Pickard County Atlas

by Chris Harding Thornton

  It was a distraction, Harley knew. Paul was stalling. But if he was honest, Harley wasn’t sure he didn’t want to stall, too. Who knew what the hell he’d find in there. “Ask you a question, since you’re being forthright?”

  “Shoot,” Paul said. “See, I say that because by now I know you won’t.”

  “Why the clothes? Why break into a dead person’s house, steal their clothes, and use them for kindling?”

  Paul looked down, face with no more guile than it’d had asleep at the courthouse. “Dead people’s?” He smiled a little, in what appeared to be genuine surprise. He looked up and away again, eyes not wide but wider than usual. “Dead people’s.”

  “It’s what I said.”

  “I saw the clothes at the Jipp place. After the fire. But dead people’s—that’s some attention to detail.”

  “What’s it mean?”

  “Inside joke. Long time ago, Dell Senior pulled a prank. Gave her a box of ash and burnt clothes, said it was what was left of him. Dell Junior. Told her to get over it. Needless to say, did not go over well. For one, he burned the wrong kid’s clothes. One of the live ones. For another, she’d already found him. Dell Junior. She might’ve said so if Dell Senior wasn’t such a prick.”

  “That somehow explain her burning trash naked?”

  “I know she burned her clothes one time. Symbolic, I suspect. Wrong clothes—living’s versus dead’s—ashes came from the burn barrel—hell, I don’t know, Harley. Good enough dose of scotch-bourbon blend, lot of abstract notions seem concrete.” Paul squinted into the dark distance, said, “Shh.”

  Harley heard it, too. Gravel. He turned back to look as a pair of headlights shone down County Road K.

  “Believe it or not,” Paul said, “this is an unforeseen turn.”

  From the shadowy shape, the height of the headlamps’ glare, Harley saw it was a pickup. He let himself hope, for a beat, that the driver might be Loren Braasch. But even if Harley couldn’t tell the color from this distance in the dark, he knew well enough whose pickup it was, and he knew another Reddick was in the driver’s seat. The Ford barely slowed at the stop before hurtling right onto the highway, blowing through the blind intersection. Before it reached the drive, Harley sprinted for the cruiser. He’d take cover there. Radio Carol for whoever she could get for backup.

  He pulled the door shut and sank deep in his seat. He drew the .38 from its holster and listened to the roll of the tires. They stopped a fair distance behind the cruiser, close to the road. The pickup idled.

  Before Harley could grip the handset, a deep shudder and squeal cut through the night. It’d come from the house. Harley glanced up. Paul was still roosted above, still leaned back on his elbows. Thumb pad on the .38’s hammer, Harley nudged himself far enough upward to see past the dash.

  In the kitchen, darkness gaped from where a windowpane should’ve glared in the headlights. Someone inside had lifted the sash. A snatch of pale shone through the screen. Then it was gone.

  A faint click. A soft rushing like a faucet. A troop of distant horns faded in and cut away to rushing water again. The sound was a radio between stations. The dial squealed before landing on an announcer. He drifted through the night air. There’d been rain somewhere. The man listed numbers and fractions called in from towns and farms and ranches well outside Pickard County.

  The dial hissed again and landed on a muffled croon. Harley knew the croon. It was George Jones. “Least of All.”

  He sank low in his seat again. He tried to remember if there’d been music in the house after what happened. There had been before. He couldn’t say about after.

  Behind him, the pickup idled. From the house, pedal steel fuzzed around the edges and another sound filtered through the open window, too clear to come from a transistor’s speaker. It was a woman’s voice, singing along with the chorus.

  For a passing moment, Harley pictured his father reading his paper at the table, humming along.

  32

  DELL JUNIOR STREAKED AND hambone-hamboned, and Rick and Pam and Anna were all together, all in one place, one-two-three. Here—where they’d had the picnics. The old, dilapidated house with the porch roof coming loose, where Mom said what color she’d paint the rooms, what drapes she’d hang in the windows. The place was here on the highway all along. Passing as many times as he had, Rick had never known it. But now, looking at the house head-on, he did. He’d be damned.

