Bound by Blood and Brimstone (22 page)

and tore open the wrapping. Inside was a sturdy metal box with a small handle. It had a latch in

the front that could be fitted with a padlock. It wasn’t locked.

Momma and I winked at each other behind Lorrie Beth’s back when she lifted the lid.

Inside the box, wrapped in old newspaper, was the pathetic severed head of a dog. It was Max’s

head.

I was too stunned to utter more than a squeak. The shakes settled in so hard the floor

jarred beneath my feet. Momma’s face blanched. She stumbled away from the grisly display,

nearly dropping Sam. Lorrie Beth pealed out scream after scream as she backed away from the

table, whipping her head back and forth like a marionette being jerked about by a crazed puppet

master.

In a couple of heartbeats our homey kitchen had become a house of carnage, and

everywhere I looked there seemed to be thick strands of streaming red. I thought I could see the

very walls dripping with it.

By the time I’d shaken the nightmare image, Lorrie Beth was gone. I hadn’t even seen

her leave. “Go after her! Hurry,” Momma urged, breathlessly. She pressed Sam’s head against

her breast and fled to the front porch. Just as my foot hit the last step, I heard her retching.

It didn’t take long to catch up with Lorrie Beth. She’d run behind the barn before

collapsing into a blubbering puddle. There she was, like a broken doll in a trash heap. Her frail

fists made scarcely more than a patting sound as she beat them into the dirt.

I could do little more than witness her eruption of turmoil. I just stood mutely, as pictures

of bright eyes, stubby fur, and toothy grins played over and over on the screen of my mind. I saw

that regal tail swishing madly and the “feel sorry for me” look he could put out when it was bath

time. I felt tears on my face and realized we were in the throes of another loss in our lives. I

wondered if that was all our lives would ever be.

I chose to not interrupt her mourning, but waited silently until she exhausted herself. I

didn’t even know if she was aware of me. She’d never once raised her head. When she was spent

and could no longer lift her voice for one more cry, she toppled face-down on the ground.

Finally, she rolled over on her back, her eyes closed. It was eerie seeing her like that, all the

color leached out of her skin, lying flat and so still.

“You know who did it.” The voice was calm, but didn’t remotely sound like my sister. It

was hollow and low and without life. I jerked. Lorrie Beth was looking up at me out of swollen

eyes, her expression blank.

“What?”

“You know who did it,” she repeated.

My strength had all been poured out. I could hardly manage to talk to her at all. “You

mean Caleb.”

“Of course I mean Caleb, who else?”

I licked my lips and tried to work up some spit. I was having a hard time following her

for some reason. There was a buzzing sound somewhere near my head, yet I knew there were no

bees out in February.

“You think Caleb killed Max,” I said slowly.

She was sitting now, hugging her knees, peering at me oddly, like I’d just grown an extra

head or three. “What’s the matter with you? Haven’t you been listening? Of course it’s Caleb.

Did you just eat a big hunk of stupid pie or something? How can you just stand there like a rock

when Max, when he...”

Her voice strengthened, then faltered before ending in a gulp. The sobs started anew, and

I was able to shake myself loose from the fog that had nearly engulfed me. I’d been lost in that

fog before, and I didn’t relish going there again.

I knelt beside her and held her, stroking her back while she cried awhile longer. I soothed

her as best I could, reminding her how much I’d loved Max and how unique he’d been. I pointed

out how we’d howled at his “I’m confused” antics when she’d fitted him with his homemade

collar. She’d fashioned it from a piece of an old leather belt and had attached a circle of poplar

wood with his name carved in it. As we reminisced about the comical way he’d cocked his head

when Sam pulled his tail, a question struck me.

“Say, Lorrie Beth, how do you suppose Caleb could’ve gotten close enough to Max to

hurt him? Don’t you think Max would’ve torn him up first?” She didn’t hesitate in the least.

