by Alicia Scott
“It’s okay,” he said, more instinctively than honestly. Belatedly he steadied himself with two hands planted on the TV beside him. His leg wouldn’t support his weight and he couldn’t afford for Ham to see the weakness.
“You shouldn’t have brought her,” he told Ham stiffly. “I said this was between you and me, yet once again you turn to the woman. Why can’t you face just me, Abraham? Why can’t you just stand up to me?”
Abraham’s face darkened, a clear sign the barb had struck home. “A good soldier exploits weakness. You got a lotta weakness, Cain. Always did.”
“Let her go.”
“You’re wastin’ your breath,” Ham said flatly.
Cain swayed dangerously, feeling rage, then an icy coldness that scared him even more, for it carried him dangerously close to the brink of unconsciousness. He had to keep talking, keep functioning and reclaim control. “It’s over now, Ham,” he forced himself to say. His lips didn’t feel like his own. He stood at the end of a very long tunnel, seeing his lips move, hearing himself talk and unable to connect the two. After another shaky moment he squared his shoulders. “I know Dad planned everything.” And after a ponderous moment, “I even know we’re only half brothers.”
He’d caught Ham off guard and the rifle momentarily wavered. Then the other man checked himself and leveled the weapon once more. “What’re you talking about?”
“The truth,” Cain ground out. “After all these years I’m finally talking about the truth. Mom’s trip to Boise all those years ago. The trip to the ‘city’ she spoke of with such wistfulness only when Zechariah wasn’t in the room. The fact Zech always hated me too much just as Mom loved me too much. And my name. He named me Cain not because of my shame, didn’t he, but because of Mom’s? Because she’d met someone else who had loved her and borne his child.”
Ham’s eyes grew dark. “Love her? She was in the city for only two weeks. It wasn’t love, brother. She was a whore, a sinful woman, and if Daddy hadn’t gone and saved her, she would have drowned in her sin.”
“Dragged her back kicking and screaming,” Cain filled in. And he could see his mother again, staring outside the window at the rainfall with such longing. As if the house was her prison. As if she would never be free. He’d always known that she was sad, but then he’d never been happy in that cabin either so he hadn’t questioned it. Not until Maggie started asking him questions about his family, not until she started talking about her half siblings, did Cain suddenly begin to understand. Zechariah had known the truth of Cain’s parentage. Abraham had known the truth. Only Cain had been ignorant, leaving his mother isolated with her shame. Sometimes, a man could be very blind.
“Zechariah planned everything, didn’t he?” Cain continued, relentlessly. He was very conscious of Maggie’s trusting gaze on his face. “I was the devil’s pawn in his eyes and he’d named me so. Then I did everything he feared. I went to civilization, embraced society, made friends. Heaven help me, I paid taxes.”
“You betrayed the mov—”
“I lived my life! I left behind your hatred, your fanaticism. I realized being a man isn’t about hate and it isn’t about war. It’s not about pulling a trigger and it sure as hell isn’t about slaughtering women. It’s knowing who you are, Abraham. It’s standing for your convictions even when no one else believes you. It’s giving something of yourself to the people around you.”
“You are a traitor!”
“No. No, I am not. It’s not your call anyway. God is judge and jury—look it up sometime, Ham. Only you and Zechariah can be so arrogant as to decide life and death of an innocent woman and then say it’s justice.”
Ham’s face darkened to a mottled shade, then just as abruptly smoothed over. “No,” he said tightly. “I won’t tell you that easy. You got a tape recorder, right? You want me to ’fess it all, so you can wrap it up nice and neat and give it to some atheist judge.” He shook his head stubbornly. “Nope. No way. I’m no computer programmer like you, but I’m not stupid. You won’t get me that easy.”
“I’m not trying to get you,” Cain said just as calmly. “I’m going to get Zechariah.”
For the first time, Ham appeared uncertain. “What?”
“I know you didn’t act alone. I’m sure the phone records will show numerous calls between my apartment and Zech’s cell phone. I’m sure the police will find at least one person willing to state that he heard Zechariah tell someone it was okay to kill the girl, even just—”
“I’ll deny everything,” Ham interrupted harshly. “You can’t prove it.”
