The Road Out of Hell (28 page)

“Jessie—”

“Sanford, turn over, or I will go wake that horse’s ass up right now and make him answer me! I have a whole list of questions.”

“Shhh! Shhh! Jesus Christ, Jessie, did you come here to get us killed?”

She stopped and let his question hang there between them for several long seconds before she replied, “I think you better turn over and pull up your shirt.”

Arguing with Jessie was like yelling at the wind. He turned his back to her and pulled his shirt up to his shoulders. In the darkness, her fingertip traced the outline of the large scar across the right shoulder blade, straight down his side to his hip, then back up to the middle of his shoulder blades to form a large inverted triangle that covered a third of his back. The skin felt so rough that she doubted anything had ever been done for it.

“How did you get this? No, wait. How did Uncle Stewart do this to you? And remember that the only reason I’m here is because I’m worried about you. I need you to tell me the truth.”

He let out a long breath, then nodded. “It was my fault. I was making dinner. He was in a hurry. I was slow.”

“What caused it?”

“Boiling water. He was slinging a pot of it around and some got onto me. He put some salve on it.”

“What kind of salve?”

“Vaseline.”

“Petroleum jelly on a burn? Sanford, that is the
last thing
you ever put on burned skin! It holds in the heat and makes it worse! Plain water is better than that!”

“There was nothing else in the house.”

“Right. Just Vaseline.” Jessie clamped her hand over her mouth to keep from shouting. She took several deep breaths.

Sanford lay still and wondered what in the hell to do next. Nothing was working when it came to getting her to turn down the temperature. A temporary answer appeared with the loud squeaking of Uncle Stewart’s bed springs followed by the sound of his feet hitting the floor. Jessie froze next to Sanford and they both lay still as death while Uncle Stewart got up to relieve himself.

Neither one of them moved or made a sound until he finally returned and climbed back into bed. The entire house lay still for several minutes while Jessie and Sanford listened for the sounds of Uncle Stewart’s breathing, waiting for it to slow. When Jessie detected soft snoring coming from Uncle Stewart’s room again, she leaned toward him and whispered, “We have to talk tomorrow and make some kind of plan!”

He whispered back. “We can talk all you want, Jessie. We just don’t need a plan, that’s all.” He turned over as if he was going back to sleep, hoping that she could not hear his heart hammering away.

Jessie exhaled in frustration and gave him a terse “We’ll talk tomorrow.” She returned to the sofa bed without waiting for a reply.

Sanford held himself perfectly still, but his mind was racing. He needed better ideas on what to do about Jessie, and so far he had nothing else. He never expected that it would be easy to persuade her to leave, but now he could only hope it would be possible to get her out of there at all. If she happened to catch Uncle Stewart in one of his waxy-faced conditions and then say something to set him off, it would be the end of both of them. And her demise would be on him because he had failed to get her going in time.

Eleven

The following day, the hours from sunrise to sunset were wasted in a hurried tour of the region. Uncle Stewart had so many “points of interest” to introduce to Jessie that they were still in the town of Riverside by the time the late-summer sun went down. He had managed to maintain a day-long patter of inane commentary that effectively separated Sanford and Jessie even though they were in the same car. It seemed clear that Uncle Stewart’s mission for that day was to keep Sanford and Jessie too busy to communicate in private. He appeared to be making a game out of being obvious about what he was doing while at the same time refusing to acknowledge it. The process seemed to provide him with considerable amusement.

They had avoided a confrontation between Uncle Stewart and Jessie only because Sanford had managed to steal one whispered instant with her that morning and urged her to follow his lead until they found a chance to talk in private. He was concerned at first because she made no response; but as the morning went on, it became apparent that she was playing along. She remained aloof to Uncle Stewart’s reckless and inappropriate behavior, but cooperated with the manic regional tour.

