A Living Grave

by Robert E. Dunn

  There was no way to see if the major got the message. I was pretty sure he did. Sometimes you feel it when communication is clear. For too long I had been letting him do all the communicating. It was time my message got through. At first it had worried me when he came around with the suggestion that I was somehow taking revenge for what had happened to me. Then it had bothered me that all of this was still going on so many years later. Reach had a bug up his ass about me and most of it was personal. He took a lot of heat when things got messy. As soon as my case became high-profile someone had to get put down. It’s the Army way. I understand pissed off. I live with my own anger every day. I was tired of dealing with his.

  After the kiss, I disentangled myself from Nelson and asked him to go on inside and make sure my steak had some pink in it. Uncle Orson would just char them all if you didn’t keep an eye on him.

  As I walked back to the shore, the dome light on Reach’s car came on and he stepped out to wait for me.

  “This is the last time we’ll get to talk for a while, I guess,” he said as I approached.

  “You won’t hear me complaining about it.”

  “I don’t imagine I will, but there’s one thing I want you to think about.”

  “Don’t bother,” I said. “I have plenty of things to think about without adding your crap on top. In fact, that’s what I came here to tell you. I’m finished. I’m walking away from the bad memories and from you. Rape and betrayal are what happened to me. They aren’t me anymore.”

  “As far as the Army is concerned, none of that happened.”

  A breeze passed over us and I felt the grit of fine sand on my skin. Even if it wasn’t there, I saw wisps of dust dancing over us and rolling up into the turquoise twilight. Darkness was falling quickly. I touched the scar at my eye.

  When I was a girl and had problems with other kids at school—I had little patience with their teasing—my father would tell me about the goat. He said everyone has a goat inside and anytime it gets away from us we get upset and angry. But some people, he told me, always want your goat because it makes them feel better about themselves to have yours. So whenever someone was trying to push me into something he would remind me to watch my goat and never let anyone get it.

  Reach had gotten my goat.

  “As far as I’m concerned you and men like you are the worst part of the Army. You hide behind respect and tradition and use the need of the nation to justify what can’t be justified.”

  “Are you about to lose your shit again? Getting drunk and getting violent—is that all you have left?”

  If I could have growled I would have. “You haven’t seen me violent. Yet.”

  I think he believed me. He eased back a little and said, “We’re alike in a lot of ways, Hurricane.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “It’s true. We both wanted to serve our country—”

  “You serve yourself. You had a responsibility to your country to serve justice, even if it hurt the Army.”

  “Hurt the Army?” He looked incredulous at the idea. “What about hurting soldiers? How do you justify that?” His last question was booming with power and self-righteousness.

  “Rice and Ahrens?” I asked. Where Reach had gotten loud I got quiet and I leaned in close so he would be sure to hear. “They weren’t soldiers. They were like you. Criminals in uniform and the real shame of the military.”

  Reach squared his shoulders and tried to pull himself straighter, ready to say something back, but I didn’t let him. “And before you try to put another one of your lies at my feet—get this—I never did anything to those men. My hands are clean.”

  “I know you didn’t,” Reach said, then quietly relaxed against his car like he had suddenly won something from me.

  “What?”

  “I know you didn’t arrange for Rice to be killed or for Ahrens to be run out of every job and relationship he didn’t screw up for himself. I know, beyond any shadow of a doubt, you had nothing to do with the death of Sala Bayoumi.”

  “Then why are you still here trying to be a splinter in my ass?”

  “Because even though you didn’t do them, they were done in your name.”

  I stopped and thought about that. Who could and would take that kind of action for me? I’d asked the question before. Uncle Orson denied that he could do such a thing. I fingered the scar and closed my eyes for a moment. Everything I was seeing was turning to dust and the dust was sucking the color of the night into itself. Behind my eyelids there was darkness, but it began to fill with the roaring sound of Humvees and thick, knobby tires on broken pavement. When I heard the first pops of AK fire I opened my eyes again.

  There is someone else.

  “Fuck you,” was all I could say.

  “Oh, that’s right. You’re getting it now. Daddy is the dangerous one, isn’t he?”

  “That’s not possible,” I said. The refutation was frail and without power.

  “Daddy was spec ops in Vietnam. Bet you didn’t even know that. Phoenix program—know what that was? Identification and elimination of civilian supporters of the Vietcong. That’s some heavy stuff there. Extralegal stuff, operating as they did in Cambodia and Laos. Those were the men responsible for the helicopter interrogations. You know, take up two that won’t talk and throw one out. The other guy always spilled his guts. They got a lot of solid intel.”

  “You’re just making things up now,” I said. I was looking at Reach but I was seeing Daddy and his face was blowing into dust.

  “Who still works for the intelligence community? Consulting, they call it now. Who has access to Congress and military contractors? Whose name came up when it turned out Sala Bayoumi was involved in black-market weapons supplied to insurgents? Turns out nothing much is beyond Daddy’s reach. Not even a prisoner in the custody of Homeland Security.”

