An Incidental Reckoning (12 page)

Chapter 9

Brody rode at the head of the caravan…or maybe the funeral procession. He felt bad about Chris, but he couldn’t admit ever having much love for the guy. He was a brute and good for when things required some muscle. Or at least he had been. That these two had gotten the best of him…well, maybe he deserved his fate.

He laughed again, thinking about Jon and Will. He could never have guessed their identities, hadn’t thought about them since leaving high school. He had already been dealing to the student body and making connections and inroads to his future then, and some of his fellow alumni had been constant and reliable customers. But these two had faded off the map as he had moved on to battle the gangs and build his empire.

An empire that crumbled as he sat behind the prison walls.

He still didn’t know how they had caught him, suspected that someone inside had tipped the police, possibly even Chris, no honor among thieves. He would figure it out once he had taken his next step, but needed to keep moving forward, didn't want a bloody war right now. All in good time.

Brody had always known jail was a possibility, and allowed that he had contributed to his capture by growing too complacent and cocky to read the signs of imminent betrayal. But uncertainty had always been part of the appeal of his lifestyle, too; not knowing if when he put his pants on in the morning, an undertaker might be stripping them off when the sun went down. He thrived on the unknown, the surprises and chances of life outside the parameters of the law, where grievances could only be addressed with cunning and violence. He would rather wait to exact retribution, anyway, allow those that had reason to fear him think themselves safe. The fires hot but the dish served cold.

He loved the feel of the air striking his face and arms as he rode. It chilled him to the bone, keeping him awake and alert. Brody watched for the police, ready for a shoot-out if need be. Dying did not so much frighten but intrigue him; to find out what, if anything, lay on the other side. If there was an afterlife, he hoped it resembled the Norse belief of Valhalla, where warriors feasted throughout eternity in camaraderie, brothers in arms no matter what side they had fought on.

His thoughts circled back to Jon and Will, beyond the pure comedy of the meeting, and again the affection surprised him. They were men now, somewhere near their peak and preparing to slide down the back side of life, only a few years younger than him. He remembered the fights clearly, their earnest and ridiculous attacks, how they had come to feel like mascots. Pets. He had directed the actions of many after them, some into their graves, but none of those possessed the innocence of these two. He smiled at how, in a culture of violence, thinking of them felt much like a man might think of his first girl. The others after had been men who wanted something – money, power, women – and were willing to take on the risks, or rather thought themselves immortal or too tough, or indispensable, to die. But bullets were the great equalizer, as Chris could attest, and any fool that could muster a few pounds of pull could rule the universe, at least until someone returned fire.

What to do with them? He could forgive the trashing of his car. Now that he understood the reasoning behind it, it really didn’t matter. This weekend, minus the death of Chris, had been worth it. He hadn’t been this excited about anything for some time, especially after his release and faced with the reality of starting over.

Getting a legitimate job and showing respect to some prick whose neck he could snap with one hand held absolutely no appeal. He could work with Crush, but Crush only cared about the Steelers, beer, and fixing cars. He’d been arrested once for assault and had never tested the law again, but still held Brody in awe; and Crush was one of the few people, perhaps the only person, that Brody actually trusted. Roger was dead, had worked for him for a short span, a casualty in the beginning during the wars to establish his turf. He’d remained in contact with some of his former associates in the early years of his incarceration, but a mutual ambivalence had developed as he became less relevant to their lives, and they to his, and eventually they stopped visiting. He felt dead in the water, and needed something to revive his worn and tired spirit. He needed it to be fun again.

A new thought arose, and he laughed at its sheer ludicrousness, then came back around and mulled it over it seriously; using Jon and Will as accomplices in his next enterprise. As ridiculous as it seemed on its face, it appealed to his love of chaos and unpredictability, and it sure as hell sounded like fun. They had already proved capable of killing a man twice their size, and it did show some guts to have drawn him to the park in the first place. But shooting Chris had been a necessary act, and they could claim self-defense and probably sway a jury. The fact that he had forced them to fight as kids would play well to the emotions of that group of his so-called peers, and his criminal past would glisten darkly next to their whistle-clean lives. That could also work in his favor, however. The fact that at least Will had been so impacted by those years to seek retribution two decades later meant that he still had power over him. He would need more to convince them to go along, make sure they had something more to lose, smiled as he formulated a plan, the idea gaining momentum with each passing moment.

He had been leading them some miles down the highway, to bury Chris in a remote area far away from the park. They now passed through a small town with a strip mall at the outskirts, and he put on his blinker and pulled into the turn lane. Both cars fell in behind him. He could see the puzzled look of Will through his windshield directly behind him, and he turned and waved. Will returned it with a scowl.

Brody steered the bike into the parking lot towards the back that serviced a large chain grocery store and shut off the engine, waiting for the two cars to pull up. He looked over to the backseat of Jon’s car, to determine if the body could be seen by anyone glancing in. He doubted it, unless maybe they put their face to the glass but no one would ever get that close, plus the few cars parked near the store had clustered in the spots closest to the doors.

He got off the bike and approached Will’s car. Will rolled down the window while fixing his gaze out through the windshield and Brody said, “Change into something clean.” He went to Jon’s car and repeated the instruction, keeping an eye on the lot while they struggled to undress in the confined space of their cars.

When Will had finished, Brody motioned for him to step out of his vehicle. Reluctantly, Will opened the door and stood before Brody, refusing to make eye contact and instead focusing over his shoulder at the highway behind.

