by Ann Minnett
Lark paced too. "Why didn't you scream for help?"
"I yelled, OK? But no one paid attention. I shouted, ‘Three against one’ as I stumbled into the open, surrounded by a raucous beer bust.”
“They could have helped you,” Nora said. “Helped her.”
“No one paid attention,” he said so softly that Lark stepped forward and bent to hear better. “A couple of girls dipped their bare legs into the brackish pool. Neither had tattoos. They laughed at me when I leaned over to talk to them, and I toppled head first into the black sludge. I gagged on slime and fought like hell to get out of that filthy pool. Did one of them push me? Maybe I just lost my balance.”
"You pussy!" Zane screamed into Rob's averted face. Spittle flew from Zane's contorted mouth onto Rob's cheek. "You didn't stop my mom from getting raped?"
Raven howled.
"Not me, Zane." Lark choked out the words, "What he saw wasn't me."
"I saw you, Lark." Rob's faced flushed, his lips tensed under his black shaggy mustache. “I saw your whole left side, tattoo and all.”
Raven’s nails scoured the back of the door.
"God, this is a nightmare. Let my dog out so she won't tear her stitches."
"Oh, so we're supposed to feel sorry for you now?"
He ignored Lark’s challenge and continued. “Later, I thought I’d dreamed it. No rape was reported in the papers, and I went home after graduation, never seeing any of those people again. My only clear recollection was the huge tattoos on your left leg. The left.
“I justified my inaction for years, even had two therapy sessions, hoping to relieve guilt for not stopping… those guys.” Rob had been talking as if alone in the room, but suddenly looked to Lark for confirmation, understanding? He was talking gibberish.
“Talk about backfiring! I learned the concept of peeling the onion on my past, layer by layer. You heard of that?” He checked with each of the others, but they failed to move. “I signed up to rid myself of uncalled-for guilt for not intervening. But during my second and final session,” he said with assurance at Lark, “my quack therapist guided me through the events of that night until the image of your slack face came to mind.” His body shifted, knees pointed toward Lark. His voice lowered and eyelids drooped. The corner of his mouth pulled up ever so slightly, and he said, “You wore two golden earrings in your right earlobe.”
His sinister tone frightened Lark as she straightened and involuntarily touched her right ear. Then a languid smirk formed on his face, and he told her, “Your matted hair behind that ear smelled like sandalwood and sweat.” His smirk slid into a leer. “Your body cushioned mine, all slick. Know what I mean?” He laughed out loud. “But how would I know such things? I didn’t rape you.” His tone and demeanor sobered. “It was his fault, Dr. Shit-for-brains. I got out of there and never went back because he planted that memory.”
Rob spoke to Lark as if they possessed a deep spiritual connection. "I was a different man then. When I noticed your tattoo during the parade, it was like a bolt of lightning. A sign from God, or something."
Zane made a move toward Rob, but Lark blocked him.
Rob flinched. "That's why I asked you about Mizzou. You had to be her."
Zane lunged and smashed the side of the revolver into Rob's cheek, near his ear, making the man's head jolt to his right and his teeth chatter. Nora reached—too late—over the coffee table for Zane's waist, and another open-palmed pounding landed on the same raw cheek. Rob's head hung slack.
Nora caught the hem of Zane’s sweatshirt. "Give me that before you kill him."
He relented, slapping the gun onto her open hand. Zane spun away, but Nora stood nearly six foot herself and had bulked up with heavy chores around their shop. Her surprising intimidation stopped any further beating. "You go sit," she said to Zane. He held his ground. She pointed at Mason who slumped to the floor in the shadow of the dining table. Lark marveled how Mason minded her yet played with the oversized shears, like Pacman gobbling crumbs.
Rob breathed deeply. "Thank you."
"I did it for him, you piece of shit." Nora nodded toward Zane. She stuffed the gun and bullets separately into her coat pocket and sat down beside Dee.
"I just wanted to apologize." Although the gun no longer threatened him, he became agitated, and so did Raven in the mudroom.
No, Lark would shoot the damn barking dog and then shoot Rob, that is, if she held the gun. "You meant the money to buy off your victim?"
