At the End of the Road (5 page)

Daddy-Bob knew the value of a dollar, and no part of an animal ever went to waste. Years later, after Buddy had died of simple old age, a young married couple from Atlanta looking to furnish their first home would be standing in a Havertys furniture showroom listening intently as a salesman extolled the beauty of a sectional leather couch. The salesman would point out the fine grain of the leather as he ran his fingers along a triptych of imperfections and say that this natural scarring from the animal’s life gave the leather character.

the creek’s banks—where they had descended and disappeared from his line of sight. From the woods, he watched the creek bank for any further signs of them. He was about to approach, but found himself still cautious, hesitant. He sensed that they were still close by, perhaps lying in wait for him. Perhaps devising another experiment.

A wisp of smoke rose and curled above the red clay bank. It carried to him and he could smell the acidic, sharp smell of burning pine. They had built a campfire. Kyle imagined they must be camping out at the water’s edge, maybe even fishing for crawfish to boil or a catfish to fry. Jealousy stung him hard. This was what Kyle wanted. Building fires and pretending to live in the woods. These were the adventures he wanted—not being relegated to piddling games of treasure hunt and hide-and-seek with a seven-year-old girl. Thus, in that wisp of campfire smoke, did his recent fealty to Grace dissipate.

Kyle ducked behind a pine branch when he caught sight of his brothers cresting the creek bank. Jason said, “I saw some good ones about half a mile down from here,” and they took off running.

Once he was certain that they were gone, Kyle crossed over and descended the bank. The creek water looked rusty, its flow sluggish. He could find no sign of a fire, no evidence that Jason and Wade had been here at all. He looked up and down the creek, but there was nothing. Kyle started climbing back up the bank when he saw it. Just a bit to the left, a hole, an
excavation
, in the middle of the earthen bank. It was the opening to a cave. A tendril of smoke licked the top and drifted out.

He studied it from the outside before going inside. There was a stone-encircled fire pit in the middle, and candles burning here and there placed in hollowed-out little cubbies and rock shelves. Even with the flames, it was dark inside, but Kyle could see a pickax and a shovel. He knew that his brothers must have dug this cave in the bank themselves. There was no evidence of it outside the cave, so they must have scattered the excavations into the creek to hide all evidence.

Kyle stepped inside, and he could feel the weight of the damp sand and clay pushing down on him, wanting to collapse. At the rear of the cave, the wall gave way to two tunnels that were dark as midnight. He wanted out of there. Even his ten-year-old mind knew that this was a death trap. A cave-in waiting to happen. But he was struck by the fact that the cave was, more than anything else, a virtual armory. Everywhere he looked were knife-sharpened spears made from tree limbs, bloodweed javelins, spoke guns, slingshot rifles, elderberry blowguns, clothespin match throwers, and more. It was like Jason and Wade were preparing for war.

And they must have been preparing for a very long time. The bloodweed javelins had to be harvested in the fall when the stalks died and hardened—making a six-foot-long spear that whistled through the air with a brutally sharp taproot that could easily pierce skin. There must have been more than a hundred of them. Kyle picked one up and let his finger play over the sharp tip. The end where the taproot had been cut still oozed blood-colored sap. He put it back and was ready to get out of there when he felt vibrations in the clay. Footsteps. Someone was approaching. Kyle heard voices directly above him. He recognized the voice of Patrick Sewell.

“Man, that boy’s car still smells like bad pussy.”

“I’d rather have bad pussy than no pussy.” Must have been Scotty Clonts.

“How would you know, queer boy? You ain’t never touched any kind of pussy.”

“More than you.”

“Right, whatever you say, Clonts.”

“Kiss my ass, Sewell.”

Then there was a grunting sound and the thud of Scotty Clonts hitting the ground.

“Let’s go man. We got work to do. Money to make.”

Kyle heard them moving on, and after a minute, he climbed out of the cave and back to the top of the bank and saw Patrick, Scotty, and Joel entering the woods. He decided to follow them. Kyle had successfully tracked Jason and Wade without being detected, so he felt reasonably confident that he could now rise to the challenge of tracking more dangerous game.

ing deeper in the woods. Kyle recognized the layout of a rectangular, cultivated patch, but the plants growing there were beyond his scope of experience. They towered six or seven feet on thick stalks that sprouted clumpy buds and five-leaf clusters. Patrick had a machete, and he was slashing the most mature plants at the base. Patrick tossed the plants to Joel or Scotty—whoever was standing closer—and they would fasten the plants to a rope that was strung between two pines. They hung the plants upside down, and Kyle had seen a similar processing of plants in a tobacco barn where the broad leaves were fastened in bunches and hung upside down to cure.

