Country Dark

by Chris Offutt

  Tucker wriggled out of the briars and walked along the road. He had no plan but didn’t like what he saw. The man was trying to tug her underpants down. His face was bleeding from her fingernails. She was silent, fighting him with no tears or wasted breath. Her underpants ripped, and the man tore them off. Tucker approached him from behind. The man was tall and broad shouldered with long arms, and weighed a good fifty pounds more than Tucker.

  “Hey,” Tucker said. “Having fun?”

  The man stood upright, still clutching the woman’s hair. He’d gotten a good grip by wrapping it around his fist and holding it at the base of her skull. Tucker had startled him but the man realized he was just a kid.

  “Hell, yes,” the man said.

  “Best turn loose of her hair, then.”

  “Don’t reckon I will, boy. You go on and get before I take that knife off your belt, stick it up your ass, and break the handle off.”

  The man smirked and spat, and gave the woman’s hair a quick tug. Her head jerked but she didn’t make a sound, just stared at Tucker with eyes as dark as walnut hulls. Tucker casually withdrew his pistol and aimed it at the man.

  “Let her go,” Tucker said.

  The man didn’t like the situation. In ten seconds it had gone from the best day in years to among the worst. He grinned, pulled the woman to her feet, and stood behind her. She kicked him in the shin with her heels. He lifted his knee hard between her legs, the force raising her off the ground. She gasped and her mouth fell open and Tucker saw how tiny her body was.

  “You going to shoot me?” the man said.

  “No.”

  “Didn’t think so.”

  “Ain’t got but three bullets,” Tucker said. “Need them for squirrels.”

  The man laughed. He put his free hand around the woman’s throat and started moving backward to the car.

  “You’re an honest fucker,” the man said. “I give you that. But if you ain’t shooting, I ain’t waiting.”

  Tucker walked toward the man. The woman was breathing hard, her eyes sharp on him. Tucker set the pistol and knife on the ground, opened his hands to show them empty, and moved closer.

  “Just fists?” the man said. “Or fists and boots?”

  “However you want it. I might use a rock.”

  The man laughed and lifted his fists. Tucker struck him three times in the head, his arm moving like a piston in a quick flurry. The man staggered backward, and the woman ran to the car. The man lifted his arms to defend himself, then kicked Tucker in the knee. Pain flared along his leg, numbing it momentarily, and he thought he might fall. The man swung a wide looping right that Tucker ducked easily. He hopped to one side, favoring the hurt leg, and the man smiled lazily, a fearsome sight. Tucker had never seen a man who liked to grin and fight. Blood stained his teeth.

  “Come on, runt,” the man said. “I’ll knock the taste out of your mouth.”

  Tucker picked up a rock, feinted left, and clubbed the man twice in the face. The first blow staggered him, gashing the skin to the bone above his eye. The second one hit his mouth, knocking two teeth out and driving him to his knees. A long thread of blood arced into the dirt.

  “Stop,” the woman said.

  Tucker looked at her, waiting, his hand poised to strike.

  “He’s family,” she said.

  He lowered his arm, appreciating her loyalty, surprised at his own willingness to heed. She hurtled past him and kicked the man in the groin. His head tipped back and he fell in the dirt and vomited. Tucker retrieved his weapons. She kicked him three more times, then sat on the running board to rest.

  The man was semiconscious, bleeding fiercely from a deep cut through his eyebrow, one tooth showing through his bottom lip. The blood was already drawing flies that shifted their focus to the more alluring pool of bile. Tucker avoided looking at the half-clothed woman. She’d had enough bad luck for one day and he didn’t figure to add to it. He limped up the hill to his camp and packed his supplies. He sat and bent his leg a few times until satisfied that his knee was good enough to walk.

  The woman stepped into view, having followed him up the hill. She’d torn a strip of fabric from the dress and used it to make a ragged sash that encircled her body for the sake of civility. Red finger marks emblazoned her neck. Her knees were scraped and bloody.

  “You living up here?” she said.

  “I’m leaving.”

  She noticed the dried snake hide curling on the ground, bits of blood and meat covered with dirt.

  “Been eating on snake?” she said.

