The Winslow Incident (54 page)

Now she wondered if that may have
been a mistake.

I am so incredibly tired
, she thought, realizing that her eyes were barely open.
She looked across the park toward Ruby Road, then her focus softened and she
must have nodded off because the next thing she knew her head jerked and she
couldn’t remember what she’d just been thinking.

A large figure was tromping around
on the flat roof of the hotel. It turned in a slow circle, pointing up and
down, counting all the trees in the forest.
Owen Peabody
, she guessed.
Or
Bigfoot.
Same squat legs, same gorilla arms.

Tired . . .
She surrendered and flopped down on her side in the grass.

Head cradled in her arm, she
thought,
Julie and Jay naked in the duck pond. Sean would think that’s
completely hilarious
, and then she slept.

D
ragging his lame leg up Silver Hill, trying to
outpace the smell of rot that threatened to choke him, Tanner searched for a
safe place to hide.

There was no way in hell he was
letting them chop off his leg.
No way.

He could picture it: Old Pete
holding down his arms, Kenny clamped around his ankles, grinning like an
imbecile, happy to help. Pete and Uncle Pard would swap a look—the one
they always exchanged right before they lit animals on fire or beat some poor
bastard—then Uncle Pard would loom over him wielding that same circular
saw Doc Simmons had used to slice open Indigo’s skull, with bits of the bull’s
hide and hair still stuck to the sharp metal blades. And right before his uncle
fired up the saw, he would give Tanner a look near remorseful and say, “Drastic
situations call for drastic measures.”

No fucking way.
It was so Civil War.
They’re totally insane.

The climb up Silver Hill seemed as
difficult as scaling Mt. Everest. He glanced down at his useless leg. The black
had crept up to his knee.

The thought crossed Tanner’s mind
that things that turn black are usually dead. Oranges left on the ground. Possums
trapped in trashcans.

But not his leg—it’d be all
right. The doctors would do their doctoring thing and fix him.

If they ever get here . . .

His fever must be raging, he
figured, because the sun pounded the mountainside yet he felt cold—his
confused body producing sweats and chills at the same time. More worrisome,
foamy spit kept collecting at the corners of his mouth. He’d wipe at it with
his hand but more kept coming.

He looked again at his leg
trailing in the weeds. The black moved a lot faster now, having gained a
completely fucked-up momentum somewhere around late morning. Maybe it was his
rapid heartbeat accelerating everything out of control. And recently the burning
pain had given way to numbness. While a relief, he suspected it might not be
such a good sign.

Dead things turn black
, he couldn’t help but think.
Smashed fingernails. Charred
cows.

He neared the gaping hole he knew
to be Second Chance Mine. Sean had pointed it out to him Sunday when they were up
on the water tower platform.

Tanner wasn’t sure why he had
wanted to see Sean taken down from the start. Maybe it was the way Sean had
scoped him out when they’d first met a few weeks ago. He hadn’t missed Sean’s
look of dismissal, the one that says
, You’re more mouth than motor, I can
already tell.

Tanner never missed that look. But
whatever.
Who even cares what happens to Sean?

Picking his way toward the mine
around loose timbers and signs that warned,
Danger
and
Do Not Enter
, Tanner thought,
These
signs are in the wrong place. Oughta be before you enter Winslow, before the
bridge even.

He caught his numb foot between a
couple of boards but didn’t even notice until he nearly yanked it out of its
socket. Would he ever have feeling in that foot again?

He sighed, “Shit.”

At Buckhorn Tavern, when Old Pete
would not shut his pie hole about hacking off the leg, Hazel had looked at Tanner
with that woe-is-you expression, as if he were pathetic. But she was the one
who was pitiful—shaking and scared like she was a little girl again and
mommy still hadn’t come home to tuck her beddy bye.

Okay, so maybe everything isn’t
totally Hazel’s fault,
Tanner conceded.
Maybe if she hadn’t dismissed him too he would’ve gone easier on her. Too late
now.