“But I can,” Cain countered quietly. “Because I can say I was the one on the other end of the phone. I was the one he commanded to kill Kathy.” He looked at his brother levelly. “You set me up for the crime, Ham. You’re the one who convinced the jury I was guilty. So now I’ll play the guilty party. And I’ll tell them all about my accessory, my father who masterminded the hate crime. No more crimes of passion, no more second-degree murder. When I’m done, it’ll be a hate crime, a premeditated hate crime—a federal offense. They’ll lock Zechariah so deep into the concrete, Pine-Sol is the closest he’ll ever get to fresh air.
“And it’ll be forever, Ham. Last of your father’s days, sitting in a six-by-eight maximum-security cell, allowed out for only one hour a day and then he can shower or lift weights. That’s it. He’ll listen to the rain and never feel it on his face. He’ll see the sun and never have it warm his skin. He’ll dream of the mountains night after night after night, and awake in a cold, gray tomb without even a phone call for comfort. I know, Ham. I know all about it because I was there, and I’ll tell you now, he’ll never make it.
“You got Kathy. But I’ve figured out the perfect way to murder Zechariah. I got it from you.”
“You son of a bitch.” Ham’s voice was so low it was guttural and the look that filled his face was pure, animalistic rage. He tilted the rifle toward Cain’s chest. Cain didn’t mind.
“You can’t,” he said. “You can’t kill Cain, remember?”
The rifle began to shake. The hatred and confusion warred in Ham’s face, a volatile mix.
“It’s your own fault,” Cain whispered relentlessly. “You’ve never been able to stand on your own, Abraham. You never fought your own wars. You’re just Daddy’s lapdog doing whatever he asks. Ignore Cain, torture Cain. Kill his woman. You’ve never had an original thought in your head. You’re just a slave, a thirty-three-year-old white-boy slave doing whatever you’re told.”
“I’m gonna kill you,” Ham said.
“Then do it!” Cain exploded. He leaned forward, his arms trembling with the strain, but he was too far gone now, too filled with adrenaline to notice. “Come on, Ham, stand up and shoot that rifle. Don’t just hold it. But you can’t, can you? You can’t take me on. You can’t stand up to someone as big as you or as strong as you. You’re not a man, you know nothing about how to be a man. You’re Zechariah’s shadow, Zechariah’s passive, unquestioning lapdog.”
“It’s not like that!”
“Like hell it’s not. You’re nothing!”
“I am not nothing!” Ham screamed. “I did it! Damn you, damn you. I don’t need Zechariah to act. You think I need Zechariah to act? I don’t need Zechariah. I killed her and it was me, my idea, my plan. You ain’t the only clever boy in the family, you miserable SOB. I got brains too, dammit. And I fixed you, dammit. I fixed you better than you’ve ever been fixed, and it was all me and my idea and my hand that held your knife and slit her throat. And you want to know what, Cain? It wasn’t even hard. It was really damn easy.”
“You son of a bitch,” Cain whispered softly. “You are insane.”
And he stopped thinking, he stopped feeling. He just saw Kathy, poor trusting Kathy, who died because of Cain’s ignorance. And he saw Maggie, beautiful, trusting Maggie, crouched on the floor waiting for him to save her.
Ham tilted the rifle toward Maggie and smiled.
Cain staggered forward, t
he pain ripping up his leg, savage and agonizing.
Maggie opened her mouth to scream.
And the world was spinning and the darkness clutched him. There was pain and blood, numbness and cold rage.
Ham settled the rifle comfortably against his shoulder and took aim.
And Cain lunged between them with his last burst of strength, his arm catching Maggie’s shoulder, flattening her to the floor as his leg gave out and his body fell heavily on top of her. Down they went to the carpet, his arms curling around her, his fevered frame preparing for the bullet.
