by S. A. Cosby
Ike shifted the truck from reverse to drive and took off down the road. He had the truck up to sixty miles per hour as he crested around a soft curve.
“SHIT!”
The word echoed in the cramped confines of the truck as Ike buried the brake pedal into the floor.
The flatbed that had been in the field was now in the middle of the road on its side. Hay stretched across the roadway from ditch to ditch like someone had just shaved a giant. Ike saw some men moving around the truck. A few were standing with their hands in their pockets and their heads bowed. That was the universal sign language for having fucked up in a royal way. Ike put the truck in park. He hopped out and walked over to one of the men with his hands in his pockets.
“Hey,” Ike said. The man didn’t acknowledge him.
“Hey, man, what’s going on here?” Ike asked.
“What it look like, Cochise?” the man said.
“You gonna want to take some of that bass out of your voice, son,” Ike said. The man, a young white guy with sandy-brown hair under a dirty trucker cap, gave Ike his full attention. He was taller than Ike by half a foot but he took a step back. His subconscious warned his body to protect itself.
“The truck driver overcorrected on the turn. He swear he wasn’t on his phone, but we all know he lying,” Trucker Cap said.
“How long we looking at?” Ike asked. Trucker Cap gave the question some thought.
“You looking at an hour at least, hoss. We gotta get the hay up and flip the truck over and probably get a tow,” he said. As soon as the words were out of his mouth he took another step back. A dark cloud rolled over Ike’s face like a thunderstorm coming in off the bay.
“Alright,” Ike said. He pulled out his cell phone. Mya’s phone went to voicemail. Ike cursed and dialed her again. It went straight to voicemail again. He called Buddy Lee. Straight to voicemail.
“Fuck,” Ike said. Crab Thicket Road was a dead end, just like Townbridge Road. The ditches on each side of the road were too deep for him to drive through and go around the overturned truck and all the spilled hay.
He called Buddy Lee again.
“Answer the goddamn phone,” Ike said. It went to voicemail again. Ike slapped the roof of the truck. He called Mya again.
It went to voicemail.
“Ain’t much of a signal out here. We had to use the radio to call the wrecker,” Trucker Cap said.
Ike slammed his fist against the hood.
He hit it again.
And again.
And again.
THIRTY-FIVE
Ten minutes.
It was only ten minutes after Ike and Tangerine left that Mya got the phone call. Buddy Lee had drunk the last of his beer and was making Arianna a grilled-cheese sandwich when Mya’s phone began chirping.
“Is that Ike?” Buddy Lee asked. Mya pulled her phone out of her pocket and checked it.
“No, it’s our neighbor. MaryAnne,” Mya said. She put the phone to her ear.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Mya, it’s Randy, MaryAnne’s husband? Your house is on fire,” Randy said.
“What?!” Mya screamed.
“Yeah, I already called the fire department but I wanted to let you know because—”
Mya hung up on him. She jumped up off the couch and picked up Arianna.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Buddy Lee said. He put Arianna’s sandwich on a paper plate and brought it into his living room.
“The house is on fire. I gotta go,” Mya said. She started for the door.
Buddy Lee dropped the plate on his ersatz coffee table and stepped in front of Mya.
“Hey, hold on now. What do you mean your house is on fire?”
“My neighbor’s husband just told me our house is on fire. He’s called the fire department but I gotta go!” Mya said. Buddy Lee put his hand on her shoulder.
“Mya, you can’t go over there,” Buddy Lee said.
“The fuck I can’t,” Mya said. She shrugged off his hand.
“Listen to me. This is bait in a trap and you about to be the rabbit that takes it,” Buddy Lee said.
“Buddy Lee, I ain’t got time to stand here and trade Uncle Remus proverbs with you. My house is on fire. I have to go. Now get out of my way.”
“Mya. Stop and think. There are some boys out there who want to see me and Ike’s head on a stick. We took off with a girl they trying to fill full of lead like she a storage locker for bullets. These boys know where Ike lives. Now, I ain’t a smart man, but even I can see the odds of your house catching fire the same day we had a run in with these boys. Sis, them odds on the south side of zero,” Buddy Lee said.
