A Swollen Red Sun (17 page)

Herb said, “Looks like the kid took a shot in the neck from close range but hung on long enough to return two rounds of fire.”

Sheriff Feeler took it hard, Banks noticed, but not hard enough. He put his hand on Banks’s shoulder, promised they’d get through this.

Banks looked back and nodded. Eyes red from hurt.

They sat in Herb’s office, drinking hot black coffee and smoking and chewing.

“What’re you gonna do about this, Herb?”

He shrugged. “What’s to do? We thought we could trust ’im.”

Banks looked the sheriff in the eye. “We could.”

“Yeah? Don’t look like it.”

“Herb, Bo was a good kid.”

“Was he?”

Banks felt his face tighten and redden. The kid had taken a bullet that was meant for him. “You know he was.”

“I know the apple don’t fall far from the tree,” Herb said.

“You think the kid was part of this?”

Herb stared him down, unflinching. “I think he was part of somethin’.”

Banks shook his head. Looked around the small police station. Saw good people everywhere. Looked at the sheriff and saw something else. It was the same pride and guilt Banks had seen a thousand times. Every time he interrogated someone he knew was guilty—especially when they thought they’d gotten away with it.

When Banks turned to leave, Herb said to watch his back.

“And you best watch yours.”

“I ain’t got no reason to, Dale.”

“We all got a reason to.”

Hard brown dirt began to soften with each humid drop until it was moist and the wetness soaked in and the dirt became slick and was mud. Ground that had not seen rain in months broke loose and washed down the bluff.

Jerry Dean drove through sage weed and brush to a crook below Goat Hill. He could not chance crossing the ford. Even if he made it without alerting the Reverend, he would not make it back with rain.

Being stuck on Goat Hill was the last thing he wanted now that he could not count on Bazooka Kincaid. At first, it was the promise of easy living that appealed to him—with an abundance of privacy that a compound like Goat Hill provided. But then he’d seen the girl and a sorrow for her washed over him that his heart had never known.

With her in mind, he grabbed an extension ladder from his truck and let it drop across the ford. He brought his gun, a spare clip, and a flashlight that he dropped in the water.

“Kiss my ass,” he said as he palmed the rungs with his hands and crawled with his knees. Water deep and black. The beam from his flashlight a speck of flame submerged in a cloud of oil.

A crack of thunder rapped above the treetops and the echo bellowed in the holler. Lightning flashed above his head. He looked down at the ladder and quickened his pace. The hairs on his back felt supercharged.

When he got toward the end, he could feel the ladder slipping. The stream above ran down the rocks and made a channel that washed the mud away.

He crawled fast in the dark, not knowing when the ladder would fall.

When his hands felt the mudbank, there was thunder and the ground trembled. More mud broke loose as he scurried off the ladder and stood, and the ladder fell into the ford before he could grab it.

He looked down and saw it floating. He cursed and held the tree branch and watched his ladder float away. Too late to turn back. By now, Bazooka Kincaid was dead. Or the kid was dead—he hoped both, though it did not matter to him. He’d done what the sheriff wanted. Roughed up the kid. Scared him. Promised he’d be a legend.

He did what it took to get the kid to the trailer. And now, as long as things had gone according to plan, there was one less person who got a cut of the money and a cop to take the blame for killing him.

Jerry Dean dug his heels into rock. Leaned forward. Pulled himself up with trees. He thought about the animals in the woods. The Reverend kept wild hogs and mountain goats and let them run free on the hill. There were other things, too. It was hard to say what might be up there.

He patted the Desert Eagle for reassurance and stumbled across a wad of roots as the hill planed out. He bent at the knee. Caught his breath. His veins pumped with adrenaline.

Jerry Dean pulled a Milwaukee’s Best from his pocket and slammed it and belched and said, “Fuck you, Reverend,” then chucked the spent can on the ground.

In his mind, after many hits of crank and many beers and several joints, he saw a vision of himself on the hill. He would walk up the front steps and kick the door open and shoot the old man and his wife. Make his way to the basement.

But then he thought about big baby. Dumber than a bucket of screwdrivers. He could not shoot that big dummy unless he had to. Otherwise it didn’t seem right. Just shooting a big dumb kid like that. Bad as he might want to.

