The Last Road Home

by Danny Johnson

  The look in Clemmy’s eyes was frightful. “I’m not agreeing to this,” she said. “Junebug, this would never have happened if Miss Rosa Belle was alive. I can’t let you think what you’re doing is right, or real, or is anything more than two kids caught up in some fairy tale you think is going to have a happy ending. It’s not. If you go flaunting yourselves, y’all are going to see what an ugly face the devil has. I hear what you’re saying, Junebug, and I pray change will come, but this is still the South and we’re still niggers, to be tolerated only as long as we keep our place. That’s the reality, and all your high-minded feelings ain’t going to change it.”

  Clemmy stood up. “We need to get home, Roy.” She grabbed her son’s hand. “Lightning, you got to stay absolutely out of sight. We’ll sneak off down here once in a while. I’m just happy to know you’re alive, and can touch you.” She turned back to me. “Junebug, I’m grateful and won’t forget what you’re doing for Lightning.”

  Lightning hugged Clemmy. “I’ll be careful, Momma. You can’t believe how good it is to see you and Daddy. I’ve been suffering from the loneliness for a long time.” Lightning hadn’t said anything during the conversation about Fancy and me.

  As I watched them fade into the dark, I didn’t know how I felt at that moment. The look on Clemmy’s face had cut me to the quick. I’d been considering myself like some comic-book hero who could right the wrongs I saw, and she’d tolerated me. Now I knew she’d just been playing along with my foolish games. Who the hell did I think I was?

  CHAPTER 33

  At dinner the next day, I went to the mailbox and got the newspaper. “Come look at this, Fancy.” She put her head alongside mine. There were pictures of police dragging colored people by feet and shirt collars.

  The story was about ongoing civil unrest, showing photos of folks on a hunger strike at the post office in Chapel Hill, and protesting in front of the Howard Johnson hotel in Durham. There were pictures of police using clubs on anybody who didn’t move. “We talked about how things would change one of these days, Fancy. I think it’s coming fast.”

  She read over my shoulder. “I don’t know if I would be as brave as them.”

  “It’s 1963, Fancy. Ten years ago, them police would have been shooting instead of clubbing. And the Boo Boys would be out there helping them.”

  CHAPTER 34

  “Fancy still in bed?” Lightning came wandering into the kitchen while I was frying bacon and fixing eggs. The morning brought a chilly rain, and I’d made a fire in the potbelly to keep off some of the dampness.

  “You can wake her up if you want to, breakfast is about ready.” My attitude had changed when it came to Fancy. It felt like I’d fought for her and now she belonged to me. I’d prove Clemmy wrong if it was the last thing I did.

  I scratched pieces of egg around on my plate. “Lightning, what’s the plan for this thing tonight?”

  “Nothing to plan. We show up with our stuff, they bring the money, and everybody goes home.”

  “You know they’ll be toting guns.”

  “So, take your gun.” He put down his fork and looked at me hard. “They ain’t going to mess up a business that makes them money, Junebug. It would be stupid, and I don’t think Twin’s a stupid man. Ugly, yes, but stupid, no.”

  I broke open a biscuit and soaked the halves with molasses. “Tell me something.” I cut the coated bread with my fork. “You ain’t by chance made a separate deal with Twin that don’t include me and Fancy, have you?”

  He kept crunching bacon and looking down at his plate. “What are you talking about?”

  “I didn’t stutter. Just so you understand, I’m going to take my gun and if any funny business happens, I’m going to start shooting. If you have any thoughts about hanging us out to dry, don’t.”

  He pushed his plate away. “Listen, Junebug, I’ve carried you this far because you’ve helped me while I’m in this mess. It’s hurtful you think I’d do something behind your back like that.”

  “Lightning, you ain’t carried me anywhere except to a place that could get me killed or put in prison.”

  He slammed down his hand, pushed back from the table, and stomped out the back door.

  I walked down to the road, stood, and gazed out at the woods. Clemmy was right saying this would never have happened if Grandma were here. Maybe I should just stop this whole thing. I stewed about it all afternoon, but in the end, figured I was in too deep to quit now.

