The Drought (6 page)

Dora’s name might be mentioned then, in a hushed tone of respect used for the missing or the dead. Another round of tsking would ensue this time by the women wondering about the poor child, innocent in all of this, raised without the love of a mother.

The Aston Martin traveled along the dark narrow streets of Junction, passing small houses already astir with the news of the missing Casteel kid. Inside the expensive car, Barry Tanner still dressed in swim trunks and covered with the grime of the day looked uncomfortable and out of place against the expensive leather seat. The image of the Carlton Fisk ball flying over his head, just out of reach, kept repeating in a permanent, damning loop that had his fingertips twitching in anticipation of a catch that would never happen.

*

Ascending another narrow road, they left the town behind. Barry’s eyes remained on the window as they drove through the gated entrance, down the cobbled drive lined with pecan trees, beyond which lay a perfectly manicured lawn, still green despite the drought and the county wide watering ban. The house with its worn stone, copper fluting and large mahogany doors should have stirred in him a sense of pride but he had learned at a very young age even the most beautiful surroundings could become a prison. At the front of the property the automated gates swung together, silently closing off his only avenue of escape. His face reflected in the dark window, remained expressionless but his heart—his heart pumped, wildly infused with a strange mixture of fear and hope, a sensation known intimately by every inmate praying for clemency they know will not come.

A walkway extended over the driveway from the house to the first set of garages. Griffin drove under this walkway and into a courtyard where an additional five garages housed an exquisite collection of automobiles. From this rear courtyard there were several entrances into the house. Holding to a peculiar habit, Griffin walked along a quaint stone path, delicately lined in moss which led to the front of his house. Once on the front stoop, he stopped to admire his property then inserted the key into an ancient lock fixture adorned with a lion’s head and turned the key.

The interior of the house was equally overstated. The floors were a dusty pink Italian marble. A sweeping staircase descended from the upper levels in a grand flourish of oriental carpet and intricate railing. A mural depicting Dante’s nine circles of hell was painted across the ceiling, the writhing figures of purgatory rendered with such realism it looked as if they might plummet at any moment to the marble below. He placed his keys in a bronze dish near the door, picked up the day’s mail, and walked across the foyer unmindful of the trail of mud he left behind. For all appearances it looked as if he had forgotten about his wayward son.

Barry refused to follow his father to the front of the house. He entered through a side door and was waiting in the kitchen when Griffin stepped into the room. Their eyes met for a moment, Barry’s defiant; Griffin’s dismissive. Griffin knew Barry well enough to know when he was looking for a fight and he had no intention of giving in tonight. “You must be starving. I believe Rosa left you some dinner.”

“Cut the crap, Dad.” Barry’s lower lip trembled. He raised his arms and thumped his bare chest. “Why don’t we get this over with right now!”

Griffin smiled. His lids came down partially obscuring brown eyes that looked golden. He was handsome in a hard, uncharacteristic way—in that fleeting smile was a trace of the suitor who had pursued and caught one of the most beautiful women in town. “Barry, Barry. You know, I don’t get to choose the moments when you’re going to steal from my collection.” He tapped an envelope against the kitchen counter. “And I don’t get to choose which pieces will never be recovered.” His smile became larger, revealing strong white teeth. “If we’re going to play this game, certainly I deserve the right to enjoy choosing when to punish you for your indiscretions.”

Barry backed away, shaking his head in disbelief. “You’re psychotic. I think it gets you off when I mess up.”

Griffin had opened the cream colored envelope and now looked up from reading. “You’re the one who likes to pull the tiger’s tail, son.” He looked down again, dismissing Barry.

Too proud to admit he was hungry Barry left the kitchen without his dinner. He went up the back stairs and into the upper hall that led to his bedroom. It wasn’t one of the bigger rooms in the house, but its location near the kitchen stairs allowed him to come and go without being seen by his father. The room could have been a guestroom. There were no posters on the walls, no sports paraphernalia, nothing to give any insight into the boy who occupied the space, except a silver, five-by-seven picture frame on the nightstand.

Barry stepped into the room assessing the situation. The door didn’t lock. His father believed in privacy, but only his own. The only thing in his bedroom he could move was the dresser. In the past he had tried barricading the door. But the beating, when it came, was worse than usual. Exhausted, he lay down on the bed and grabbed the picture frame off the nightstand.

A striking young woman stared back at him. At a glance the smile on her face made her look happy but he had spent hours staring at her picture and saw details in the print that gave her away. Her eyes were distracted, there were lines of tension around her mouth and it looked to him like she couldn’t breathe.
It’s the glass
, he thought,
she’s suffocating under the glass
. He ripped the back off the frame, slid the picture free. Her expression didn’t change. He held the photograph, smelled the chemicals in the paper, it was just a picture, that’s all it would ever be, that’s all he would ever have. He fell asleep holding the picture of his mother, thinking if there was anything worse than a beating it was waiting for it to happen.

He was sleeping when the moment finally came.

The first lash of the belt cut through the darkness and across his bare chest, wrenching him into consciousness. Crying out, he instinctively rolled over and into a fetal position, allowing his back to take the next lash. His father didn’t speak. There was no lecture to accompany the blows, just the sound of the belt whistling through the darkness until it made contact with a stinging smack.

Cringing beneath each lash of the belt, he gripped the mattress with rigid fingers and bit into his pillow to keep from crying out. There was nothing he could do about the tears rolling down his cheeks, but he refused to give his father the satisfaction of any sound that signaled weakness. Instead, he concentrated on the rhythm of the beating
. Eight, whistle, smack, don’t scream. Nine, whistle, smack, don’t scream.
He counted each lash, mentally recording them, storing them in a vault of hatred he’d created in honor of his father.
Ten.
The whistling stopped. He drew in a ragged breath and his father spoke for the first time.

