Unspeakable (45 page)

"We're getting out of here."

"Okay, Carl."

"I mean right now." As though Myron had disagreed, Carl argued his case. "I've been listening to the radio. Know what all the news is about?"

"What?"

"The storm. Roads and bridges washed out. Damage estimated in the millions. Dozens of people killed. A lot more than that missing and feared dead. You know how those newsmen talk, all somber and serious like? Well, all they're yapping about this morning is the storm. It hit East Texas hard. The weathermen couldn't even count the number of tornadoes. Flash floods galore. Roofs blown to hell and back. Houses and businesses destroyed. Cars swept into flooded creeks. Power out just about everywhere. Phones, too. The governor asked the president to declare it a disaster area. This morning everybody's busy trying to set things right again. Know what that means?"

Myron swallowed a doughnut whole. "What?"

"It means that nobody's looking for us." He pointed outside toward the car and its radio. "Not one word about us on the news. Not one. Do you think they're gonna be chasing us down when there's a granny lady and her kitty cat stuck in her floating house trailer? Hell, no! Search and rescue. That's what they're gonna be doing today. And probably tomorrow, and the day after that, too. Now's the time for us to move." He laughed. "This is what you call providence, Myron. Hell, we couldn't have planned it better!"

"Cecil said we gotta stay here a week."

"Yeah, Cecil said," Carl repeated with a scornful snort. "Cecil didn't know shit. He would probably quarrel with this decision, but I know an opportunity when I see one, and this one all but bit me in the ass. So let's hump it. We're leaving."

They gathered up all the unused food so they could eat on the road. They also took a package of toilet paper, canned drinks and bottled water, and anything else Carl deemed useful. While Myron was placing his supplies in the backseat of the car, Carl went around to the trunk to make certain the duffel bag full of money was still there. He doubted Cecil would have double-crossed him, but he wouldn't have put it past that Connie.

The bag was still there, and from what he could tell it hadn't been tampered with. While he was at it, he slipped several hundred-dollar bills from the bag into his pocket. Spending money, he told himself. To cover travel expenses. Myron would never miss it from his share. Carl watched his partner trudge from the cabin to the car with a case of soft drinks under each arm. Myron was always the same. He never got upset or afraid. He never lost his temper or got rattled. His idiocy protected him from normal human reactions and emotions. It was a crying shame that such a sizable sum of money bras going to be squandered on an idiot who would never fully appreciate its value and the possibilities it afforded. Maybe he should spare Myron the headache of appropriating his share of the cash. The responsibility would be too much for him. It would only confuse him.

Besides, how much cleaner could it be than to discard him here along with Cecil and Connie? He could check all his baggage here, so to speak. He would be responsible only for himself and accountable to no one.

Ah, the prospect of total freedom was sweet!

Myron placed the drinks in the seat of the car, then turned back toward the cabin. Carl pulled the pistol from his waistband, eased back the hammer, and took a bead on the back of Myron's haloed head.

But before he could pull the trigger, he reconsidered. There were miles to go before he reached the Mexican border. Myron was dumber than dirt, but he was also an extra pair of hands and a strong back. He did what he was told without argument. He came in handy when it came to grunt work. He was a mule. You didn't shoot a good mule just because it was ugly and stupid. You kept it around because it was useful.

Deciding to keep Myron for the time being, he tucked the pistol back into his waistband and closed the trunk of the car.

In under fifteen minutes they were ready to leave. Myron took his place in the passenger seat. Carl returned to the cabin for a final look around to see if they'd left behind anything that might later be needed.

His eyes came to rest on the two bodies. In the morning light, they looked grotesque. They were beginning to bloat. Their open wounds were fly-blown. Shortly they would begin to stink. He felt a stab of remorse, but dismissed it as quickly as he had dismissed his fear of God's wrathful punishment as soon as the storm had passed.

He didn't let himself think anything other than that Cecil and Connie had got no better than they deserved. She had been a low-class cunt who had weaseled and fucked herself into a situation where she didn't belong. She had been trouble waiting to happen. He'd known it the minute he met her.

It wasn't so easy to gloss over his brother's murder. But it too was justified. Cecil had been a hopeless coward. And a stubborn one. He just wouldn't admit to his little brother's superiority. Survival of the fittest was the fundamental law of nature. Carl had rid humankind of two weak links, that was all. He gave them a mock salute. " Adios, y'all."

***

"From what I picked up on the radio in my truck, the power is out nearly everywhere," Jack told Anna over their breakfast of bread and jam. Food in the refrigerator had already begun to spoil.

"They're saying it might be days before the utility company can restore it. Everything is in chaos. For the time being, we're on our own."

Following breakfast, he climbed onto the roof of the house and assessed the damage. He would need shingles to make permanent repairs, but in the meantime he patched the leaks with tarpaper. He figured he could rebuild the toolshed as soon as he collected the necessary materials. The barn roof was a total loss and would require professionals to replace it. When telephone service was restored, he would call the vet about the horse's injury, but he'd looked at it again, and it didn't appear to be serious.

Those chores completed, he expressed to Anna his concern about the welfare of the cattle and suggested that she and David go with him to check it out. He was nervous about leaving them alone without a telephone.

Anna packed a picnic lunch of nonperishables, although David insisted on carrying his separately in his 101 Dalmatians backpack. Anna took along her camera and assorted gear, thinking that pictures taken directly after the storm might come in handy with insurance adjusters. Evidence of the storm stretched beyond the iron arch demarcating the Corbett ranch. Jack maneuvered the pickup around debris and tree branches littering the road. Power lines had been ripped from toppled poles. They saw a signpost that had been folded double. A sheet of corrugated metal from the roof of the Corbett barn was spotted half a mile away, looking like a piece of crumpled tin foil. An old windmill lay on its side in the middle of the pasture, its blades scattered around it.

