The Drought (22 page)

Suzy kneeled down beside him. She touched his face and told him: “Don’t worry, help is coming.” But, the truth was, she didn’t know if help was coming. She hadn’t heard a single car go by since she stopped and…
Jesus, Jar was still stuck somewhere inside the drainage pipe.
She looked back toward the road wondering if she should abandon her search for survivors and just get into town as quickly as she could. She looked out across the scrub oaks and cypress and decided to take a quick look.

Another man was lying face down in a patch of prickly pear. The underside of his body was covered with sharp needles. The odd angle of his neck indicated he was past the point of feeling any pain.

Circling through the bushes, she walked back toward the truck, uncertain how far a person could be thrown from a moving vehicle. She didn’t understand the effects of shock or know she had been acting under those effects since the moment the rope back at the drainage pipe started to unravel. A part of her mind had shut down and her reaction to the accident and the dead bodies was dulled by what happened to Jar. She was still picking through the grass and the rocks looking for bodies when she heard a car coming down the road.

Numbly, she made her way back up to the road and waved down a truck. This time the vehicle slowed. When she saw Maple McManus behind the wheel she started to cry.

Maple got out of her truck and hugged the shaken girl. “Shhh…Suzy. What’s wrong? What’s happened?”

The girl was a mess. She had blood across the front of her shirt and she looked like she’d been rolling in dirt all day. Her entire body shook with sobs and her words were unintelligible. Maple rocked the slight figure. “Come on sweetie, why don’t you sit up in the truck until you can tell me what’s wrong.”

Suzy pulled away and wiped at her eyes leaving another long streak of dirt on her face. “No. The truck. You’ve got to help the people from the truck.

Maple looked at her and asked in a baffled voice. “What truck?”

Suzy pointed, “It’s down there.” Her voice caught. “There were people in the back… I think they’re all dead.”

Maple let her go and hurried to the side of the road. She scanned the scrub brush but didn’t see any sign of an accident. She looked back at Suzy to make sure she was looking in the right place. “Right here, honey?”

Suzy nodded. “I saw it flip. It went over two times before it stopped.”

Maple kept her eyes straight on Suzy. She walked back to the girl and held her hand and walked the girl over to the side of the road. “Suzy, there’s no truck.”

Suzy looked out across the dry ground. “But it was right… here.”

She walked down to where the truck had laid across a crushed man and saw nothing. She went a little farther and found the patch of prickly pear but no one was sprawled across it.

Lips trembling she said, “It was an old yellow Ford. It flipped two times right in front of me. She held up her hand, three fingers extended. “The bodies were…” Suzy’s voice trailed off and she let her hand fall to her side.

Maple looked at the girl sharply. “What year?”

Suzy shrugged, still crying. “I don’t know, it was old.” She wiped her nose. “Really old.”

There had been an accident on this road involving a yellow truck. But it wasn’t something Suzy could have witnessed. It long ago. Maple believed the girl had seen something; she also knew Suzy was in a state of shock. It occurred to her she might have been in an accident herself and had wandered away from it looking for help. “Suzy, listen to me. Is it possible the accident was farther back on the road? How long have you been out here?”

Suzy looked up with a half-focused look in her eyes. “I don’t know. It was here.” Suzy indicated the ditch with her hand. “I was riding to get help for Jar and I saw the yellow truck. They didn’t stop to help me but then they swerved and flipped.”

Maple grabbed Suzy by both shoulders and gave her a shake. “Where’s Jar? What’s happened to him?”

Suzy looked up realizing she had found the help she had gone looking for. “In the drainage pipe. He went in looking for Luke and the stupid ball and…”

Maple didn’t let her finish. She shoved Suzy toward the truck and said, “Get in.”

Suzy got in the truck. She pointed. “It’s just down there at Flatrock Bridge.”

Gripping the steering wheel, Maple muttered under her breath about stupid kids. Her heart was tight in her chest. She liked Jared Riley and she knew he had gone in looking for the dark man. She just hoped to God he didn’t find what he was looking for.

When they arrived at the drainage pipe, Suzy showed Maple the severed rope and explained Jar thought Luke and the ball were stuck down in a crevice. They took turns calling into the pipe. Eventually they agreed there was nothing that could be done from their end. Maple drove Suzy home with the promise she would notify the authorities and they would mount a search party and get Jar out of the pipe. Suzy simply nodded, knowing in her heart that if they hadn’t found Luke, they wouldn’t find Jar.

She remained voiceless when they passed the place in the road where she had seen the fatal accident, even when Maple stopped to pick up her bike. Suzy couldn’t explain what she had seen. She remembered her conversation with Jar earlier that day, when she had given him his dad’s pocketknife and he had asked her, “Do you believe in ghosts?” She hadn’t hesitated, she had replied, “Yes, I do.” She thought back to the first time she had seen the truck and recalled the look on their faces and what she had thought. They’ve been riding in that truck a long time, long enough to get the rhythm of that truck down.

Ghosts, that’s what she had seen. She thought about her father and Rod Sawyer baking in the hot sun, finding Robert Riley’s body. Her dad thought Rod’s last hours were death bed hallucinations. As she looked out over the barren landscape she realized death had come to Junction. He was moving from house to house, knocking on doors, ringing bells like an unwanted salesman. It was only a matter of time before his knuckles came raping against her door.