“I have a little something extra for you this time, Barry.”

Barry closed his eyes, tensing his body as he waited for the next blow. This time, the breath fled his body in a gasp. The metal belt buckle ripped into his raw back. The buckle descended again and again, until he lost count of the blows.

He floated just below consciousness, noting with bemusement the rhythm of the beating had changed. Under the added weight of the buckle, the whistle had become more of a warble. With each thud of the buckle, the smack had more of a wet sound. The rhythm now went something like
, warble, squish, just breathe.
Reality, coated in pain, slipped away and he chuckled.
Hey what starts with a warble, ends with a squish and is covered completely in red?

“Barry.”

The single word, whispered from the walls, emanating from the dull gray twilight of unconsciousness, where he nearly slept.

The voice, melodious, soft,
warm
came again.

“Barry.”

His eyelids fluttered and slowly opened. Tiny red spots speckled the white cotton sheets. He rubbed at one with his finger. Feeling his lids grow heavy, he started to drift away again.

Urgent, beckoning.

“Barry!”

*

His eyes rolled open, searching the depths of the shadows for the voice. The room was cold. He could see his own breath coming in short, tight, expulsions. These exhalations filled the room with a light mist and through this celestial fog he saw
her
for the first time.

She waved her hand, motioning for him to come to her. Her movements were languid, and somehow as melodious as her voice. Her dark hair fell past her shoulders. He stopped there, unwilling to allow his eyes to drop beyond those soft shoulders.
Barry, bring me the brush, the silver one on the bureau.
She beckoned again. Everything in him ached to join her but he was afraid to move. The belt had a way of snaking around the body and finding places that were harder to heal than the back.

Understanding poured from her eyes. She looked past him. He followed her gaze. His father was standing over the bed breathing raggedly, the belt hanging from his hand. Puzzled, he looked down at the bed where his
own
body lay, a bloodied mess. His arm was outstretched, reaching toward the corner of the room where she waited. He stood, frozen, between the carnage on the bed and the vapory presence of a woman who by all earthly rights could not be there. His eyes passed over the bloodied back of his body and followed the outstretched arm until they made contact with her eyes. Familiar eyes. She opened her arms and whispered,
“Come to me, Barry.”

Unwillingly, his eyes dropped away from hers, falling past her soft shoulders and tangled hair. Traveling downward, his eyes followed the gauzy lines of her nightgown until the white material turned crimson. His lips trembled with an old pain, an old memory.

Arms open, she waited.

With a ragged sob, he walked into his mother’s embrace.

Reserve, Louisiana

Nathan Singer woke with a start. His eyes snapped open as his clock shuttered its way from 3:59 to 4:00 a.m. The details of the nightmare broke into pieces then scurried away like roaches fleeing for cover. He lay there for a moment, floating on the wispy edge of wakefulness and sleep, trying to bring the fragments back together.
Heat was coming off the front grill of the Mercury; a roiling mass of hot air.
He closed his eyes. Above him the ceiling fan cut through the thick humidity.
A giant tumbleweed rolled down the road, pushed along by the swelling pocket of heat. The road was lined with brown grass and dying trees. From this barren landscape a voice whispered, “It’s gonna get hot. Mighty hot”

If there was more to the dream his subconscious wasn’t willing to give it up. He stretched, swung his legs off the bed and made his way to the bathroom to relieve himself. On his way from the bathroom to the kitchen he stumbled over his dog, Agador. A jolt of pain traveled up his back and through his neck. The accident in the marsh had left him with a nagging case of whiplash. The large hound lumbered up from the floor wagging his tail apologetically then in a personal gesture of affection, dragged his drool-covered snout across Nathan’s bare leg. Ignoring the twinge in his neck, Nathan returned the affection with an aggressive scrub behind the hound’s ears.

Man and dog walked into the kitchen together. Agador crossed the wood floor. He sat by the backdoor, a look of mild reproach on his face, as Nathan fumbled with the coffee filter. Nathan responded without looking away from his task, “Stop staring at me, I’ll get the door when I’m done.” He pushed the brew button, walked across the room and opened the door. He stood there for a moment watching his aging companion come alive under the onslaught of new scents until Agador, true to his long line of descent, caught a strong scent and disappeared into the surrounding woods.

While the coffee brewed, Nathan sat at the kitchen table and picked up yesterday’s paper. He and his deputy, Daniel Dupier, were on the front page holding the duffel bag full of money. The headline read: LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT FINDS ABANDONED CASH.

Below the headline, a smaller caption revealed the amount to be $500, 000 dollars. On page A5 there was another picture of Nathan pointing at the bullet holes in the windshield of the Mercury. The last photograph was a picture of the Mercury hanging from a cable after it was pulled from the marsh. The picture reminded Nathan of a scene from
Jaws
.

The one where everyone is on the dock slapping each other on the back after a crew catches a large tiger shark. The people are too jovial. They want to believe they’ve caught the enemy but deep down they already know the real threat is still out there lurking in the water.

The picture of the Mercury combined with the snatch of dream he’d woken to made him feel uneasy. He couldn’t shake the image of the car pushing the giant tumbleweed down the road toward Reserve, or the feeling something menacing had arrived with the car.
You meant someone right, Nathan?
Answering his inner voice he said, “Someone.” It didn’t sound convincing. He got up, rummaged through the junk drawer for a pair of scissors and cut the story from the paper.