  The chrome of the cop car in front of him lit with sparks from the pickup’s headlights, and the world was all banners and gleams better than any fireworks show. Rick took a moment. To soak it all in. Revel in it. Because it was the little things. You had to take time once in a while to revel in the little things.

  That said, Paul was here, hunkered down high above the earth. Paul was here, and they needed to have a word.

  The pickup door opened with a scream that burst in Rick’s ears. He left it open so it wouldn’t scream again and grabbed the gun so it wouldn’t be in the cab with Anna and Pam. They’d be safe from it. He jumped down, clutching it, then thought of the cop. Rick didn’t want the cop to misinterpret the gun. Cops did that. He called up to Paul. “Where’s the cop?”

  “Thanks for bringing my truck, asshole.”

  “Is he with you? If he’s with you, can you tell him—” Rick thought about what all he needed to tell the cop. “Tell him Anna’s fine. Anna’s right here. Tell him—say I’ll pay back Bowman for the gas. And I brought your pickup. The drugs are gone, though.” Rick had pitched the last of the pills on the embankment. One less thing to worry about, and he didn’t need them anymore anyway. “Tell him the drugs are gone.”

  “Yeah, I bet.”

  Rick blinked. “I took your drugs.”

  “Yeah. Gathered. Put the gun back, you idiot.”

  “Anna’s in there,” Rick said. He couldn’t put it back with Anna in there. If Paul had kids, he’d know that. Paul needed some kids. Paul needed some perspective. Some ducks in a row. “You and me need to settle this. You can’t—it was the same thing with Dell Junior’s bike.”

  “Whatever you’re talking about, now’s not the best time.”

  Hambone-hambone-hambone.

  “Stop it.” Rick swatted with the barrel.

  A voice called out behind him. It was Pam. “Harley, he’s got a gun,” she said.

  “You need to go home,” Paul said. “Take the pickup. Turn around and go home.”

  Rick’s voice broke. “My own fucking wife?”

  “What?” Paul said.

  What did he mean, what? “On my sheets. You stank up my own sheets.” His voice caught on the last word. Light sparked off the skin around his eyes. The light made it hard to see. “Brut stink on my own goddamn pillow.”

  “Harley,” Pam said, this time like a warning, teeth clenched. Rick wondered if the word should’ve meant something to him. It didn’t.

  Someone said Rick’s name. The voice was too deep to be Paul or Pam or Anna, not deep enough to be Dell Junior’s hambone. Rick couldn’t see where it came from. Not with all the sparks and streaks.

  Paul was talking again, but he’d sat up bent-kneed and leaned forward. “I took a nap there, you dumbshit. After I got out of jail. I took a fucking nap.”

  Rick had to think. Why was Paul telling him this? The stink. A nap? A nap didn’t explain how nothing was something. “What about the blond number and my leftovers and me not seeing like a gift? You didn’t fuck my wife, what about all that?”

  “Boy, you need to pass the fuck out.”

  That was probably right. Rick probably did need to pass the fuck out.

  “You need to go home, right now, and pass the fuck out.”

  A warble. Not a honk. A warble. A trilling warble.

  That was why Paul was here. Paul found Mom. She was here. The picnics. Because this was where they’d had the picnics.

  “Mom?” Rick called out.

  “Rick,” Paul said. He sounded tired now. He looked it, too. He was r
ubbing his eyes. It was late. Rick bet everybody was tired. He sure was.

  “Harley.” Pam punched the air with her voice.

  “What’s Harley?” Rick shouted back over his shoulder. “Who you talking to, Pam?”

  Nobody said anything. Nobody besides Dell Junior’s hambone.

  “Rick,” the deeper voice said again, and Rick saw where it came from. Past all the sparks and streaks. In the cruiser window was the top of a head. The cop. The cop could see him, and Rick was holding the gun. Rick thrust his arms high, held the gun well above his head. Good to let the cop know he wasn’t planning to use the gun. He was just keeping it from Anna. From Pam. Keeping them safe. Rick always said: you did whatever you had to, where family was concerned.

  Harley.

  Rick remembered now. The cop had said his name was Harley. He’d said it when he’d yelled for Pam to open the door.

  33

  PAM HELD HER BREATH AND WATCHED THE CRUISER.

