Holding Smoke

by Steph Post

  3

  Judah almost let the screen door slam behind him, but turned and caught it at the last second. Ramey was standing out in the backyard, the stub of a cigarette dangling in one hand as she tilted her head to look up at the starless canopy. The clouds had drifted in and the cool, damp evening brought with it a hint of genuine autumn. Ramey had rolled down the sleeves of her loose, checkered flannel shirt and wrapped it tightly over her tank top like a jacket. In the sickly glow from their upstairs bedroom window, Judah could see the outline of her shoulder blades. Ramey was all edges in the stark shadows—her shoulder, the sharp slant of her hip, the cutting angle of her wrist as she flicked bits of ash across the few tufts of dying grass scattered at her feet. She reminded Judah of a wounded animal, desperate and dangerous and unutterably sad.

  He let the screen door close gently behind him and came quietly down the rickety back steps. Judah rammed his hands in his pockets and stood beside her. He suddenly realized that he hadn’t touched her since their embrace in the Bradford County Jail parking lot. Judah lifted his head alongside her to look up into the flat, charcoal sky. Into the bedeviling nothingness. He didn’t know how to breach the silence between them.

  “Since when did you stop smoking in the house?”

  Judah cut his eyes over to her. Ramey’s throat was another long line, her up-thrust chin another honed knife. Her voice cracked slightly when she spoke.

  “I thought about quitting for a second there while you were gone.”

  “How’d that go?”

  She took a moment to answer. Judah wondered what she was looking for up there in all that blackness.

  “I’m waiting for things to calm down a spell.”

  “You might be waiting a while.”

  Ramey suddenly dropped her head and shook it.

  “Judah.”

  She sounded exhausted. Defeated. Judah wedged his hands out of his pockets and held them up in defense. He smiled.

  “I’m joking.”

  She wasn’t smiling back.

  “Ramey, I was joking. Things are going to be fine now. We’re okay. Everything is okay. Just ignore Levi. He’s an idiot, always has been, always will be, and you know that. But now I’m out of jail, I’m going to right the ship and sail it. You don’t need to worry.”

  Judah ran his hand down her arm and gently took the spent cigarette from her stiff fingers. He glanced over his shoulder, tossed it into the rusting coffee can by the steps, and slipped his hand into hers.

  “About anything. Ramey, I mean it.”

  There was so much weight in the heave of her sigh. Judah had caught the rebuke in Ramey’s eyes on the drive home, but he couldn’t understand it. If she had said something to him then, if everything that was behind her eyes had come out on her tongue, he probably would have barred his teeth for a fight. Was it because he’d been locked up, leaving her alone for two months? She had told him to call the sheriff, to stand up and take the charges, that they would figure a way out of it. And they had. Was it Levi? Judah had tried, briefly, to explain why he needed Levi in the picture and how he was planning on handling him, but Ramey hadn’t seemed to be listening. Short of just coming right out and asking her what the hell was wrong, Judah didn’t know what to do. He was trying to give her everything. When the Cannon family was finally back on its feet, they’d be in clover. How could he make her see that?

  Ramey’s hand was limp in his own, but suddenly her fingers curled and her nails bit into the back of his hand.

  “Malik and Isaac Lewis came by the house this morning.”

  Judah pulled away.

  “The house? They came here?”

  She was finally looking at him now, her eyes dark and accusing.

  “That’s what I said. Somehow Sukey got word you were getting out today.”

  Judah frowned, taking in the news.

  “I guess with her daughter gunning for sheriff she’s got even more ears to the ground than usual. What’s she want?”

  “You to come by. Tomorrow. First thing.”

  He was beginning to make sense of the hitch in Ramey’s attitude. Judah stepped away from her, rubbing his neck and looking up toward their lit bedroom window. There was no escaping it; back to business.

  “The boys say what Sukey wanted?”

  She didn’t bother to disguise the venom spitting between every word.

  “Only that it had something to do with Levi.”

