Luke started to say something, but Papa turned his back on him, and in two short steps was back inside the shed, the door swinging shut behind him.
As he stood there, the rain still pattering on his shoulders, the severed head gripped firmly by its hair, Luke felt overcome by bitterness toward the old man, who, ever since that day in the clearing with Susanna, had shown no affection, or respect toward him, not even a little. Worse, the old bastard had never once sat him down to explain why he’d done what he’d done to his sister, why they couldn’t have just let her go, or maybe tried to talk some sense into her. No, he’d left that task to Momma-in-Bed, and he suspected, at the back of his mind, that all she’d done was make excuses because she wasn’t rightly sure herself, no matter what she’d said about the poison in his seed. Neither one of his parents had grieved for her.
Luke turned away, and looked from the head to the semicircle of bodies huddled around the fire—his brothers, still eating, Matt’s skin draped like an animal hide across a battered old workhorse between them and the four ramshackle sheds they used for the Men of the World. Luke hadn’t given them the order to keep the skin for Momma. They had known, most likely because one or more of them had been listening at the window when Momma said it, and they’d worked quickly. For one brief moment, a flame ignited inside him, hot enough to make tears of shame and hurt blur his vision. He imagined them crouched down beneath that dirt-smeared glass, their heads bowed as they listened to the story of cold-blooded murder, his part in it, and the warning he was given. They would have heard the fear in his voice that only surfaced when Momma or Papa threatened him. They would have heard it all, and hurried to deny him the one command he could use to reinstate his authority over them. Then they’d watched him—he had felt their stares on his back as sure as the rain—through the smoke and heat from their meal, as he’d picked his way toward Papa’s shed. And they would have known he would find even less warmth up there, a fact confirmed by their father’s sudden tossing of the severed head, done, Luke guessed, to entertain his other, more faithful sons. In fumbling it, Luke had given them all exactly what they’d wanted.
As he approached them now, he forced a crooked smile. They looked up expectantly, blood and fat smeared across their faces.
“You been cryin’?” Aaron asked tonelessly.
Luke shook his head. Not crying, he wanted to say. Just ’memberin’ how much I hate that kin-killin’ son of a bitch. But he would never say such a thing, no matter how true it might be. To say it aloud would be to condemn himself, for he had no doubt that as soon as the words left his mouth, Papa would hear them. And a blade would cut those words in the same swing that took Luke’s head off at the shoulders. His brothers would mourn him without weeping, devour his flesh without hesitation, and promptly forget he’d ever existed, like they seem to have done with Susanna and now Matt, their gentle brother, who would be remembered only for today, and only when the taste of him rolled back up their throats. So instead he took a deep breath, watched as Joshua and Isaac stared curiously at the head in their brother’s hands, and delivered the instructions his father had given to him.
Immediately the boys moved into action, scrambling toward the sheds, propelled by the excitement of another hunt so soon, leaving Luke alone to stare at the gnawed remains of his brother, the smoke burning his eyes, the smell taunting his belly.
To anyone watching, the small shake of his head would appear to be a gesture of sympathy, or regret.
But it was none of these things.
It was anger, pain.
And envy.
* * *
“Pa?”
The old man sat in a chair by the fire, chin on his chest as if asleep, but his eyes were open and watching the door, one hand on the stock of the rifle he’d set across his lap, the other on the neck of a bottle of rye whiskey.
Pete, right ear still ringing from the blow his father had dealt him when he’d caught the boy looking in the injured girl’s window, wasn’t sure if he should head upstairs to bed, apologize again, or just keep his mouth shut. But he wanted to hear his Pa speak, because since they’d come home, the old man hadn’t said a word. This in itself was nothing unusual, but something about the silence tonight was different. It unnerved Pete, thrummed through his stomach until he thought he was going to be sick. Even the crickets and bullfrogs seemed to sing with less enthusiasm, the birds sounding tired and wary, as if eager to warn the old man and his boy of something bearing down on them, but unable to find a song they would understand. Night had come fast too, the unseen sun sinking down behind the trees at the edge of the property, sending out a low cold and steady breeze like a ripple after a rock has been dropped in a pond. Quietly, Pete moved to the table and took a seat, his arms folded on the chipped wood among the remains of a hastily thrown together rice and corn dinner, which Pete had cooked, and had seemed to have been alone in enjoying. From here he had a clear view of his father, whose sharp profile was silhouetted by the flickering flames, but should the old man erupt into a sudden violent rage, the table was between them, and would afford the boy protection, however briefly.
