Dark Places (18 page)
Authors: Reavis Z Wortham
Ned's stomach hurt so bad he could barely get out of bed. James paced the floor. “Let us take you to the doctor.”
“Hell. no. We need to get to find Pepper,
then
you can take me to the doctor, but not before.”
“Why not?”
“'Cause we need to move, for one thing, and for the other, they might want to put me in the hospital or something for this belly-ache. You know how doctors are, if they think they can get you in a hospital bed, they'll dern shore do it. Then that'll leave you and Crow without me.”
Crow was waiting in his favorite lawn chair when Ned and James emerged. He rose and watched Ned take the backseat for the first time. Only then did Crow begin to worry about the old man. “You don't want to ride up front?”
“Nope. I'm gonna lay back here and see if I can get easy. I took a dose of Pepto-Bismol Bismol. It should start working before long.”
Crow raised his eyebrows and James sighed. “I don't know how many times we've told him there ain't no second Bismol, but he says it anyway, like he's hard-headed or something.”
James started the car as Crow climbed into the passenger seat. They drove through Meteor City before the town came awake. A fading sign for the town of Two Guns and a large building advertising mountain lions grew smaller in their mirrors. Giant red and yellow arrows nearly twenty feet in length outside of the Twin Arrows Trading Post faded into the distance. They were most likely the only people from out of town that day that didn't stop at the stark white café and gas station.
Flagstaff eventually rose in the distance. Not long afterward, James steered into the parking lot in front of the courthouse. “I'm going in to talk with somebody about this address for Westlake's relatives. I want a police officer to go with us.”
Crow was silent, but in the backseat, Ned spoke up. “Find us a city map. We can go it alone.”
“I think we need the law with us.”
“Son, I
am
the law.”
“Dad, you're Texas law, and sick to
boot
.”
“That don't make no difference. I'll rally when we get there.”
James drummed the steering wheel in frustration. “Crow, what do you think?”
He flicked his eyes toward the front door beneath the tall clock tower, wondering if the police department was housed inside the red brick building. If nothing else, there would be sheriff's deputies inside. “I'm with Ned. This is family business, and you don't need the local fuzz to go with you.”
“Family? Ned, you didn't say anything about family. You said he was Comanche.”
“I believe he means it in a way other than blood.”
“I do.”
James studied Crow for a long minute. “You're on the run from the law.” It wasn't a question, but a flat statement.
“I'm on the run from life.”
“Ned, we truly don't know this feller. It could be he's a fugitive.”
“Right now, he's a man helping us, son.”
“But,” James stopped, watching a kid walking down the street. “â¦I'll be damned.”
Ned raised up on one elbow in the backseat to see where James was pointing. A teenager hurried toward them at a pretty good clip. The boy didn't see them in the car, and James realized he was on his way into the courthouse.
Crow followed James' point. “What?”
“That's Cale Westlake.”
For the first time since they'd met him, Crow showed surprise.
Before they could react, Cale opened the door under the clock tower and went inside.
Instead of going straight back home, I cut off the road at the catch pen a hundred yards from our drive and pedaled down to Uncle Cody's house. I knew he wouldn't be there, but figured Norma Faye would be. She was sitting on the porch, shelling peas.
“What are you doing out cattin' around in this weather?”
I dropped my bike in the yard and joined her. “Miss Becky sent me to the store for some cake mix.”
Surprised, she glanced up at the gray sky. “She must want to bake awful bad. She always makes her cakes from scratch.”
“I think she made it up because she wanted to get me away for a little while. She dropped a jar and I heard her cuss.”
Norma Faye's hands went limp in her lap. “She never.”
“She did. She said âshit-fire,' and then went to crying.”
Norma Faye bit her lip. She was wearing lipstick, even at home alone, and her top teeth scraped some off her bottom lip. Her eyes filled. I couldn't go anywhere without women spilling tears. “She's worried sick about Pepper.”
“She's all right, now that she's cried, I 'magine.”
“No, she isn't.” Norma Faye stood. “I'm going over there. You can ride with me and leave your bike here.”
