“Go ahead.”
“You’re behind that desk because a lot of circumstantial evidence points to you. You don’t think that’s a coincidence, do you?”
Cody leaned back in his chair, thinking. “Of course not. Somebody’s intentionally trying to tie me into it, but I don’t know no more than you do. I’m just picking at it.”
“What?”
“Like Ned would do. Pick at it until something happens.”
“You can’t do it from right there.”
“I’m already doing it. I got John, Anna, and Ned out there scratching around. They’ll turn something up.”
“Well, I hope they plow straight and fast.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
The snake’s fangs bit deep and pain shrieked up my leg. I screamed and ran for the house, hearing that big ol’ diamondback still rattling long and loud behind me. Mark shot around me before I reached the gate and grabbed a hoe that was leaning against the smokehouse. He spun and the last I saw of him was headed back to the chicken house.
I kept going to the porch and dropped onto the edge, my heart beating so hard that I could hear it in my ears. My asthma rose up and I started gasping for breath. My foot throbbed and I pulled off my tennis shoe without untying the laces.
I was already swimmy-headed. My stomach rose at the thought of that nasty thing’s mouth and those fangs it’d buried in my flesh. I laid back on the boards and imagined the poison running through my veins. My stomach rolled at the thought.
Panic rose. There was no one in the house to help me. I knew what was going to happen, because I’d seen snakebit dogs. Their heads swole up the size of #5 washtubs and they sometimes died, all bloated up and moaning at the end.
Mark appeared beside me and dropped the hoe by the porch. “Bad?”
“Bad enough.”
“Lemme look at it.”
“We don’t have time. I can feel the poison. It’s already got to my head. Go call for help.”
He charged into the house, letting the screen door slap behind him. He started hollering like he was getting help. It seemed like I waited for an hour before he came back out. “Phone’s still not working.”
“Oh no.”
“I hollered into the receiver, to see if whoever left it off the hook could hear me, but no one answered. I’ll take your bike up to the store.”
“It has a flat.”
“All right. I’ll run and get help. You stay right where you are. They say you’re not supposed to do anything but lay still if you’ve been snakebit.”
“I should have remembered that back at the chicken house. You’re gonna have to cut Xs in the fang marks and suck out the poison.”
“That don’t work except on television and in the movies.”
“How do you know that?”
“My Uncle Bart told me. He was bit by a water moccasin and they had to take him to Hugo. His leg swelled up and the flesh around the bites sloughed off and…” he drifted off, realizing what he was saying. “You’re wheezing. Is it the snakebite already?”
“No. The asthma.”
“Stay right there and don’t move.”
He ran back inside and came out with my puffer. “Here. Use this. What else do you want me to do?”
I stuck the plastic nozzle in my mouth and squeezed the gray bulb, taking two deep breaths full of vaporized medicine. My lungs tickled. “Run for help, but first, get one of those evidence jars of whiskey out of the smokehouse. My foot’s killing me, and I need something. Grandpa always said a dose of whiskey is as good as anything the doctor can give you.”
There was a line of dusty mason jars full of white lightning on the top shelf in the smokehouse that smelled of dirt dauber nests and dust. Under that was a rancid odor of old grease drippings from when they cured meat in there. Each evidence jar was labeled with a date and name from the man who ran the still.
Mark jumped off the porch, long hair flying. His footsteps crunched across the driveway, heading toward the smokehouse. Still flat on my back, I pumped the bulb and sucked in a second dose of medicine. My lungs eased, but the hand holding the light plastic atomizer felt heavy.
Hootie came out from under the porch and laid down beside me, whimpering. He knew I was bit. It reminded me that Carlo, Grandpa’s old yard dog, was bit by a snake once. He lived, but didn’t look good for a long time.
Mark was back. He grunted as he unscrewed the lid. “Shouldn’t have got the oldest jar, but I didn’t want Grandpa to get mad if I got one of the newest ones.” The rusty ring finally turned. “Them others might not be through the courts yet.”
I was aggravated by all the talking and the fact that he was more worried about the evidence than me. Mark tossed the ring away and used his fingernails under the lid to pry it off. He knelt down. “Here, take a big drink.”
I raised up on one elbow and took the full jar. The oily, acrid smell of pure grain alcohol cut through my sinuses. I took a little sip and fire shot down my goozle.
“Hold your nose and take a big old swaller. You need to drink more’n that little bitty ol’ sip.”
Mark wasn’t the one snakebit and drinking pure, uncut moonshine, but he was probably right. I held my nose and took a big swallow, then another and another, like I was drinking ice water. The fumes raced back up my sinuses again when I turned my nose loose. I breathed out and took to coughing like I had the croup.
Mark frowned, watching me. “How’d it taste?”
I coughed again. “Like coal oil.”
“Better take another dose. It’ll help while I’m gone. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
He vanished and I took one more drink that went down a lot easier than the first, then laid back again. I thought about what he’d said about his uncle and hoped my leg wouldn’t swell up the size of a foot log. I wanted to raise up and look, but my head was really heavy and it felt like a boat anchor.