Throughout the day, Sanford was frequently surprised when Uncle Stewart pointed out landmarks and details of scenery that Sanford knew nothing about, even though they had lived in the area for essentially the same amount of time. Uncle Stewart’s local wanderings had familiarized him with the region unusually well. It made no sense to Sanford until he thought of how easily Uncle Stewart had located alternate spots for reburying the remains of Walter Collins and the Winslow brothers. At the time, Sanford had wondered at his uncle’s self-confidence in selecting reburial sites; now its source was plain. He was following his own advice for getting away with murder:
do your homework.

Uncle Stewart had stubbornly refused to stop for refreshments after their noon meal, as if they were out there on military patrol. He delivered every sentence as though it contained vital information and had not permitted anything other than the briefest of roadside relief stops since their noon-hour break. When he finally parked his big yellow Buick in front of a roadside café and they all walked to the café door, he reached ahead and opened it, then swept his arm into the room in an imitation of the way that he imagined a gentleman would do it. Sanford went along with the pretense; he knew how Uncle Stewart loved to mock the suckers. He took Jessie’s arm and escorted her inside.

Uncle Stewart kept up a tuneless little song under his breath: “Buh-
bum
-bum-bum…. Buh-buh-
bum
-bum-bum….” He had been stuck on it for hours, unaware of himself. Sanford knew that the stupid song was a dead giveaway—Jessie’s visit had Uncle Stewart good and rattled. He felt a bitter amusement at Uncle Stewart’s turmoil, but he also knew that it made him more dangerous to be around. Tension of any sort put a hair trigger on him. Sanford had no desire to be trapped in the car with him if his temper flared, especially since the drive back to the ranch could take as long as an hour if they got stuck behind farm trucks.

Sanford sneaked a glance at his sister and briefly marveled at how natural she managed to appear. She carried herself with complete nonchalance and she had maintained a cheerfully compliant attitude throughout the day, even when Uncle Stewart had been at his most mundane with his tireless narratives. Now the trio walked through the café amid the sounds of clinking plates and glasses and the smells from a large iron grill where everything seemed to be cooked until it was slightly burned. They made their way back to an open booth. Jessie and Sanford slid in across from Uncle Stewart.

Now that he was facing Uncle Stewart for the first time in hours, Sanford realized that he had never seen his uncle sustain this wound-up façade for so long. Uncle Stewart’s nervous and excited moods usually lasted no more than a couple of hours before he crashed into one of his bleak despairs, sometimes followed by a fit of rage and a flare of violence. So far that day, sheer nervous energy appeared to have sustained him. Once they were in the booth, he sat bouncing his legs on the balls of his feet and drumming his fingers on the tabletop while he gestured for the waitress to come over. The tired-looking older woman stood up from her meal of soup and crackers and began to shuffle in their direction.

As soon as she responded, he switched from fingertip tapping to slapping the fingers of both hands on the vinyl tablecloth. He nodded to the woman when she dropped off menus for the table, then he picked up his train of thought. “So anyway, the whole reason that Buster Keaton has a hit on his hands with
Steamboat Bill, Jr.
is that he is playing a prodigal son who is too artistic and effete for his he-man of a father! I mean, everybody understands that sort of rejection. You do. Both of you do, you liars! Ha-ha! But in this life, you either get it or you give it. And you both know exactly what I mean, eh? And that is precisely what makes a man like Buster Keaton a
genius,
people—that ability to tap directly into something that is more than merely what the people want—you tap into what the people
need.
Get it? What they need.”

“What do you mean, Uncle Stewart?” Sanford threw it out before he gave it a thought. He instinctively glanced at Jessie, but when their eyes met he nearly exploded into laughter, so he quickly lowered them. Giddiness was beginning to overcome him. He was completely caught off-guard by being in the company of someone who cared about him. But Sanford had calculated this one right—two years of home study had taught him all sorts of things—Uncle Stewart did not bother himself about Sanford’s motive for asking. He picked up his cue like an entertainment professional.

