by Logan Miller
“Well, honey, we gotta get back to work,” he said.
“Now?”
“There’s an accident out on the interstate. A big rig flipped over and they need us to help clean up the wreckage and direct traffic.”
“I thought we needed to talk, Dad?”
“We did. But then this crash thing happened and now we need to go. We’ll talk about it later tonight or in the morning. There’s no rush. It’s no big deal. You’re staying here tonight, right?”
“Yes.”
“The morning, then. We’ll talk about it in the morning.”
“Let me brew you some coffee before you go.”
“That’s all right, sweetheart. We don’t have time for that.” Gates kissed Lelah on the forehead. “I just wanted to make sure my little girl got home safely before we headed back out.”
34.
Caleb opened the trailer door and turned on the light.
“Jake,” he called out, “where you at?”
He moved through the living room and down the narrow hallway of warping linoleum and faux wood paneling and into his bedroom. He took off his shirt and tossed it on the bed. He turned on the stereo and stepped into the bathroom and cranked on the hot water. The showerhead sputtered and then shot thick streams into the bottom of the tub. The trailer lacked many things but water pressure was not one of them.
Caleb pulled his belt from the pant loops and hung it on a nail in the wall.
“Jake,” he called out again, “where you at?”
And still there was no answer.
He called Jake’s cell phone and heard nothing but the empty ring on the other end until the voicemail picked up.
Light from outside spilled around the edges of his bedroom curtain and he pulled back the half-rag and looked across the wood yard to the shed. The door was cracked open and the light was on inside. He slid open the window and yelled.
“Jake? You out there? …Jake?”
He stuck his head out the window and leaned his ear toward the shed. But there was no response. He pulled his head inside and slid the window shut. The shower steamed from the bathroom and the stereo consumed the space with loud rock music.
Caleb limped shirtless through his bedroom and back down the hallway and out the front door. He continued across the wood yard and his breath made clouds in the air that was cooling and would grow colder for many months forward. The night was without scent, crisp and fresh with the season’s change, no bloom of sagebrush or sweetness of harvested wood, the land folded inward and dormant in rural silence.
He called out again and his pace quickened without conscious thought.
“Jake? You in there?”
He looked down and saw a dark trail of liquid on the gray earth, viscous and black like used motor oil. It was leading inside the shed.
“Jake? Where you at?”
There was an angry desperation in his voice and he exhaled great plumes and sucked in heaves to feed his rapidly beating heart. He reached out with both hands and yanked open the rusted aluminum door with a grating screech.
He stood in the doorway and the light cast off the pale skin on his chest and he saw his brother slumped against the back wall in a gruesome and contorted state. He limped forward and fell onto the dirt floor in front of him.
His brother’s face was now cold white ash where it was not draped and smeared with caked blood. His eyes were open and the whites were now black. He’d been shot through the forehead and his dismembered hands were nailed to the side of his head as though he were shielding his ears from some deafening sound overrunning all of nature.
He cradled his brother’s broken corpse and rocked him in his arms and told him that he loved him and that he was sorry, when an impulse awakened him and he remembered that he had to protect the living. He had to protect Lelah. From whom he did not know.
He laid his brother down gently on his side and closed his eyes. He staggered to his feet and hurried across the yard and into the trailer and grabbed his cell phone off his bed and called her.
The phone rang five times and then went to voicemail. He hung up and limped out of his room with the stereo blaring and the shower steaming and down the hallway and front steps and into his truck and gassed it down the driveway. He turned onto the asphalt without braking and called Lelah again. The phone spiraled for a connection and then the first chirp rang in his ear.
“C’mon baby, pick up. Pick up.”
On the second ring he heard the sound of her phone ringing inside his truck. He looked down at the console and saw the glow of her screen against the plastic walls of the drink holder. The caller ID flashed with: MY WUV AND ONLY.
“Fuck,” he said.