I went swimmy-headed again and tried to raise a hand, but nothing worked right.
The poison was working its way through me.
Someone laughed. My eyes grew heavy. When I was little, I liked to rub ’em until bright lights flickered and shot in all directions. Sometimes when I was dozing off for a nap, or at night, faces appeared and disappeared in the darkness behind my lids, floating around like planets.
This time something different happened. Instead of lights, or interesting faces, I saw smiles. Bright, painted, ghastly smiles. Some large, some small. Smiles painted like clown mouths floated past. Sometimes the big red lips separated to show straight white teeth, but one of them had fangs like that diamondback.
Bales of hay ricocheted through the smiles, bumping them softly, and sending them running spinning into space. My face was clammy with sweat.
Mirrors.
Mirrors reflecting my face.
Screams of laughter.
Manes of long red hair.
A dark man floated behind my eyelids like a scuba diver in dark water. An Indian with wheels for feet pushed him away and grinned wide.
He’s a wraith.
A wraith.
The wraith floated downward, holding a giant crescent wrench that bloomed into a bouquet of bright, colorful lights.
I smelled popcorn, cotton candy, and rotting carcasses.
Everything around me swirled downward, like someone pulled the plug in a bathtub. I was sucked into the hole of spinning colors before darkness took me and insane laughter filled my ears.
Chapter Thirty
The Wraith stepped outside, rubbing his knuckles. He glared back over his shoulder at the crying woman curled on the floor. Absolutely no one questioned his whereabouts. It had been a long, busy night and now he had to work at his new job. He adjusted his loose clothes, pulled on a pair of thin white gloves, and smiled at a passing stranger.
***
He ran as hard as he could to Uncle Mason’s house, because that’s how he already thought of them, him and Aunt Wanda, but when he beat on their locked door there was nobody home. Farther down was Top’s Uncle Cliff’s house, but they didn’t have a phone, and he was probably up at the store anyway.
That’s when he remembered Miss Sweet passing in Ralston’s car on their way to doctor that poor family down on the slough. They hadn’t come back by, so he figured she’d still be there. He had a choice, run the rest of the way to the store, or cut through the pasture behind Uncle Mason’s house and catch the dirt road to the bottoms that led to the slough.
He wondered if he was doing wrong by heading out to find Miss Sweet. He could just as easily run down the highway to the store, but then someone would have to call for help, or they’d insist on driving to the house to look at Top, and by the time they decided to get him to the hospital, he’d be dead.
Mark’s mind shifted gears as he ran, one part worrying about Top, the other studying on the fact that he was back living with Miss Becky, but now they’d have to bury his friend. He was useless, nothing more than a stray that Aunt Tillie and Grover should have pulled over down at the creek bridge to dump out like a dog. They’d done something similar to his second cousin when she was sick all the time. They got tired of spending money they didn’t have on her and the next thing Mark knew she was gone. He never knew for sure what they did with her, but she never came back and neither of the adults ever talked about it afterwards.
Now, here he was back with the greatest family in the world and he’d let Top get bit by a big old rattlesnake. It was him who should’ve opened the door to that chicken house. Feeding the cows was his idea, thinking he needed to do more to earn his keep, but since Top was their real blood, Mark figured he needed to hang back and let him be the leader.
Top needed that anyway, to not be a follower all the time but to be in charge.
Damn it!
He sprinted across the pasture, running like a house afire. Cows laying in the shade of an oak bellered and scattered. An old bull grunted to his feet and pawed the dirt, warning him away.
The pasture led downhill and the grass was close cropped from the cattle. Mark had enough speed and angle to leap a five-strand barbed-wire fence. The grass on that side was thicker, and slowed him down.
He pounded down a cow trail. Any other time it would have felt good, running with the wind in his face. His mama once told him their people were runners and could go all day if they needed to, but that was long ago back in the Olden Days. Running to run and running for help was altogether different because Mark was terrified that Top was dying.
He came to a line of trees and ducked under a low limb. Vines grabbed at his clothes slowing him even more. A thorn slashed his face, but he broke through in no time. The next barbed-wire fence was growed up, and he had to climb over using the sagging wires as rungs, cutting his palm with one of the rusty barbs. Two steps later, he stumbled onto the packed gravel and dirt road and took off running again free and easy now that he was warmed up.
It wasn’t far to the shack, and Ralston’s car was parked out in their dirt yard beside a tire swing. Miss Sweet was sitting on the porch like she was tired. Ralston slouched in the front seat of their car with the door open and one foot on the ground.
“Miss Sweet! Ralston! Help!”
Miss Sweet straightened and set down jar of what looked like tea. “My lands, what’s wrong, honey?”
Ralston jumped out of the car as Mark slid to a stop. He grabbed the boy’s shoulders. “You’re Mark, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Where you coming from?”
Over his shoulder, Miss Sweet made her way off the edge of the porch and waddled toward them on short, bowed legs. She was a big woman and her hair was grayer than the last time Mark saw her. “Tell us, baby. What’s the matter?”
