She runs her hand softly over the silver foils of the plane. Mark has taken her up every day for nearly a week, showing her the control and speed and acrobatic maneuvering it had. He even let her take the controls in the air.
“I’m flying you to Key West.”
Tessa senses something amiss, but she keeps quiet.
“Junior and his clients,” Mark hisses.
“Doesn’t he fly corporate, or something?”
“Yeah, something,” Mark spits out as if he has a bad taste in his mouth.
A tune starts and Uncle Mark shouts, “Bill Haley and the Comets!” He starts boogying toward Tessa and grabs her.
Dolly, who is gardening the flower bed in front of the house, sits back on her heels and claps.
They twist and spin and he leads her impressively. By the time the song is over, they are both winded and laughing. Murphy is prancing all around them, hopping with his two front paws back and forth as if he is dancing too.
“Wow, Uncle Mark, you can rave.”
“Ya like that? I used to be quite the ladies’ man in my day.” He wiggles his thick white eyebrows and twists one corner of his moustache.
“Mark Tanner, you haven’t lost a step!” Dolly calls out.
He bows toward her graciously. “Thank you, love.”
“Do you think Murphy can go?”
“Why not? We don’t have to go so high it will hurt his ears. And I won’t do any funny stuff. We’ll just fly there, catch a ride. I’ve got a friend that has a boat.”
“Oh, I thought we’d just buzz the water.”
“Well, we could, but I might get in trouble.” Mark winks. “Besides, it will be nicer from a boat.”
Mark didn’t even drink the night before the flight. Regulation is twelve hours. He’s only been in one accident and he wasn’t the pilot. He barely recovered from that one. He told Tessa he even does preflight checks after Junior.
“Just like your rig.” Mark nods at her truck and trailer. “You have a check down list, right? I bet you checked it twice every day for a week, didn’t you?”
Tessa nods. “Still do.”
“Good girl. And if you ever ride with anyone else towing anything, you check it down too. Promise me.”
“I promise.”
“Well, one last bathroom break, and we’re set.”
EVERY WATER SPOT is different. As they skim away from the reefs and protected refuge areas, Tessa holds Murphy beside her. The fishing charter guy is drinking beer, but Mark politely refuses. He drinks water. The boat slows and the captain nods to her.
He cuts the engines entirely and they drift lazily in the soft blues and deeper blues.
Tessa unzips the bag. In her mind she’s done the ceremony she needs, and she’s reticent doing it in front of two older men. So she just softly drops the ashes and watches the heavier ones bubble down below the surface, while the lighter flecks ride on top. She snaps a picture and sends it.
Though the location services are on, Tessa types in, “Key West.”
She takes a picture of Murphy. And then one of Uncle Mark and the Cap’n. Uncle Mark is lifting his plastic water bottle and making a goofy face and the captain proudly hoists his Bud Light. She sends this one to her mom.
THE NEXT DAY, Tessa is ready for her westward trip. She has no more excuses to prolong her stay, but it’s difficult leaving. She’s unsure why.
“Why don’t you join me for a week or two?” Tessa looks over at the Airstream.
“Maybe we should try?” Mark nudges Dolly with his hip and elbow.
“Oh, honey.” Dolly looks at her, shading her eyes against the sun. “I don’t think that’s for us. I’m not even sure why we got that.”
Mark’s face falls, then he turns to Tessa and shrugs with half a smile, as if he doesn’t know why either. “We mainly use that for overflow company. And the grandkids enjoy playing house in it . . .”
“Maybe we could fly out and meet you sometime.”
“Really? I’d like that a lot.”
“I could see us flying out there to meet you more than driving that thing,” Dolly admits.
They hug and Tessa is sad to leave. It’s nice to have someone see her off and wave goodbye. She doesn’t understand why they can’t just come along. For some reason she wants the company.
MARK AND DOLLY watch Tessa’s rig turn out from the park.
“I swear to god, if anyone hurts that girl, I’ll kill them,” Mark says.
“I know,” Dolly agrees. “I’d want you to.”
