Bittersweet Creek

by Sally Kilpatrick

  Shit.

  Why hadn’t I considered the possibility that my phone might be ringing? Had I really been alone so long that I thought no one wanted to call me? Hell, Romy was lucky I had my phone at all because I often left it on the kitchen table, afraid it would fall out of my pocket and get lost in a field.

  I listened to Romy’s rambling message about the calf getting out again and how she was headed up to our place to go through our pasture if she didn’t find Star in hers.

  My blood ran cold. Had she not heard a word I’d said about never going out alone? She might be worried Curtis would do something to Star, but I was more worried about what he might do to her.

  She’d only left one message, but it had been forty-five minutes ago. She’d had plenty of time to look around the Satterfield place then go up to the trailer. I started the tractor, gunning it as I traveled homeward as quickly as I could.

  You just had to tick him off at the dealership yesterday, didn’t you? You couldn’t just swallow your pride one more time and at least tell him you’d give him some of the money. Again. Damn you, Julian, damn you.

  I rolled into the barn, jumping off the tractor before the engine had completely cut off. I ran for the house, ignoring my stiff leg, the one that didn’t run as well as it used to. By the time I reached the screen door, I was out of breath.

  “Good Lord, Julian, where’s the fire?” Mama asked.

  “Romy. Did she come through here?”

  “I don’t know. Your daddy was at the door talking to someone. Then he left and took his gun with him.”

  “Talking to someone.”

  “Fine. He was talking to that Satterfield girl. Something about a lost calf.”

  “And you let him take his gun and go after her?”

  “I don’t let him do anything,” she said, but her eyes wouldn’t meet mine.

  “How long?”

  Mama shrugged her good shoulder. “’Bout ten minutes? Maybe?”

  “If anything happens to her, I’m blaming you.”

  “Nothing will—”

  “You know damn well he aims to hurt her. Just like he hurts you.” I turned to go, but she grabbed my arm.

  “He’s just doing what he thinks he needs to do.”

  She believed it, too.

  “Well, he’s wrong. She doesn’t deserve it, and neither do you.”

  “But you don’t know what I did.”

  “Mama, it doesn’t matter what you did.” I shook free of her grasp and went after Romy.

  When I glanced over my shoulder, she was wringing her hands.

  Romy

  I’d gone over all of our land, knowing as I did that I wouldn’t find Star there. Crazy little thing seemed to sense she belonged just as much to the cows next door as she did to us, maybe more, since her mama had rejected her.

  Getting into the McElroy pasture hadn’t been as bad as I’d thought. Julian’s daddy seemed drunk to the point of incapacitated and waved me on even as Mrs. McElroy shot daggers through me. I hadn’t been able to quite reclasp the strand of electric fence behind me, but I figured the gate would hold the cows in until I got back.

  After the fourth call I’d given up on Julian. He must’ve left the phone at the house. He and I were going to have to have a little chat when he got done with the hay. I’d already told him that all his talk of tilling gardens and cutting hay was hot, but being country didn’t mean we had to forgo modern conveniences. Like cell phones.

  I cruised three-quarters of the McElroy pasture, seeing neither Star nor the rest of the cows. I’d have to walk the last part of the pasture by foot since trees lined the fence and extended into a thicket I couldn’t drive through. I parked, grabbed the bottle, and picked my way through the brush to the fence and our creek on just the other side. I hadn’t walked a quarter of a mile before I came upon the Hereford herd, and there was Star playing with some of her half siblings, little calves that could’ve been her twin except for their being mostly red and her being mostly black.

  “There you are! You scared me half to death!”

  At the sound of my voice, Star stopped her playing and galloped in my direction. At the sight of almost a hundred pounds of speeding calf, I threw up my hands. “Whoa!”

  She skidded to a stop in front of me, though, and latched on to the bottle. I pulled it away, and she followed me toward the fence. She’d gotten older and tugged harder, not really wanting to work for her bottle.

  Then I tripped on a tree root and fell backward, holding on to the bottle by some miracle. By the time I got to my feet, crazy little thing had sucked all the milk down.

