by Nora Roberts
“No, sir. I was just … I was just …” Cy stared at the knife. One swipe, one quick careless swipe of that knife and he’d be dead. “It’s just that they’re still out hunting for you. Not like they were before, but they’re still looking.”
“The Lord’s my shepherd, boy. He does provide.” Still smiling, Austin ran his thumb along the edge of the blade. A thin line of red welled out of his skin. “And sharp is His sword. Now let me tell you what you’re going to do.”
Austin turned the knife on his son. For one dizzying instant, while his bowels turned to ice, Cy was certain the point was going to plunge into his throat. But it stopped a whisper away.
“Are you listening, boy? Are you listening?”
Cy nodded. He was afraid to swallow. Afraid that the blade would prick his Adam’s apple if it bobbed.
“And you’re going to do just as I say, aren’t you?”
Cy looked above the blade, into his father’s eves. “Yes sir.”
Cy worked hard on sweating out his fear. He hauled wheelbarrows full of mulch around the garden, dug holes for the new peony bushes Tucker had bought to replace the ones that had died off from being trampled. He scraped old paint and slapped on fresh. He yanked up weeds until his fingers cramped, but the fear stayed hot and hard in his belly like a bad meal that refused to digest.
He didn’t eat the meal Della set out for him—not even the half he usually took for himself. Instead, he packed the thick pork sandwiches and generous slice of lemon cake into his knapsack.
He couldn’t even stand to look at them, but he figured his father would eat well that night.
He’d have a rare appetite after he’d finished with Tucker.
Cy wiped sweat out of his eyes and tried not to think of right and wrong or good and bad. All he had to think about was surviving. Of getting through one day and onto the next until he’d finished up all those days that made up four years.
He looked around Sweetwater, the green fields thriving with cotton, the dark, still water, the splashes of color from flowers. Maybe it was true, what his daddy said. Maybe it was only people like the Longstreets who could afford to plant flowers to look at instead of food to eat.
Maybe it was true that they didn’t deserve the fine, big house, and all the land and the easy life they lived. Maybe it was their fault that his own family was poor as dirt and had to scrape for every penny.
And Edda Lou had been his sister, his blood. Family took care of family. His daddy said it was Tucker’s doing that she was dead.
If he believed that, if he could believe that, then what he had to do wouldn’t be so hard.
It didn’t matter if it was hard or not, Cy reminded himself as he walked to the side of the house to rinse off his hands and face with the garden hose. It was something he had to do, because if he didn’t, his father would come for him. He would find him wherever he tried to hide. And he would come for him with more than a belt, with more than his fists.
“If thy eye offend thee, pluck it out,” his father had said. “You’re my eye, boy. You’re both my eyes.”
And he’d held that honed silver point so close, so close to Cy’s left eye that he’d been afraid to blink.
“Don’t offend me in this. You bring him here, and I’ll be waiting.”
“You done for the day, son?”
At Tucker’s voice, Cy jerked back and managed to soak his shoes. Tucker merely grinned and put a match flame up to half a cigarette.
“Della told me you were jumpy today. Better turn that hose off before you drown yourself.”
“Yes sir. I’m all finished.” Cy stared at his hand, watched his own fingers curl around the metal and twist.
“Good, ’cause it damn near wears me out watching you. You want a Coke, another piece of that cake?”
“No, sir.” Cy kept his head down as he rewound the hose. He felt something perilously like tears in his throat. Maybe it wouldn’t work, he thought desperately. Maybe Tucker would just shoo him on his way. Lips pressed together, Cy limped toward his bike.
“What’s wrong with your leg?”
Cy kept his back to the house and stared straight ahead.
Make him feel sorry for you, boy. You see that he gives you a ride in one of those fancy cars. And you bring him down here to me.
“It’s nothing, Mr. Tucker. Guess I mighta pulled something.” He took another couple of limping steps, praying that Tucker would just shrug and turn away.
“Why don’t you come on back in here, let Della take a look at it?”
Cy closed his fingers around the handlebars of the bike and darted a look back toward the house. “No, sir, I’d best get on home.”