Chapter 12
AS SHE NEARS her first general mail delivery drop, Tessa is excited and nervous. She’d picked out three drops on the pre-trip so her mom would know where to send any snail mail that came for her and maybe, some home treats.
Tessa finds Ottine, Texas by two o’clock and is thrilled to be there before post office closing time. Except, she’s circled the two street town twice and can’t find the post office.
She sees more cattle thavn people.
She finds one house with a tree growing out of its foundation, and a mailbox.
It looks like a building that is closed up, derelict, and deserted.
Before she can knock on the door an old man that’s been watching her parade for the last fifteen minutes says, “Miss Maybelle is gone for the day.”
“Is this the post office?”
“Indeed it is, but Miss Maybelle ain’t coming back till nine-thirty tomorrow morning. Where’d you come from?”
“Florida.”
“Long way for nothing. There’s a campground that a way.” The man waves in the general direction she first came from.
“Is there anything going on?”
“Well, there’s a watermelon seed spitting contest in Luling late June. The Watermelon Thump. Guinness World record is Lee Wheelis. Sixty-eight feet nine-and-one-eighth inch . . . Think you can top that?”
Tessa opens her mouth and shuts it.
“Guess not. Say, you got pink hair?” The man squints.
“Yes, sir.”
“I don’t think they have a contest for pink hair.”
“Probably not.” Tessa is desperate to extricate herself but the man with the hunched back and cane saves her the trouble.
“Well, I got things to do.” He sets off at a shuffle. “Can’t stand around jaw jacking all day.”
Thump goes the watermelon.
Once Tessa sets up camp, she is again, the only one in the whole campground. She decides to unhitch the truck and drive down to a sign reading, “Cemetery.”
She follows the little paved road till it becomes a dirt road without warning and a short way down, a sign stands next to a pasture gate pointing, “Cemetery.” She pulls off the road and pockets her keys. Murphy trails along with her.
On the pasture gate is a sign that reads, “Cemetery open 9 am till 6 pm. Please shut both gates to keep cattle in.”
Tessa looks at the two gates and fence rows about three truck lengths apart.
She doesn’t see cows and she doesn’t see headstones.
Thump.
How can a cemetery be open or closed? Tessa wonders what the fine is for being in the cemetery at six-oh-five p.m. She suddenly gets a fit of the giggles. As disappointed as she is to not have her package today, or having to camp early and stay in Ottine one more day than necessary, this just cracks her up.
“I dunno, Murphy, maybe I’m losing it.” She unwinds the wire around the gate, goes through, and carefully winds it back. She repeats the procedure on the next gate.
She is a little skeptical of snakes though and keeps Murphy close to her. They stay on the two track and still Tessa sees nothing but meadow on the left and large swampy trees on the right, the edge of the Palmetto State Park she is camping in.
They walk a couple of football fields and Tessa spies another cemetery sign pointing to the right. She’s unsure why she’s drawn to cemeteries. Sometimes she can read history there, and it opens her imagination.
In the meadow is a large ornate, wrought iron enclosed cemetery. The words “Ottine” are etched in the wrought iron in a high arch above its black latched gate.
Tessa suspects there’s a lot more people in the Ottine cemetery than out. Three brothers, all died between 1861 and 1865. Maybe the Civil War. Lots of baby deaths in the early 1900s. She strolls for some time among the many old headstones, drinking water and letting her imagination roam. She begins hearing sounds, munching grass, and little huffs and puffs of cattle breaths.
They are grazing just a few yards away, seemingly unaware anyone is in the cemetery until the gate creaks. She whispers to Murphy to keep quiet as they move quickly toward the road. Some of the curious cattle follow. One, much bigger than the rest, has taken a very keen interest and is following faster than Tessa likes, with alert ears forward. She confirms with one look that it’s the bull.
She is so focused on getting through the first gate and securing it, she doesn’t realize someone is watching her until Murphy barks, his hackles up. She smells the stale old cigar aroma before she sees him.
There, leaning against the side of the Ford Truck, with his arms spread wide on the rails, as if he owns it, is Uncle Chuck.
“Surprise!” he says with artificial glee.
