Copperhead

by Alexi Zentner

  A group of somber men come over when they see Jessup’s family. David John stops, kisses his wife, puts Jewel down on the ground, and joins the men. Jessup’s mom takes Jewel’s hand and heads toward Earl’s house, shaking off a few women, but there are three who remain unshaken, who go with her; Jessup recognizes Wyatt’s mom and Kaylee’s mom, but he’s not sure who the third woman is. His mom has a life at church that he doesn’t know about, he realizes.

  The men talking with David John are familiar, but Jessup can’t honestly say he knows them. Those four years without church mean that even if he knew them before, he doesn’t know them now. The whole group is serious, angry, full of bluster to shore up David John’s unsteadiness. Leaning in toward each other. He hears Brody’s name, other mumbles. To Jessup, it looks a lot like a football huddle, everybody following David John, listening to him speak. But the thing is, Jessup thinks, David John is no quarterback.

  Which is uncharitable.

  He wants to pull his stepfather aside, to hug him, to tell him he loves him, to say that he’s proud of David John. Is that odd, telling this man who, by all rights except biological, can claim to be Jessup’s father, that he’s proud of him? Fathers tell their sons that they are proud of them, not the other way around, and yet Jessup doesn’t have another word for it. That feeling, pride, comes over him so strongly that he can feel tears threatening to overwhelm him. He wants to say to David John that, no matter what else he has done or failed to do in his life, in that one single moment barely ten minutes ago, his actions were redemptive; when Jessup jumped off that truck, screaming Jewel’s name, what he saw was a man who’d thrown his body over his daughter, who’d heard gunshots and gotten his family to the ground, whose first thought was to protect his family at all costs, to put himself in harm’s way to keep his family safe. For David John, it was an easy and instinctual trade: his life for his daughter’s. And Jessup knows that it’s not the first time that David John has had the impulse: back in that alley, more than four years ago, with Ricky, David John was trying to protect his son, willing to do anything, including planting a knife, anything, anything to try to make things better for Jessup’s brother.

  And it makes Jessup feel like everything he’s ever done has been made worthless because he hasn’t told David John about this pride, how proud he is of how David John acts as a father, how glad he has been to have this man in his life, how much better he has made their lives in so many ways, and he wants to beg forgiveness for every single time he’s called him “David John” instead of “Dad,” every single time he’s referred to him as his stepfather, because every single time has been a betrayal.

  WYATT

  While he’s watching David John talking with the men, he sees something that catches his attention: Wyatt coming up the trail and out of the woods behind the barn. Wyatt’s walking—strolling, really—with his hands in the pockets of his hunting jacket. He’s wearing the same camouflage coveralls, the same jacket, even the same dark knit cap he was wearing earlier when Jessup came across him at the firing range. He’s not hurrying, all the time in the world, and even from a distance, even with fifty people still milling about outside, he makes eye contact with Jessup.

  Jessup wonders how that works, what it is in their relationship that allows Wyatt to find him so easily, that means they can find each other in a crowd. He knows he can do this with Jewel, can spot her onstage at a chorus concert, can pick her out of the group of kids breaking from school, knows where she is as simply as he can feel his own heartbeat. But it’s been this way with him and Wyatt, too, from the beginning. Like brothers.

  Wyatt takes a hand out of his pocket, points with two fingers to Earl’s house.

  Jessup walks around the outside of the parking lot, slipping away. He keeps his head down, shoulders bent, does his best to become invisible, a difficult task for a kid his size, in direct contradiction to everything David John has ever taught him: stand tall, talk steady, look straight.

  One of the cops gives him a look, but Jessup keeps moving, and the cop is quickly distracted by somebody who wants to take their car out of the parking lot. Jessup can hear sirens drifting in from the road, wonders if an ambulance has come for Brandon Rogers yet. Wonders what the police are going to do with the two dead bodies. How long are they going to have to lie on the ground, blood pooling around them?

  By the time he gets to Earl’s house, Wyatt’s already waiting for him by the porch.