Something grunted down below, by the ford, and Jerry Dean started climbing. It was hard to say what roamed these woods. The darker it got, the more he thought about why he hadn’t thought more about that. Butch Pogue went to auctions. Exotic animals. Jerry Dean knew this, and had somehow overlooked the real significance of one small thing. The Reverend loved his dogs. That’s why he locked them up. Not to keep anyone else safe; to keep the dogs safe.

Jerry Dean swore and navigated his way to the farmhouse. Soaked to the bone. The rage of the storm labored his mind. He stopped every two feet, sure he was followed. Soon to be devoured by something nocturnal.

A roar of thunder boomed over the bluff, and the woods carried the sound. Trees shook. Air sour and thick. The face of Butch Pogue appeared in front of him suddenly, and Jerry Dean stumbled backward. Lightning lit up the sky, and the face was gone. There was a great dead tree in its place. Carvings on the bark like ancient scripture.

The rain came even harder. Switched gears.

Jerry Dean took a step back. Looked for something wide with cover. There were caves on the hill. Built into the bluff. Up in the pine thickets. But Jerry Dean would chance a lightning strike before he crawled into a cave at night without a flashlight.

By his best calculation, he was south of the compound. More off-course than he cared to admit. He had not seen the rain coming and had failed to prepare. Thought he’d have starlight. Hand-light. He cursed his luck and waited for a break in rain.

When it came, he hurried. Through the sticker bushes and the thorn patches. Blindly. Arms and hands cut to shreds. Cuts across his face and neck. He slipped in the mud and fell on his stomach. Lay there, fighting for wind.

Jerry Dean rolled to his side and pulled himself to his feet and stood. Turned toward his right and stumbled and tripped until he found road. He smiled despite his misery at this small ray of light. He crossed the road and climbed a fence and walked under power lines between two telephone poles.

The hard dust had turned wet and slick. The grass was a sponge. Jerry Dean crossed the field, and the downpour returned and pounded him in the open with no cover. He ran and slipped but did not fall. When the lighting hit, he could see, and then it was gone, but he pictured what the flash had shown, and walked that way until the grass was gone, and there were sticks, and he was holding on to trees. Limbs and branches poked his face.

Jerry Dean had no record to keep time. The hours since he’d crossed the ford were lost. He kept his mind busy with her face. Her body. He’d seen her from his hiding spot by the woodpile. Watched Mama bathe her in a cold stream of well water. Remembered the steam that rose from her naked breasts and shoulders.

The dusk and the gloom had enveloped him. He staggered through the woods. Through the darkness. In his mind, he saw Mama. She would eat his flesh and suck dry his open wounds. He paused to catch his breath, then moved on. He was glad for the Desert Eagle, but he cursed the rain and the cold and wondered how they would cross back through the ford.

Banks started drinking on the way home from work—he kept a small bottle of schnapps for emergencies. Had to calm his nerves, and for once, the Skoal wasn’t working. There would be hell to pay for the man who killed Bo.

He grabbed a box of Natural Light from the garage and walked to the back of the house and sat on the porch. Opened a beer and waited.

When Jude walked out, she hugged him and he cried. Dropped his can on the concrete. “He shot Bo through the neck,” Banks said. Jude squeezed him.

Beer poured from the can and filled a crack in the mortar. It formed a pool not unlike the one Hastings died in.

“It’ll be all right,” Jude said, but she did not have the strength to believe it.

“He was gonna be a dad,” Banks said.

Jude cried.

“It’s true. Wink was standin’ next to him when he found out. He just told me a while ago.”

They hugged and shared deep thoughts. Jude was just thankful it wasn’t him up in that trailer. Knowing she knew better than to question his heart. He was the rock that strengthened her; he was still the man she married. A father to her children and a man above temptation. How Bo Hastings could be mixed up with a drug dealer she would never know.

Banks was consumed by guilt.

They listened to the wind for a long while. Until Jude stood and said she had to go. She was sorry, but Steph had band practice. It was time to pick her up.

Banks nodded. Told her he loved her. Said he loved the kids.

