Even Steven (17 page)

It took years of practice to learn how to finish cutting at just the right spot where he could pull the tractor into the barn without backtracking and messing up the perfect pattern. It was silly, he knew, because the pattern was ruined as soon as anybody walked across the lawn, but doing it right still mattered. Sometimes, he even caught Jacob watching him-with that smile on his face.

It'd be another few weeks before the springtime grass took on that deep green color-almost blue-and Samuel couldn't wait. Next to Christmas and Thanksgiving, the moist, fresh smell of newly cut spring-time grass was Samuel's favorite aroma in the world.

So who was going to cook the big holiday meals this year?

Samuel felt the panic swell inside his chest, and he quickly took a deep breath, holding it tight, to push the fear back down where it belonged.

Samuel got scared a lot. A whole lot, in fact. Sometimes, he could make the fear go away by holding his breath, or sometimes by saying a prayer. But last night, while Jacob was fighting the nosy nellie and screaming for Samuel to help, neither of those things worked. He'd never felt such fear. It was as if somebody had thrown a big old lock onto his bones so that none of his joints could move. He'd told himself-and he'd told God and he'd told his brother-that he didn't move because Jacob had told him not to, but that was a lie. He was just plain too scared. That's when he went on his trip.

He always went on trips when things got too big for him to understand, and with all that was happening out there in the woods, between that little boy struggling in the gunnysack, and then all the screaming, and finally with the kid running away too many things had happened too quickly for him to keep up. Plus, Jacob was so mad; madder than Samuel had ever seen him. Mad enough that Samuel was a little afraid of him, too.

Why did he have to be afraid like this? Why couldn't he be brave all the time like Jacob is-was. Oh, God. Samuel was a goddamn pussy, just as they'd always said. And now Jacob was dead. Oh, great God Almighty, what the hell was he going to do now? Out here in the big field with the aroma of grass filling his nostrils, he tried to find peace-he tried to invent peace-but the pain just wouldn't go away. He wondered if it ever would, and as the thought passed through him, it left a white-hot wake, searing his guts, and causing him to double over in the tractor's saddle.

Hey, you pussy. It's done. It's over. Water under the bridge; the horse is out of the barn. Last night was last night; today is today. Start thinking, Samuel.

But how was he supposed to do that when he felt so terribly, terribly frightened? It was as if his heart and his brain and his stomach were completely full, and nothing else could possibly get in.

I told you to stand there, and you did what I told you. I was the dummy this time, Samuel, not you. You were just doing what I told you to do.

"But if I hadn't fallen asleep, then none of this would have happened. You'd still be here."

It's my fault, Samuel, not yours. Mine. And those nosy nellies.

Oh, those nosy nellies. If they'd just done as Jacob wanted them to do-if they'd just handed the little boy over so they could get on with their game-then there'd have been just a quick snot-pounding, and then everything would have ended just the way it was supposed to. The way it always had before.

About the time that Samuel was tracking the bush hog oh so carefully along the fence line out on the far edge of the property, the sadness started to change. That awful heat in the pit of his stomach started to cool off, and his heart started pounding hard as his face flushed hot. He realized that he was getting angry-something that he rarely did, that his daddy would never have tolerated back before the accident. His mind focused on all that he had lost, and on just how quickly it had all gone away. He focused on what those nosy nellies had done. Forever and ever and ever, Samuel would be stuck out here on the farm by himself. Even if he got himself a wife someday, he'd still be stuck out here all by himself. Nobody could ever learn how to cut the grass as perfectly as him, so he was stuck out here forever. Alone. Like Robinson Crusoe, but without the help of Friday.

Just you, buddy boy, forever and ever and ever and ever.