  “I’d offer you some but it’s gone.”

  “Not hungry.”

  He gave her the canteen and she drank deeply.

  “I love water,” she said.

  “I’d say that’s handy.”

  She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and looked at his makeshift camp carefully.

  “Are you on the run?” she said.

  “Not till now, I don’t reckon.”

  “This is my family’s land you’re on.”

  “I’ll get on out of here, then.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way,” she said. “Just that I know all my kin and neighbors and I ain’t never laid eyes on you.”

  “I was in the army. I’m going home now. War’s over.”

  “Where at?”

  “Korea.”

  “No, I mean where’s home?”

  Her skin was brown, her black hair glossy and thick. Her cheekbones were as prominent as railroad gravel. She was as small a woman as he’d ever seen.

  “You mind if I smoke a Lucky?” he said. “Then I’ll go on and go.”

  She shook her head. He sparked a smoke and squatted. His little dream of laying up here for the summer had evaporated as fast as morning fog. He would refill the canteen, then head east, figuring he could make ten miles before dark.

  “Should’ve said this already,” she said. “But thank you.”

  He nodded and looked away.

  “Who is that feller?” he said.

  “My uncle.”

  “Why are you dressed up?”

  “Funeral,” she said. “My daddy’s. It was this morning. Uncle Boot said he’d give me a ride home. I shouldn’t a took it. But I did.”

  “Say your daddy died?”

  “A horse threw him. He landed bad and been sick two months.”

  “Reckon your mom’s pretty tore up about it.”

  “She was till they buried him. Then she perked right up and wanted a drink. That’s part of why I took a ride off Uncle Boot.”

  “He your dad’s brother or your mom’s?”

  “Mom’s. She’ll side with him. She always did. The sun, it rises and sets on him. It’s sure going to set on him today. I can’t go back to that house no more.”

  “How old are you?” he said.

  “Going on fifteen. How old are you?”

  “What’s today?”

  “Saturday.”

  “I mean what day of the month.”

  “The date?” she said.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “The twentieth.”

  “Are we still yet in May?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I’ll be eighteen in ten days.”

  “You don’t look it,” she said.

  “Your uncle didn’t think so either. Reckon I ort to check on him, seeing as how he’s your kin.”

  He stood, testing his injured knee.

  “Your leg hurt?” she said.

  “Not bad,” he said. “It’s the bee stings aggravating me.”

  “I can make a salve.”

  “Maybe in a minute.”

  He stepped past her and walked down the slope. Uncle Boot was leaning against a tire, breathing hard and ragged through his mouth. Blood covered the left side of his face, still running in stripes along his jaw and dripping onto his shirt. At Tucker’s approach, he cupped the front of his pants with one hand.

  “Didn’t have to kick me in
the nuts,” Uncle Boot said.

  “I never,” Tucker said. “That was your niece done that.”

  “Rhonda?”

  “All I did was hit you a few times.”

  The man wiped blood from his face.

  “Is it pretty bad?”

  “No,” Tucker said. “A cut to the head bleeds a lot.” He bent down and inspected the man’s wound. “Ain’t too deep. Can you see out of both eyes?”

  “I don’t know. I ain’t tried to yet.”

  Tucker picked up a scrap of torn dress and held it to the man’s face, blotting the blood.

  “Now open that eye,” he said.

  The man blinked several times. He closed the other eye, then nodded. Tucker was glad he hadn’t blinded him. The girl stepped past Tucker and kicked him in the groin again. Drool dribbled down Uncle Boot’s chin. Tucker shook his head at her.

  “You done enough,” he said. “Don’t mess with him no more.”

  “Who the hell are you?” Uncle Boot said.

  “Nobody,” Tucker said. “I’m heading up to Ohio to see my wife.”

  Rhonda clamped her lips together hard as stacked rock. Tucker knew he should walk away, not say another word, just set off walking and let them think he was headed north.

  “Will you run me home?” The man’s voice was gaspy at the edges. “I ain’t sure I can drive. Swelled up down there like a couple of gourds.”

  “Run you home?” Tucker said.

  “I’ll pay you if you want.”