  “You okay?” Wyatt says. He touches Jessup’s neck just like Jessup’s mom did. His touch is gentle, thoughtful, and even though Jessup flinches a bit—it stings—he doesn’t move away. “Looks raw.”

  “Glass from the rear window fell on me.”

  “You should clean that up.” Wyatt moves his finger carefully over the side of Jessup’s neck. “Doesn’t feel to me like there’s any glass stuck in there, but you want to go to a doctor or something?” He lowers his hand. “I can take you to the urgent-care clinic if you want.”

  “No. I think it’s good. Just scraped up, really.” Jessup touches his neck himself now. It feels tender and he wants to get a look at it, but he’s pretty sure Wyatt’s right. Doesn’t seem like there’s any glass embedded under his skin.

  Jessup looks up and sees Wyatt’s mom standing in the window of Earl’s living room, looking down at them. He raises his hand in greeting, but she turns away.

  “Shit,” Wyatt says. “My mom’s pissed at you.”

  “I didn’t . . .” He sighs. He’s tired of defending himself.

  Wyatt shrugs. “Yeah. I know.”

  They both stand there, quiet, even though it’s not quiet around them: one of the cops is standing in front of an SUV, telling the driver to turn around, not quite pointing his M16 at the man, but getting ready. Two other cops stand together talking about something. David John is listening to the collection of men; there’s a lot of angry gesturing now, a roll of frustration coming from the group, heated glances at the cops, though David John just looks sad to Jessup, scared. There are other small clusters of congregants dissecting the morning’s events, somebody’s mother standing outside the front door of the social hall calling for her kid to come in, more sirens coming up the road, police or ambulance, Jessup doesn’t know. The man in the SUV lays on the horn now, gesturing at the cop to move, the cop now raising his M16 and pointing it at the driver, cease and desist.

  “Holy crap,” Wyatt says. “This is nuts.”

  Jessup looks at him, shakes his head. “Why’d you do it?”

  THROUGH THE WOODS, DOWN THE HILL, AROUND THE BEND, PAST THE POND, AND BACK AGAIN

  They duck around behind Earl’s house, avoiding the parking lot and the people still outside, cutting across the grass to the trail that leads into the woods. Fifty feet down the trail and it’s already quieter, the trees muting the sounds. It’s a mix that’s heavy on sugar maples—whatever leaves were left denuded by Friday night’s snowfall—and white pine trees, and the trail is spongy underfoot, small patches of snow still here and there. Judging by the way the temperature seems like it’s dropping and the look of the sky, more snow is unquestionable.

  Wyatt evidently has the same thought. “Going to snow,” he says. “Couple inches, maybe.”

  They don’t say anything else for a few minutes, just walking. An easy pace. Comfortable. Jessup thinks about how many hundreds of hours, no, thousands of hours he’s spent with Wyatt. Church, elementary school—in the same class every year except fourth grade—and middle school, mostly taking the same schedule through high school until Jessup started loading up on AP classes, Jessup helping Wyatt keep up in math and science—Wyatt can hold his own in English and social studies—same football team from Pop Warner Tiny-Mite on up to now, wrestling, sleepovers on weekends in middle school, shared family vacations camping up in the Adirondacks before things went to hell with David John and Ricky, Jessup tagging along once Kaylee and Wyatt started dating in th
e eighth grade, from there, double dates with Wyatt and Kaylee and Jessup and whomever he was dating—though not Deanne, he thinks, not Deanne—and Wyatt losing his virginity in ninth grade, trying to tell Jessup what it felt like, Wyatt telling Jessup he was in love with Kaylee and going to marry this girl and when it comes time Jessup’s going to be the best man. Wyatt his oldest friend and sometimes, Jessup thinks, the only friend who can possibly understand him.

  Two hundred acres is enough for the Blessed Church of the White America to feel secluded, enough acreage for the path that winds through the trees to branch off here and there, to the pond, to the shooting range, to feel like the two of them could walk for hours, and right now, the outdoors feels like a sanctuary. More church than church itself.

  Wyatt says, “You’re going to film study this afternoon at Coach’s house, right?”

  Jessup scoffs. “Really? That’s what you’re thinking about? Football?”