"I want you to go inside and pick up one of those disposable cameras. Make sure it has a flash."

“Why?”

“I'm going to take some pictures, to celebrate our reunion.”

Will didn't move, but continued to track the few cars passing cars, and Brody said, “Notice I didn’t
ask
you to go inside. I
told
you to go inside. Now.”

Will took a step back, and then finally looked at Brody, his hatred evident, and Brody thought that he might have to rearrange Will’s attitude a bit before this ended. If he made it. His affection only went so far.

“Get two, actually, in case one of them doesn’t work. And use cash.”

Will trudged towards the entrance, his head low. Brody went to Jon's car and opened the passenger door, then settled inside.

"How's our friend Chris?"

"He's dead, Brody. Look, I don't know what you want from us. I swear we'll never tell anyone what happened if you just let us go home."

Brody looked at Jon, who studied the steering wheel, but repeatedly spared him quick glances, unable to contain his nervousness. He liked this reaction better than Will's. He patted him on the knee, and Jon jumped. Good. He needed to be on his toes.

"Well, we'll see how it goes. But I might have some other plans that include you both. Just thought it up on the ride over. I heard the ranger say that you had paid for another night of camping, so I assume nobody expects you back until Monday, am I right?"

He could sense Jon trying to muster the courage to lie, but then he sighed and said, "Yes, you're right."

"Then we have time for something else. But we need to bury Chris tonight. Can't risk being caught with him in the backseat. It would spoil everything. And at some point
he's
going to spoil."

"What 'something else'? What do you mean? Haven't you done enough already?"

"All in good time. Oh, good. Here comes Willie."

He got out of the car and inspected the cameras, each a 24 shot disposable model with a flash, as ordered.

"Good job. Now get back in your car and follow me when I pull out. We're late for the groundbreaking of our new cemetery."

Jon's body hurt in a way he hadn't known possible. If Brody didn't kill him, he figured he might just collapse right on top of Chris; a two-fer to save time. They had no shovels, and Brody didn't stop to buy any before turning onto a series of roads progressively less maintained until they arrived on more dirt tracks similar to the ones they had used to find the fishing holes. They stopped at a pull-off probably used by hunters or maybe others with plans not sanctioned by a civilized society. With Brody leading them and holding a flashlight and their mountain pie maker - a metal cooking utensil with a long handle and a rectangular piece on the end sized to accommodate two pieces of bread with pie filling in between that separated into two parts - they trudged off through the woods. Will and Jon struggled behind, dragging the corpse, and Brody had to stop numerous times to wait for them. He believed that Brody made them do the heavy lifting to keep them exhausted and reduce the chance of revolt. And he always kept enough distance between them and a wary eye cast in their direction to keep from being taken off guard.

“What if we get lost out here?” Will asked while gasping for air.

“Then I guess we’ll have a problem.” Brody answered, but the possibility did not seem to bother him at all. He appeared to be enjoying himself. Again, Jon agonized over whether to attack him, but simply couldn’t muster the strength to even think about it, much less follow through.

After what felt like a few miles, but in reality probably amounted to a quarter of that, Brody told them to stop and allowed them a few minutes to rest. Then he took apart the mountain pie maker and tossed them each a half. They looked something like shovels, but more like a child’s toy to play with in the sandbox than an implement to dig a grave.

“I don’t expect six feet, but it’s got to be far enough down that some coyote isn’t going to run across the road with Chris’ hand in his mouth.”

“No,” Will said. “You want to bury him, you do it.”

Jon stared at him, wide-eyed, started to whisper a warning but Brody pulled his gun from his waistband and strode over to where Will sat on the ground. He placed the muzzle of the pistol on the top of Jon’s head.

“Only way I’m going to dig, is if one of you two can’t because your brains are in your lap. Stand up, Will. You’re really starting to get on my nerves. To ease your minds, I’ll tell you that I don’t plan to kill you, as long as you do what you’re told. This will be the last warning. Next time I just shoot. Everyone on the same page?”

“Yes,” Jon said.

After a slight pause, Will nodded slightly and Brody withdrew the gun, stepping back several paces.

Jon took his half of the mountain pie maker and thrust it into the soil. It vibrated ominously, clearly a tool not meant for the stress of digging. They removed the leaf litter without much effort, each starting at a separate end of the grave. Next they scraped away the topsoil to define the space. Then came the hard part. The digging. At some point, both of the handles broke, and forced them to get down on their knees and use the cooking plates only. They fell into a rhythm, and Jon did his best to ignore the pain spreading into every part of his body, the worst in his lower back as he dipped into the slowly deepening hole and then rose up to place the dirt to the side. They had to hack through some roots and lift out stones, which only exacerbated the growing agony.

“Wake up, Will. Not done yet.”

Jon looked up to see Brody smack the back of Will’s head. Will had slumped on his knees inside the hole, his head hanging low. He jerked at the contact and with shaking hands reached forward and scooped up more soil. Jon looked at the depression and marveled at how much dirt they had moved. The smell of it filled his nostrils and made him think of creation and death, the cycle of life all contained in this rich, dark matter that, if Will’s appearance mirrored his own, was smeared all over his hands, clothes, and face. He had lost track of time, didn’t even remember climbing into the grave to keep pace with its increasing depth, knew he could lie down and sleep in it. In the dark, he supposed keeping company with a corpse in the woods should be a frightening or at least creepy situation. But the reality of their situation didn't leave much room for ghost stories.