by Peter Gent
“Lem’s always known Randall was your child,” Wendy continued. “I guess just about everybody knew.”
“Except me.”
“You never asked.” Wendy looked as she did on the road to Hugo to marry Buffy to Simon. She still had the power to make Taylor see her when and how she chose ... to conceal or reveal.
“Well, Cyrus can’t stop us anymore,” Wendy said finally. “Christ, he can barely zip his pants.”
“What happens now?”
“We take over the Franchise.” She turned her head slowly and deliberately on her long, slender neck until she looked directly at Taylor.
“Do I still have to play?”
“Absolutely. You are the Franchise.” The hearth embers reflected in her eyes. The lean arc of her neck contoured into her delicate collarbones, the hollows and shadows. “It’s funny, but now your idea of not confronting my father begins to make sense.” Her pale eyes glittered with fire.
“Not to me. This is my son and I missed three years of his life.”
“But you didn’t want—” Wendy protested.
“You don’t know what I wanted.” Taylor cut her off. “You only know what yon wanted. Now you know why I’m more scared of you than Cyrus.”
“Can we begin where we are now?” Wendy asked. “Right now and from this moment forward. All forgiven? No grudges? No blame?”
Wendy lay the sleeping Randall on the wicker sofa, leaned over, pulled Taylor toward her and kissed him long and hard.
“Friends?” Wendy watched him, her voice soft and measured.
Taylor nodded.
“Tonight my father marries Suzy Ballard.” Wendy forced a smile. “They’re getting married on the All-American Evangelical Hour.”
“Well, Billy Joe Hardesty didn’t get his own TV show without knowing a pigeon when he sees one drool on himself.”
Taylor followed Wendy outside to the hammocks. They both stared silently off the stone porch, listening to the night sounds. A whippoorwill called from the oak motte behind the cabin. A bat dived at fluttering bugs drawn to the mercury vapor light. Tommy McNamara’s typewriter rattled away in the bunkhouse, sounding like machine-gun fire from the moth and bat war.
“Red always said he would own a franchise or die trying. Looked like he’ll get his chance to do both.” They both sat on the hammock and it swung slowly. “Bobby Hendrix used to tell him that he had a better chance of being adopted by your father than being made a partner.”
“He probably still does,” Wendy said. “But if he’s willing to go with us against A.D. and Suzy.”
“Don’t forget your daddy.”
“I’m not worried about Cyrus. He’s just confused ... disoriented. Suzy has purposely kept him isolated out at the hot springs.” Wendy began to lace her thin fingers together and twist them. “He’s lost without Dick Conly. Once we make a move he’ll sit down and listen to reason. He doesn’t understand the danger he’s in.”
“Nobody does.”
They watched the red lights of an airplane appear over the distand southern horizon and float soundlessly across the great sky.
Wendy hooked her thumb toward the bunkhouse. “How about him?”
“Tommy will help, but we need Tommy’s source. Whoever he is knows more than he’s telling.” Taylor pursed his lips, tapping them with his index finger.
“If we can connect A.D. and my father’s new wife to the gambling and ticket scalping ...” Wendy began to plot.
“You might also connect your father.”
Wendy nodded, her face a petulant scowl.
“There’s one more thing,” Taylor said. “I call the plays. We are in a real fight and we’ll either end up on the boat or in the water, swimming with sharks.”
“Man is born to strive for the heroic.” Wendy glowered.
“You better decide, Wendy. It’s a new game.” His stare offered ruthless absolution. “Bobby Hendrix already guessed wrong. Nobody’s going to get a second chance. Red will speed it all up and go for the Super Bowl this year, twice as fast with A.D. and Suzy trying to put us into the wall. There will not be time for second guesses or the brakes,” Taylor said. “If I make a wrong decision, only going faster will get us out. You accelerate out of trouble in this race—the pedal to the metal.”
“What if you’re wrong?” She held her slim fingers to her lips. Her eyes avoided his scalding stare. “What if you can’t save us by going faster?”
“Then we hit the wall,” Taylor said, “still accelerating.”
“Pretty limited choice you’re offering.” Wendy was hesitant, no longer sardonic. “What if you fail?”
“Then I fail.”
“That’s your answer?”
“There’s no other answer to that question ... except quit.”
