The paralyzed man maintained his constrictor grip on Kyle’s wrist for a moment longer, as if to prove that he didn’t care if Kyle’s daddy was coming or Tecumseh Sherman or Jesus Christ Himself. He held Kyle’s eyes with his and said, “Get on up out of here, firebug” and released Kyle’s wrist at the same moment that Kyle was jerking away. Kyle stumbled and fell on his back with a jaw-cracking thud, immediately turning over and scrambling away.
The paralyzed man watched the boy dart across the dirt road and disappear into the corn, then leaned to one side and spat on the porch.
THEIR ENCOUNTER WITH THE PARALYZED
man had cast a pall over the afternoon. They’d had enough trouble to last them a good long time and didn’t want any more.
Grace and Kyle made their way through the corn until they got to the barbed wire fence and the cow pasture. Careful to avoid the sharp rusty barbs, Kyle pulled up on the bottom strand to create a gap for Grace to wiggle through on her stomach. Then she held it up for him. Once through, Kyle scanned around for Buddy the bull and spotted him dozing in the shade on the far side. The pasture and the pond were west of the fire, so everything here was unchanged.
By the time they got to the green pond, Kyle was feeling optimistic again. He felt that maybe they were forgiven for setting that fire. That maybe God had given them a warning to start acting right or He would send bad things their way. And it struck Kyle that God was like Mercurochrome, in that He could burn you and hurt you like you’d never been hurt before. But it was for your own good. God’s burning stained you and cleaned you out so that you wouldn’t be infected by the evil you had wallowed in. But if you kept your soul clean and didn’t scrape it and tear it with every bad thing you did, then the Mercurochrome—God’s presence—still left its mark on you, but it didn’t hurt. It cooled you and felt good.
It was shady and cool at the green pond. The wind played through the hanging branches of the massive weeping willow trees that shielded the pond like a living curtain.
Kyle was ready to get back to the treasure hunt game. He was excited again. He saw the red and white fishing bobber that surely was meant for him, listing in the soupy green pond water. This was going to be the prize, the end of the game.
The pond was small, only about thirty feet across. Which meant that the bobber and whatever treasure that dangled beneath the surface was about fifteen feet from his grasp. The green pond was a special place for them. Jason and Wade knew about it of course, but they seldom came here. It was from here that Grace and Kyle hatched their plans or just sat on the red clay banks throwing rocks into the water. Kyle thought about how he was going to get the floating prize without actually wading into the viscous green water. While the pond was small in circumference, it appeared to be pretty deep. It was not the kind of water you would want to wade into.
He searched about, his mind scrambling for ideas. He thought about finding something that he could maybe use to float himself out there to grab hold of the bobber, but Kyle couldn’t imagine what he could use to do that. Then he thought about fishing it out. All he would need would be a stick or a limb long enough to hook the string under the bobber, but he couldn’t find one long enough. Kyle knew that if he crossed to the far side of the pasture and into the wood lot, he could find one easy, but that would put Kyle in the bull’s line of sight, and he had already had all the adventure he cared for in a single day.
All of the other woods where he might find a good limb were burned to the ground. He looked around, casting about for the obvious, when it hit him. The weeping willows. They were old trees, towering and sturdy. The pendulous branches cascaded downward, encircling the green pond, some dragging the ground. He spotted a good-size branch that extended outward, tapered, and hung down vine-like close to the center of the pond. With his eyes, he traced the branch back to where it sprouted from one of the main limbs and climbed up the tree to reach it. Kyle grabbed hold of the branch and pulled it down with him, bending and pulling it to the bank. He started yanking on it, climbing up it and bouncing—testing it. The branch held him easily and gave no signs of weakness. He looked at Grace to make sure that she appreciated what he was going to attempt. There was a sly little half smile on her lips, and a shine in her eyes.
Holding on to the slender branch, Kyle swung himself over the pond. The first pass didn’t get him anywhere near the fishing float. His aim was better the second time, and he swung directly over the bobber, but to pluck it out of the water, Kyle would have to hang on with one hand and reach down with the other. There was no way for him to get low enough to do that without dragging his lower body through the water.
