Carnal Innocence (40 page)

“Fuck this.” Wood tossed down his gun. “I ain’t shooting at no women any more than I’d be raping one.”

“Then you might want to step out of the line of fire,” Tucker advised him. “Looks like it’s five to five.” His lips curved as he heard the siren. “And that’s about to change. Now, if I were you, Billy T., I’d set that woman down, real gentle like. Otherwise, my finger’s going to slip and I’m going to blow a hole through your brother.”

“Jesus Christ, Billy, put her down.” John Thomas scrambled back against the steps.

Billy T. licked his lips. “Maybe I’ll put one through you.”

“I expect you could. But since you can’t work that rifle one-handed, you’ll have to put her down just the same. Then we’ll take our chances.”

“Put her down, Billy,” Wood said quietly. “The gun, too. This is crazy business here.” He turned to the others. “This is crazy business.”

In agreement, they tossed down their guns.

“You’re standing alone now,” Tucker pointed out. “You can die alone, too. Doesn’t make a damn bit of difference to me.”

In disgust, Billy T. dropped Winnie to the ground, where she began to sob and crawl toward her husband. After tossing his gun aside, he started to walk toward his car.

“I’d stand where you are,” Tucker said quietly.

“You won’t shoot me in the back.”

Tucker squeezed off a round that shattered the windshield. “The hell I wouldn’t.”

“Go ahead and do it,” Cousin Lulu suggested. “Save the taxpayers money.”

“That’s enough.” Caroline wiped sweaty hands on her jeans and hurried over to Winnie. “There’s nothing to worry about now.”

“My babies.”

“I’ll go to them in just a minute.” She fought the knot loose from Winnie’s wrists, hoping to free her before the children saw it. But they were already racing out of the house, Jim still carrying the butcher knife stained with John Thomas’s blood, and the little girl tripping over the hem of her nightgown.

“Here now.” Caroline dragged the noose over Toby’s head. Her vision wavered with tears as she took the bloody knife to cut his bonds. “You’re hurt.” Her fingers came away wet as she touched his side. “Somebody call the doctor.”

“We’ll get him to the hospital.” Tucker knelt down. Burke and Carl were already reading Billy T. and the others their rights. “What do you say, Toby? Up to a ride?”

He was holding his family, his good eye leaking tears as he gathered them close. “Guess I could stir
myself.” He tried a wan smile while Winnie wept against his chest. “You driving?”

“You bet.”

“We’ll get there fast anyway.”

“There you go. Dwayne, give me a hand here. Della, you take the kids on down to Sweetwater. Caroline.” Tucker looked around as she stood and walked away. “Where are you going?”

She didn’t look back. “To get a hose and put out this obscenity.”

S
creams shimmied on the hot air. High pitched howls echoed, chased by shrieks of wild laughter. Colored lights flashed and blinked and whirled, turning the fallow Eustis Field into a fantasy of motion.

The carnival had come to Innocence.

People readily dug out their spare change to be caught by the Octopus, whirled by the Zipper, and scrambled by the Round-Up.

Kids went racing by, their shouts and squeals rising above the piping calliope music, their fingers sticky with cotton candy, their cheeks puffed out with corn dogs or stuffed with fried dough. Teenagers scrambled to impress one another by knocking down bottles, ringing bells, or—in the words of one daredevil—riding the Scrambler till they puked.

Many of the older set settled for bingo at a quarter a card. Others touched by gambling fever lost their paychecks trying to outsmart the Wheel of Fortune.

To anyone traveling over Old Longstreet Bridge, it would look like an ordinary summer carnival on the outskirts of an ordinary small, southern town. The lights
and the echo of that calliope might bring a tug of nostalgia to the travelers as they passed by.

But for Caroline, the magic wasn’t working.

“I don’t know why I let you talk me into coming here.”

Tucker swung his arm over her shoulders. “Because you can’t resist my fatal southern charm.”

She stopped to watch hopefuls pitching coins at glassware that could be had at any respectable yard sale for half the price. “It doesn’t seem right, with everything that’s happened.”

