River Runs Red (The Border Trilogy)

by Jeffrey J. Mariotte

  But when he saw Wade with his comics and the album he’d taken off the turntable to play at Byrd’s place—never mind that Byrd was right behind him—his demeanor changed.

  For the worse.

  “How much did y’all spend on that shit?” he shouted. His face was almost the color of an eggplant and his hands were bunched into fists.

  Wade had spent exactly twenty-seven dollars and nineteen cents. Not a fortune, considering he only made it into El Paso a few times a year, but not an insignificant sum either. “Not that much,” he said. He had only been in his father’s presence for seconds and he was already on the defensive.

  “Looks like plenty from here.”

  “Dad…”

  “Don’t dad me.” The old man stalked toward him. He snarled, literally, pulling his lips back, baring teeth, and making a growling noise. His eyes burned with liquid fire. He stank like a used washcloth soaked in cheap alcohol. Wade recognized the symptoms: something had pissed him off, he’d gone out drinking when he should have been working, got in trouble, and he would take it out on whomever he could. Wade hated that Byrd was there to see the pummeling he’d get.

  “Dad, listen, not right now. Byrd and me, we’re going—”

  “You’re going fuckin’ nowhere till I’m done with you,” his father said. He took another step toward Wade.

  And then Wade felt a bump against his shoulder as Byrd pushed past him, stepping between him and the old man.

  “Mr. Scheiner,” Byrd said. Wade caught a hint of a tremor in his voice. So he was afraid of some things after all. “Mr. Scheiner, I know you’ve been beatin’ up Wade for pretty much as long as I’ve known him. But it’s got to stop. Now. If you ever touch him again, then we’ll have a problem.”

  Dad’s eyes went huge with surprise, and the snarl on his lips turned into a wet, menacing grin. “You callin’ me out, boy?”

  “I didn’t want it to go that far, but I guess so. Yeah.”

  Byrd was strong, but he was still a kid. As far as Wade knew—and Wade knew him very well—he’d only been in a couple of fights. The last one, with Sidney Hughes, a notoriously vicious redneck at school, had happened in the locker room after Byrd’s gym class a couple months before. Wade had seen Byrd afterward, and he’d suffered a black eye and a bloody nose. He claimed Sidney had fared worse, and in fact Sidney had stopped tormenting people for the rest of the school year.

  But Brent Scheiner had been fighting his whole life, to hear him tell it. Against adults, some of them armed with knives and clubs and other weapons. If Byrd went up against him, he’d be slaughtered.

  Wade grabbed his friend’s arm. “Byrd.”

  Byrd shook him off.

  “Better listen to the boy,” the old man said. “He knows what you’re up a’gin.”

  “I don’t care,” Byrd declared, his voice steadier now, firmer. “You’ve been hittin’ him for too long. If you promise to knock it off, I’ll leave you alone.”

  “We gone do this in the house, or outside?”

  “Don’t matter to me,” Byrd said.

  Wade fought back tears that threatened to blind him. “Byrd, no,” he pleaded. “Just go home. I’ll be okay. I’ll see you later on.”

  “Not happenin’, Wade.”

  “Byrd, for fuck’s sake, leave it be!”

  Byrd turned his head just enough to fix Wade with a glare every bit as frightening as the old man’s.

  And the old man used the opportunity to charge.

  Wade’s mother screamed. Wade joined her.

  Wade’s father threw a punch at Byrd’s jaw. Wade had only been on the receiving end of that one a couple of times—usually his father used open hands to pummel him, and body blows—but he had felt the power behind it, the right shoulder pistoning forward, driving the fist. This could end the fight before it really began.

  Byrd dodged the punch. It glanced off his left shoulder, and Dad’s momentum carried him forward, off balance, into the fist that Byrd drove up at his gut. Dad folded over the fist and gave an ooof! sound as the wind went out of him and the color vanished from his face.

  Byrd was far from done. He followed that with a couple more quick, sharp jabs to the solar plexus, staggering Dad. Then Byrd threw a combination, right-left-right. The first two snagged the old man’s chin, and the last missed it but clipped his ear.

  Dad retreated to catch his breath. Oddly, the smile he showed appeared genuine.