On the bank, Kyle climbed higher up the branch to where it was thicker, then pivoted so that his body flipped upside down, his legs wrapped tight around the thick upper branch. He hung there, not moving, like a sleeping possum.
“Well, push me,” he said to Grace.
Her smile grew to full-fledged and she got behind Kyle and pushed, tentative at first, then harder.
Kyle swung out over the pond like a pendulum on the world’s biggest clock. His head grew hot and tight from the oscillating force pushing the blood down. The world was upside down and rushing past him too fast to make it out. There was the long green streak of the water, and two short red streaks of the red clay banks. As he grew accustomed to the force and the motion, he could make out the tiny red/white streak of the bobber.
“Not so fast,” he said. “Slow me down a little bit.”
Grace complied and it all came into a bit sharper focus.
“More. Slow me down some more.”
Grace’s pushing became the most gentle of nudges and Kyle swung across the pond in a slow, graceful arc.
Trusting the branch and trusting his legs to hold the branch tight, Kyle let his arms hang down freely. The water was just out of reach. He eased his legs just the tiniest bit and shimmied down about a foot. He dared not risk any more than that, as the branch grew skinnier and more fragile toward the tip. It was enough. His fingertips dredged the water. He was swinging so slow now that Grace had to find a stubby branch to extend her reach to keep pushing him. He bided his time and waited for the perfect pass. One. Two. Three. He stretched and plucked the bobber out of the water, the prize, cocooned in brown thread, hung from it like a sinker.
Kyle grinned at Grace in utter triumph, and she was so excited that she jumped up and down. He reveled in his accomplishment for a little bit, and he guessed he was taking pride in it, and remembered Preacher Seevers had said pride was a sin, and he guessed that was true, because God got busy punishing him for that sin. His pendulum movement over the pond had grown so slow that he was no longer swinging close enough to the bank for Grace to reach out and push him. Each pass grew a little slower, settling back into the equilibrium position. He thought about sending Grace to find a stick long enough to prod him with, but by the time she found one, Kyle would be at a standstill, well out of reach. His only chance would be to climb up the branch and into the tree. But first he had to get his body right side up.
He tossed the treasure onto the bank, then set about getting his body positioned upright on the suspended limb. It took three twisting lunges, but Kyle finally managed to bend his torso and grab hold with his hands. He shimmied up the branch, and he was glad it was a good strong branch. It never did break, but the tiny willow leaves started tearing off under his fingers. His tight grip was pulling the leaves loose from the branch, and every time a few leaves would give way like that, he would slide down and would have to tighten his grip, and that, combined with the downward motion, caused more leaves to give way. It was an avalanche effect. It was like holding on to a greased pole. The leaves gave way in a popping cascade and Kyle plunged into the green pond.
It was warm like bathwater. A thick green stew of living organisms enveloped him, held him gently. Kyle had thought the water would be cold, revolting, and lifeless, but it felt good, warm and comforting. He would have stayed down in it, but of course he needed to breathe. K
yle’s feet sank into the soft bottom, but found enough resistance to propel him upward. He broke through the surface, green slimy pond scum covering him like a birth caul. He stood up. It wasn’t deep at all. The water came to his chest, but the clay bottom continued to give way and he sank farther standing there. Kyle made his way to the bank, the wet clay sucking at his shoes.
Kyle took off his shirt, and Grace let him use her Wonder Woman cape to wipe the slime and algae from his arms, face, and hair—ruining it. He smelled the same way a newborn puppy smells—sharp and pungent, offensive at first, but also familiar and comforting.
Kyle felt different somehow. He had gone through two trials in two days. Fire and water. He was growing, changing, and he knew it. What would be next? What would be his next trial?
“Open it, Kyle. Open it and see if it was worth it.”
