It wasn’t until they were walking away from the garden that Pete could start trying to ply answers from Charlie.
“Guess you’ve been talking to Hugh,” Charlie said. “He’s the only one who knows.”
“Yeah, he caught me at breakfast this morning. I told him I didn’t know anything about it, but I’d ask you when I saw you. So what were you up to?”
“I’m too tired to talk about it.”
“Bullshit,” Pete said. It was one of his new favorite words, picked up from Randi, and he only felt comfortable using it freely in the presence of a few trusted folks.
“It’s not bullshit,” Charlie said. “I was up half the night.”
“What I want to know is why? There some reason you can’t tell me?”
“Maybe it’s none of your business.”
Pete laughed. “Dude, everything that happens to us here is everyone’s business. There hasn’t been any privacy at all since we started living like cavemen. It’s like you pestering me about what was bothering me after we came back from the market yesterday.”
“Doesn’t that piss you off sometimes? All this closeness? People in your business?”
Pete nodded. “Definitely, but I don’t know what we’re supposed to do about it. That’s just the way it is right now. Little things that used to be private now affect everybody. It may be that way for a long time.”
They walked a weedy cattle trail along the river, headed for a wooded section that always held more fish. The pools were deeper and the water cooler. With every flood, stocked rainbow trout fled public fishing areas to come upstream. They settled in the deep pools where there was less fishing pressure. Those were the fish the two had been targeting with their branch lines.
“So you’re seriously not going to tell me?” Pete continued.
Charlie stopped in his tracks and turned around to face Pete. “I killed him. Now you know. Happy?”
Pete frowned. “Killed who?”
“That Willie guy. The one who was running his mouth at the farmer’s market.”
Pete laughed. “Yeah, right.”
Charlie didn’t laugh. He was staring him in the eye, stone-cold serious. “I’m telling you the truth.”
Pete didn’t know what to say. “What? Why?”
“Because he threatened you and that threatens all of us. We can’t let assholes treat us like that. Your dad wouldn’t allow it. He didn’t put up with shit from anybody. Just because he’s gone doesn’t mean we have to start taking it either. I’m not going to. If someone threatens us, I threaten back. That’s how it’s going to work.”
“You didn’t exactly threaten, Charlie. You say you killed him.”
Charlie nodded. He was sweating from exhaustion, his tanned face unusually pale. He looked around for a place to sit, finding a downed sycamore that extended out into the river. “I did kill him.”
Pete followed Charlie to the log, taking a seat by his friend. “How? How did you do it?”
“You said something about him living above the store so I went there. I banged on the apartment door upstairs and he came out. I shot him.”
“You killed him?”
“I’m pretty sure he’s dead. I got him in the neck and there was blood everywhere. Then I had to kill one of his sons too. He got a look at me and I was afraid he recognized me from the market.”
“Duane?”
“That’s the one. You said you went to school with him.”
Pete looked off toward the river. “That’s him. You killed Duane. You killed a kid I went to high school with.” Pete said it as if he couldn’t believe the words coming out of his mouth.
Charlie got offended, feeling that Pete’s tone was accusatory. “Look man, you killed people too. It’s not like this is a couple of years ago and we’re some fucked-up teenage psychos. This is what you have to do now. How many folks have our people killed? I couldn’t even begin to count them.”
“Dude, I’m not saying you did anything wrong. It’s just a lot to take in. We’ve all killed people in self-defense and in fights. I’m just having a hard time picturing you going into town like an assassin and killing Willie.”
Charlie raised his voice. “He needed to be killed. Maybe if the people in town were more scared of the people in this valley, my mom wouldn’t be dead and your dad would be home instead of hiding in the mountains.”
“My dad isn’t hiding,” Pete said. “He’s worried that he may get one of us hurt.”
“Which is exactly why I killed Willie. And it’s exactly why I’ll kill anyone else who threatens us. I’m not going to end up dead like the rest of my family. I’m not going to be run out of my home again.”
The good-natured Pete was silent as he struggled with this. He’d killed people too. He’d been forced to. It had bothered him the first time, but not as much as it bothered his parents. They struggled with the fact that their son had been forced to kill someone. Pete wasn’t sure if he’d do what Charlie did. If he could seek someone out like that and put a bullet in them. He’d have to hate them a lot more than he hated anyone right now.
“Are you going to tell?” Charlie asked.
“Tell who?”
“I don’t know,” said Charlie. “Your mom? Hugh? Randi?”
“No way, man. The stuff we talk about stays between us.”
“Even if Hugh comes back and asks again?”
Pete hesitated. “You could talk to Hugh about this.”
“I don’t think so. He’ll tell your dad. Those two are tight. They’ll probably tell Randi and then everyone will know. They’ll start treating me differently.”
Pete thought about that. It was probably true. He’d heard his dad say as much, feeling like people looked at him differently because of the things he did. “I won’t say anything, Charlie. If Hugh asks me if we talked, I’ll tell him that he needs to come talk to you. Then it’s up to you what you tell him.”
Charlie got to his feet. “Good enough. Now let’s get this done. I’m exhausted.”