“You know how mean Caleb is. He probably gave him a piece of meat or something to

lure him. Anyway, I think he shot him, just like the coward he is.”

I was attempting to find enough energy to suggest we head back for the house when we

heard footsteps approaching.

“Oh, Thank God, there you are! Oh, Lorrie Beth, Honey, are you okay? Come here,

Baby!” Momma said in a gush, her face pale and strained. Reese was beside her, attempting to

maintain his grip on a squirming Sam. Lorrie Beth permitted Momma to pet her, and Reese

walked over to drape his arm across her back.

“It’s a terrible thing, Honey, a terrible thing. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there with you. I was

in the cellar putting up new shelves for your Momma when I heard the commotion
.” Like we

care
, I thought glumly. The two of them consoled her while she snubbed and hiccupped. I

remained invisible.

Out of the clear blue, Reese turned to me and eyed me intently. “You got any idea who

could’ve done such a thing, Ember Mae?” I was as surprised at having his focused attention as I

was at the question. I tried to catch Lorrie Beth’s eye, but she had her face buried against

Momma’s dress.

“Me? No. I mean, I guess maybe Max could’ve gotten into somebody’s chicken coop or

something. People kill dogs sometimes for that.”

His stare intensified, which made my skin crawl the way his blank eye slid off-center.

“You sure? Nobody mad at you all or anything?” I wasn’t about to clue Reese in on the private

hell we’d endured. To my way of thinking, he was never going to be one of us, and Lorrie Beth

and I would face our trials without his help.

“No,” I said stoutly, lying through my teeth. “I can’t think of a soul.”

Momma wheeled on him, clutching his sleeve, her eyes frantic. “Reese, we have to do

something! I’m afraid for Lorrie Beth! You need to go find Sheriff Bates! He’ll know what to

do.”

Before she barely had time to finish speaking, Lorrie Beth flung herself at Momma’s

neck, babbling hysterically, sobbing and shaking her head, begging for all she was worth. “No!

No, please Momma, please, no sheriff, I can’t, I can’t talk about Max and that box, don’t make

me, please don’t make me!”

Momma cast Reese a worried glance while trying to loosen my sister’s death grip.

Awkwardly, she attempted to soothe Lorrie Beth’s frenzied pleas. “Calm down, Honey, please

just calm down a minute.”

“It may be that she just needs some time to get through this in her own way,” Reese

offered, raising his voice over Lorrie Beth’s sobs. “Bringing the sheriff in probably wouldn’t

help much anyway. The most we’re looking at here is criminal mischief or something.”

Upon hearing those words, Lorrie Beth’s panicked sobs immediately began to ebb, her

frantic clutching ceased, and the tear-choked voice halted. Snubbing pitifully, she turned grateful

eyes on Reese, and at that moment, my “window” opened and insight floored me.

She’s acting! She’s working them both like puppets! She’s scared out of her mind, wants,

even needs grownups like Sheriff Bates to straighten this out, but she’s determined not to bring

them in!

It took everything in me to keep my chin from hitting the dirt, especially when I knew

what it must’ve cost her to deceive Momma. Even in the midst of her heartbreak at losing a

beloved friend, she would not betray our pact to keep our dilemma between us. I had never

admired her as much as I did that moment.

The macabre package was gone when we returned to the house. Lorrie Beth was able to

compose herself enough to appear almost normal, but she outright refused to set foot in the

kitchen. For weeks afterward, we both insisted on taking our meals in the front room or on the

porch. The warm comforts offered by our kitchen were gone forever, and for many months I

would feel nauseous whenever I crossed the threshold.

Upon Lorrie Beth’s request, I asked Momma and Reese not to mention to anyone what

had happened. “She thinks maybe if we don’t say anything, whoever did it might give himself

away,” I said.

We slept together in my room that night. I thought it a bit odd that Lorrie Beth was so

quiet as we prepared for bed. I would’ve expected more tears and more talk of Caleb. Instead,

she crawled in under the covers, promptly turned her back, and said softly, “Night, Em.”