He unraveled the brown thread. There was so much of it that it gathered in a big puffy pile on his lap. He worked his way down to find the silver dollar piece hidden inside. Kyle stared at the dollar, knowing Grace must have snuck it out of Daddy’s room, and he got to thinking about all the mean little things that he had done to Grace over the years—terrorizing her out in the cornfield, calling her a baby-cry, not letting her come with him when he went exploring. Just thinking she wasn’t good enough to be his friend. But she had saved Kyle from being trampled and gored to death by Buddy the bull, she had played it perfect and kept quiet about the fire (which had cost her the Wonder Woman doll she so loved), she had saved him from the paralyzed man (Kyle was too overcome with emotion right then to remember that she was the one who had gotten him mixed up with the paralyzed man in the first place), and she had planned and executed the single best game of treasure hunt of his life.
He smiled and hugged Grace. Grace pulled away and looked at Kyle like he had lost his mind. He had never in his lifetime spontaneously hugged Grace. He only did it when Mama made him.
He didn’t know what was wrong with him, but Kyle started crying. Tears were a shameful thing to him, and he turned away so that Grace wouldn’t see. But she had seen. And that got her to crying too. And they just sat there a minute, crying on the bank of the green pond, neither one of them really knowing why.
“KYYYYYYYYLE!”
Only yesterday he had made up his mind to be better to Grace, to treat her like a friend. And already he had let her down.
“Kyyyyyyyyle!” The note of alarm in her voice was escalating.
They were in the corn, and he had lost her. The one thing that could completely unnerve her. When Grace reached that level of panic, Kyle typically only had a few minutes to intervene and save her before she broke down in a sobbing spell that could last all afternoon. He hadn’t been paying attention.
She could be anywhere among the rows. Kyle had been daydreaming. Thinking about the fire. Thinking about not getting caught. It just somehow didn’t seem right to get away with something like that. Like there ought to be a punishment. It was just too big of a thing to have done. Too wrong and bad. Nobody ought to ever be able to get away with doing something that bad. If people were allowed to get away with horrible, dangerous, destructive acts like that, then this world wouldn’t be nothing but pure chaos. And he had got to figuring that just because his folks didn’t catch him in it, that didn’t necessarily mean that he had gotten away with it. Kyle had started to feel like there was something just outside of his field of vision. Something bad. Something that he couldn’t quite see but knew was there, hiding itself in the shadows. Biding its time. Maybe God didn’t like it when people got away with bad things. And He put the fix in.
Kyle was scared. It was like being chased by a ghost. Or Soap Sally—the crazy woman Mama had told them about who lived off in the woods by herself in a lean-to covered in pine straw. Soap Sally kept a fire burning and she cooked polk salad in a metal pot all day long. That’s all she ate. Polk salad (Paw-Paw Edwards used to call it poke sallet) is poisonous, but lots of people eat it. It has to be boiled three times to get all the poison out, but even then, you’re still getting some of the poison. All those years of eating polk salad had damaged Soap Sally’s brain. She was crazy. Soap Sally had needles on the ends of her fingers. Because her poisoned brain didn’t know any better, she jammed sewing needles up under her fingernails, and she would scoop the polk salad right out of the boiling pot using her needle-fingers.
To make money, if Soap Sally ever came across any kids wandering out in the woods, she would get them and stab them with her needle-fingers and boil them in the polk salad and make soap from the fat she rendered off their tender little bodies. And she would sell the soap for money in town to the beauty shops where the women got their hair done and their faces made up. Soap Sally made a lot of money from selling that soap because it made the women’s faces smooth and pretty like baby’s skin. She told the people at the beauty parlors that she made it from special roots and berries she found out in the woods. Mama said most folks knew it was made out of little kids, but they bought it anyway because of how good it made their faces look.
Kyle realized that he and Grace had burned down Soap Sally’s woods. They drove her from her home. Maybe she was living in the corn now. But he was pretty sure Soap Sally was made-up. Just like he was pretty sure that Santa Claus was not for real. Nonetheless, when Christmas came around, Kyle found himself writing letters and composing wish lists and believing with all his heart. And late at night when he couldn’t sleep and he could hear branches rubbing and clicking together outside his bedroom window, he thought about how that could be Soap Sally out there, that he could hear her needle-fingers clicking together while she was sneaking around, looking for some kid she could turn into soap and sell in town.
