A Swollen Red Sun

by Matthew McBride

  Herb Feeler drew his gun and shot Hastings in the neck.

  He fell in front of the door and died by the gas can.

  Bazooka jumped, stumbled backward.

  “Holy fuck, Herb … Hell, I thought you was gonna let ’im shoot me.”

  “Woulda made things easier if he had.”

  Sheriff Feeler picked up the kid’s gun and shot Bazooka once in the chest.

  Bazooka dropped against the stove and slid down to the floor. Herb fired a second round into the wall above him.

  Sherriff Feeler stepped over Hastings and left the trailer and walked to his horse and mounted and rode down the hill.

  Dale Banks left the Brandt farm in his old Bronco and drove home. It had been a long night with Olen. A night of powerful conversation and emotion. He’d enjoyed the time with his friend and was glad he could be there.

  Once the night air had turned cold, they’d gone inside. Olen had taken a bath while Banks made a drink with a bottle of Early Times. It was hard to swallow, and Banks wondered if the bottle had gone bad.

  He followed pictures on the wall, from room to room, the way Arlene arranged them. They told the story of a family, until it had broken. And then it was the two of them. Picture after picture.

  Him on the tractor. With a chainsaw. Or a deer.

  Her in the flowerbed. Or the kitchen.

  But then the pictures stopped, and there were no more stories to tell.

  Banks went back to the kitchen to pour out his drink. He saw a folder on a ledge where Olen sat and paid his bills. There were clippings from Wade’s numerous appearances in the town newspaper.

  Banks knew Wade would be released in the next few days and wondered how the old man would take it. He’d been gone a few years, but he’d done his time, though much of it had been done in the hole from what Banks gathered.

  He picked up a clipping and read it. It was old. Edges of the paper had turned yellow. Wade had outrun the cops in the middle of a snowstorm, but his car ran out of gas. They found him on the shoulder of the road with a stolen TV and a bag of magic mushrooms.

  Banks left after that. Drove home and pulled in the driveway and parked and went inside. There was leftover pizza on the counter. He ate a few slices and drank some tea and brushed his teeth and went to bed.

  When his phone began to vibrate on the nightstand, he woke up. Almost daylight. Banks cleared his throat and answered: Becky Hastings. She asked if Bo had left. It was late. Was he sleeping on their couch?

  Banks wiped the sleep from his eyes and climbed out of bed and walked toward the window.

  “Well, babe, he ain’t here.” Banks almost said he was. Tried to cover for his partner, like any good man would. But this was Hastings. A good kid. There was no need to lie.

  Becky Hastings was in tears. Lying in an empty bed, sending messages. Wearing down the battery on her phone.

  “Was he supposed to be here?”

  “Yeah, Dale, he said y’all had to talk. Said it was important. So where the hell’s he at if he ain’t with you?”

  Banks walked to the bathroom and threw water on his face.

  “What time’d he leave?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “He gets home ’n’ he’s all worked up ’bout somethin’, Dale. I ain’t never seen ’im like this.”

  “What’d he say?”

  “That he had to go ’n’ talk with you. That’s it. He kissed me on the forehead. Told me he loved me ’n’ left.”

  Banks told her he’d make a few calls and call her right back. He hadn’t talked to Bo in a while, but they’d find him. Told her not to worry.

  He walked down the stairs into the kitchen in his underwear. Held his Glock with both hands, avoiding places in the floor where it was known to creak under stress.

  Steph was asleep. Cell phone on her pillow.

  Banks shook his head. Checked her window. Looked out into darkness and saw his own reflection. He checked Jake’s room and found him sleeping. TV on. Screen blue. Xbox controller on the floor.

  Grace was asleep in her own little bed. Dreaming dreams he’d give anything to know.

  Banks checked the windows and the doors. Everything looked safe. He walked back to the kitchen and sat down and grabbed his chew off the counter and packed a dip.

  It was eight when he left the house in his cruiser. Wore his coat to fight the wind. It would soon be November, and there was a chill in the air that cut to the bone. The sky was gray with a promise of rain, and the roads were slick with leaves.