“I don’t see what a night at a carnival’s going to change. Unless it’s to make you smile a little.”

“Darleen’s going to be buried on Tuesday.”

“She’s going to be buried Tuesday whether you’re here tonight or not.”

“Everything that happened last night—”

“Has been taken care of,” he finished. “Billy T. and his asshole friends are in jail. Doc says Toby and Winnie are doing just fine. And look here.” He pointed to where Cy and Jim were squished together in a cup of the Scrambler, eyes wide, mouths open in laughing howls as they were spun in mad circles. “Those two are smart enough to grab a little fun when it’s offered.”

Tucker pressed a kiss to her hair and continued to walk. “You know why we call this Eustis Field?”

“No.” A smile ghosted around her lips. “But I’m sure you’re about to tell me.”

“Well, Cousin Eustis—actually, he’d have been an uncle, but there’re so many greats in there it gets confusing—he wasn’t what you’d call a tolerant man. He ran Sweetwater from 1842 until 1856, and it prospered. Not just the cotton. He had six children—legitimately— and about a dozen more on the other side of the sheets. Word was he liked to try out the female slaves when they came of age. That age being about thirteen, fourteen.”

“That’s despicable. You named a field for him?”

“I’m not finished.” He paused to light half a cigarette. “Now, Eustis, he wasn’t what you’d call an admirable man. It didn’t bother him at all to sell off his own children—the dark-skinned ones. His wife was a papist,
a devoted one, who used to beg him to repent his sins and save his soul from a fiery hell. But Eustis just kept doing what came naturally to him.”

“Naturally?”

“To him,” Tucker said. Behind him, a bell clanged as some hotshot proved his strength and impressed his girl into rapturous squeals. “One day a young female slave took off. She had the baby Eustis had fathered with her. Eustis didn’t tolerate runaways. No indeed. He set out the men and the dogs, and rode out himself to hunt her down. He was riding across this field when he shouted out that he’d spotted her. She wouldn’t have had much of a chance with him on horseback and a whip in his hand. Then his horse reared. Nobody knows why—might’ve been spooked by a snake or rabbit. Or maybe it was that fiery hell reaching out to grab old Eustis. But he broke his neck.” Tucker took a last drag on his cigarette, then flung it away. “Right about there, where that Ferris wheel’s standing. Seems fitting somehow, don’t you think? That all these people, black and white—maybe some with a dribble or two of Eustis Longstreet’s blood—should be kicking up their heels on this field where he met his Maker.”

She leaned her head against his shoulder. “What happened to the girl, and her baby?”

“Funny thing about that. Nobody else saw them. Not that day or any day after.”

She took a deep breath of candy-scented air. “I’d like a ride on the Ferris wheel.”

“Wouldn’t mind it myself. Afterward, how’d you like me to win you one of those black velvet paintings of Elvis?”

Laughing, she hooked an arm around his waist. “Words fail me.”

“Don’t you want to play some bingo, Cousin Lulu?” Ever hopeful, Dwayne pressed a hand to his jittery stomach.

“What the hell do I want to sit around putting beans on a card for?” Lulu stomped up to the ticket booth to
buy another roll. “We only been on the Round-Up once, and missed the Scrambler altogether. That Crack the Whip’s worth another go or two.” She stuffed the tickets in the pocket of her army surplus slacks. “You’re looking a might green, boy. Indigestion?”

He swallowed gamely. “You could call it that.”

“Shouldn’t have eaten all that fried dough before we took a spin. Best thing to do is bring it up, empty your stomach.” She grinned. “A round on the Scrambler’ll take care of that.”

Which was exactly what he feared. “Cousin Lulu, why don’t we take a turn down the midway, win some prizes?”

“Sucker’s games.”

“Who’s a sucker?” Josie strolled up, carrying a huge purple elephant. “I shot twelve ducks, ten rabbits, four moose, and a snarling grizzly bear to win this grand prize.”