"Amends. Simple amends." His left eye wandered, his cheek reddened from Zane's assault. Blood oozed from his left ear, stanched by the black hairs of his beard. "Do you think I'd call attention to myself if I'd raped you?"
"First you say you did and then you didn’t,” Lark said. “Maybe you thought we'd recognize you anyway."
"We?" The eye began to swell. He lifted his cyclops gaze.
Zane tore at his hair. "For God's sake, what else happened?"
With so much more to the story, this ghost threatened to unravel it all. Lark wanted to soothe her son, prepare him for the inevitable, but the past's runaway train sped downhill.
"Did they catch them?" Rob's calm voice startled her. His sly glance set her up for what?
"You’re so smart, what do you think?"
"Them?" Zane's voice broke.
"I don't know," Rob said. "That was my last semester, and I left a couple of days later." The rocking chair squeaked. "I'm sorry, but I wonder why it happened to you," he said to Lark. “Have you ever thought about why you got raped? Now let me go." He grimaced, struggling.
Emboldened by five against one, Lark scooted the footstool within two feet of their captive and leaned into his face. The woodstove’s heat scorched her side. She thumped a knuckle on his chest. "We see a problem with your story, Mr. Whalen." She thumped him harder.
"Huh?"
"You haven't described the woman."
"I don't remember except for the tattoos."
Three consecutive sneezes reminded them of Dee's presence, tucked on the couch. She blew her nose with abandon. "What color was her hair?” Dee asked. “Her eyes? Was she tall or short? Pale or dark? She was more than a tattoo. What the hell did that girl look like?"
He spoke to Lark. "Your long, long hair caught in a thorny plant and fanned in the moonlight like a webbed wing over your right shoulder. Your hair had tangled in the earring on the right.”
“How poetic." Dee tossed a wadded tissue onto the floor.
"What is he talking about?" Zane asked his mom. Mason had crawled behind the couch and now peeked around it.
Lark stood, looming over Rob. “But you supposedly saw me from the left. How could you have seen the earring in my right earlobe unless you were closer?”
He snarled, “You mean… like… over you?”
Nora rolled up her pants leg and pushed her sock into her boot. She propped her leg across the coffee table, knocking an empty Budweiser bottle onto the rug. "How about this?"
Rob ogled her heavy calf and tattoo. He squinted at Nora's angry face and again at her outstretched leg. "You, too?"
"And me." Dee remained glued to the couch but raised her pant leg, baring her own intricate tattoo. The one Rob had actually seen that night.
Rob shook his head. "I don't get it."
"Isn't it interesting," Lark said, revealing part of her own tattoo, "that you conveniently recalled this, but not what she looked like."
"Honest to God, I don't know. She had long hair?" He hung his head.
"Ashamed to look at us?" Lark poked his chest.
Rob leapt out of the rocker to his feet. He had freed his wrists. The rocking chair skidded backwards, crashing into the wood stove.
Dee screamed and Zane tripped over Mason on the floor in staggering away. Raven frenzied in the mudroom. Something on wheels rolled and crashed into the battered door back there. Caught off guard, Lark’s delayed reaction allowed Rob time to grab her shoulders, spin her around to face the others, and shield himself.
His forearm locked across Lark's chest, and his other hand gripped her neck for leverage.
"Everybody out, and I won't call the cops."
"Calm down." Nora said from a distance. "We believe you."
Lark expected him to choke her, if not snap her neck. She caught Nora's eye. We believe you?
Zane lunged for the elbow trapping his mother, but Rob spun Lark so that her shoulders took the brunt of his body slam.
Rob twisted in the opposite direction to deflect Nora's outstretched arms as she flew off the couch.
Lark tore at Rob’s forearm, pulling it down across her breasts. Her heels kicked backward at his shins.
Zane ripped at Rob's shoulder with both fists, and Nora pummeled his opposite arm. Meanwhile, Mason stabbed at Rob’s toes with the shears.
Rob grunted at the onslaught. He released Lark, swatting in all directions with both arms. She fell forward over Mason’s backside.
A deafening blast stunned the melee. A second shot. A third ricocheted off the wood stove and shattered the plasma TV on the wall.