“She said she's going to church when I get back.”
“She can, but we probably need to talk first.”
“I didn't come here to tell you that.”
She raised her eyebrows and waited.
“I need to talk to Uncle Cody, but I don't want to do it when Miss Becky's around.”
Norma Faye didn't bat an eye or even take a second to think. “You want to go inside and call him?”
“Can I?”
“Sure.” She sat back down without questioning me like anyone else would. “I'll finish shelling these peas and then we'll go to the house together.”
Their phone was in the kitchen, at the back of the house. I walked through, remembering what it was like when Mr. Tom Bell, the old Texas Ranger, was rebuilding the place that had fallen into ruin. His trunk still sat against the wall in the living room with a crocheted drape over it, like it was a little casket, and maybe that's how they felt about it. I only remembered it was full of guns when me and Pepper snuck in one day while Mr. Tom was gone. When we lifted the lid, we found his pistol, holster, badge, and a big, mean-looking rifle.
I knew the number by heart, and spun the dial five times.
“Sheriff's Department.”
The voice didn't sound like anyone I'd ever talked to. “Is this Martha?”
“No, hon. This is Deputy Anna Sloan. Who do you need?”
“Uncle Cody, uh, I mean Sheriff Cody Parker.”
“You must be Top.”
“Yes ma'am.”
“Your Uncle Cody's not here right now. What can I do for you?”
“I really need to talk to him about something really, really important.”
“Really?”
I knew right off she was making fun of me, and it made me mad. “What'll it take for you to have him call back, or come home?”
“Well, he's in Dallas right now, with some bodiâ¦on official business.”
“Can you radio him?”
“Is it that important?”
“Yes ma'am.”
“I'll holler at him. Are you all right, hon?”
“Yes ma'am. I have some news that he might be able to use.”
“Can you give it to me?”
I caught myself biting my lip like Norma Faye. “Will you tell him?”
“Sure will. He's my boss.”
“I think I know who called Judge Rains and told him where to find the bodies of those missing men.”
There was a long moment of silence. “How do you know that?”
I explained what I'd overheard on Mr. O.C.'s phone, and again in Neal's store.
“How sure are you?”
“Sure enough to call you.”
“I've heard stories about you and Pepper, how y'all get in trouble sometimes.”
“We aren't wrong, though.” I thought about telling her about my dreams, but I didn't know her well enough and was afraid she'd laugh at me.
“All right. I'll see what I can do.”
Relieved, I hung up. I'd done everything I was supposed to do, and she was right, without Pepper there, I was out of it.
Norma Faye was waiting when I came out on the porch. She'd been listening. “Why didn't you want to make that call at home?”
“I believe Miss Becky has enough on her plate as it is, so I don't want her worrying about me getting involved in something like this again.”
She raised an eyebrow and studied me for a while before standing up. “You're quite a little man, you know that?”
It made me feel good for her to say that, and I felt better as she drove me home without asking me a single question.
The three of us went to church an hour later to pray. Mine was short, and I probably could have made it in the living room instead of the church house.
Miss Becky took a long, long time at it, though, and I reckon she needed the altar as a pipeline to be heard, after saying such a bad word.
Ned and James followed Cale Westlake into the Flagstaff police station. Crow stayed outside, in the car.
Slower because of the pain in his stomach, Ned came in last. They stopped at the sight of Cale standing in the lobby, apparently trying to decide where to go. The youngster saw them when he heard the glass doors close.
They were shocked at his appearance. Two black eyes and a split lip highlighted the huge lump on his forehead. His shirt was splattered with blood.
Before Ned could grasp the sight, James lost control and launched forward. “You little bastard!”
Cale recoiled as if a snake struck at him. Before he could get away, James grabbed a handful of hair and shook the boy like a rag doll. “Where's my daughter?” His voice echoed throughout the tile lobby.
“Wait!” Cale's eyes went wide and filled with water. He tried to twist out of James' hands, but James shook harder.