Tucker caught the glint of tears in the boy’s eyes and frowned. Adolescent pride was a touchy thing. “Well, I’ve got to run into town for some things.” He strolled off the porch, improvising as he went. “That woman runs me ragged fetching this and picking up that. How come women can’t figure out what it is they need all at once?”
Cy stared down at the silver handlebars, focusing on the splotches of rust. “I don’t know.”
“One of the mysteries of the universe.” He laid a friendly hand on Cy’s shoulder and felt him flinch. With a guilty start he realized again how thin the boy was, and how hard he’d been working. “Why don’t you load that up in the Olds, Cy? I can give you a ride most of the way home.”
Cy’s knuckles whitened on the handlebars. “I don’t want to trouble you, Mr. Tucker.”
“I’ve got to drive right by your turnoff. Come on, let’s get to it before she can think of something else to send me for.”
“Yes sir.” Head down, Cy wheeled the bike over to the drive. His head was ringing like an anvil by the time Tucker had plucked the keys out of the ignition and unlocked the trunk.
“God knows why she drives this old boat,” Tucker muttered. “You could fit three dead bodies in the trunk.” He shoved some of Della’s debris aside. A cardboard box full of old clothes meant to go to the church. Three pair of shoes to be taken in for repair next time she was passing through Greenville, a box of mason jars and an over-and-under Winchester.
Cy’s gaze lit on the gun. Then jumped away. Tucker noted the look as he hefted the Schwinn into the truck. “She’s been hauling that thing around in there for months. Says she might need to shoot some crazed rapist if the car breaks down somewhere.” Tucker pulled out a length of rope and wound it carelessly around the bumper. “I can’t quite picture Della sitting on the hood with a shotgun across her lap, laying for crazed rapists, but there you go.”
Cy said nothing, nothing at all, and climbed in the car. Tucker pulled one of his cassettes from the glove compartment. “I hide these in here,” he told Cy. “A woman never goes in a glove compartment. How about some Presley?”
“Okay.” Cy linked his stiff fingers in his lap. “Fine.”
“Boy, Presley’s not fine. He’s king.” Tucker flipped in the cassette and revved the engine to “Heartbreak Hotel.” He sang the opening bars along with the King as they headed down the lane. “You getting along all right at home?”
“At home?”
“Your mama doing better?”
“She’s … she’s getting by.”
“If you need something—money or something—you can ask me. You don’t have to tell her where it came from.”
Cy had to stare out of the window. He couldn’t face the concern, the simple kindness. “We’re getting along.” He caught a glimpse of Toby’s truck at the end of Caroline’s lane and wanted to weep. How could he ever go whistling up to Jim again? After today, he’d be the same as a murderer.
“You want to tell me what’s on your mind, Cy?”
“Sir?” Cy swiveled his head back. His heart bobbed up to his throat. “Nothing, Mr. Tucker. I’ve got nothing on my mind.”
“I haven’t been fourteen in a while,” Tucker said easily. “But I remember what it was like. I remember what it was like to have a father with a heavy hand and
a short fuse.” Tucker glanced over, and his eyes were so full of understanding, Cy had to turn away again. “You weren’t limping when you got into the car, Cy.”
The ball of fear in his belly spread. “I guess, I guess my leg’s feeling better.”
Tucker said nothing for a moment, then moved his shoulders. “If that’s the way you want it.”
They were driving along the skinny trickle of Little Hope now. Cy knew that they’d be coming up to the culvert in less than a mile. “I—I keep the bike down by the stream. In the culvert.”
“All right. I’ll drop you there if you want.”
“Maybe you could …” Help me take it down. Help me wheel it down off the road and into the culvert where my daddy’s waiting for you. You’ll help me take it down, because you’re willing to help when you’re asked.
“Could what?”
Almost there. Almost there. Cy wiped the back of his hand over his dry mouth. It wasn’t icy fear in his belly now, it was a sick green fist of horror. I just have to ask him, and he’ll do it. And Cy caught the glint of light—reflected off the lens of binoculars. Or perhaps a knife.
