an old .22 handgun. As the years progressed, so did the standard of gun Dad allowed me to fire. Yet there was something different about this gun displayed proudly in Brent’s hands, sending the dual shivers of fear and weariness up my spine.

  ‘Where’d you get it?’ I said.

  ‘My grandfather’s, from the war. Took it from a dead Nazi’s filthy hand, after he shot him dead. It was hid in my ma’s room, but I came across it a few weeks ago, when I was searching for some weed.’

  This was a new Brent; a Brent with secrets. As friends, we weren’t supposed to have secrets – at least not of this magnitude.

  ‘Have you ever fired it?’ Horseshoe said, his voice now a whisper of awe. He was in a trance, hypnotised by the lethal beauty of the gun.

  ‘Old Mullan’s barn, last week. Cracked a hole the size of a melon in the side. Almost shot one of his bulls.’ Brent was still grinning proudly.

  ‘No way!’ Horseshoe said, returning to reality. ‘That really is bullshit.’

  Without warning, Brent cocked the Luger. The sound made me think of someone’s knuckles cracking. Slowly, he brought the pistol up to Horseshoe’s face.

  ‘Think I’m bullshitting? Think I didn’t hear that homo remark of yours, back in the garden?’

  Both Horseshoe and I went rigid. Fear spread through me, and my body started tingling in a very bad way. Brent’s finger began tightening on the trigger, his knuckles whitening under pressure.

  ‘Brent …’ I finally managed to croak, my mouth dry as cotton. ‘Don’t mess about with –’

  He pulled the trigger.

  Kraaaaaaaaaaaaaaacckk!

  The sound hit me in the face. I blinked. Black splotches began spreading across my vision.

  ‘You should’ve seen the look on your face, Horseshoe!’ Brent was smirking like a greasy frog. ‘The gun wasn’t even loaded.’

  Horseshoe bent over, retching violently.

  Instinctively, I grabbed the gun from Brent’s grip, pushing him away hard. He landed firmly and unceremoniously on his butt.

  ‘Are you crazy?’ I screamed into his face. ‘What the hell’s wrong with you?’

  ‘It … it wasn’t loaded,’ he mumbled, staring up at me.

  Removing the magazine from the Luger’s heel, I could see a bullet nestled on top, like a metal wasp. I removed the bullet gingerly, and held it out.

  ‘Wasn’t loaded? What the hell’s that?’

  It was Brent’s turn to look frightened. Was it the sight of the bullet, or the fact that I’d had the audacity to tackle him so forcefully? I don’t know. What I do know is that something changed between us at that very moment; something irreversible.

  ‘I swear to you, Tommy, I was sure it wasn’t loaded.’

  ‘Don’t rely on your gun’s safety. Treat every gun as if it is loaded and ready to fire,’ I said, reciting Dad’s number one rule of his ten commandments for gun safety. I threw the gun and single bullet at Brent’s feet, before turning to Horseshoe. ‘You okay?’

  Horseshoe nodded, but looked far from okay. He was as pale as one of Dad’s starched shirts.

  ‘I … I didn’t mean anything, Horseshoe,’ Brent said, slowly standing. ‘Honest, I didn’t.’

  To me, Brent’s contrite words didn’t fit with the anger boiling in his mean eyes.

  ‘It’s okay, Brent. Not a big deal,’ Horseshoe replied, regaining his habitual cool.

  ‘See?’ Brent said, looking right into me. ‘Not a big deal.’

  ‘It is a big deal,’ I said, my eyes leveling with Brent’s. ‘You’ve got to be careful with guns.’

  ‘Okay, okay! You’re fucking right. I shouldn’t point it unless I’m willing to use it.’ Brent’s commanding tone was back. ‘Well, I’ll be pointing it at Not Normal’s nuts, once I get a plan set up in a few days. Are you with me, or are you gonna let that perv get away with killing Joey?’

  Horseshoe nodded. ‘Yeah … let’s get the perv.’

  Brent hadn’t even looked at Horseshoe when asking the question. Just me.

  ‘Well, Tommy?’ Brent said.

  A loud ticking was sounding in my head, like an annoying alarm clock that had yet to go off. Or a bomb.

  ‘Okay,’ I eventually managed to say. ‘I’m in.’

  Chapter Four

  Secrets of Biblical Proportion

  … and the crocodile caught him by his little nose …

  Kipling, Just So Stories

  ‘I wish you’d stop bringing your work home with you,’ Mom would often say to Dad, attempting the impossible task of tidying the small bedroom-cum-office in our house. Dad would simply smile, knowing that within the hour, Mom would calm right down again. She understood the importance of keeping an after-hours office – ‘the hub’, as he referred to it – in his eternal quest to bring bad guys to justice.

