Soil

by Jamie Kornegay

  Half an hour later he came to the place in the river where he’d hidden from the dog killer. The picnic table was still lodged there. He recognized the little snare of limbs where he’d cowered, now nesting fifteen feet inland, marking the river’s retreat. The old shotgun he’d abandoned lay there on its side, the barrel rusty and clogged. He walked across the shelf where the murder had occurred. Grass had grown up to erase all evidence. With the tip of his crutch, he mashed the head of a sunning lizard in commemoration.

  This need for vengeance bore into him like parasites under the skin. He’d been crippled by injustice and would commit anything to give some back. And so the woodsman heaved himself along the riverbank in vague search, dragging his swollen legs. He craved a beverage but dared not drink from the oily pools or risk climbing down the jagged clay banks to sip the shit-brown river. He’d come too far to go over the brink and wash up in some factory cesspit the next county over.

  Finally he approached what looked like a dry cove. It was a cradle of mud scooped out of the bank, streaked up with tracks from something slithering and rooting around. Wild hogs? He clutched the shotgun. Two birds called out across the trees. One seemed to say, Hey, watch this.

  Limbs rustled in the blind ahead. He saw nothing coming until it was there, out of the brush. He drew his weapon, stupefied. It was the last person in the world he expected to see coming through the trees.

  “The nigger lives!” he hissed. The woodsman cocked the weapon and took dead aim. “How come you was dead?” he cried.

  There came no answer from the specter, just a livid ghost-eyed stare.

  30

  Shoals arrived at the sheriff’s office midmorning on Monday. He stopped at Desdimona’s desk to ask about her weekend. She wouldn’t even look up at him, just shook her head. “You in some shit today, Sugar.”

  He walked back to face the music from his uncle. Bynum was already there in midtirade. “There he is,” the chief deputy said.

  “Morning, y’all,” Shoals said with casual cheer.

  Bynum couldn’t wait. “Imagine this—the state investigators arrive first thing this morning from Jackson. There’s a new lead in a national missing person case. For the first time, we have evidence suggesting possible foul play. A major interstate crime, likely perpetrated right here in Bayard County. They’ve come for this vital piece of evidence, which was discovered, unbeknownst to the lead investigator, by one of our very own deputies. Our department turns it over. They open the bag and what do they find?”

  Shoals pinched the bridge of his nose.

  “A goddamn chew toy, Danny!”

  “I’m sorry, Robbie.”

  “Why didn’t you notify me or the sheriff that you’d found a severed hand?” Bynum demanded. “Did it not occur to you that maybe that was worthy of mention?”

  “I didn’t want to interrupt y’all’s weekend,” Shoals replied. “And besides, I could handle it.”

  “You didn’t, though. You didn’t handle it correctly. You fucked up my whole investigation, Danny.” He threw the file against the wall for effect, papers spilling everywhere.

  Shoals looked to his uncle, stern and dispassionate as ever.

  “Look, Robbie, it’s not a total loss, okay?” Shoals said. “Suzie-Q played with it a little, but it don’t change the simple fact of what we found and where we found it.”

  Bynum threw his hands in the air and spun around, some dramatic act of exasperation. “You didn’t even mark off the scene. You didn’t follow procedure at all. Assembled your own civilian team to search the woods nearby? You don’t have a clue, do you? You truly have no idea what you’re doing or what your job requires. You are as unqualified for this job as any jackass off the street.”

  “Tell you what,” said Shoals, bowing up in defense, “we can take a walk out back and I’ll demonstrate how not to conduct an interrogation.”

  The sheriff stood and ushered Bynum out of the office, closed the door, and invited his nephew to sit. “This isn’t good, Danny,” his uncle said. “I have to agree with Robbie on this one.”

  Shoals leaned forward, elbows on his knees and pleading. “I know, Sheriff. I stepped in a big pile on this one. I was just trying to show you I could take the lead on something, okay? But I need your help to show me the right way to do this stuff. I want to lead.”