Taylor scooped up Randall, carried the small boy to his bed, covered him and kissed his soft, smooth cheek. He stared at the sleeping child and thought of all they had missed. Things that would never be understood. Times that had never happened.
Taylor stayed in Randall’s bedroom, watching him sleep. The boy’s breathing was even.
Time, Taylor thought, begins by running out.
LOUIE THE HOOK
WHEN TAYLOR RETURNED from the bedroom, Wendy had the television on and was watching the electric preacher marry the carhop to Amos Chandler’s baby boy.
Suzy Ballard and Cyrus Chandler faced the Reverend Billy Joe Hardesty, a short, fat man in a dark-blue suit, plain dark narrow tie, white shirt, ankle-length black socks and black alligator loafers with tassels. Suzy guided Cyrus Chandler’s liver-spotted hand toward the solemn man’s, whose great rolls of red flesh flowed over his shirt collar.
“God bless you, brother.” Billy Joe grasped Cyrus’s delicate hand, squeezing with the zeal of the crusader. “It is a great day for the Lord. Welcome to the fold.”
Cyrus winced as the evangelist ground his knuckles together.
“I look forward with a great pride,” Reverend Billy Joe continued, “to joining you two lovely people in holy matrimony before the Lord and the millions of faithful who support my electronic ministry.” Billy Joe turned Cyrus’s liver-spotted hand loose. With his other liver-spotted hand Cyrus rubbed the mashed fingers gently.
Billy Joe gripped his blue polyester lapels and rocked back and forth in his tassled loafers. The motion caused the thin dark-blue knit coat to ripple.
“How is your life, Brother Cyrus? Will you share with us?” A wide grin pushed Billy Joe’s jowls back toward his red jug ears and pulled a large flap of fat up off his collar.
“Well ... ah”—Cyrus continued to massage the thin hand—“ah, lately I have begun to feel ...” Cyrus stopped rubbing his hands and gazed blankly at them. He was searching for the lost thought. “... ah, I guess, that’s not really what I feel.... it’s more like ...” Cyrus twisted his wrinkled face into a scowl of concentration. A slight tremor jogged him and his emaciated body shimmied. The skinny fingers and brown-stained had trembled. He suddenly became an old man. Saliva ran in a slight trickle from the right corner of his pinched mouth.
“Abandoned? Brother Cyrus, do you feel abandoned?” Billy Joe Hardesty prodded.
Cyrus Chandler’s eyes brightened. “Yes. I guess maybe that is it.” Cyrus spoke slowly. “I feel abandoned ... by my friends ... my business associates ... and my family.”
“Well, thank you for sharing, and fear no more, Brother Chandler”—Billy Joe smiled reassuringly—“because I am here to bring you to the family of Jesus Christ, the one and only Savior and Son of God.”
“Praise the Lord.” Suzy watched Cyrus, trying to judge his reaction. “Praise the Lord. Amen.”
“Through me”—Billy Joe Hardesty thumped his own chest loudly, causing his tie to flap and his face to jiggle—“Cyrus Chandler will come to know Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”
Then Billy Joe joined in holy matrimony the increasingly senile old man and the hard, young and beautiful woman. The one-hundred-voice All-American Y
outh Choir of blemish-free white teen-agers sang to the new Mr. and Mrs. Cyrus Chandler. Saliva dribbled from both corners of Cyrus’s mouth. His body fluttered occasionally inside his tuxedo.
Suzy Ballard smiled and dabbed the saliva with a white lace handkerchief that matched her $125,000 wedding gown. Glinting in the studio klieg lights, the new Mrs. Chandler’s flawless blue-white emerald-cut nine-carat diamond ring caused hot spots and streaks on the television screen as she gaily wiped and dabbed the saliva from Cyrus Chandler’s chin.
Throughout the ceremony Billy Joe Hardesty admonished people to press their hands to their television sets “as a point of contact with the everlasting soul of Brother Cyrus and Sister Susan and your Savior Jesus Christ throughout this glorious hour of celebration.”
As Cyrus nodded his head, a thin smile turned up the corners of his deeply lined mouth. “Momma would be proud of me,” he said weakly. The saliva still trickled down the sides of his chin. Suzy dabbed it away while she and Billy Joe exchanged smiles.
