by Hank Early
He held his hands out, as if fending off an attack. “Easy there, tiger. I’m going to tell you. Shit. Impatient. You know you can trust me, buddy. We’re kindred spirits, you and me. Brothers until the end.”
“Cut the shit. Talk to me. What’s going on?”
“Okay, so you may not know, but I’m a businessman. I’ve—”
“Forget it. I’m not getting involved in a drug deal.”
“Now, that really hurts. You just like to take that proverbial knife and stick it in, don’t you, Earl? I’m not a drug dealer. I run a siding business.”
“Siding business?”
“That’s right. Well, it’s not the typical kind of siding business. It’s based on something I invented. It’s weather-resistant siding.”
“You didn’t invent that.”
“Sure I did. I mean, I guess if you’re going to get technical about it, there’s some others out there that claim to be weatherproof, but mine really is. And for cheap too.”
“Okay, even if I were to believe you, what’s this got to do with me?”
“I’ve got an investor who owes me some money. They promised to invest and then reneged. I’ve got the contract and everything, but they know I won’t take them to court because of my priors and whatnot. So, I need to go pick up the money myself.”
“And I’m going along to…?”
“As. You’re going along as an insurance policy. I think it should be easy, but there’s this fellow named Lane Jefferson, and if he’s there, he’ll make trouble. But if I’ve got a PI with me, an armed PI—you are packing, right?”
I nodded.
“Good, then it’ll be easy.”
“And that’s all it is?”
“Yep.” He cranked the truck.
It sounded like there was definitely some potential for trouble, but considering who I was with, I figured it could have easily been worse.
* * *
We were halfway down the mountain when Ronnie turned the music down again and offered me a cigarette.
“I don’t smoke.”
“Color me surprised. I always took you for a smoker.”
I shrugged. Honestly, I had no desire to engage in any more conversation with Ronnie than was necessary.
“You know when I started smoking?”
I shook my head.
“I was eight. Daddy had just got out on parole. I’d been staying with my granddaddy. You remember Old Billy, don’t you?”
I didn’t answer. He knew very well I remembered his grandfather. He’d been my father’s best friend and most trusted advisor for most of his life.
“Anyway, Grandpa told Daddy he couldn’t come inside the house until he promised to clean up his ways. I think he might have even wanted him to confess his sins before the Lord or some such bullshit. ’Course the only thing my daddy and his daddy ever had in common was their mule-headedness, and Daddy told Grandpa he’d be fucked before he confessed anything.” Ronnie took a drag off his cigarette and laughed at the memory. “Well, as you can imagine, that didn’t sit too well with Grandpa, and he took to swinging at Daddy right there on the porch. Pummeling him. Straight up beatdown. Daddy was as stubborn as Grandpa, but not half as tough.”
“Your grandfather was a vile man,” I said.
He laughed again. “You got that right. Anyway, my little sister, Wanda, she flipped out, went to crying her head off. I didn’t blame her much. She hadn’t seen her daddy in a good five years, she couldn’t have been more than eight at the time. Top of that, Grandpa had been giving us straight hell about getting our hearts and minds right with God—you know the drill.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I know that drill.”
“Sure you do. My grandpa and your daddy were like two peas in a pod. Sort of like me and you.”
I shook my head. “In the end, your grandfather and my father hated each other.”
“What’s that prove? Those two men hated everything, Earl. Don’t you know that was their real power? It was why they held sway over so many people for so long. People want to be loved, not hated. And those two knew just how to hold that love back and when to give up a little bit to draw people in. And then once they had you, they’d pull it right back again, so that it was like a drug you had to have another hit off of.”
He was right about all of this. I didn’t like it, though, not just because it brought to mind so many bad memories but also because it only helped to strengthen the bond between the two of us. I’d let him charm me once before, and that had caused me to foolishly trust him with the biggest secret of my life.
“I thought this was about how you started smoking,” I said.
