Darkansas

by Jarret Middleton

  Walker heard his father’s muttering and thought either the shock was wearing off or that a far worse condition was beginning to take hold. His arms had grown tired. He counted the rhythm of their steps to occupy his mind and returned to Maurel’s confessionary words by the campfire. Never would he have believed that his father harbored any remorse for his upbringing or for the years of attrition to which he subjected their mother. He may not have raised them right, but by hell he raised them. There they were carrying him through the woods. That was more than some could say. He spoke a prayer in his head. Whether or not he and Mercy saw this through, he prayed that his infant sons would do for him what he was doing now for his father. In a lot of ways, that would be enough.

  His heart sank at the reminder of what he was going home to, leaving Mercy the way he had. He would gladly suffer her ire as long as it meant he still had a chance. Walker avoided looking at his dear father torn open before him and railed against the unthinkable conspiracy between chance and fate, trailing off in search of one lousy moment to himself. Well, he sure found it, he cursed.

  The walk took longer than either of them had hoped. Faced with the possibility that Maurel might not survive, Walker admitted that mending the wreckage with Mercy and truly being there for the boys might be the only chance he had left at a family. Walker let a sob escape, one he regretted as Jacob turned his head.

  “Enough,” Jacob snapped. “Already before I hear you crying I can feel your end sagging back there. Pick it up, Goddamn it. You’ve got the rest of your life to be sad.”

  They trudged over an embankment that brought them up to level ground. Walker guessed they were clear of the deep woods, and after a few hundred yards his sweaty head was refreshed by a draft of wind that barreled up the clearing of a desolate road. When the silhouette of Jacob’s Bronco emerged on the shoulder, they quickened their pace. It took more than an hour to drive the path out of the hills through the valley, the nearest hospital another forty minutes beyond that. Walker climbed in the backseat to hold Maurel as he contorted in pain. He had lost a lot of blood, his pale skin cold to Walker’s touch. He held Maurel’s hand and felt his grip grow loose. He yelled up to Jacob that the situation was not looking too good. Jacob hunched over the wheel and drove as fast as he could.

  They were ten minutes from the highway when Maurel seized. Walker watched the road from the back when the bones in his fingers were smashed together in his father’s last desperate grasp. His jeaned legs kicked against glass and steel. Jacob kept the wheel straight as his seat bucked from behind. He yelled for Walker to do something, so Walker reached into the backseat and held Maurel’s head and tilted back his chin so he wouldn’t choke. He was certain if he stuck his fingers in past gnashing teeth he would lose them. He was holding Maurel to keep him from falling off the seat when, just like that, a switch was flipped. Maurel stopped fighting and relaxed, every joint and muscle letting go as he grew weaker. The urgency to make it to the hospital expired with Walker’s last hope that his father would survive. The least he could do for his father, he reasoned, was provide one final act of mercy. “Don’t go to the hospital,” he told Jacob. “Just go home.”

  Walker climbed on top of his father’s twisted body. Maurel’s eyes bulged through the ceiling of the truck and Walker caressed the side of his face, humming a song. The singing soothed Maurel and he glared around, as if the music was coming from another world. Walker hushed him and continued singing as he tightened his grip until the veins in his father’s neck grew thick and desperate. Maurel arched his ribs, heaving under the weight. Walker pressed harder until the last tremors shook through his limbs, then sat back, breathing heavily. As the truck sped toward civilization, Walker gathered himself, then slid both lids over his father’s eyes and whispered goodbye.

  SIX

  A BURNING SPIRE CAST a bright ring across the yard. Baynes and Truitts, friends, neighbors, elders, and kids gathered beside the flames and lined up at two banquet tables crowded with heaving trays of barbecue brisket and chicken, collards, beans, and cornbread. Walker dealt with the sudden rush of guests the only way he knew: by feeding them pounds of meat, filling buckets with cold bottles of beer, and lighting a big fire.

  A group of children huddled in a circle at the head of the driveway. Miles, the brothers’ young second cousin, captivated them with tell of a legendary mountain man who stalked the surrounding hills searching for lost children.

