by Katie French
A coyote yowls and another answers. Stars prick through the dark canvas of night. Slowly, Clay climbs out of the grave. Finding the shovel, he begins to cover his brother’s coffin.
That night, his father gets fall-down drunk. Clay lies in bed and listens as he crashes around downstairs. Bottles clink and chairs skid across the floor. Martha, their house woman, has gone into hiding somewhere deep in the basement. Tonight, Pa sounds loose at the seams.
Pa talks to himself, but not loud enough for Clay to hear. He catches snippets of words: dead, useless, and kill the sonofabitch. Is Pa talking about him? A bottle smashes. Pa’s thrown it out the door onto the porch. But he won’t destroy his own things, even drunk. He loves his fancy house and fancy things. His fancy family. The family Clay destroyed like a brittle beer bottle on a pitted stretch of asphalt.
As his father begins singing “Sunshine on my Shoulders” in a sloppy, off-key voice, Clay gets up. He tiptoes to the dresser and slides out the bottom drawer. Shoving aside jeans and T-shirts, he finds his reading glasses and two paperbacks—Of Mice and Men, with a tattered cover depicting two fellas on a grassy mound, and Little Women.
Martha taught him to read years ago when Pa was away on his many trips. It turned out Clay was a quick study and fast reader. It also turned out he was farsighted. He spent two years trying on eyeglasses sold in the mercantile until one worked well enough that he didn’t get headaches at night. When Pa caught him reading with them on, he stomped them to powder. “Sissy boy,” he’d said. “Pansy-assed, four-eyed freak.”
Pa did have a way with words.
Clay became good at hiding his reading. Hiding other things, too.
Little Women might be a girl book, but Clay enjoys it. He likes Jo, the spunky tomboy. He respects her spirit. He’s fond of Meg’s kindness and Amy’s impish youth. Most of all, he likes that they have each other. He wonders what it might’ve been like to grow up with his mother instead of his father. What kind of person would he be without Pa’s tyranny?
Can he ever be anyone but himself?
Downstairs, Pa is either laughing or crying. Neither is good. Clay replaces the books and goes back to pretending to sleep.
“Martha!” Pa bellows. “Where are you, goddamn it?”
Clay sits up in bed. His heart pounding, he sits and listens.
“Martha!” There’s a crash. Pa swears. Clay hears him banging his way through the house to the stairs that lead down to Martha’s room.
Nothing good can come of Pa wanting Martha right now. Pa’s a mean drunk, and Martha stands no chance against him. Pa owns her, after all. Trembling, Clay throws back the covers and climbs out of bed. He’s down the stairs in a wink and standing in the living room, watching Pa stumble through their kitchen.
“Martha!” Pa calls down the stairs. There’s no way she’s asleep now. Clay pictures her cowering in her room like he was just minutes before.
In the moonlight from the kitchen window, Pa looks drunker than he feared. Hunched over and clutching the counter for support, Pa wobbles on his feet, but Clay knows better. Even blind drunk, Pa can muster a wallop that’ll make your head whirl. Clay’s already disappointed him today. If he interferes now, Pa will have no mercy.
Martha appears at the top of the stairs. Clay hates seeing her so cowed—her white hair matted and splayed out around her head. She’s grown old these past few years. He sees her hands tremble around the potato peeler and hears her knees crack on the stairs.
“Y-you wanted me, sir?” Her arms circle her torso, and her shoulders are hunched.
Pa swivels his head, stumbling. It takes a while for his eyes to lock on Martha. “What took you so damn long?”
Martha clutches her robe closed with both hands and lowers her head. “It’s the middle of the night.”
Pa glares up at the moon in the kitchen window and back at Martha. “I ain’t dumb.” He takes a staggering step, grabs ahold of Martha’s sleeve, and pulls her toward him. “I need a bath.”
“Now?”
“Yes, now!” He bangs his fist on the counter. Martha jumps.
He needs to get Pa’s attention fast. Searching his pockets, Clay finds his reading glasses shoved deep in his pocket. He puts them on and steps into the kitchen. “Pa.”
His old man turns and squints at him. “What you doing?” His eyes zero in on Clay’s glasses. “Where’d you get those?”
Clay touches the wire rims. “Bartered for ’em in town. Need ’em to read my sissy books.”