  He drove through a smoke cloud of sweet cedar that blew from the stack of his closest neighbor. It would be a brutal winter. There was wood to split and stack. The ranks were lean. Where had summer gone?

  He returned Becky Hastings’s call. She answered on the first ring. “Please tell me you found ’im, Dale?”

  Banks exhaled a hard breath and told her he was sorry. He’d called twice. Left a message.

  Becky sounded stronger than before. Said, “Dale, you’re his best friend… . Now, you tell me right now … is he messin’ around on me?”

  Banks chuckled. “Well, God no, girl. That boy thinks the world of you.” He laughed again. Just to reassure her.

  “Well, if that’s the case, then somethin’s wrong, Dale. Somethin’s wrong. I feel it in my heart. This ain’t like him.”

  Banks sat at the end of his road with his foot on the brake and listened to her cry.

  He said, “I don’t know where he might be. He was pretty shaken up over Mr. Hanson. Guess he told you ’bout that?”

  “Yeah, he told me and it upset him bad, but he won’t talk about it.”

  “Uh-huh. Guess that don’t surprise me none. Bo ain’t exactly a talker.”

  “Dale, I’m worried. Somethin’s wrong here, I know it.”

  “Becky, I promise you—” He saw a note under the windshield wiper that silenced him. He put the car in park.

  She’d stopped crying again.

  Banks opened the door and stood up. “Lemme jump off here a minute. Call ya back.”

  “OK,” she said, and told him again this wasn’t like Bo.

  Banks hung up the phone and pulled the slip of paper from behind the wiper and sat down and closed the door and read what the paper said.

  Dale,

  I know about the money. It’s OK I can fix this. Headin’ up past Barstow’s to straighten things out now. I’ll take care of this. Got good news to tell you, too.

  Bo

  Banks sat behind the wheel and a sensation of absolute fear overcame him. Hastings knew about the money? He drove the back of his head into the seat rest and closed his eyes. There were more thoughts inside his head than he was able to accommodate.

  Banks pulled onto the road. He did not know where to go or who to trust. Nobody was above temptation. Every cop confronted it, and he hated himself for his own weakness. He wondered who the dirty cop was. Winky? The son of a bitch complained a lot, but he was true blue. Then again, so was Hastings. Then again, so was he.

  Banks tore down the two-lane road with the tires barking.

  He didn’t have a choice anymore. He picked up his phone and called Sheriff Feeler. Told him what he knew: Hastings was missing, his wife worried. Banks had a bad feeling where the kid might be.

  “You need to get some guys up there, Herb. I’m a half hour out.”

  “Where’s this at again?”

  “Some trailer out past Ned Barstow’s turkey farm.”

  Sheriff Feeler said he knew the place. He’d round up a posse. Help was on the way.

  Banks passed Barstow’s and saw Hastings’s Mustang by the creek. Fought off a gut full of nausea and stopped. Got out. Saw both doors locked. Dust up ahead from the cruisers. He climbed back in the car and dropped it in gear and threw gravel as he climbed the hill.

  At the top, there were two cruisers and a Dodge pickup that belonged to the sheriff. Winkler and another deputy, Trent Tallent, stood in front of a trailer with the windows broken out and a ya
rd littered with debris. Everyone looked sick.

  Banks knew it was bad. He pulled up in the yard and put the car in park.

  Sheriff Herb walked toward him. Told him, “Don’t get out.”

  Winkler, right behind him. “You don’t wanna see this, Dale.”

  Banks pushed Herb aside. “What the fuck’s goin’ on up here? Where’s Bo?”

  Winkler stepped in front of him. “Get back ’n your car, goddammit. We got state comin’. This is bad.”

  Banks shoved Winkler hard, put his weight behind it. Winkler went down in the leaves. Arms fell limp to his side. He stayed on the ground. Yelled at Banks.

  “Don’t go in there, Dale. The kid’s dead.”

  Banks slowed his steps when he got to the porch. Looked back, saw the sheriff helping Winkler to his feet. He turned toward the trailer and walked up the steps and opened the door. Hastings lay on the floor, the side of his neck blown out. Skin alabaster white, eyes open. Carpet soaked in blood.