Ned stepped between them, bunching up his son's shirt and trying to separate them. “James! Back off!” Cale's tennis shoes squeaked on the floor as he fought for balance. “Son!”
Two sheriff's deputies shot out of a nearby courtroom and seeing the apparently violent situation, plowed into the three of them, knocking Ned on his backside. Ned grunted as he hit the hard floor and a lance of pain shot through his tailbone. His Stetson went rolling across the floor.
James went down hard, taking Cale with him. Growling like a mad bear, he refused to let go of the boy's shirt and struggled to pull him closer. “Where's my girl?!”
The lobby was suddenly filled with shouts and orders as more people poured out of nearby offices. Half a dozen uniformed men joined in to separate the two.
A young police officer planted one foot between Ned's outstretched legs, pushing him back with the point of a billy club. “Don't move old man!”
James continued to struggle and a deputy on the ground got him in a choke hold from behind. The deputy bent backward, pulling the stricken father into a painful arch. James ducked his chin and twisted, fury overriding good sense. Another deputy twisted James' arm until it came close to breaking. He released his hold on Cale's shirt and disappeared under a pile of even more lawmen who rolled into the fray like an offensive line.
Ned struggled to push upright. “Hold it! I'm the law! That's my son you've got!”
The officer with the baton increased the pressure on Ned's chest. “Fine sir. When we separate your son from that man, you can get up and we'll figure all this out.”
“No, the
grownup
is my son, James. The boy is a runaway.”
“Stay right there.”
“I said he's a runaway!”
“I said don't move!”
Ned's face flushed with heat. “
I
told you I'm a lawman. My badge is in my pocket.”
Ned tried to reach for it and his arm went numb when the officer swung the wooden club against his shoulder. It impacted with a thick, meaty sound. “Don't reach into that pocket old man!”
“You son of a bitch! You hit me again and⦔
“Dad!” Still struggling to get free, James saw the officer use two hands on the baton to strike Ned a second time and managed a croak. “Dad!”
The old constable's blue eyes flashed, as if taking a photo of the officer standing above him with the baton raised for another strike, then he relaxed and laid back, groaning.
None of them saw Cale Westlake run out the door.
Two hours after he got a radio call from Anna, Uncle Cody's tires crunched up the drive. It was nearly dark, and I was waiting on the porch. Hootie roused up, but he recognized the car and rested his head back on his paws. He didn't move again until Uncle Cody trailed around the car and up on the porch.
“Deputy Sloan told me what you think you found out.” Cody dropped into the cane-bottom chair beside me. Hootie stood, turned around three times, and laid back down to watch the road. “Well, at least this time you didn't go off trying to solve everything all by yourself. I guess Pepper not being here made a difference.”
“I'm not sure what difference that'd be. It seems like I'm right back in the middle of stuff I don't want to be in by being up at the store and hearing Freddy. You know how he talks, well, I recognized him right off.”
“You sure about what you're saying?”
“Sure enough.”
“On your word I'm taking him into custody. That's a big responsibility for a kid.”
“I know his lisp. He says âvery' funny, like âburry,' and âbidness,' too. Let Judge Rains talk to him and he'll recognize his voice like I did.”
“You know that's what I'll do, but the judge didn't say anything about a lisp.”
“It's 'cause of the way he talked, like he was careful. The judge'll remember that.”
The rain had stopped, but the world was heavy with water. It dripped off the house, from the trees, and from the thicket of sand plums beside the hay barn. The long grass in the pasture lay droopy and green. A thin stream ran from the hill where the barn sat, down the ruts made by Grandpa's truck, under the pipe gate, and then down the gravel drive to join a thicker stream flowing in the ditch. The water streamed over the drive toward the slough below the house that eventually ran off into Sanders Creek, a mile away.
A cow lowed in the distance, and a hoot owl tuned up. I guess he was impatient because it'd been cloudy for so long and he was all mixed up. Behind the house, a whippoorwill called. It all sounded so normal, but at the same time wrong, because the storms weren't past, Pepper was gone, and Grandpa and Uncle James weren't there.
I couldn't meet Uncle Cody's eyes. “What are you going to do with Freddy?”