  “Yeah,” Wyatt says, and his voice sounds off. He kicks at the ground with his boot, knocks a small rock. “I’m going to miss it. Ain’t you going to miss it?”

  “We’ve still got college,” Jessup says, though that’s hard to imagine right now. College seems like another world. Another entire universe.

  “It won’t be the same,” Wyatt says. “High school’s different. You know that. And, man, if I’m honest, the idea of college scares the crap out of me.”

  Not me, Jessup thinks. He doesn’t say it, but there’s a part of him that wants to stand on the pulpit and preach: Praise Jesus! College! A fresh start, a place where nobody looks at him and thinks of Ricky beating two black boys to death, where teachers don’t already know that he belongs to a church that preaches ethnostates, where he can fall in love with a girl like Deanne without worrying about what that means. College! A whole life ahead of him.

  Or at least, he thinks, there was a whole life ahead of him. Things are crumbling.

  “Wyatt,” he says, hesitant. “Why’d you do it?”

  “How’d you know?”

  “Come on, man. How long have we known each other? I’m not stupid. Why,” Jessup asks, “did you shoot Brandon?”

  “I didn’t shoot Brandon,” Wyatt says.

  “Bullshit.”

  Wyatt can’t help himself. He grins. It’s a smile that Jessup has seen a hundred million times, but for some reason this is the first time it feels sharp to him, the first time he sees how different he and Wyatt are.

  Wyatt says, “I didn’t shoot Brandon. I missed and hit him. There’s a difference.”

  Jessup stops walking. “What are you talking about?”

  “Well, technically, I missed by hitting Brandon. I wasn’t supposed to shoot Brandon.” He looks so pleased with himself that it’s all Jessup can do not to smile back.

  “You hit Brandon on accident?” Jessup asks. “If you weren’t trying to shoot Brandon, what were you trying to hit, then?”

  “Not what,” Wyatt says, “who. Brandon wanted me to shoot somebody else.”

  Jessup knows the answer before he asks, but he has to ask, has to hear Wyatt say it. “Who?”

  “You,” Wyatt says. “I was supposed to shoot you, Jessup.”

  HITS AND MISSES

  Wyatt starts walking again, hesitates when he notices Jessup hasn’t started up, but after a second, Jessup starts walking, too. Movement feels like everything to him. As if to stay still is to stand on quicksand, the world sucking him down, swallowing him alive, because he already feels like the ground is opening up beneath his feet.

  “I was supposed to shoot you. Brandon wanted me to shoot you. He asked me to shoot you, so I said okay.”

  “You said okay?”

  “You know you’re just echoing me,” Wyatt says. He starts to laugh.

  “This isn’t funny,” Jessup says. He feels wretched. Doesn’t understand how Wyatt can laugh.

  “It’s a little funny,” Wyatt says. “Your face. But yeah, Brandon said, ‘I need you to shoot Jessup,’ and I said, ‘Okay, sure.’ There was a little more to it than that—I mean, he thinks I’m a good little soldier, and he’s spent a lot of time cultivating me, getting to the point where he feels like he can trust me to follow orders—but basically, yeah, that’s what happened.”

  “And even though you were supposed to shoot me, you missed and hit Brandon instead?”

  “Yep,” Wyatt says. “I was supposed to shoot you. I just missed. Bad shot. Wind or something.”

  Jessup thinks for a second, tries to replay Brandon spinning, his body tumbling into Jessup’s, legs tangling up, the two of them going down hard, hitting the truck bed before the second shot took out the rearview window, before things turned to chaos. Thinks about the open field, the thick trees on the hillock. Easy to set up and hide. Thinks about the weather.

  Jessup says, “It’s going to snow later on, huh?”

  “Think so.”

  “But it’s calm. No wind. And there wasn’t any wind earlier, either.”

  Wyatt agrees. “No wind. But there could have been a gust, couldn’t there have been?”

  “How far was the shot?” Jessup asks.

  “How far did you say it was yesterday, that buck you bagged?”