  “Y’all’re fixin’ to make this fun,” he said. He spat a thick gob of blood on the linoleum tile floor. “Okay. That’s okay with me.”

  Byrd didn’t respond. Wade watched his back and shoulders rise and fall with his deep breaths. He kept his fists up, guarding his face, elbows close to his trunk. Maybe he’d only watched boxing on TV—Wade didn’t think he’d ever had lessons—but his feet were planted on the floor, and he didn’t have much room to move anyway and he seemed to know what he was doing.

  Dad walked back and forth in front of him, at arm’s length, throwing easy jabs. His arms were longer than Byrd’s, and his fists connected now and again. Byrd tried to bat them away, the blows only landing on his shoulders and arms. Dad was smiling, toying with Byrd, testing his reflexes and his reach.

  Wade was glad that Byrd seemed to understand this and didn’t let himself get drawn into a close-in slugfest.

  After a couple minutes, Dad changed tactics. He lunged in close, threw his long arms out, and wrapped them around the teenager, pinning Byrd’s arms to his sides. Then he jerked his head forward, slamming it into Byrd’s teeth. Byrd’s head snapped back, blood spraying from his mouth. Dad released him and started in with a series of body blows, alternating right and left fists, which sounded like someone hitting a side of beef with a baseball bat. Byrd groaned, tried to cover himself, tried to strike back, but he had been shaken by the head butt and had lost whatever control of the situation he’d once had.

  “Dad!” Wade shrieked. “Leave him be!”

  Dad took a couple steps back and laughed. “He wanted it.”

  “Brent, really,” Wade’s mom said. Her complaint was as ineffectual as ever.

  Dad raised the back of his hand toward her. “Don’t you fuckin’ start in.”

  She cowered away from his threatened blow. Byrd was bent over, breathing hard, wiping blood away from his mouth on the side of his hand and flinging it to the floor. Wade looked for a weapon he could use, a club or a knife. The big knives were in the kitchen and Byrd and the old man blocked his way, plus his mom was there and she would object. He had a baseball bat in his room, though.

  He took a stealthy step backward, then another. His dad caught his gaze and he halted, meeting his father’s eyes with what he hoped was a look of intense, searing hatred. The old man just showed his teeth in a malicious grin. Pink-tinged spittle gathered at the corners of his mouth. The fight had turned in his favor, and he liked things to go his way.

  “You want to keep goin’, boy? You decide not to, that’s okay with me. I’m just gettin’ warmed up, but there’s others here I can spar with.”

  “No,” Byrd said, straightening to his full height. He sucked in a deep breath. To Wade, it looked as if he had grown an inch taller and a couple inches broader in the last twenty seconds. “You keep your hands off them.”

  “This is my house, boy. I do what I want here.”

  “Not anymore.”

  Dad touched his lower lip which were cut and already swelling, with his knuckles and spat again. “Fuck that. Let’s go.”

  Byrd shrugged and danced toward him, fists probing. Dad laughed at his footwork. “Fuckin’ Muhammad Ali here.” But when he tried to swing at Byrd, his fist sailed past because Byrd, who was on his toes now, moving instead of planted, hopping out of range.

  Dad took another shot. This time, Byrd grabbed his arm in both hands, threw his weight back, and wrenched on Wade’s father’s arm. He pulled the old man off balance again. This time, instead of punching him, he snapped a fierce kick right into B
rent Scheiner’s genitals.

  The old man turned bright purple, doubling over, throwing his hands down to cover his crotch. The expression on his face was an ugly cross between hatred and agony. Byrd took advantage; his fists shot out to wipe the expression from his face altogether. He landed blows to Dad’s jaw, chin, cheek, nose, and eye. Dad’s head rocked and shook like a bobble-head doll’s. Byrd kept up the assault, raining punches.

  Blood flew in the air between them every time Byrd drew back for another shot. Dad’s face had turned into a crimson mask, his cheek and brow and lips all opened up. The blood clung to Byrd’s fists, and he no doubt contributed some of his own. But he moved with absolute confidence now. He controlled the fight, and it was clear that Dad would go down. Probably soon.

