The Summer Son (16 page)

“Ready to give up?” Jeff asked.

“Not even close.”

He bore down hard, shortening the strokes with the eraser and digging deeper. I watched the thin outer layer of skin peel off. Pain shot to my hand as the eraser tore at the exposed flesh.

“Had enough?”

“Nope.” I spat out the word through a grimace.

As the blood began to flow, I heard Dad’s pickup roll up.

“Stop,” I said.

“You’re a mouse,” Jeff taunted me.

“No, my dad’s here.”

My hand felt as though it were on fire. I pushed open the door and hightailed it across the hall to the bathroom to find a bandage. Behind me, Jeff laughed and called me a pussy.

We stepped into the ethereal light that followed the summer storm. Sunrays punched openings in the gray clouds overhead. The world smelled clean—its odors washed away and the air shocked into neutrality by lightning.

“Come on, boys,” Dad said. “Let’s go on in to town.”

I remembered something.

“What about King?”

“Who?” Dad said.

“The calf.”

“We’ll get him tonight when we come back.”

“It’ll be dark. I think we should do it now.”

Dad looked at me, and I gave him a pleading look back.

“Fine. Hop in.”

I piled into my usual place when three rode in the truck: the middle. As I sidled up to Dad, I smelled alcohol. Maybe LaVerne had smelled it too. She had taken a hard look at him when he sent her home.

“Where is he?” I asked Dad.

“He’s got to be around here somewhere.”

Dad looped around the herd, and we scanned the pasture, our searching eyes looking for the lone calf. He wasn’t there.

Dad pulled the truck to a stop.

“You guys hop out and fan out across here and see if you can find him.”

Jeff and I walked diagonally away from each other, tromping through the high grass that had been baked to a golden brown. Water from the storm soaked my shoes and pants. A few hundred yards out, I reached the edge of a draw. I scanned the gulley until my eyes settled on a lump of black.

I didn’t need a closer look to know.

“Dad!” I screamed.

As Dad and Jeff came on a run from opposite directions, I clambered into the draw and pushed through the grass to my calf.

I reeled in horror. The crack of lightning that got him singed his legs and blasted a fleshy, charred hole in his side. King’s thick tongue hung from his mouth, and his dead eyes stared at me. I stood and stared back.

“Jesus,” Dad said.

“Look at that,” Jeff said.

Dad backed the pickup to the draw’s edge while Jeff waved him on. When Dad had told me what we were going to do, I said I was staying with King. Dad tossed a length of rope down to me.

“Get it tight around his leg,” he said. “You know how to tie a double knot?”

“Yeah,” I said.

King smelled of burned hair. I looped the rope around his leg and tied it. I gave Dad the thumbs-up, and he went back to the cab and fired up the truck again, then set it in gear.

The leg didn’t move once the rope went taut; rigor mortis had set in already. King’s carcass made a sickening sound as it slid up the wall of the draw. Once it crested, I scrambled up behind it. Dad was already untying him.

“It’s one big lift, boys, into the bed of the truck,” Dad said. “I’ll get the ass end of him. You guys hold his head.”

King’s black eyes stared at me, accusing, as we hoisted him. I looked away.

Dad broke the quiet of our ride into Split Rail.

“What happened?” he said, nodding at my fresh bandage.

“Snagged my hand on a tree,” I said. I was becoming quite the inventive liar.

Jeff jabbed me in the ribs. I jabbed him back, harder.

In town, we saw that Charley was back. Jeff asked to be let out at the police station.

“You want to come, Mitch?” he asked.

I didn’t, but Dad made the choice for me. “He’d love to,” he said, pushing me toward the door. “I’ll be over at the Livery.”

I nodded and then followed Jeff inside the redbrick corner building, where we saw Charley fiddling with paperwork at his old Corona.

He looked at us over his bifocals when we entered.

“Hey, if it isn’t the Hole in the Head Gang,” he said, chuckling. “You fellas have a good time?”

“Yeah,” we answered in dishonest unison.

I scanned the room. It was the first police station I had been in, and it was scarcely bigger than my living room in Olympia. There was room for Charley’s desk, a small kitchen area with a sink, a bulletin board (there really were wanted posters), and against the north wall, a single cell. A gaunt, haggard man peered at me, and I jumped a little when I spotted him. He was maybe forty years old, his thinning hair askew, with gray stubble that ran down his neck, nearly to his collar.

“Who’s this?” Jeff said, walking toward the cage.

“Just leave him be,” Charley said. “That’s who I was getting in Judith Gap.”

“What did he do?” Jeff asked. I was embarrassed for the guy, being talked about where he could hear it.

“Never you mind.”

“I don’t mind talking to ’em, Charley,” the prisoner said. His lumpy words fell from his mouth like oatmeal.

“Suit yourself, Pete,” Charley said, not looking up from his paperwork. “Just keep it clean.”

Jeff stepped closer to the cage, and I wandered over, staying a bit behind him.

Pete stared at his feet for a few moments as he considered what he would say. Finally, he looked up at us.