48
Oliver’s House
Lloyd enjoyed having a new audience and he tried to distract the children from the upsetting events of the day. He’d taught many of them the previous summer and they bubbled at the appearance of a familiar face, just as excited by his arrival as he was. Lloyd loved teaching music to children. Jim pointed out that it was probably because they were at the same level of maturity.
The sun had retreated below the horizon and the light was fading quickly. The late summer heat barely relented at night, leaving a blanket of oppressive humidity that made it difficult to sit inside. After dinner they built a campfire, hoping it would dispel some of the gloom. Sharon was apprehensive about sitting outside, concerned that Kimberly and her son might be lurking out there in the darkness.
“Surely they won’t try anything with us around,” Lloyd said.
Jim agreed. “They might be afraid to come back around after setting that fire. At least for today.”
The children, sheltered from the world for the past year, were unused to the presence of firearms. Sharon took a moment and explained to them that most folks outside of their camp had to carry guns for their safety these days. With Sharon’s blessing, Jim explained that they could ask questions about them but they should never touch them without permission.
“If you don’t mind, I need to talk with Mr. Jim and Mr. Lloyd a minute,” Sharon told the children. “You can play your instruments or play in the yard. Just don’t leave the yard or go anywhere without asking. If you need to go to the restroom, you have to take a buddy.”
The children groaned at this. They wanted to stay and listen to what the new people had to say.
“If you guys give us a few minutes, I’ll play a few songs with you,” Lloyd promised. “I might even know a few stories I can tell you.”
There was a round of cheers.
“That would be amazing,” Sharon said. “Oliver always told them stories and I suck at it.”
&nb
sp; At the promise of music and stories, the children went about occupying themselves while the adults spoke.
“I can’t believe Oliver is dead,” Lloyd said when they had some privacy. “I used to run into him at music festivals thirty years ago when I first started playing. That’s how come I ended up playing here at his camp. We got to be friends.”
“It was a stroke,” Sharon said. “He lived for a couple of hours afterward but he was paralyzed and had trouble swallowing. I’m glad he went quickly instead of lying there starving to death. I couldn’t bear to watch that.”
“Did you all give him a service?” Jim asked, taking a sip from a water bottle he’d refilled inside the house. He felt like he was a quart low.
“The neighbors really stepped up to help. One of them even had this fancy horse-drawn hearse. They moved his body to the camp for us and we buried him at the Fairy Circle.”
“He’d like that,” Lloyd said with a sad smile.
“The children picked the spot. They played some songs for him. It was a good service until his niece, Kimberly, and her son showed up. They ruined everything.”
“Will the neighbors be any help in dealing with her?” Jim asked.
Sharon shrugged. “I don’t know them very well. Oliver kept us sheltered, like the camp was his secret. Until Oliver died, I hadn’t even met most of them. They stepped up to help though. Kendall especially.”
“There’s a reason for that and you may not be aware of it,” Lloyd said. “Oliver told me that when he first opened this camp, not everyone was excited about the idea. In the seventies, a lot of the folks playing this kind of music were what you might call hippies. Bunch of long-haired folks that dressed differently from everyone else around here. Because of that, he did his best to keep the camp insulated from the community. Because of Manson and drugs, hippies had a bad reputation.”
“People don’t seem to hold those resentments anymore,” Sharon said. “My interactions with the community were always positive.”
Lloyd nodded. “That’s because of Oliver’s efforts. He always shopped locally for the camp’s food, fuel, and building materials, which built some goodwill. For a while he even had an open house and the community could come in for a concert and a barbecue.”
Sharon smiled and pointed at Lloyd. “I remember those. They did them when I first started here but then they quit. There was a problem with people bringing in alcohol and Oliver didn’t want that around the children.”
“Hellooooo,” a voice called from the darkness.
It startled Sharon until she recognized Kendall and Freda stepping into the circle of firelight. She waved a hand at them. “C’mon over!”
“Got room for two more?” Freda asked.
Sharon pointed toward a couple of lawn chairs leaning against the porch. “Sure, pull up a chair.”
Freda took a seat beside Sharon and laid a concerned hand on her forearm. “I’m sorry about what happened. That’s just awful. That must have terrified those poor babies.”
“Yes, we’re all a little shook up.”
“I don’t know Kimberly well, but her people have always been hotheaded. They stay in trouble with the law. They feud with people. Back when we had a newspaper, I used to see her son’s booking photo in there all the time. Always getting hauled in for drugs or stealing.”
“Sounds like a bad enemy to have.” Jim shook his head. “Even when there is a law, people like that don’t have any respect for it. At times like this, when there is no law, those people think they can do whatever they want. We’ve had a lot of trouble with them.”
“How did you handle it?” Kendall asked, giving Jim a serious look.
Jim thought he was joking at first. He figured the answer should have been obvious.
“He killed them,” Lloyd answered after a long pause. “But I guess all of us helped to some extent.”
Freda covered her mouth with her hand. “Killed?”
“When this whole mess happened I was away from home, in Richmond,” said Jim. “I had to walk home with some friends. I ran into trouble the whole way home. When I got there it wasn’t any better. We’ve run into a lot of violence. People who were bad before have become downright scary without the threat of jail hanging over them.”
