The Urn Carrier (8 page)

Chapter 11

TESSA IS MAKING miles for Port St. Lucie, and Mark and Dolly’s airpark
home. She’s anxious, and if she admits it to herself, to be closer to when Dina
joins her.
If
Dina joins her. She looks forward to their semiweekly
FaceTimes.

She suddenly realizes, this is probably the way Mom feels every
Wednesday.

Tessa and Murphy have quickly formed a routine. She tries driving
no longer than six hours a day and she tries getting into a campsite no later
than four p.m. They always run or walk in the morning. In the evening they
investigate where they are staying. She’s managed to only have to do laundry
three times so far. The first time, thanks to Joe and Marissa.

Mark and Dolly will let her do laundry. Their voices are manic on
the phone, each talking over the other, and Tessa is excited to see them too.
Mark tells her he’s contacted Junior, his son, who’s also a pilot. Junior knows
the Keys pretty well. Looking at the long drive down to them, Tessa is hopeful
Mark or Junior will give her a plane ride, and she can dispose of Aunt Sadie’s
ashes out to sea.

The airpark is like a golf course. Everyone has a hangar. The
lawns are green and wide and open. Little ornamental trees are planted close up
to the houses. Tessa sees a silver bullet camping trailer sitting outside their
home. It looks brand new.

Mark still has his familiar moustache, but it’s gone all white.
Dolly seems even shorter than Tessa remembers. She’s Sadie size.

“Let’s look at you.” Mark hugs her and scrubs her hair. “What’s
this pink and blonde stuff?” He ruffles it.

The head massage feels good. “You can keep doing that.”

Dolly turns her and hugs her and then looks her up and down. “Oh
good. You don’t have any of those piercings. What’s that about anyway, the nose
things, and the eyebrow things? Wait, open your mouth.”

Tessa does.

Dolly dramatically breathes a sigh of relief. “No tongue piecing.
Hallelujah!” Her right hand is on her breast and her left hand is up in the air
as she talks to the heavens.

Murphy is prancing all around them, his flag-like tail up, waving
happily. He noses each of their hands for some attention and then runs,
searching the ground.

“Sorry, champ,” Mark calls out to him. “If you’re looking for a
stick, the only trees we have here are the short ones.” He suddenly grins.
“Loop de loop?”

“Mark!” Dolly slaps him. “Let her settle. My gosh, she just got
here. She looks exhausted.”

“I drove ten hours.” Florida is longer than she thought.

“Oh well, where are my manners?” Mark rolls his eyes. “Maybe a
Scotch then? Or a bourbon?”

“Oh for God’s sakes, don’t mind him. He drives me crazy.” Dolly
leads them to the house and Mark pairs up with Tessa, walking funny from side
to side, making googly eyes, and circling his finger by his temple. He sticks
his tongue out sideways, toward Dolly.

“I know what you’re doing Mark Tanner, just stop it,” Dolly says
without turning around.

After dinner the Tanners ply her with all sorts of questions.

“How’s Uncle Chuck, the chunk?” Mark asks, lifting his second
glass of whiskey to his lips.

Tessa makes a face.

“I figured he’d be a horse’s ass.”

“Mark!”

“Oh c’mon, Dolly. That guy’s been throwing
his weight around since the best part of him ran down his father’s leg . . .”

“Mark Tanner, behave.”

Tessa is laughing at Uncle Marks quips.

“Don’t egg him on.” Aunt Dolly smiles.

“Your mom holding up okay?” Uncle Mark asks.

Tessa nods.

“She works a lot, doesn’t she? I want you to know, if you need
anything, anything, you call us.”

“Thank you.”

She looks out the window. Above all the
windows and the doorways are little ledges with Dolly’s prized blue plate
collections.

The house is immaculate with blues and whites and soft pinks. Lots
of windows. Light and airy. And the sound from airplanes occasionally landing
and taking off is muffled.

“Eli?”

“He might be out before I get home.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, the estate lawyer guy hooked Mom up with another lawyer.”

“Well, that was all trumped up bullshit egged on by Chuck. Eli no
sooner stole your dad’s truck as . . .”

Dolly shoots Mark a look of pure whoop ass to shut the hell up.