“Boys, I been bad pretty much my whole life. Didn’t care about school. Never could hold down much of a job. Drank too much.” At that last bit, he licked his lips. “Anyway, I guess what I’m sayin’ is, I messed up a lot. So take it from me and don’t mess up like I do. Ain’t that right, Charley?”

“Yeah, Pete, that’s right.”

“That’s it?” Jeff said.

“Pretty much,” Pete said.

“Great,” Jeff said, rolling his eyes. “Thanks a lot.”

“All right, step away, boys,” Charley said. He stood and put on his hat. “Pete, I’m gonna scoot over to the Tin Cup and get you some dinner. Don’t go anywhere.”

Outside, I asked Charley, “What did he do?”

“Beat the hell out of his wife and took off. Made it as far as Judith Gap before he decided he needed a drink. They picked him up after he got into a fight.”

“Man,” I said.

“Yeah, well, if they weren’t dumb, we’d never catch ’em.”

R
AIN DRIBBLING ON MY LIP
brought me around. My eyes opened, and I saw Charley Rayburn’s face staring back at me. A fat droplet slid off the brim of his cowboy hat and shattered against my face.

“Are you hurt, Mitch?” Charley asked.

“I…I don’t think so. What happened?”

“You crashed.”

Water slid past on the windshield. The strobe from Charley’s patrol car lit the scene in alternating blue and red.

“Stay put,” he said.

I turned my head to the right, and a dull ache spread through my shoulders. Dad sat next to me, staring straight ahead, with blood flowing from his nose, across his mouth, and onto his shirt.

Charley appeared at Dad’s side and pulled open the door.

“Put this on your nose, Jim. It will stop the blood,” Charley said, handing Dad a handkerchief.

Charley stood outside the truck, staring into the truck at us. His sopping uniform clung to his body.

“Jesus Christ,” he said. “What were you guys doing?”

When Jeff and I left the police station, we renewed acquaintance with Split Rail, whipping through backyards by scrambling over chain-link fences and then lighting out across the landscape, without fear (or suppressing fear) of what awaited us there. The adrenaline surged through my body as I hit the ground on a dead run past children, families gathered around a grill, and more than once a territorial dog. By the time anyone figured out what the hell was going on, we would be over the next fence, trailed by a “Hey!” It was thrilling, and it got my mind off what had happened to King.

Then the storms moved in again, short-circuiting our fun. Jeff and I hightailed it back to the bar and sneaked in through the alley. We stayed low as we moved into the main area of the bar, and I crab-walked to where Dad stood talking with three cowboys I didn’t know. Jeff fell in behind me.

“Sport, what are you doing?” Dad said, pulling me in close and mussing my hair.

“Just getting out of the rain.”

“You boys sit down here.”

We did as we were told, seemingly to the irritation of Dad’s friends. It didn’t take Nick Geracie long to sniff us out.

“Absolutely not,” he said, walking to the table and wagging a finger. “You guys get out of here. Jeff, you ought to know better. Get out of here, or I’m telling your father.”

“But, Nick,” Dad protested. “It’s raining outside.”

“Yeah?” Nick said. “Maybe you ought to take yourself and that boy home.”

Dad looked at me and shrugged. We wouldn’t be going home. That much was clear.

On the front stoop of the bar, protected from the rain by the awning, Jeff and I debated what to do. He wanted to head back to the police station, but I had no interest in seeing Pete again. As we thumbed through our ideas, I watched Marie’s Skylark pull up in front of the Livery.

When she stepped out, Jeff whistled. She wore a black dress cut to here that was entirely inappropriate for the weather or the place. Not that anybody was going to complain, least of all two boys still a few years away from being in the presence of raw sex.

Marie scooted down the sidewalk toward us as fast as her four-inch heels would allow. She brushed past me to Jeff.

“How have you been?” she said, wrapping him in a hug. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen you.”

“Fine, ma’am.”

“And your dad?”

“He’s fine too.”

“Well,” she said. “I better get inside. Too stormy out here.”

She slipped through the door, never giving me a glance.

Jeff stared after her.

“What was that?” I said.

“I don’t know. It was pretty cool. She smells great.”

Jasmine. I had smelled it too—that night, as it mingled with the scent of rain, and many times before.

Jeff bailed on me and headed back to the police station. I cut through the raindrops to the alley and breached the storeroom. I hid behind some stacked pallets and watched through the doorway.

Marie flitted around the bar, not spending too much time with anybody and yet managing to be the center of attention. Dad made a concerted effort not to acknowledge her, which of course everybody noticed, making his denial of her all the more futile. He moved to the other side of the table, putting his back to her. He abandoned that when the dances of his buddies’ eyes—in concert with Marie’s migrations—enraged him.

Marie upped the ante by draping herself across some rancher, and Dad called. He walked over to the table and slammed his fist on it, hammering silence across the bar.

“Get your fucking hands off of my wife,” he growled at the guy. Marie cuddled in closer and fixed Dad with a wicked grin.

