by Chris Fabry
The guy spoke through clenched teeth. “You don’t get it, do you?” He pointed the gun at Dad this time. “You either drive now or she’s in the ditch.”
I was able to sit up enough to see my dad’s eyes in the rearview. He always said there was really no reason to have the mirror because you can’t see out the back except for a sliver if the shades aren’t pulled down. But at the moment I was glad it was there.
“You okay?” Dad said to me.
I nodded and tried to get up, but the guy pushed me back on the bench and this time the scrawny girl sat down beside me and put her arm around my shoulder.
“Drive,” the mean guy said.
“But that’s not the way we’re headed,” I said. “We just came from there.”
The police car racing toward us turned onto the interstate. The woman leaned back, and it felt like she was trembling as it passed.
“It’s all right,” Dad said to me. He had a tone of voice when he was talking to me and another when he was talking to other people. “We’ll take these two wherever they want to go, and then we’ll be on our way.”
The mean guy snickered, which I didn’t think was very nice, but I guess you can’t expect much from such people. Dad put the RV in gear and pulled out. We had to cross a bridge to get over the interstate, and I closed my eyes and started singing.
“Shut up,” the guy said.
I stopped singing and started humming.
The woman pulled me closer. “What is it?”
“We’re going over a bridge. I get scared, so I sing a song and it helps.”
“That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard,” the guy mumbled.
“Why are you scared of bridges?” the woman said.
“I don’t know. I’m afraid of falling in the water.”
“There’s no water down there,” the guy said.
“Doesn’t matter. I still have to sing.” I felt my breath getting shorter and I started to pant, this big knot starting in my chest that made me feel like I couldn’t breathe.
“You go ahead and sing then,” the woman said.
And I did.
Another police car passed on the interstate below us and Dad turned left, finally getting off the bridge. We headed west, the way we had come, and I wondered if we’d ever make it to Dogwood.
That’s when I noticed the funny smell. It wasn’t just the cigarette smoke; it was like they hadn’t had a bath in years. I thought maybe they were carrying something dead in that backpack. I wasn’t about to ask. You might think that her putting an arm around me was a good thing, but when you can’t breathe because of the panic and the smells, well, you can see I was in a bad position.
I pulled away and said, “I need to go back to bed.”
“Stay right where you are,” the mean guy said. He flicked the gun toward me like he was ordering a dog to stay in its kennel.
The guy opened the refrigerator, but there was nothing inside except some water bottles and cans of pork and beans and fruit cocktail. I told him the generator hadn’t worked for a long time and he just grunted. He grabbed a bag of potato chips from inside one of the cupboards and munched on those.
“Where you two headed?” I said. I figured talking with them might be a good idea as long as I didn’t ask the wrong question, but from the look on the man’s face, that was what I had done.
“Shut your piehole.”
I looked at the woman, and she looked down at me with eyes that had big red lines through the whites. “What’s in the bag?” I whispered.
She frowned. “Nothing you need to know about.” She put a finger to her lips. “Just be quiet.”
They say there’s a peace that passes all understanding, and that it’s available to anybody who wants it. I believe in Jesus and I know he lives in my heart, but right then I didn’t have any peace because I thought the guy would rather shoot us than look at us. Sometimes having Jesus in your heart makes you feel good all over, like you know there’s somebody who loves you no matter what, but it was hard to focus on that.
“Watch your speed, Jimmie Johnson,” the mean guy said to my dad. He smirked like he had said the funniest thing ever. “We don’t want them pulling you over and me having to shoot the lot of you.”
I was trying hard to think of something good, and I remembered when I’d first become a Christian. We were down in Florida at this RV park that wasn’t far from a big church and the signs said Vacation Bible School. Some people came by handing out invitations. One man had this hat with mesh netting that hung down, like you see on an African safari. One of the older women oohed and aahed over the Little Mermaid dress I was wearing and said I should ask my mama if I could come. She didn’t know I didn’t have one, but I didn’t let that bother me.
I showed my dad the invite and he wadded it up and was going to toss it, but then I started to bawling and he said, “We don’t even know what kind of church this is.”
I said, “I don’t care what kind it is. I want to go. It starts tomorrow, and they said it doesn’t cost anything.”
The next morning he walked me there, and it seemed this wasn’t something easy for him. We’d been in little country churches out in the boonies before, but this was a big church with big windows and a new parking lot. The lady at the front desk was dressed in a safari outfit too. That was the theme of the week, and they even brought in a real elephant one day which I couldn’t hardly believe. Dad gave the lady my information and said we were staying at the campground.
Instead of being escorted out because we weren’t as well off as everybody else, the lady made me this real nice name tag that said June on it, and she gave me a brand-new shirt with a giraffe on the front. I put it on over my other shirt because the air-conditioning was turned up so high it felt like they could have invited penguins for supper. She pinned the name tag on and told my dad where I needed to go, and then I was off in a river of kids to the south wing of the church.
My dad stopped at the big doors, and a lady took my hand and led me down the hallway. I looked back and waved, and when the class started I saw him through the window walking back to the campground, staring at the ground. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him because he had to spend the next three hours alone, and I couldn’t imagine what he was going to do with himself.