His chest filled with deep shudders at her soft, sincere voice full of concern. His legs suddenly lost their strength and he had to hold himself upright against their dented car. “Top’s been snakebit by a big old rattler and nobody’s home.”
The old healer threw both hands in the air. “Sweet Jesus! Where’d it bite him?”
“On the foot.”
“How long’s it been?”
“Long enough to run down here and a few minutes besides.”
A baby’s cough carried across the porch.
She was already opening the car door. “Ralston, get my bag from out the house.”
“Yessum.” He darted around the car, but the young man who lived there came outside with the bag in his hand first. Ralston grabbed it and turned to leave.
The toddler’s daddy held out a ’toesack. “Wait. I ain’t got no money, but here’s our pay.”
Without a word, Ralston grabbed it and shot off the porch. Mark was already in the backseat when Ralston poked the sack and her bag through the open back glass and dropped them on the floorboard. Seconds later, they were throwing up a roostertail of dust on the way back to the house.
Mark leaned back, hoping they’d get there in time. A Dominicker hen stuck her head out of a hole in the ’toesack on the floorboard and clucked at him, and it seemed almost normal.
Chapter Thirty-one
The Wraith bided his time sharpening a long knife in the shade of a pecan tree. Distracted by the past, he hissed as the blade missed and cut deep. He studied the blood dripping onto the sand between his feet and knew it was sharp enough.
***
Ned pulled into Oak Peterson’s lot and stared down the road leading to the dam, studying on the accident when Ike Reader’s GMC pickup popped into view. Usually a slow driver, Ike had his foot in it this time and the old truck was flying. Seeing the only red Fury in the county, he braked and slid to a stop beside Ned’s window in a cloud of dust.
Knowing something was up, Ned started the engine. “What’s wrong?”
“Listen, listen Ned, I’m glad to see you! Wes Clay’s killin’ Olan Mayfield!”
“Where?”
“Reid’s store.”
Ned punched the accelerator. The big engine growled and the Plymouth rocketed toward Reid’s store only five miles from Center Springs. It was another country stop in the middle of nowhere, offering staples to the rural families living and working the land.
Three agitated men in worn overalls were standing outside of the wooden clapboard store when Ned skidded to a stop on the bottle-cap parking lot. He was out before the engine quit knocking and died.
The oldest of the trio, Cash Wick, pointed. “They’s around back, Ned!”
“Did Wes shoot him?”
Horse Nichols shook his head, eyes wide with fear. “Nope. It was a fistfight ’til a knife came out. When Wes started cuttin’ on Olan, we got out of there. You know how he is.”
Instead of going around the outside, Ned pushed on the Coca Cola screen protector and in through the store. The interior was cool from a slight breeze sucking through the open back door where Harvey Reid was watching through the screen.
He sensed someone behind them and glanced over his shoulder. Ned shushed him and stepped outside to find Olan Mayfield curled up on the sandy ground beside a stack of wooden soft drink cases full of empties. His back was to Ned, but blood was bright on his overalls and blue shirt.
Wes Clay squatted several feet away, watching Olan from the shade of a chinaberry tree. He leaned against a pile of weathered lumber and the bloody knife in his hand dripped blood. Keeping an eye on Wes, Ned closed the distance and edged around Olan to see how bad he was hurt. A thic
k pool of blood was already skimming in the heat.
“How you doin’, Wes?”
His eyes were shaded by the brim of his straw hat and the man didn’t look up. “Better’n him.”
Ned watched Olan for a second. Sand and grass was caught in his short, thick hair. One gallus on his overalls was down and blood bubbled through a hole in his shirt. Moving slow as molasses, Ned eased closer. He couldn’t see any evidence of a second weapon. Flies buzzed, drawn by the coppery odor of blood. “What happened?”
“Aw hell, Ned. I was inside and this son of a bitch come up to the back door. I recognized him as a Mayfield. He’s probably the one killed Frank.”
“I doubt it.”
“I believe he is. I told him to scat on out of here, but he called me white trash and said he could do whatever he wanted, and he was gonna get him a cold strawberry drink whether I liked it or not. He was wrong.”
“About doing what he wanted?”
“About getting that strawberry.”
Ned started forward to check on Olan. Wes came out of his squat quick as a panther and stepped forward, holding the well-used butcher knife sharp edge up. “Leave him be.”
Ned drew and cocked his .38 in one smooth move. Wes stopped at the sight of the gaping barrel aiming at his chest. Ned’s mouth was suddenly dry. “I need to check on him.”
“No you don’t.”
“Lower that knife. He needs help.”
Fresh drops fell from the fingertips of Wes’ empty left hand. A deep slash in his forearm gaped wide showing pink tendons that should have been covered. “No he don’t, and he cut me bad with it.”
“Back up and do it now before I by-god pull this trigger and you know I’ll do it. He’s gonna die if we don’t get that bleeding stopped.”
Wes spread his hands and dropped the knife. “He cut me first with this butcher knife.”
“Back up like I said.” Ned knelt beside the dying man and peeked into the hole. A pink bubble rose and fell. “How come all this got started?”
Unraveled Page 15