“I’m just saying, Chuck used his bullshit two-bit county fire
chief position to stick it to Eli. Corn pone country bumpkin justice. That’s
all I’m going to say.”

“Well, thank the Christ on that one, Mark Tanner.”

Dolly’s lips are a thin line as she starts gathering dishes, and
Tessa jumps up to help.

“It’s okay. I trust you guys. If you want to talk.”

“No, honey,” Mark says softly as she walks behind him, he puts his
hand on her forearm. “I just want you to know how much you are loved.”

Tears spring to Tessa’s eyes and she sets the dishes down. She
hugs him fiercely from behind. “Thank you.”

Tessa stays longer than she intends with Mark and Dolly. Although
she’s enjoyed meeting new folks, there’s nothing like family and home.

She realizes how homesick she is now.

MARK IS OUT at the vomit comet, doing a pre-flight check. His iPod
is sitting on the cement and playing old rock and roll.

“Isn’t Junior coming today?”

Mark scowls. “Well, he was supposed to.”

Tessa watches Mark check the pitot tube in the wing.

She runs her hand softly over the silver foils of the plane. Mark
has taken her up every day for nearly a week, showing her the control and speed
and acrobatic maneuvering it had. He even let her take the controls in the air.

“I’m flying you to Key West.”

Tessa senses something amiss, but she keeps quiet.

“Junior and his clients,” Mark hisses.

“Doesn’t he fly corporate, or something?”

“Yeah, something,” Mark spits out as if he has a bad taste in his
mouth. 

A tune starts and Uncle Mark shouts, “Bill Haley and the Comets!”
He starts boogying toward Tessa and grabs her.

Dolly, who is gardening the flower bed in front of the house, sits
back on her heels and claps.

They twist and spin and he leads her impressively. By the time the
song is over, they are both winded and laughing. Murphy is prancing all around
them, hopping with his two front paws back and forth as if he is dancing too.

“Wow, Uncle Mark, you can rave.”

“Ya like that? I used to be quite the ladies’ man in my day.” He
wiggles his thick white eyebrows and twists one corner of his moustache.

“Mark Tanner, you haven’t lost a step!” Dolly calls out.

He bows toward her graciously. “Thank you, love.”

“Do you think Murphy can go?”

“Why not? We don’t have to go so high it will hurt his ears. And I
won’t do any funny stuff. We’ll just fly there, catch a ride. I’ve got a friend
that has a boat.”

“Oh, I thought we’d just buzz the water.”

“Well, we could, but I might get in trouble.” Mark winks.
“Besides, it will be nicer from a boat.”

Mark didn’t even drink the night before the flight. Regulation is
twelve hours. He’s only been in one accident and he wasn’t the pilot. He barely
recovered from that one. He told Tessa he even does preflight checks after
Junior.

“Just like your rig.” Mark nods at her truck and trailer. “You
have a check down list, right? I bet you checked it twice every day for a week,
didn’t you?”

Tessa nods. “Still do.”

“Good girl. And if you ever ride with anyone else towing anything,
you check it down too. Promise me.”

“I promise.”

“Well, one last bathroom break, and we’re set.”

EVERY WATER SPOT is different. As they skim away from the reefs
and protected refuge areas, Tessa holds Murphy beside her. The fishing charter
guy is drinking beer, but Mark politely refuses. He drinks water. The boat
slows and the captain nods to her.

He cuts the engines entirely and they drift lazily in the soft
blues and deeper blues.

Tessa unzips the bag. In her mind she’s done the ceremony she
needs, and she’s reticent doing it in front of two older men. So she just
softly drops the ashes and watches the heavier ones bubble down below the
surface, while the lighter flecks ride on top. She snaps a picture and sends
it.

Though the location services are on, Tessa
types in, “Key West.”

She takes a picture of Murphy. And then one of Uncle Mark and the
Cap’n. Uncle Mark is lifting his plastic water bottle and making a goofy face
and the captain proudly hoists his Bud Light. She sends this one to her mom.

THE NEXT DAY, Tessa is ready for her westward trip. She has no
more excuses to prolong her stay, but it’s difficult leaving. She’s unsure why.

“Why don’t you join me for a week or two?” Tessa looks over at the
Airstream.

“Maybe we should try?” Mark nudges Dolly with his hip and elbow.