Billy Joe Hardesty reached out and took Suzy and Cyrus into his arms. “You shall never be abandoned or alone if you believe in the power of the Lord and let Jesus come into your life and heart.” He cupped Suzy’s full, soft breast in one hand and rubbed his thumb across the erect nipple. It was the one over the heart. “Give of thyself unto the Lord and his servants. This is a Bible-preaching, God-fearing ministry—that knows His power and His miracles.”
“Praise the Lord!” Suzy was enthusiastic and acutely aware of Billy Joe’s thumb and fingers.
Cyrus was thinking about his golf cart. He could not recall if he had purchased and shipped one out to the Hot Springs Ranch or just thought he did. He trembled again.
“Praise the Lord,” Billy Joe bellowed, rolling the hard nipple between his thumb and forefinger.
“Praise the Lord,” Cyrus repeated, with less enthusiasm and considerable confusion. The saliva began to trickle from the left side of his mouth.
“Praise the Lord.”
And pass the telecommunications.
A MISSTEP IN DEAD MAN
THEY SAT ON THE warm granite boulder and watched Randall splashing in the center of the creek upstream from Panther Hole. The thin sun-burnished boy wore red canvas sneakers and red swimming trunks. He faced the current, kneeling in the shallow limestone creek bed, and slugged the water with his fist. The water ran cold, fast and clear, bubbling and whirling around the soft giggling obstruction.
“Your career has ended. Penguin,” the brown boy said menacingly, rising to a half crouch, hands curled into chubby claws; grappling momentarily with the Penguin, he fell forward into the fast-running white-blue water. Recovering, he sat up, sputtering and shaking his long wet black hair. “Run for the the hovercraft,” he said, clamping his brown eyes shut and wiping his dark, lean face. The Penguin had escaped.
“What do you want him to be when he grows up?” Taylor asked.
“Besides Batman?” Wendy turned her shoulders and, closing her eyes thoughtfully, let the sun bake into her face.
Taylor watched as the boy leaped on another invisible archfiend, dragging him down to cold, wet justice in Dead Man Creek. Standing and dusting his tiny hands, hooking his thumbs in the waistband of the red swimsuit, Randall searched with his large, round, dark eyes for an as yet unimagined horror.
“Come on, Boy Wonder. We’re finished here.” Randall trudged upstream, leaving fully administered justice in his wake, a serious but satisfied look on his face. Leaning down, he picked up a flat piece of limestone off the creek bottom and popped the white rock in his mouth.
“Hey! Batman!” Taylor yelled, “Don’t get too far upstream. There are holes....”
Randall spit the rock back into his hand and yelled without looking back, “You can’t tell me what to do. You’re not my boss, or my father, or my mother, or anything.”
“The kid is harsh in his judgments. What does he mean, ‘or anything’?” Taylor turned to Wendy. Her eyes closed, she was smiling and thinking and facing the sun.
“Come on, Randall, I’m at least one thing,” Taylor yelled back to the boy. “I’m bigger than you.”
“You’re crazy. My momma even told me so.” The boy turned back upstream and popped the rock back into his mouth.
Taylor turned and nudged Wendy. “You better give the orders. There are some big holes in the creek bed.”
“Randall!” Wendy yelled as she turned away from the sun and opened her eyes. “Randall? Where is he?”
“Up there.” He pointed upstream, his gaze following his arm, but Randall Ryan wasn’t where Taylor’s finger pointed.
“Where?” Wendy’s voice trembled.
Taylor looked along both banks; Randall had disappeared. Vanished.
“Oh, shit!”
Taylor sprang feetfirst off the high boulder. Hitting the water, Taylor had misjudged his jump, skinning his leg on the upstream edge of Panther Hole. But the long leap had put him closer to the spot where he’d last seen the boy, and hitting the shallow edge kept his head above water; he never lost sight of the dark water he reasoned had swallowed Randall.
“Randall! Randall! Randall!”