“Don’t know what a grown woman’s going to do with a stuffed elephant,” Lulu grumbled, but she took a shine to the rhinestone collar around the purple pachyderm’s neck.

“It’s a souvenir,” she said, and shoved it into Teddy Rubenstein’s arms so she could light a cigarette. “What’s the matter, Dwayne? You’re looking a little sickly.”

“Weak stomach,” Lulu announced, and poked a finger into Dwayne’s midsection. “Corn dogs and fried dough. Boy’s got all that grease floating around inside.” She narrowed her eyes at Teddy. “I know you. You’re that Yankee doctor who makes a living cutting dead people up. Do you keep the innards in bottles?”

With a strangled sound Dwayne shambled away, one hand clamped over his mouth.

“Best thing for him,” Lulu declared.

“I guess I’d better go hold his head.” With a sigh Josie turned back to Teddy. “Honey, why don’t you take Cousin Lulu for a ride? I’ll catch up.”

“It would be my pleasure.” Teddy held out his arm. “What’s your poison, Cousin Lulu?”

Pleased, she hooked her arm through his. “I had my mind set on the Scrambler.”

“Allow me to escort you.”

“What’s your given name, boy?” she asked as they wound through the crowd. “I may as well call you by it, as you’re sleeping with my kin.”

He gave a throat-clearing cough. “It’s Theodore, ma’am. My friends call me Teddy.”

“All right, Teddy. We’ll take us a walk on the wild side here, and you can tell me all you know about these murders.” Graciously, she handed him the tickets to pay their way through the gate.

“That Miss Lulu.” Slurping on a Snow-Kone, Jim nodded in respect. “She sure is something.”

Cy wiped purple juice from his mouth and watched as Lulu sat regally in the jerking, spinning car of the Scrambler. “I seen her standing on her head in her room.”

“What she do that for?”

“Don’t rightly know. Something about having the blood slosh into her brain so she don’t go senile. One day I found her lying on the lawn. I thought she’d had a spell or was dead or something. She said she was pretending to be a cat for a day, and gave me hell for disturbing her nap.”

Jim grinned and crunched ice. “My granny mostly sits in a rocker and knits.”

They started to walk, taking time to stop by some of the booths and watch balls being tossed, darts being thrown, wheels being spun. They each spent a quarter at the Duck Pond, where Jim won a rubber spider and Cy a plastic whistle.

They debated having their fortunes told by Madame Mystique, then passed her up for a look at the Amazing Voltura, who absorbed a thousand volts of electricity while miniature light bulbs fizzed and popped all over her curvaceous body.

“Pretty fakey,” Cy decided, and gave his whistle a toot.

“Yeah, I bet they use batteries or something.”

Cy scuffed his shoe in the dirt. “Can I ask you something?” “Sure.”

“I was wondering. Well, how did it feel, stabbing John Thomas Bonny?”

Frowning, Jim dangled his rubber spider by the string. He figured he could get at least one good squeal out of little Lucy with it. “It didn’t feel at all, I guess. I was all numb and my ears were ringing. I had Lucy hiding in the closet like Ma told me, but I figured he’d find her. And I didn’t know what they were going to do to my ma, and my daddy.”

“Were they …” Cy wet his lips. “Were they really going to string him up?”

“They had a rope, and guns.” Jim didn’t say anything about the burning cross. Somehow that was the worst part of all. “They kept saying he killed them women. But he didn’t.”

“They were saying my daddy killed them, too.” Cy bent for something shiny, but it was only a piece of foil from a pack of cigarettes. “I guess he didn’t do it either.”

“Somebody did,” Jim said, and the two boys gazed silently at the flow of people. “Might even be somebody we know.”

“Almost has to be, if you think about it.”

“Cy?”

“Yeah?”

“When I stuck that knife into John Thomas Bonny? Made me feel sorta sick at my stomach watching it go in. I don’t see how anybody could stick people again and again. Less they was crazy.”