“Jessie? Did you hear that question? I know you heard it, but did you actually listen? Sanford has just asked a profound thing. After all, what in the hell are we supposed to do with the trash, the garbage, the refuse in our lives? We dispose of it. Yes? We must. And can we all agree that it makes no difference how we
feel
about disposing of it? We simply do it, yes? We do it because we have to do it if we want our world to stay clean. Or if it’s too much to ask that the world remain clean, then at least,
at least
we want it to not get any worse. This is absolutely correct. Of course, there are people who look at it differently. We call them half-wits, and there are places where they will be taken care of day and night. As for us, somebody has to sign up for cleanup duty. Pretend it’s the Great War again: ‘Uncle Sam Wants
You.’
Will you step forward and be recruited? Sanford, will Jessie step forward?”

“I don’t know why she would do that.”

“Possibly to protect her brother? Hey, Jessie, have you heard about the Whittier Boys School for the Feeble-Minded, or whatever they call it outside of town? No? Well, they have a thing that they make the boys wear called the Oregon Boot. It’s a thick circle of iron that fits around your ankle, only it’s loose. It flops around while you walk. It eats through the skin, right to the bone. Turns you into a cripple. Best part is, you do it to yourself! So if the crooked cops don’t kill you when they arrest you, the crooked prison warden does it later, real slow! It’s as if they make you execute
yourself!
Ha-ha-ha! Hilarious, eh, Sanford?”

“Hysterical, Uncle Stewart.”

“Ha! You answered! You don’t answer a question when it’s hypothetical.”

“How are you supposed to know not to answer?” Sanford’s sheer delight at Jessie’s presence had him careening close to losing his self-restraint altogether. It was foolish to show willfulness to Uncle Stewart; but it was so fine to not be alone for once, even if it was only going to be this one time, it was so very fine to be there with reinforcements. He was dying to reach across the table and pour water on Uncle Stewart’s head. Die laughing. Why not?

Jessie, of course. Jessie was why not. Her name was the only response that he had. It was enough to guarantee that he maintained his facial expression in a neutral position. He put up his mask of benign affability. Right away, he sensed that the mask was going to be enormously useful for him, just as Uncle Stewart had predicted it would be back at the beginning. Only now it was protecting him from the man who had made him learn it. The irony of that was so strong that it gave him the same sensation he got from sinking his teeth into a lemon.

“It takes feelings, Sanford.” Uncle Stewart turned a sympathetic eye to Jessie. “I’ve tried to teach him lessons about being sensitive to the needs of other people, but his Scouting activities are probably the best place for him to get that sort of thing.”

Jessie turned to Sanford, and this time she spoke up. “You mean,” Jessie said, “that Sanford really is part of a Scouting group out here?” The shock of fear and the squirt of adrenaline that Sanford experienced when she raised her voice nearly made him lose control of his bladder right there in front of Uncle Stewart.

“Of course. Sanford, didn’t you tell her?”

“I told her.”

“There you are.”

“So if I stuck around, I could visit his troop? Talk to the person in charge?”

Uncle Stewart slapped the flat of his hand onto the table so hard that the salt and pepper shakers jumped like glass puppets. “Hey! If you are trying to offend me, then you are getting close. I don’t have to prove anything to you. And as far as sticking around, you’ve done about all the sticking around that we need. The three of us are going into Los Angeles. There’s nothing for you around here.”

“There’s nothing in Los Angeles either,” Jessie replied.

“I beg your pardon! Your grandparents, my mother and father—such as they are. You didn’t really think that I could let you visit us here and not bring you in to see the folks, did you?”

“I only have the money to stay here long enough to—”

“Money! Forget about money! This is family. You know, I think I shouldn’t have shown you the pistol I keep at my bedside this morning. You’ve struck me as just the tiniest bit nervous ever since then. Ha!” He smiled and leaned in close to mutter, “Smart girl.”