He called her house phone. But before it could ring the call dropped abruptly as he hit the dead zone that ran along the canyon between the two mesas.
ᴥ
Lelah searched for her phone. She rifled her purse. The kitchen table and the countertop. She went into the bathroom. She retraced her steps since she had gotten home but nowhere could she find her phone. She went back into the kitchen and dialed her cell on the house phone. But the call went straight to voicemail. She tried calling Caleb—and that call also went straight to voicemail.
Something bad was going to happen. She could feel it. The bizarre episode with her father had been terribly unnerving and only managed to heighten an already fraught set of circumstances. She just wanted to be with Caleb right now. She didn’t want to be alone. Not even for another second.
She took her keys from her purse and hurried out the front door and motored down the long driveway in her Ford pickup and into the night. Far in the distance her brake lights flared and she turned onto the interstate as her house phone rang and rang and rang as Caleb left the dead zone and regained service.
35.
Has it come to this?
Of course it has.
Everything in my life always drives to the worst possible conclusion.
Oh, well, you’re in the shit. So put on your game face and let’s get it done. Your daughter will be better off in the long run with these two thieves out of her life. It will be hard for a while but she’ll get over it. Plenty of other guys out there.
The cruiser’s dashboard lights illuminated the interior in a wash of pale green as they rolled down the lonely asphalt toward the wood yard. The surrounding land was hidden in darkness and the stars were so thick they appeared more a luminescent cloud from north to south than distinct bodies of light.
And we won’t have to worry about Marlo. That crusty cocksucking faggot. Blood for blood. Faggot-ass-faggot-ass-pillow-biting-fuckhead-faggot.
Gates sniffed and wiped the powdery leftovers from his nostrils, once again refueled and recharged with the fantastic bravado of Johnny Yayo. He took another key-blaster and the brilliant orgasmic phantasm mortared up from his bowels and his ballsack and made him unquestionably invincible. IN-FUCKING-VINCIBLE YOU ARE.
“Give me one more hit before we go on duty,” Sparks said.
“Help yourself, Lester.”
Sparks dipped his key into the baggie and choppered another rocket up his nose.
A mile away Gates killed the headlights and they glided down the asphalt like some stealthy winged serpent of the night.
“Make sure your phone is off,” Gates said.
“Already done.”
Sparks placed their phones inside the glove box.
They turned down the driveway and rolled along the rutted track, the tires crunching against the sandy grit and worn stones. They stopped halfway down and concealed the cruiser behind cords of stacked firewood. They opened the doors slowly and stepped out and left the doors slightly ajar to avoid the loud steel bite of closing them.
They withdrew their firearms and crouched below the stacks of wood and stepped around the pool of light from the porch and made the front steps. The music was coming loud from the back room. It would muffle their entry. Perfect.
Gates craned his
neck and looked down the side of the trailer and could see the steam on the bedroom window. Caleb is in the shower. Even better.
They climbed the front steps and slipped inside. Gates took the lead and Sparks trailed, staggered in formation so that each could fire. The music grew louder with each step and steam flooded out the bedroom in billowing clouds as thick as tule fog, steady and increasingly heavier as it met the cold air rushing down the hallway from the open front door.
ᴥ
Caleb barreled down the driveway toward Lelah’s house, a dome of light in the distance. The prairie was dark on all sides and his truck rocked and bucked over the ruts and water-eroded creases. He was thinking only of protecting her and he hoped that she was still home with her father. They were both there thirty minutes ago. But why hadn’t anyone answered the house phone the three times he called? Had the killers come to her house? Who were they? Where were they? If they could do that to his brother, what would they do to her?
They were somewhere out there in the darkness.
Her father would protect her though. She’d be safest with him.
He prayed that her dad was still there. That Lelah was still there with him. Maybe they had turned off the ringer on the house phone and forgot to turn it back on. Her father turned it off during the day sometimes after working all night.