“Oh, I’m getting there. Damn, patience, Earl, patience.”
I said nothing, keeping my eyes focused on the winding road ahead. We were about to turn onto 52, and it occurred to me I didn’t really know exactly where we were going.
“So, you got to picture this, Earl. Grandpa, sleeves rolled up on that starched white shirt he wore every day of his life, fists clenched, face red as a damned tomato, just screaming scripture at my daddy. Daddy’s laid out on the front porch, bleeding from his nose, his mouth, his goddamn ears for all I know. Then you got Wanda crying like she’s trying to wake up the dead. Me? I’m standing in the doorway with a lighter and a pack of cigarettes I stole from Herschel Knott. I’d been trying to be good, Earl. Grandpa had warned me about smoking. Said it was a devil’s habit. Said it wasn’t for someone trying to find the Lord. But I’d seen some of the older guys doing it, and I was ready to get older. I couldn’t wait to get older, you hear what I’m saying, Earl? So, fuck. What do you think I did?”
“Smoked those cigarettes.”
He slapped the steering wheel. “Damned right I did. And you know what else?”
“What?”
“I liked it. Sure, I coughed a little and felt some queasy, but I liked how when I ran off to the woods to do it by myself, I felt like a man. I felt like it took me away from the other shit. You ever have something like that?”
I leaned back in my seat. I didn’t want to answer him. Or at least part of me didn’t want to answer him. Another part of me wanted to talk because, like it or not, he did understand.
Before I could say anything, he sat on the horn. A small deer had run out into the road in front of us. It froze when it heard the horn, but Ronnie swerved quickly to avoid hitting it.
“What I wouldn’t give for my hunting rifle right about now,” he said, and the spell was broken. I closed my mouth and didn’t speak again until I saw the cornfield.
* * *
It was about a twenty-minute drive around the Fingers, which was where Ronnie and I lived, to the narrow strip of flat land people called Corn Valley. Corn Valley was nestled in between the Fingers and Summer Mountain to the north. There wasn’t much out here but trailer parks and flood plains. And corn, of course. Hell, there was a lot of that.
Eventually, we came to an old county road that looked to be used mostly by logging trucks. Ronnie turned right onto it. The road wound down through the valley, parting some woods and coming out into an open, sunny area, the cornfield on our left and scrub pines on our right.
In the distance, I saw the Blackclaw River.
“This here is Skull Keep,” Ronnie said. “You ever been out this way?” He slowed the truck just as I saw the big farmhouse up ahead on the left.
“Can’t say that I have. What kind of name is Skull Keep?”
He shrugged. “It’s more of a nickname than anything else. This is unincorporated land. It’s owned by that rich bastard over there.” He pointed to the house on our left. “Lane Jefferson. He’s fucked in the head. And”—Ronnie leaned forward, squinting at the house—“he’s not home. Hot damn.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Means you can stay in the truck. Keep an eye out. If you see a sawed-off piece of shit with crazy fucking eyes drive up, stall his ass.”
“Stall his ass?”
“Keep him out
side.”
“How am I supposed to do that?”
Ronnie pulled into the gravel drive and killed the engine. “You’ll figure it out.”
Before I could reply, he jumped out of the truck and slammed the door. I watched him jog up to the house and try the door. It was unlocked. He turned back to me, waved, and went inside.
6
I sat there for a few minutes, diddling with my smartphone. The service was too bad out here to do anything other than check my text messages, and there weren’t any new ones anyway. I put the phone down on the seat and looked out the window.
The cornfield was really something. The stalks looked like great waves cresting as the wind bent them slightly. I couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to be hidden inside those giant stalks, to look up and see the sky through the corn silk and tassels and feel small and insignificant, but also a part of something larger.
