Black Stump Ridge (2 page)

What about rejection? She hadn’t seriously considered that possibility until this moment. Suppose he simply ignored her knock? What if he slammed the door in her face without so much as an acknowledgment? Was she ready for that?

Doubt filled her mind. Her hand slowly fell to her side. What right did she have to intrude on this man’s life? Although he’d been one of her father’s best friends – he was with her father when he died twelve years ago – did that give her any right to be here, in front of this door, ready to bring back that memory?

The stairwell was hot and claustrophobic. A bead of sweat itched as it slid greasily between her breasts and down toward her belly. A single naked bulb burned in the cracked ceiling above her.

She looked down the stairwell. Sunlight reflected back at her. Her car was down there. Freedom was down there. Sanity? Yes, that, too. She could give up the quest. She
should
give it up. Just walk down the steps, get into the car, and drive away. Just leave this dreary place. Drive straight to the airport, hop on the next plane to anywhere, and get as far away as she could. Let the questions remain unanswered.

Her father’s face appeared before her. She saw his smile and the tenderness in his eyes. His laugh, so full of life and joy as they watched Saturday morning cartoons, filled her mind. The smell of his Sunday morning breakfasts welled up from her memory, meals filled with the love he lavished on her, her mother, and her younger brother.

Amanda stepped toward the edge of the landing. She staggered as twelve empty years without her father washed over her. The steps blurred. Tears filled her eyes and trickled down her cheeks.

No, she couldn’t leave. She had to see this through. If she left now it would be a complete betrayal of those memories. She needed to know the truth of what happened on that horrible weekend trip to Tennessee. The answers were here, the mere thickness of a door away. Amanda turned. This time – before her doubts could interfere – she knocked on the door and waited for Fate to respond.

Neither Fate nor Mr. Kyle responded.

She stood in the shadows and waited. She counted to ten. Her mind raced. Confusion and doubt threatened to overwhelm her. What if he wasn’t home? How long was she prepared to wait? If she had to leave, would she be able to gather her courage to go through all of this again?

She knocked again, this time louder. The silence grew. Despair and frustration slowly rose within her.

Suddenly, she heard faint sounds from the other side of the door – protesting springs, an old man’s groan, the shuffling of approaching feet. The peephole in the center of the door darkened and then cleared.

“Whoizzit?” The voice was rough, sleep laden, and querulous. “Whaddaya want? Ain’t s’posed to be no one botherin’ folks aroun’ here.”

Amanda’s voice caught in her throat. She swallowed. “M-Mister Kyle?”

“Who wants t’ know?”

“My name’s Amanda. Amanda Carlyle. My father was Johnny Carlyle. You used to be friends.”

Silence. Then, “Johnny?”

“Yes, sir.”

More silence.

Just as Amanda thought there would be no more conversation she heard a heavy sigh followed by what sounded like a sob.

“What do you want from me? I done told the cops an’ everyone else all I had t’ say back then. Why you botherin’ me now?”

“I just want to talk to you.”

“What if I don’t wanna talk to you?”

Amanda hesitated. Rejection once more raised its scaly head. What if he
did
refuse to talk with her? Was she ready to leave all her questions lying unanswered on the worn doorstep and walk away?

“You were my father’s best friend. You were with him when he died.” More tears slid down her cheeks. “Please, Mr. Kyle. Won’t you talk to me?”

Silence. No words. No scraping or shuffling.

Amanda turned away from the door. A sob burst from her throat. Her shoulders slumped as the weight of her defeat threatened to crush her. She took one slow faltering step, and then another. Her heels rapped a slow and funereal drum beat on the wooden steps.

Halfway down she heard a loud click. The door scraped open above and behind her. She stopped. Her breath caught in her throat. She resisted the urge to turn around.

“You’ve grown, girl.”

She waited.

“The last time I saw you, you were just a teenager still in high school. You’re taller, now. More like your mother.”

She slowly turned and looked upward. Fred stood in the doorway, one foot inside the apartment, the other on the landing. He was just as she remembered him: black hair graying at the temples, smiling blue eyes set in a pleasantly rounded face, lips slightly parted with a hint of a smile.

She blinked. The image rippled, disappeared. A stoop-shouldered old man in faded workpants and a white, stain-covered undershirt – a wife beater some called it – replaced the picture. Gray hair cut in a flat top receded from a deeply lined forehead. Creases and furrows criss-crossed a sallow, beard-stubbled face. She expected him to look older – both he and her father were barely forty when her father died and twelve years had passed – but the man on the stoop looked to be at least seventy, maybe older.

“I – I think I’ve made a mistake,” she stammered.

Fred shook his head. “No, child – I mean, Amanda. You’re not a child anymore.” He chuckled, a mirthless sound, and shook his head. “There’s no mistake. I’d know you even if you might not recognize me. Too many trips to the bottom of the bottle for me, I guess. And time. They’ve all taken their piece o’ me. It’s me. Fred. Or, what’s left of Fred anyhow. As for how much of a friend I might have been to Johnny, well, that’s prob’ly open to debate.”

She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Thoughts, questions, and memories tumbled through her mind. A maelstrom of emotion threatened to carry her away.

“I’ve been looking for you for such a long time,” she finally blurted.

“Not what you expected am I?”