  “He ain’t no mountain man,” a little girl objected, zipped tight in a pink camouflage jacket. “I hear he was a reaper, you know, like death stalkin’ folks.”

  Miles continued in his best spooky voice. “He used to tend wheat and corn, raise up goats and a mean old mule, but disease come one year so he stopped harvesting his crop and started harvesting people. My brother says he walks these woods looking for people to do magic to.”

  “He a hoodoo?” the little girl asked.

  “Don’t know about all that.” Miles pointed a knotted stick toward the forest. “What I do know is, when he gets tired of stalking through them trees back thar through that holler, he comes out to sleep sometimes right in this here barn.” The tip of the branch scraped against the bottom of the barn door. “He can’t stay in the woods as long as he used to, neither.”

  Another boy asked, “How come?”

  “’Cause he’s hundreds of years old. He has a big long beard with gray whiskers. He’s ten feet tall with long fingernails and teeth sharp as razors fer eatin’ kids.” Miles peeked across the open crack in the barn door. “He could be sleeping in there right now…” He pushed the stick against the door and slid it open a few inches on the rollers. Two girls screamed and one of the boys yelled, “Run!” They scattered on divergent paths.

  Malcolm and Jordan staked out chairs in the lawn beside the fire. “How long since we last sat in this spot? Some things never get old,” said Malcolm. “Little Rock ain’t that far, I know, but it’s another world up here.”

  Jordan eyed his brother. “I hear you. I was in the music room looking at old photos of us as kids. At first, I was just flipping through the pages. Then I stopped on one of us right back there in the yard, and I thought, this is that same body. A lot has happened since. We’ve grown up, sure, but I am today what I was back then. You too. You’re still the same know-it-all you ever were.”

  Malcolm stared into the fire. “You were in Dad’s music room?”

  “Even played a bit. First time that’s ever happened, if you can believe it.”

  “Never in a million years would I have thought I’d hear you say that.”

  “It was just a few songs.”

  “Still,” said Malcolm.

  Jordan looked across the fire at their father and asked Malcolm if he thought Walker looked happy.

  “I think he likes having everybody around like this.”

  “Hey, like I said, I was looking through one of the albums he’s got downstairs. I never knew Dad and Uncle Jake were twins. Seems so obvious now, can’t believe I didn’t see it before,” he said.

  “Twins?”

  Jordan pointed back and forth between them. “Like you and me. Idn’t it strange?”

  “That we didn’t know, maybe. It’s not that surprising, it runs in our family. Genetics.”

  Malcolm rolled to his feet from his chair and disappeared around the far side of the fire to find more beer. A trail of ice water sprayed across Jordan’s chin as he caught the can that had been whipped at him. Malcolm plopped back in his seat and caught a fresh breath of air after a long sip. “So,” he said, changing the conversation. “How did you end up in Texas? Be honest.”

  “I was playing down in Austin. A girl asked me to go back to San Antonio with her after I got done with the show. Well, I spent the weekend. Things fell out but I never left. That was three years ago.”

  “Living with a mistake after you realize you’ve made one can be hell.” Malcolm had never heard his brother admit he had done anything wrong before. For the most pa
rt, he just figured Jordan regretted so much of what he had done over the years that coming to terms with it as a whole was too monumental a task, and expecting him to deal with any one part of his past was equally useless, too small an atonement to register. Malcolm didn’t want to put his brother in an awkward position by pursuing it further, so he asked about work.

  “I get put on construction when I need, make a hundred a night playing twice a week at the bar,” he said.

  Malcolm slapped his brother on the knee. “If you’re playing so regular, you should make a go of it. Isn’t that what you always wanted? What’s holding you back?”

  “You don’t get it,” Jordan replied.

  “Help me get it, then.”