  I suspected he mostly just liked to get away from the stress of work by going there, browsing through his crime mags, honeycombed into wooden brackets against the wall alongside a gold rush of National Geographic spines. An unopened bottle of Jim Beam sat sideways atop the magazines. I don’t know if the famous bourbon was
a gift from someone to Dad, but I could never remember him drinking from it. In fact, I knew it was still sealed, because I had taken the bottle down one day in an attempt to sniff the flavour of its contents.

  In the far corner of the room, the usual suspects of crime novels lined themselves up haphazardly against the wall, jostling for attention. In the lead were Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct books, followed closely by Mickey Spillane’s hardboiled detective Mike Hammer.

  Dad had recently purchased a book called In Cold Blood, from Mister Brun’s secondhand bookstore over in Lexington Avenue. Dad said it was one of the most frightening books he had ever read, despite having read it twice in one week, and was already re-reading it a third time. The thought of any book frightening Dad perplexed me. When I asked him was it a horror story filled with monsters, he simply looked at me, and very solemnly said: ‘Yes. The worst kind.’

  I avoided that book for years. If it frightened Dad, the bravest man on the planet, what the hell would it do to me? Only after I eventually plucked up the courage, many years later, did I fully understand the meaning of Dad’s words. The book is indeed full of monsters.

  Secretly, Dad wanted to be a crime writer, a passion he kept simmering below the surface. I learned this after accidentally discovering a wooden box tucked away beneath his desk. The box was filled with rejection slips and returned manuscripts of crime stories he had penned. Some of the rejection slips were quite harsh in their criticism, and it always filled me with anger reading the to-the-bone words, more or less telling him not to give up the day job – ever.

  Dad never mentioned these stories to anyone – at least not within my hearing distance – and certainly never to Mom. In all probability, he was mortified by the rejections, yet he gallantly ploughed on, waiting for that big break that would never come. Little did I know then, but I would follow in his footsteps – not as a sheriff but as a writer, collecting equal amounts of rejections slips before eventually getting my big break. Dad’s rejection slips spurred me on each time I thought of giving up.

  I only ever witnessed Dad crying once. That was the day he held my first crime novel in his hands, and read the dedication inside, thanking him for being my inspiration as a writer. Mom was mentioned too, of course, for being the best Mom in the world. I think she liked that, even though she just patted me on the head as if I were eight instead of twenty-two, and having a novel published was no big deal.

  Dad also liked to sit the hub, listening to jazz on his old, battered radio. He would fill the room with the scratchy sounds of songs from the fifties, along with the pungent aroma of scorched tobacco from his pipe. Mom didn’t approve of his smoking – or anyone else’s – but it was one of the few vices he refused to compromise on. After all, Mom had her bridge club over for entertainment once a week, and Dad never complained about that, even though he had to endure Mrs Gleason’s endless gossip and the advice she loved to administer, briefing Dad on how to keep the town’s morals from going bankrupt and down the shitter. Though in fairness to her, I have to admit that she never once used the work shitter.

  Besides my bedroom, the hub was my favourite place in the house. There was an air of mystery about it; I just never knew what I’d come across when Dad was at work and Mom out visiting her friends. The hub was next to my bedroom and, if I stayed absolutely silent, most times I could clearly hear Dad’s conversations with Deputy Hillman, and anyone else invited there. I was warned by Mom to stay out of the hub, not to go poking my nosey nose where it didn’t belong. Had I been told I could go in any time I wanted, I probably would have ignored the hub, its secrets no longer alluring to my adolescent imagination. A bit like Adam and Eve with the apple, I suppose.

  There was always an exciting feeling about the hub; the feeling that something great was about to be discovered – provided you knew where to look, and provided you could decipher Dad’s atrocious handwriting, like epileptic spiders, the words all mashed in to each other.

  The very day after our gathering at the cemetery, Deputy Hillman called in to see Dad at the hub. I was in my room, relaxing, enjoying that spacious sensation a Saturday afternoon brings. I could hear their secretive voices, urgent and low, but not low enough for my keen ears.

  Tiptoeing to the wall, I began to eavesdrop on the conversation. They were discussing Joey’s death at the lake.

  ‘What’re we going to do about Norman Armstrong, Sheriff? There’s a lot of bad feeling in town at young Maxwell’s death.’

  ‘Not much we can do, Peter. We still don’t have enough evidence to arrest Armstrong – for now.’

  ‘It’s shameful. It’s not as if there’s a phonebook of suspects. And you’re saying we can’t do a damn thing about it, even though we know it was Armstrong.’

  ‘We suspect Armstrong’s involvement,’ Dad corrected. ‘There’s an ocean of a gap between knowing and suspecting when you’re trying to convince prosecutor Flynn. Don’t get too downhearted, though. Good police work will eventually bring Armstrong to justice, Pete. That’s how these things finish, nine times out of ten.’