“Pa?”
Slowly, so slowly Pete imagined his neck should have creaked like an old door, his father turned his head to look at him. His eyes were like smoked glass, a cold fire flickering beyond them.
“You hush up now,” Pa said. “Need to listen.”
“For what?”
His father sighed, but didn’t reply, then went back to looking at the door with such intensity that Pete found himself checking it himself for something he might have missed all these years—a word, maybe, or a carving or engraving, something that might justify his father’s scrutiny.
“You scared’a somethin’?” he asked then after giving up on the door and focusing instead on his father’s taut, aged face.
He didn’t understand a whole lot about his old man, but figured himself a pretty good judge when it came to moods. Anger was the easiest one of course, given that it was, more often than not, a whole lot of blustering, heavy breathing and cussing, followed by a couple of open-handed smacks across the head if the fault was Pete’s, and a couple of kicks in the ass if it wasn’t. Sorrow was a tougher one, but over the years Pete had learned to recognize that too. He reckoned his Pa had never really gotten over Louise—who Pete considered his second Ma—leaving him, and the boy thought he understood that. Sometimes late at night when he lay in bed, Pete would watch the stars, untainted by city light and sparkling like shattered glass in the moonlight, and go over the constellations in his mind, summoning the memory of her, imagining her there beside him, listing off all the names. Sometimes he imagined so hard he could almost feel her there, could smell that scent which had always brought to mind images of spring flowers and clean laundry as she sat next to him on the bed, her fingers stroking his hair, her other hand on his wrist. There’s Cassiopeia, she would whisper in his ear, looks just like a double-u, see it? And there’s Orion, and those three stars right there, that’s his belt. Up’n the corner, see that one look’s red? And he would nod and wait for an answer that wasn’t coming, because she hadn’t stayed around long enough to offer it, and so there his imagination would falter and the loneliness would rush in like cold water through holes in a sinking ship. But there were always dreams, and in dreams she never left him, was still here cooking mouth-watering food for them, singing with that beautiful voice of hers, and messing around with Pa, who would scowl and look irritated but only because he was struggling not to smile.
It had been a long time since Pete had seen his Pa smile about anything, and he often wondered how much of that was his fault. He knew because he wasn’t all that smart, he wasn’t likely to ever get the kind of job that could give his Pa and him a better life. He wasn’t ever going to be mayor or President or an astronaut like his second Ma had told him he could. She’d said he could be anything he wanted, just like she aimed someday to be a famous singer, but he knew that wasn’t true now, and Pa
knew it too, even said as much when he’d had a few days drinking under his belt and didn’t seem to know what he was saying, or that he was saying it out loud. Coulda been somethin’ boy. Coulda been a real man, but you ain’t never gonna amount to nothin’ more than a farmboy with cowshit on your shoes and straw in your head, standin’ at that door waitin for somethin’ better to come along that ain’t never comin’. Not for you, boy, and sure as hell not for me. Pete would listen carefully to his father’s words, and feel the pain that came with them, but told himself Pa was only saying those things out of disappointment and anger, and because it was better to throw mean words at the boy than at his own reflection in the mirror. Pa had wanted a better life too, but as soon as second Ma walked out, bound for Detroit with some man Pete had only seen once, and that by accident, the old man had given up hoping for a future. He had given up, period. The woman he’d loved had left him here with a son that wasn’t of his own blood, a dying farm, and plenty of time to sit and drink and wonder why she’d given up on them.