Scrambling up the creek bed against the fast, shallow current, Taylor heard Wendy screaming somewhere in his mind, but all he saw was the dark hole. The crystal-clear cool water turned to glue; the creek’s force increased; each step seemed interminable. Don’t panic, he told himself, checking his landmarks to make certain he was heading for the right hole. Stumbling against a rock, Taylor slipped and fell down. Quickly he scrambled back to his feet. The force of the Dead Man was eroding his balance, his control, his strength, his courage. For an eternal moment the struggle seemed a stalemate, then Taylor broke free and staggered to the dark hole. The rushing water clutched at him like fear. He fought for control, pausing again, checking his landmarks. Make certain. He stepped back and studied the dark hole, the shoreline, the oak tree and the rock. Was this the place?
Wendy, frozen to the rock, knowing she was being punished, screamed and screamed. “Randall! Oh, God, Randall! Randall! Don’t hide from Mother, Randall! Randall! Randall!” She was the shriek of the storm while Taylor kept looking and thinking.
Don’t panic.
Trying to remember his emergency training, Taylor recalled only what to do for vomiting old ladies and emphysemic drunks.
Don’t panic; he hasn’t been under long. Make sure this is the right hole. Taylor looked into the dark green hole, searching for forms, shapes, colors. His son.
Calling the boy’s name repeatedly, Wendy’s terrified cries turned into a pulsing, keening animal wail. Tommy McNamara heard her all the way up in the bunkhouse with his stereo playing. The haunting sound reached Bob, Wendy’s bodyguard—who was never far away—and his partner, Toby, in their white Ford at the cattle guard behind Coon Ridge. They all headed for Dead Man Creek.
Taylor decided he had the hole that got the boy. He carefully studied it, sticking his head into the water and looking, walking along the edge of the green water, concentrating, considering, knowing once he made his move into the hole that there was no second choice. No second guess. No excuse. Fear clawed at his mind but he kept moving, letting the terror flow through him like water. He must take control, put the adrenaline to work for him, let it push him. Discipline. Execution. Concentration. Speed.
It was a deep hole, ground by water and time out of an upthrust limestone block. The boy had stepped off an underwater cliff, dropping fifty feet into the eroded hole.
“No! No! No!” Wendy knew this was to be her punishment for being happy, for loving her son, for loving Taylor; their son would become nothing. Control was again revealed to be futile reaction.
Taylor backed off, changing angles for the sun, continuing to look into the hole, trying to find a ray to the bottom; years of sediment waited to stir once he went down.
He began to breathe deeper—filling, stretching his lungs, gorging his blood with oxygen. He had one dive to find th
e boy. One lungful of air. He breathed deeper; the sound of his respiration echoed off the rocks, waiting, searching the dark green void. One chance.
A flash of red? The water wobbled and the red was gone. Was that a red shoe? A red suit?
Taylor made his decisions and sucked in his final breath of air. He would search all the way to the bottom, then scour the bottom. Finally, oxygen exhausted, he would not quit, he would search until failure brought Death. One trip.
As he dove Taylor saw clouds of black sediment billowing up toward him. The boy was down there, putting up a hell of a fight, judging by the size of the dark plume growing toward the surface. Taylor swam straight down into the black cloud. It burned his eyes and blurred his vision; he barely glimpsed his own hands in front of him. The water rippled and swirled up from below—the force of the boy’s desperate fight to survive. Taylor swam straight down toward the eye of the struggle. Faster. Faster.
He never saw Randall, just a red blur as a rubber-soled shoe kicked his face. Taylor grabbed at the small ankle, but the boy kicked away, terrified and lost without the guide of gravity in the black swirling depths. The boy was swimming down, heading deeper, thinking he was swimming up.
Taylor swam after him, thirty feet deep or more, catching glimpses of red as the water turned colder. His ears ached. Taylor kicked and clawed, digging deeper into the cold water, searching into the black. He lost the red; he felt nothing, no turmoil or struggle. Deathly still.
Taylor stopped, turned in the black cloud, spread out his arms and legs and waited. And hoped.
Randall Ryan was motionless and weightless in the water. The small boy had given up the struggle for life and had settled for peace.
After a fifteen-second eternity the boy’s head bumped gently into Taylor’s foot. Another two inches and they would not have touched, floating inches apart in the cold black forever.
Taylor Rusk stuck the cold, thin body under his arm and kicked toward what he hoped was the surface and not some refraction of the sunlight in the churning black water, drawing them ever deeper. His lungs began to ache and he began to slowly exhale, relieving the pressure of the carbon dioxide buildup but also losing any residual oxygen left in his lungs.