  On the seat beside her Anna knocked the soles of her shoes together. They were on the wrong feet. Rick had put Anna’s shoes on the wrong feet.

  Pam gave a shaking, irritated breath and unbuckled them. Anna fussed. They’re on the wrong feet, Pam snapped. She switched them. She buckled one and tried to buckle the other. Anna slapped at Pam’s hands. She’d do it herself, she said.

  Outside, Rick raved and swatted.

  Pam yelled to Harley. He needed to do something. He needed to get Rick to drop the gun. Tell him to drop his weapon.

  Rick asked what Harley was. He asked who she was talking to.

  Harley’s eyes shot over but didn’t find hers through the windshield glass.

  Couldn’t Harley just wing him? Just wing him so he dropped the gun? Rick’s finger was laced around one of the gun’s two triggers. Probably only because he didn’t know the difference between a trigger and a guard, but that finger should’ve been enough reason to wing him—standing out there, ranting like a lunatic about hambones.

  What’s Daddy doing out there? Anna wanted to know. She knocked the sandals together with a steady pat.

  Out there. He was standing out there.

  The truck was still running. Pam leaned past Anna to see the gas gauge. About a quarter-tank. A quarter-tank was enough. It was enough to get away from here.

  She kept her eyes on Rick but pivoted to pluck Anna up by the armpits, to pull Anna over her lap and switch sides. Anna fussed. Of course she did. She was exhausted. And when it came right down to it, she also didn’t like Pam much. Which was fair. Pam hadn’t given her much reason to. There was no rule a kid had to like her parents or vice versa. Not really. Not in the grand scheme of things.

  In the grand scheme of things, you took care of them until they took care of themselves. You kept them alive and taught them to keep themselves alive. Pam had managed that so far. Despite not being cut out for it, despite knowing that and swallowing it whole every day of her life, Pam had managed. That was the best she’d ever do. Manage. That was all she had in her for this.

  Babe was right. Pam made her own bed. And she was right Pam didn’t deserve better. But deserve didn’t seem to factor into a goddamn thing. Not that Pam had seen. What mattered was she could have it for a while. Better. Anna could, too.

  “You like Grandma Babe, Grandpa Red,” she said to Anna. Anna nodded, not like she understood, more like she was dropping and raising her head to the beat of her shoes. She looked blank and tired. She said their names, repeated them.

  In the pickup’s headlights, Pam watched Rick’s dirt-streaked back and sweat-soaked pits. He held the gun high, like he was giving up, giving in.

  She asked Anna if she’d like to stay with them awhile. Grandma Babe, Grandpa Red.

  Anna knocked her soles together. When the question registered, she said she supposed. It was a grown-up word, supposed. But then Anna was a tiny, jaded old woman these days. She and Babe would get along fine.

  The yard was quiet.

  Rick called out for his mom. The way he said it sounded like a boy. A sad little boy. The sound of him made Pam’s eyes fog.

  Harley called Rick’s name but didn’t move. He peeked from the cruiser. She studied his expression. He didn’t look scared. He didn’t look angry. He didn’t even look intense. That look was reluctant at best. Like he was seeing a wounded animal. One that needed put down but he couldn’t steel himself to drop.

  Rick had been a wounded animal as long as she’d known him. One whose skin never cooled, one whose eyes never glazed. One who lay there splayed out and looked up at her, needing.

  Pam scooched over the hump into the driver’s seat. She gripped the wheel. She dropped the gearshift into reverse but kept her foot on the brake.

  Rick’s arms were sinking. Slowly. “Harley,” she called out again, voice thick but breaking.

  The gun sank. The butt rested on Rick’s hip. The barrel aimed up and out at the sky like it had when he’d surfaced from the darkness of the trailer. Like it had when they’d walked to the truck and the metal brushed the thin hairs of her arms.

  Rick turned to face her. He searched for her through the windshield glass. She still gripped the gearshift.

  “Who’s Harley, Pam?” he said, barely loud enough to hear over the engine.

  34

  RICK WAS NEARLY BLINDED by the headlights’ glare. But in the dashboard light, he made out her face—the pale of it. Around him, streaks and sparks glimmered like his lungs must’ve. Fiberglass caves, sparkling like quartz. Ruined lungs. Ruined because he’d done what he’d had to. Kept up his end. Ruined because trust was supposed to come from knowing you could depend on someone besides yourself.