“Don’t move.” C.J.’s voice was cool, calm and collected as he pressed his Beretta against Ham’s forehead. The other man twisted reflexively and C.J. didn’t wait. He knew the stance of a professional when he saw it. Two swift chops of his left arm, and the rifle tumbled from Ham’s suddenly nerveless hands.
Brandon swooped to pick it up. “Maggie,” he called immediately. “Are you all right?”
There was a two-second delay; then he heard her muffled voice. She sounded as if she was crying. Immediately he was at her side. “Maggie, Maggie, what’s wrong?”
But then he saw the other man, the man whose port-wine stain marked him as Cain. Brandon touched his shoulder. The limp body rolled lifelessly aside, the face dangerously pale.
Maggie looked up at Brandon, her expression tearing him in half as the tears streaked down her face.
“I think he’s dead,” she whispered. “Brandon, I think he’s dead!”
Epilogue
The man moved slowly.
Strong, sinewy forearms were exposed by the rolled-up sleeves of his work shirt, tendons clenching as he wrapped callused hands around the saw and began the smooth, relentless motion. Sweat trickled down from his forehead, staining sun-bronzed cheeks and dampening his blond hair. He didn’t stop to wipe it away and slowly the trickle built to stain his blue chambray shirt.
He didn’t mind the sweat. He didn’t mind the burn of his muscles as he moved the saw. He didn’t mind the warm August day, or the bright sunlight that made his eyes squint.
Sometimes he did stop, but when he did it was just to inhale a huge gulp of the fresh, pine-scented air, hold it in his lungs like a fine perfume, then exhale it slowly as if he was still learning how to breathe.
When the two-by-four was cut to the right length, he set it aside, picked up another and resumed sawing.
Behind him, the log cabin had already taken shape. It was built by hand, his hand, and the process had been painstaking. He’d chosen the site himself, cleared it with a Cat tractor that he’d rented. He’d picked out the logs, good thick logs, and scoured building plans to come up with what he wanted. Every now and then, C.J. or Brandon would stop by and lend a hand. They moved faster than he, always in some sort of hurry. He preferred to take it slower. He had time now, and time was precious and should be savored.
There were nights he wanted to sleep with his eyes open so he wouldn’t have to relinquish his view of the stars.
He finished with the last board. He picked up the ones he’d cut, wincing a bit as the movement pulled on his still-healing thigh, and began his rolling gait toward the house.
The external structure was done. Built into a hillside, the cabin was two stories high, really a main floor with a loft. The ceiling was vaulted at forty feet, with a wall of sheer windows so that daylight drenched every inch of the interior and a man could always feel as if he had one foot outdoors. The view extolled snowcapped mountains and endless green horizon. When he died, he wanted his ashes scattered here so he would never have to leave that view.
He’d broken ground of the cabin five months back. The day they’d released him from the hospital with his stitched-up thigh and governor’s pardon. He didn’t remember much about what happened before that. They said he’d been unconscious for ten days, and in those ten days the Ferringer clan had moved in and closed ranks around him. Phone calls had been made. Testimony from Joel, Maggie, C.J. and Brandon had been filed. A lawyer had been hired. A call had gone in to the governor’s office, presumably from Brandon.
Cain had just floated, weightless, bodiless, and sometimes in the void he thought he could feel his mother’s embrace. And so he’d floated, feeling her hand around his once again and beginning to realize that he was no longer alone.
When he’d finally regained consciousness, Maggie had been there at the bedside and she had smiled at him and he’d known everything would be all right.
Later, there’d been a flurry of activity. Ham’s arrest and his subsequent outpouring of racial diatribes had made national news. His location was now kept secret and the police watched him around the clock, fearing assassination. Zechariah had yet to be charged but was under investigation. Ham would not comment on Zech’s involvement one way or the other. Nor would Ham comment on his own, using the opportunity instead to spout off his white supremacist rhetoric.
The Klan had flown in a high-powered attorney from Louisiana to take his case. The Epsteins had countered by hiring an even bigger-name attorney, who specialized in bankrupting white supremacist leaders, to file a civil suit against not only Ham, but the two white supremacist groups he belonged to.