I had no idea how long she was awake, but I lay there for hours, wide-eyed and bone-

tired, staring at the ceiling. All the traumas we’d suffered at the hands of Caleb and Sue Lee

Jacobs kept running though my head like a sick movie with no ending. I must’ve been about to

doze off at last, when Lorrie Beth’s voice sliced the stillness. “Caleb’s going to pay.”

For the rest of the weekend we walked on eggshells around Lorrie Beth. I guess we were

all afraid she might come flying apart at the seams. Momma let her slide on her chores, creating

double for me, and Reese lowered his naturally loud voice in her presence. To her credit, there

were no more outbursts, not even so much as a sniffle. She moped about the house eating next to

nothing, occasionally sighing, just sitting in Momma’s rocker on the porch, staring into space.

I tried to feel my way with her, see what was on her mind on the night before we returned

to school, but she wasn’t having it. She gave me a half-smile and a wave before retiring to her

own room, and that was that.

Later, when I looked back on our walk to school that Monday, it would leave me with the

surreal sense that it had occurred in some alternate universe. Lorrie Beth didn’t just cast aside the

cape of silence she’d been wearing for two days. She contracted a severe case of diarrhea of the

mouth. She talked so fast and non-stop I wondered if she was possessed, maybe by some out of

work auctioneer or a wind up doll with a stuck spring.

I couldn’t even follow half of it. Every stray thought she must’ve had from the age of

two came flooding out. Maybe it’s some kind of side effect of all that grief. I’ve always heard

that people aren’t themselves after a loss. But she wasn’t even like this when we lost Daddy.

Maybe this is her way of not thinking about Caleb and Sue Lee. She’s not even mentioned their

names once.

I’d given up trying to make sense of it when we arrived at the schoolyard. Only a dozen

or so kids were there, so it was a chance to take a breath without that queasy, suffocated feeling I

usually got at school.

As luck would have it, our reprieve was short-lived. Sue Lee showed up first and stood

under the oak tree to glare at us. I was confident Caleb wouldn’t put in his appearance until after

we were well into morning classes, so I sucked in the cool early air and stole glances at Sue Lee

when her head was turned.

It was a mind game, trying to size her up when she wasn’t looking, pondering her

capabilities in a real fistfight. I knew she had to be at least fifteen or sixteen by now, and it

must’ve been pretty galling for her to still be in grade school.

Adolescence had not been kind to Sue Lee. She was losing the battle with acne, and her

hair hung limp and greasy around her face. Her lanky body had developed with a total lack of

feminine allure, giving her a mannish build, and she never wore anything but grimy overalls and

a tee shirt. In a true head-to-head, I knew deep down that Lorrie Beth wouldn’t stand a chance.

Neither would I.

To my relief, Lorrie Beth had left me for two of her classmates, and I could hear her close

by, her mouth still in overdrive. In short order, she had them giggling and chattering like

wallflowers at a prom. No one would’ve ever believed she was the same muddle of hysterics I

had seen only three days before. I felt like I had wandered onto some bizarre stage.

As if on cue, Caleb put in his appearance midway through math class. He slouched,

cigarette dangling from his mouth, in his and Sue Lee’s favorite spot under the oak tree. I saw

Sue Lee zero in on him with the sort of gleeful smirk that gave me a sharp chill. It was

anybody’s guess what they had in mind now. As far as I could see, they’d gone about as far as

anybody could go, short of murder.

By morning recess, my palms were already sweating just from the dread of that

schoolyard. When Miss Hacker rang her bell, I lurched out of my seat to make sure Lorrie Beth

and I walked out together. I wouldn’t have let her out of my sight if Armageddon itself had

broken out around us.

We’d no sooner stepped out into the weak February sunlight when Lorrie Beth turned

away from me and headed straight into the lion’s den. It happened before my brain could even