A Simple Plan (10 page)

Pederson saw me first. He stared at me, seemingly uncertain who I was, then raised his hand halfway up his body in greeting. I waved back, smiling. Jacob was talking very fast. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but it looked like he was arguing with the old man. He was making a cutting motion in the air with his arm and shaking his head. When he saw Pederson wave at me, he threw a panicked look into the woods but didn’t stop talking. Pederson seemed to be ignoring him. He gunned the snowmobile’s engine, then said something short to Jacob and pointed down at the snow in front of them.

What happened next happened very quickly.

Jacob took a step toward the old man, reared back, and gave him a wide, swinging blow to the side of his head. Pederson fell sideways, his body collapsing onto the edge of the road, absolutely lifeless, his left leg still draped partway over the seat, his rifle slipping from his shoulder. Jacob lost his footing on the follow-through, tumbled over the back of the snowmobile, and landed directly on top of the old man.

Mary Beth started to bark.

Jacob struggled to raise himself off Pederson’s body. His gloves slipped in the snow; he couldn’t seem to regain his feet. He’d lost his glasses when he fell, and, still lying there, he patted his hands around him in the snow until he found them. Then he put them on and started struggling upward again. When he finally made it to his knees, he paused, resting for a moment before, with what looked like a superhuman effort, he rose to his feet.

The snowmobile’s engine continued to idle, a deep, steady rumble. The dog cautiously approached Jacob from the center of the road. He gave his tail a slow, hesitant wag.

Jacob stood there, motionless. He touched his face with his glove, took his hand away to stare at it, then put it back.

All this time, I hadn’t moved. I’d stood there frozen, watching in horror. Even now I only partly shook myself free. I took a single step toward the road.

Jacob leaned back and kicked the old man. He kicked him twice, with all his strength, once in the chest and once in the head. After that he stopped. He put his hand up to his face and turned to look toward me.

Mary Beth started to bark again.

“Oh, Jacob,” I said, very quietly, as though speaking to myself. Then I began to run, moving quickly through the snow toward my brother.

J
ACOB
stood there, his glove covering his mouth and nose, watching me approach.

The snowmobile’s engine was making a coughing sound, threatening to stall, and the first thing I did when I reached the road was bend down and turn it off.

Jacob was crying. This was something I hadn’t seen since we were children, and it took me a second to accept that it was actually happening. He wasn’t sobbing, wasn’t weeping, there was nothing violent or dramatic about it, he was simply seeping tears; they moved slowly down his cheeks, his breath coming a little more quickly than usual, coming with a certain shakiness to it, a trembling and hesitation. His nose was bleeding—he’d banged it falling on top of Pederson—and now he was pinching his nostrils shut between two of his fingers.

I glanced down at the old man. He was lying on his side, his left leg still propped up on the snowmobile’s seat. He was dressed in jeans and black rubber boots. His orange jacket was hitched up around his waist; I could see his belt, thick and dark brown, and above it an inch of thermal underwear. Jacob had knocked off his hat when he hit him, revealing a sparse head of long, gray hair, dirty looking, oily. An orange wool scarf covered most of his face. I could see where Jacob had kicked him, right above the left ear. There was a dull red scrape there, around which his skin was already beginning to darken into a bruise.

Mary Beth stopped barking finally. He came up and sniffed at Jacob’s boots for a second, then moved off into the center of the road.

I crouched over Pederson’s body. I took off my glove and held my hand against his mouth. He didn’t seem to be breathing. I put my glove back on and stood up.

“He’s dead, Jacob,” I said. “You’ve killed him.”

“He was tracking the fox,” Jacob said, stuttering a bit. “It’s been stealing his chickens.”

I rubbed my face with my hand. I wasn’t sure what I ought to do. “Jesus, Jacob. How could you do this?”

“He would’ve gone right by the plane. He would’ve found it.”

“It’s all over now,” I said, feeling my chest begin to tighten in anger. “You’ve ruined it for us.”

We both stared down at Pederson.

“They’re going to send you to jail for this,” I said.

