Seeing Red (12 page)

Something landed with a thud between Thomas and me, spraying dirt in my eye. It took me a moment of blinking before I could see what it was.

A rope. With a noose. Right in front of Thomas’s face. He was staring at it like it was alive, like maybe if he didn’t move, didn’t breathe, it wouldn’t kill him.

I looked up and saw Darrell at the edge of the flashlight beam. I stared at him, my eyes saying,
Do something, Darrell! Stop them!

He stared back. I think he’d gone whiter than me, and his eyes were shouting even louder,
Do something, Red!

At that moment, I got more mad than scared. Darrell was the one who brought me here. This was supposed to be his gang, his people. And he was three years older than me. And now, here he was, staring at me like a useless person. How in the name of heaven was I supposed to stop this thing? By myself?

I had to try something, anything. “The cops wouldn’t like this!” I said.

But Glen only laughed. “What wouldn’t the cops like? The fact that this boy attacked me? The fact that me and my buddies are just trying to tell him how to behave?”

“Ten against one?” I said. “With his hands tied?”

“Oh, we’d untie him, and there’s only a couple of us here, right, boys? The rest will slip off into the night.”

“Well, Thomas can tell the real story.” I looked at Thomas, hoping to see redemption in his eyes, but he looked back at me like I was so ignorant he pitied me. If he hadn’t been too scared to move, I bet he would’ve been shaking his head at me.

I swallowed hard and realized it was up to me. “And – and I’d tell them, too.”

“Who’s going to believe a little brat?” Glen said, his voice turning cold. “Especially if his mama or his baby brother might get hurt if he opens his mouth.”

What?
I tried to say, but it didn’t come out because I was stunned. Was he threatening to do something to Mama or J? To cover up his lie? Hurt innocent people so he could keep his stupid Brotherhood going? When I looked at the ugly smile on his face I knew the answer was yes.

Darrell laughed an awkward laugh. “Come on, he’s just a dumb kid.”

“Shut up, Dunlop,” Glen said, losing his smile. “Joe?”

Joe grabbed the noose and Thomas, lifting them both.

“No!” I yelled, scrambling to my feet.

Joe shoved me to the ground.

Larry stepped forward. “Hey, guys, I thought we were just scaring him. You can’t –” he looked at the noose in Joe’s hand – “you know…not on my uncle Kenny’s property.”

But Joe kept dragging Thomas to the tree where he’d been tied up. I tried to run after him, but someone was on top of me. “
NO!
” I screamed.

“Leave the kid alone,” I heard Larry say.

“Someone shut the kid up!” Glen yelled, and the guy holding me down put his arm in front of my mouth.

“Aw, come on, man,” Darrell said, “let him go.” I saw Darrell’s boots next to me and felt pushed and pulled around the dirt. The whole time I was trying to scream and get my head in a position where I could see Thomas. I saw Larry running after Joe, tugging on his shoulder. Glen, his white scarf falling off, shoved Larry away and joined the group of guys heading to the tree with Joe and Thomas. As I struggled and tried to choke out my screams, Thomas was blurring and I realized the screaming was coming out of my eyes.

A gunshot split the night and everyone froze.

“What are you punks doing on my property? Who set that fire?” It was Kenny, crashing through the leaves behind me. “What the—” and the anger drained out of his booming voice until he sounded almost like a little kid. “What’s going on here?”

Everything happened at once. The flashlight went out, the guy holding me down jumped off me, Glen shouted, “Get the rope, Joe!” and there was a scurrying in every direction.

Darrell grabbed my arm that was still out of its socket, and I screamed.

“Well, get up!” he hissed.

“You boys get back here!” Kenny shouted, turning on a flashlight and waving it around. He ran past me, swearing, and headed to the tree.

I saw Thomas, his hands still tied behind his back, slumped against the tree trunk, and I screamed again. “No!”

“They didn’t do it, dingbat. Now get up!”

And I saw Darrell was right. Thomas was leaning against the tree, breathing heavily, but there was no rope around his neck.

“Keep your mouth shut!” Darrell said, dragging me into the darkness, but not before I saw Kenny untying the rope from Thomas’s hands, and Thomas looking at me like I was lower than a whole line of Dunlops.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Thomas

The next morning I woke up late, with the feeling that something had woken me. When I remembered the night before, I felt sick. When I heard the voices in the kitchen, I felt worse.

The sheriff. And Mama. By her reaction, he was filling her in on what happened.

There was a knock at my door and Mama’s voice. “Red? Are you up?”

When I didn’t answer, she opened the door. I tried to pretend I was still asleep.

“Red, honey, get up! Something awful happened to Thomas – he’s okay, but you should hear this. Put some clothes on and come in the kitchen. Sheriff Scott is here.”

At least Mama didn’t know I was involved. When I got to the kitchen, I saw Beau was there, too, standing by the sink, next to Mama. The sheriff was blocking the light from the door. I hovered in the dining room doorway opposite him, rubbing my sore shoulder. All the while I kept my eyes on the kitchen wallpaper, staring hard at the little blue coffee pots and pink flowers. I couldn’t look the sheriff in the eye, but what I could see of his face didn’t look surprised at that. In fact, he was staring at me like he knew I was guilty.

Mama was too busy to notice, asking him about any injuries and how could something like this happen and what was going to be done about those boys. I glanced at Beau because something about him felt different. I realized that he wasn’t tugging his hair where it stuck out beneath his cap, like he normally would. He’d taken his cap off, clutching it in front of his chest, his head bowed like he was at a funeral. When he began to raise his head, I turned away quick because I didn’t want to have to look him in the eye, either.

“Red!” I flinched at Mama’s sharp voice as she stared at me. “They were even threatening to lynch him. Can you believe it? In this day and age!” She turned back to the sheriff. “Are the Jeffersons going to press charges?”