  The sheriff sat back and crossed his legs, stared long and thoughtful at his nephew, probably wondering how much horseshit he was shoveling.

  “Dun was here this morning,” the sheriff said. “I think it might be wise for you to lay low this week.”

  Shoals bowed his head. What else could go wrong for the good-luck kid? All of this for showing some initiative?

  He looked up at his uncle. “I’ve been laying low for too long, Uncle Bud. I’m ready to play ball. Don’t cast me aside. I want you to know I’ve got it in me to be great like my dad.”

  The sheriff considered this, hands clasped, fingers to his lips. He opened his desk drawer and pulled out a small black leather Bible. He had a verse ribboned, which he studied, and then closed the book. “Paul wrote the Philippians from prison, and do you know what he told them?”

  It might be said that his uncle, an abider of peace, had spared the rod a merciful time or two when Danny was young, but never the Scripture. It was a book he knew intimately, the only one, and he used it like a man who believed words could change the wicked.

  Shoals told him no sir. He had no idea what Paul would have said about any of this.

  “ ‘I have often told you, as I do now with tears, that there are many who walk through life unaware that they make their way as enemies of Christ,’ ” the sheriff said, taking the words for his own. “ ‘They are headed for destruction, my friend. Their bodies are their god, and they take pride in what should bring shame. Their minds are set on earthly things. And for them, there will be no escape from this earth.’ No escape from this earth. Doesn’t that sound horrible?”

  Shoals pursed his lips and nodded thoughtfully.

  “I don’t mean to preach to you, Danny, because I aint a preacher,” his uncle said, flicking the official seal of office displayed on his desk. “I’m just giving you a heads-up, okay? Your fly’s open. Like that.”

  Shoals checked his pants and smirked. “I hear you, Uncle Bud. I appreciate it.”

  “You don’t have to be a hero,” the sheriff added. “Just be a good man.”

  Shoals stood to leave, shook his uncle’s hand.

  “May not seem like it, but I look to you more than all the rest,” the sheriff said.

  Shoals nodded and left. He took slow, thoughtful strides down the hall and out into the reception room.

  “Hey, Sugar,” Desdimona called him back.

  He stood soberly over her desk. She passed him the horseshoe. “You might need this back,” she said.

  He took it in his hand, studied its curves and ridges. Earthly stuff.

  “Nah,” he said and passed it back. “I’m good just by myself.”

  He shot her a wholesome grin and turned to leave but stopped before he hit the door. He turned and came back, put his arm against the doorway to the station room, and leaned in, called out loud and clear enough so that the deputies at their desks could hear and heed him—“Listen up, fellas. If he shows up again, you can tell that bald-headed son of a bitch Dun Spiller I’m looking for him too.”

  31

  He sprang into World-Mart with the smiling confidence of a successful young professional. Clean-shaven and closely cropped, he moved through the aisles with a sharp stride, his buffed dress shoes snapping purposefully over the linoleum. He kept his sunglasses on, a sign of healthy ego, and his crisp shirt and pressed pants—dug out of the closet, still wrapped in plastic from the cleaners—painted him above reproach. He pushed a lazy-wheeled cart through the maze of products, referring slyly now and then to the pal
m of his hand, where he’d composed a shopping list. As he made his brisk way around the giant complex, he observed the positions of other customers and security cameras mounted in the ceiling under shaded bubbles. In the packaged meat aisle he crouched behind a display of ready-made school lunch kits and choked down half a sleeve of raw hot dogs with tasteless dispassion. If he believed anyone in the control room was watching the security cameras, he might have waited until he’d unloaded his purchases in the parking lot. But today he felt a brief and blessed freedom from fear of scrutiny.

  He shopped thriftily for two. They wouldn’t need much, only each other’s company and a bit of comfort. In the sporting goods section he spied an affordable junior dome tent and sleeping bag set and added it to his stash. Who needed to sit indoors and mull over the lack of lights or television when you could sleep outside for only thirty dollars?