He gave me a panicked look. His glasses were wet from the snow. “I had to do it.” He sobbed. “We would’ve been caught.”

His eyes glittered, small and wild in the white, doughy expanse of his face; his cheeks were damp with tears. He was terrified, bewildered, and, seeing him like that, my anger collapsed, immediately replacing itself with a rush of pity. I could save him, I realized, my older brother, I could reach down and pluck him out of this trouble, and in the process I’d save myself, too.

I glanced quickly up and down the road. It was empty.

“Have any cars gone by?” I asked.

He didn’t seem to understand. He took his hand away from his nose, wiped at the tears on his cheeks. Blood was smeared across the skin above his upper lip, giving him a comical appearance, as if he were wearing a fake mustache.

“Cars?” he said.

I gestured impatiently at the road. “Have any passed? While I was in the park?”

He stared off into the distance. He thought for a second, then shook his head. “No. Nothing.” He put his hand back over his nose.

I glanced across the road, toward Pederson’s farm. The house was very small and far away. I thought I could see smoke rising from its chimney, but I couldn’t tell for sure. The snowmobile’s tracks headed off straight down the center of the field, running parallel to the fox’s.

“What do we do now?” Jacob asked. He was still crying a little, and he turned away from me, pretending to stare at Mary Beth, to hide it. The dog was sitting in the middle of the road.

“We’ll make it look like an accident,” I said. “We’ll drive him away from here and make it look like a snowmobile accident.”

Jacob gave me a frightened look.

“It’s all right,” I said. “We can get away with this.” For some reason seeing him panic made me all the more calm. I felt confident, completely in control.

“They’ll follow the tracks,” he said. “They’ll come here and they’ll see our tracks and they’ll follow them to the plane.”

“No. A storm’s coming.” I waved at the sky, which, despite what I was saying, was continuing to clear. I ignored this, bullying my way forward. “Any minute now it’ll start snowing, and all of this’ll be covered up.”

Jacob frowned, as if ready to disagree, but he didn’t say anything. He brought his hand back up to his face, and I saw the blood smeared on his glove.

“You didn’t get blood on him, did you?”

“Blood?”

I crouched beside Pederson, inspecting his clothes. There was a dark brown smear on the shoulder of his jacket. I scooped up a handful of snow and rubbed at the stain. Only a little bit came off.

Jacob watched me, a look of resignation on his face. “It’s not going to work, Hank,” he said. “We’re going to get caught.”

I continued to rub at the blood. “This isn’t a big deal. It’s not something people’ll notice.”

He held his hand out in front of him, stared down at his glove. “You said it’s worse than fingerprints,” he said, his voice taking on a quickness, a jagged quality.

“Jacob,” I said firmly. “Calm down.” I stood up and touched him on his arm. “All right? We can do this if we stay calm.”

“I killed him, Hank.”

“That’s right,” I said, “but it’s done. Now we have to deal with it. We have to cover it up so you don’t get caught.”

He shut his eyes. He put his hand back over his nose.

I realized that I had to get him away. I pulled the car keys out of my pocket. “You’re going to take Mary Beth and drive back to the bridge.” I waved down the road toward Anders Creek. “I’ll meet you there.”

He opened his eyes, bewildered. “At the bridge?”

I nodded. “I’m going to drive Pederson there on the snowmobile. We’ll push him over the edge, make it look like he drove off by accident.”

“It’ll never work.”

“It’ll work. We’re going to make it work.”

“Why would he be down at the bridge?”

“Jacob,” I said. “I’m doing this for you, all right? You’ve got to trust me. Everything’s going to be okay.” I held out the car keys in the palm of my glove. He stared at them for several seconds; then he reached out and took them.

“I’m going to drive through the park,” I said. “Out of sight from the road. You’ll get to the bridge before me, but I don’t want you to stop. I want you to drive by and then circle back. I don’t want people to see you sitting there.”

He didn’t say anything.

“Okay?”

He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly, and wiped at his cheeks. The car keys jingled in his hand. “I just don’t think we’ll get away with it.”