  Across from Hastings was the rifleman. Massive through the chest and shoulders, with a wide gut to match. Mess of red hair and freckles.

  There was a hole in his chest that Banks could see from the door. It was a small red circle, and at that moment it was hard to believe that a small red circle could kill a man.

  He turned and saw their faces. Everyone looked guilty.

  Banks walked down the steps and away from the trailer and puked in the weeds.

  Many hours later, Banks was back at the station, deep in thought while the state processed the crime scene. They did their own investigation, and it didn’t look good. Rumors had already started: off-duty cop found dead beside Kincaid, known felon.

  A gunfight late at night in a trailer full of pot plants.

  There were things being said about Hastings and none of them good. There was something about that guy, they said. Had a little too much of his daddy in him. Even in death, they were against him. No one called him a thief, but no one called him a hero.

  Herb said, “Looks like the kid took a shot in the neck from close range but hung on long enough to return two rounds of fire.”

  Sheriff Feeler took it hard, Banks noticed, but not hard enough. He put his hand on Banks’s shoulder, promised they’d get through this.

  Banks looked back and nodded. Eyes red from hurt.

  They sat in Herb’s office, drinking hot black coffee and smoking and chewing.

  “What’re you gonna do about this, Herb?”

  He shrugged. “What’s to do? We thought we could trust ’im.”

  Banks looked the sheriff in the eye. “We could.”

  “Yeah? Don’t look like it.”

  “Herb, Bo was a good kid.”

  “Was he?”

  Banks felt his face tighten and redden. The kid had taken a bullet that was meant for him. “You know he was.”

  “I know the apple don’t fall far from the tree,” Herb said.

  “You think the kid was part of this?”

  Herb stared him down, unflinching. “I think he was part of somethin’.”

  Banks shook his head. Looked around the small police station. Saw good people everywhere. Looked at the sheriff and saw something else. It was the same pride and guilt Banks had seen a thousand times. Every time he interrogated someone he knew was guilty—especially when they thought they’d gotten away with it.

  When Banks turned to leave, Herb said to watch his back.

  “And you best watch yours.”

  “I ain’t got no reason to, Dale.”

  “We all got a reason to.”

  Hard brown dirt began to soften with each humid drop until it was moist and the wetness soaked in and the dirt became slick and was mud. Ground that had not seen rain in months broke loose and washed down the bluff.

  Jerry Dean drove through sage weed and brush to a crook below Goat Hill. He could not chance crossing the ford. Even if he made it without alerting the Reverend, he would not make it back with rain.

  Being stuck on Goat Hill was the last thing he wanted now that he could not count on Bazooka Kincaid. At first, it was the promise of easy living that appealed to him—with an abundance of privacy that a compound like Goat Hill provided. But then he’d seen the girl and a sorrow for her washed over him that his heart had never known.

  With her in mind, he grabbed an extension ladder from his truck and let it drop across the ford. He brought his gun, a spare clip, and a flashlight that he dropped in the water.

  “Kiss my ass,” he said as he palmed the rungs with his hands and crawled with his knees. Water deep and black. The beam from his flashlight a speck of flame submerged in a cloud of oil.

  A crack of thunder rapped above the treetops and the echo bellowed in the holler. Lightning flashed above his head. He looked down at the ladder and quickened his pace. The hairs on his back felt supercharged.

  When he got toward the end, he could feel the ladder slipping. The stream above ran down the rocks and made a channel that washed the mud away.

  He crawled fast in the dark, not knowing when the ladder would fall.

  When his hands felt the mudbank, there was thunder and the ground trembled. More mud broke loose as he scurried off the ladder and stood, and the ladder fell into the ford before he could grab it.

  He looked down and saw it floating. He cursed and held the tree branch and watched his ladder float away. Too late to turn back. By now, Bazooka Kincaid was dead. Or the kid was dead—he hoped both, though it did not matter to him. He’d done what the sheriff wanted. Roughed up the kid. Scared him. Promised he’d be a legend.

  He did what it took to get the kid to the trailer. And now, as long as things had gone according to plan, there was one less person who got a cut of the money and a cop to take the blame for killing him.