A crimson splotch blossomed at Rob's waistline. His expression asked, how could this happen? He pressed both hands against his waist to stem the blood flow and sank slowly to the floor.
Two seconds elapsed in slow motion.
Over Lark's right shoulder, cold air pushed in from the open doorway where Mason had fled.
Just off to the right, Nora slumped onto the couch.
Lark screamed, "No!" She pulled herself up on the couch’s padded armrest to check on her friend. But Nora had not been shot. Lark faced Dee next.
Dee perched in the far corner of the couch. Feverish, shivering, clutching a dull black hand gun, Dee stared with dull eyes at Rob on the floor. Nora encircled Dee’s upper arms, but Dee would not release the 9mm.
The acrid odor of gun powder made Lark’s eyes water. Her hand clasped over Dee’s hot grip on the grip and said, "Give me the gun. It's over.”
She lied.
* * *
The dull thump signaled Rob's head hitting the hardwood floor near the wood bucket. "You fucking bitch," he growled like a wounded animal.
"Shut up!" Zane towered over him with fists clenched, but his resolve quickly crumpled. "What do we do, Mom?"
"I have to think. Think!"
Raven's body pounded against her makeshift prison behind the door. Her howls were driving Lark insane.
"Is anyone else hurt?" She looked to each person as they patted themselves, shrugged, and checked with one another. “Where’s Mason?”
Mason’s weak voice drifted in from the porch. “I’m okay.” He came inside wiping his thin lips.
She had counted three shots. One hit Rob's belly. Smoke puffed out a small hole in the chimney pipe about eight feet up, and plaster chipped a jagged hole about a yard to its right. Three shots, each closing in on the target.
Wait. What shattered the flat screen TV? Lark had counted only three shots.
"Mason, find a leash and tie that dog outside somewhere." Both hands covered her ears against the dog's agony. She turned to see Nora had taken the 9mm from Dee.
Rob's legs twitched, his grunts grew louder. "Help me, boy," he said, holding out his hand to Zane.
Lark nudged his foot with her boot. "Shut up." Blood now covered Rob’s side, seeping into his jeans and the sleeve that rested across his midsection. "Zane, find him a blanket. And a towel."
"You're going to let me die, aren't you? You vindictive bitch." When Lark knelt beside him, he swatted at her with his bloodied hand. She deflected his weak attempt and shoved him onto his side body up and over to check for an exit wound. Surprise and pain made Rob scream. Thick blood pooled under the small of his back. The bullet had gone through. Three bullets. The one that hit him ricocheted.
Rob's agonized voice turned husky. "I should have finished with you when I had the chance."
Did he say that? Did she imagine his taunt? Between Dee's keening and Mason dragging the struggling dog outside, no one else appeared to have heard. At least, they hadn't reacted.
"I'll bleed out."
"When you had the chance?" Her throat and chest tightened. She couldn’t expand her chest to inhale. Rob cut his good eye at Lark. She forgot the others in the room and leaned closer on hands and knees, expecting his whispered confession.
Rob bellowed, "Zane," knocking Lark back on her heels. "You want to know the truth, my boy?" He lifted his sweaty head, but it clunked on the floor planks. "Have I got a story for you."
Zane’s boots scuffed into her peripheral vision, but she homed onto Rob's suffering eyes. A blanket settled over his supine body. She considered pinching off this monster’s nose and mouth.
"Ah, there you are, son." His quivering lips grimaced. "I'm your dad, all right. Don't let them kill—"
Lark jostled his arm and rib cage hard. "Stop it. Stop it."
He moaned. "Get me to a hospital, Zane. I'll explain."
Lark’s fist pounded into the bloody knuckles protecting his wound. Rob screamed and lost consciousness.
"You killed him!" Zane’s shout made the dog howl from the porch.
Lark leaned over Rob's slack face. She felt his breath on her cheek, smelled sour beer on him. "He's not dead." She crawled across the rag rug to Nora who rocked an inconsolable Dee in her arms.
"Now what?" Nora's flat tone belied the tenderness with which her hand stroked Dee’s scarlet cheek.
Despite her fever, Dee shivered with chills. "Let me finish the bastard." She sputtered, drawing in phlegm and tears, but frailty won out. She collapsed against Nora's shoulder.