“His baby shoes are there. A lock of his hair from his first haircut is there. There’s a poem he wrote me in second grade. You don’t understand. It’s all I got left of him. I can’t lose him all over again. I can’t,” Mya said. Her face was twisted into a half frown, half snarl that was moments away from becoming a vale of tears.
“Sis, I don’t think there’s nobody within a hundred miles that understands like I do. But if your house is on fire right now, ain’t nothing gonna be left by the time you get there,” Buddy Lee said.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. But I gotta try,” Mya said.
Buddy Lee rubbed his face, then put his hands on his hips.
“Alright, let’s go. But call Ike and let him know we’re leaving,” Buddy Lee said.
“I’ll call him on the way,” Mya said.
They’d tried to call Ike three times. Two times it went straight to voicemail. The last time it didn’t even get that far. Buddy Lee knew there were parts of Red Hill that had spotty service. Then there were parts where you’d be better off sending a message by Pony Express than trying to make a phone call. That knowledge didn’t help calm his nerves. Splitting up had felt like a mistake. He knew going to the house was a mistake. But Mya didn’t give him much choice. He couldn’t make her stay, and there was no way he was going to let her go alone.
He didn’t have many mementos of Derek. The only one he really had was the picture in his wallet, and he couldn’t imagine how’d he react if that suddenly went up in flames. When the people you love are gone, it’s the things they’ve touched that keep them alive in your mind. A picture, a shirt, a poem, a pair of baby shoes. They become anchors that help you keep their memory from drifting away.
Mya turned onto Route 34 doing thirty-five. The first left would be Townbridge Road. The sky was full of stars that twinkled like cast-aside diamonds. Buddy Lee felt his stomach fall to his knees.
Mya turned onto Townbridge.
“Wait,” Buddy Lee said.
“What?” Mya said.
“Where’s the smoke? Where’s the flames? Where’s the god-blessed fire department?” he said. Mya eased her foot off the gas and stopped the car.
“Oh no,” Mya said.
The chrome spokes on the wheels of the fifteen motorcycles idling in front of her house shimmered in the glare of her headlights. The engines sounded like a pack of wolves snarling just before they set out for the hunt.
“Back up,” Buddy Lee said.
Mya didn’t move.
“BACK UP!” Buddy Lee screamed. Arianna began to cry. Mya put the car in reverse and hit the gas. The four cylinders under her hood sounded like a rusty hinge. Buddy Lee grabbed the machine gun from between his legs. He clicked off the safety and lay the gun in his lap.
* * *
“I did what you said. You can let me go now, right?” Randy said. He was in front of his house on his knees. Grayson had the barrel of a .357 pressed against the nape of his neck.
“Yeah, but you’re a fucking rat. Who does that shit to their neighbor?” Grayson said. He cracked Randy on the back of the head with the butt of his gun. He watched as the chick put the car in reverse and started backing up.
“LIGHT IT UP!” he roared. A few brothers set fire to the rags that draped the necks of the glass bottles they were holding. They tossed
them through the windows of Ike and Mya’s house. The rest of the brothers took off after the small maroon sedan.
Mya ran off the road, took out a mailbox, then corrected herself and got back on the gravel. The headlights of the motorcycles advanced on them like a swarm of fireflies. Mya rocketed past the stop sign at the end of the road, slammed on the brakes, and put the car in drive.
Buddy Lee saw a new set of lights bearing down on them from the driver’s side.
“Fucking hell!” he said, just before Dome crashed into them with a late-model royal-blue Bronco like a wrecking ball. The car flipped over once, then twice before resting on its side, where it balanced precariously for a moment until gravity claimed what was hers and it ended up upside down on the roof. The bikes surrounded the car like a crowd watching a busker.
* * *
Buddy Lee’s mouth was full of blood. The bitter coppery taste was making him gag. He coughed and tried to spit. The blood splattered across his face. A few of his back teeth felt untethered from their sockets. His body was a live wire of agony. Pain sparked up and down every nerve, every synapse. He spit again, and this time a couple of his blocky back teeth came flying out and landed on the headliner.