All because of the nosy nellies. He made the turn and headed back toward the house. What would Jacob have done, he wondered, if things had been reversed out there in the woods last night? What would he have done if Samuel had called for help when the nosy nellies were snot-pounding him? You bet your sweet ass Jacob would have jumped right in there to help. And if they'd killed Samuel? (Well, that would never have happened if Jacob had stepped in to help, but what if they had?) Without a doubt, Samuel knew exactly what Jacob would have done. Jacob would never have rested until he'd gotten revenge. An eye for an eye, one of Jacobs favorite expressions. He'd have found out who those nosy nellies were, and he'd have tracked them down for the snot-pounding of their lives.

I wouldn't have just stood there in the woods crying and snotting and drooling, that's for sure.

"Shut up, Jacob."

Funny thing about anger. Once you tap that well deep down inside

your gut, and the anger starts to trickle out, there's no controlling it. The trickle turns to a flood, and when you try to turn it off, you might as well try to put a nozzle on a garden hose that's turned on full. The harder you try, the worse it all gets, with anger just splashing everywhere, over everything.

That's how it was with Samuel and the nosy nellies. If he could just find out who they were, then get his hands on them, he'd get even, yes siree.

Teach you a lesson you won't forget, you stupid shit.

This time, the voice in his head took Samuel's breath away. He hadn't heard his daddy's growl in years, and swear to God, hearing it now made his heart stop for a second. What was Daddy doing here? Samuel didn't go up to the graveyard specifically so he didn't have to hear his daddy's voice. He didn't even like to think about him, just as he intentionally never thought about the bogeyman or that thing he still thought was waiting for him under his bed sometimes. He'd learned a long time ago not to think about the things that scared him most. If you didn't think bad things, they never came to get you.

"Go away!" Samuel shouted. "You're dead. You just go eat some dirt!" He tried to sound like Jacob when he spoke, but even he could hear the tremor in his voice. Suddenly, he was drowning in a torrent of voices and forgotten memories.

In his mind, he was a little boy again, back in the chicken coop.

No, no, not there. Please not there.

His daddy was about to teach him a lesson.

A lesson that even a stupid shit like you will never forget.

Samuel had already cut his switch, and he'd made it a big one. (Cut it too small and Daddy used the ax handle.) As he undid the suspender clasps, his denim coveralls dropped to the ground, the little hourglass ring landing in a dollop of chicken shit.

"Please don't hurt me," he pleaded.

But it was going to hurt. Bad. Lessons you never forget always do.

It was a chilly day, too, the kind that made you shiver if you stood still for too long, but made you sweat if you ran around and played. That made it a spring day, or maybe early fall. The smell of those filthy chickens was overwhelming, and little boy Samuel breathed through his mouth so he wouldn't have to inhale the putrid stench.

"You know what to do, boy. Don't make me tell you again. You know the drill."

The drill. Always the drill, and always out here with the chickens.

Samuel did, indeed, know what to do. His underpants were next. Hand-me-downs from Jacob, they swam on his butt as it was, and it took only a light tug to make them drop in a fabric puddle around his ankles. The chicken coop had a ledge that ran all the way around the front, a kind of windowsill where the chicken wire attached to the filthy, stained pine walls, and that's where Samuel put his hands. The wood held his weight-all sixty, seventy pounds of it-as he "assumed the position." He curled his fingers into the hexagonal holes in the wire.

"Shirttail," his daddy growled, and Samuel reached behind to pull the flannel flap out of the way.

He looked between his feet, down where the toes of his orange work boots peeked out from the mess of blue denim and gray cotton, and watched as a big fat hen explored his underwear with its beak. Samuel kept his eye on that bird in case it decided to look up and take a bite of the little worm he had growing between his legs. A peck of a pecker. The very thought of it terrified him.

The switch whistled as it cut through the air, and it bit the skin of his backside with the sting of a hornet. Samuel didn't hear the sound of the impact, but the hen did, and it scurried for cover.

"One, sir," Samuel said, focusing every dram of energy on the task of keeping the pain out of his voice. No clenched teeth, no yelling. It was all part of the drill.

Off to his right, through the corner of his eye, he saw his daddy's shadow, three times bigger than normal in the late-afternoon sun, as he brought his arm way, way back and over his head. The switch was invisible in the shadow, but it whistled again as the shadows arm became a blur, and then it bit even harder into the exact same spot.

