Come Sit By Me (8 page)

I SORT
OF LET THINGS
slide for a couple of weeks. I spent the next Saturday at the cemetery too, and Pastor Flegel followed me around again. He kept talking about the dead and resurrection. He asked me once if I believed in resurrection, and I said I really wasn't sure. But privately I thought if you dug all these people up they would be in pretty bad shape for resurrecting purposes. Of course, the basic idea of religion is that God can do anything, so you can believe anything you want about what's going to happen.

We went inside the Crapper crypt once, and he showed me the broken lid on one of the coffins. Somebody had already come and filled the crack with cement, and now they were getting a lock on the door. That struck me as funny too, although obviously it was to keep people out, not for keeping the Crappers locked in.

When I told North why I couldn't meet him and the girls after the football game that Friday, he shrugged and said, “Bummer, but there'll be other times.” He gave me a kind of grin and asked, “You find anything when you were cleaning out the cemetery?”

“Nothing but junk,” I said. “Beer cans, mostly.”

“Yeah, well, let me know if you run across anything interesting.”

“Like what?”

He just gave me a playful slap on the back and said, “Whatever you think I might like to see.”

I nearly said,
Like Cale's USB drive?
But I didn't. North was still the alpha male in school, and my strongest connection to Colleen. I didn't want to give up being his friend.

He surprised me by saying, “So you're not grounded after this Saturday? How'd you like to do some hunting?”

Automatically, I said, “Sure,” but then wondered if I should have made up an excuse.

That was all he needed, however, and he said he'd pick me up Sunday at 10 a.m. “I guess you haven't provided yourself with any firearms yet,” he said.

I smiled. “I don't think my dad would be so hot on the idea.”

“Maybe he'll change his mind,” North said. “I'll have my father speak to him.”

I held up my hands, wondering if that could cause trouble—for me. “Maybe let's hold off on that for a while.”

“The Colonel can be very persuasive,” said North.

“The Colonel?”

“That's what everybody calls my father. He's a retired colonel from the Army.”

Sunday arrived, and at breakfast I just told my dad that I was going somewhere with a friend.

“Stay out of trouble,” Dad said.

“He's a great guy,” I said, wanting to reassure him. “North Hawkins. Captain of the football team. President of the senior class.”

“Nina Reynolds says you better not get into the back seat with him,” piped up Susan, who was fixing herself some toast and jam.

“I'll be sure to stay in the front seat,” I said. Susan thought that was funny.

Actually, North arrived in his truck, which didn't have a back seat, so my virginity was safe for another day. He pulled into the driveway and called me on my cell. “Ready?” he said.

“I'll be right out,” I said.

Dad took a look out the window as I pulled on a sweatshirt. “Guy drives a truck,” he commented.

“Everybody cool drives a truck around here,” I said. “I'll be back for supper.”

This time, North had two guns in the rack over the windshield. They were different from the one I'd fired before. “Shotguns,” he told me. “Even you can hit something with one of these.”

I hadn't thought about it before, but going hunting meant we were hunting
for
something. “What are we going after?” I asked. “Deer?”

He laughed. “Isn't deer season yet, and if you go after them, you need a rifle. We'll look for birds. Big ones, like turkeys and pheasants.”

Birds? Well, at least they wouldn't turn and charge if we fired on them.

“We're going to drop in and see the Colonel,” North told me. “He likes to sort of screen the people I go hunting with.”

“I hope I won't have to pass any shooting tests,” I said.

“Nope, it's more like a character test,” he replied. “Just remember to stand at attention until he tells us to relax. And call him sir. He's used to that.”

“You're kidding, right?” I said.

“No, it's just a military thing,” North said. “Respect, discipline, and all that army shit.”

I decided that I could either follow orders or tell North I didn't want to go hunting. Since the alternative was sitting at home all day with my dad and Susan, I decided what the hell. At least I didn't have to salute the guy.