Lloyd held a hand up. “And before you go thinking we’re a couple of outlaws, it’s not just us. I give Jim a lot of crap for the way he solves problems, but the truth is that it’s this way everywhere. People are stealing and murdering people every day. If you don’t fight back, you don’t stand a chance. You’ll get robbed or killed.”
“I’m pleased to say that we’ve been sheltered from all that,” Kendall said. “I’ve heard stories but I figured they were exaggerated.”
Jim shook his head regretfully. “No one’s exaggerating. If anything, they’re minimizing it because no one wants to admit how bad it’s really gotten. No one wants to talk about the horrors they’ve seen or the things they’ve had to do.”
Freda leaned forward and spoke in a low voice, trying to keep the children from hearing. “Surely you aren’t suggesting that we might have to deal with Kimberly in some violent fashion?”
“Probably the only way,” Jim said. He looked at Lloyd for support but Lloyd gave no indication of whether he stood by this conclusion or not.
Kendall waved them off. “It ain’t gonna come to that.”
“Surely not,” Freda piped up.
“It’s not my fight.” Jim glanced around at them. “I’m just offering my opinion based on what I’ve seen in other places, on what I’ve seen of human nature out there.”
“I ain’t exactly a fan of Kimberly and that boy of hers but I can’t see myself killing them,” Kendall said.
“I could,” Sharon said, drawing all eyes to her face. It glowed in the firelight, the flames reflected in her eyes.
Freda looked shocked. “You could really kill her?”
“If she presented a threat to me or one of these children.”
Freda conceded the point. “I reckon I could in that case but not in cold blood.”
“Like I said, it’s not my fight,” Jim repeated. “But these issues don’t go away. You can fight her now or fight her later.”
“We should try talking to her first,” Kendall said. “Maybe I’ll get some folks to go with me. We’ll explain the situation to her and point out that we’re simply not going to allow this to continue.”
“We already tried talking to her.” Sharon sighed. “We tried at Oliver’s service and she still came back to burn down the dining hall.” Simply making that statement hit her like a gut punch. She still couldn’t believe it was gone. She’d have to go up there and take a look tomorrow. Imagining the loss of that building, where she’d had so many good experiences, was devastating.
“So are you good with us talking to her?” Kendall asked Sharon.
“Fine. But warn her that she isn’t welcome here. If she comes back, it won’t end well for her, I can promise you that.”
“Hey, I got a question for you,” Lloyd said, twisting in his chair to face Kendall and Freda. “Several times on our trip over we saw this symbol carved into trees and written on road signs. It was two of the letter M with the legs of each letter kind of crossed over each other. What is it? That some kind of gang or something?”
Freda's eyes brightened with excitement. She enjoyed having the scoop on a juicy topic. “Oh, honey, that’s not from a gang. That’s the mark of the Mad Mick.”
Jim looked confused. “Who?”
“The Mad Mick,” Kendall said, waving a hand dismissively. “He’s supposed to be some kind of folk hero in these parts. I don’t even know if he’s real or not but they say he’s been fighting off people who come to the area with bad intentions, though I don’t know how one man could do much.”
Freda was still bubbling. “They say he has a daughter who’s just as dangerous as him. I hear no one can stand against the two of them.”
“Never heard of him,” Jim s
aid.
“Me neither,” Lloyd agreed. “But I got enough mad killers in my life already.” He cut his eyes at Jim.
“So what are the marks about?” Jim asked.
“They supposedly mean he protects this territory,” Kendall said, his expression still revealing that he put no credence in the stories.
Jim’s brow furrowed in thought. “I haven’t seen those back where we live.”
Lloyd grinned. “Maybe he’s scared of you.”
“The Mad Mick is scared of no one,” Freda cooed.
49
Oliver’s House
Despite the children’s long day, Lloyd kept them up late with stories and songs. Sharon was tempted to corral them off to bed but decided that the distraction provided by the activity was more therapeutic than sleep would be. Lloyd’s presence was a throwback to more normal times. It was a reminder of why they’d come to camp in the first place.
When Lloyd laid down his banjo for the night and glided into storytelling, it was the reemergence of something the children had lost with Oliver’s death. They sat mesmerized around the campfire, glued to every word Lloyd spoke. Sensitive to the tough day the children had experienced, and to the night that lay ahead of them in their unfamiliar surroundings, he didn’t tell ghost stories. He told funny stories and old folk tales about how Appalachian people believed things had come to be. They were known as Jack tales and Lloyd knew hundreds of them.
In fact, he probably would have told hundreds of them that very night had Kendall and Freda not stood to leave. As their movement broke the magic of the storytelling circle, Sharon too became aware of the late hour.
“We all probably need to head off to bed,” Sharon admitted. “We’ve got another day of work ahead of us tomorrow.”
There were groans from the children. They were exhausted but having the best time they’d had in a while. They begged Lloyd to stay another night.
“If Sharon will put up with us, I’ll be here another night,” Lloyd promised.
The Borrowed World Series | Book 8 | Blood & Banjos Page 30
