The Hunt Club

by Bret Lott

  Run where? We were here, and I was dead already. I was dead.

  So I turned to him, full on. I held up the shotgun, still nothing in my hands save for the cold of it, and I fired.

  The sound and flash were nothing, too, nor was the slam against my shoulder, the kick once fired. It was a pump-action .410, the kick at any other time in my life enough to jar my spine. But nothing happened. Only blast, light, kick, all in this instant.

  Mom screamed, and Unc pulled hard at my belt, because still here came Thigpen, and I’d missed altogether.

  I pumped it, felt the action only go halfway down, then stop. The gun jammed, the cartridge caught on its way out of the chamber.

  Thigpen laughed. “Got the clutch way open,” he called out. “For targets close in!”

  Unc pulled harder on my belt again, and now he was leading, me nearly stumbling for the angle he held me at, and now here was Mom running, too, running and running, and I was running, too, and only now did I figure it: we were running toward the bluff, and I dropped the shotgun, heard the clatter of it on the gravel, me through with it.

  And now Mom was falling behind, and I saw her face in the moonlight out here, heard a cry on her heavy breaths, and I put my hand out to her.

  Thigpen fired, a spit of gravel splashing up beside me.

  I turned from Unc pulling harder at me, harder, trying to move forward. I slowed down, held out my hand, and Mom’s hand was up, and she was running, and I could hear in this dark her crying.

  There they were, horse and rider at full gallop, Thigpen low, arm out, a solid black shape hurtling toward us, seventy-five yards now.

  “Mom!” I screamed, and held out my hand.

  He fired again, another spray of gravel, this time beside Mom, the rocks flying up and hitting me and Mom.

  She let out a startled yelp, stumbled, her arms going wild to keep her balance, but she didn’t fall, reached that hand out again.

  Thigpen was fifty yards behind, the gun still up.

  Then Mom’s hand was in mine, and I grabbed hold hard, pulled at her, Unc holding hard to me, pulling.

  Here was the bluff, and the marsh.

  We were running full blown now, faster than we’d run any time this night, Unc pushing hard from behind, Mom holding tight my hand. But here was the edge, and the answer to the question I’d wondered a moment ago—Run where?—came to me.

  The river. This was where Unc’d wanted us to go all along. If you went east off Polaris from anywhere you stood on Hungry Neck, I finally saw, you came to the Ashepoo.

  I stopped as best I could, Unc still pushing from behind, Mom still holding tight, so that when we hit the edge of the bluff it was all I could do to keep us all from falling in.

  Thigpen fired again, another bullet past us and above, and I looked back at him: thirty yards now.

  “Jump,” Unc said.

  I looked at him. He was facing the river, and I turned, looked at what he couldn’t see.

  The Ashepoo at high tide, black water thirty feet or so below us and fifty feet wide, on the other side of it the marsh all the way to Edisto, in a straight line across it the black tips of those empty pylons more than ever like the spine of some huge dead animal. And spread across it all those tiny nameless islands.

  Above it all these stars, the moon.

  “Jump!” Unc shouted, and now he pushed at me, and in the last second I laced the fingers of my hand in Mom’s, held it tight, and jumped, because there was nothing else to do, and no one else to die with.

  Huger Dillard, I thought on our way down toward that black water, and still the words were new, and meant nothing.

  It was a cold I couldn’t prepare for, a cold so black and cold it seemed to split me open, the wind knocked out of me, and I let go Mom’s hand to get to the air above me, everything black and cold.

  I kicked my legs, the water thick with the cold, my eyes open to black and stinging, and I reached up, hoped my hand would break the surface, but it didn’t, and for an instant I thought maybe I’d twisted upside down somehow, that I was reaching down and away from what I needed.

  But then an arm had hold around me, beneath my own arm, and I was being pulled up, and still I was kicking.

  Here was air, and I pulled it in, pulled at it like I could swallow down all the air there ever was, and I knew it was Unc’s arm around me, knew that touch even here in this cold and black.

  “Huger,” he whispered, “Huger, stay still, and just float.”

