Hush (43 page)

separated them any longer. She saw how easily he could come forward, reach in,

and grab her. She wanted to flee, but had to force aside branches and tree limbs

just to open the door. The dome light lit up the truck, and now she could see

Boyce leaning back against the thick tree that had stopped them.
He grabbed the side of the bed and tried to climb to his feet. She searched the

ground for a broken branch— anything— to use as a club, but Boyce collapsed of

his own accord, obviously injured.
Thank God.
A peculiar noise arose from the cab, and when she turned around she saw Davy

reaching under the broken chain saw and smacking the seat on the driver's side.
She couldn't see anything and didn't understand why the boy continued to do

this. His stepfather moaned, and she looked back at him. This shift in her

attention caused Davy to pound the seat even harder, as if frustrated, and then

she heard something that stunned her.
"Guuun." He repeated this tortured syllable: "Guuun." It was the first word he'd

ever spoken to her.
She saw him pointing to the floor of the cab, where he'd pulled a handgun out

from under the seat.
She looked at the gun and glanced at Boyce. He hadn't moved. She reached in and

picked up the revolver. Blood dripped from her ear, and she became aware for the

first time that it had been cut. Her ear hurt, but nothing like the pain she'd

known earlier tonight, and even now it could not compete with the throbbing in

her knee.
She held the revolver firmly as she approached the back of the pickup. She

pushed aside branches where she could, stepped over others, and slowly limped

until she was even with the rear tire. Boyce sat with his head leaning slightly

forward. He was about four feet away.
Her whole body came alive with the prospect of killing him. A true tingling

raced up and down her spine, an almost euphoric sense that permeated her

thoughts and made her oddly joyful. She wondered if all killers experienced this

feeling. Maybe, she thought, that's why they kill.
She pointed the gun right at his head. His eyes turned away, and she followed

their path. Davy was looking back at them through the broken rear window.
She realized she was on the verge of executing Boyce right in front of his

stepson. She hesitated.
Kill him anyway. Go ahead. Do it.
The impulse was strong and sudden, as clear as the sound of the truck idling.

She smelled lead fumes rising from the exhaust pipe.
Her hands shook. The weight of the gun made insistent demands on her tired arms.

She knew that if she intended to shoot him she must do it now. He looked back at

her as if in this moment he knew his doom.
"You son of a bitch," she whispered. And then she repeated herself, louder, "You

son of a bitch."
The passenger door opened against a bush and both of them saw Davy slide out of

the other side of the truck. His stepfather spoke to him in a harsh voice.
"Get over here. Now."
"No, don't," Celia said firmly. "Get back inside."
"I mean it. Get the fuck over here."
Celia knew in the primacy of that moment, in the sound of his words, that Boyce

could have no plans but to use Davy, to take him as a shield, a hostage to her

conscience. He was banking on her not shooting him, and on the boy doing what

he'd been told. Davy was indeed moving toward the back of the truck.
"Go back," Celia begged, but she knew he would obey this man as he always had

done. When Davy's steps took him within a few feet of Boyce, she steadied the

gun, aimed right at his head, and pulled the trigger. In the horror before the

blast she heard the metallic sound that gun lovers treasure: the hammer cranking

back to the point of no return.
But there was no explosion, no smoke, and no skull splitting wide; and she

sickened when she learned the truth: the gun was not loaded.
Boyce started to crawl toward her.
It's over. It's over. Her own petrified thoughts defeated her more than Boyce.

The hand that now held the gun turned weak and shook almost uncontrollably. When

she squeezed the trigger again it was the last vestige of survival at work, the

instinct that wins out against all others, that twitches after thought gives way

to fear, and hope to its own dismissal.
The metal resounded hollowly, and he started to laugh. His amusement grew louder

and more grotesque.
She saw him drawing closer and prayed for a bullet as she squeezed again and

again.
Clack, clack, the empty chamber sounded until her finger went soft against the

trigger. A flickering silence followed, an inexplicable time lag before the

discharge. The shot was so loud— so sudden— and so unexpected that it tore

through her not with hope, but with the fear that in her despair she'd let the

gun settle on herself, on the boy, on anything but her target.
But it did not matter where Celia's gun pointed because it was the boy's weapon

that had spoken. He stood there holding it straight out with both hands, a

stance he might have borrowed from television, the movies, or even from his

stepfather. Smoke rose from the barrel, and through its quickly thinning pale

Celia saw Davy squinting.
Boyce's body collapsed to the metal bed.
"Pow-pow, you're dead," the boy whispered in the hush that followed.
64
Celia nervously placed the tips of her fingers on Boyce's neck. His skin felt

bumpy and filthy, and she pulled her hand away before checking his pulse. The

bullet had killed him. She had no doubts. His open eyes stared lifelessly at the

treetops, and a stillness blanketed his body. She did not need to touch him to

know he was dead. And this time she was right.
Davy's arm hung by his side, the pistol pointing downward. He was an elective

mute who had struggled to speak, a victim and a witness who had used a gun to

pronounce a strict and final sentence.
He'd been scared, and Celia thought he'd probably taken his cue from all the

charming killers who stalked the screen, and all the real ones who stalked the

land. She looked at him. He's just a kid. A kid with a gun. She reached across

his stepfather's body and took it from him. The handle felt warm. She laid it on

the bed of the truck and put hers aside as well. She hugged him and began to

cry, and as the tears streamed down her face she felt his arms encircle her

back, as though to comfort her.
She grieved for Davy then, for a boy who had survived the worst the world could

offer. Freed from his stepfather, yes, but all alone now. A killer too, a kid

killer. She could see the headlines— she'd seen them before— and knew the courts

would have their way with him. This shooting would become the highlight of his

record, the sum total of who he was, and always cast a doubt— no matter how

small, no matter how unfair— on the little boy in her arms. It would make the

world wary of him, and he'd be shuffled from foster home to foster home, another

lowly deuce in this wild game of chance, a throwaway kid in a throwaway culture.