  *

  Shelia was bored. She hunched her shoulders, burrowing farther into Benji’s ugly gray sweatshirt, and clutched her arms to her chest as she sipped awkwardly at her Coors tallboy and tried to catch up on the conversation swirling around her. Benji had peeled off the sweatshirt and handed it to her by way of apology for downing a bottle of Wild Turkey with the rest of the boys while she and Kristy had been fighting for a spot in line for the bathroom. Shelia had finally said to hell with it and stomped off into the scrubby pines behind Elrod’s house, but by the time she’d made it back down to the end of the driveway, where the Cannon brothers and their friends had congregated in a loose circle around a trash barrel fire, they’d all been lit to liquor high heaven and Shelia had been shivering in her strapless denim dress. The sweatshirt smelled like corn chips and WD-40, but it was better than nothing. And Shelia liked the way Benji had just slipped out of it and given it to her without her having to say a word. He looked a little cold now, leaning on his cane in his shirtsleeves, and Shelia liked that, too. No less than he deserved for drinking without her. She only wished Levi and his big, fat mouth could be suffering as well.

  Across the barrel from her, Levi elbowed Elrod in the gut and threw his head back, roaring at his own joke about the difference between a pregnant woman and a lightbulb. Elrod was laughing just as hard, but Shelia caught his dark blue eyes anxiously dart up the yard toward his girlfriend, Maizie, waddling down to join them with a wine cooler balanced on her beach ball belly. She was flanked by Kristy, whose crimped, pink-streaked hair glowed ghostly white underneath the bright orange street light, and a teenager who was doing her best to slurp the last dregs of Jell-O out of crumpled plastic shot glass. Shelia rolled her eyes and turned back to the fire.

  She could understand why Elrod was one of Levi’s oldest friends; the two looked more like brothers than Levi and Judah, and certainly more than Levi and Benji. Elrod had the same broad chest, wide bull neck, and meat hook hands as Levi, but his shaved head and scraggly red beard, shot through with gray, set him apart. He also seemed about one rung below Levi on the asshole ladder, and maybe one rung above when it came to smarts. Shelia hadn’t made up her mind about him yet. Elrod had spent a fair amount of time ogling her bare legs when they’d first been introduced earlier in the evening when the party had just been getting started, but he’d also had the decency to laugh at himself when she’d crisply informed him of just how low his chances were of putting his hands where his eyes kept wandering. Elrod shoved Levi backward, almost knocking him over the barrel.

  “Whew! Man, Levi. I missed you, son. Where the hell you been these past few months? I just about gave up on you. Tried to call you back in June to see if you wanted to take the boat up Alligator Creek, take a crack at some catfish, and your phone was disconnected. Your brother told me you’d turned tail and were MIA after that shit went down with your daddy and that church fire. What the hell happened?”

  Next to Shelia, Benji was swaying slightly, but the buzzed grin on his face disintegrated at Elrod’s question and his eyes shot first to her, then to Gary and Alvin, and then to Cooper, Elrod’s skunk-drunk cousin who rounded out their circle. Benji’s eyes darted back to Shelia, but she only lifted one shoulder in a shrug. Shelia was pretty sure Cooper wouldn’t even remember his own name in the morning, let alone that he’d been to a party. She didn’t know how much Gary and Alvin knew about what had really happened at the church or how much they thought she knew. Hell, she was pretty sure Benji didn’t even know all that she
did and she was certain Ramey and Judah had secrets about that day they were holding close to their chests. In the end, did it even really matter? Though the fire and shootout had only happened a few months before, it’d already become an urban legend, replete with more twists and turns than a daytime soap on network TV, which was just fine with Shelia. Let sleeping dogs lie. Elrod was still waiting, though, staring intently at Levi, until Levi finally cleared his throat and spat into the low-burning flames.

  “Shit, man. I took a look at the weathervane and got my ass out of town. My little brother was in a coma and my daddy in the ground. I weren’t sticking around to see what was in store for me.”

  Levi hooked his arm around Benji’s neck and almost pulled him off his feet. Benji twisted awkwardly out of Levi’s grasp and threw his older brother an accusing look.