“Stop! Stop the car!” In panic he grabbed at the wheel and nearly sent them into the stream.
“What the hell!” Tucker wrestled the wheel back and left the car diagonally across the road. “You lost your senses?”
“Turn the car around, Mr. Tucker, turn around. Christ almighty, go back.” Sobbing, Cy leapt up and tried to turn the motionless car himself. “Please God, turn it around before he comes and kills us. He’ll kill us both now.”
“Just hold on.”
The Olds banked like a ship leaving port, then shot down the road. Cy huddled on his knees, sobbing against his clenched fists and staring out the rear window while the dead King sang about a hunk of burning love.
“He’s going to come. I know he’s going to come. My eyes, he’s going to cut out my eyes.” He doubled over, clutching his belly. Hysteria or not, Tucker veered to the shoulder. He yanked the boy out and held Cy’s head while his body shuddered.
When Cy was down to dry heaves, Tucker pulled out a handkerchief and mopped the boy’s face. “Try to breathe slow. You think you’re done?”
Cy nodded, then began to cry. They weren’t wild, wailing sobs, but soft, quiet ones that broke the heart. Baffled, Tucker sat in the open car door and patted Cy’s head. “Get those out, too. I expect you’ll feel better for it.”
“I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t. He’ll kill me now.”
“Who’s going to kill you?”
Cy turned his blotched miserable face to Tucker’s. Tucker thought he looked like a dog who’d already been beaten half to death and was just waiting for the final blow.
“It’s my daddy. He told me to bring you down here. He told me I had to on account of Edda Lou, and if your eye offends you, you have to cut it out. I’ve been bringing him food every day. And I brought him his belt and a fresh shirt, the binoculars. I had to. And today I had to bring him the knife.”
Tucker lifted Cy up by the shirtfront and shook some of the hysteria away. “Your father’s back there in that culvert?”
“He was going to lay for you. I was supposed to bring you. But I couldn’t.” Cy’s eyes wheeled around. “He could be coming right now. He could be coming. He’s got those guns, too.”
“Get in the car.”
Cy figured he was going to jail for sure. He’d been aiding a fugitive and was an accessory after the fact, or something like it. But jail was better than having that knife carve out his eyes. “What’re you going to do, Mr. Tucker?”
“I’m going to take you back to Sweetwater.”
“Take me back? But—but—”
“And you’re going to go inside, and you’re going to call Sheriff Truesdale and tell him the whole thing.” He aimed a hard look at Cy. “Aren’t you?”
“Yes sir.” Cy wiped tears from his cheeks. “I swear I will. I’ll tell him where Daddy is. I’ll tell him the whole thing.”
“And you tell him he better get out here, quick, fast, and in a hurry.” He turned through the gates of Sweetwater.
“I’ll tell him. I’m sorry, Mr. Tucker, I was so scared.”
“We’ll talk about that later.” Gravel spewed as he swerved to a stop. “Get on in there. If you can’t get him at the office, you call him at home. Della’s got the number. You can’t get Burke, you get Carl.”
“Yes sir. What’re you going to do?” He watched, wide-eyed, as Tucker popped the hood, tossed out the bike, then pulled out the shotgun. “You going back after him? Are you going after him, Mr. Tucker?”
Tucker broke open the shotgun, checked the load. His eyes lifted and fastened on Cy’s. “That’s just what I’m doing. You’d best tell Burke I’ve just deputized myself.”
Cy turned and raced into the house.
chapter 18
Tucker didn’t care to picture himself in a shootout. It just didn’t sit right. As he sped back to Dead Possum Road, it occurred to him that this was the second time Austin had put him in the awkward position of carrying a gun.
It was damn irritating.
But he couldn’t go back and sit on the porch, waiting for Burke and Carl to handle it. Not when he still had the picture of Cy’s terrified face in his mind. Not when the scent of a young boy’s fear was still hanging heavy in the car.
He’ll cut my eyes out!
Where in Christ had the boy come up with that?
From his crazy, sick old man, Tucker concluded.
His face was set, his eyes the color of burnished bronze as he swung the car to the shoulder. He hefted the gun, then using the car as a shield, reached in the backseat for the binoculars Della, and almost everyone else in Innocence, carried.