  Now what, genius?

  I took my phone from my back pocket, but held it out to the side, hesitating. Should I even bother calling Julian again?

  “He ain’t gonna answer that phone.”

  At the sound of Curtis McElroy’s voice, I froze from the inside out. Polite. I would be very, very polite. I would forget he beat Julian and ruined our lives.

  For now.

  Forcing myself to smile, I turned to face him. “Well, it’s lucky you’re here then, isn’t it? I just realized there’s no way I’m going to be able to lift this calf up in the truck, not after all she’s grown these past few weeks. Maybe you could give me a hand?”

  He stared through me. “Don’t reckon I will. Calf looks more mine than yours.”

  I stiffened. Of course, he’d see the calf was half-Hereford and want to keep it. That’s how the whole mess had started in the first place: a misplaced calf and a greedy McElroy. He held his rifle bent in the crook of his arm. I tried not to look at it. “Seems your bull decided to visit our pasture. A regular Don Juan, that one.”

  My reference and my smile were lost on him.

  “Well, the little bitch is in my pasture now, and I reckon that’s where she’s going to stay.”

  Was he talking about the calf or me? I could leave the calf. Julian would fetch her for me. Why, oh, why hadn’t I just let him look for her in the first place? Because you were afraid she was off somewhere on her own and that she’d run into some coyotes. Or something worse.

  Curtis took the rifle from the crook of his arm and snapped it together.

  Like Curtis with a gun.

  “Maybe you have a point,” I said, my smile tight from forcing it to stay in place. “She seems content here, so I’ll leave her with you.”

  For now.

  I forced myself to slowly put one foot in front of the other, in spite of the fact that I had the irrational feeling that something or someone was chasing me, that same fight or flight that causes a child to dash for the safety of bed after turning off the light. I stepped as far to the side of Curtis as I dared without tipping him off. “Thanks for coming to help out, Mr. McElroy,” I said as I was level with him.

  He nodded so I took a step in the direction of the truck.

  He chose that moment to slam the butt of the rifle into the back of my head and send me sprawling.

  I think I screamed.

  Julian

  I drove the old pickup so fast, she bucked like a bronco over the rough pasture. It didn’t take long for me to see two trucks at the edge of the woods. One was Romy’s old Ford. The other was a beat-up S-10 that Curtis shouldn’t have been driving.

  I pulled up to the two trucks and ran out into the woods. Now what? Surely they weren’t far, but were they to the right or the left? Had he already found her?

  She screamed, and my feet were already heading in her direction before my stomach bottomed out around my toes.

  Romy

  The back of my head was on fire. I gasped for breath, finally realizing I couldn’t breathe because I had a knee on my chest.

  “Nice of you to wake up.” He pushed all of his weight on his knee into my chest as he stood. I gasped for air that just wouldn’t come.

  “Yeah, I’m getting old. Can’t get up and down like I used to,” he said nonchalantly.

  I struggled to get to my feet, but his boot came
down on my wrist. Something snapped, causing the world to go black for a second.

  “I just want to know what it’s going to take to make you go away.”

  He picked up the rifle and placed the muzzle at the spot just between my eyes. “I’m wondering if I’m going to have to kill you to get you to leave my boy alone.”

  He’s going to kill me no matter what I say.

  “Answer me, you Satterfield bitch!” He kicked me in the ribs, and I rolled over and coughed, cradling my broken wrist. Somehow I pushed myself to standing.

  “Since you won’t stay gone, am I going to have to kill you?”

  “I reckon you are.” The West Tennessee accent came out loud and proud behind the wheezing. Somehow I’d made the choice to die right here rather than pretend I would run away to something I was not.

  Knowing he meant to kill me no matter what might’ve fueled my ill-advised bravado, too.

  He put the rifle down, glaring at me with his crazy eyes. I didn’t see the fist coming, but I tasted the blood and felt a back molar come loose. I landed on all fours then collapsed when I accidentally put weight on my bad wrist. Hitting my stomach knocked the wind from me.