Mostly Kyle watched Joel Sewell. He fascinated and repelled Kyle. How could anyone ever in a million years mistake Drano for Coca-Cola? How was that possible? The underside of Joel’s chin and down his throat was a raw bubbly mess. It must have hurt worse than any pain Kyle could ever imagine. Seemed like it should be healing by now, but it always looked wet and fresh. Maybe the acid was still active in the flesh.

Something was tickling his arm, and when he looked down he saw it was a little spider—a brown recluse. Paw-Paw Edwards had lost his left foot to a brown recluse bite. His foot had just rotted off a day at a time for nine weeks. Kyle jerked and slapped and twisted and went a little haywire to get it off of him. When he looked back up, the three boys were staring right at him. It seemed to Kyle like they all looked at each other for a very long time. Finally, Patrick said, “Get him.”

They all broke into action simultaneously. Kyle took off like a Black Cat bottle rocket. He was running so fast that little branches and twigs drew blood on his cheeks. Kyle didn’t care. As far as he was concerned, the devil and his disciples were chasing to drag him down to hell. Kyle had seen murder in Patrick’s eyes.

Scotty was the shortest, with thick little stubby legs and a body like a fire hydrant. But somehow he was the fastest. When he dared to look over his shoulder, it was Scotty Kyle saw. Closing in. His sweat-damp blond hair whipping around his square head. And that Judas Priest T-shirt.
Sad Wings of Destiny
, it said. Kyle knew that if he could just get out of his line of sight, then he could probably hide, slip under some bushes, or dive into a briar bramble. But Scotty was closing in. Then Kyle remembered his brothers’ cave. If he could make it back to the creek bank, Kyle might stand a chance.

He threw a zigzag into his running, not wanting his course to be obvious, but Scotty didn’t zig, and when Kyle zagged back onto his original course, Scotty was a lot closer than he had been before. Kyle’s legs felt heavy and numb, but he forced them to pump harder. He had to get away from Scotty. He heard a grunt behind him. And then the thumping footfalls went silent as Scotty sailed through the air in a lunging jump. If he didn’t manage to grab him, then when Scotty fell to the ground, it would buy Kyle the time to disappear over the creek bank. But Scotty did grab him. His left foot was kicked back in a long stride, and Kyle felt Scotty’s hand clamp down around his ankle. Both his legs went out from under him, and Scotty and Kyle tumbled to the ground in a heap. Scotty started jabbing his fist into Kyle’s ribs, punching him over and over. Then he started in on his head, finally settling in on his ears, hitting them over and over, each blow sounding like a bomb exploding in Kyle’s mind. He curled up into a tight ball. Fighting back would have just made it worse.

After a while, Scotty stopped. He got to his feet and stood over Kyle like a hunter would stand over fallen prey. Patrick and Joel got there. Patrick leaned over with his hands on his knees, breathing hard. His words were ragged, and Kyle could smell decay on his breath.

“Narc. Little narc. Get up.” Kyle didn’t move. He just lay there curled up like a roly-poly. But he didn’t have a shell to protect himself like a roly-poly, and when Patrick kicked him, the steel toe of his boot landed on his spinal column, sending rolling waves of pain reverberating up and down his body. “Get up.”

Kyle uncurled and sat up, looking at them to see what was next. Patrick still had his machete in his hand, and Kyle could imagine him cutting off his head and burying him out here in the woods. Or maybe they might do something crazy to him like those people in the laundrymat had busted that man’s eardrum out with a ballpoint pen.

Patrick snatched Kyle up onto his feet and shook him like a dirty rug. “You a spy? You like spying on folks? Scotty, remember what they did to spies during the Rebellion?” Patrick shoved him to Scotty. Scotty was about the same height as Kyle, but he was sturdy and thick as a tree trunk, and when Kyle slammed into him, the impact was so solid he thought Patrick had shoved him into a tree.