My thoughts turned—as they often did—to my father. Wasn’t that exactly what he’d wanted at first? To be a part of something larger, to touch the natural world and find out there was something divine there? I wanted that too, but so much about the idea of the divine troubled me. Jeb Walsh, for instance. How did a man like that become so powerful, so influential, if there was divinity in this world? Was it like my mother believed? That there was a perpetual war being waged between evil and good?
Maybe. I know I felt that within myself sometimes. That my own heart was a battlefield, a place scarred by the toil of casualties and the false promises of peace.
I sighed and turned my attention back to the house. Whoever owned it did have some money. Ronnie had been right about that. All brick and two spacious levels. I figured it set somebody back a pretty penny. The yard was a mess, but that was an easy enough fix. Clean up the trash, cut the grass, and weed-eat a little, and the place would be as—
Something caught my eye. A toy truck sitting near the front steps. One of those dump trucks, its bed filled with dirt. There was something else there too. A ragged old doll. It took me a minute to understand what that meant. Kids.
I was out of the truck and jogging to the door as soon as I realized how bad this could be. Ronnie Thrash trying to get money from someone with young kids around. Shit.
Shit.
Shit.
I was almost at the door when something moved in the cornfield.
I stopped cold. There had been a rustling in the plants, and now I heard a high-pitched whispering. I stepped toward the field for a better look, but there was no one there, only the massive stalks moving in a slight breeze, the corn silk floating out from the dark green husks, the widespread tassels waving against the blue sky like paper claws. And then in a flash, like the flicker of lightning, I saw someone step across one of the rows and disappear. I moved to see down the next row, but it was empty. The rows beyond that weren’t really rows. They were jumbled with stalks, as if whoever had planted them had lacked the skill or patience to lay the seeds in straight lines.
An angry voice from the house broke my trance, and I remembered the urgency of the present situation. Whatever was in the cornfield would have to wait.
Once inside, what I saw made my face flush with anger. Ronnie stood over a woman, who held a small child in her lap. He wore a ski mask and held a gun aimed at the woman’s face.
“Back away from her,” I said.
Ronnie jumped, surprised by the sound of my voice.
“Jesus,” the woman said. “What now?”
“Wait outside, Earl. This ain’t what you think.”
“You’re waving a gun around in that woman’s face. Not to mention the little boy in her lap.”
“She owes me money, Earl. We talked about this.”
“I ain’t got no money to pay,” the woman said. She seemed remarkably calm considering the situation. The child seemed calm too. He was watching Ronnie closely, his mouth opened in a look of deep fascination, but otherwise appeared unperturbed.
“Put your gun away, Ronnie. Then we can talk about this.”
“Fuck you, Earl. I know you ain’t gonna shoot me in front of these people. That ain’t your style.”
He was right. So instead of shooting him, I flipped my gun around and took three giant steps across the room. Ronnie understood what I meant to do on the second step and swung the gun around on me. I kept coming because I was pretty sure Ronnie didn’t mean to shoot me either. On the third step, he tried to get his hands up to ward off my blow, but it was too late. I hit him in the forehead with the stock of my 9mm. He went down. I took his gun out of his hand and started to unload it. Empty. Jesus.
The woman laughed.
“What?” I said.
“It’s just funny because he bragged about having you watching out for Lane. And now you come in and whip his ass.”
“Momma?”
I turned and saw a girl no more than twelve standing behind me.
“What?” the woman said. “You finally decide to come in out of the cornfield?”
“What happened to Uncle Ronnie?”
“Wait,” I said. “Uncle Ronnie?”
The woman sighed. “You wouldn’t think a man would pull a gun on his own kin, now would you?” But that’s just Ronnie. The boy ain’t never been right. He thinks wearing that damn mask is going to fool the kids. Damn, you didn’t have to hit him so hard.”
Ronnie groaned in protest but was either too groggy or in too much pain to make any sense.
“So this has happened before?”
“Not in a while. Lane had put an end to most of it, but now Lane ain’t home half the time, and Ronnie has been asking for money again.”