  After dark, I pulled the truck down to the tobacco barn. We packed the mason jars in the bed and covered them with a tarp. At nine thirty, I laid my hand on Fancy’s shoulder. “Why don’t you stay here?”

  She pushed my hand off. “I’m riding with you.” She got in the truck.

  Lightning shrugged and got in beside her.

  “If anything messes up, stay in the truck. I don’t want you in the way or getting hurt.”

  “If I need advice, my momma lives up the road,” she snapped. We were all uptight.

  Fifteen minutes later, we were crossing the highway bridge. I spotted the cutoff between some chest-high bulrushes leading down to the water. The rear tires bounced hard when I turned off the paved road. “Easy, Junebug, don’t break the jars,” Lightning said. Thick fog rolled up from the creek, making the bare limbs on the trees along the bank look like black witch’s arms.

  Twin stood beside a long dark Cadillac, smoking a cigar. I drove around him and pointed the nose of the truck back toward the main road, leaving about twenty yards between us. His Cadillac idled and its lights were on. I set the hand brake, put the truck in Neutral, and left it running. “Wonder where the other one is?” It felt like a belt was cinched across my chest.

  Lightning craned his neck both ways. “Maybe he didn’t come.” He got out.

  I eased open the door, pulled the shotgun from behind the seat, and rested it in the crook of my arm. The other man was here somewhere; Twin wouldn’t have come without him. I stopped at the rear fender, close enough to hear and watch.

  Twin puffed on his cigar and I could smell the marijuana. “About to give you boys up. Dark out here in the sticks.”

  “No way we’d stand you up, nothing to worry over. You by yourself?” Lightning asked Twin.

  It was dark as pitch every place the headlights on his car and my truck didn’t touch. “You be careful, Lightning.”

  “Don’t see anybody else, do you? You got the stuff?”

  “Yep. You got your part?”

  Twin reached in the back door of the Caddy and pulled out two grocery bags. He handed them to Lightning. “You want to count it?”

  “Nah, I trust you.”

  “I don’t.” I stepped away from the truck and made sure Twin could see the shotgun.

  “Well, if it ain’t John Dillinger Jr. Sure you can count that high, boy?”

  “She can.” I nodded to Fancy in the cab of the truck. Lightning handed me the two paper sacks, and I pushed them inside, whispering to her, “Don’t worry about counting, just make sure ain’t nothing in there but money.”

  Fancy nodded.

  “You want to count yours?” I asked Twin.

  He yanked the tarp, turned a flashlight on the jars, and fingered each one. “Seems to be right, but if it’s not, I’ll be coming to visit you. You boys want to help me?”

  Lightning let down the tailgate. He and Twin started carrying jars. I stayed put, not willing to lay down the gun, keeping an eye on the edge of the tree line. The rank smell of stale creek water drifted on the clammy breeze. It took a good twenty minutes to transfer the jars. Twin pulled a quilt from the backseat and covered them before he slammed the trunk shut. “Your little chocolate sugar through counting?”

  I backed up to the window. Fancy nodded. “Yep, guess we need to get moving.” All we had to do was leave.

  Twin pitched the stub of his cigar and reached inside his coat pocket. “Pleasure doing business with you boys. How about a cigar to celebrate?” When his hand came out, he was h
olding a pistol.

  I knew Lightning was a dead man. “Watch out!”

  Lightning dived to the ground. Twin’s first shot missed me and went through the back window of the cab. Fancy screamed. The next bullet kicked up mud near where Lightning crawled like a cockroach. “Help me, Junebug!”

  I fired at Twin and missed, pumped in another shell and hit him in the left arm before he could duck behind the Cadillac. He ripped off pistol shots that went over my head or into the tailgate. His man came running out of the fog near the creek. Bullets were flying, Lightning was yelling and clawing the mud, and Fancy was hollering my name. I ducked down, put my hand over one ear, and slammed the other ear into the fender. The noise was overpowering. “I told you, Lightning, you stupid bastard,” I yelled.

  When I came up again, the second man had almost reached Twin. I heard Twin, “Kill that bastard!” The man changed directions, running straight at me. I propped the shotgun barrel on the fender, and the double-ought buckshot caught him full in the face. He went down, clawing at his head.

