Hush (17 page)

footsteps, and spun around. Mr. Boyce held a snake. It was struggling to break

free of his grip, as she had been just minutes ago. The creature looked weak and

helpless, and she wished he'd let it go.
Instead, he walked right up to her, so close that the snake's cold tail whipped

against her bare arm. She backed right into the rusty barbed-wire fence that

bordered the road.
Chet appeared oblivious to her fear and moved even closer.
"Get that thing away from me."
"Is this maybe the snake that scared you? There's a whole nest of them back

there. Nothing but old wood snakes. See, it can't bite you as long as you got it

like this."
To her considerable disgust, Mr. Boyce held the snake out to her with one hand

wrapped tightly below its head. The creature's body snapped around, and once

more its tail smacked Celia. She pulled back her arms so quickly she caught a

barb on her shoulder blade.
"I don't want it," she insisted in a scared voice.
"That way," Chet continued as if nothing out of the ordinary were taking place,

"it can't get you. Like I say, they got a whole nest of them back there, Mrs.

Griswold, just as many as you like."
She slowly tried to move sideways, careful not to press against the fence, but

fearful that at any moment the snake would be thrust in her face. Finally, to

her great relief, Mr. Boyce seemed to notice her fear and pulled it away.
"Hey, if this thing scares you so much I'll take care of it, Mrs. Griswold. I

don't have much patience for things that scare me. Never have, never will."
He fished his razor out of his shirt pocket and matter-of-factly started to cut

off the snake's head. Its long body thrashed madly as Celia shouted,
"Stop it! Jesus! What are you doing! Just leave it alone!"
Chet looked puzzled over her outburst.
"I'm sorry. Sure, I'll stop, if that's what you want."
He tossed the snake on the ground, where its half-severed head flopped around in

the dust and gravel.
"Christ, look what you've done."
"Look what I've done?" He shook his head in apparent disbelief. "It's just some

old wood snake."
She stared at the dark twisting form. "But look at it," she pleaded. "You almost

cut off its head. Put that poor thing out of its misery!"
She turned away, fighting tears, refusing to give into them.
Chet kicked his boot tip into the ground, spraying dirt and gravel on the snake.

"First, you tell me not to do anything. Then you tell me to kill it. Please make

up your mind, Mrs. Griswold. I can't take this back-and-forth business. A

thing's either up and alive, or it's down and dead. There's no in-between.

You're an art therapist, didn't they teach you that?" He stared at the snake,

then looked at her. "So what's it going to be? You want it dead"— he kicked the

dirt and gravel again—"or alive? I'll do whatever you want."
Celia had no answer. Her eyes returned to the tortured snake, and that's where

they remained as he spoke his final words:
"I guess I can't help you then. You do what you want."
He walked away with a smile she could not see, deeply pleased with himself, with

all the fun he'd just had. He'd scared her, scared her plenty. She sure wasn't

smiling anymore. Probably starting to think things out. He'd give her a few

days, see if it took. Right now he'd just keep walking down the road, no looking

back. She'd have to decide. Bet she ends up killing it. Taking a life. But she

won't know the God inside. She won't feel it forever and ever. The only thing

she'll feel is bad, and that'll make her think she's better than him. They all

thought they were better than him. He could tell by the way they talked and

looked at him, and she was just like the others, her with her smooth words. Mr.

Boyce this and Mr. Boyce that. Now there's no more Mr. Boyce, so what are you

doing to do, Mrs. Griswold? Let it die real slow? Kill it?
Things were starting to go his way. He could see it in her eyes when he cut the

snake, the look she gave him. Usually they only looked like that when he started

in on them. If she kept pushing him he'd see that look again real soon. Her

choice. He'd just do what had to be done. And if he did he'd make sure he could

see her eyes, see if she cares as much for herself as she does for some old

snake.
*
Celia watched in horror as the creature twitched and squirmed around and stirred