  It was all going fine until he tried to pay for his goods. There were forty or more checkout lanes installed, only two in operation. He stepped into the far shorter line and was confronted by a lady in an official World-Mart jumper, who inspected his basket. “Sir, you’ll have to wait in this line,” she insisted, directing him to the longer queue.

  “I’m sorry?” he asked.

  “Ten items or less here, you’ll have to move to the next,” she said, reprimanding him dispassionately. His cart contained maybe twenty-five items. The other lane was backed up ten deep.

  Jay opened his mouth to complain, to state the obvious, but then he remembered that he was in a temple of consumerism where the normal rules of logic did not apply and where every corner which might guarantee customer well-being had been cut, a necessary sacrifice that made possible the base cost of goods and exploited the weakness in those who craved the thousands of useless objects on display, objects that would, for just a moment, numb the pain they felt in their daily lives, being squeezed by every other segment of society from trifling employers to providers of utilities and goods and services, health care and insurance to credit scams and substandard education to mindless soul-sucking culture and intractable political discourse, not to mention demanders of taxes, fees, penalties, and . . . He shuddered and then smiled simply and nodded, steered his cart to the other lane.

  He struggled to maintain equanimity for twenty minutes as he waited to pay, and in the homestretch, after he’d calculated his purchases several times in his head, Jay realized he would have about twenty bucks left over, locked forever inside his World-Mart gift card. It was assured by now that he would never return here under any circumstances, unless it be looting in the wake of whatever cataclysm society was meant to suffer for such as this, so he transferred the balance to a credit gift card that he could use anywhere else.

  He stowed his purchases in the back of the Bronco and checked the time. He had an hour until pickup, so he swung by the public library to scope out recent newspapers for any updates, especially concerning the weekend’s gruesome discovery. No mention of severed hands or search parties. Either the sheriff’s office was keeping a tight lid on things or the whole operation in Jay’s field had been staged, some sort of setup or subterfuge. Having watched the deputy at work, Jay found it hard to believe that he might be capable of conducting anything that required subtlety or careful forethought.

  He gave himself plenty of time to arrive at the school, but nothing could have prepared him for the car pool line—a many-tentacled beast, churning and pulsating in prerehearsed merges and loops and switchbacks. To an idle father it was unforgiving, a closed system designed to expose and defeat his questionable humanity.

  Jay’s first mistake was trying to enter from the wrong direction. He came up Saddler Avenue from the south and attempted to make a left-hand turn onto the campus, but he could tell from the stone-faced response of the giant SUV-driving dad in fierce shades that he wasn’t cutting line today. He drove up farther, following the snaking line of vehicles several blocks, and performed a three-point turnabout, frustrating drivers who came at him from every side. Nor did his rookie shame subside upon entering the campus, for he was clueless about which lane to take. Though the procession moved at a snail’s pace, something in its ruthless efficiency suggested that children must be collected quickly or else they’d be sent back to the gymnasium or study hall while their real parents were called.

  There was also Jacob. How would he react to seeing his dad after all this time? Two months must seem to him like two years. Would they even recognize each other? What if, upon seeing his father, he refused to get in the Bronco? What if he ran crying into the arms of a teacher and they radioed to the policeman on duty, for surely there must be one here, scoping out potential crazed parents or disgruntled students with lumpy duffel bags and black trench coats.

  God, he had the pistol in the glove box. If they searched the vehicle, he would be taken straight to jail, no questions asked, his mug on the nightly news. A cursory inspection of his home might not turn up anything, but some second-sight detective could make a pass, tug the right string, and unravel the whole sordid mess.

