A Land More Kind Than Home (34 page)

I heard a car coming down the driveway from way up on the road, and I could hear the sound of the gravel crunching under the tires and kicking up and bouncing off the fenders.

I heard my daddy's bare feet walking down the hall to the front room, and I was afraid he was going to come in there and yank me up out of the bed, but I heard him open the screen door instead. It slammed shut behind him, and the sound woke me up and I opened my eyes and looked around at all that darkness under the covers. I listened for my daddy to come back inside and wake me up, and when he opened the screen door I heard his voice inside the house, but it sounded like he was far away from where I was laying in bed with those covers pulled up over my head. “Goddamn,” he said as he ran past my bedroom on his way back to his and Mama's room. “Stay in the bed, Jess!” he hollered. “Goddamn,” he said again.

I laid there under the covers and listened for him to say something else, but he didn't say nothing. I could hear him in the back bedroom. He was in there opening and slamming the drawers on his dresser like he was tearing them apart looking for something.

“Who's here?” I hollered from under my sheets.

“Stay right there,” he said.

I heard him pass by in the hallway again, and it sounded like he was dropping things and they were rolling down the hallway toward the kitchen. I lifted the covers off my head and laid there and looked up at the ceiling and listened, and then I heard him push open the screen door and run down the steps into the yard. The door slammed shut behind him. I could hear him yelling something out there, and I could hear somebody yelling back. Then I heard a gunshot.

I tore the covers off me and sat up in the bed, but I didn't hear nothing else, and I wondered if I'd heard all those things in a dream.

“Daddy!” I screamed. I waited for him to say something.

It was quiet outside, and I sat there wide awake and listened. My heart thumped against my chest, and I could hear it beating in my ears too. Then I heard another shot.

I jumped up out of the bed in my jockeys and ran out to the hall, but I stepped on something and it rolled under my foot and I fell and landed on my back and hit my head on the floor. I looked over and saw the shells for my daddy's shotgun rolling all over the hallway.

I got up and ran to the screen door and pushed it open, and when I did I heard another gunshot, and I saw my daddy fall on the ground in front of somebody's old car. The sheriff stood by his police car with his gun out in front of him, and my daddy just laid there in the gravel. Blood squirted up out of his neck and sprayed all over the hood of the car and turned it red. The sheriff saw me and hollered something, but I was screaming too loud to hear what he said. He put his gun in his holster and came out from behind his door and ran up the driveway through the gravel. He stopped on the other side of that old car where somebody was sitting on the ground inside the open door. He bent down and said something to them, and then he ran up the porch steps to where I stood. He wrapped his arms around me like he was hugging me, but I didn't want him to because I knew he'd shot my daddy. I fought with him, but he held me even tighter and I couldn't get him to let me go. My jockeys were wet, and I knew I'd peed myself.

“Hold on, son,” the sheriff said. “Just hold on, now. Let's go back inside.”

“Daddy!” I hollered.

“Hold on,” he said again.

“Why'd you shoot my dad!”

“Let's just go back inside.” I heard sirens coming toward the house from up the road, and I fought with him again, but he still wouldn't let me go. Somebody out there in the driveway was screaming, and I thought it sounded just like Mama.

B
Y THE TIME
I
ROUNDED THE CORNER ON MY WAY UP TO
Ben's house, I saw that he'd already come down the porch steps and taken a stand at the top of the driveway in front of Chambliss's old car, the same one I'd seen him working on out in his barn the day before. Ben had on an old white T-shirt and a pair of boxer shorts, and he'd raised his double-barrel shotgun eye level and had it pointed at Chambliss's driver's-side windshield. He stood there frozen stiff, like he could stay that way forever, and I blasted my siren once to get his attention. He raised his head just enough to look over the roof of Chambliss's car, and he watched me roll slowly up the driveway toward him.

My siren must have gotten Chambliss's attention too, because his red taillights went white when he put his old car in reverse, and I heard his tires crunch on the gravel when he began to back away from Ben and down the driveway toward me. He put his arm across Julie's seat and turned around and looked at me through his back window. It struck me as strange then, and it's even more troubling to think about now, but he smiled at me. It was almost like he was proud to be playing the good guy all of a sudden—somebody who I'd come out to protect now that Ben Hall had finally made him the victim.

And then all that blood on the windows. It seems like I saw it happen before I even heard it. Chambliss's face was there on the other side of the window, his eyes narrowed like he was concentrating on staying in the gravel and not veering into the wet grass. And then I couldn't see his face at all, and I realized I couldn't see through that glass window either. By the time my ears had registered the shot I knew I was looking at bits of Chambliss's brain and skull where they'd been blown up on the back window from the force of the blast. His car kept on rolling back toward me though, faster and faster, until I put mine in park and braced myself for the impact. His car slammed into mine and rolled up over my bumper and into my grille, and when it did Chambliss's trunk flew open and I saw where he'd packed a half-dozen of those little wooden crates I'd seen inside his barn. A couple of them tumbled out onto my hood, and I looked at them through the smoke that poured out of my radiator. Then I heard another shot blow out what was left of Chambliss's front windshield, but with his trunk open and the steam gushing from under my hood I couldn't see a thing.

I opened my door and used it for cover, and I stepped out onto the gravel and drew my sidearm and pointed it at Ben. He'd walked down the driveway following Chambliss's car as it rolled backward, and now he was standing right in front of its bumper. When he saw me draw and take a position behind my door, he pointed his gun at me. I wondered if he'd had time to reload, but I knew better than to assume that he hadn't.