  I closed my eyes again and was instantly within the turmoil of wind and dust. I could feel my wounds again as if they were fresh and bleeding out the heat and color of my body into the desiccated soil of a land that hated me. The pain was an echoing that passed through me and through all the moments of my body since then. For the first time since it had happened to me I saw the faces of the men who had inflicted themselves on me. They had faces and names, histories of their own. It was all gone to me, though. They were that moment. They were what they had done and they would never be other.

  Blood dripped from me. Tiny red splashes in dead, brown earth. I could see myself. For once I was not trapped in the pain and horror. I was outside. I was my father. I was watching my child suffer because of the people he believed in.

  Rage.

  I opened my eyes and let it all drop from me.

  I understand.

  Trying to keep it all from my father had made it worse for him. It was my fault in a way.

  When I opened my eyes Reach was there, staring at me like he had just delivered the best news in the world.

  “Why are you telling me this now?” I asked him. “Why even come here? You’ve tortured me for two weeks. Why?”

  “It wasn’t your name that came up when Homeland talked with Bayoumi. It was your father’s. But he’s a careful man. We put surveillance on his phone and computer before I put a little pressure on his baby girl. Then he wasn’t so careful.”

  “Do you have him? Is he in custody? Is that why he doesn’t answer his phone?”

  When I asked the questions, Reach studied my face. Hard. He must have seen something that satisfied him because he nodded before he smiled a snake’s smile. “That’s all I needed to know,” he said.

  “What?”

  “You don’t know where he is.”

  “Do you?”

  “We will,” he answered. “Soon.”

  If the last time he’d gotten my goat, this time Reach snatched the whole herd. I think it was what he wanted. It was probably what I wanted too.

  When he moved away from the car I raised my right hand in a fist. It wasn’t subtle. He saw it
coming, but that was what I wanted. Reach raised one hand to block my strike and the other to take his own swing at me. Instead of completing my punch, though, I absorbed his block and raised my left under his cocked arm. Both of his arms were up and blocked. When I pushed, his stance opened. With my right knee I put a hard shot right into his groin.

  Reach hadn’t expected that but he had expected something. When he doubled over, rather than grabbing his battered bits, he pulled a 9-mil from behind his back. There was no time for me to go for my weapon. I didn’t need to.

  Three shots cracked like thunder in a clear sky. Two bullets hit the car close behind Reach. One struck the rearview mirror and the other, the .22, punctured the fender with a tinny plink. The third shot fired had been a shotgun blast. When I turned I saw Clare just bringing the pump-action 12-gauge to level after firing it into the air. Between us were Uncle Orson with a rifle and Nelson with the .22 revolver. My own army.

  Reach froze except for his hands. Those he opened. The gun, he let dangle from the trigger guard until I took it from him.

  “Get in your car,” I told him.

  Once he was seated behind the wheel I dropped the magazine and ejected the chambered round before tossing everything in the backseat. I leaned down to the window so my face was level with his. It was my turn to smile. I turned it on big and bright and I leaned in closer to whisper. “Come around me or my family again, we won’t just talk. The Ozarks can be a dangerous place where the bodies are never found.”

  Sure, Reach could file charges. He could bring in feds to handle it, even. But he wouldn’t. If it didn’t serve the job at hand he couldn’t be bothered. He was a tool in a machine. I walked away feeling so much better. I had gotten my goat back.

  * * *

  Uncle Orson’s table was spread with smoking steaks and vegetables pulled from the garden that day. Butter was melting into sloppy golden pools within huge russet potatoes. Beside each plate except one was a sweating bottle of beer. Before I sat down I traded the orange soda at my place for a beer. Uncle Orson didn’t say anything but I got a look.

  I filled everyone in on what Reach had said about Daddy.

  “He’ll be all right,” Orson said, passing around the plate with the T-bones. “Don’t worry about your father. I know for a fact that he has ways of handling problems.”

  “You know more than that, don’t you?” I asked.

  “I know what I need to know. So do you. Anything more and we become something he needs to worry about.”

  Nelson groaned loudly. For an instant I thought something horrible had happened. Then he smiled while chewing. “This is amazing.” He didn’t say it, so much as moan it. “I was so hungry.”

  That was when my mouth started to water and I realized how hungry I was as well. As I dug in, Nelson laughed at me. I returned the laughter and moaned into my own bite of grilled beef.

  “Ohhh, this is amazing,” I said. “The best ever.”

  “Clare made a marinade,” Orson said.

  Clare nodded but didn’t say anything; his mouth was full. At that point everyone’s mouth was full. For a couple of minutes the weight was gone. There was no talking. It was a good feeling—a surrender feeling. Eating wonderful food with people you love and trust—family—has a way of leveling out the world. It brings your problems down and your joys up. Outside was full night. The tail of the pig had already gone over the fence. It was happening a little earlier each night. Water moved slowly under the dock. Cool air let itself in through the screens. It carried the scent of home—water filled with fish and woods full of juniper.

  Life. I felt like it had become a beautiful picture with something deeper behind it. Like one of Nelson’s paintings.

  “Nelson and I are getting married tomorrow,” I said.

  Everyone stopped. The three of them looked at me as if I had said the CIA is telling me to kill the pope.