  Then one of Dad’s feet gave out beneath him, his knee buckling. He had to catch himself on a kitchen counter. The yellow linoleum was slick with blood, the metallic tang of it almost as strong as the sweat and fear and booze seeping from the old man’s pores.

  Wade’s mom’s face was curiously detached, as if she were watching a movie instead of her son’s best friend beating the crap out of her husband. Wade wondered if the marriage would survive this day. He hoped not.

  Dad kept his balance, barely, and forced himself back onto two feet. He swayed like the drunken man he was. He shook his head, trying to clear his vision, but blood from the cut over his eye and the swelling of his brow had half blinded him. When he spat again, a tooth hit the floor with a soft clatter. He slurred his words when he spoke, as if his tongue had become too heavy for him. “Amon fuckin’ kill you,” he said. The redneck in him came to the fore when he was seriously drunk or seriously pissed, and it had done so now. “Amon” meant “I’m going to,” a verbal habit he had mostly put aside since his rural childhood. “C’mere, boy, amon tear your fuckin’ fairy head off.”

  Byrd laughed. Wade was astonished that he felt comfortable enough to find humor in anything. “Fairy?” Byrd repeated. “I’m a fairy? What’s that say about you, a fairy kickin’ your ass?”

  Dad lurched forward in a barely controlled attack, his hands grasping for purchase. Byrd sidestepped the attempt easily, and as he did so he swung his right hand sideways, driving its solid edge into the old man’s throat. Wade’s father gave a choked wheezing sound and crumpled to the blood-soaked kitchen floor in a heap.

  “Call 911!” Wade’s mom screamed. “Wade, call 911!” She knelt by her husband’s side, shaking him gently. He was breathing, but with difficulty, making noises like someone trying to jam a sheep through a bellows.

  Wade shoved past Byrd, snatched the phone off the wall, and dialed. An operator answered almost immediately, and he told her that his father was injured, that he’d hurt his throat, and someone had to come quick. She took down some information. Twenty minutes later, they heard sirens. By then, Dad was able to move a little, and he sat up, one hand over his throat, his back against the counter. The spark had gone from his eyes, and he wouldn’t look at anyone even when they spoke to him.

  “You better get out of here,” Wade told Byrd.

  “Come with me.”

  “I should stay.”

  “Fuck him,” Byrd said. “He’s been whalin’ on you and your mom for as long as I’ve known you. So he got a little taste of it himself. What’s the big deal?”

  “I don’t know if anyone’s ever beat him,” Wade said. “I don’t know what he’ll do. He’s got guns. He might call the police or he might decide to just fucking kill you. Just go on. I’ll see you later.”

  Byrd rubbed the bruised knuckles of his right fist against his T-shirt. “Yeah, okay.” Before he left, though, he went down on one knee in front of Brent Scheiner, putting his face very close to the old man’s. “That’s a sample,” he said. “You ever lay a hand on Wade or his mom again, I’ll know. And what I do to you that time won’t be somethin’ you’ll get back up from.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  By the time the fire department arrived, Wade’s father was up and breathing on his own. But something had gone out of him. He wouldn’t meet anyone’s eye. Wade’s mother was on her hands and knees trying to sponge up blood, and his father patiently let a paramedic examine him and patch him up. They told him he didn’t absolutely need to go to the medical center, which was all the way in Sierra Blanca, unless he had trouble breathing or felt nauseated later that night.

  Once they had gone, he took a can of beer from the refrigerator and went into the living room and sat in his chair with the lights out and the TV on. Wade didn’t hear him change the channel once. He sat in front of the set and let the sounds and images wash over him like a soothing balm.

  He didn’t go back to work for a week. During that time, he mostly stayed at home, sitting in the living room watching TV or busying himself in his workroom. He didn’t attack Wade or Wade’s mother. He barely spoke to them, and when he did, it was in a soft, gentle manner. He was polite, even deferential, saying “please” when he wanted the mashed potatoes passed, and “thank you” when they were. If he passed Wade in the hall, he stepped aside to let his son pass. He apologized when he accidentally got in someone’s way.