Justice was now in the hands of the court and the media were already playing out the trial.
Cain stayed away from it. He needed the trees now. He needed the feel of tools beneath his hands. He needed to create something, slowly and painstakingly. He needed to watch it grow and take shape and know that he could do that.
He supposed he needed some time to heal.
His old employers had called him up the day after his release. They were interested in hiring him back. He countered by saying maybe he’d like to do some freelance projects. He had some ideas for a new generation of games. He wanted to start programming one called “Great Escapes,” where the objective was to break out of jail.
They were amused. They were interested. They sent him a top-of-the-line PC and 28.8 baud modem in the mail, plus an advance. He worked on the game at night now, after the sun went down. It was good to be programming again; he liked the complexity. He had a feeling this game could really be something.
“Hey, this is where you’ve been hiding.”
Cain turned, the smile already on his face.
She stood before the wall of windows, having entered without making a sound. The trees framed her luminescent face lushly, giving a wild, fey aura to her features. She glowed these days. Truly glowed.
“How are you feeling?” he asked immediately. He didn’t have a chance to cross toward her; she was already crossing toward him.
“Like I swallowed a beach ball.” She grimaced, rubbing her hands over her swollen stomach.
“Lucky beach ball,” he whispered and replaced her hands with his.
“Did you feel that?” Little junior had learned how to kick.
“He’s going to be a fighter,” Cain agreed. He tweaked her nose. “Like his mother.”
Maggie crinkled her nose, but smiled. Finally, she gave up on restraint and came fully into his arms. They never made it longer than two minutes without touching, and now they drifted into the embrace as naturally as a ship slipping into port. Her arms went around his waist, her head nestled into the curve of his shoulder. His hand stroked her hair. They let the silence linger and savored it.
“Don’t forget,” Maggie said at last, drawing slightly back, “tonight you finally have to bite the bullet and meet my grandmother.”
“Uh-oh,” Cain said.
“Exactly.”
“She’ll probably take down her shotgun and demand that I make an honest woman out of you,” Cain said.
“No. C.J. has dibs on that.”
“Ah.”
“Lydia just wants to mess with your mind. She thinks anyone who builds a log cabin by hand must be a little crazy.”
“She may have a point.”
Maggie smiled at him. Then she snuggled back into his arms.
“So what about next mont
h?” he asked at last. He picked up a heavy coil of her long red hair, held it up to the dappled forest light, then let it stream like silk through his fingertips.
“What about next month?”
“For the wedding,” he said.
Maggie stilled in his arms. “What wedding?”
“Ours.”
She finally pulled back, looking at him intently. “Cain Cannon, are you proposing to me?”
“I’ve been proposing to you,” he said, “for five months now.” He gestured to the house.
She looked puzzled for a moment and then her eyes widened. “You mean this cabin? You mean you’ve been building this for me?”
He took her hand. “Here, let me show you something.”
He led her to the front door and gestured down. “You’ve never noticed.”
“Never noticed what?”
“Look down on the door. What do you see?”
“A flap.”
“Not a flap. Who puts a flap on a door? It’s—”
“A cat door,” she finished and then her eyes widened again. “Oh my God, you put in a cat door! It is for me!”
Now he grinned, relaxed and ridiculously pleased with himself. “You’ll have to help me with the interior, though,” he said softly. “I don’t know exactly what you want.”
“Oh,” she said. “Oh.”
He brushed his thumb down her cheek. “I love you, Maggie,” he whispered. “Did you think I was going to risk you slipping away? A true Hathaway Red is hard to find.”
“I … I don’t know,” she babbled. “I wanted you to ask, thought you would ask, but you did just get out of prison and you have a lot to figure out and I didn’t want to pressure you or rush—”
He silenced her with a fingertip over her lips. “I’m not pressured. I’m not rushed. I’m in love. So what do you say, Maggie? Will you take one ex-convict, slightly used?”
“Okay,” she said immediately. And then her face softened beautifully. “Oh, Cain, I love you so much.”
Cain drew her back against him and it was good and it was right.