“I reckon I am,” his father said, in such a low voice that Pete had to strain to hear it, and even then he had to struggle to remember the question his father was answering. His thoughts had set him adrift from their conversation and now he had to search quickly for the thread. He found it as he watched the old man raise the bottle of whiskey and study the remaining dregs.
Pa was afraid, and as it was a state Pete seldom, if ever, saw in him, it had the effect of galvanizing his own discomfort. He stood, shoving the chair back with his knees, and came around the table to stand beside his father. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
The old man lowered the bottle, but kept his eyes on it as he spoke. “I don’t reckon I did much of a job by you,” he said. “Don’t reckon I could even if I tried. My own Pa wasn’t much of a man neither, and never treated me right, though I don’t expect that’s much of an excuse.”
Hearing his father talk of such things disturbed Pete more than the odd silence and the sudden sense that their house had shrunk around them, but he shrugged and forced a smile.
“S’okay, Pa. Don’t nobody know the right way to do everythin’.”
His father considered this. “Maybe that’s true, but there ain’t no excuse for not tryin’.”
“You did try,” Pete told him. “You looked after me pretty good. I ain’t wantin’ for nothin’.”
A small bitter smile twisted his father’s lips. “You wantin’ for plenty, boy. Some of that I can’t do nothin’ about. Some, I reckon I could’ve fixed.”
Pete frowned. “Well…it ain’t too late, Pa. We got time.”
At that, the weak smile vanished from his father’s face. His eyes widened as he glanced from the bottle back to the door. “That’s the trouble, son. I got a feelin’ we don’t.”
* * *
He had promised himself he wouldn’t scare the boy, but after a good deal of thought and a great deal of whiskey, Jack had realized there was no way around it. If the Merrill clan were coming, better Pete know, so he would at least have the chance to run. He set the now empty bottle down between his chair and the fire, and let his hands rest on the polished walnut stock of the rifle. He’d kept the weapon in pretty good shape all these years, better shape than anything else, his son included. Jack was truly sorry for that and he’d meant what he’d told the boy. There was so much else he wanted to say too before time ran out, but no matter what way he came at it, the words wouldn’t come. Even now, with the hounds of hell thundering a path to their door, he couldn’t tell his boy he loved him. And maybe that was because he didn’t. There was no doubt that he cared for Pete, and worried after him constantly, but years of disappointment, self-loathing, and resentment for the child he secretly held accountable for the only two women he’d ever loved abandoning him, didn’t allow those seeds to blossom into a full flower of adoration. In truth, he’d never wanted a kid, and had been doing just fine avoiding the whole problem until he’d met Annabelle, who been nurturing one in her womb. Even so, he’d figured he’d adapt just fine to the role of parent, even if she ended up doing most of the raising. But then she went and died on him soon as that child drew its first breath. For almost fifteen years he wallowed in self-pity and thoughts of up-and-leaving, reasoning that someone would find the kid and take him in, and to hell with whatever they thought of him for deserting it. He was no monster, and it would have been a bald-faced lie if he’d ever claimed he hadn’t taken a shine to the kid. But though on paper it would always say Jack Lowell was a father, he knew in his heart he wasn’t equipped to be one. Someday, he’d known, that kid would wake up and be alone. It would kill him to do it, but staying would be worse for them both.
Then he spotted Louise Daltry in town, being guided around Jo’s Diner in preparation for her first day’s work. Aside from waylaid vacationers, or guys from the forestry department, strangers were rare in Elkwood, so the arrival of Ms. Daltry, come all the way from Mobile and an abusive husband, was the talk of the place that whole summer. But from the moment Jack set eyes on her caramel-colored skin, high cheekbones, swept-back hair and soft lips, all of which were presided over by a pair of golden-brown eyes that paralyzed him whenever they strayed to his booth, he knew he’d never be concerned with her past. Only her future interested him, and in particular, whether or not she’d ever in a million years consider sharing it with him.