“Guess they are, then.” Cy remembered his father’s eyes, and thought he knew all about crazy. Shaking off the sense of dread, he dug in his pocket. “I still got three tickets left.”

With a grin, Jim dug in his own. “The Round-Up.”

“Last one there pukes on his shoes.”

With a war cry, both boys dashed off, making a beeline for the whirling lights of the Round-Up. Both Cy and his innocent pleasure came to a skidding halt when Vernon stepped out in front of him.

“Having yourself a high old time, ain’t you, boy?”

Cy stared up at his brother, into the face that was a ghost image of their father, eyes glazed with anger as hard and cold as ice skimmed over a pond. He hadn’t seen Vernon since Austin’s funeral. There, his brother hadn’t spoken to him at all, only stared at him across the hole in the ground where their father would spend his eternity.

The lights of the midway suddenly seemed to brighten, burning hot on Cy’s face while the rest of Innocence played in the dark.

“I’m not doing anything.”

“You’re always doing something.” Vernon stepped forward. From behind them Loretta clutched one child to the mound made by another and made a small sound of distress that was ignored by all. “Getting yourself a job over to Sweetwater on the sly. Spending all your time with this kind.” He jerked his head toward Jim. “Don’t matter to you that them colored’s plotting against white Christians, killing white women, and your own sister among ’em. You got bigger fish to fry.”

“Jim’s my friend.” Cy didn’t take his eyes off his brother’s face. But he knew those big hands were fisted, just as he knew they would pummel him to the ground. And because they were blood, there were many who would turn away rather than interfere. “We weren’t doing anything.”

“You got your colored friends.” Vernon’s lips twisted as he snagged Cy’s collar. “Maybe you helped them get Edda Lou out there in the swamp where they could rape and kill her. Maybe you held the knife yourself and murdered her same as you murdered Daddy.”

“I didn’t kill anybody.” Cy shoved at Vernon’s hand even as he was dragged up to his toes. “I didn’t. Daddy was going to hurt Miss Caroline and she had to shoot him.”

“That’s a filthy lie.” Vernon slammed his free hand against Cy’s head, and white stars exploded in front of the boy’s eyes. “You sent him out to die and they hunted him down like a dog. Used their godless money to cover
it all up. You think I don’t know how it was? You think I don’t know how you fixed it so you could live in that fine, big house, trading your father’s life for a soft bed and a life of sin.” His eyes flattened like a snake’s as he shook Cy off his feet. “You got the evil inside you, boy. With Daddy gone, it’s up to me to crush it out.”

His arm reared back. Even as Cy was covering his face in defense, Jim was leaping. He grabbed Vernon’s arm with both hands and hung on, kicking. Between the two of them, they were still fifty pounds short of Vernon’s weight, but fear and loyalty added sinew. Vernon was forced to drop Cy in a heap so that he could buck Jim off. The minute he dragged Cy up, Jim was on him again, agile as a ferret. This time he hitched on to Vernon’s back, hooking an arm around the thick neck.

“Run, Cy.” Jim clung like a leech while Vernon struggled to yank him off. “Run! I got him.”

But Cy wasn’t going anywhere. After shaking his head clear, he got back to his feet. His nose was bleeding a little from his last fall, and he swiped a hand under it. He thought he understood now what Jim had meant when he’d said he’d been numb. Cy was numb. His ears were ringing—either from the blow or from adrenaline. Inside his thin chest his heart was banging against his ribs like a spoon against a kettle.

The lights were all on him. Beyond the circle made by him, his brother, and Jim, all was shadowy to his vision. The music of the calliope had slowed to a funeral dirge.

He swiped more blood away, then fisted his smeared hands. “I ain’t going to run.” He’d run from his father. It felt as though he’d been running all of his life. And here and now was the time to take his stand. What was left of his innocence had fled, and he was a man. “I ain’t going to run,” he repeated, and hefted his bloody fists.

Vernon shook Jim off and grinned. “Think you can take me on, you little shit?”

“I ain’t going to run,” Cy said again quietly. “And you ain’t going to whip up on me anymore either.”