  “A couple years there weren’t the best.” Jordan sipped his beer and sighed. “Hell, it’s been more or less shit right up until yesterday when I left Texas. I been in the grip of something these past few years. Maybe my whole life, I don’t know. Sure seems that way. I left here because things were getting out of hand. I was in danger before I left, I don’t know if you knew that. I was about to do something I could have never taken back, but at the last minute I knew I couldn’t go through with it. I would have been a criminal the rest of my days. There was no way I was getting out without a fight, I knew that. When those guys caught up with me, I remember grabbing the sides of my head, clenching my teeth, trying to outlast the blows, thinking, ‘This is it.’ They took turns wailing on me and stomping my head ’til they cracked my skull round back here and knocked out my hearing. I don’t remember much. There’s this mute haze of jeans and boots dancing in headlights, the dirt soaking up my blood as it poured out of me. Then the dust cleared. I wasn’t dead, so I told myself I would be all right. I got out of there and never came back. It couldn’t have gone any other way.

  “I floated around for a while—East Coast, California, Mexico. Wherever I woke up, each day was worse than the last. By the end of that year I was in and out of drunk tanks, did a stretch in jail. That sobered me up long enough to know something was calling out for me. From a place deeper than bone, Malcolm. A force pulling me into the dark. I tried to make it stop, but it didn’t come from one place, it came from all over, every inch of my body. I couldn’t run from it, neither. Wherever I went, there it was. Drinking ain’t a fraction as bad as what’s calling out for me, brother. I used to get so tired and think it wouldn’t be so bad if I just gave in to what it wants. I had nothing to my name and no pride left to defend, but I got wise. Been keeping my head low and staying out of the way, as of late.” Jordan pointed to the island of blue engulfing his left eye. “A few exceptions, of course.”

  “Looks like you’re healing up nicely.” Malcolm’s face broke with laughter and they each took a drink.

  “You know, being home this time, I don’t feel so bad.” Jordan sounded surprised. “And you’re getting married,” he said, as though reminding himself. “I have a lot of love for you guys, I wasn’t ready to accept that before.”

  The brothers reached out and hugged in the night air. “You’ve got me weeping over here,” Malcolm said, sniffling. Jordan tightened his grip and wouldn’t let him pull free. Malcolm wrenched back and sat upright, straightening his shirt.

  One of Walker’s old friends, a bearded, glassy-eyed octogenarian named Fellows, raised a plea across the lawn for Walker to play a song for those who had gathered. He offered to fetch a guitar from inside, which seemed to only put Walker out. He made a hushing motion, lowering his palm to quiet his friends. The fire crackled and Malcolm and Jordan listened to their father’s papery voice lilt its way through the heavy night. Elizabeth stood beside her mother and aunts, admiring Walker’s song. Malcolm watched his fiancée as she stood surrounded by her kin and was reminded of the first time he saw her on the UNC campus, an intelligent, unhampered beauty. He knew instantly he was in love with her. Out of instinct, he followed her to class, and did so the same exact way for weeks. Even though he was only in his junior year, he was sure enough to know how rare a gift their affection was, and he resolved not to let the opportunity of loving her pass him by. Lucky for him, she felt the same.

  The hymnal “Beautiful Home” carried and others joined in the song while Malcolm remained lost in reverie. He had not heard Walker’s worn tenor in so long, not counting the few times he caught it playing on the radio. A late-night country station in Little Rock would sometimes play In Low Company, a record bluegrass aficionados held in particularly high regard. His voice was softer and much more fragile in person.

  “You’re not listening to a word I am saying, are you?” Jordan knew Malcolm was off someplace else, so he leaned forward in his chair to tap Lester Fellows as he passed. “Hey, Lester, do you know if my uncle Jake is coming to the wedding?” Jordan watched as the old man furrowed his brow.

  “Who’s that now? Jacob?” he asked. “You boys sure been gone a long time. Walker and Jake ain’t spoke since I don’t know when. Longer than should stand between kin, y’ask me. They fell out over something way back.”

  “Do you know what about?” Jordan asked.

  “That thar’s between your dad and Jake.” Lester paused and leaned down. “Wouldn’t ask too many questions, son.” He walked off past the fire.

  Jordan lit a smoke, mired by what little he knew about his family. In the years before, he would not have cared, but it was as though he was beginning to see things for the first time and now it was getting to him. He breathed smoke and fought the uncomfortable inertia that tossed him back and forth between those thoughts.