She turned and walked to the door and stopped. “Dale, what happened to our town? This used to be a good town.”

Banks smashed his can and threw it in the yard. “It still is.”

By the time the rain came, the sky was black and he was drunk. Banks finished off the twelve-pack and drank the last few beers from inside the house. When that wasn’t enough, he broke out the Jim Beam.

The first drink was a shot mixed with Coke. The second was stronger. By the third shot, he was out of Coke.

His family inside was safe and warm. Banks looked out in the darkness and wrestled his guilt. His questions. He thought about the note Bo left him. If Hastings had been dirty, he would have known—not that he could have been; it was a ridiculous notion to consider. But then his thoughts came back to
himself
. Did anyone suspect Banks was a thief?

If Hastings was the cop Jackson spoke of, then damn if Banks had not misjudged him. But, if Hastings
was
set up, then as far as Banks could tell, that only left one or two guys who could have done it.

Jerry Dean had a partner, besides Bazooka Kincaid,
a cop
. Something Banks had suspected and Jackson confirmed. It could not have been Winkler. He was a hell of a cop, long as he wasn’t chasing motorcycles. Not to mention he’d just seen a man shoot his own face off—which got Banks thinking about Wink, which got him thinking about the day Fish died. How Banks had been off work but called Herb anyway. Said he was coming in.

Banks thought hard about that call. About the way Herb had handled it. He wanted Banks to stay home—and a few hours later, there was a rifle in his sweet daughter’s face.

Banks leaned back and wrapped up in the blanket Jude had brought him and listened to the rain batter the tin. When the wind blew from the north, the squall drenched his side. He closed his eyes and thought about the Brandt farm in summer. When the world was easy and his memories were shades of gray. In those thoughts, he wondered how different life would be had the right boy died. Little Gil was the sweet one. It should have been Wade in the ground.

Banks asked God how that could happen and wondered if Olen did, too.

He stood too fast and his head spun. Grabbed the support beam to balance. Thunder popped a tight, sharp crack, like a gunshot. Banks swayed. Thought about the crime scene. Saw an image of Bazooka Kincaid, and it all came back in a flash of memory.

Banks had seen him years ago at the courthouse. Banks had been waiting to testify when the prisoners entered, and he walked in. Bazooka Kincaid: on trial for busting up his mother’s face with a finishing hammer.

They shuffled him into the courtroom in an orange jumpsuit stretched tight, his hands and feet in shackles, and a look on his face that said they had the right man. He was massive in size, but he’d been robbed of height; his body was squat but powerfully built, as wide as he was tall, with arms and shoulders that looked like they’d been assembled using spare dump truck parts.

Banks sat down in his chair and drank from the bottle and listened to the storm overhead. The kid was dead, and his widow was heartbroken. Banks was heartbroken, too. So was Jude. So was everyone.

Everything in Banks’s life was at stake, if only he could take it back.

But he couldn’t.

A violent downpour hammered the tin roof of the farmhouse, and lightning scorched the night. The sky pulsed electric veins to a rhythm that would flash and strobe. Mama disappeared to the back of the house to practice her taxidermy.

It was the Reverend’s idea. He bought strange animals from auctions and shot them and ate them. It was her job to mount. He showed her what to do. Told her,
Train first with small things
. When he felt she was ready, he would show her the freezer under the stairs.

She sat at her table in the back of the house. Air rank with embalming fluid. Surrounded by dead things: badgers and muskrats and beavers and armadillos. She’d begun to experiment. There was a five-legged rabbit and a squirrel with two heads.

The Reverend was impressed and encouraged her hobby.

Then she heard Butch in the kitchen. He’d come inside the house and slammed the door and stomped his boots on the floor and yelled for the boy to feed the fire. It was raining, and he was cold and worn down and tired of running on crank.

The Reverend opened the fridge and grabbed a piece of chicken and skinned it with his teeth and cracked the bone and sucked out the marrow with a slurping sound that Mama recognized from her room in back. It always made her smile.

Mama watched the rain slide down the window in rolling beads and hummed a sorrowful tune in her throat. She heard the sound of his weight crash into his chair, and she shook her head and hummed and ran her slick tongue across dirty lips.