He smiled, just a little, and rubbed a calloused thumb over the rifle’s trigger guard.
“Who’s comin’, Pa?”
We’re moths in a killin’ jar, he thought as he tried to summon a smile of reassurance for the boy that felt more like an expression of pain. Just like your Momma said.
The best day he could remember in his sixty-odd unremarkable years started as the worst. He’d been hungover, his head stuffed with cotton. The sour taste in his mouth had resisted his attempts to wash it away with toothpaste, then coffee, and finally a breakfast of toast, egg, bacon and grits down at Jo’s. Even the presence of Louise, dressed as she was in an immaculate white blouse and blue jeans, looking as beautiful as he’d ever seen her, her skin radiant in the same morning light that skewered his eyes through the slats in the blinds of the diner’s plate glass window, couldn’t raise his spirits. He’d argued with the boy the night before, over what he couldn’t remember, but he remembered striking him, and more than once, so on that day, while the smells of fat and bacon on the griddle turned his stomach and the whiskey hammered his brain, guilt gnawed at his guts.
“Someone went a few rounds with a bottle and lost,” Louise had said, surprising him out of his self-pity and he’d looked up to see her sitting across from him, arms crossed on the table, head cocked slightly, a small smile on her lips.
He’d nodded and given her the usual perfunctory responses, and when he’d forced himself to look at her, he was struck, not only by her beauty, but by the sense that she was peering past his facade, into the dark turbulent sea of his guilt, as if she recognized it because she’d swam in those waters more than once herself.
“Wanna talk about it?” she asked, and though he’d thanked her and shaken his head—I ain’t much of a talker—she hadn’t left, or taken those incredible eyes of hers off him, and at last he began to speak, slowly at first, then with more ease, until that darkness flowed out of him in a torrent he feared might wash her away and out of his life forever.
“The boy ain’t yours?” she asked when he was done.
“He were already in the oven when I met my wife,” he told her. “She never told me who the daddy was, and I guess it didn’t matter. He was long gone when I showed up.”
“Where’s she at now?”
“Dead. She died givin’ birth to ’im.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, me too.”
That day had broken down some barrier between Jack and Louise he hadn’t realized existed. It had been more than just the protective bubble that surrounds each and every man and woman when in the company of people they
have no reason to trust. He got the feeling Louise had seen something in him he hadn’t known was there, something that appealed to her. Though in hindsight, he thought maybe suited her might be a better way of putting it.
“Pa, say somethin’…”
She’d loved him for a time, and they’d been happy, but if he was honest with himself now, he could admit that he knew from the moment she stepped foot into this house, and their lives, that she wasn’t going to stay. It wasn’t because she didn’t love them. She just wasn’t a homebody. After eleven years of living with a man who’d beaten her senseless with whatever object was close at hand whenever she dared sass him, she wasn’t willing to be owned again, or tied down to relationships that were just waiting to go sour. In walking out on that sonofabitch, she’d found her freedom, and though he’d sensed her restlessness right from the start, had known she would never stay, Jack had allowed himself to ignore the reality of it until it smacked him right in the face two years after the day she’d moved in.
We’re moths in a killin’ jar, Jack, she’d said to him when he’d come downstairs to find her with a single suitcase at the open front door, an unfamiliar car with a tall handsome black man at the wheel, engine idling, waiting for her. You leave that lid screwed on tight, we’re gonna die sooner’r later. Best just to set us loose while we still know how to fly. Then, without another word, she’d kissed him and walked out the door, leaving him with an eternity to think of all the things he should have said but didn’t.
Now he turned and looked at the boy who was not his blood, the boy he wanted to love but couldn’t.
Then he looked down at the rifle.
Set us loose while we still know how to fly.
“Somethin’ we gotta do, son,” he said, and slowly rose from his chair.
-9-
Deep night came and with it long shadows that crept inexorably toward the Lowell farm.
Kin Page 6