Where was the gun? Where was it? Shit. He had to move. If he could get out of the car he could get their attention. They’d come after him and leave Mya and Arianna alone. He had to move. He was upside down but he had to move. Buddy Lee wasn’t much on seat belts but Mya had insisted he wear one when they had gotten in the car. It might have saved his life, but now it was a noose slowly strangling him as he hung upside down like a butchered buck. He reached for the clasp. His fingers felt confused. He tried to unlatch the seat belt but his digits didn’t want to cooperate.
He heard the sound of heavy footsteps on gravel, then the screech of metal against metal as the passenger door was forced open.
Grayson dropped down to his haunches.
“You must be the other daddy. Y’all like Ebony and Ivory,” Grayson said.
“I could’ve been … your … daddy but the line was too long,” Buddy Lee said.
Grayson smiled. He held his .357 by the barrel and smashed Buddy Lee in the side of the face. Buddy Lee felt something in his cheek give way. Pain coursed through his whole head like a runaway train. Grayson put the business end of the gun against Buddy Lee’s stomach.
“Where’s Tangerine?”
“I don’t fucking know. Ike took her away from here. You ain’t never gonna find her,” Buddy Lee said.
Grayson moved the barrel from Buddy Lee’s stomach to his mouth. He pushed it down his throat until the trigger guard was nearly touching his nose.
“Tell me where she is and I won’t shoot this half-breed in the back seat that’s crying her fucking head off,” Grayson said.
Buddy Lee started flailing his arms and squirming against his seat belt.
“You keep your fucking hands off her! You fucking cocksuckers leave that girl alone.” It came out like a garbled gibberish, but Grayson knew what he was trying to say.
“She mean something to you, huh? Who is she? Is she the Black’s daughter? Wait … don’t tell me. The two pansies had a baby. How the fuck does anybody let them have a kid? Jesus, what is this world coming to?” Grayson said. Grayson took the gun out of Buddy Lee’s mouth.
“Tell me where Tangerine is or I start using her for target practice.”
“I don’t know! He took her and he didn’t tell us where he was going. She’s just a baby. Leave her the fuck alone. You wanna kill somebody, kill me. Come on, do it, shit for brains. DO IT!” Buddy Lee screamed. Grayson stood.
“Dome. Get that brat out of the car. See if that bitch has a cell phone, too,” Grayson said.
He dropped back down to eye level with Buddy Lee.
“I think you’re telling the truth. That would’ve been smart, him not letting you know, and he strikes me as one of the smart ones. And don’t worry, I’m gonna give you what you want. It gonna be sooner rather than later. I’d do it right now but you’re lucky. I need you to deliver a message, and it looks like this bitch done broke her neck,” Grayson said.
“No, Nanny! Ganpa!” Arianna cried. Buddy Lee heard the door screech as Dome pried it open. Then there was the clink of buckles being unlatched. That sound broke him in places he thought were already shattered.
“Alright. We are gonna take this mongrel with us. Maybe that’ll motivate you to find Tangerine,” Grayson said.
“Arianna ain’t got nothing to do with this. Let her go. LET HER GO!” Buddy Lee howled.
Grayson laughed.
“This is Arianna? So, that’s who he was calling out for. I’m figuring the white one was yours, right? Yeah, right before I shot him in the face he said her name. I wondered why he’d be calling out for a girl. I thought it was his mama. Lots of people call for their mama,” Grayson said. The blood from the wound on his cheek was dripping into Buddy Lee’s eyes. He blinked hard as he strained his neck to look up at the big blond biker.
“You will. Before me and you is done I promise you, you will,” Buddy Lee said.
“Bring us the girl, Ivory. We’ll be in touch,” Grayson said. Buddy Lee watched as his boots walked away from the car. A few seconds later he heard the bikes tearing their way down the road, the thunderous rumble of their engines becoming faint echoes at they disappeared into the night.
THIRTY-SIX
Ike stormed past the receptionist at the emergency department desk and pushed through the heavy vinyl doors.