  Twin growled like a dog. His left arm hung limp as he came toward the truck. Spurts of flame leaped from his right hand as fast as he could pull the trigger. I ducked, but one of his bullets slammed off the fender and I felt a sharp pain in my head. I chambered another round, edged low around the tailgate, and knocked him backward with a round to the chest. Suddenly everything went still.

  A song played softly on the truck radio, Marty Robbins singing something about having the blues. Lightning was whimpering and Fancy was crying. I jerked open the truck door. Fancy lay crumpled on the seat, holding her shoulder. Blood was everywhere. “Fancy! Where are you hurt?”

  She opened her eyes, moved her hand, and showed me the bloody hole. “Junebug, help me. It hurts awful bad.” She fainted.

  I went behind the truck and dragged Lightning up by the collar. “Are you shot?”

  He grabbed my shoulder for support. “I thought I was a dead man, Junebug.”

  “You should be, I ought to kill you myself. Get in the truck. We got to help your sister.”

  “Your head’s bleeding,” said Lightning.

  “I’ll deal with it when we get home.”

  He looked back. “What about them?”

  “I’ll take care of that, you just do something for your sister for once in your sorry-ass life.” I took off my shirt. “Hold this tight to where she’s bleeding.”

  I went back to where the bodies lay while my head throbbed like a drum. I had to stop and squat down for a minute to let my vision clear. When I reached Twin’s man whom I’d shot in the face, he had no pulse. I reached Twin and knelt down. The throbbing had turned to pounding. Twin raised his big hand and gripped my ankle. “You got to help me.” Blood soaked the front of his shirt. His head fell back, his eyes closed, and he went silent.

  “Are you dead?” I waited. When he didn’t say anything, I tapped his face with the toe of my shoe. “I said, are you dead?”

  Twin’s fat tongue rolled out of his mouth. “No.” His voice sounded like something was choking him. I stood up and looked around, trying to figure out what to do. If I left him and he lived it would be a death sentence for all of us; there would be nowhere we could run.

  “You bastard, why couldn’t you just do the deal like we agreed? Now I got to kill you.” It was different standing over a live helpless man; this way seemed more like cold-blooded murder. The Bible says, “Thou shalt not kill.” I’d already broken that commandment and was getting ready to add some baggage for my trip to hell. Sweat ran down my face. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. I could hear Fancy crying in the truck. I needed to get her some help.

  With the amount of blood soaking Twin’s chest, I didn’t see any way he would live. But could I risk it? I looked down and Twin opened his eyes again. He lifted his head and tried to spit at me, but only succeeded in dribbling mucus and blood on his chin. “You ain’t got the guts, White Boy.”

  I pulled the trigger of the shotgun again.

  Twin’s head blew apart and the strong iron smell of blood made my nose burn. Wind off the water brought the heavy sour stink of creek mud. I sucked air into my lungs to keep from vomiting.

  At the truck I laid the shotgun in the bed, then bent over and pressed my head against the coolness of the fender, trying to think of anything that would show we’d been here. I couldn’t. I got under the steering wheel.

  Lightning leaned around Fancy and looked over at me. “You want to get the dope back?”

  I grabbed his throat, slamming his head back against the passenger window. “Say one more word and I’ll leave your stupid ass lying here with them.” I took off, sliding and spinning wheels on the slick ground before hitting pavement. In a few minutes, we were at the house.

  “Help me carry her to the bed.” Fancy moaned with every step. We struggled to the bedroom. I handed Lightning a clean towel. “Keep that pressed down hard until I get back.”

  CHAPTER 35

  I drove the truck down near the tobacco barn and parked it where it would be out of sight, then rushed up the path as fast as I could manage in the dark. At the clover field, clouds blocked the moon. I ran to the side of Fancy’s house and tapped loud on the window.

  Roy pushed up the sash. “What’s wrong, Junebug?”

  “Fancy’s hurt bad. We need Clemmy to bring her medicine.” Clemmy appeared beside Roy. “What happened?”

  “I’ll explain later. Come as fast as you can. I’ll meet you there.”

  They came in the back door just a few minutes after I did. “She’s in Grandma’s bedroom.”