Right now, though, Kyle wasn’t worried about Soap Sally. It was the shadows that lingered on the edges of Kyle’s world that bothered him. Those shadows were stretching out to him, but when he would turn to look, they’d curl themselves back in like they had never been there. Something bad was coming his way.
“Kyyyyyyyyyyyyle!”
There was something disturbing in Grace’s voice that froze his blood, the same way his blood froze when he saw that the fire had gotten away from them. He guessed a part of him always knew that the panic in Grace’s voice when she got lost in the corn was at least a little bit playacting. That she was in on the game as much as he was. But there was some new quality to the way she was calling out to him now. The only thing he could compare it to was when they found the fox that had its leg caught up in one of Daddy-Bob’s traps and the way it had cried to be set free.
Grace was trapped. Or hurt. Or both.
He took off, tearing through the corn; his hearing tuned like radar to hone in on Grace. Kyle knew it was time for him to pay for the sin he’d committed by setting that fire. Something bad wasn’t just coming his way.
Something bad was here.
COUNTY WATER WAS COMING TO EDEN
Road.
Kenny Ahearn sat on his front porch and watched the public works crew in their yellow vests as they got to work tearing up the ground. The fine strands of white hair that clung to his otherwise bald head whipped around in the breeze. The men were about a half mile up the street. It didn’t make sense to him. He didn’t care what they said, there was nothing wrong with the well water. There had been a county meeting last year—Lithia Springs had once been an incorporated city, but that had been dissolved many years ago, and now Lithia Springs was just an unincorporated swatch of Douglas County named for the trace levels of lithium that spiked the water drawn from its natural springs—to vote on whether or not to bring public waterlines to this road. Kenny strongly opposed the idea of losing his free well water and having to pay for the new lines—for many reasons—but he had not attended the meeting to vocalize his opinion, because he did not know if he would be in the minority or the majority, and either way, he did not wish to draw attention to himself. In any case, it came out that the local groundwater was contaminated with chemical runoff f
rom the Watkins Lumber and Pulp Processing Plant in the northern corner of the county. The plant had been fined and shut down until proper waste disposal methods were put in place. The chemical levels were low and said to be harmless in the short term. But it was estimated that it would take fifty years for the groundwater to cleanse itself. It was a public health issue. County water was coming.
Kenny had used his electric wheelchair (God bless the good people of the Lithia Springs First Baptist Church of God!) and gone down to the end of Eden Road that morning and talked to the foreman. Kenny was finding that his wheelchair was opening all kinds of doors for him. Normally, people did not stop what they were doing to make time for Kenny Ahearn. But being in a wheelchair, they seemed to make him priority. Kenny suspected that the sight of a wheelchair made them nervous, and they just wanted to deal with him right away so that he could be dismissed.
The crew foreman had made a big show of hunkering down next to Kenny and telling him how the project would progress. They planned to lay the main line first, starting at the top at Lee Road and working their way down to the bottom where Eden Road met Mount Vernon Road and Sweetwater Reservoir. They would then come back and run pipe from the main line to each house one at a time. There were only twelve houses on the road, and the foreman figured that they would be hooking up Kenny’s house in four, five days at the most.
The foreman even said that the county was going to pave the road when they were through. That suited Kenny just fine. The washboard surface and mudholes of the dirt road made using his electric wheelchair on it a real chore.
Kenny sat on his porch now, staring across the road into the cornfield, thinking about all of this. The foreman had confirmed Kenny’s fear that the waterline must be run underground (of course) to the back of the house where it could hook in with the existing pipes that ran up from the well pump. This could not be allowed to happen. The side lot contained his rose garden. His mama had planted it when his daddy was still alive—over twenty years ago. And with Mama gone that rose garden was his legacy, his memory of both of his parents. And over the years, he had used the beloved ground to bury the remains of the few strays that Mama had allowed him to keep and care for. Pets that he’d loved far more than he had ever loved any of the supposedly “real people” in his life. So the rose garden in the side yard was a memorial as well. Kenny would not sit idly by and see Mama’s roses turned under, his memories exposed.
At the End of the Road Page 9