  “If that’s the way you want it, but it seems a waste to kill such a pretty thing. Even if she is a Satterfield.”

  He unbuckled his belt, and terror sliced through me. I stumbled to my feet, but I only took one step before the belt whistled through the air and sliced open my back, sending me back to my knees.

  “Your mama wouldn’t have anything to do with me,” he sneered as he brought down the belt with all the force he had. “No, no. She had to rub salt in my wound and marry that Satterfield bastard. She knew how much I hated him!”

  Another blow and the world spun around me, but I felt it when Curtis McElroy fell to the ground on his knees. The earth seemed to tremble for me then stilled, and I heard each tooth of his zipper open despite the ringing in my ears and the wheezing of my breath. The air smelled of honeysuckle but tasted of blood.

  “Maybe I should take what your mama wouldn’t give me. Maybe I should figure out why ol’ Julian can’t seem to let you alone.”

  He undid my shorts and yanked them down then smacked my stomach. “Might oughta lay off the fried okra, though.”

  I gasped for air and found it. The hell if he was going to win.

  When he sat back to push down his pants, I kicked him in the crotch as hard as I could and started scooting backward.

  And the hell if I’m giving up fried okra, either.

  Julian

  The last thing I remembered before the rage set in was looking at the scraggly, naked ass of Curtis as he groaned in the fetal position, then seeing Romy as she tried to button her shorts while scooting backward. What came next were flashes, scraps of violence as I Hulked out on the meanest sonuvabitch I’d ever met.

  Somewhere in the back of my mind I heard Romy’s voice calling me, but my mind put that information somewhere else because she didn’t belong here. Not in the middle of all this ugliness.

  Someone touched my shoulder, and I instinctively punched as I whirled, caught the flash of Romy and tried desperately to stop my fist as I had so long ago in the field house fight.

  But this time I wasn’t quick enough. My fist hit her belly, and she gave a soft “oomph” as she fell backward. I watched her fall in slow motion, her face contorted in pain, surprise, and betrayal. Like a sports clip of a nasty hit, I knew I’d replay that moment over and over again.

  “Finally . . . like . . . a . . . McElroy,” Curtis half wheezed and half coughed from where he lay.

  I looked down at my bloodied hands and at Curtis’s bloodied face. I’d finally hit that pockmarked nose, all right.

  “Got ’er good, son,” he rasped with a sneer that showed tobacco-stained teeth with bloody outlines.

  “Romy?” I called.

  “I’m fine,” Romy grunted.

  Not believing her, I stood. That’s when I finally felt hundreds of fiery ant bites on my shins from where they’d crawled up my legs. Cursing, I took a minute to roll Curtis over. The ants had had a field day with his naked ass so I dragged him even farther away from the anthill and left him on his stomach so he wouldn’t choke on his own blood. We both knew it wasn’t far enough to keep all of the ants away. I mainly didn’t want to look at his junk.

  He’d been about to rape Romy.

  Even I hadn’t thought he would stoop that low.

  I kicked him for good measure.

  Romy grunted again, and I turned to see her struggling to button her shorts while sitting, her left arm cradling her ribs. Tears streaked down her dusty, bloody cheeks. I couldn’t look at her face, but I scooted over to help her. She tried to raise up with only her right hand to hold her, but her arm buckled and she fell. I noticed the bandage had come undone from the dog bite that had been healing so nicely. Now that wound was angry and covered in dirt, too. I gently raised her up, buttoning her shorts. She collapsed into my arms, crying and wheezing.

  He’d broken her wrist.

  He’d broken her.

  And I’d let him.

  “We gotta get you to the hospital, baby,” I finally said. “I think you’ve got a broken wrist.”

  She coughed, making strangled choking noises before spitting out a mouthful of blood. “He knocked a tooth loose, Julian. Who does that?”

  Cold fury sliced through me. My eyes darted to the rifle and then to his hairy ass full of angry red welts from the repeated stings of the fire ants.