Pa laughs darkly. “You always were a sissy, wasn’t ya? Just like yer ma.”
Clay bristles but stands stock-still. Pa lurches forward and snatches the glasses off his face. With one stomp, he destroys them under his heel, the glass crunching.
He stares into Clay’s face and gives a mean smile, showing off the gap of missing teeth just before the C-shaped scar begins. “That’s what I think of yer reading, you pussy.”
Clay swallows hard. Pa might punch him. If he does, will he finally fight back? But even drunk, Pa is so much bigger. If he fights tonight, Pa will probably kill him.
Pa takes one more look at his son, disappointment and contempt plain on his face, and staggers past him, hauling himself up the stairs. When he hears the squeak of Pa’s door opening and shutting, Clay blows out a relieved breath.
Martha scuttles forward, clutching his arm. “Oh my boy, your glasses.” She kneels down and starts picking up the pieces.
Clay puts a hand on her shoulder. “Leave it. I got no use for ’em, anyway.”
She stands and puts a trembling hand on his cheek. Sweet Martha, her short, white hair highlighted by the moonlight. He does love her like a mother. But then, how would he know? He’s never had a mother.
“You’re a good boy, Clay.”
He laughs. “Tell that to my father.”
Chapter 2
The next day, Clay sits in the back of their parlor while Pa has his council meeting. Pa gives things elaborate names—parlor, settee, washroom, council meeting—because it makes him sound fancy. For a man who streaks his underwear because he doesn’t wipe, Clay thinks, he sure puts on airs.
His top four men, with dusty jeans and blood under their fingernails, take off their boots and straighten their kerchiefs. They smooth back bedraggled hair and cross their legs like ladies at tea. Pa even has Martha serve English breakfast tea, though nobody drinks it but Darby, who sneaks whiskey in his cup.
Johnson, Bear, Darby, and Vance. Four men who’ve shot more dirt farmers in the back than the whole world combined. Johnson is Pa’s lieutenant. He’s tall and lank with long, stringy hair that he parts straight down the middle. Everything about his face is angular, from his ski-slope nose to his hatchet-like chin. He regards folks with a disgust most save for slugs and shit found on the soles of your shoes. His clothes are worn but clean, and he might be the only one in the circle who looks okay sitting on Pa’s antique settee.
Next is Bear. He’s a terrible shot and a messy drunk, but he makes everyone laugh, including Pa. Bear has a greasy beard down to his chest that he braids and decorates with colored beads. He can’t help but slide the beads up and down as he listens to Pa ramble.
Darby is the defunct priest and man of words, but he’s filthy in mind and spirit. He’s short and stocky, a pumpkin of a man, but he’s as good on a horse and fast on the draw as any man in the room. He’s always in the brothel, making Lulu sour and cranky. And it’s Lulu’s job to like everyone. She calls Darby a handsy sonofabitch. And Clay has made a rule of not liking anyone Lulu doesn’t.
Vance is a crack shot and new to Pa’s gang. He doesn’t say much, just stares at everyone with dark, penetrating eyes. Vance wears camouflage pants, combat boots, and an olive-green T-shirt. His hair is cropped short, and he’s clean-shaven. He looks like a man you’d pay to set your house on fire with your family in it.
“What’s the job?” Johnson asks, folding his long fingers together on his knee. Piano-playing fingers, Martha always says wit
h a wanting smile. Clay does not understand what she fancies about Johnson. He looks and talks like an undertaker.
Pa leans back and rubs his eyes. Clay knows he’s got a bitch of a hangover, and he’s in a foul mood. “The job’s simple. Extraction. Got some gophers need digging out. Someone’s been squirrelin’ away nuts for winter. Nuts we need.”
Bear drags a cream-colored bead up and down a strand of his beard. “We ain’t animal trainers.”
Johnson gives Bear a wilting look. “It’s a metaphor.”
“A meta-what?” Bear asks. Clay wonders if Darby’s sharing his whiskey.
“Sheriff means a group of men in an underground compound got something we need. We go in and dig it out,” Johnson says like a bored schoolteacher.
“Bingo,” Pa says.
“How many men, and what’re we digging?” Vance hasn’t touched his tea. He sits ramrod straight.