When he brought them up and focused, the concrete hump of the culvert jumped in front of his eyes. Slowly, he scanned, but saw nothing at the entrance, no movement along the slope of the Little Hope. Nothing in the field beyond.
He caught the glint of silver from the roofs of the mobile homes in the trailer park three miles away. Lowering his sights, he clearly saw Earleen’s sister Laurilee step out of her trailor, take a swing from a can of Mountain Dew, and give a holler.
Calling the kids in for supper, Tucker thought absently, and slowly swung the binoculars away. He saw pigs rooting in the pen at Stokey’s farm and the wash hanging on the line at the Marches’, and a plume of dust toward town that might have been Burke riding out.
But on the fields and flats, nothing stirred. And the silence hung heavy, disturbed only by the stream croaking its way over rocks and mud and a few birds that sang disinterestedly in the hazy heat of the evening.
If Austin was waiting, he was waiting in the dim, dirty shadows of the culvert. There was only one way to find out.
Tucker took time to shove a few extra shells in his pocket, though he sincerely hoped he wouldn’t have to use them. Keeping low, his eyes trained on the shallow entrance, he circled the culvert. When he got within five feet, he dropped down on his belly, the shotgun nestled on his shoulder.
“God, if You want to do me one favor in this lifetime, don’t make me have to shoot this thing.”
He took a deep breath, exhaled slowly.
“Austin! I reckon you know I’m out here.” It wouldn’t occur to him until later that his skin was bone dry, his hands rock steady. “You went to a lot of trouble to invite me out for a visit.” He bellied his way to the slope of the bank. “Why don’t you come on out and we can talk reasonable, or we can wait awhile until Burke comes along.”
There was only silence from the culvert and the scream of a crow overhead.
“You’re going to make it hard on me, Austin. I’m going to have to come in there, seeing as how you tormented that boy. I just can’t swallow that. Then we’re going to start shooting at each other, and one of us is likely to be dead.” With a little sigh Tucker reached over and picked up a stone. “I sincerely don’t want it to be me.”
He tossed the rock down and waited for the ripping report of a gun. Silence.
“Shit on toast,” Tucker muttered, and slid down the slope into the stingy trickle of the Little Hope. There was a roaring in his head now, a steady wall of sound that was his heart and his fury. He swung the shotgun around and charged the entrance, fully expecting to be dodging bullets.
But the culvert was empty. Tucker stood there, feeling more than a little foolish with his shotgun at the ready and his heart beating like a brass band. He could hear his own rushing breaths bouncing off the concrete.
“Okay,” he said quietly. “Okay, there was nobody around to see you make an ass of yourself.” He started back toward the entrance, then stopped short.
Could Austin be hiding somewhere? Somehow have found a hole just big enough to crouch in? Was he waiting, just sitting out there for Tucker to come back out so he could pick him off?
That was stupid, Tucker assured himself, took another step, then stopped and swore.
It was better to be stupid than dead, he supposed, and wondered what the hell to do now.
He had a ridiculous image of the final scene from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, where Newman and Redford had been freeze-framed in that last, hopeless gun battle.
The slick ending didn’t fool Beau Longstreet’s son Tucker. No indeedy. He knew just what had happened. Guns had fired, and Butch and the Kid had been blown to glory.
He stood in the narrow culvert thinking he was neither outlaw nor hero, but it was mighty hard on the pride just to huddle there and wait.
Before he had to make the decision, he heard the rumble of a car, then the quick, sharp slam of doors. “Tucker! Tuck, you all right?”
“Down here, Burke.” Tucker leaned the shotgun against the wall. “He ain’t here.”
He heard Burke give Carl orders to look around, then the light at the entrance was blocked by the sheriff’s broad shoulders. “What the sweet fuck is going on here?”
“Well, son, I’ll tell you,” Tucker said, and did.
“Couldn’t understand half of what that boy was saying.” Burke offered Tucker a light for his half cigarette. “But he seemed damned sure you and his daddy were going to kill each other down here.”