Scotty turned Kyle to face him and said, “They used to put out their eyes. So they couldn’t spy no more.” With that, Scotty pushed him backward, and when he came to a stop, Kyle felt Joel Sewell’s thin arms around him. Joel was actually the same age as Kyle, but in school he hung out with the older kids. Kyle remembered that before he ruined his face, Joel had just been a shy kid that kept to himself. It was only after he drank the Drano that he started hanging out with the big kids, his brother’s friends. And when he thought about it as an adult, Kyle realized that the kids his own age were too scared of Joel to be his friend.

Kyle looked up right into the bubbly red scar tissue that was the underside of Joel’s chin.

“Hold him right there,” Patrick said, and Joel’s arms slipped through Kyle’s, hands clasped behind Kyle’s neck, holding him in a full nelson.

Patrick held the machete out in front of him and approached. He placed the sharp tip right at the corner of Kyle’s left eye. “One twitch and your eye comes right on out.” Kyle held as still as midnight. The blade was heavy, and the tip dug into the corner of his eye. He felt something warm and wet slide down his cheek, and he didn’t know if it was a tear or if it was blood.

“Do it,” Scotty said. His voice was different now. Husky and focused. “Take the spy’s eye out. Take it right the hell on out.”

Kyle knew that all of this was designed to put a good solid scare into him, that kids didn’t kill or maim other kids, but there was something in Scotty’s voice that told him that yes, actually, sometimes kids really did kill or maim or even blind other kids. That a kind of bloodlust sometimes infected them, and they did things they would have to bury and hide later when good sense came back to them.

“I’ll eat it,” Scotty said, looking to Patrick for approval. “Pop it out and I’ll eat it. Swear to God.” Then Scotty tittered. A jungle sound that could only come from a very dark place.

Patrick must have sensed how bad this could turn, and Kyle was relieved to feel him try and pull it back a little. “You’re a sick boy, Clonts. I believe you just would do that.” Patrick withdrew the machete. “Problem is, he’s already seen our stash, so taking out his eyes won’t do us any good.” Patrick put his hands on his hips and thought what to do. Joel released the nelson, and Kyle slumped forward—a single ball trapped inside a triangular pool-rack. “Look,” Patrick said. “Look at the faggot crying.”

Kyle was relieved to know that it wasn’t blood flowing down his cheek, but he didn’t understand the word
faggot
. He was pretty sure it meant the same thing as
queer
. “Are you a faggot?” Patrick asked him. Kyle didn’t know what to say or do, so he stood there mute. Patrick reached out lightning fast. The sound of the slap across his face was loud in the woods. “I asked you a question. You a faggot?”

Kyle didn’t want to answer wrong, so he still didn’t answer either way. The slap came again. The tears were flowing down his face now, dripping into the earth. No one had ever done violence to him before. Daddy had spanked him with his belt, and Mama had gotten him lots of times with a switch to his legs. But this was entirely different. An answer was demanded, so Kyle nodded his head.

“I knew it! I just knew it! A faggot. You want some dick, faggot? You hungry for my pecker?” Patrick dropped the machete to the ground and his hands went to the front of his jeans. And Kyle sensed a new, equally evil, turn of course. “Think he’s hungry for it?”

“Hell yeah,” Scotty said. “Look at ’im. He’s droolin’ for it. Jeez, I ain’t ever seen a for-real queer before.”

Joel Sewell just stood there looking into the woods, his face a mute horror.

Patrick’s blue jeans and underwear were down, stretched tight across his pale thighs. His penis was a tiny mushroom poking through a sparse tangle of red/orange hair. “Touch it,” he said. “Crawl on over here and touch it.” Kyle didn’t move. The bramble of red pubic hair was disturbing and foreign to him. He wanted only to be far away from here.

“Touch it,” Patrick said. “Kiss it.” He sidled over to Kyle, waggling his tiny penis between thumb and forefinger. Kyle turned his head as far away as was physically possible. “And if you ever tell what you seen here today, I’m going to ram it up your ass.” Patrick rubbed his sex organ through Kyle’s hair, then along the outside of his ear.

Scotty giggled. It was the wild jungle titter again.

Joel still looked away, seemingly refusing to watch.
He probably saw enough ugliness in the mirror every morning to last a lifetime,
Kyle thought.