  “Two hundred. Actually, it was more like one seventy-five,” Jessup admits, “but I told you two hundred because I knew you’d call me a pussy.”

  “I called you a pussy anyway.”

  “Yeah.”

  Wyatt laughs again, nods. He seems like he’s happy. They’re taking their time, walking, but clearly just trying to avoid having to talk about this face to face, and Wyatt is acting like it’s nothing, but Jessup’s known him long enough to know that Wyatt acting like it’s nothing can still mean this conversation is everything. Wyatt’s trying to tell him something he doesn’t understand.

  “Two hundred and twenty yards,” Wyatt says. “Five yards shorter than it was supposed to be.”

  “You didn’t miss, did you?”

  “Not really,” Wyatt says. Casual.

  PIT VIPER

  Why didn’t you tell me?” Jessup says.

  “Because I knew you’d try to stop me,” Wyatt says.

  “What the hell, man? What were you thinking?”

  They’re on the path above the pond now, and it’s Wyatt who stops walking this time. “I know you don’t like Brandon and you don’t trust him, but you’re clueless, Jessup. You really don’t understand, do you?”

  “Why don’t you educate me?” Jessup says, and he can hear how sharp his voice is. His first instinct is to apologize, but he holds against it. If he sounds pissed, it’s because he is pissed.

  “It’s simple,” Wyatt says. “A couple of summers ago, I think it was between eighth and ninth grade. I was dating Kaylee, I remember that, because I remember that she wasn’t there, so it was either that summer or between ninth and tenth. Hot as hell, had to be ninety, ninety-five degrees. We went out behind your house, walking through the woods to public land and heading to the creek for a swim. Probably walked twenty minutes already, at most five minutes from the creek. We were right in the middle of thick woods, the shade giving us a little respite from the heat, and all of a sudden you jumped and let out a scream.”

  Jessup knows the story now. “It wasn’t a scream.”

  Wyatt’s amused. “Fine. A shriek, then. Either way, you sounded like a little girl.”

  “I almost stepped on a rattlesnake.”

  “First of all, it was a copperhead—”

  “Bull,” Jessup interrupts. “There are no copperheads around here. It was a timber rattlesnake. Rare, but not impossible.”

  “Okay,” Wyatt says. “Fine, whatever. Copperhead, timber rattlesnake, whatever you want it to be. Point is, you jumped and screamed, and you were shaking like a chicken shitting razor blades.”

  “I wasn’t—”

/>   “I’m trying to tell you something, Jessup. Just let me talk, okay?” Wyatt’s pleading. He’s not joking around anymore, and the change in tone startles Jessup.

  “Okay. Sorry.”

  “I guess what I’m trying to say is, the thing about it is, they’re both vipers. Lay in wait and bite you when you ain’t expecting it. You got that yellow ‘Don’t tread on me’ flag, and that’s got a timber rattlesnake on it, but it ought to have a copperhead coiled up on it because you don’t see those sons of bitches until you already stepped on one. That’s Brandon Rogers. He’s smart as shit, but he’s also a goddamned viper. He doesn’t care about you. He only cares about making himself look good. You step on him and he’ll bite you.” Wyatt’s talking with his hands, animated. Jessup thinks it’s an affectation he’s taken from Brandon Rogers. “You ask why I didn’t tell you, Jessup, and that’s easy. I didn’t tell you because if I did, you’d have tried to stop me.”

  “I—”

  “Dammit, Jessup. Shut up,” Wyatt snaps. “I’m saving you from yourself. If I’d told you, you would have freaked out, or you would have made me promise not to do it, and Brandon would have coiled back up and waited, but he’s a snake and he can’t help his nature. Sooner or later he’s going to strike. If I didn’t do it, you really think he couldn’t have found somebody else? And you really think they would have missed their shot?”

  DON’T TREAD ON ME

  You understand what I’m saying?” Wyatt asks. “If I wouldn’t have taken the shot, somebody else would have, and we wouldn’t be here right now having this conversation.” He takes a step forward, grabs Jessup’s elbow. “He wanted a head shot. Wanted something brutal and bloody that would play on television until the end of time.”