"Two, sir." Oh, God, oh, God, it hurt. He wanted to cry. He wanted to scream out as loud as he could, but he knew if he did, the switch would become a fist, and it wouldn't be lashing his bottom anymore, but

his face, and then he'd have to stay home from school for a week while the swelling went down, and he'd be out here every damn day.

Thwack! Oh, yes, he heard it that time. The whole world heard it that time, and as it landed, a lightbulb popped behind Samuel's eyes, and the lightning bolt of pain reached all the way up into his belly. "Three, sir," he gasped. "I can't hear you, boy."

"Three, sir!" Christ on a crutch, that was too loud. Way, way too loud. His instinct was to shut his eyes in anticipation of what had to be coming, but if he did, he was afraid he'd squeeze out some tears by mistake, and everybody knows how tough the drill was on pussies who cried. Oh, please, oh, please don't- Thwack!

"Four, sir." His daddy was sweating now. He knew better than to look-he didn't want to look-but Samuel could tell from the rancid whiskey odor that mixed with the stink of the chicken shit and whatever sweat or blood was inching its way down Samuels butt cheeks and on into his crack. "Five, sir." "Six, sir."

Six was twice the normal number, but barely halfway to ten, and Samuel didn't know if he could make it. Out in front of him, where his fingers curled tightly around the chicken wire, beads of blood oozed from the folds of skin under his knuckles, and in his mind he could see the galvanized hexagons eating right on through the bone. At his feet, the hen had returned to take another peek. Or was it peck? "I can't hear you!"

"Seven!" Samuel wheezed, but he wasn't at all sure that was the count. In fact, the lightbulbs were popping with every stroke now, and on whatever number that last one was, somebody had lifted the latch that kept his legs straight, and they just folded under him. He'd never fallen like this before-a slow-motion sag that he tried desperately to fight but couldn't. He heard a rushing sound in his ears and was dimly aware that he was about to faint. He found it-interesting, not frightening at all. He kind of liked the idea of being unconscious for a little while.

The hen saw him coming and scampered away again, maybe to go lay another egg. Samuel wondered if maybe it wasn't a relief to have somebody wring your neck and just get it over with.

He tried to get his hands out in front of him, but they didn't want to work. For a long moment, they seemed cemented to the chicken wire, and as he headed for the ground, they pivoted him around just enough that when he landed, it wasn't on his knees as he'd been planning, but on his ravaged bottom, and smack in a pile of chicken shit.

That's when he yelled. He couldn't help it. It was as if every body part suddenly acted on its own, bypassing the filter in his brain that told him when he should act like a man, and when he should keep a stiff upper lip. But this was more than a yell. It just poured from his throat, loud enough to hurt his own ears. He tried to stop it, but his damn throat just wouldn't listen.

And as he'd predicted, the switch became a fist.

BOBBY THOUGHT OF the decor in the offices of Donnelly, Wall, and Bevis as lawyer-light. As the largest firm in Prince Edward County, its attorneys enjoyed the status of hugest fish in the mud puddle, and the waiting room boasted the very best that the local discount stores could offer. Vinyl looked enough like leather to pull it off, and the veneered pressboard looked enough like mahogany to make a client feel that the $140-an-hour fee wasn't as exorbitant as it might otherwise seem.

As he passed through the doorway into the wine-colored reception area, the fist that had been clutching his heart all day clenched tighter still. He was going to talk to a lawyer, for God's sake. About shooting a man. Whatever delusions he'd nurtured about none of this being as bad as he thought evaporated as he stepped inside. From this moment on, he realized, he maintained only partial ownership of his life. He was going to share a secret that by rights no one else on the planet should know. And once the secret was out, nothing would ever be the same again. While attorney-client privilege protected him from direct harm, it was hard to imagine what the atmosphere would be like the next time they got together for lunch, or when they were waiting to tee off at the next charity golf tournament.