  Jerry Dean dug his heels into rock. Leaned forward. Pulled himself up with trees. He thought about the animals in the woods. The Reverend kept wild hogs and mountain goats and let them run free on the hill. There were other things, too. It was hard to say what might be up there.

  He patted the Desert Eagle for reassurance and stumbled across a wad of roots as the hill planed out. He bent at the knee. Caught his breath. His veins pumped with adrenaline.

  Jerry Dean pulled a Milwaukee’s Best from his pocket and slammed it and belched and said, “Fuck you, Reverend,” then chucked the spent can on the ground.

  In his mind, after many hits of crank and many beers and several joints, he saw a vision of himself on the hill. He would walk up the front steps and kick the door open and shoot the old man and his wife. Make his way to the basement.

  But then he thought about big baby. Dumber than a bucket of screwdrivers. He could not shoot that big dummy unless he had to. Otherwise it didn’t seem right. Just shooting a big dumb kid like that. Bad as he might want to.

  Something grunted down below, by the ford, and Jerry Dean started climbing. It was hard to say what roamed these woods. The darker it got, the more he thought about why he hadn’t thought more about that. Butch Pogue went to auctions. Exotic animals. Jerry Dean knew this, and had somehow overlooked the real significance of one small thing. The Reverend loved his dogs. That’s why he locked them up. Not to keep anyone else safe; to keep the dogs safe.

  Jerry Dean swore and navigated his way to the farmhouse. Soaked to the bone. The rage of the storm labored his mind. He stopped every two feet, sure he was followed. Soon to be devoured by something nocturnal.

  A roar of thunder boomed over the bluff, and the woods carried the sound. Trees shook. Air sour and thick. The face of Butch Pogue appeared in front of him suddenly, and Jerry Dean stumbled backward. Lightning lit up the sky, and the face was gone. There was a great dead tree in its place. Carvings on the bark like ancient scripture.

  The rain came even harder. Switched gears.

  Jerry Dean took a step back. Looked for something wide with cover. There were caves on the hill. Built into the bluff. Up in the pine thickets. But Jerry Dean would chance a light
ning strike before he crawled into a cave at night without a flashlight.

  By his best calculation, he was south of the compound. More off-course than he cared to admit. He had not seen the rain coming and had failed to prepare. Thought he’d have starlight. Hand-light. He cursed his luck and waited for a break in rain.

  When it came, he hurried. Through the sticker bushes and the thorn patches. Blindly. Arms and hands cut to shreds. Cuts across his face and neck. He slipped in the mud and fell on his stomach. Lay there, fighting for wind.

  Jerry Dean rolled to his side and pulled himself to his feet and stood. Turned toward his right and stumbled and tripped until he found road. He smiled despite his misery at this small ray of light. He crossed the road and climbed a fence and walked under power lines between two telephone poles.

  The hard dust had turned wet and slick. The grass was a sponge. Jerry Dean crossed the field, and the downpour returned and pounded him in the open with no cover. He ran and slipped but did not fall. When the lighting hit, he could see, and then it was gone, but he pictured what the flash had shown, and walked that way until the grass was gone, and there were sticks, and he was holding on to trees. Limbs and branches poked his face.

  Jerry Dean had no record to keep time. The hours since he’d crossed the ford were lost. He kept his mind busy with her face. Her body. He’d seen her from his hiding spot by the woodpile. Watched Mama bathe her in a cold stream of well water. Remembered the steam that rose from her naked breasts and shoulders.

  The dusk and the gloom had enveloped him. He staggered through the woods. Through the darkness. In his mind, he saw Mama. She would eat his flesh and suck dry his open wounds. He paused to catch his breath, then moved on. He was glad for the Desert Eagle, but he cursed the rain and the cold and wondered how they would cross back through the ford.

  Banks started drinking on the way home from work—he kept a small bottle of schnapps for emergencies. Had to calm his nerves, and for once, the Skoal wasn’t working. There would be hell to pay for the man who killed Bo.

  He grabbed a box of Natural Light from the garage and walked to the back of the house and sat on the porch. Opened a beer and waited.

  When Jude walked out, she hugged him and he cried. Dropped his can on the concrete. “He shot Bo through the neck,” Banks said. Jude squeezed him.