  “Yeah, that was nice. Waking up in the hospital to find I was down two family members. You didn’t even leave me a note or a phone number or nothing.”

  Levi guzzled his beer and crushed the can in his fist before tossing it over his shoulder into the woods.

  “What’d you want? A stuffed teddy bear and some balloons at your bedside? You had Judah. ’Sides, it finally made a man out of you.”

  Levi squeezed Benji’s chin and twisted his scarred face back and forth, as if showing it off.

  “I mean, just look at that pretty mug now.”

  Shelia could see where this was headed. She’d wasted too much time watching Levi try to bring his youngest brother down a notch and it made her sick. Benji was trying to swat at Levi’s hand and still stay balanced on his cane, but she’d had enough. Shelia glared at Levi and tilted her head, her voice lilting in a challenge.

  “So, where did you go, then?”

  She shot her eyes at Elrod and lifted one corner of her lips in a little half smile that was like the Pied Piper calling. As if on cue, Elrod turned to Levi.

  “Yeah, man. We all knowed you disappeared. What we want to know is where’d you run off to?”

  Levi dropped his hand from Benji’s face and scowled at Shelia. He knew she’d deliberately let the air out of his little game and she was sure she’d hear it in some petty jab later. Maybe Levi could tell that Elrod was genuinely interested, though, or maybe he was just glad to have an audience, but he shrugged and finally, after two months, spilled the beans.

  “Tell you the truth, Elrod, I hightailed it up to Ellisville for a bit. Packed Susan and the kid off to her sister’s in Indiana and went up to see this little honey Carol I’d been spending time with.”

  Benji frowned and jabbed the tip of his cane into the soft dirt at his feet.

  “You were just up in Ellisville? All summer? And you ain’t never once said a word?”

  Levi held up his hand to silence Benji.

  “No, stupid. You ever been to Ellisville? What the hell would I done all that time? Carol was fun, but she weren’t nothing to write home about. She was fixing to head on out to the panhandle when I landed at her place, though, so I just went right on along with her. Figured I’d let the dust settle down here in Bradford County ’fore moseying my way on back. Turns out I wound up with a deal so sweet, I’d have been nuts to walk away from it.”

  Levi paused and bent down, grunting as he dug up another can of beer from the cooler at his feet and sprung the top. He drank about half of it as everyone stood around him in silence, waiting for him to finish. It was all Shelia could do to keep from gagging, the way Benji, Elrod, and the rest of the boys were hanging on Levi’s every word, like he was about to reveal the secrets of the universe to them. Levi finally finished slurping and dropped the can to his side. His square chin glistened with beer in the dying fire light. He didn’t bother to wipe it away.

  “Yeah, I’d heard ’bout these spreads up in the woods out there. West of the Choctawhatchee River. I just ain’t never seen one before. You’re so far out in the middle of nowhere, you can do just about whatever the hell you want. Grow whatever you want. Ain’t nobody ’round to bother you.”

  Levi arched his eyebrows to Elrod, but it was Gary, excited, who broke Levi’s spell on the circle. He whistled and slapped his skinny thigh.

  “You were growing pot up there? No way.”

  Levi turned on him.

  “I look like a farmer to you, dipshit?”

  Gary looked to Alvin for support, but Alvin was too busy keeping an eye on Kristy, still halfway up the driveway. Shelia turned around to see Kristy and Maizie holding the other girl’s hair back as she leaned into a stand of palmettos and puked. Levi was letting his glare linger just a little too long, and Elrod finally stepped in, wanting to hear the rest of the story.

  “So, what, man?”

  Levi’s eyes swerved back to Elrod and he relaxed his shoulders.