North's house was pretty nice, made of dark wood with a black slate roof and a big stone chimney. It had a long driveway that circled around to the back, where some other cars were parked, one of them a big Hummer. I looked around for a tank, but didn't see one. Probably camouflaged.

We went inside and entered what was clearly a kitchen. Then down a hallway lined with photos of people in military uniforms. North knocked on a door. I heard somebody say, “Enter,” and North turned the knob. Inside I saw a man seated behind a large desk that held a stack of newspapers and some folders. He had gray hair cut close to his skull and was wearing a blue-and-black striped tie with a white shirt. He seemed engrossed in some papers and didn't look up as we entered.

North took a couple steps forward and stood in front of the desk, back straight and arms at his side. I followed his lead and stood next to him. My eyes went around the room, and I saw wood-paneled walls covered with a lot of plaques and awards, plus a whole collection of guns—rifles, shotguns, pistols, even some that looked like antiques. The metal barrels shone as if they were polished every day.

After a few seconds, the Colonel looked up and said, “At ease.”
No shit, he really plays the military game
, I thought.

He looked me over with a pair of gray-green eyes. I felt as if I were being measured for a uniform. Finally he nodded, and said, “You're Paul Sullivan?”

“Yes, sir,” I said. Saying “sir” was automatic when you were speaking to this guy. I had no trouble with it at all.

“I understand you're from New York.”

“Yes, sir.” I had a feeling he thought it was a defect for me to overcome.

“I guess you went to school with blacks there.”

I wasn't sure how to take that, but I answered in the affirmative again, hoping he'd let it go.

He didn't. “They're all right if they have decent leadership. I had a number of them in my command. When I gave them orders, they obeyed. But if they're left to their own devices, they revert.” I guess I must have looked like I didn't quite get it. So he explained.

“Revert to the primitive. It's obvious in their music, their manner of speech when they're not corrected, the instinct to criminal behavior. That's where they go if left to their own devices.”

I realized that I ought to be telling this guy he was full of shit, but it might turn out he had been in Special Forces and could break my neck with one hand. He gave you that impression.

“They need discipline,” he explained.

I kind of nodded, and North nudged me. “Yes, sir,” I said, feeling like an asshole.

“My son says you're a disciplined person,” the Colonel said.

He does?
“I try to be,” I said with a weak smile.

“You know we've experienced a tragedy here,” he said.

I thought he must be talking about the shooting, so I said I knew about it.

“
That
boy needed discipline,” the Colonel said.

“Yes, sir,” I agreed.

“He was a lost soul, and no one told him, ‘This is how to behave. This is what to think.'”

“Someone should have,” I said. “Sir.”

He nodded, evidently satisfied. “I wanted to make sure what sort of person you were before you went shooting with my son,” he explained. “Good hunting.”

He turned his attention back to whatever he was reading, and North swiveled and headed for the door. I did the same.

“Dad likes you,” he said after we were outside the house again. I was pretty sure I hadn't liked
him
, but if it helped me to get back inside Colleen's shirt, I was glad.

We drove out to a wooded area where there was room for North to pull the truck off the road. He took both the guns down from the rack and we got out. He had put on a camouflage vest with little loops that held shotgun shells. He gave me another one to wear.

Taking one of the shells, North loaded one of the shotguns while I watched. “This shotgun is pump action,” he said. He showed me how to slide back part of it, which he called the forearm, to pump the shell into the barrel, or what he called the chamber. “Now it's ready to fire,” he said. He aimed it and pretended to pull the trigger. “After you fire, you pump the forearm again. That ejects the spent shell and puts a fresh one into the chamber.”

He let me try pumping it a few times. It was heavy but I enjoyed the feeling of it. It wasn't just some toy. The parts all fit together like a precision instrument—designed to kill. I held it up to my eye and pointed it. “When you aim,” North said, “make sure you extend your left arm full length to hold the barrel steady, like I showed you before.” I got the idea with a little practice.