Pa absentmindedly runs a finger along the scar at his cheek. “How many men is not important. I got the best guns in the land.” He nods around the circle. “Most likely, these groundies don’t got bullets, and if they do, don’t nobody know how to use ’em like you folk.”
Johnson tucks a strand of shoulder-length hair behind his ear. “We’d be at an advantage if we knew what we were up against.”
Pa bats the comment away. “If I knew, I’d tell ya, wouldn’t I?”
“And you’re coming?” Johnson watches Pa carefully.
Pa shakes his head. “Got to see about a horse.”
All the men inhale and shift in their chairs. “I’m sure we’d feel much better if you were with us,” Johnson says.
“I know ya would. But I can’t, plain and simple.”
Johnson sucks in his cheeks. “Then we need more men.”
Pa tilts his head back, studying Johnson. “If I had more men, I’d send ’em. I got none to spare.”
“Four isn’t enough. We need at least one more.” Johnson says this plainly, looking Pa in the face. It’s a challenge, and every man in the room knows it.
“I’ll go.” Before he realizes what he’s doing, Clay stands up.
Pa laughs. “You? Sissy boy? No way.”
All the men look at Clay, and he feels a burn trace up his neck. Pa’s never sent him on a mission and definitely not on a raid so dangerous that he’s not even going. Clay looks into the men’s faces and sees their pity. He hates their pity.
He looks at Pa. “I’m ready. Let me go.”
Pa narrows his eyes. “You’ll just git in their way.”
Bear lifts his teacup to Clay, like a salute. “That’s the spirit, boy. We’ll put hair on that chest enough for Lulu to grab when she takes you upstairs, eh, boy?” Bear gives Clay a broad grin.
The men chuckle. Clay lifts a smile like putting on a mask three sizes too small.
Pa stands. “Fine. Tomorrow,” he says, heading toward the stairs. “You ride at first light.”
First light comes much too soon.
In the dishwater-gray light of dawn, the posse assembles at the main gate. Clay crunches up the gravel to the where the hulking shape of the Armadillo waits. Just the sight of Pa’s finest transport vehicle turns Clay’s breakfast to sour mush in his belly. The Armadillo is Pa’s pride and joy—a sand-colored, steel-aluminum alloy monster, plated with sheet metal so it resembles its namesake trundling down the road. It still takes a massive amount of fuel to haul its hulking shape, and Pa doesn’t like to take it out for anything short of a major deal.
“Clay, m’boy, over here!” Bear leans out the open driver’s side door and waves. He’s oiled and rebraided his red-brown beard and put in new beads. His round face crinkles into a smile as he waves the boy over. Clay’s eyes are drawn to the twin six-shooters on Bear’s hips. Pa still hasn’t let him have a gun. Other boys his age walk around with hunting rifles or pistols, and yet the son of the town sheriff has to keep a pocketknife in his dungarees as his only protection. Pa says he has to earn them.
The big man grabs Clay by the arm and hauls him up into the Armadillo when he gets to him. “Yessir, this is gonna be the trip. I envy you, boy. I ’member my first real raid.” He smiles, twisting one of his beads. “Went with a gang to sniff out a couple a girls hiding in a cave. Turned out those girls was old women with rifles up their skirts. Whooie! Lost half our party.”
Clay’s smile drops.
Bear whacks Clay on the back. “Never mind that. We gonna have ourselves a time, yessir.” He reaches over and unhooks the glove compartment. Inside rests a dusty bottle of liquor. Clay looks over at Bear, who puts his finger to his lip and winks.
Noise at the side door makes both of them jump. Bear snaps the glove compartment shut just as Darby and Johnson open the passenger-side door. Johnson looks at Clay like he’s just found a cockroach in his seat.
“The newb rides in the back,” Johnson says dryly. “Only room for four up here, and that’ll be a tight squeeze.” He thumbs for Clay to get out.
It’s a test. Clay can feel it. Johnson wants him to sulk, or throw a fit, and then Johnson can drag Clay’s petulant ass out the Armadillo and back to Pa. Tell him he can’t possibly take a spoiled brat on a mission as dangerous as this.
Clay straightens his shoulders. “The back is fine.”
But the back of the Armadillo is not fine.
Encased in bulletproof material and void of windows, the back is a dark, hot chamber. Clay imagines it’s what being inside an electric clothes dryer would feel like. Grated vents run along the top, letting in ribbons of light and small puffs of air, but it must be a hundred degrees. Sweat drenches his clothes and drips from his hair. It’s hot as a whore’s twat, as Pa would say. Pa always has a way with words.