  I could put a bullet in his brain.

  My eyes went back to the rifle, and I took a step in his direction before Romy grabbed my arm. “Don’t. He’s not worth you going to jail.”

  I guess I could leave him for the ants and vultures. I looked at her. “C’mon, can you walk?”

  She leaned into me, panting, and we only got a couple of steps before I realized she’d somehow hurt her ankle, too. I swept her up into my arms, and she cried out—no doubt from the ribs.

  “What about the gun?”

  I turned toward the rifle, but I’d have to put her down in order to pick it up. I sure as hell couldn’t leave it where Curtis would find it.

  “I’ll take care of the gun. You go on.”

  I almost gave myself whiplash. “Mama?”

  She held the gun trained on Curtis, but her hands shook. “I said git.”

  I moved toward the truck, not sure what I’d just seen or why.

  “What about him?” Romy asked.

  “Don’t know. Don’t care,” I said, but in the distance I could hear sirens.

  Romy

  True to his word, Daddy had called the police when I didn’t answer my phone.

  When Len arrived on the scene, he wanted to put me in the ambulance, but I talked him into letting Julian drive me to the doctor. They’d need the ambulance for Curtis, and I wasn’t about to ride with him. Julian called Daddy to tell him what had happened. That conversation didn’t go well.

  Finally, we sat in the emergency room. Again. This time he held my good hand, but he wasn’t saying anything. That bothered me. I wanted to say something to him, but my jaw hurt like hell from where Curtis had punched me. My back stung, my ribs burned, and my wrist ached. My head had a lump and did some pounding of its own. How did Debbie McElroy put up with this? And why?

  I thought of how she’d looked as she trained the rifle on Julian’s daddy. Looked like she might be done taking it, after all.

  I squirmed in my seat, and Julian pulled me as close as the uncomfortable chairs with their metal arms would allow. He pressed his lips to the top of my head and whispered he was sorry for what had to be the hundredth time. I wanted to be mad at him for not doing something, for not stopping his father, but I knew he’d tried more than once.

  You were the idiot who went out there for a cow. You could’ve waited. You should’ve waited.

  The welts on my back made me think of Curtis pouring alcohol on Julian’s back, and I wished him d
ead. There was no way Julian would be with me as long as Curtis was living—not unless I could convince him to move to Siberia, and that would be highly unlikely.

  “Rosemary Satterfield?”

  Julian went back with me, and I noticed the suspicious looks from the doctors. They thought he had been the one to do this to me. I could tell by how they kept asking the same question over and over, trying to stump me. Julian withdrew even further into himself.

  Finally, they decided to spend more time fixing me up than questioning me: a brace for my wrist and an appointment with an orthopedist, wraps for my ribs, which were blessedly bruised rather than broken, salve for my back, the number of a cosmetic dentist, an ice pack for my head.

  I could feel the guilt suffocating Julian as they added one treatment after the other. If I didn’t get him out of the hospital soon, I’d never get another word out of him. Finally, they let us go with a novel’s worth of instructions. I was already thinking about what I would say to Julian once we reached the safety of his truck when we walked back into the waiting room and Len stood.

  “Julian McElroy, you are under arrest for the murder of Curtis McElroy. Anything you say—”

  “The hell, Len?” My speech was so garbled, I couldn’t even understand myself.

  “Curtis McElroy was dead on arrival and appears to have been beaten to death. I’m thinking you didn’t have enough strength to do it,” Len said, pointing at the brace on my wrist.

  “He was alive when we left. I swear. He was taunting Julian, even!”

  “Well, he’s dead now.” Len held up his cuffs, and Julian turned around, his eyes refusing to meet mine.

  “Keys to the truck are in my pocket, if you think you can drive with one hand,” Julian mumbled.

  “Julian, what are you doing?” I asked as I reached in his pocket for the keys.

  “What I have to,” he said. Finally, his eyes held mine. “I’d do it all over again. Only difference I’d make would be getting there sooner.”

  “What does Mrs. McElroy say?” I asked.