  Clemmy flew in. When she saw Fancy, she yelled out, “Fancy! Fancy, what happened to you?” Blood covered one side of Fancy’s face, still wet in her hair, and soaked the front of her dress. “I been shot, Momma,” she whimpered.

  Roy stood at the foot of the bed, his face twisted in a fierceness I’d never seen. “Who the hell did this? I warned you about what could happen, Junebug.” He wanted to hurt somebody real bad, and I figured it was me. “Lightning! Boy, bring your ass in here.”

  Clemmy got hold of herself. “Don’t you come in here now,” she called out to Lightning. “And you get out, Roy, so I can find how bad she’s hurt.” She tore Fancy’s dress back to expose the wound. “Junebug, bring me a sheet and heat up plenty of water.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” I got a clean sheet from the closet. When I crossed the living room, Roy and Lightning were sitting nose to nose. Lightning looked at me like he needed some help. I hoped his daddy would beat the shit out of him and save me the trouble.

  I put a cast-iron pot of water on the stove to boil. When it started to bubble, I dipped a pan full and carried it to the bedroom. Clemmy had cut strips out of the sheet. She laid her palm on Fancy’s cheek. “I need to see if the bullet’s stuck in you. It’s going to hurt, but it’ll only last a minute.” As easy as possible, we rolled her to one side. Fancy moaned and cried.

  Clemmy looked closely at the wound. She let out a breath and wiped her forehead. “It’s good, Junebug, the bullet went all the way through.” She washed blood from Fancy’s face and neck. “I don’t see she’s hurt anywhere else.”

  “Am I going to die, Momma?”

  “No, my sweet baby, I’ll see to it.” She went to work cleaning the wound with the hot water. The damage was in the meaty part above her armpit and below the shoulder. “The bullet didn’t hit any bone.” Clemmy talked to Fancy in a reassuring voice. Of course, after all that soothing talk Grandma’s doctor did, she still died.

  Clemmy got a dark bottle from her bag. “Fancy, this Mercurochrome is going to burn.” She coated the red, torn flesh with the liquid, then topped it with salve and made a bandage around the shoulder. “Junebug, get me some vinegar and baking soda.”

  Clemmy mixed them together and held it to Fancy’s lips for her to drink. Grandma had used the same remedy when one of us was hurting. Next she reached in her cloth sack for a bottle of paregoric and a small bag of w
hite powder. “This white dirt will help absorb any poisons and keep her from being sick or having diarrhea.” We leaned Fancy up enough not to choke while she swallowed. After several minutes she started to close her eyes. Clemmy covered her good. “That’s all we can do for now. Let her sleep.”

  In the living room, Clemmy and me pulled up two rocking chairs and Roy moved to sit on the couch next to Lightning. The two of them stared at Lightning and me, the only sound coming from the clock on the mantel. Every muscle in Roy’s neck and arms bulged. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see steam when he opened his mouth. “Tell your momma what you been telling me, Lightning.”

  Lightning cut his eyes in my direction. “Junebug took me to Durham a few times, and I stayed with Aunt Pearl. I got to messing around with this girl, and her boyfriend didn’t like it.”

  I came partway out of the chair. “Shut up! Ain’t going to be no more lying around here!” I should have killed him at the creek. “Tell ’em.”

  Roy came off the couch, fist clenched. Lightning put up his hands in defense.

  “Sit down!” Clemmy pushed Roy back. “Sit down! Everybody stop!” She waited while Roy sat. Lightning put his head in his hands. “Tell us what happened, Junebug. I want the straight truth.”

  I told the whole story, except I didn’t mention we took the money, just that they tried to rob and kill us. If Lightning wanted to tell about the money, let him do it.

  “How the hell would two idiots like you even know where to get that stuff?” Roy grabbed Lightning by the neck of his shirt and yanked him. “You better answer me, boy, or you’ll wish you were laying dead up there with them other niggers.”

  Lightning grabbed Roy’s wrist, eyes on fire. “Why you jumping all over me? Junebug was there just like I was! Why ain’t you grabbing him? Or are you so used to kissing white folks’ ass, you ain’t got the guts?” He got to his feet. I slid my chair to be out of the way.