Who cares anyway?
He’d be back to riding his skateboard down the paved
sidewalks of civilization in no time. His parents would come and get him, take
him to Mercy Hospital where he’d had his tonsils removed, and then he’d never
have to see any of these freaks again.

When he finally reached the
entrance to the mine, he crawled through a hole in the boards that someone had
pried clear. Tanner shivered after stepping in. It felt tombish
inside—dark and dry and cool. But a decent hiding spot, he confirmed. He
continued deeper, drawing his foot through the dirt, until he rounded a bend
into total darkness.

“Far enough,” he said aloud. The
enclosed space distorted the sound of his voice. He crossed toward what he
sensed to be the far wall, desiring a defensive position should anyone come
back here.

He reached blindly for the wall
but still fell short. Pulling his left leg up from where it lagged behind, he
took another step forward. This time he hit something with his dangling right
hand. But it wasn’t the wall. It was soft and smelled even worse than his leg.
He reached out with both hands now and his fingers touched hair, rubbery flesh
against stubborn bone, the collar of a shirt.

A body. A dead ass corpse.

Tanner didn’t scream, didn’t dare
utter a word for fear of waking the dead. He backed away, trying to minimize
the scrape of his dragging foot and the choke of his breath, until his back hit
the opposite wall and the corpse groaned. Tanner bolted, running as best as he
could—a hop, skip and a jump sort of run that got him out of the mine
quick anyway.

Climbing back through the hole, he
heard something rip but didn’t feel anything and kept going, his heart pounding
angrily at his chest:
let’s go let’s go let’s go!

Once outside the mine, he blinked
in sun blindness and confusion. Where should he go? He was covered in sweat and
now both legs felt weak. Knowing he couldn’t make it much farther, he hitched
his way down Silver Hill to the remnants of the old mill where he collapsed in
the shade of a rusty mine car.

They’ll come get me
, he thought, eyes closed and chest panting,
and lay me
across the back seat of the Subaru. And Mom’ll tell me to hang in there, baby,
like that cat poster in the laundry room, and Dad’ll drive like a bat outta
hell down the pass to get me to Mercy . . .

Tanner opened his eyes to look at
the leg stretched straight out before him. Where the skin had split open along
the length of his shinbone, a watery discharge frothed pink at the edges.
Muscle visible inside his leg wept dark red.

Uncle Pard will tell them I did
good up here.
He averted his gaze to the
mountaintops.
That he’ll have me back anytime I want.

With eyes that felt glazed he
stared at the top of Stepstone Ridge, where pine trees stood motionless,
looking dead, as though Christmas has been over for a long, long time . . . and
realized his fever was climbing. He should’ve picked up that bottle of aspirin
he saw discarded in the street after he ran out of the Buckhorn.
Maybe I
should go back for it.

But suddenly it was impossible to
move.

So he lay there, alone, for what
felt like a whole other lifetime, and thought he heard the Subaru pull up just
before it all went black.

“
I
’m the queen, I’m the queen!” Patience flapped
her arms up and down in frustration. “The whole town’s counting on me!”

“Is that why you made her cry?” he
asked.

“Go away, Hawkin Rhone. You. Are.
Dead!”

The red ring around the moon had
been for Hazel. Patience felt terrible about that, but there was nothing she
could do to change it.

Patience had been so afraid Jinx
would chase after her from the Mother Lode Saloon, all the way to the miners’
cemetery, that he’d ruin everything. Or worse, that he’d rip her apart one bite
at a time, pausing to gnaw on her flesh, eating her in front of her own eyes.

Instead, Hawkin Rhone had been
waiting for them in the graveyard, and he had sat beneath the purple tree,
watching them with a curious bent to his smashed-in, dried apricot pit of a
head. Just as she’d dreaded, Hawkin Rhone had found Sean first—and now
Sean would be punished.

She picked up the pace. “Go . . . a
. . . way!”