  ‘I don’t know, Sheriff. The more I think about Armstrong, the more I think he’ll get away with this, along with the other attacks we know – suspect – he was involved in.’

  ‘Those other incidents took place over in Webster. We have no jurisdiction there, so let’s not waste time mulling over them. Stay focused on what happened here. That’s how we’ll nail him.’

  ‘It’s gonna be tough. He knows how to cover his tracks. He’s slippery; there’s more grease on him than Amos Harper.’

  Dad laughed. ‘I wouldn’t let old Amos hear you say that. He’ll start over-charging us for servicing the squad cars.’

  I could hear Deputy Hillman let out a long sigh. ‘Just beats me up inside, watching Armstrong walk about town, and that sickening smirk on his face.’

  ‘Well, it’s up to us to wipe that smirk away. Good police work, Pete. That’s the answer. Good police work.’

  I could hear Dad moving about in the hub for a few seconds, before talking again.

  ‘Come on. Let’s go. I’ve got to see Judge Pickford, before noon. Need a search warrant for Cartwright’s farm.’

  ‘Don’t you think we’d be better off chasing after Armstrong, rather than a small-time moonshine maker like Luke Cartwright?’

  ‘I agree. But until we can land the big fish, little ones will have to suffice. The good tax-paying folk of the town want to see something being netted, even if it’s only a minnow.’

  After Dad and Deputy Hillman left, I sneaked into the hub to see what I could find. Mom had gone earlier to buy some groceries in Wegman’s, and I estimated I would have a good hour before she returned.

  I quickly began my search, hoping to find something damning on Armstrong. Glancing about the many shelves lining the hub, I spotted the Bible’s spine protruding from an army of law books. Dad wasn’t into gospel, so naturally my curiosity was piqued. Carefully dislodging the book and opening it, I discovered that its stomach was hollowed out. Inside, a small black book nestled. I eased it out from its enclosure. Jackpot! A diary. How had I never found this before? I flipped through the pages as quickly as possible, stopping the moment Armstrong’s name leaped out at me. I began to read.

  Almost certain of Norman Armstrong’s involvement in the assaults of children over the last three years. A gut feeling, perhaps, alongside police instinct. Nothing more at this moment in time. But that feeling has never let me down, as God is my witness. Armstrong’s as sly as a fox. Interrogated him again yesterday at his place of work, the movie house. Unofficially, of course, as I had little evidence to warrant bringing him in. He just laughed in our faces (Deputy Hillman was present). Armstrong said, ‘Next time, Sheriff, see my lawyer.’ Still, I must remain upbeat. The secret to a good interrogation is asking the same question differently, until you get the right answer. One day I’ll get that right answer, so help me God.

  There is little doubt that Armstrong has done fiendish things –
things I can’t begin to comprehend, even after a lifetime of examining all the darkness and evil that men produce. I’m almost certain of his involvement in the sexual assault on young Joey Maxwell. If ever a devil deserves the wrath of justice, it’s him. Catching a fox like Armstrong will be difficult, but not impossible. One day he’ll be brought into a courtroom and made to pay for the evil he has perpetrated on the young. I think of Tommy, and I shudder at the thought of this monster lurking in the darkness.

  Reading that last sentence felt like someone had taken a hammer to my chest. I knew how much Dad detested Armstrong, but this was something entirely different, seeing his raw feelings written so clearly in black and white. Perhaps it was simply therapeutic for him to write these words? If so, I could relate to that. Sometimes when I was angry, I would write terrible things down on a page, describing what I was going to do to avenge some wrong. But usually, after cooling down, I’d rip the page to shreds, embarrassed at writing such juvenile crap, even though I was still a juvenile filled with crap.

  Just as I finished reading, I heard a car pulling up outside. Shit! I had lost all track of time, had become totally submerged in Dad’s words. I quickly eased the diary back into its home in the false Bible – but not before committing the information to memory – and quickly hightailed it out of the hub, just in time to avoid Mom coming through the front door, carrying bags of groceries.

  ‘Get out and bring the rest of those bags in, Tommy. Next time, I’m taking you with me, no matter how much you moan about going shopping.’

  ‘I hate going to Wegman’s. It’s always filled with slow-moving people,’ I said, shuffling towards the front door.

  ‘Yes, but you don’t say that when you’re shoveling the food down your ungrateful throat, do you?’ Mom said, her voice stinging like a whip.

  I quickly headed out to the car, hoping to avoid a further lashing. It took me a few minutes to unload the groceries and bring them into the house. I found Mom staring up at the hub, before she redirected her eyes to me.