  I took in more breaths, more breaths, and finally opened my eyes, saw the bluff, the dark shape up there of a man on horseback, stopped, slumped forward, an arm out toward us.

  We were moving, the tide on its way out, him growing smaller, and then he fired, a sharp shard of light out at us.

  Where was Mom?

  I turned, Unc’s arm still around me, and looked for her, saw a shape on the water only a few feet downriver, a head just floating, beside us on the right the Hungry Neck side of the Ashepoo, those trees right up to the bank, to the left the wall of grasses where the marsh began.

  I tried to make my breaths go small, tried to keep from shivering into a ball and sinking. Unc still had his hand beneath my arm, and I could feel his legs treading water, the small whip of cold water around my legs as his moved and moved beside me, and then I started treading, started kicking.

  Thigpen fired again, our backs to him so I couldn’t see the flash off the barrel, but I heard in the instant he fired the swallowed snap the bullet made into the water between Mom and us, and Mom yelped, kicked hard her legs, her arms out of the water, I could see, and she was whimpering again, splashing and kicking, and he fired again.

  Then Unc let go of me, slapped the water hard with his hand, shouted out, “Right here! Over here!” and kicked his legs at the surface, slapped again.

  He was turned to the bluff and was kicking back toward Thigpen, away from me and away from Mom.

  He wanted to draw Thigpen’s fire.

  He wanted to save us.

  I saw that arm up off Thigpen, saw Unc splashing, saw that piece of moon above them both, saw it all moving away from me, the tide working to carry me out and away from this: the place and time—the Ashepoo, tide turning—Unc had in mind since he’d had me turn him to Polaris, put him in the line of sight of that star, in him the knowledge of tides and time and placement of constellations in the sky. He knew this was where we’d end up, knew the tide would carry us away. He knew.

  Thigpen had his gun up, Unc slapped the water.

  And then because I was no one, because my name carried on it no meaning, me no one I knew, I shouted, too. “Hey, Thigpen!” I shouted. “Hey, Thigpen!” I slapped at the water.

  Thigpen’s silhouette moved, that arm jumping up, lining up with me now, me floating away from Unc, downriver.

  Here came light skittering across the water from behind me, the quick and perfect sweep of it there on the water, in that sweep the surface of the river and the Hungry Neck bank of the Ashepoo, its branches casting twisted shadows that moved with the light moving, then came the back of Unc’s head lit up, his arm moving, the light illuminating for an instant bits of water like broken white glass falling from his arm as he raised it and lowered it again, splashing, the light nothing to him, invisible as the rest of his world, and now this piece of light slipped past him and up to the bluff, and to Thigpen to light him up, give detail where none had been the entire night so far: the bright figure of a man in blue jeans and an army fatigue jacket sitting on a gray horse, one arm limp, the spot where he’d been hit by Patrick and where I’d punched him dark with blood, his other arm up, the gun pointed now at the light, ready to fire.

  His face was pale, his mouth open. The hat was gone, and he seemed in this moment for all the world some deer caught in the headlights of a pickup, about to be hit.

  “Hold your fire!” a voice came from behind me, and I turned, finally, saw where the beam off a flashlight pointed up from the water: it was a boat down th
ere.

  And there in the light off that flashlight was Mom, her head in the water facing the boat and this voice, the boat coming toward her.

  “Thank God!” she shouted, her head a silhouette to me, her hair flat, and she turned to me, looking for me.

  “Huger,” she said, but I looked to Thigpen to see what he would do. This wasn’t over yet.

  Unc’d stopped at that voice. “Who’s there?” he called out, too loud, then, “Huger!”

  “Right here,” I said, but I was looking at Thigpen.

  He still held the gun out, pointed toward that light.

  But then he let the hammer back with his thumb, let his arm drop, and he seemed to let out a breath he’d been holding all night.

  “Who’s there?” Unc called again, his head moving, looking, listening.

  “Thank God!” Mom said again, and now the boat was near on her, the flashlight beam falling from the bluff to shine on her full blast, and she turned to me again, called, “Huger, come on!” and then the beam was in my face, and everything went white.