“Is it true? About the investment?”
“Yeah, we promised we’d invest, but what can you do?” She nodded toward the girl standing by the door. “This one is eating us out of house and home, and now she wants to join every damn club at the school. They ain’t cheap, none of them.” She turned to me, putting her hands around her mouth, and whispered the next part. “It wouldn’t be so bad if she wasn’t so damned weird, you know?”
I shot her a sharp look. She shrugged. “It’s true. Virginia’s always been weird. Her daddy was a one-night stand. What can I say? She don’t want for nothing.”
Except respect, I thought, but didn’t say anything. I figured I’d said and done enough already. It was time to get Ronnie out of there. I’d follow up with a call to Mary about getting these kids some help, but I wasn’t counting on much. I’d seen situations worse than this one, where local authorities couldn’t do a damned thing. It was maddening, but out of my control.
“Let’s go,” I said to Ronnie, reaching down to help him to his feet.
“Not without my money,” he said.
“You aren’t taking money from these people.”
“She’ll spend it on drugs if I don’t. I was going to invest it for her. Give these kids a chance at college.”
I pulled him to his feet and handed the empty gun back to him.
“Come back in a couple of weeks,” his sister said, “and ask nicely, and I’ll loan you a little.”
“What about Lane?”
“We’re quits. Caught him with one of them trailer park sluts. I’m just waiting until he comes back from out of town before leaving.”
“Where are you going to go?” Ronnie asked.
“I’ve got a man up in the Fingers who’ll take care of us.”
“Shit, Wanda.”
She shrugged as if to suggest it was all out of her control, that she was simply along for the ride.
“So where did he go?” Ronnie asked.
“Hell, if I know. Said he’d be back on Wednesday.”
“Well, shit, I ain’t coming in to work tonight, then.”
“Work?” I said. I was so confused.
“Lane pays Ronnie to watch the cornfields,” Wanda said.
“Watch them? Why?”
Ronnie glared at me and pulled the ski mask off. His forehead was bleeding a little, b
ut I figured he deserved that much. “Don’t worry about it.”
Then he did something I hadn’t expected, something that made me realize I’d stepped right into the middle of a family dynamic I’d probably never understand.
“Can I hold him?”
His sister looked at the child in her lap. “Briscoe, you want to go to your Uncle Ronnie?”
Briscoe grinned tentatively.
“Hey, big boy,” Ronnie said.
Briscoe held out his arms and Ronnie took him.
It would have been sweet if it wasn’t so completely fucked.
“I’ll be in the truck,” I said.
The girl, Virginia, was waiting for me outside.
“You’re Earl Marcus,” she said.
I smiled. “Yeah. How did you know?”
“I read the newspaper.”
Her fast and completely serious answer disarmed me a little. In fact, nearly everything about her was disarming. She was a child, but her countenance was not that of a child’s. Her face was serious, unrelentingly calm, and full of subtle expression, as if she were used to talking to adults instead of kids her own age.
“I want to hire you.”
“Hire me? For what?”
She looked around, her eyes settling on the cornfield. “There’s something in that cornfield, and it’s hurting people.”
“What do you mean? Have you seen it?”
“Once. From my window upstairs.” She pointed up to the window on the second story of the old farmhouse.
Before she could say anything else, Ronnie came out. He was grinning, and I shook my head in disbelief. He was one deeply fucked individual.
“We ready, Earl?” Ronnie said. “Quit hitting on my niece. I know she’s a little hottie, but she’s too young for your old ass.”
Virginia rolled her eyes. I turned on Ronnie. “Apologize.”
“What the fuck?”
“Apologize to her. That was inappropriate, even for you.”
“Fuck you, Earl. You need to apologize to me.”
“Let it go,” Virginia said. “Just remember what we talked about.”
Ronnie climbed into the truck. “Come on, Earl. Time to get out of here.”
I nodded at Virginia and got in the truck.