  “Yeah, slick here is right about the pot, anyhow. These farms are everywhere up there in the woods. Can’t be found ’cept by helicopter and DEA don’t got time to bother. Too busy waging a war on pills or whatever, so you’re pretty much in the clear. Carol hooked me up with her friend Ian. Old hippy dude. Lot a tie-dye and sandals, Grateful Dead stickers all over everything. Carried this baggie of granola and seeds around all day, pecking at it like a damn bird. Never shut up about karma and cosmic waves, energy lines running under the earth. Hurt your head just listening to him for five minutes. Guy knew more about growing weed than anyone I ever met, but couldn’t tell his ass from his elbow when it come to selling it.”

  Levi grinned and took a swig of his beer.

  “Man, did he need me. In a month’s time, I had that whole operation running like clockwork. Guards on the fields, a couple of girls packaging up what was already in the drying shed. Carol was bringing in friends and funneling everything out wholesale. We were raking in so much dough it was unbelievable. By the time July rolled around, I was pretty sure I weren’t never coming back to Silas. Screw the Cannon family bullshit, I was happy as a dead pig in the sunshine.”

  Shelia caught the hurt in Benji’s downcast eyes. She slung one hip out as she bulldozed through Levi’s bluster.

  “But you did come back. So how’d you screw it all up?”

  Levi swung around on her, but Shelia only pouted out her bottom lip in a saccharine smile. Again, Elrod jumped in, though Shelia wasn’t sure if he was helping her out or just wanted Levi to get to the bottom of his story already. The fire in the barrel was almost down to embers.

  “Yeah, man, come on. What happened?”

  Levi huffed.

  “Well, let me tell you. You can take the man out of Bradford County, but you can’t take Bradford County out of no man, I reckon. Come August, I’m keeping busy with this other little piece, Rita, who sold pot for us out the back of a shoe store. Real wild, that one. And one second, things are just cake. I’m up in Tallahassee, Rita tagging along, dropping off a load to some FSU college kid, and then the next—boom.”

  Elrod scratched at his beard.

  “Boom?”

  “Boom. I guess Ian weren’t into all that peace, love, and happiness as much as I’d thought. I never found out what really happened, or why it happened, but I’ll say this. Ian must’ve run into some folks who really, really ain’t like what we was doing out there. I leave Rita’s early in the morning, drive on out to check on things, and find nothing left. I mean, nothing. Looked like a bomb had dropped. Like a scene from a movie. The fields had been torched, right down to the last plant and then some.”

  Levi rolled his beer can between his palms.

  “There was this sort of bunkhouse out there on the edge of the property. Where the guys I’d brung in to guard the fields slept. I looked in, even though I could smell it from ten yards away. Both of them was dead. Knifed up, their ARs just laying around like play toys. Looked like they ain’t seen it coming.”

  Benji jerked his head up.

  “Didn’t nobody survive?”

  Shelia noticed that Levi’s mouth had wrenched in a way she’d never s
een before. Or maybe it was just the shadows from the streetlight now that the fire had died out. Levi slowly shook his head, but Shelia noticed the way his throat constricted, almost as if he were trying not to choke.

  “Not that I seen. I gone on down the road to this old house we sometimes crashed at. Ceiling leaking all the time, black-light tapestries on just about every wall and beads on all the doors and shit. Been in Ian’s family since way on back, he said. I shouldn’t have gone in there, neither. Everybody who’d been staying there was dead. This dude Marcus, made the best brisket sandwich you ever tasted, I swear. Carol’s cousin, Winnie. Carol.”

  Levi’s gaze lingered on his boots for a moment, but then he shook his head and shoulders roughly, like a dog drying off.

  “And then Ian, too. I’m guessing it were him they was after. The other three’d just been mowed down, but I found Ian when I was up on the second-story porch poking around. He was swinging high up from this old oak out back. And his face. His mouth. It was all tore up. He’d been slashed from ear to ear, like a goddamn jack-o’-lantern.”

  Elrod was staring at Levi with a strange intensity in his bright eyes.

  “Like his tongue had been cut out?”

  Levi stepped back from Elrod with a shudder. Shelia could tell, though, that for all his bravado, Levi had been rattled by what he’d seen at that house.

  “Shit, man, it’s not like I cut him loose to check.”

  “You just left him hanging there?”

  Levi wheeled on his brother.