“Get your hands off of my wife,” Dad said, “or get your ass outside.”

The rancher stood, ready to oblige, and Dad stepped aside to let him pass. Once the rancher’s back was turned, Dad cracked a chopping right hand into his kidney. The rancher, a tall drink of water, crumpled. As the man curled on the floor, Dad spat on him.

Nick Geracie and most of the bar patrons converged amid a tangle of pushing and angry words.

“I told you already to go home, Jim,” Nick said. “Now go, or I’m calling the cops.”

“But…” Dad sputtered.

“But nothing. You go. You’re not welcome here.”

Nick wheeled around and faced Marie.

“You go too, Mrs. Quillen. I don’t need the kind of trouble you’re bringing to my place.”

She stood up and pointed at Dad.

“I’m not going until he’s gone.”

Nick looked at Dad and pointed him toward the door. The rancher, the pawn in Marie’s game, was just climbing to his feet as Dad walked past. Every eye in the place watched his exit.

I caught up with Dad on the sidewalk, and we did our usual gig. I walked with him to the pickup—quickly, for fear that Charley Rayburn would be upon us. Dad got in and drove until we were outside of town. I slid across the bench seat to the driver’s side, and he walked around the front of the truck. Halfway around, he stopped and screamed, and I flinched. He slammed his fist on the hood, then came to the passenger side, opened the door, and fell into his seat. “Go home,” he said.

Charley returned to my side of the truck.

“Mitch, can you climb out of there?”

“I think so.” I looked over at Dad, who was already out.

Gingerly, I pushed off the seat and out the door. I saw Dad at the front of the pickup, which sat nose-first in the gutter lining the road. He was assessing the wreck. I went over to take a look. The grille was pushed in, but there was no sign of internal damage.

“It’s OK to drive, I think,” I said.

Dad turned. The rain had diluted the blood from his nose and spread it across his face.

“You think?”

He backhanded me across the jaw, and the force of the blow knocked me into the mud.

“You goddamned idiot,” Dad said. He reached down to grab me by the shirt. I braced myself for another blow, but it never came. Charley pulled Dad away and threw him against the pickup.

“You stay there, Jim,” he said. “You put your hands on the hood, and don’t move.”

Dad did as he was told.

“Here’s what I want to know,” Charley Rayburn said as he paced our living room floor. “Why the hell was Mitch driving?”

Once Charley had ascertained that we didn’t need a hospital, and once he had bulled Dad into submission, he folded us into the back of his police cruiser and led the tow truck to the ranch. The drive had been filled with his telling us how lucky we were. Now, he started the interrogation.

“I was drunk,” Dad said. Dried blood caked his face, which had slammed across the dashboard, turning loose a gusher from his nose.

“And is this a regular occurrence, using your minor son as a chauffeur when you tie a few on?”

Dad said nothing. Charley looked at me.

“It’s happened before,” I said.

“When?”

I looked at Dad. He didn’t look back. I figured a little more truth wasn’t going to make a difference.

“Every day this week.”

Charley leaned in on Dad and put a stare on him that Dad couldn’t find the gumption to return.

“I’m going to ask you just one time,” Charley said, “and you better give me a straight answer. Had you been drinking when you drove my kid back to town tonight?”

“No,” Dad lied.

“You’re sure of that, are you?”

“Yes.”

Charley turned to me. The throbbing in my head grew more pronounced.

“Is he telling the truth?”

“Yes,” I lied.

Charley stared at me for a few uncomfortable moments, and then he turned to Dad, whose eyes fixated on the ground. Finally, he came back to me.

“OK, Mitch. Tell me what caused the wreck.”

I took a deep breath and started in.

“Well, I was driving, and it was hard to see with all the rain. I saw a deer run out in the road, and I slammed on the brakes. The truck started sliding in the mud. That’s what I remember.”

“That’s it?”

“Yeah.”

“So let me make sure I’ve got this straight,” Charley said, his voice rising. “A boy has been driving on my roads at night all this week, and tonight he wrecks the pickup because he can’t see and can’t drive in the conditions because he’s eleven goddamned years old and shouldn’t be behind the wheel in the first place. Is that about the size of it, Jim?”

Dad slumped in his chair.

“Yes.”

Charley took off his hat and ran his fingers through the stubble of his crew cut.

“I ought to lock you up. Between what happened at the Livery and what happened out there, I really should. This could have turned out so much worse than it did, for both of you. So listen up, Jim. I want you to stay out of that bar. You got me? If I see you in there, I’ll put your ass in the clink in five seconds flat, and you know me well enough to know I’ll do it. You need to stay up here and take care of this boy. He shouldn’t be in these kinds of situations. This is not his fault, do you understand? It’s yours. If you hurt this boy, I’ll make you wish you were never born. Am I clear?”

“Crystal,” Dad said. “It doesn’t matter. We’re hauling out for Utah in the morning.”

Charley ran his fingers through his hair and then slipped his hat into place.

“Well,” he said, “that’s probably for the best.”