The sheriff seemed to get real interested in his big brown hat, turning it around and around as he stared at the gold braid. “Well,” he finally said, “seems like the ringleader was the Connor boy.”

“Oh,” said Mama. “I see. So nothing will be done.”

“I’m looking into it,” he said quickly. “Kenny Rae got Larry to tell me who all the boys were.”

I felt myself stiffen.

“And I talked with Thomas about it, too.” The sheriff gave his Kiss of Death. “Apparently the boys also lit a cross.”

Mama gasped. Beau moaned. I cringed.

“Kenny saw the fire. That’s why he went up to check it out. You know what a burning cross means.” I saw the sheriff’s boots turn so he was directly facing me, but I didn’t look up. “Thomas didn’t want to talk about that. If anyone has information, though, I’d like to hear it.”

I felt his eyes still on me, but I kept my eyes on the floor.

“Well, good day, Betty, Beau.” He paused as he put his hat on. “Red.”

I listened to the sheriff’s patrol car start up, crunch over the gravel, and drive down the road. We all stood in silence until J ran into the kitchen, slamming the door behind him. I swear we all jumped.

“How come the sheriff was here? Did Red get in trouble again?”

“Of course not,” Mama said.

Beau let out a little moan like he knew I’d done wrong. “J, you want to come see the new toys in the Cracker Jack boxes?”

“Yeah!”

Beau put his hat back on and left with J.

Mama grabbed the phone receiver and yanked the dial over and over like she was going to rip it off the wall, muttering, “I’m calling Lily. This is just awful.”

Lily was Thomas’s grandmother. I backed up against the stove in the corner.

“Lily? It’s Betty Porter. I just found out what happened to Thomas last night and I am so sorry. Is he all right?”

As the pause stretched longer and longer I couldn’t look at Mama’s face, but I heard a little gasp come out of her and saw her body slump against the wall next to the phone. Her hand went up to her forehead like she was checking for a fever. “I had no idea.” Her voice was real quiet. “Yes, I’m surprised, too. And – and sorry. I’m very sorry. Goodbye.”

Mama hung up the phone slowly and turned to me.

I wish I hadn’t glanced up. The look on her face was like, well, like she was staring at a rabid fox cornered in the kitchen and she didn’t know whether to turn and run or back away real quiet and hope it would disappear. She started to speak, but no words came out until she cleared her throat several times. “What were you doing up there, Red?”

“I just went along with Darrell. I had no idea what they were going to do.”

“You know better than to go anywhere with Darrell Dunlop! Why didn’t you leave? Run get help?”

“It all happened so fast! Plus, I was scared to leave Thomas there. I didn’t know what they might do if I left.”

“But as soon as you saw him and how those boys were acting, you must’ve known something bad was going to happen.”

“I didn’t even know Thomas was there for most of the time!”

“How could you not have seen him?”

“They had him tied to a tree and gagged.”

“What?” Any colour she had left drained out of her face. She shook her head and her eyes filled up.

After a few long minutes, Mama turned to the phone again, her voice slow and croaky. “You need to talk to Thomas.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Well,” she said, her voice gaining speed and power, “you’d better think fast.”

It hurt to see Mama dialling their number again and not just because I didn’t want to talk to Thomas. It hurt because, like me, she knew the number by heart. For years we’d called back and forth. This kind of thing shouldn’t happen with someone whose number you know by heart.

“Lily? It’s Betty again. I’m sorry to bother you, but Red would like to speak to Thomas so he can explain—”

Mama swallowed hard and went even paler, if that was possible. Again she tried to talk without any sound and had to clear her throat. “Of course. I can understand that. I-I’m sorry.”

She hung up slowly. “Thomas doesn’t want to talk to you.”

At first I was relieved because I really didn’t know what to say, but then it hit me what that meant. Thomas didn’t want to talk to me?
Me?
I wasn’t one of the Brotherhood guys. Is that what he thought? That I was one of them now? A Porter would never be one of them.

Mama’s arms were crossed and her foot was hammering the floor. “If Thomas doesn’t want to see you or talk to you – and I can certainly understand why – then you need to write him a letter, a very long letter to explain, if that’s possible, what in heaven’s name you were doing up on that mountain.” She marched out of the kitchen and returned with a pen and several sheets of paper, thrusting them at me.

I took them and headed for the kitchen door.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“To the shop.”

“Oh, no, you don’t! You are writing Thomas a letter right—”

“I know. I’m going to sit at my desk and write it.”

It was almost like Mama took my words in her mouth and was chewing on them before she finally spat out, “Fine.”

Even the shop’s oil and dirt smell didn’t make me feel better. I trudged up the stairs in the back, slumped down on the chair, and put the paper on the desk. I got as far as “Dear Thomas,” and then I was stuck. I couldn’t even talk to Daddy because I felt like he was staring at me with his hurt-disappointed look. Even the hymn he wrote out and put on the wall by the desk seemed to be staring at me.

Buried in sorrow and in sin…
I closed my eyes and put my head down on Old Man Porter’s desk. I sure felt buried in sorrow and sin.

I thought about the day of Daddy’s funeral. Thomas and his grandparents came to the burial. I guess they knew better than to try to come to the service at our church. Thomas had tried to give me a hug, but I didn’t feel like hugging anyone except Daddy that day, and I was kind of mad at Thomas for not being my friend any more and never coming over, especially when he and Daddy got along so well. It was like me and Daddy had both lost a friend. So I hadn’t even talked to Thomas. Mama snapped at me afterwards. She said Thomas had been crying during the burial and he thought the world of Daddy and I should’ve shown him a little more kindness, for Daddy’s sake, at least. I felt bad after that, but it wasn’t like we hung out any more and I could talk to him. And now I’d probably never talk to him again.