  She’d had a pillowcase of clothes, tampons, she’d said. She’d meant to disappear. The whole of her. Knowing what disappearing did to him.

  He made out her knuckles on the steering wheel. He didn’t picture them braced on a mattress edge like he’d done while waiting for her to come home on the far side of the trailer last night. He knew replaying the image of some sickly pale ass rising and falling on top of her wouldn’t deaden the sink in his stomach. He knew making himself see it over and over would never make what she’d done the meaningless nonsense of a word said too many times.

  His blood felt too thick. Too thick and hot like a sickness. Like his veins could split open with it.

  Behind, Mom warbled. Around, Dell Junior streaked and sparked. They were here, they seemed to be reminding him. They were right here.

  Rick and Pam and Anna were here, too. One-two-three. Even if it wasn’t exactly the way it was supposed to be. Here in the place that wasn’t anywhere. Where Mom and Dell Junior were sound and light.

  Maybe Pam would be the smell of her hair. That smell like warm soap. Maybe Rick would be the prickled-up skin of a plucked bird. Maybe Anna, his Anna, would be the soft purr of her sleeping breath.

  He tried to feel all that itch then radiate through him like the shimmering light. But all he felt was the too-thick blood and the curve of the gun’s double trigger.

  He raised the barrel. Past it, Pam’s face hovered, a pale glow above the steering wheel. He braced the butt against his shoulder.

  A pop rang out. It had to be now. If he could salvage anything, it had to be now.

  He squeezed.

  35

  THE POP OF HARLEY’S CRUISER DOOR cut through the silence. Then a crack. A short-lived flame shot skyward as the gun kicked the man back, teetering.

  The pickup door screeched shut as the F-250 lurched forward. The back tires spun to kick up a cloud of dirt. Gun trained on Rick, Harley yelled Pam’s name. He screamed it. But the Ford plowed ahead. The dusty chrome bumper crushed into Rick’s chest. The Winchester flew up to hit the windshield with another crack, then sailed for the trees. The man curved, his boots lifting from the earth. His shoulders and head made a dead thump on the hood. The thump curdled in Harley’s stomach. She punched the brakes, and her husband hovered, midair, for a full blink. His body still curled like the front en
d shaped him. Then he dropped. He unfurled flat with his back to the earth.

  Harley stayed put by the open cruiser door. He held the .38 straight from his chest, though it wasn’t aimed at anyone. It was aimed toward the windbreak. His eyes darted to the windshield. The glass was intact. The kick had scattered the load’s fragments up into the night.

  “Jesus Christ,” Paul whispered from above, more earnest than Harley had ever heard him.

  Then a sound rose. The piercing flute of a child’s cry. It broke into stuttering. On the ground, in the tall grass and dirt, a hand skimmed the brush. A knee bent. Rick was moving. He was alive, at least. He was still alive, for the time being.

  The child’s cry grew louder, stronger, in an unbreaking wail. A hinge creaked. Harley knew the creak. And though he knew it wouldn’t come, he listened for the bristles of the straw broom scratching the jamb. Instead came the pat of a step. The porch boards gave a soft groan. He willed his eyes that way, off the idling pickup and the man trying to breathe in the grass.

  Virginia Reddick glowed in the glare of the headlights and the cruiser’s side lamp, hair a matted mane, wiry and yellow. Her skin, the color of dry dirt, cracked and pleated down from her shoulders and chest. The skin smoothed where her breasts flattened to bob long against the round ball of her belly. Her fists perched on her naked hips.

  Below the deep-carved fissure between her brows, Virginia’s eyes swept the yard like they aimed to scorch this scene and all past it. If they knew her son in the grass, her daughter-in-law and grandchild in the cab of the pickup, the recognition didn’t soften them. The eyes burned like an oak he’d seen when he was a farmhand south of Junco. It’d been struck by a bolt of lightning. The bark split just enough he saw the tree burning from the inside out.

  The child in the F-250 had shrieked into breathlessness, sound caught in a patter of rapid breaths.