He showed me the other shotgun. “This one is an autoloader,” he said. “After you fire it, the shell gets ejected from the side, and it's ready to fire again,” he said. “All done automatically. But I'm givin' you the pump action one, because then you always know when it's ready to fire. Give an autoloader to a newbie and he might fire it when he's not ready.” He gave me a grin. “Somebody might get their head blown off that way.”

After loading both the shotguns again, we walked into the woods. North showed me how to carry the shotgun pointed at the ground. After a while, he waved for me to stop. “Listen, now,” he said.

I could hear a few small birds chirping, but not much else. North explained. “We're listening for gunfire. You don't want to be too close to anybody else who's shooting. Guess you can figure why.”

“Because they might shoot you.”

He nodded. “Rifle bullets can carry up to a mile, although nobody'd be using rifles much outside deer season. Even a .22 can do you damage though.”

We sat down on the ground. Leaves on the trees had already started to change color, and some had fallen, exposing the branches. “This is a good time to shoot birds,” North said. “They're active, and they aren't able to hide in the trees so easily.”

Apparently waiting was a big part of hunting. North had brought a couple of calls that were supposed to sound like turkeys. Sitting there doing nothing but blowing on one of them started to get boring. I felt like taking out my Blackberry and checking my email, but I didn't think North would approve.

Suddenly, he squeezed my arm and then pointed toward one of the trees. Then I heard what sounded like scratching. North had noticed it before I did. He raised his shotgun and aimed it in that direction. I still couldn't see anything. Neither could he, evidently, because he didn't fire.

Then a flash of red appeared from behind a tree. I saw it moving. North, who was aiming just over my left shoulder, fired. The noise practically deafened me, and I ducked instinctively.

“Got ‘im!” I heard him say. It sounded as if he was talking through cotton. My left ear was still ringing. North stood up and went over to the tree. The turkey was lying there. Picking it up by the neck, North brought it back to show me. It was bleeding from several wounds, but didn't look as bad as I thought it might.

“How come it isn't all torn up?” I asked.

“With a shotgun, the shot inside the shell gets dispersed the farther it goes,” he told me. “With a target as close as this bird, I couldn't hardly miss. But only two or three of the shot actually hit him. Which is good, because if you want to use the meat, you have to dig out the shot. This is a tom, so it won't be as good for eating anyway. You'll see. Next one is yours.”

North picked up the dead turkey and put it in a cloth bag. He said that the noise we made would keep other birds in hiding for some time, so we walked farther into the woods till we found a new spot to sit. This time I paid more attention, because I was nervous. I told myself that I really didn't give a shit if I killed a turkey or not. The damn turkeys never did anything to me. But I had this feeling gnawing away at my insides that I wanted to impress North.

Sitting there waiting, all sorts of thoughts went through my head. Was this what meditation was like? I had always heard that meditation was supposed to help empty your mind, calm you. But waiting to kill something—that was the opposite. You were focused. And actually holding a gun in my arms made me wonder just exactly what went through Cale's mind when he killed those people.

Or was anything? Of course he had to be crazy, so what kinds of thoughts does a crazy person have? Did he just decide to do it, and it didn't really matter who he killed as long as he killed somebody? Was he just going on autopilot by then? Or did he really have reasons?

What sort of reason could you have for killing seven people? I knew that Cale's USB drive must have some kind of answer to that question, but—

North nudged me. “Down there,” he whispered, pointing.

I saw it. It was smaller and less colorful than the one North had shot. More gray than anything. Creeping along the ground about twenty yards away. I raised my shotgun, and it saw me. Looked right into my eyes. And then spread its wings and took flight. Without thinking about it, I raised the gun and fired. It had a lot harder kick than the rifle I'd used earlier. Maybe the kick made me shoot higher than where I'd originally been aiming. But the turkey's wings stopped flapping and it fell to the ground.