Then he saw his brother’s mutilated body, his dead eyes. The image flashed in front of him. He tried to shake it out of his head.
He looked down at the steering wheel. His hands were still red with his brother’s blood and his knuckles were coated with a stiff coagulated crust. He grunted and yelled to keep from wailing. Your brother is dead. You need to stay calm. Keep your wits. Lelah. Focus. Focus on her.
He skidded to a stop in the gravel turnout in front of her house. Her truck was gone—or maybe it was parked out back. The sheriff’s cruiser was gone too.
What to do? Where did they go?
The lights are on. She might be inside.
I gotta check.
Please be inside, baby. Please.
He jumped out of his truck and left it running and hobbled up the front steps. The door was locked but he had a key and opened it.
“Lelah?” he called out as he limped through the house. The light was on in her bedroom. He moved down the hallway and peered inside.
“Where are you baby?” he muttered to himself.
He was breathing hard and sweating and the house was empty.
Where are you?
He didn’t want to at first. But now he had to. He called her father. The phone went straight to voicemail.
He jumped back in his truck and sped down the long driveway that cut across the dark prairie. He made the asphalt and raced back to the wood yard.
ᴥ
In the approaching distance Lelah could see the faint glow of the trailer and the various halos of scattered lights the wood yard made against the night. When she drove closer she thought she could see her father’s cruiser parked amid the silhouetted humps of firewood and heavy equipment that gave shape and outline to the featureless void.
When she left the asphalt and pulled down the driveway her suspicion was confirmed. She rolled past her father’s cruiser and squinted to see if he and Sparks were inside. But they were not. Her anxiety had increased on the drive over here and was now compounded by the unexpected scene.
What are they doing here?
Why didn’t my dad tell me he was coming here?
I thought there was an accident on the highway?
Did Caleb call them? Did Jake?
Has there been an accident here?
She’d never wished so strongly for her cell phone.
He’s using. He has to be using again. None of this makes any sense right now. But it all makes sense if he’s using again—then anything makes sense and nothing makes sense. Dad. Why? Why? You’ve come so far and now it’s back to this. Back to the beginning. We’ll start over. We can do this together. We will do this together. Father and daughter.
Settle down. Breathe. Perhaps there is a reasonable explanation.
She parked her truck and got out. She looked around for Caleb’s truck but it was gone. Or maybe he parked it behind the shed. Maybe it’s back there. She walked slowly toward the front steps and called Caleb’s name. Then Jake’s. Then: “Dad?”
ᴥ
Gates and Sparks stalked through the bedroom and the veils of steam toward the bathroom where the shower was running a loud torrent. Gates glanced down at Caleb’s bed and saw the discarded shirt. Sparks saw the article of clothing as well. The music and the steam amplified the tension for there was little sight and only the noise from the speakers thumping off the walls and thumping in their ears.
They moved with knees bent and thighs flexed to absorb their weight so as not to shake the flimsy trailer flooring and give up the element of surprise. They led with their guns, both hands firm on the weapon, right hand on the pistol grip, left hand cupping the base and fingers supporting the outside of the right. Their eyes were blazed open and their concentration was intensified from the deadly situation and the peaking cocaine high. It was like hunting in a smoke machine–choked nightclub or the misty depths of some far-off cacophonous jungle warzone.
Sparks loved it. The music, the steam, all dressed up in cop gear with guns and a license to kill. Wow. This was the very essence of law enforcement. It was moments like these where he truly appreciated Gates and all the opportunities he’d given him. If not for Gates, where would he be? He didn’t want to think about it. He’d do anything for the man. Anything.
Gates stepped inside the bathroom, the space tight, more steam in here, thick, hot, and wet, the walls sweating. He could smell the mildew from the shower tub but not the perfume of soap. The shower beat steadily against the hard surface, unusually steady, not broken from human contact.
Gates let Sparks slide in behind him.