Another quiet crime against humanity.
She saw the gun lying there and decided at once to reduce his odds. She would

not make him begin his new life with such a burden.
"They don't need to know this," she said.
Davy watched her pick up the gun and wipe the handle with her torn gown until no

print could have survived. She held it in both hands and pressed her fingers

against the wood and metal until her claim to the killing was clear. Then she

laid it back down.
"I shot him, not you. Okay? That's our little secret."
He didn't say anything, and he didn't nod, but he knew about secrets and could

keep one more.
Celia took his hand. She found it warm and wonderful to hold. She had been hard

enough to survive; now she wanted to be soft enough to make it worth her while.
Slowly, painfully she led him through the branches and bushes to the cab.
"Hop in."
She edged her way along the front fender to the driver's side. The engine was

still idling, and the headlights still peered at the clear-cut. As she pulled

forward the first light of day appeared, and the stumps glimmered like ghosts.

She had to back up several times to get the truck pointed toward the forest for

their return trip. Before they got underway she stepped out of the cab, found a

dead pine bough, and knocked out most of the windshield so she could see.
They bounced as they started to roll over the trampled brush, and Celia heard a

thud as Boyce's body fell from the bed. She never slowed down but she did glance

in the rearview mirror and saw his corpse lying by a stump. The sheriff could

drag his body away. Or the coyotes.
She made it all the way back to the county road before they ran out of gas. She

and Davy walked the rest of the way home. It wasn't far, and morning had come to

the ridge.
65
The county courthouse stood just three blocks from where Celia now lived but she

drove her old Honda anyway. The weather looked rainy, and her knee still ached

if she tried to walk for more than a few minutes.
"You'll be fine in time," the orthopedist at Cascade Memorial had told her,

though she doubted his glib prognosis. Maybe her knee would heal completely, but

that was the easy part. She thought matters of her heart would remain unsettled

for years, maybe forever.
Three weeks ago she had buried Jack in a cemetery that overlooked the Bentman

River. Since his death she felt as hollow and fragile as a reed. She missed her

husband and coped as well as she could. One day at a time, right? That's what

she told herself daily.
The children at the Center had been sweet, lots of handmade cards and heartfelt

condolences. Harold Matley, the schizophrenic boy, had put his arms around her

at lunch and held her much as she had once held him. What goes around comes

around, she thought at the time. Later, in the privacy of her office, she cried

when she remembered Harold's kindness. She cried easily these days.
"Jack, Jack, Jack," she said softly as she braked at a crosswalk for an elderly

woman. Celia found herself saying his name a lot. It only made her sadder and

she knew she should stop, but couldn't. She missed him terribly. They'd had

their problems, and toward the end she'd even wondered if their marriage would

work out. She still wondered, and this was the loss she felt most keenly, the

undetermined future that would never be known, the loose ends of both their

lives.
The entire staff from the Center had come to the funeral. So had the two women

who worked in Jack's agency, Helen and Ruth. Helen had been quite emotional and

awkward with Celia. Moreover, she chose that moment to press Jack's wedding band

into her hand before turning away. That had shocked Celia. The night before the

murder Jack had said he'd left it by the copier, but she and Ruth had searched

every inch of that office. She'd wanted to bury Jack with his ring on. And here

was Helen handing it over and acting as if she were the bereaved widow. Her

behavior made Celia question if something had been going on between the two of

them; and these doubts gnawed at the memories of her marriage and stained them

with suspicion.
Before they'd left the cemetery Tony had lumbered up to say he was sorry. Celia

assumed he meant about Jack's death, but then he'd gone on to say, "I just had

no idea what we were dealing—"
She had put up her hand to stop him. "Not now, please." She didn't want to think

about Boyce any more than she had to, though she knew his horrifying presence

would haunt her forever.
Tony had mumbled an apology and walked away.
Ethan had overheard this exchange and sidled up to Celia. "I guess old Sasquatch

put his foot in his mouth. God, that must have hurt, they don't call them

Bigfoot for nothing."
A silly remark, and at times past she probably would have laughed. But not here,

not now. She let him hug her, and then she left the cemetery alone.
She returned to the Center the day after the service. She could have taken time

off but didn't want Davy to feel abandoned. She'd worked with him every day,

including weekends. Tony had agreed to this readily. She'd also started seeing a

therapist in Portland to deal with her own problems.
Last week Ethan had walked her out to her car, just like old times, and told her

that he and Holly had split up.
Celia had rested her briefcase on the hood of the Honda and looked him in the

eye. "Is it for sure this time?"
He nodded solemnly, and she placed her hand on his sleeve.
"I'm sorry to hear that, I really am."
"Thanks, but I didn't bring it up to get your sympathy."
"No, I know that, but I'm going to need some time, a lot of time. I'm just not

ready to get into anything right now."
He told her she could have all the time she wanted.
*
She'd listed their house and land with a local real estate office. The agent was

a young woman who had been uneasy with her and looked away when she ventured

that a sale would not come quickly. Celia understood: the violence, the deaths,

the now unspoken forces that had driven her from the ridge would drive away

others as well.
She told the agent to do what she could. The Griswold Agency also went up on the

block. That was about the same time the shepherd burst through the door and

demanded to see Jack. Ruth positioned herself at the counter and used her

formidable presence to insist that he calm down. Then she explained that Mr.

Griswold had passed away.
"Passed away. You mean dead?"
"That's right. There was a big story in the paper about—"
"I don't get no damn paper!" He slapped the counter. "Took me a long time to