Two unforgiving benches are bolted to both sides with a row of locked storage boxes at the front. Clay has to grip the bench for dear life just to stay seated as they toddle down the road. Whoever they’re collecting shouldn’t have his problems staying put, however. The clanking handcuffs and chains will see that they’re secure.
A seed of pity germinates in his heart. Who will it be? Pa and his gang go after men who threaten the town. They rescue girls from traders and take them to the Breeders where it’s safe. Still, the raid will terrify them. Maybe they’ll let Clay keep them company.
They drive for hours. Between the heat and the noxious smell from the fuel cans, he can’t sleep, but he has nothing to pass the time. He should’ve asked how far they were going. He has to piss. Finally, the brakes grind and the Armadillo lurches to a stop. He tries to mop up his sweat-soaked appearance, but it does no good. He settles for slicking his wet hair back and straightening his clinging shirt.
The back doors pop open. Bear jumps in the back and pinches a corner of Clay’s damp shirt. “Golly, hoss, you look like a drowned dingbat. Let’s wring you out.”
But the air outside the van does nothing to cool Clay down. The sun is high and blazing. On either side of the dusty road, miles of scrubland, cactus, and sand stretch to the horizon. The men crouch in the van’s thick shadow. They’re as sweat-drenched as Clay, except for Johnson. Somehow, he still manages to look crisp and put together, his long, shoulder-length hair smooth and straight. He eyes Clay with cool indifference. Darby, pulling his wet hair into a topknot at the back of his head, nods at him. Vance busies himself pulling lunch out of the plastic container—thick slices of bread and scrawny, pitted apples.
“No jerky?” Darby asks. “Well, shit.”
The other men grumble. Vance hands out plastic jugs of warm water. Clay takes his and begins to gulp.
Bear presses Clay’s bottle down, stopping him. “Hold on there, son. You drink too much, and yer bound to bring it all back up.”
“Didn’t yer pa teach you nothin’, Sancho?” Darby says this cautiously, looking around the circle for the others’ approval. Men don’t mock the sheriff’s son. But the sheriff isn’t here, and it’s clear Clay isn’t the golden boy he used to be.
Clay drops his jug beside the back tir
e and stands. He can’t take sitting here with them, looking like they have a baby mucking everything up. “Gotta piss,” he announces to everyone, to no one. He turns and stalks up the rise.
“Clay! We don’t walk off alone.” Bear huffs up the ridge. “There’s bastards out here that’ll cut your tongue out and use it as toilet paper. You get me?” He smiles thinly.
They walk up the ridge and through a tuft of gnarly cactus until they’re hidden from the road and the other men. It’s peaceful with the insects buzzing and the breeze tugging through his hair. And he’s away from their snickers and smirks. He knows they hate him. He wants to yell that it isn’t his fault. He never asked to be born the son of the man who runs the town. He never asked to live in the big, white house at the end of the street.
Bear unzips and begins watering a prickly pear. Clay starts to do the same when he hears a twig crack. He whips toward the sound, his hand digging for the knife in his pocket.
In the brush, a small, brown shape quivers. “Jackrabbit,” Clay whispers.
Bear nods, zipping up. “Nice big one, too. Would love a bite of them haunches.”
“Shoot it,” Clay says, watching it. Its big, brown eyes are wide. It’ll bolt any second.
“Rabbits are too damn fast. I’ll put a bullet in the dirt fer nothing, and Johnson’ll make me ride in the back of the van.” He shoots Clay a sympathetic look.
Clay hates the look. He hates the thought of getting back in that van. “Give me your gun.”
Bear furrows his brow. “Don’t think I oughta.” But he digs out his six-shooter and presses it into Clay’s palm. “If you waste a bullet, Johnson’ll be all over your ass like crabs in the whorehouse.”
Clay takes the gun, an old Beretta Laramie with a chipped handle and scratches on its long barrel. Old and worn, but well cared for. No man in Pa’s gang would ever mistreat his weapon. Clay slips his hand around the stock and lets his finger rest on the trigger like he’s done hundreds of times in the backyard, Pa at his side, ready to take a whack at him if he misses.