Sparks sidled to his left and positioned himself in the corner above the toilet so that both men could fire at the same time without fear of shooting each other.
Gates nodded to Sparks and then reached out with his left hand, right hand pointing the gun, and ripped back the shower curtain—ready to murder.
But there was no one there—
—an empty tub
—a torrent of rushing hot water
—billowing steam.
Was the shower a ruse? A decoy? A cunning trick?
They spun around to cover their backs and crept out of the bathroom and into the bedroom with the music pounding from the speakers.
ᴥ
Lelah stepped onto the front porch and called timidly through the open front door.
“Dad?”
She looked around, confused, unsure. The music was blaring from Caleb’s bedroom.
“Caleb?”
She stepped forward and entered the trailer, each step cautious, fearful, slow, entirely its own. The living room light at the front of the trailer and Caleb’s bedroom light in the back were the only lights on inside and in between those pockets of light there was darkness.
She stood in the living room and called down the hallway toward the music and steam. She could barely hear her voice and assumed that if someone was down there at the end of the hallway they could not hear it either. She stepped forward out of the light and toward the bedroom and into the dark. Then she thought she saw someone moving in Caleb’s bedroom through the steam and she stepped faster and with heavier feet and called out louder.
ᴥ
Drug-addled and paranoid that they had been deceived, confused and raging with the noise of manic alertness and a desire to kill and settle the score—Gates and Sparks felt the dull vibration in the flimsy trailer floor—footsteps approaching—
—when simultaneously a streak of movement startled them in the steamy mirror—a vague form—a figure striding through the living room toward them—
—Lelah slowed and then she could make out her father and Sparks pointing
their guns at her through the mist and she tried to call out over the music and she shuddered and her heart jumped and she thought, my-god-why-do-they-have-their-guns-out-and-what-is-happening-and-where-is-my-Caleb—
—Gates wheeled around and reflexively fired down the hallway through the steam and pockets of darkness, certain that the approaching figure was Caleb—
—The bullet struck the victim in the chest and their feet flew out from under them and they dropped from view behind the couch.
Gates crept out of the bedroom and down the hallway with his gun leading the way through the veils of steam, the hallway a corridor of darkness and opening to the light of the living room where the victim had landed on the other side of the couch, perhaps dead, or only wounded. Dead, he hoped.
Sparks followed over his shoulder, tactically staggered in the narrow hallway in the same manner as when they had approached the bedroom.
Gates stepped from the warped linoleum and onto the living room carpet, tense and ready for a surprise, tense and ready for another ruse, tense and ready to finish off the wounded Caleb. Just like he’d finished off his brother.
He stepped around the couch and his gun fell from his hand and he collapsed beside the gasping victim.
Blood frothed out of Lelah’s mouth in scarlet bubbles. She was paralyzed and pinned to the ground as if by a heavy iron stake, a bullet hole ripped through the center of her chest, blood seeping in a great bloom across her shirt and out her back and onto the carpet. She made a gurgled choking sound and her pupils were convulsing and flitting around the whites of her eyes.
“Daddy,” she gasped, barely able to find the oxygen and strength as she drowned in her own blood. “Daaaddy… Help me… Daaaghddy,” she coughed.
Daddy.
Help me.
Gates placed his hands one over the other and pumped into his daughter’s delicate chest, which only made the blood clog her windpipe and choke her more severely.
“Hang in there, sweetheart. Hang in there. Daddy’s here.”
He searched the room for help, for an explanation of some kind, a frantic jumble of nerves and thoughts that were all racing together and then speeding away faster than he could grab them. He had suddenly forgotten his name. He did not know where he was only that his daughter was beneath him and dying. Someone had shot her, but who? He ran over and snatched a pillow from the couch and set it beneath her head. He brushed the hair out of her eyes and tried to wipe away the blood leaking out her mouth and down the sides of her neck. He went back to pumping her chest but her heart had already stopped beating and her head fell limp to the side and she turned away from him.