  Rhonda was at the mercy of two men and hated them both for it, but mainly hated herself for being in the situation—one she’d created by getting in the car with her uncle. She knew what he’d had in mind. She’d known it for years, but didn’t figure he’d try anything the day of the funeral. She was getting angrier by the second. Mainly she was mad at the soldier for being married.

  “All right,” Tucker said. “You lay down in the backseat. She’s going to watch you from the front. You move one finger, and I’ll turn her loose on you again.”

  “You going to give her the gun?” Uncle Boot said.

  “No, I ain’t.”

  “That’s a damn blessing,” Uncle Boot said.

  Tucker opened the car door and pushed the seat forward to make space for Uncle Boot. He wondered how far away Uncle Boot lived. Rhonda’s underpants lay in the road like the flag of a fallen country and he tried not to think about her legs under the remnants of her dress. They’d looked strong when she kicked, thigh muscles hard as cordwood.

  Uncle Boot realized he’d get no assistance and began moving carefully, a few inches at a time, crawling like a baby up the running board, and into the backseat. He lay there panting, testicles aching, nausea spreading in waves.

  Tucker threw his ruck in the middle of the bench seat and inserted himself behind the wheel with the pistol in his lap. Rhonda stood in the road.

  “Come on,” Tucker said. “I can’t carry him and leave you.”

  “Last time I got in that car was a mistake.”

  “I reckon it was.”

  Tucker depressed the clutch, pumped the accelerator twice, and turned the key. The Chevy caught, backfired, and began idling with enough power to quiver the car. He shifted into reverse, backed in a half circle, then maneuvered toward the main road. He looked at Rhonda through the passenger window. Finally, he leaned across his ruck and opened the door.

  “Stubborn’s good,” he said. “But ain’t no sense in being foolish right now.”

  “I ain’t the fool here.”

  “You’re right. I didn’t mean it that way.”

  He gave the car a little gas, watching her face for a trace of fear. None came. She was stoic as a block of granite. A breeze rustled her hair, flinging a strand across her face. She ignored it.

  “I won’t lay a hand on you,” Tucker said. “Give you my word.”

  He nodded once, a quick lowering of the chin to indicate his sincerity. She got in the car and he drove across the ground, flushing a partridge from a clump of tall grass. She sat with her back to the door, watching her uncle in the backseat, smirking at his occasional moan. Tucker figured his pain wasn’t that bad, he just didn’t want to get hurt again. At a T-intersection of dirt roads Tucker stopped for instructions.

  “Left,” Rhonda said.

  The car handled extremely well, the best Tucker had ever driven, much better than army vehicles. It was heavy enough not to slide in loose rock, and the shocks were strong as he bounced through potholes. Rain running off the hillside had left a series of gullies in the road like giant corduroy, jarring the car. Rhonda directed him onto the blacktop then a country lane, and finally onto a dirt road that followed a creek between two hills.

  “Slow down up here,” she said.

  Tucker rounded a sharp curve and braked. The road dipped down a muddy bank into a slow-moving creek. The water was clear enough to see a set of car tracks on the bottom.

  “Bridge warshed out,” Rhonda said.

  “I don’t know if this rig will make it,” Tucker said. “I’d hate to get stuck.”

  “Uncle Boot drove through it this morning.”

  “This your place?”

  “Yeah,” she said.

  The house had a low roof that sloped to a narrow porch. Car tires held shingles in place against the wind that he knew came flying down the holler, trapped between the hills. Snugged into a cluster of honeysuckle was an outhouse constructed of green wood. The lumber had warped with time until the shack leaned sideways with wide cracks between the boards.

  “You’uns need you a new outhouse,” he said.

  “I know it,” she said. “It’s full of waspers, too.”

  “Who’s home?” he said. “And how many live here?”

  “Nobody. Mommy went to my sister’s. I was supposed to meet them there.”

  “Where’s your uncle live at?”

  “Here,” she said quietly. “He’s been staying here since Daddy got sick.”

  Tucker eased the big car into the creek. The rear end dropped and he gave it a little gas, yanking the wheel to find traction, moving forward quickly, jumping the opposite bank. He hit the brakes hard and cut the tires to avoid the flat slabs of creek rock that formed the porch foundation.