  “Tomorrow?” Uncle Orson asked. It was a nudge as much as a question. I could hear the sadness in his voice. The suggestion it carried—that I was not thinking of my father—bothered me.

  Daddy would be the first to understand.

  “Wouldn’t you rather wait until we know about your father?” Nelson asked.

  “No. We don’t know how long that’ll take. I’m tired of putting my life into pockets and waiting for the right time to live.”

  “Courthouse opens at eight in the morning,” Clare said. “You both have to be there with ID to get the license. Judge Shea will do it, but he acts like you’re pulling his teeth since his wife left him. That was twenty years ago. I can officiate if you want.”

  Nelson and I were both flat-faced stunned at the suggestion. Uncle Orson just cut a big slice of baked potato and pushed it into his mouth, skin and all. Once he swallowed he said, “Keep your mouths open like that you’ll let the flies in. Clarence was a preacher before he was a teacher.”

  That opened our mouths even wider.

  “Assemblies of God,” Clarence Bolin, moonshiner and closet Democrat, said.

  Things got loud again slowly—laughing, talking, and eating. No one tried to talk me out of the wedding or of doing it tomorrow. In fact, Nelson seemed to be buoyed by the thought. He was talking more. Joking loudly and laughing. When the food was gone he was the first to start clearing the table. Clare joined in and the pair of them went to work. Apparently, they had some unspoken plan to cut me away to let Uncle Orson have a talk.

  “Come outside with me a minute, would you?” he asked me. Without waiting for an answer he sauntered out to stand against the railing. He flicked a switch that turned on an underwater light he had suspended below the dock. As I stepped up to the rail, Orson started dropping bits of bread into the water. He handed me half a roll. Minnows and sunfish came to the dropped crumbs as if they’d been waiting for the feast.

  “Daddy will understand my decision,” I said, hoping to cut off the discussion.

  “Of course he will,” my uncle answered. “He’d be the first to tell you, never put off today . . .”

  “Then why the outside talk?”

  “Nelson,” he said, flaking and dropping more crumbs. “I’m wondering about Nelson.”

  I pinched off larger pieces and tossed them farther, watching the sunfish race to each impact in the water. “What about Nelson?” I asked. “You like him.”

  “Yeah, I do. I like him a lot. Now, I’m wondering if you understand what you’re getting into?”

  “You mean his health? You knew about that. You and Daddy have practically been pushing me at him since we met.”

  “It was different then.”

  “Then?” My voice got a little loud and a little edgy. I brought it down to say, “What then? It’s only been a few days. Do you mean now that he’s getting better?”

  My uncle tossed crumbs and wouldn’t look at me.

  “He is getting better,” I said.

  “I’ve seen it before. All the old vets have.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “All the energy. The new liveliness. Appetite. Hell, even new hair.”

  “Those are all good things,” I said. Even to me it sounded a little like pleading.

  “Those meds are horrible things to live with. Worse to die with. A lot of guys stop. Either they give up or the drugs aren’t working.”

  I threw what was left of my bread into the water. This time the fish scattered from the splash before cautiously returning to nibble.

  “Any way you want it,” Uncle Orson said, “I’m behind you. Your dad is too. He’ll be there if he can. If he can’t—he’ll be there for you later.”

  My phone rang.

  Chapter 24

  Carrie Owens was missing.

  Since the afternoon, while I was talking with Emily Benson, Carrie had been out of her house. Marion had gotten there to find the mother drunk and still drinking. When she wouldn’t produce her daughter, Marion had searched for herself. She found no sign of Carrie. After that, Marion called in the dep
uty stationed outside. The second search was more thorough, looking under beds and behind piles of dirty clothes and in the dark crannies of the basement. Carrie was not in the house.

  They did find one thing, though. On the floor of Carrie’s bedroom there was a wooden dowel with a rough, blunt end and a threaded end. It was the handle from a toilet plunger. The end without the threads was bloody.

  Her mother denied beating Carrie with the stick but neither Marion nor the deputy believed her.

  By the time I was called, the sheriff was there. He had the same kind of search building up as had been done for Angela Briscoe.

  * * *

  I pulled up in the same spit of gravel where I had spent so much time lately. The high beams and emergency lights of my truck rudely intruded on the night. They gamboled over and within the trees on one side. On the other they licked in straight lines across the rock walls. Nowhere did they do more than shimmer in the darkness, dispelling nothing. It didn’t matter. I didn’t need them. The path I was following had become very familiar recently.

  Carrie was sitting cross-legged in the same stained and matted spot where Angela had been killed. She wore the same robe I had seen her in earlier. It was still tied with the string I had put around her waist. Her head was bowed and her shoulders slumped. She had her hands in her lap. They were covered by the painting of Leech I had given her.

  “You’re so stupid,” she said without looking up. “You can’t fix some things.”

  “I know,” I told her quietly. “But the things you can’t fix you can get away from. You can make changes.”

  “I tried.”

  “With Leech?”

  She didn’t say anything but her back was shaking. I didn’t know if she was sobbing or laughing.

  “That’s why Danny did it, isn’t it? For you. To get Leech to help you?”

  “God, you’re so stupid. You don’t understand anything.”