Family Thang (17 page)

“What you want?” Shane asked.

Leonard stared into the boy’s dirty freckled face, slowly raised both hands and wondered why Shane was squinting, for they were standing in the shade of the cabin.

“I want you to stop aiming that thing at me. I’m your uncle, remember? Uncle Leonard? Your mother’s brother?”

Shane in desperate need of a haircut: light-brown hair extremely long, a super afro, speckled with green bits, grass or leaves. Besides that and the dirt on his face, he was handsome. A young Harry Belafonte: sculpted features, freckles, bushy eyebrows above hazel-colored eyes.

“Yeah,” the boy said, tilting his head.

“Shane, remember when you were little and I took you and Paul to the fair in Little Rock? You remember?” The boy shook his head. “You gotta remember. You and I rode the Ferris wheel, it stopped while we were at top, I threw up. It doesn’t matter. Shane, it’s not polite to point an arrow at your uncle.”

The boy responded by raising the crossbow, aiming it at Leonard’s head.

Shielding his face with his hands: “Hey! Hey! Hey! Stop it! You might put my eye out!”

“It’ll do more than that.”

“Stop playing, Shane! Stop it! Dammit, I’m your uncle!”

“Why you kill my dog?”

“What! I didn’t kill your dog!”

Shane shook his head to rid a fly from his face. “Yeah, you did. You killed him and you killed pa-pa.”

I’m dead, Leonard thought. He’s going to kill me with a crossbow…I’ll be left out here to rot…Flies…Buzzards…

“Shane, I
didn’t. I swear
I didn’t do it! I didn’t arrive in time. What makes you think I did it?”

“’Cause you’re unnatural.”

“What?”

“You like bootie instead of women.”

“What! Who told you that?”

“Pa-pa.”

“He shouldn’t have told you that. Not a nice thing to say.”

“Is it true?”

Leonard’s mind raced. If he admitted being gay, Shane might misconstrue it as an admission of guilt and shoot him.

“No, it’s not true.”

“Liar!” Shane snapped.

In his entire life, thirty-three years, Leonard had never heard an African American use the word liar. Not important now, he thought, closing his eyes. Only two things were significant now: pain and decomposition.

“Open your eyes!” Shane demanded.

“Huh?” Leonard said, opening one eye…There wasn’t an arrow protruding from his forehead.

“Look,” pointing the arrow at Leonard’s leg. “You peed yourself.”

Leonard looked…his blue jeans sported a wet spot down to his shoes.

Shane laughed, a high-pitch giggle. “You scared, ain’t ya?”

“No! No, I’m not. This is usually the time of day I wet myself. An arrow aimed at my head has nothing to do with it.”

Shane laughed again, as though the funniest thing he’d ever heard. Leonard feigned a chuckle, noticing Shane was shirtless, shoeless, wearing only black dress slacks.

Maybe, Leonard thought, just maybe. “Knock, knock?”

Shane frowned. “I’m not no damn kid! I’m seventeen-years-old. Be eighteen in two months. Don’t talk to me like I’m a kid.”

“I didn’t mean anything by it, Shane. Just a joke. You like jokes, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t. I want to know…you know what I’m talking about?”

“No, I’m sorry, I don’t.”

“You know? What’s it like to be with a…you know?”

“Shane, listen to me, I didn’t kill your dog.” He dropped his hands. “If you want to shoot your uncle, then shoot your uncle. I’m not going to discuss my personal life with a minor.” He stepped off the porch. “I came out here because my mother, your grandmother, told me to give you a message.” He started walking and fought the urge to look back. “She’s worried about you and wants you to know you can come home and bring the dog with you.”

Nearing the entrance to the trail: “She’s really concerned about you being out here by your--”

Twaanng!…the sound of a rubber band snapping, only louder…Shiiiiiiip!…something whipped past his right ear…Thud!…an arrow struck a tree only a few feet ahead of him.

“Why you stupid, simple-minded bastard!” Leonard said. He turned and charged…He would kick his ass…he would beat the shit out of him, teach him not to shoot arrows at his uncle…He stopped in his tracks…The boy had another arrow already locked and loaded in the crossbow…

That’s not a toy!

The tip of the arrow pointed at him looked like three rectangular razor blades melded to a needlepoint. The shaft made of some kind of metal, aluminum or steel.

A wire looped through two small wheels on either side of the crossbow and crisscrossed to an X in the middle. All rested on a green camouflaged rifle
stock. No, this was not a toy.

“Call me stupid again,” Shane said. “Say it again, I dare you.”

Leonard gulped.

“Always,” Shane said. “Always come down to me stupid, crazy, simple. ’Cause I’m not too smart makes you better than me?”

Leonard didn’t respond.

“Why I live out here. Nobody calls me stupid out here.” Pause. “Until you came.”