Tessa is holding Murphy back and trying to shush him.
“Well, darlin’, the bull or me?”
The bull.
The bull’s head is over the first gate, snuffing and snorting. Slowly Tessa walks forward, leashes Murphy at the gate, and then goes through and secures the gate.
“Yeah, you better control that dog. Would hate to euthanize him just because he viciously attacked me.” Chuck stands fully and one of his thick hands holds a shotgun. Aunt Sadie’s shotgun.
“Think there was only one set of keys?” His eyes narrow in on her. “I found what belongs to me.”
He waves her over. He opens up the tailgate and slaps it.
“You and I are gonna have a little talk.”
Defiantly Tessa walks to the cab and opens the windows for Murphy. She makes sure he has water, before returning to the rear of the truck. Uncle Chuck’s black Chevrolet is parked enough behind that he leans on that hood now. He still holds the shotgun, but it’s pointed down now, casually, as if it is a walking stick. His thickness dwarfs it.
“Hop in there. Sit right up there. Old Uncle Chuck wants to hear your side of the story.” He’s sweating, big beads of sweat mat the sides of his hair down. It’s not a good look for him.
She doesn’t “hop up there.” She leans against the tailgate. It’s desolate here. Only the cattle as witnesses. There’s nothing else and no one else.
“What story?”
He snorts. “You know what story. Don’t play me, Miss Pink Hair.” He spits. “Bet you’re wondering how I knew, eh?” His grinning belies his rage, anger, bitter tone.
Tessa senses his energy like the wind. It’s concrete, three dimensional to her. His bluntness and thickness obvious, and his energy tastes like a steely, acidic copper in her mouth.
“I got my ways. Seems more than one person can keep track of you.”
“What do you want?” Tessa keeps her voice steady and firm.
She folds her arms over her lower abdomen.
“Go on and sit up there, Missy. Get comfortable. This could take a while.”
I doubt it, the way you’re sweating.
“I’ll start.” Uncle Chuck walks over to his passenger side door, opens it, and tosses the shot gun in. He takes a moment to light his half cigar butt, then throws the lighter on the seat. He slams the door shut and returns to her, slapping his hands together.
“Does your momma know about your girlfriend? Your little waitress girlfriend? Yeah. I know about her. And about the lacrosse boy. The garage guy. What? Can’t make up your mind? Girl, Boy. Boy girl?”
She stiffens. Before her mom hears it from Uncle Chuck, she’ll tell her. He’s just trying to bluff her. He’s still pacing back and forth in front of his truck, puffing his half phallic stinky cigar.
“There’s lots of stuff I know, but what I don’t know is . . . what happened to my brother?” he screams in her face.
The cigar is out of his mouth and its heat is very near her cheek.
As shaken as Tessa is, all she can hear is, “He’s afraid.”
Murphy is barking ferociously and pawing desperately to get through the rear slider. He whines and tries to stick his head through the passenger window.
“Shut the hell up you stupid fucking dog!”
He slaps the tailgate next to her.
She doesn’t say a word. She closes her eyes and sends her thought to Murphy. It’s okay, Murphy, it will be okay.
He settles a little, but continues a sporadic, muted whine.
“See I know that Indian, Josh, has something to do with it. Benzie County might have shit sheriffs, but I’ve got contacts all over this country. In the FBI. You ain’t got shit. I’m not leaving till I get answers, and there’s no one out here, darling, but you and me.”
She hates him using the word, darling. She hates it as much as she hates hearing kids her age say “hon” to older people like they were frail or invalid or children.
She annunciates very clearly and very slowly. “I don’t remember.”
“Yeah.” He waves a hand at her. “I’m tired of that story. It might’ve worked on everybody in the hospital, but it doesn’t work with me. You’re going to remember, or I’m going to make your brother’s life a living hell.”
Haven’t you already?
“He’s the one who took off. Not Eli or Josh.”
“Oh. You believe that load of shit, do you? Think Gabe would just leave all of his stuff behind, his girlfriend, his truck, his dog, his wallet? Your brother’s in prison doing time for stealing his truck. At least someone else besides me believes that. That’s a fact.”