“Oh, honey.” Dolly looks at her, shading her eyes against the sun.
“I don’t think that’s for us. I’m not even sure why we got that.”

Mark’s face falls, then he turns to Tessa and shrugs with half a
smile, as if he doesn’t know why either. “We mainly use that for overflow
company. And the grandkids enjoy playing house in it . . .”

“Maybe we could fly out and meet you sometime.”

“Really? I’d like that a lot.”

“I could see us flying out there to meet you more than driving
that thing,” Dolly admits.

They hug and Tessa is sad to leave. It’s nice to have someone see
her off and wave goodbye. She doesn’t understand why they can’t just come
along. For some reason she wants the company.

MARK AND DOLLY watch Tessa’s rig turn out from the park.

“I swear to god, if anyone hurts that girl, I’ll kill them,” Mark
says.

“I know,” Dolly agrees. “I’d want you to.”

Chapter 12

AS SHE NEARS her first general mail delivery drop, Tessa is
excited and nervous. She’d picked out three drops on the pre-trip so her mom
would know where to send any snail mail that came for her and maybe, some home
treats.

Tessa finds Ottine, Texas by two o’clock and is thrilled to be
there before post office closing time. Except, she’s circled the two street
town twice and can’t find the post office.

She sees more cattle thavn people.

She finds one house with a tree growing out of its foundation, and
a mailbox.

It looks like a building that is closed up, derelict, and
deserted.

Before she can knock on the door an old man that’s been watching
her parade for the last fifteen minutes says, “Miss Maybelle is gone for the
day.”

“Is this the post office?”

“Indeed it is, but Miss Maybelle ain’t coming back till
nine-thirty tomorrow morning. Where’d you come from?”

“Florida.”

“Long way for nothing. There’s a campground
that a way.” The man waves in the general direction she first came from.

“Is there anything going on?”

“Well, there’s a watermelon seed spitting contest in Luling late
June. The Watermelon Thump. Guinness World record is Lee Wheelis. Sixty-eight
feet nine-and-one-eighth inch . . . Think you can top that?”

Tessa opens her mouth and shuts it.

“Guess not. Say, you got pink hair?” The man squints.

“Yes, sir.”

“I don’t think they have a contest for pink hair.”

“Probably not.” Tessa is desperate to
extricate herself but the man with the hunched back and cane saves her the
trouble.

“Well, I got things to do.” He sets off at a shuffle. “Can’t stand
around jaw jacking all day.”

Thump goes the watermelon.

Once Tessa sets up camp, she is again, the only one in the whole
campground. She decides to unhitch the truck and drive down to a sign reading,
“Cemetery.”

She follows the little paved road till it becomes a dirt road
without warning and a short way down, a sign stands next to a pasture gate
pointing, “Cemetery.” She pulls off the road and pockets her keys. Murphy
trails along with her.

On the pasture gate is a sign that reads, “Cemetery open 9 am till
6 pm. Please shut both gates to keep cattle in.”

Tessa looks at the two gates and fence rows about three truck
lengths apart.

She doesn’t see cows and she doesn’t see headstones.

Thump.

How can a cemetery be open or closed? Tessa
wonders what the fine is for being in the cemetery at six-oh-five p.m. She
suddenly gets a fit of the giggles. As disappointed as she is to not have her
package today, or having to camp early and stay in Ottine one more day than
necessary, this just cracks her up.

“I dunno, Murphy, maybe I’m losing it.” She unwinds the wire
around the gate, goes through, and carefully winds it back. She repeats the
procedure on the next gate.

She is a little skeptical of snakes though and keeps Murphy close
to her. They stay on the two track and still Tessa sees nothing but meadow on
the left and large swampy trees on the right, the edge of the Palmetto State
Park she is camping in.

They walk a couple of football fields and Tessa spies another
cemetery sign pointing to the right. She’s unsure why she’s drawn to
cemeteries. Sometimes she can read history there, and it opens her imagination.

In the meadow is a large ornate, wrought iron enclosed cemetery.
The words “Ottine” are etched in the wrought iron in a high arch above its
black latched gate.