As Jack rounded a bend he nearly collided with a cow. He slammed on the brakes just in time to avoid running over the animal. Several head had wandered across the road and were grazing placidly in the ditch on the opposite side.

"Leave it to those smart Corbett cows to find the section of fence that's down." Saying that, he got out of the truck. Waving his arms, flapping his hat, and whooping, he herded the cattle back across the road to their pasture. Luckily he'd brought along a tool kit and a few spare boards and was able to make temporary repairs to the fence. To his mental shopping list he added barbed wire.

He parked the pickup outside the cattle guard. "We'd better go the rest of the way on foot. I'd hate to get the pickup stuck in the mud."

Anna had put on a pair of Delray's boots. They were huge on her, but they protected her feet from the mud and standing water. David wore an old pair of boots, but Jack carried the boy most of the time as they walked the circumference of the pasture. The herd had weathered the storm well. From what Jack could see, they hadn't lost a single head.

He thought that just short of a miracle, although he'd heard of these storms doing some peculiar things, like annihilating one side of a street while leaving the other side untouched. Sometimes they traveled along the ground for miles, leveling everything in their path. Other times they skipped along like a stone over water, leaving only patches of devastation. This twister must've veered sharply to the east, missing the pasture where the cattle were grazing and sparing the herd.

As they made their way back to the truck, Jack wondered what David thought about his holding Anna's hand. If David noticed, he didn't comment on it. In fact, he seemed unaware that the nature of their relationship had changed, but then they hadn't blatantly advertised it. Jack had sneaked downstairs to the living room couch before the boy woke up.

It wouldn't have done for David to surprise them where they shared the rocking chair by the window, Anna sprawled on his chest, her legs draping over the arms of the chair, both of them drowsy after making slow, sleepy sex, letting the motion of the chair do most of the work. So he had kissed her one last time and carried her to the bed and left her there, although it had been damned hard to do. It was hard to keep his hands off her now. Every time he looked at her, he wanted to touch her. And he looked at her a lot.

It was the staring that David finally noticed.

Jack had spread out a quilt in the bed of the pickup because the ground was too wet for a bona fide picnic. They were eating a lunch of peanut butter sandwiches, fresh fruit, and bottled juice drinks. His gaze connected with Anna's, and held, and she smiled at him in that special way a woman smiles at a man after good sex.

It was a small and subtle smile that spoke volumes. It said that she knew all your secrets and made you wish to hell you knew hers. Every time Anna gave him that you're-thinking-aboutfucking-me-aren't-you? smile he wanted to pinch himself to make sure he hadn't dreamed last night.

He hadn't. It had been real. She had even told him she loved him, and she hadn't been stoned or drunk or trying to get at his wallet. Incredible as it was, she had told him she loved him and he believed her.

Their stare lingered longer than either of them realized. That's when David noticed. "How come y'all aren't talking? Is something wrong? Are you mad?"

Jack ruffled David's hair. "Nothing's wrong. I'm just staring at your mother."

"What for?"

Jack looked across at Anna, speaking as much to her as to the boy. "Because she's so pretty."

"You think she's pretty?"

"Hmm."

David looked at Anna as though seeing her through Jack's eyes. "She's okay I guess," he said, biting into his sandwich.

"David?" Jack hesitated, then said, "Would it be all right with you if your mother and I were together?"

He screwed up his face with misapprehension. "We're already together, Jack."

"I mean, you know, if your mother and I were like boyfriend and girlfriend." David frowned, but it was more from disappointment than displeasure. His idol had just tumbled off the pedestal. Sounding betrayed, he said, "I didn't know you liked girls, Jack."

"I guess I didn't when I was your age. But I sort of grew into liking them as I got older."

"I won't."

"Don't be so sure."

"I won't," David repeated more adamantly. He divided a look of bewilderment between them, but he ended on Jack. "You want my mom to be your girlfriend?"

"Yeah, I do. I want that a lot."

"Kiss her and stuff?"

"Yeah."

David rolled his eyes. "Well, if you want to, okay."

"Thank you," Jack replied solemnly.

"But you still like me, too, right?"

"Absolutely. You're my main man." Jack high-fived him.

Reassured, David dug into a package of potato chips and stuffed the whole handful into his mouth. "After lunch can we go swimming?"

Jack laughed at the boy's casual regard for their romance, but he was also relieved. He could tell by Anna's expression that she had been following the conversation and felt the same relief he did. Neither could have been happy if their relationship troubled David. He convinced David that swimming wouldn't be a good idea until the river waters receded to a normal level. But to keep the boy's disappointment at bay, and to extend for himself what was his first day of family life, he drove them to the forested part of the Corbetts' property.

"David, did you know your mother is very smart? She's decided to sell some of the timber off the land and let the loggers replant seedlings."

"Cool!" David exclaimed. "Like on the Discovery Channel? Can I watch when they cut down the trees?"

"We'll see. But for right now you can mark a few."

"Wow!"

The carpet of undergrowth and pine straw had acted as a filter, trapping the rainwater underneath and leaving the surface dry enough to walk on. When they saw a tree that Jack thought the timber company would be interested in, he slid his knife from the scabbard, handed it to David, and let the boy carve an X into the bark.

Once when David was distracted by his job, Anna placed her arms around Jack's waist and lifted her face to his for a kiss. Needing no more encouragement than that, he kissed her meaningfully and felt himself grow hard.

When at last they pulled apart, he mouthed, "Sorry." But he wasn't. Tilting his hips forward, he nudged the cleft of her thighs. She nudged him back, her eyes holding a promise for the night to come.