  “Who’s there?” Unc said again. “Who is that?” and the light was off me.

  “One guess, Leland,” the voice said.

  Unc’s mouth fell open.

  I turned to the boat. The beam was on Unc, and I could see it was a man sitting at the stern of a jon boat, and two people were sitting in the bow, and now Mom was at the side of it. One of those two stood, moved to the gunnel, and reached down, helped Mom get a foot up, pulled her in.

  I looked at Unc. Still his mouth hung open, him caught back in the tide now, all of us slipping away and slipping away from Thigpen back on the bluff.

  Then, like whoever was holding that flashlight knew what I was thinking on, the beam swung back up to him on the horse, growing smaller each second. He was looking at us, the gun still down.

  “You were supposed to have handled all this before we met up over here,” the voice called out to him.

  I thought maybe I knew this voice, and I started thinking on doctors at the club: those investors Yandle senior represented.

  “Good God,” Unc whispered, his face to the voice.

  “Ran up on some problems is all,” Thigpen called back, shook his head. “Busted a couple ribs back there,” he said. “Took a hit off a shotgun too.” He let out another breath, reined the horse around so they were facing the woods. “Nothing I can’t handle. Meet with you in a few.” He let Jeb go a few feet, then stopped him, turned. “Do what you want with the niggers and the boy and his momma. But you leave Leland for me. Hear?”

  “You work for me,” the voice said, and the flashlight clicked off, and now we were back in darkness.

  But it was only a second or so before the shadows came back, and now the boat was near on me, and I heard the trolling motor on it, the little electric job on the tail, bringing the boat here in silence.

  There was the man, sitting at the motor, and Mom was in there, too, next to the person who hadn’t stood, and that person who’d helped Mom in was reaching down now for me, the boat right next to me.

  Tabitha.

  “He got a gun, Leland,” Miss Dinah said, and now I could see only Tabitha in the dark, the shape of her hair, what little light off the moon giving in to the whites of her eyes, a shadow to her nose.

  Here was her hand, and I took it, brought my leg up to the gunnel, pulled myself up and rolled into the boat. I landed on something hard, long sticks, it felt like, and I saw they were shovels, two of them, laid out in the bottom.

  Miss Dinah was on the bench next to Mom in the bow, Mom with a jacket around her shoulders and crying, Miss Dinah with her arms around her.

  Tabitha crouched in front of her momma and took off her jacket, that same one she’d worn last night when I’d followed her through the woods.

  She held it out to me, and I looked at her.

  Tabitha. Miss Dinah.

  I heard the hammer pulled back on a gun, turned, saw this man held a pistol out at me.

  He was looking past me at the water. He had on a baseball cap, I could see, dark jacket and pants, heavy rubber boots to his knees. But I couldn’t make out his face for the black shadow cast by the bill.

  “Let’s go, Leland,” he said, and here was that voice.

  Tabitha lay her jacket over my shoulders, and I realized I was shivering for the cold. I looked at her, nodded, and she nodded back. But her eyes were on the man.

  “Help him in,” the man said, and I knew that voice from deer-hunt Saturdays standing at the campfire, Unc parceling out the men, who would go with who on whose truck.

  I knew that voice, knew him: forest-green Range Rover.

  Now Unc was in the water beside us, and I leaned over the gunnel, said, “Unc,” so he’d know where I was, and held out my hand. He took hold of it, put a leg up to the gunnel, and I pulled him over and in.

  He was breathing hard, and sat up fast, his face to the man.

  Forest-green Range Rover.

  It came to me.

  Unc whispered, “Charlie Simons.”

  “Back from the dead,” the man said.

  He was dead. I’d seen the body, seen what little of the head was left, and those skinned hands like squirrels, the dark red and glistening muscle, the white tendons of his hands. I’d seen it.

  Here he was, the one from the file footage on the news the night his wife came in and told me to cherish my momma.

  My mom: no one I knew.

  Or was she? Thigpen’d lied about killing Simons. Or he’d made us think he’d killed him. So why wouldn’t he lie about me, about Mom and Unc, just to get me to run like I did, get me to blink?