“You need to drop that gun, Ben,” I said. He looked at me like he didn't know who I was for a minute, and then his eyes registered some kind of recognition and he held them on me. “This thing's over,” I told him. “Put it down and let's go inside and talk about this. Ain't nothing else for us to do. You know that.”

It was quiet, and the two of us just stood there staring at each other. Suddenly the passenger-side door of Chambliss's car creaked open and I heard Julie tumble out into the driveway. I couldn't see her, but I could hear her breathing heavy in short, quick breaths, and I listened as she crawled slowly through the gravel like she was trying to get away. Ben waited until she'd gotten out from behind the open door, and then he took that shotgun off me and pointed it at her.

“Don't do that, Ben!” I hollered. “Look at me! Turn that back on me!” I could hear Julie sobbing over there on the far side of the car, and I could hear her struggling to get away from him. “It ain't going to be worth it,” I said. “I know it won't. You know it too.”

“No, I don't,” Ben said, and when he said that he turned his head and looked at me with a face I'd never seen on him before, and I can say that it was the only time in that boy's life that I'd ever seen his daddy in him. He kept his eyes on me, but he called out to Julie.

“What about you, baby?” he said. “Was it worth it for you? What you did in our bed, what you did in that church; was it worth it?” He turned and looked down at her. “You're always telling me that I need to get back into the Bible, and so I got it out and looked all through the New Testament, Julie, and I found a verse for you. In the book of Matthew, Jesus said not to kill, not to commit adultery. He also said, ‘You shall not steal.' But my favorite is ‘You shall not bear false witness.'” His body braced like he was thinking about firing on her. “I reckon that part of Matthew probably wasn't ever read out loud in your church. If it was, maybe y'all chose not to hear it. But I wanted you to hear it. I wanted to tell it to you.”

A noise came from inside the house, and out of the corner of my eye I saw the screen door fly open and Jess run out onto the porch. Before I could yell at him to get back inside, the screen door banged shut and Ben spun around toward Jess with his gun still raised. I reacted without even thinking about it and fired once and caught Ben in the right side of his throat. He dropped the gun and fell backward onto the gravel. I heard Jess screaming from up there on the porch, and I knew that he'd seen it.

“Hold on now, Jess,” I hollered at him. “You stay up there. You wait for me. Just hold on.” He kept on screaming out words I couldn't understand, and then he folded his arms around his belly and hunkered down on the porch.

I kept my gun drawn and pointed it at the front of Chambliss's car, and I crept around the driver's side until I saw Ben laying there. His eyes were wide open, and his chest was heaving. He breathed heavily through his mouth, and I could hear a gurgling sound coming from his throat where he'd been shot. Blood had begun to soak the gravel around his right shoulder. I holstered my pistol and picked up the shotgun and broke it open. Both barrels were empty. I looked down at Ben. “Goddamn it,” I said. “Goddamn it, Ben.” He looked up into the sky and blinked like the sun was in his eyes. I sat the shotgun on the hood of the car and stepped around to the passenger's side.

Julie was lying on her belly halfway into the grass like she'd crawled as far as she could, and when she saw me she screamed and backpedaled to the gravel and threw her back up against the side of Chambliss's car. When she raised her left hand to protect herself from me, I saw that it had almost been blown clean off from where she must've tried to cover her face and duck when Ben shot at her through the windshield. Her cheeks and forehead were peppered with shot. I holstered my gun and bent down to her. When I tried to touch her shoulder, she drew away from me. I heard a siren coming down the road from the highway, and I remembered that I'd called Robby for backup before I left the house.

“It's okay,” I told her. “It's all over now. You're going to be all right.” Her eyes were wild and terrified, and she wouldn't look directly at me. I reached out slowly and took hold of her left forearm. Some of her fingers were missing. “You just keep this raised,” I said. I propped her elbow on her bent knee. “Keep that up, just like it is. I'm going to go inside the house and call the ambulance.” Robby pulled into the driveway and stopped his car behind mine. I stood up to make sure he'd see me. He got out and left his door open and ran up through the grass, but he stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Julie sitting against the car. He looked inside where Chambliss's body was laid out across the front seat.

“What the hell happened?” he asked. He drew his pistol.

“Put that away,” I told him. I pointed down to Julie. “You need to stay right here with her,” I said. “Make sure she keeps that arm up just like it is. I'm going in to call the ambulance. You stay with her.” He knelt down beside Julie. Her chest heaved, and she started crying.

I looked over the hood of Chambliss's car where Ben lay in front of the bumper. I couldn't hear him choking anymore. He'd rolled his head back and to the right like he was trying to get a look at the house behind him where Jess was still hunkered down on the porch. His eyes were open wide and fixed on whatever it was he'd been trying to see.

“The ambulance is going to be here soon, Ben,” I said, but as soon as I said it I knew it wasn't going to make any difference for him.

I looked toward the house when I heard Jess's feet coming down the porch steps. I didn't want him finding his mother all shot up too, so I ran up the driveway and caught him before he got all the way out into the yard. I picked him up and carried him back up the steps, and he kicked his legs and threw his arms around like he was trying to fight me. Something warm came through the front of my shirt, and I knew that he'd wet himself and it had soaked through his underwear.