up a small cloud of dust. She actually considered calling after Mr. Boyce, but

shook her head. No, not him. She couldn't. She wiped away the tears that had

finally spilled down her cheeks and saw a rock by the barbed-wire fence. Doing

something felt better than doing nothing, so she struggled with it. She knew

even as she lugged it over to the snake that dropping it would take more

strength than picking it up. More strength than she had. The thought of beating

it to death sickened Celia, and her stomach began to turn. She heaved the rock

aside and started to cry again. But in the midst of her anguish she heard the

creature's rustling and glanced down at its pathetic struggle for life. She saw

that Mr. Boyce had disappeared, and in a powerful rage picked the rock back up

and smashed it down on the bloody head of the snake. She felt the rock rebound

dully, as if she'd hit solid rubber, and saw the serpent's spastic movements as

it fought even more furiously for the life she was taking away. Again she raised

the rock, and again she brought it down, weeping loudly now, her tears splashing

on the hard, uneven surface. Again and again she crashed the rock down, until

the snake no longer moved.
The rock peeled from her hands, fell heavily to the earth, and rolled over,

revealing the dark stains on its underside. She vomited repeatedly, coughing and

gagging on the stomach acids that filled her mouth and scorched her throat.
24
Jack roared up the county road determined to make up for lost time. Actually, he

quipped to himself, you didn't lose it at all; you spent it on Helen, and all in

all it was a mighty fine investment.
He tried to enjoy the warm afterglow of his intimate afternoon because he knew

that as soon as he saw Celia his guilt would start making the rounds of his

conscience like the village constable of yore, peering down every one of his

dark alleys and finding all the shop doors he'd left unlocked. But—oh crap— even

thinking about guilt made it real. He could already feel it creeping up on him,

and in a forlorn voice he reminded himself to take a shower before Celia could

sniff out his sins.
He pressed on as the forest— what was left of it— whizzed by. He reasoned that

if he hadn't tried so hard to be monogamous for the first three years of his

marriage he wouldn't be feeling so guilty now. Not that he considered his

infidelities all that unusual. Hardly. An important part of his private compact

with his gender was the implicit understanding that men everywhere agreed with

him, and that together they were engaged in a vast impersonal conspiracy to dupe

the women in their lives. He was amazed at how well they had succeeded. But even

with all the support he imagined himself having he still felt small, stingy, and

guilt-stricken when he cheated on Celia. He never got a break. Never. His

conscience was a radar gun that nailed him every time he cruised the fast lane.
As he pulled up to the house he saw her sitting on the deck crying. Lord, not

just crying, but sobbing, for Christ's sakes. How'd she find out? Had she

stopped by the office and heard Helen howling? That woman could shatter crystal

when she came.
Oh, sweet Jesus, he prayed, help me and I'll never do it in the office again.
As he opened the cab he glanced in the rearview mirror and spotted lipstick on

his neck. He wiped it away in a white panic and stepped gingerly out of the

truck, as if walking lightly might somehow appease Celia.
When she looked up, her eyes were red as flares, and her face was flushed of all

color.
"Sweetheart," he croaked, "what's the matter?"
She just sat there crying and shaking her head. That really worried him. He

settled beside her and placed his hand stiffly on her shoulder.
"Hon, are you all right?"
"Do I look all right?" she sniffed. "And where have you been?"
When she said that, he could have danced, he could have sung, he could have

praised the sky above and the deep dark earth below because if she had to ask,

well, then she didn't know. Once more he'd crawled through the eye of the

marital needle. Delightful.
"Could you please get me a glass of water?" Speaking made her throat burn, and

she wanted to rinse out her mouth.
"Sure, sure." Jack hustled inside, happy to walk off some of his nervous energy.

He returned with the water quickly.
"Thanks." She swished it around and spit it out, then swallowed a mouthful and

relished its soothing effects on her raw throat. She drank the rest without

stopping.
"You really are thirsty."
"Jack, I'm really scared," she said softly. "And where were you?"
"I left a message for you, hon. I had to work late. I had some claims come in at

the last minute."
"I wish you'd been here." She clutched the empty glass tightly as she described

what Mr. Boyce had done to the snake and how she knew him from the Center.