  “Go get your stuff,” he said.

  “My stuff?”

  “I ain’t leaving you here with this bucket-head.”

  She hurried into the house. Tucker got out of the car and dragged Uncle Boot into the yard. His face was swollen. The caked blood cracked like mud and peeled away. He spat a tooth. The day hadn’t turned out the way he’d planned, just when he was about to finally tear a piece off Rhonda. He’d been smart, he’d bided his time, he’d taken care of his sister’s dying husband. Now a boy with odd eyes had beat him down to the ground and half into it.

  Tucker pulled Uncle Boot across the muddy grass to three board steps that led to the porch. He moaned and reached for the front of his pants, then moaned louder. Tucker went to the car for his ruck, retrieved the moonshine, shook the jar vigorously, and examined the bubbles. The bead rode the surface of the liquid a little high. At least it wasn’t below the surface, a much worse sign. He opened the glove box and dug out the car’s title of ownership.

  He returned to Uncle Boot and held one hand behind his neck, cradling his head, and offered a sip of liquor. The harsh smell served to wake him slightly and he tried to jerk his head away, but when he understood what was in the jar, he relaxed and drank. The moonshine burned several wounds in his mouth. He drank again and leaned back.

  Tucker held the pink slip in front of Uncle Boot’s good eye.

  “I aim to buy your car,” Tucker said.

  “Ain’t for sale.”

  “I’ll give you two hundred dollars.”

  “You shit and fall back in it.”

  “I’ll put the sheriff on your ass,” Tucker said. “You tried to mess with your niece who ain’t but fourteen. They’ll throw you in the pokey.”

&n
bsp; Uncle Boot laughed, a rough sound that shifted to a hoarse cough. He spat blood.

  “Son,” he said. “I am the goddam sheriff.”

  Tucker rocked back on his heels, squatting, elbows propped on his knees, arms extended in front of him. It was his pondering pose and he needed to think his way out of a mess he shouldn’t be in. Two hours ago he’d been lying happily in a creek. A sense of longing for the army passed through him—explicit instructions had simplified life. Now he had to think like an officer and issue orders to himself.

  The screen door creaked and banged, hinged on strips of rubber cut from an old tire. A panel of cardboard patched the rusting screen. Rhonda came onto the porch holding two bulging pillowcases and a basket covered with a quilt.

  “He really the sheriff?” Tucker said.

  “Deputy,” she said.

  “No,” Uncle Boot said. “Sheriff’s out of the county. I’m the law for three more days.”

  “Where’s your gun at?” Tucker said.

  “In the house. Didn’t think it was right taking it to the funeral.”

  “You got ary a phone?” Tucker said to Rhonda.

  She shook her head.

  “Neighbors got one?”

  “No,” she said. “We use my sister’s, about four miles away. Her husband is a truck driver so they have one.”

  Tucker nodded as if that made any sense. All that mattered was Uncle Boot not calling anybody.

  “I aim to have you sign this car to me,” Tucker said. “Two hundred cash money. Or everybody up and down this holler will know you got your ass whipped by me, not even eighteen years old. You won’t do much lawing after that.”

  Rhonda stepped around Uncle Boot and began loading her possessions into the car.

  “Get me a ink pen,” Tucker said to her. “And bring his gun out here.”

  She nodded and went back into the house. He could hear drawers opening and slamming shut. Tucker leaned his face close to Uncle Boot. He slid the Ka-Bar out and pressed the edge to the man’s neck.

  “One night you’ll be asleep and hear something and think maybe it’s a raccoon but it ain’t. It’ll be me. And I’ll rip you like a fish. You hear me. Don’t think I won’t. Only reason you ain’t dead is being her kin.”

  Uncle Boot’s good eye widened. He could feel the blade against his carotid artery and worried that if his heart started pumping too fast, the vein might puff out and he’d wind up cutting his own throat. The boy was crazy as a rat in a coffee can. Uncle Boot was tired of the car anyway. He’d confiscated it from a shine runner and didn’t care for the way it handled without the heavy weight, like a dump truck with no load. The former owner was in a federal prison and not likely to come hunting his rig for years.