  Malcolm hit him in the leg. “You going to see Leah?”

  Jordan stuck his thumb and forefinger in his eyes. Smoke curling from his mouth, he let out a groan.

  “Jesus, you are one dramatic son of a bitch,” said Malcolm.

  The fire cracked as someone tossed new wood on top of the pile.

  “Well?” Malcolm reiterated.

  “Well what?”

  “Do you intend to see her?”

  “Fuck no.” Jordan swilled his beer as though washing a foul taste from his mouth.

  Leah Fayette was Jordan’s last girl before he left Newton County. They had not seen each other since the night he left. She never knew it, but on his way out of town, when he was beaten and bloody, Jordan sat in his car outside her house, watching her move in unison with the bold contour of a man behind white drapes.

  A short, fiery brunette, Leah had an ivy-wrapped banner tattooed across the front of her chest with the name of her older brother, Stephen, and the day, month, and year he was cut in half by an IED on the road to Tikrit. Jordan always considered her mean spirit a necessary if clumsy and volatile defense. Leah made the easy mistake of confusing violence with love. Sometimes that left little room for understanding a man doing less than his best to love her. While Jordan was doing his best to be decent, she ran around setting fires, and when she came around, brought down by her trail of ruin and seeking out affection, Jordan was nowhere to be found. In the years they spent together, he never asked her to explain herself, not once. Jordan wished he’d done right by her, but they were wrong for each other from the beginning.

  Provoked by the question, he was gripped by the prospect of possibly facing the one person who knew the ugly truth about him, as much as any one person could. He swore off seeing her and emptied the last of his beer. He told Malcolm he was heading out to meet some people for drinks and that he should come along. Malcolm wanted to explain how tired he was, but he knew the only result that would come from such a lame excuse would be endless mockery, and he didn’t have the energy for that. Plus, he hadn’t spent a night in town with his brother in the last decade, so reluctantly he agreed. Jordan jumped up out of the lawn chair. “That’s what I’m talking about,” he exclaimed, forcing a high-five that stung Malcolm’s palm.

  Jordan and Elizabeth hung from each other’s shoulders as they walked into Silver Bar, Jordan leading them to the back corner where his friends Harrell, Russ, and Baron Fuchs rose aroun
d a table with beers in hand.

  Baron, who years ago Jordan understandably nicknamed Fucks, was a ginger the size of a refrigerator. His big smile moved toward Malcolm as he crushed the wind out of him with a hug. Harrell wore a dingy T-shirt and jeans, face shaded beneath the worn curve of a baseball cap. Harrell and Jordan were inseparable for the first half of their lives and felt like no time had passed since then. Russ greeted his old friend and went out of his way to ignore Malcolm. Tall and thin with ratty black hair, Russ had one sleeve pinned above the crease at his elbow. He lost the arm while logging most of the unprotected timber in the county when he was only nineteen. Prescribed Oxy after the accident, he sank into a concentrated spiral of eradication. Nobody saw much of Russ after that.

  Elizabeth reached out and shook Russ’s hand. Her breath caught in her chest unexpectedly when the fibrous, meandering scar that ran from the back of his scalp to his elbow came into her view. Baron broached the silence by complimenting Malcolm on marrying such a fine girl. They all took their seats and caught up in quick bursts of banter until the bartender brought two pitchers of cold beer and recognized Jordan. “If it ain’t the Patron Saint of good ol’ fuckin’ Misery. Didn’t know you was back,” Johnny, the bartender, said. “Thought I’d have heard the sirens.”

  “Laying low, Johnny. Real low. But my dear brother here is getting married, and you know we can’t let that go off without an occasion.” Jordan pointed at Malcolm with his beer.

  Johnny reached across the table and tossed Malcolm’s shoulder back and forth. “You hitching this one here?” Elizabeth weathered his gaze with grace. “My lord,” he said, straightening his appearance. “What have I been doing with my life?” Laughter crossed the table as Johnny hustled back to the front. A few minutes later, he returned with a tray of shots and more congratulations.