And then Hazel had been in the
cemetery too, wearing the rainbow tank top her dad gave her on her birthday
(they’d both laughed when Hazel first showed it to her), crying green-eyed
tears, streams of them running down her freckled cheeks, and Patience was
reminded of the time they were playing jacks on the front porch and Gram Lottie
leaned out the screen door and called, “Hazel—run and ask your mother if
you can stay for lunch,” only to trail off with, “. . . oh, I’m sorry, dear, I
forgot.”

Patience always thought that was
when Hazel realized her mommy was never coming back because Hazel was crying so
hard when she took off running for home that Patience wondered how she could
see where she was going.

But this time Hazel cried
because of me. I did that to her. Through her tears, she finally saw me.

“Look at me!” Patience shivered intensely.

When she recovered, she said, “I
told her you’re back but she didn’t listen.”

“Did hurting her make her hear
you?”

“Be quiet—you’re dead.
You’re dead and now you’re a ghost. Don’t try to confuse me just because I’m
sick.”

After Patience and Sean had
wandered away from each other in the cemetery, both set adrift by Hazel’s
departure, Patience had skimmed past the soulless houses on Loop-Loop Road,
then cut through Prospect Park, trying to ditch Hawkin Rhone along the way but
he caught up with her anyhow. She felt weightless, gravity’s familiar pull
relinquished. If she were any lighter, she’d float away.

“When are you planning to tell?”
he asked, not gently.

“Why should I? We’re already
punished.”

“I’ll make it worse.”

“No.” She shook her head, refusing
to look at him. “Go away—you’re scaring me. You’re dead, not here, so
go.”

“You witnessed my murder.”

For once, anger overtook her fear.
It was all going wrong. He was making everything go so wrong. She hissed at
him, “
So what.
”

“So that obligates you.”

“Nobody will believe me anyway.
Nobody ever believes me.”

“They will. Because they need—no,
they
crave
something to believe.”

“I won’t tell.” Her stomach
tightened and her throat constricted. “I’ve told too much.”

Hawkin Rhone stepped in front of
her, forcing her to stop and look at his mummified face. “You will or else I’ll
keep after you until you do.”

“You can’t make me!” She shut her
eyes tight. “I crossed my heart and hoped to die and I don’t want to drown in
the deep pond and be dead like you! Now leave me alone!”

When she dared to open her eyes,
he was gone. Patience stood alone on Ruby Road.

She’d expected to feel relief once
that happened. Instead, she felt buried, the shame smothering her spirit and
crushing her bones beneath its weight. She knew she should tell the truth. It
was the only way to keep Hawkin Rhone from coming back.

But I won’t because I’m already
ashamed.
Patience pushed at the oppressive
feeling with her fists, trying to fight it off.
Ashamed I make such a
spectacle of myself, ashamed I make Hazel cry, ashamed I’m so sick.

Sensing something skulking up
behind her, her heart seized up. She listened for a tense moment . . . then
asked, “Jinx?”

And when Patience reached across to touch the
charms on her opposite arm, her wrist was bare—her lucky bracelet gone.

A
hh stop crawling on me get off. I’m
thirsty I’m choking. Listen—I’m crying.

Patience crawled along the trail
behind The Winslow, heading east toward the ponds. Sharp pine needles poked her
palms, sweat dripped freely from her brow into the dirt. She took it slow: one
hand forward, then a knee, then the other hand . . .

Somebody had stolen her lucky
bracelet.
Somebody who wants me weak.

She moved forward, pausing to scan
the ground for the four-leaf clover, the tiny horseshoe.

Pink and blue. A small object in a
pink and blue wrapper. She picked it out of the dirt with her fingernails: an
ancient piece of bubble gum. Every Labor Day holiday, Sheriff Winslow would set
up a scavenger hunt on the grounds of The Winslow to keep all the kids in town
busy while the adults drank gin in the park. She stared at the gum for a while,
willing it to become a lucky charm.