"We have to take him to the hospital," Nora said.
"I know." Lark examined sticky blood on her hands and the cuffs of her jacket. Raven's bark, now pinched to a squeak, distressed Lark more than the bleeding man at their feet. "Zane, Mason, carry him to the Subaru."
Zane dutifully stooped for Rob's limp shoulders, but Mason balked. "Do it,” Zane yelled. “Grab his feet." The contagion of panic locked Mason in place, unable or unwilling to move. Zane shouted, “Man up, moron!”
Mason finally approached the wounded man.
"Nora, take everyone home,” Lark said. “I'll drive him to the hospital."
"You can't do that alone."
"I have to." Lark grabbed Rob's slippery belt loop, intending to help the boys lift him. Rob's left arm slid from his belly. The weight of it chopped her forearm. She said, "Put him down."
Zane set Rob's shoulders gently on the rug, but Mason dropped the dead weight of Rob's legs like tossing them away. Lark pressed a shaking bloody hand against Rob's chest. She listened for his breath. She heard nothing over her own ragged panting.
* * *
Lark made coffee. Stalling, grounding herself, keeping one damn thing under control—call it what you will. She made coffee with her back to her shell-shocked friends and two naive teenagers.
And the dead body.
She squeezed her eyes shut and willed her racing heart to slow. Her pulse throbbed in her temples. The exquisite pain of hives spread from her armpits, to her abdomen, and between her legs. She patted cool water onto her enflamed neck. Red splotches would be flooding her face any second now, her maddening, if habitual, reaction to stress.
The odor of gun smoke still hung in the cabin.
Dee lay immobile under a fleece throw on the couch, tissues stuffed up each nostril again. Nora sat at Dee’s feet with head in hands. Zane sat cross-legged on the floor, out of range of the coagulating stain creeping toward his shins. He stared without blinking at the dead man who might have been his father. Mason had scooted on his butt away from the body and now leaned against the wall near the stove. His thrashing feet had slipped in blood, leaving pigeon-toed scratches across the wood planks.
"Nora," Lark said.
Red-splotched eyes looked out from Nora's doughy face, as lifeless as the man on the floor. But she approached the kitchen, and when she reached Lark, they embraced. The connection with her longtime f
riend soothed and settled Lark to the point she sighed, nearing an invisible boundary between comfort and despair. She stepped back, but gripped Nora's arms below her shoulders.
"Think. You and I must think this through. We have to take care of this. Protect them."
A puzzled expression showed Nora’s head hadn’t yet cleared.
"You have to drive the others home." Lark caught herself. "No, not home. To Dee's. We have to talk about this, but not here."
"I have to call Kirk." Tears sheathed Nora’s eyes. "He'll know what to do."
"For God's sake, no." Lark shook her friend. "Five people, including Zane and his friend, already know. We can't tell anyone else."
"Oh, my God." Nora's knees gave way, but Lark grasped her by the collar.
"No one." Lark raised her voice. "You understand?"
"Yes." Nora wavered, regained her balance.
In the relative silence, Raven’s whining from the porch caught their attention.
Zane shifted to all fours and stood up like an old cowboy, thrown by a horse too many times. "Raven's freezing out there." He went out into the cold and returned with the exhausted animal. She strained at the leash toward Rob but gave up and collapsed to the floor.
An image of Zane behind jail bars, an accomplice to murder, flashed in Lark’s mind. She shook it off, energized by its foreboding. She gripped Nora’s shoulders and said, "Load everyone up and take them to Dee's house."
Keys rattled in Nora's pocket. "Zane, get your friend. Let’s go."
Lark tugged at Dee’s bent legs and propped her feet on the floor. "Dee, you have to move." She mumbled reassuring words to her sick friend who shuffled, stooped and quivered like a blanket-covered refugee on a hundred-mile trek. Lark swept the tail of the blanket over Dee's shoulders.
Dee said, “I couldn’t listen a second longer.” Her rheumy eyes searched Lark’s face for sympathy, but Lark carried only hollowed anger for her friend and the weight of responsibility to make this right.
“We’ll talk back at your place.” Lark turned Dee’s shoulders toward the open door where Nora waited, jangling keys and watching Raven pace.