  It was as if someone had taken his body, shaken out the insides, and replaced them with those of an entirely different person. Wade couldn’t quite believe the difference in him. Not that he objected—it was a relief not to have to worry about being assaulted, maybe even killed one of these days, by his own flesh and blood. But it was strange, too, and more than a little worrying. Was he just letting the anger build inside him, disguised by this meek new surface? Would he explode one of these days? Wade had heard about people who slaughtered their families and themselves, and he couldn’t help wondering if that’s what his dad would do.

  But he went back to work, and seemed to get a little of his old spirit back. He was still courteous, even deferential, but Wade stopped thinking he was sucking it all in. Sometimes he complained about work, or shouted at the idiots on TV, and he sounded like the old Brent Scheiner, only without the poundings.

  After a few more weeks, he even started going out at night again. Drinking with his buddies, Wade guessed. He came home late, but not as late as he had before. And he didn’t come home angry. All in all, Wade considered it a vast improvement.

  Wade had started dating Angela Mills, after running into her swimming in the river one day and admiring the way she filled out her bikini. She had red hair the color of sunset and green eyes set into a face that he hadn’t realized was so pretty until he saw her pop out of the water, mouth open, gasping for air. He began to think his life had turned around, that he no longer had to be afraid of his father, that he was attractive to girls, and that good things were heading his way. Most days he spent time with Byrd and Molly, with Angela often joining them. Evenings were reserved for Angela and some spirited making out wherever they could find privacy. Nights he slept better than he had in years.

  It was on July nineteenth, he remembered, that he lost his virginity. He had taken Angela to the cave, where she’d been several times before, but always during the day with Molly and Byrd around. This night, they were inside with a lantern glowing, fooling around some and talking some, and she got to exploring. Wade barely remembered the nudie magazines he and Byrd had cached a couple years earlier, but she found them and started flipping the pages, looking at the naked women.

  “Are my boobs as big as hers?” she asked, letting a centerfold flop open.

  Wade wasn’t sure how to answer. Was this one of those “does this dress make me look fat?” questions? You didn’t need to watch a lot of relationship sitcoms on TV to know there was no safe way to answer this.

  He tried to dodge. “It’s hard to say.”

  She put down the magazine and slipped off her tank top, then reached back and unfastened her bra, letting it fall to the cave floor. “How about now?” she asked. “Without all that stuff in the way?”

  Her breasts were high and firm, smaller than the magazine model’s bu
t plenty big enough for Wade. He still wasn’t sure how to answer, so instead of speaking he leaned forward and took one of them in his mouth.

  She moaned in response, arching her back and pressing it against his face. He took the other breast in his hands, moving his mouth between both. The next thing he knew, she had unzipped his pants and released the erection he’d been sure would split them open. With the naked flesh of a dozen photo layouts on the ground around them, Angela kicked off her jeans, sank back onto the cave floor, and guided him into her. Having not thought to bring a condom, he hesitated for a moment, but she read his expression. “I’m on the pill,” she whispered. “To control my acne.”

  “But what about diseases?” he asked, battling the urge to shut up and enjoy the moment. STDs were a big topic of discussion in health class.

  “I’m a virgin, too, silly,” Angela assured him.

  A moment’s wonder at how she had known that he was threw him. Had he done something wrong? But then he lost himself in the soft moistness of her and began to move with her.

  That night, alone in his bed, was like the night he had felt up Jenna Blair. His mind raced in circles and he got hard all over again just remembering how it had felt. He wondered if he loved Angela Mills and if she loved him. He hoped she wouldn’t be offering herself to Byrd in a couple weeks. He finally fell asleep, and his dreams were all about her.

  His mom woke him up early the next morning with tears running down her cheeks. “Honey, you’re friends with that Kenner boy, aren’t you?” she asked.

  He sat up in bed, gripping the covers over his lap to hide his morning erection. “Russ Kenner? Sure, I guess so. He was on the JV team with Byrd. What’s up?”

  “I just heard on the radio news,” she said, stifling a sob. “He’s been killed.”

  “Killed how? What happened?”

  “I don’t know much. They didn’t give a lot of detail. Just he’s been killed, and the sheriff doesn’t know who done it.”