  He looked in the rearview mirror. He’d already entered the campus and there was no way to turn back now. He was hemmed in on all sides. He felt the thousand judging eyes of parents and teachers. Who was this, some administrator staring at him, her mouth against a walkie-talkie? All of his paperwork was in order, the screaming orange placard attached to the passenger-­side windshield, printed with MIZE and a number-letter code, which he’d picked up, along with Jacob’s things, hidden in the carport at the Waller Street rental, a negotiation that required twenty minutes of creeping around the neighborhood’s outskirts, making his cautious way to assure that he wasn’t being followed or that the hot-rod deputy wasn’t waiting in the alley or the gas mart next door or the abandoned factory parking lot down the way.

  When he merged right toward the elementary building, the line split into a three-pronged formation. He stuck to the outside lane, where he felt most comfortable. If all else failed, he’d be able to make a getaway across the immaculately landscaped campus.

  Finally it was his turn at the head of the line. The clutch of vehicles was given the signal. They all eased forward into their respective slots. A tall staffer in an orange vest conducted them with a stop sign, his whistle at the ready. On the far right side, a throng of eager kids fidgeted in anticipation. When everyone was in place, they were released like hounds at a foxhunt. Jay scanned the crowd for his son but could not find him among the kids, all dressed alike in their maroon and khaki uniforms, scampering through the maze of sport-utility wagons.

  A strange woman appeared at the passenger door, tried the locked handle, and tapped on the window. He reached over to unlock the door, and then it opened and his precious son was there, wide-eyed and tentative. Jay could say nothing, only hoist a grimace onto his face as the high-pitched lady cried, “Jacob, is this your ride?”

  The boy nodded and climbed in, a bit unsure. He looked the same, his hair a little shaggier.

  “Okay, then, y’all have a good break,” squealed the teacher and closed the door.

  They stared at each other for a cruel suspicious second and then fell into each other’s arms. They both cried. Clutching Jacob was like a charge that set Jay’s metronome right. All the horror and guilt and paranoia melted away in an instant. This child held a life-giving force which was saving him. He inhaled the boy’s scent, a combination of schoolroom antiseptic and musty playground sweat, an odor sweeter to him than a field of wildflowers, and for once his olfactories were cleansed of the putrid phantoms.

  A horn honked behind them. They’d been given clearance and their reunion was holding up the line. Jay sat up, wiped his eyes, and threw the Bronco in motion. “Oh, buddy, I’ve missed you like crazy,” he said, unable to let go of his boy, and the child scooted over and clutched his father’s arm as if it were a log floating down a runaway river.

  Finding it cumbersome to drive with the boy so
fixed to him, Jay pulled over at the tennis courts up the street and they embraced awhile longer.

  “Look at you,” Jay said, holding his little man at arm’s length, his swollen eyes full of pride. “I must be insane to be away from you for so long, you beautiful boy.” Jacob, a red-faced mess himself, crimped his little mouth in an embarrassed grin but could say nothing.

  “How old are you now, like eleven?” Jay asked.

  The boy giggled. “No, Dad.”

  “Twenty?”

  “No!” he cried.

  “A hundred!”

  “Dad!” Jacob bellowed. “I’m six, silly!”

  “Hey, I know something . . .”

  “What?”

  “Are you hungry?”

  The boy’s eyes shot up to the left in quirky contemplation. “Yes,” he replied, almost as a question.

  “Me too,” Jay said. “I haven’t eaten in six weeks. How does a pancake feast sound to you?”

  “Yes,” the boy hissed, cocking his arm in triumph. It was a foreign gesture, something he’d picked up along his fatherless way.

  * * *

  On the outskirts of town they stopped at the Tour Chef, a defunct truck stop that remained simply a diner, famous for its all-day breakfast. It was legendary in these parts, singular greasy highway fare in a world of bland knockoffs. They grabbed a window booth and ordered a tall stack to split. Jay took coffee and let Jacob have soda. “How about some sausage and bacon too,” Jay added. The diner aromas were stoking his old beastly hunger.

  While they waited Jay studied his son and admired his wavy brown hair, the smattering of freckles that had appeared along his nose and cheeks. He was a good-looking boy, calm, curiosity in his eyes. “I’ve been looking forward to you coming back to the country,” he told Jacob.