“He didn’t steal his truck.”
“Right. That’s why he got caught in it. That’s why he got tried as an adult for it.”
Tessa clamps her mouth shut. There’s a million things she wants to say. It’s because of Chuck and his cop cronies in the county and the state that Eli got blamed at all.
Sometimes she wishes she could remember.
His cell phone rings, a tone of Barry White, “Can’t get enough of your love, babe.”
It’s Aunt Deidre. She doesn’t need a megaphone, her voice projects. Chuck halfway turns and says, “Yeah. Yeah, babe, I’m here now.”
“Did you tell her?”
“I will now. I got it all set up. Yeah. I gotta go.”
He turns to her. “Tomorrow you and I are going to a hypnotherapist.”
She laughs.
“No. You’re going to do this or I’m going to put the screws to your whole family. This is my brother we’re talking about. My blood. So, if you don’t want to put Eli or your mom through more shit and more bankruptcy, you’re going to cooperate. Just how selfish are you anyway? It’s because of you your mom almost lost her house. That’s all your fault. No one else’s. Don’t think your cobbled-up old Forsythe is going to stop me. I don’t give a shit about the inheritance.”
He spits. His shirt is soaked. If Chuck does have a heart attack, Tessa is certainly not going to perform mouth to mouth.
The twilight is taking over and the mosquitoes are biting.
“I’m in the campground. We’re leaving in the morning. I already got us an appointment in San Antonio.” He tosses her something.
It’s a patch that reads NAWAC. He stubs his cigar out on the tailgate next to her. “A souvenir of Ottine. Don’t go thinking you can sneak out on me like you did Joe. I found you once. I’ll find you again. It’s just a matter of time. And I’m not giving up. That I swear to you.”
He leans over and it’s all she can do to not budge from his heaviness. She smells his stench as he whispers in her ear, “Midnight Rider.” He slaps the back quarter panel by the tail light and stares one more time through her
.
“You don’t want those folks having to come find you.” He indicates the patch. He gets in his truck, and the springs squeak and the truck tilts to the left. He peels out backward, kicking up dirt and gravel, and roars forward, leaving Tessa and her truck in a choke of dust.
She puts her hand over the white Pegasus unicorn she had drawn on the powder blue part of the truck with paint Brett gave her in Stone Mountain. Below it, on the cream-colored part of the panel with a musical note, is written in brush script, “Midnight Rider” in midnight blue.
Once she gets in her pickup she reads the emblem.
North American Wood Ape Conservancy.
What the hell?
Murphy puts his head in her lap and licks the tears from her chin.
SHE DRIVES FOR hours, hoping to elude any more confrontation with Chuck. She goes to Luling and looks over the fairgrounds where she would not be competing for the Guinness World Record in seed spitting. It starts raining. A torrential rain, the kind of rain that makes rivers out of lines in the gravel in a matter of seconds. Tessa leaps out and shuts the cover over the bed of the truck. She turns home for now, toward the camper.
Uncle Chuck’s truck and trailer camp site sits like a big fuck you finger, parked right in the middle, at the first site of the only drive for entrance and exit. The only good thing is he’s about ten sites down, not right next to her. Before she enters the camper she makes sure the kayak is dry. She’d stashed it underneath, unsure if she’d try and kayak the San Marcos River by herself.
Once inside, she sages everything: herself, Murphy, every corner of her home, her nest. Chuck had been inside, that’s how he got the shotgun. She draws a thunderbird and sticks it up over the interior side of the door. It gives her strength and something positive to focus on. Somehow she falls asleep. Maybe it’s the monsoon thundering on the roof, but inside, a cozy and dry place against the harsh pelting rain and winds that occasionally rock the camper. She dreams about worms. Big, puffy, black, Cheetos-like ones and itchy little black fleas. She dreams there’s a hundred-and-fifty feral cats in the basement of her camper and everyone is lined up outside her door, willing to help her out and take one home. Somewhere in the middle of the night, in addition to the hard pounding rain, she hears a rumble of a camper pulling right next to her.
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