“We’ll get away with it.”

He shook his head. “There’s so much to think about. There’s all this stuff we probably haven’t even noticed yet.”

“Such as?”

“Stuff we’re not counting on. Stuff we’re missing.”

I was growing impatient. Time was slipping by. Any moment a car might appear on the horizon, driving toward us. If we were seen here like this, everything would be lost. I took Jacob by the elbow, guiding him toward the station wagon. I sensed that if I could get him moving, everything would be all right. We stepped out onto the road. The dog rose to his feet and stretched.

“We aren’t missing stuff,” I said. I tried to smile reassuringly at him, but it felt like it came out pleading. I gave him a little push forward.

“Just trust me, Jacob,” I said.

I
T WAS
perhaps ten seconds after Jacob started the car and drove off, as I was turning toward Pederson to pick him up and set him on the snowmobile, that the old man let out a long, agonized moan.

He was still alive.

I stared down at him in shock, my head swimming. He kicked his leg a little, and it slipped off the snowmobile onto the ground. His boot made a heavy thumping sound when it landed. I glanced down the road. Jacob had disappeared.

Pederson mumbled something into his wool scarf. Then he groaned again. One of his gloves flexed into a fist.

I stood there, bent at the waist, my mind racing. With frightening clarity, I saw two paths opening up before me. Taking one of them, I’d be able to finish it right here. I’d get Pederson up on the snowmobile, drive him back to his house, and call Carl. I’d have to tell him everything, and give the money back. If I did that, if I were totally honest, and Pederson survived his beating, I knew I’d have a good chance at escaping a jail sentence. But Jacob wouldn’t. Carl would send somebody down to the bridge to pick him up. He’d be charged with assault and battery, or attempted murder. He’d go to jail, probably for a long time. And the money would be gone.

Then, of course, there was the other path. It was already prepared for, already halfway trodden upon. I had the power to save Jacob, save the money. And in the end, I suppose, that was why I did it: because it seemed possible, it seemed like I wouldn’t get caught. It was the same reason I took the money, the same reason I did all that follows. By doing one wrong thing, I thought I could make everything right.

Pederson groaned. He seemed to be trying to lift his head.

“I’m,” he said very distinctly, but nothing more. He clenched his fist again.

I stooped down beside him. It was an ambiguous motion: someone watching us from a distance might’ve assumed that I was trying to help the old man.

His scarf was wrapped tightly around the bottom half of his face. His eyes were closed.

When I’d seen Jacob hit him, it had happened so quickly that it seemed natural to me, predictable. I’d been surprised, but not shocked. I’d accepted it immediately. Jacob, I said to myself, has killed him. In my mind at that instant Pederson had been dead. And that’s what I told myself now as I crouched over his body.
He’s already dead,
I said.
He’s already dead.

At first I’d planned to hit him again, like Jacob had, perhaps in the throat. For some reason I thought of the throat as a particularly vulnerable spot on the body. But looking at his neck, I saw his bright orange scarf, and the sight of it changed my mind.

I glanced up and down the road, to make sure no cars were coming, then leaned forward, took the scarf in my hand, balled it up a bit, and pressed down firmly against his mouth. With my other hand I pinched shut his nostrils.

Looking back now, it seems as though there ought to have been something more, some impediment or compunction, a barrier to struggle through. I would’ve expected at the very least a sense of terror, an atavistic revulsion, a realization that what I was doing was unequivocally wrong, not simply because the society of which I was a member called it such but because it was murder, a primal crime. There was nothing like that, though. And perhaps this shouldn’t be surprising—perhaps it’s romantic to expect that epiphanic realization, that sudden sense of fate’s diverging pathways as one hesitates between them, choosing. In real life the immensity of such moments must almost always slip by unnoticed, as it did for me, something to be added later, in hindsight, but buried until then beneath the incidental details—the feel of Pederson’s scarf through my glove, the worry that I was squeezing his nostrils too tightly, that I might be bruising them, and that this might be discovered in an autopsy.