“Anna's on the way to pick him up, and then we'll take him in for questioning.”
“Will you tell him how you know?”
“I don't know.” He paused. “We'll see how it goes.”
“Do you think he did it?”
“Can't say. He might have. He might know who did it, or he may be telling stories.”
That was our nice way of saying he might be lying.
“Am I gonna get in trouble?”
“For what?”
I shrugged. “I don't know.”
He gave my neck a squeeze. I realized how skinny I was when his hand slipped down to cover most of my shoulder. “You don't ever get in trouble trying to do the right thing.”
“I didn't know for sure where Pepper was going.”
“Oh,
that's
what we're talking about.” It was quiet for a moment. “Did she tell you she was leaving?”
“No. She's been talking about California for a good long while, especially afterâ¦after we were took.” A painful lump rose in my throat and my eyes burned. I didn't know where it came from. One minute it wasn't there, and the next minute I wanted to bawl like a baby. I kept those feelings packed down most of the time, but every now and then they'd well up like spring water. “She don't talk about it.”
“Do
you
want to talk about it?”
I had to swallow twice before answering. I was afraid someone was listening through the screen door, but the kitchen was dark. “Everybody worries about what happened to Pepper all the time. It's always poor Pepper this, and poor Pepper that. She don't want it, but she never says anything.”
“So what do
you
want?”
“I wanted someone to ask me how
I
felt after the Skinner took usâ¦how
I
feel. No one ever does, though.”
It was quiet on the porch while Uncle Cody digested our words.
“Do you need to talk about that night?”
“I want to talk about a lot of things.”
“Like what?”
“That, and Hootie getting chewed up.” The Brit perked up his ears at his name, then sighed and went back to watching the road. “Like us almost letting that killer Kendal get away, or Grandpa nearly dying down in Mexico.” I tried to swallow the lump, but my chest was full of pain and my voice broke. “Or about Mr. Tom Bell. I loved him and now he's gone, and here I am, sitting here all alone. Everything I love and need keeps getting hurt in some way, or killed.”
“I know, but you're not alone. Let's talk.”
That stubborn Parker streak rose up then and I shook my head and wiped the tears off my cheeks. “No. Pepper's gone, too. It's about her right nowâ¦again.” A good mad replaced my tears, because it was always about her. That was something about me I never understood. When I got mad, I'd get to crying. I wiped my cheeks dry. “I should have told someone what she was thinking.”
“It's not your fault. She does what she does.”
“She has a hurt deep down inside. It ain't all about that scar on her shoulder. You know, the Skinner did things to her, too.”
“Do you think she needs to talk to a doctor?”
“They said the scar wouldn't be a problem.”
“I'm talking about a head doctor.”
“She ain't
crazy
!”
“Never said she was. People can get hurt inside their heads and talking it out helps.”
“Do they have those for kids?”
“Yep.”
“Boys
and
girls?”
I could feel him studying me. “Both, if they need it.” He gave my neck another squeeze and it told me he understood the weight of everything that was resting on my shoulders, from my parents dying, something I never talked about, to that terrible night in the bottoms when the Skinner did those things to me and Pepper.
We set there quiet for a while before the tightness in my chest eased. I finally broke the silence. “There's something else.”
“A'ite.”
“That dream I keep having. A horse is talking to me, leaning his head against my chest and whispering.”
“You have a horse talking to you now?”
I smiled, feeling the dried tears pull at the skin of my cheeks. “Stupid, ain't it? I've gone from dreaming about drowning in the Rock Hole to Mr. Ed.”
We both laughed about the talking horse on television.
“Your horse is like Mr. Ed?”
“No. I'm not dreaming about that stupid show. Horses don't talk, but the one in my dreams does, and he knows Grandpa.”
“I've been having dreams, too.”
“What about?”
He was silent for a moment. “Dead babies.”
I shuddered.
“Only you'd understand. Dead babies that keep pointing west, past Neal's store.”
“What does it all mean?”
He sighed. “It means the Gift is trying to tell us something.”