Tessa suspects there’s a lot more people in the Ottine cemetery
than out. Three brothers, all died between 1861 and 1865. Maybe the Civil War.
Lots of baby deaths in the early 1900s. She strolls for some time among the
many old headstones, drinking water and letting her imagination roam. She
begins hearing sounds, munching grass, and little huffs and puffs of cattle
breaths.

They are grazing just a few yards away, seemingly unaware anyone
is in the cemetery until the gate creaks. She whispers to Murphy to keep quiet
as they move quickly toward the road. Some of the curious cattle follow. One,
much bigger than the rest, has taken a very keen interest and is following
faster than Tessa likes, with alert ears forward. She confirms with one look
that it’s the bull.

She is so focused on getting through the first gate and securing
it, she doesn’t realize someone is watching her until Murphy barks, his hackles
up. She smells the stale old cigar aroma before she sees him.

There, leaning against the side of the Ford
Truck, with his arms spread wide on the rails, as if he owns it, is Uncle
Chuck.

“Surprise!” he says with artificial glee.

Tessa is holding Murphy back and trying to shush him.

“Well, darlin’, the bull or me?”

The bull.

The bull’s head is over the first gate, snuffing and snorting.
Slowly Tessa walks forward, leashes Murphy at the gate, and then goes through
and secures the gate.

“Yeah, you better control that dog. Would hate to euthanize him
just because he viciously attacked me.” Chuck stands fully and one of his thick
hands holds a shotgun. Aunt Sadie’s shotgun.

“Think there was only one set of keys?” His eyes narrow in on her.
“I found what belongs to me.”

He waves her over. He opens up the tailgate and slaps it.

“You and I are gonna have a little talk.”

Defiantly Tessa walks to the cab and opens the windows for Murphy.
She makes sure he has water, before returning to the rear of the truck. Uncle
Chuck’s black Chevrolet is parked enough behind that he leans on that hood now.
He still holds the shotgun, but it’s pointed down now, casually, as if it is a
walking stick. His thickness dwarfs it.

“Hop in there. Sit right up there. Old Uncle
Chuck wants to hear your side of the story.” He’s sweating, big beads of sweat
mat the sides of his hair down. It’s not a good look for him.

She doesn’t “hop up there.” She leans against the tailgate. It’s
desolate here. Only the cattle as witnesses. There’s nothing else and no one
else.

“What story?”

He snorts. “You know what story. Don’t play me,
Miss Pink Hair
.”
He spits. “Bet you’re wondering how I knew, eh?” His grinning belies his rage,
anger, bitter tone.

Tessa senses his energy like the wind. It’s concrete, three
dimensional to her. His bluntness and thickness obvious, and his energy tastes
like a steely, acidic copper in her mouth.

“I got my ways. Seems more than one person can keep track of you.”

“What do you want?” Tessa keeps her voice
steady and firm.

She folds her arms over her lower abdomen.

“Go on and sit up there, Missy. Get comfortable. This could take a
while.”

I doubt it, the way you’re sweating.

“I’ll start.” Uncle Chuck walks over to his
passenger side door, opens it, and tosses the shot gun in. He takes a moment to
light his half cigar butt, then throws the lighter on the seat. He slams the
door shut and returns to her, slapping his hands together.

“Does your momma know about your girlfriend? Your little waitress
girlfriend? Yeah. I know about her. And about the lacrosse boy. The garage guy.
What? Can’t make up your mind? Girl, Boy. Boy girl?”

She stiffens. Before her mom hears it from Uncle Chuck, she’ll
tell her. He’s just trying to bluff her. He’s still pacing back and forth in
front of his truck, puffing his half phallic stinky cigar.

“There’s lots of stuff I know, but what I don’t know is . . . what
happened to my brother?” he screams in her face.

The cigar is out of his mouth and its heat is
very near her cheek.

As shaken as Tessa is, all she can hear is,
“He’s afraid.”

Murphy is barking ferociously and pawing desperately to get
through the rear slider. He whines and tries to stick his head through the
passenger window.

“Shut the hell up you stupid fucking dog!”

He slaps the tailgate next to her.

She doesn’t say a word. She closes her eyes and sends her thought
to Murphy.
It’s okay, Murphy, it will be okay.

He settles a little, but continues a sporadic, muted whine.