"Jack," she said, as she started crying again, "I had to beat that snake to

death with a rock."
"Oh, Cel." He hugged her before realizing what he was doing. He broke the clinch

quickly, fearful that Helen's scent would prove as powerful as her sex drive.

"Let's call the sheriff. We don't need a weirdo around here."
Celia dried her eyes on her sleeve. "Speaking of weirdos, did you see the

shepherd in the big meadow?"
"Shepherd? No, I missed that." But it wasn't exactly unusual to see dogs around

here. Big ones, like shepherds, smaller ones, like that ugly hound he'd gotten

rid of last week. All kinds.
"But I'll bet you remember the dog you took to the pound?"
"You mean the one that needed braces?" Jack laughed.
"Please don't do that." After the horrors of her afternoon she couldn't bear her

husband's cheerfulness. "It belonged to a really strange guy who's got about a

hundred sheep grazing down in that meadow. He says he lost his dog right after

he got here last week, a black-and-white dog with buck teeth. Sound familiar?

But he thinks it was stolen and he says he can't wait to get his hands on the

guy that took him."
"Wait a second, you mean a shepherd like with sheep, not a—"
"Yes, of course; what did—"
"I thought you meant the kind with big ears and big teeth. Did he really say

that he can't wait to get his hands on the guy that took his crummy little dog?"
"Jack, it was a nice dog, and if you'd just—"
"That's it." He raked his hair with his fingers. "I'm calling the sheriff. The

last time I checked we weren't living on the set of Deliverance."
She looked at him with raised eyebrows. "I'm beginning to wonder. But look, I

screwed up. I told the guy to check the pound."
"Oh no." He rolled his head to the side. "Why'd you do that? They probably nuked

that mutt already."
"Because I screwed up, okay? Because he's leaning in my car, he's filthy dirty,

his face is right on top of me, and he's asking me one question after another. I

never do well under that kind of pressure. So if he does check the pound—"
"They might tell him about me."
"Right."
Jack stood up and his hand traveled slowly to his chin. "You say he's kind of

strange?"
"Actually, he strikes me as kind of stupid." She saw his hairy face, the bits of

food or skin falling from his beard, those awful rotting nubs of teeth.
"Then maybe he won't put two and two together."
"I don't know if he's that stupid. But listen, if you're going to call the

sheriff about the shepherd, forget about Davy's stepfather."
"Davy who?"
"The new boy at the Center. Don't you ever listen?"
"I got it. I got it. You don't want me to mention him?"
"That's right, don't. I'm trying to work with the boy and it's a delicate

situation. If we bring in the sheriff, it's only going to complicate things."

She couldn't imagine Bentman's hick sheriff giving a hoot about some snake

anyway.
Jack looked toward the county road, which he could barely make out through the

trees.
"Oh, screw that sheepherder too. I can already hear them saying they can't do

anything until the creep actually does something. We're probably better off just

ignoring these assholes."
"I doubt we can do that." Celia was working with Davy every day now, so she

could not avoid his stepfather. No avoiding the meadow either; she had to drive

past it to get to and from work. "But if I were you I sure wouldn't slow down if

I saw the shepherd."
25
Davy sat in the back of the classroom with his chin on his chest and his hands

resting on his desk. Celia couldn't tell if he was scared, or just tired. She

felt a bit of both. She stood no more than five feet away, watching him from

behind a large one-way mirror. Her encounter with Davy's stepfather had given

her a fitful night's sleep and left her shaky this morning. Tony had joined her

just a few minutes ago. This was the first class of the day, and as soon as she

had a few unencumbered moments she wanted to tell him about Mr. Boyce. It

chilled her to even think about the way he'd just appeared out there in the

woods. She rubbed her hand over her left arm, as if she could erase the memory

of his rough grip; and then a terrifying possibility struck her: he hadn't just