“Sir, you can’t just go back there!” she said as he did exactly that. Ike went straight to the nurse’s station. A young Latinx woman in light-blue scrubs got up and came from behind the desk as he approached.
“Ike, she’s in surgery,” the woman said.
“Surgery for what, Silvia?” Ike asked.
“She has a ruptured spleen, a perforated intestine, a punctured lung, and there was a fracture in her skull,” Silvia said. Ike swayed on his feet. He put his hand on the desk and let his head hang low.
“Ike, Dr. Prithak is one of the best thoracic surgeons in the entire state. Mya’s one of us. She’s been here for ten years. She’s like everybody’s mom. We got her, Ike. Believe me. Just go back out to the waiting room, and I’ll come get you when she’s out,” Sylvia said. Ike’s heart was beating so hard his ears were ringing.
“What about Arianna? Where’s Arianna? Where’s Buddy Lee?” Ike asked. Once the road was finally cleared, Ike had driven like a bat out of hell over to the trailer court. He’d alternately continued to call Mya and Buddy Lee as he chewed up the road. When he pulled up to Buddy Lee’s trailer and saw that Mya’s car was gone, he’d experienced a terror so complete it felt like he was about to have an out-of-body episode. That terror had been replaced with despair moments after he answered the call from the hospital where his wife worked.
“I think I can answer your questions,” a deputy said. Ike straightened and faced the man. He was a wiry specimen. The brown-and-tan uniform of the Red Hill Sheriff’s Department clung to his sharp, angular physique.
“What happened?”
“Let’s go over here and talk, Ike,” the deputy said. Ike didn’t recognize him, but everyone in Red Hill knew Ike. They either remembered the criminal he used to be or they were familiar with the man he’d become. Such was the curse of a small town. Ike followed the deputy through the vinyl doors and down the hall to the chapel. Red Hill General’s chapel was a shabby thing made up of two short pews, a picture of a Gregg Allman Jesus, and a couple of fake stained-glass windows. Ike stood near the pew as the deputy stopped just inside the door frame.
“I’m Deputy Hogge. I’m so sorry about all this, but we have some things we need to clear up,” he said.
“What. Happened?”
Deputy Hogge’s shoulder stiffened. “Just stay calm, Mr. Randolph, I’m gonna tell you.”
“I can’t stay calm because no one will tell me a goddamn thing. So can the next words out of your
mouth be how my wife and my granddaughter and our friend ended up in the hospital?” Ike said. His brain registered that he had called Arianna his granddaughter and Buddy Lee his friend, but he couldn’t ruminate on that now.
“Sir, I’m trying to tell you, but you need to calm yourself. Now, what did the hospital tell you when they called?” Deputy Hogge asked.
“You already know what they said. There’d been an accident. My wife and her passenger Buddy Lee Jenkins had been injured. They didn’t tell me about Arianna and they didn’t tell me what happened. This is as calm as I’m gonna get,” Ike said.
“This wasn’t an accident, Mr. Randolph. A person or persons unknown intentionally ran into your wife’s car. They set fire to your home, assaulted your neighbor and…” Deputy Hogge paused. Ike’s chest tightened.
“They took your granddaughter. They kidnapped her,” Deputy Hogge said. The ground beneath Ike’s feet vanished. He collapsed in the pew. Deputy Hogge sat next to him.
“I talked to your friend but he wasn’t much help. Now, please don’t take this the wrong way, but is there anyone you can think of that has a problem with you? You know, anybody from back in the day?” Deputy Hogge asked.
“Leave me alone,” Ike said.
“Ike, we are gonna do everything to find that little girl and the people who did this, but I need you to be honest with me. Stealing a child and burning down a house are personal attacks. Extremely personal. You know who did this. Tell me so we can get her back before it’s too late,” Deputy Hogge said.
“I don’t know anything,” Ike said. That wasn’t a complete lie. His life was a roundabout spinning out of control. Isiah was dead. Mya was fighting for her life on an operating-room table. Arianna was gone. Their house was a pile of cinders. He didn’t know how to stop the chaos he and Buddy Lee had unleashed. He didn’t know how to protect the people he loved. He didn’t know anything anymore.
“Are you sure about that?”