But I didn’t let that keep me from having fun because they taught us some songs and had us do motions with hands and feet. It was funny watching the grown-ups because you don’t expect it. I still remember a couple of the songs, and if anybody asked I could sing them, but nobody does.
It was the end of the second day, after they’d gone through the stuff about God making all the animals and that Jesus was the one who created everything and actually came to earth and lived a perfect life so he could be punished for our sins. I didn’t understand it at first because it didn’t make sense that somebody who was perfect should have to die for somebody else who wasn’t. But the more I listened, the more something inside felt like it was being stirred up—like that natural peanut butter that has all the oily stuff on top and doesn’t taste good until you mix it. My dad and I had read Bible stories at bedtime before, but this made it all real. Everybody had done bad things, and instead of turning his back on us and just blowing the whole planet up, God sent his Son to make a way back.
When I heard that, I was the first one standing with my hand raised, wanting to pray with one of the adults. It wasn’t one of those crying things like on TV, where people come up and they’re carrying their handkerchiefs and wiping tears. It was more like I knew this was what I needed to do and I wanted to.
That afternoon I told Dad what had happened as we were walking back home. I didn’t know what he would say, but I was glad when he smiled and squeezed my hand. “That’s great, June Bug. I’m proud of you.”
Even if he isn’t my real dad, it sure felt good to have him say that, and I don’t think I’ll ever forget either feeling—the one when I asked Jesus to come in and change me and the one when my dad smiled and told m
e I’d done a wonderful thing.
He came the last day when we performed and every dad there had a video camera except mine. He sat in the back row and watched. Some of the older kids had speaking parts and the leaders tried to corral us as best they could, like we were some wild animals—which, in truth, there were a few of the boys who should have been taken to a zoo and put in a cage, if you ask me. They were just as wild as any jungle animal, but I guess that proves what the teacher was saying, that we’re all sinners and need somebody to forgive us.
That was the extent of my church education, except for the occasional visit and late-night stories Dad told me about guys in the Old Testament who knew how to use knives and swords. I don’t know where he came by that information. Maybe they talked about “Ehud, the left-handed Benjamite” in the military or something, but his eyes lit up when he talked about it.
That’s what I was thinking about when the man with the gun got the woman alone and whispered to her at the back of the RV. I caught Dad’s eyes in the rearview, and he seemed to be telling me something, motioning with his arm, but I couldn’t figure it out. The mean guy saw and he grabbed me and flung me onto the bed. I cried because he hurt my arm, and when I hit the mattress, all the air came out of me.
The mean guy looked out the window at a blue sign. “There’s a rest area in ten miles,” he yelled. He pointed the gun at Dad. “Pull in there and I’ll tell you what to do.”
18
Sheriff Hadley Preston measured his steps on the dirt road, taking in the sounds of crickets and watching fireflies ascend. His eyes adjusted to the moonlight and shadows of tree branches.
There was movement along the ditch as an animal crept along. An opossum lumbered across the road, fat and sated on some carrion, its long tail dragging. He always had a mixture of revulsion and respect for the bottom-feeder. Like an above-pond turtle, eating anything dead it could sink its sharp teeth into. Preston nearly picked up a stick and threw it, if only to see it roll on its back and snarl its mouth into a death pose. It protected itself by making predators think it was already dead, kind of like most of Congress, he thought. But he thought better of making noise.
With all of its ugliness and impurity, there was something noble and likable about an animal that would do whatever it needed to protect its young and provide for them. The possum was just trying to get by, and there was honor in that.
Preston listened to Mike move from the cruiser and across the creek. The kid had made a loud splash and cursed, and Preston rolled his eyes and couldn’t help but smile. Mike made his way back into the hillside with relative ease and little noise, made easier by the presence of life springing forth in the early summer heat. The ground was wet and pliable now, not stiff and crackly like in the fall when things died and fell and became noisy underfoot.
A mosquito sucked blood from Preston’s neck and he swatted at it as a few deerflies tried to get in on the action. A swarm of gnats surrounded him like a cloud. He waved his hat like a horse swishes its tail. He figured there was some stagnant water nearby, and he caught a whiff of something rotting. He picked up the pace, waving his hat and spitting out a gnat that had flown in his mouth. The swarm finally lessened, though a deerfly did find the vulnerable spot on his neck. Life is harsh and unforgiving in the woods, and when something dies, something else lives, and the rest pay the price.
Preston spotted the cabin, if you could call it that, on a little rise away from the road. Just four walls and a small window in front and a pipe sticking out of the roof. Two doors, one in front and one in back. There were bigger gaps in the rotting wood around the cabin than he remembered, and the window had only a few shards of glass left. Ancient shingles on one side of the roof looked like they were moving in the moonlight.