Leonard swallowed, and then found his voice. “Damn, Shane, you shot an arrow at me! Scared the shit out of me. I didn’t mean what I said--you scared me.”

Shane lowered the crossbow and let it slip from his fingers. It fell to the porch floor with a soft thud.

Another lump formed in Leonard’s throat, this one coated with guilt. “Hey…look…I didn’t mean…I’m sorry, okay? Okay, Shane?”

Shane started crying, tears leaving dirty streaks down his face.

“Shane, I apologize. You know, when I was your age people called me bad names, made me cry.”

“Yeah,” Shane sniffed. “Names like what?”

“Sissy, homo, weirdo--silly stuff.”

Shane stopped crying. “What you do?”

Leonard stepped closer. “Nothing, really. Mostly cried a lot and tried to avoid them. Shane, some people fear anything they know may very well exist in them. So they call people bad names.”

“Then what’s your excuse?”

Leonard almost laughed. “I don’t have one. I, of all people, should know better.”

“Did Pa-pa call you names?”

“He was the main one.”

“He called me names, too.”

“He did?” Leonard was shocked. He’d thought his father had gotten past that nonsense.

“Yup, he sure did. Ignoramus. Nut case. Airhead. Schizzy was his favorite. I looked for it in the dictionary, couldn’t find it. When he really got mad at me, he’d say, ‘Shane,’” raising his voice, sounding remarkably similar to Leonard’s father, “if brains were tissue, you wouldn’t have enough to wipe a mosquito’s ass.’”

“Mother, your grandmother, treated you nice, didn’t she?”

“Oh, she’s the best. She treats me better than my real mother.”

“She’s worried about you, Shane. She doesn’t like the idea of you out here alone.”

Shane shrugged. “I’m all right.”

“Let’s head back home. I had some hot food Mother cooked for you. I left it at the motel. Come on, we’ll get her to scrape up a good home-cooked meal. Mmmm-uh, I can smell her cooking now.” He started walking away.

“I’m not going back.”

“Shane, what happens when the scouts come back? They’ll run you off, call the police.”

Shane gestured at the damaged cabin. “The scouts don’t come up here no more since the tree fell. I’m not going back.”

“Shane, surely you’d like a good meal and a hot…a hot cup of coffee.” He’d almost slipped and said hot bath.

Shane shook his head.

Leonard looked up and saw more buzzards circling above. “Shane…Shane, you can’t stay here. Come home with me.”

“I’m not going. I’m waiting for Kenny G to become one with nature. For some reason it’s taking a lot longer than usual.”

Leonard had a bad feeling what that entailed. “Are you sure you don’t want to come home with me?”

Shane answered by picking up the crossbow.

“Guess you are,” backing up. “Before I go back to Chicago, I’ll try to get back up here and see you.”
By plane.
“You take care of yourself. See ya.”

“Tell Grandma I…” He stopped…and waved.

“Sure,” backing his way to the trail. “I’ll tell her. I sure will.”

Chapter 15

Sheriff Bledsoe popped four Pepsid AC tablets into his mouth and washed them down with a swig of Pepto Bismol. “Ah!” smacking his lips. “Hits the spot.”

The phone rang. “Sheriff Bledsoe.”

A woman’s voice: “Ruth Ann did it.”

“Did what?”

“Poisoned her daddy. Check her back.”

“Her what? Who is this?”

“Not important.”

“Okay. What kind of poison was in the chili?”

Silence on the other end. Then: “You wanna play games, go buy yourself a PlayStation. You wanna solve a murder, go arrest Ruth Ann.”

“Ma’am, what’s your name? I’ll keep it anonymous.” The voice sounded familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it. “Who is this?”

“A concerned citizen,” and the line went dead.

“Darn it!” He took another swig of Pepto Bis
mol.

This case had his stomach twisted in knots. At first he thought Leonard was the culprit, but his alibi checked clean--unless he brought a box of Juggernaut Gopher Bait on the plane with him. Highly unlikely. Or he had someone in town buy it for him. Possible, but also highly unlikely.

Next grandma waltzed in and confessed, rekindling the fantasy the case might be solved soon; yet she didn’t offer a single shred of evidence to corroborate her story.

And now this!

Maybe, if he were lucky, he thought as he holstered his .357 Magnum, Ruth Ann would confess and then he could return to the business of serving the good people of Dawson, all five thousand of them, by taking long, uninterrupted naps, which saved the city a tremendous amount of revenue.

Murder was a rare bird to land in Dawson. He couldn’t remember a single one occurring here. Now he was mired in a murder investigation straight out of a made-for-television mystery. Arsenic, money and enough suspects to organize a softball team.

If this case went unsolved, he would not win the next election. Any yahoo with a loud mouth could run against him and win by reminding the good people of Dawson of the one murder in decades that, thanks to Sheriff Bledsoe, did not get solved.