Reserve, Louisiana

Nathan stood in the marsh, hip deep in golden cattails. A dark cloud of mosquitoes hovered, waiting for a chance to get in close for a blood transaction. The fact he didn’t need a boat or at the very least wading boots had his stomach tied in a hard knot. The day had started in the woods. He’d gone searching for the old shanty where Nute often slept. When he found it, it was empty except for an old bedroll sitting in the corner.

After Agador got a good whiff Nathan had cut a piece of the fabric to carry along. That had been two hours ago and an untold number of miles. In pursuit of Nute’s elusive scent, Agador had treed two coons, wandered in circles and now had led them a mile out into the marsh, where there wasn’t a tree or a damn piece of shade to be had. Off in the distance the hound let off a mournful cry. Letting out a deep sigh of doubt, Nathan took a drink of water and pushed through the dry marshland.

A cattail exploded into the hot, still air. The golden particles drifted and settled in the long grass. Another long, soulful howl cut through the thick afternoon air. The timbre was urgent, strong, similar to the day he had tracked and found Gwen Doucet’s collie. Nathan’s heart quickened along with his pace. This was no ‘coon. Agador had found something out in the swamp. Tracking the sound with ears accustomed to working with a bloodhound, he made his way through the tall grasses until he came upon Agador, crouched low on his haunches, whining and tearing at the turf with his front paws in obvious agitation.

It wasn’t Nute. Not that he could tell.

The exposed bones were dry and white, picked clean of meat by the local wildlife. The skeletal remains were partially covered by washed out clothing. The pelvic bones were exposed, the pants hitched down to mid-thigh as if the man had stopped to squat. The rusted blade of a knife was visible inside the pelvic cavity.

Nathan stepped around the body for a different angle. Sweat dripped down his face. He removed his cap and swiped his arm across his brow, swearing softly. The left arm of the body was twisted down and around, the spindly bone of the fingers gripped tight around the handle of the knife. Nathan’s sphincter muscles tightened at the thought of where the knife had been inserted.

Even without flesh to define the facial features it was obvious the man had died screaming. His face was twisted into a mask of terror, his expression forever fixed in the placement of bone, the expanse between the upper and lower teeth dreadful and wide.

The four inch gap of a car door flashed through his mind along with the image of someone blasting five shots inside a car before taking off through the marsh and leaving behind a half a million dollars in a duffle bag. His gut was telling him, he’d found the driver of the abandoned 1970 Mercury Marquis.

Agador thumped his large head against Nathan’s legs and whined.

Nathan rubbed the dog’s head. “I agree ol’ boy, I don’t like this either.” He was still trying to get his mind around the width of the mouth and the screams that had to have echoed out across the lonely marshland, startling the cranes and the frogs, when the sun winked off something in the dead grass. He squinted, squatted down, and made as if to reach for it only to stop short at the last second remembering that this was now a police crime scene.

Looking around, he grabbed a stick and carefully inserted the stick beneath the metal object catching the sun. As he lifted it from the grass he saw it was a ring. The ring slid down and came to rest at the first fork in the stick.

Nathan stared long and hard at the little ring, trying to make sense of it. He looked again at the dead body with the pants down around its knees. Had the ring been in his pocket or was it just a coincidence?

He brought the stick closer to get a better look and to make sure he was looking at what he thought he was looking at. Closer inspection confirmed what he already knew. The ring on the stick belonged to his grandmother. It was her wedding ring, the one that had been stolen out of her mausoleum nearly a year ago. What was it doing here? He looked out over the silent marsh as if the answer was hidden in the ranks of dry grass and cattails.

He pulled out his two-way radio and called the station. Frank Malone answered. Nathan asked, “Where’s Loretta?”

“She’s out sick. Got a heat migraine.” His voice sounded hollow.

“All right, well get me Daniel. And get Robert Keiffer on the line.

“The coroner?”

“Yeah, the coroner, he can ride out here with Daniel.”

Frank cleared his throat. “Listen, Nathan. I uh, Daniel’s not here either.”

“What’s going on over there? A town holiday? Spit it out now.”

Frank didn’t spit it out. He barely managed to whisper it. He said, “Hell Nathan, “We’ve got a call in on a missing child.”

Junction, Texas

The sound of logs popping on a fire woke him. Through the haze of pain radiating up from his chest, Jar could feel heat on his skin and for the life of him he couldn’t understand why someone would light a fire. It had been hot for so long. Yet it wasn’t that hot. A slight chill was coming from his left hip, working its numb fingers down his legs and up through his ribcage. He opened his eyes. Everything was dark except the fire burning next to him. The cold was coming from the dirt floor where he was curled into a fetal position.

A faint rustling sound came from beyond the fire. A man poked at the flames with a long stick. Angry sparks popped. Smoke drifted up and hovered near the roof of the cave like a specter. Up above, in the town of Junction, the temperature climbed another degree.

In the back of his mind Jar was sure that everything he was seeing was pain induced delirium but he croaked through dry lips, “It’s you. You’re causing the heat.”

The spectral figure (real or imagined, he wasn’t sure) moved closer, and peered curiously at him. He said, “Bonswa, li’l mon.”

Jar said, “You’re the dark man.”

The man’s face split into a smile, showing dull yellow teeth.

Jar’s eyes drifted from the apparition and found the shape of Luke’s body. The Carlton Fisk ball was not visible but he knew it was there, the catalyst that had set everything in motion, resting in the dirt inches from Luke’s decaying fingers. He could not say what role the ball played in all of this but he knew he couldn’t leave the cave without it in his possession.

He tried to push himself up onto his elbows. The pain hiding beneath the numbness, beneath the cold came rushing forward. Moaning softly, he collapsed against the dirt.