  I’d blinked. And maybe Thigpen was lying.

  But he wasn’t. I knew. I’d known forever.

  I shivered from the cold and wet, even with Tabitha’s jacket around me.

  “Timing is everything, now isn’t it, Leland?” Simons said. We were headed upriver, the bluff already past. We sat facing him in the stern, Mom and Miss Dinah still on the bench at the bow, Unc and me on the middle bench, Tabitha next to Simons, facing us. He had one hand to the engine, the other with the pistol pointed at Unc. The boat was moving slow, headed into the current, and I wondered where we were going, and I knew in the same moment it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.

  “I hope our little interruption of the festivities between you three and Deputy Thigpen hasn’t disappointed you much,” he said. “Of course, Miss Gaillard and her daughter’s cameo appearances this evening have certainly put a crimp in their day, a day otherwise filled with information gathering. But once one finds intruders rummaging though one’s e-mail, of course it behooves one to go to the source, as it were, and prune the offending branches.” He paused. “As I said, timing is everything, and the coincidence of our crossing paths in this manner has the ring of Providence about it.”

  Unc was silent.

  Simons shrugged. “Or maybe not. Maybe quite the opposite. I guess we’ll find out once we rendezvous with Deputy Thigpen. We’ll see whether Providence plays a hand or not.”

  “Dorcas found what station he sending mail from,” Miss Dinah said from behind me, her voice low, steady. “She found out he sending from Miss Constance address at the museum.” She paused. “But he found us out.”

  “I am sorry, Miss Dinah,” Unc said. “I placed you in this, and I am truly sorry.”

  “Sweet sentiment,” Simons said. “And it may sadden you even more when I inform you the mail was nothing. Only cosmetic, in case someone came knocking where he ought not, figuring out what is best left a mystery.” He paused. “To paraphrase Mr. Clemens, e-mail as regards my demise has been greatly exaggerated.” He laughed. “This way it appears as though messages sent from Constance to Cleve Ravenel incriminate the two of them, implicating them in my death as well as yours, LD.”

  Unc let out a breath. “And Pigboy and Fatback don’t even exist.”

  “Precisely,” Simons said.

  The river widened out here, a
clearing coming up on the Hungry Neck side, and we would be right where I’d parked the Luv that first day I had it, the marsh stretching away for miles. “Almost to the cut,” he said, and looked at the motor a second. “If this troller will get us there. Truth be known, I hadn’t expected all this company, even though we’ll be packing out a great deal of material this evening. Even so, the engine I’ve got will do the work, I’m certain.” He looked past Unc now. “Truth be known,” he said. “Truth be known. Now there’s an oxymoron if ever I encountered one.”

  He turned the engine, and we were heading out into the marsh and off the Ashepoo, beside us the gray walls of marsh grass, the channel suddenly narrow, twelve feet across, and now Hungry Neck was what I could see behind him and Tabitha: trees growing smaller as we pulled deeper into the marsh.

  Unc said, “If you’d wanted the land, you could have come to me.”

  “Hah!” Simons let out quick, his head tipping back a moment, and Tabitha flinched at his move. Without thinking, I reached a hand out to her, touched her knee a moment.

  She did nothing.

  Simons hadn’t seen it. He shook his head, looked at Unc, then past us again, maneuvered us deeper into the marsh, the walls swallowing up the trace of the Ashepoo I’d been able to see behind us. “Your lack of vision, Leland—and I apologize for the bad pun—though precisely what I’ve come to expect from you, still astounds me,” he said, his words perfect the way South-of-Broaders made them perfect: to remind you of who they were, and of who you weren’t.

  “Land,” he said, and steered this time to his left, those walls still around us. “If it had been only the land, there would have been no need for all these forensic pyrotechnics. No need for the degloving of hands and the blasting away of any dental records an indigent male of my approximate height, weight, and skin coloring might have revealed, rounded up with no questions from me by my loyal sidekick, Deputy Thigpen. I could have simply gone in with the rest of the boys and made an offer to you. But you and I both know what good that’s done. Delbert Yandle as front man? Come now. Even you’re not going to give in for that.”