Preston had been here with his father and mother, searching for her brother, an Army veteran from the Korean conflict. The man had gotten lost in the bottle so many times his body had wasted to next to nothing. There was a pattern to his life—he’d straighten out, spend some time at the VA hospital in Huntington, and then resume his concrete work. He was one of the best concrete flatwork finishers in the county. He’d even show up at church a few times, thanking people for their prayers and saying he hoped he would never find himself in that position again. But he’d eventually get mixed up with the wrong people, and one day he’d just be gone, disappearing into the shell. Preston’s mother would start looking, asking where he might be, and it led her here one winter, on a tip from one of his drinking buddies.
Preston’s father had gotten out of the car and stood there, his breath floating in the chill wind, staring at the countryside and the little building. “Wait here,” he had said, and Preston had never seen the lines of worry on the man’s face like that.
His mother and father walked up the hill together over the frozen ground, peeking in the window and cupping their hands to see inside. His mother scraped at the frost. Then they opened the door and went into the darkened shack, and Preston wondered what they had found inside. Just his imagination kicking in to the horror. Half of the fear of life is not knowing something that you wished you knew, and the other half is knowing it.
Preston took a breath and let it out, standing there as a grown-up, watching the two in his memory, carrying the sack of bones that was his uncle down to the car, his mother crying and struggling over uneven ground, his uncle trying to put a foot out every now and then, and his father carrying most of the weight with one arm, like a sack of grain that had a hole in the bottom and was spilling out. Preston had held the car door, but his uncle stopped short and tilted his head and retched until he finally tossed the contents of his stomach on the ground. A mixture of brown and red splattered Preston’s shoes. The man’s face was like a ghost’s when he stood.
“Sorry about that, Hadley,” his uncle said as if just noticing him. “How you doin’, boy?”
“I’m okay.”
And then they all got in and drove out of the hollow, his uncle rolling down the window and trying to get his mouth positioned outside. His clothes stained, his beard and stubble growing around chapped lips, his skin sallow and shrunken, drawn so that there was nothing but skin on bone. His eyes had scared Preston the most. It almost looked like he was another person now, and in truth, he was.
His father had Preston get out at the end of their road—it was about a mile walk to the house from there—and he told him to head home and stay there until they got back. That was okay with Preston. The last place he wanted to be was the VA hospital with all the sick people and the crying and the smells. To this day Preston had a hard time with any hospital, and he was pretty sure it had started with one of those trips.
Over the years, the cabin had been vandalized by young people until the property owner boarded up the entrances and put Posted signs around it. The occasional hunter now occupied it, but few would ever stay overnight. There was a sickly, moldy smell about the place, as if water had soaked the wood so much that it was beyond repair. As Preston stood there in the moonlight, he could feel the familiar ache of the spot, like a pinpoint on a map of the heart that brought back hurt just by looking at it.
Something moved to the right up the hill. Preston spotted Mike snaking along the ridge behind the cabin. The kid was moving quickly with his revolver out and his hands spread to catch himself if he fell. A wall of dirt stood behind the cabin, and Preston was surprised with all the slippage of the land over the years that it hadn’t already caved in.
A little farther was a small car pulled off to the side. Someone had made a feeble attempt to hide it with stray branches and an uprooted bush or two. From the back it looked like a Toyota. He clicked on his flashlight and saw the reflection of West Virginia plates.
As soon as Mike was behind the cabin and out of sight, Preston saw two quick bursts from the flashlight in the trees overhead. He signaled the same and moved up the hill. There was no light inside the cabin and no movement that he could tell, other than the ghostly moonglow on the
shingles.
As he stepped onto the front porch, a raccoon darted out and streaked past him. Preston nearly fell backward, but he caught a sapling and regained his balance. He listened for a moment and heard no movement inside. Maybe this whole thing was a ruse. Maybe it wasn’t Gray’s car up the road. But when he set foot on the porch and the first board squeaked like some haunted house’s front door, Preston heard a click inside that sounded like a shotgun.
“Gray, it’s Sheriff Preston. I want to talk to you.” His voice sounded strained, even to himself, as his words echoed through the hills.
No response.
He released the snap over his holster and pulled out the gun, then took a step to his left, away from the door. He didn’t think the boy had the nerve to actually open fire on anyone but himself. But if he had enough liquor in him and was scared of going to jail, who knew what could happen.
“Nobody has to get hurt here, Gray. Come out and let’s talk.”
Preston hadn’t trained at hostage negotiation or talking someone down from a ledge, but he knew enough that calm and reassuring words could go a long way. He had to be careful not to use Walker’s name like a used car salesman. He’d done that one too many times with a young fellow in Hurricane he’d found holed up in his high school chemistry room. It was one of those images stuck in his mind he couldn’t shake. The kid holding a handgun to his chin, scared as a trapped mouse.
“I’m done talking, Sheriff,” Gray said, his voice muffled and groggy, as if he’d just come out of hibernation. “You done made up your mind about me.”
“That’s not true. I haven’t made up my mind about anything. I don’t know what went on that night. I’m trying to get answers. Now come out and we’ll just talk.”
“Right. The lawman always just wants to talk.” He said it in a mocking tone, like something he’d seen on a sitcom that deserved a laugh track. “And pretty soon I’m strung up in some tree. I’m convicted already, and you know it.”