“See I know that Indian,
Josh,
has something to do with it.
Benzie County might have shit sheriffs, but I’ve got contacts all over this
country. In the FBI. You ain’t got shit. I’m not leaving till I get answers,
and there’s no one out here, darling, but you and me.”

She hates him using the word, darling. She hates it as much as she
hates hearing kids her age say “hon” to older people like they were frail or
invalid or children.

She annunciates very clearly and very slowly. “I don’t remember.”

“Yeah.” He waves a hand at her. “I’m tired of that story. It
might’ve worked on everybody in the hospital, but it doesn’t work with me. You’re
going to remember, or I’m going to make your brother’s life a living hell.”

Haven’t you already?

“He’s the one who took off. Not Eli or Josh.”

“Oh. You believe that load of shit, do you? Think Gabe would just
leave all of his stuff behind, his girlfriend, his truck, his dog, his wallet?
Your brother’s in prison doing time for stealing his truck. At least someone
else besides me believes that. That’s a fact.”

“He didn’t steal his truck.”

“Right. That’s why he got caught in it. That’s why he got tried as
an adult for it.”

Tessa clamps her mouth shut. There’s a million things she wants to
say. It’s because of Chuck and his cop cronies in the county and the state that
Eli got blamed at all.

Sometimes she wishes she could remember.

His cell phone rings, a tone of Barry White, “Can’t get enough of
your love, babe.”

It’s Aunt Deidre. She doesn’t need a megaphone, her voice
projects. Chuck halfway turns and says, “Yeah. Yeah, babe, I’m here now.”

“Did you tell her?”

“I will now. I got it all set up. Yeah. I gotta go.”

He turns to her. “Tomorrow you and I are going to a
hypnotherapist.”

She laughs.

“No. You’re going to do this or I’m going to put the screws to
your whole family. This is
my brother
we’re talking about.
My
blood. So, if you don’t want to put Eli or your mom through more shit and more
bankruptcy, you’re going to cooperate. Just how selfish are you anyway? It’s
because of you your mom almost lost her house. That’s all your fault. No one
else’s. Don’t think your cobbled-up old Forsythe is going to stop me. I don’t
give a shit about the inheritance.”

He spits. His shirt is soaked. If Chuck does
have a heart attack, Tessa is certainly not going to perform mouth to mouth.

The twilight is taking over and the mosquitoes are biting.

“I’m in the campground. We’re leaving in the morning. I already
got us an appointment in San Antonio.” He tosses her something.

It’s a patch that reads NAWAC. He stubs his cigar out on the
tailgate next to her. “A souvenir of Ottine. Don’t go thinking you can sneak
out on me like you did Joe. I found you once. I’ll find you again. It’s just a
matter of time. And I’m not giving up. That I swear to you.”

He leans over and it’s all she can do to not budge from his
heaviness. She smells his stench as he whispers in her ear, “Midnight Rider.”
He slaps the back quarter panel by the tail light and stares one more time
through her.

“You don’t want those folks having to come find you.” He indicates
the patch. He gets in his truck, and the springs squeak and the truck tilts to
the left. He peels out backward, kicking up dirt and gravel, and roars forward,
leaving Tessa and her truck in a choke of dust.

She puts her hand over the white Pegasus unicorn she had drawn on
the powder blue part of the truck with paint Brett gave her in Stone Mountain.
Below it, on the cream-colored part of the panel with a musical note, is
written in brush script, “Midnight Rider” in midnight blue.

Once she gets in her pickup she reads the emblem.

North American Wood Ape Conservancy.

What the hell?

Murphy puts his head in her lap and licks the tears from her chin.

SHE DRIVES FOR hours, hoping to elude any more confrontation with
Chuck. She goes to Luling and looks over the fairgrounds where she would not be
competing for the Guinness World Record in seed spitting. It starts raining. A
torrential rain, the kind of rain that makes rivers out of lines in the gravel
in a matter of seconds. Tessa leaps out and shuts the cover over the bed of the
truck. She turns home for now, toward the camper.

Uncle Chuck’s truck and trailer camp site sits like a big fuck you
finger, parked right in the middle, at the first site of the only drive for
entrance and exit. The only good thing is he’s about ten sites down, not right
next to her. Before she enters the camper she makes sure the kayak is dry.
She’d stashed it underneath, unsure if she’d try and kayak the San Marcos River
by herself.