“It’s not that. I mean…” Her face grew warm.

“I know how I look. What I’ve become. Just a minute.” He ducked inside the room for a moment and then returned. He closed the door behind him. “Let’s go down to the bottom of the steps. I don’t like to smoke in my room. It’s small an’ everything ends up smellin’ like shi – crap, I mean. Don’t know who it would bother. Certainly not the whores. Only things they can smell are crack an’ dollar bills.”

Amanda turned away and continued down the stairs, the better to hide her amusement. He saw her expression before she turned.

“I might look old an’ rickety, but everything still works. I wish it didn’t, sometimes, an’ most times Rosie and her sisters are enough. Sometimes a man, even one like me, gets lonely. Too lonely.”

Amanda felt the heat return to her cheeks.

“Times like that even rented comfort is better than bein’ alone,” he continued. “I don’t expect someone as young as you t’unnerstand. In fact, I hope your life never gets so bad you have to find out.”

They reached the bottom of the stairs.

“Mr. Kyle …” she hesitated, uncertain of what to say or how to say it.

He held up his hand as he sat on the second from the bottom step. “Don’t worry ’bout it none, girl. I’m not offended. You gotta have pride to be offended. That’s somethin’ I can’t afford no more. Mine got stripped away a long time ago.” Fred tilted a flattened, crumpled pack of cigarettes and shook it gently. He deftly plucked one of the three that appeared and stuck it between his lips. The white cylinder was bent in two places. He gently straightened it. The curves returned though not quite as pronounced. He shrugged, a “what the hell” expression on his face as he flicked the wheel on top of a yellow disposable lighter, stuck the end of the cigarette into the small flame, and inhaled deeply. As he exhaled, he set the nearly empty package and the lighter on the step beside him.

“Looks like it’s almost time t’get another pack. Probably a new lighter, too. That one’s gettin’ low.”

He drew deeply on the cigarette, leaned his head back, and exhaled slowly, his eyes closed. “Okay,” he said. “You wanted to talk to me. Here I am.”

Amanda looked at him as her mind raced. So many thoughts; so many questions. What to ask first? Her mouth opened and closed several times. Finally, she simply said, “Tell me about my father. About that weekend.”

Fred took another deep pull on the cigarette and exhaled slowly, his eyes still closed. “Thought it might be somethin’ like that. What do you want to know?”

“I want to know how he died. How he
really
died.”

He looked at her, shrugged, and looked away. Something on the far side of the parking lot seemed to hold his attention. He finally looked back at her. “I told the cops it was a hunting accident.”

She frowned. “Yes, that’s what they told me – told us. If that was true, then why was the coffin closed? What kind of hunting accident would require that?”

Fred said nothing for a long time. He stared into the distance, his cigarette burning between his nicotine stained fingers. His mind returned to that horrible night.
How do I tell a man’s daughter that her father was torn in half right in front of me – that there was absolutely nothing I could do to stop it? How do I explain the existence of something that shouldn’t exist?

When the ember came close to burning his skin he tossed the butt into the parking lot. He sighed and looked at the cement stoop between his feet.

“It’s been more than twelve years since that weekend.” His voice was a rasping whisper. “I still wake up nights wonderin’ if I screamed out loud or just dreamed I did. It’s bad enough that I go back there ’most every night. I don’t think I could stand to do it during the day for someone else.” He shook out another cigarette. His hands trembled as he lit it.

“Ask me something else.” He looked up at her. Tears rimmed his eyes. His lower lip quivered. “Ask me anything else. How’s your mother? What’s Kevin up to these days? I’ll bet he’s tall like your daddy was. Tell me what you’ve been doing with your life since I last saw you. Just don’t ask me about that weekend.”

“That’s the only thing I
want
to hear about. I didn’t spend all that money on private detectives and Internet searches just so I could stand here in this god awful Texas heat and do family chitchat.”

“How’s your mother?” he repeated.

“What? My mother?” She stared at him in disbelief. “Are you even listening to me?”

“I heard she got pretty sick after Johnny passed.”

“She died, Mr. Kyle. We buried her about two years after Dad. The doctors said it was an aneurysm, but I knew better. It wasn’t a blood vessel that broke. It was her heart. She never got over Dad’s death.”

“And, your brother? How’s he doin’?”

“He dropped out of school after Mom died. He lost interest in everything. He went through some rough times. He was arrested for drugs a couple of times, once for dealing. He did a little jail time. It was bad, but it could’ve been worse. He finally got through it. He earned his G.E.D. the last time he was in jail. Now he’s got a decent job driving a forklift for some company. The last time I talked to him, he was thinking about going back to school. Junior college, I believe. Maybe one of those trade schools you see on TV. He’s seeing a really nice girl. She seems like someone who can keep him in line. I think he’s going to be okay.”

“What about you? You’re dressed pretty sharp. That suit didn’t come off any rack at WalMart or Target. That your car?”

She looked at the black Impala and laughed. “No, it’s a rental. I did get the suit at WalMart. Not the blouse.”

“Rental car. Private dicks just to find me. You seem to be doing a bit better than okay.”

She shrugged. “It was hard. I’m not going to sugar coat it. First Dad died, then Mom. Then all of Kevin’s problems.” She sighed. “I think I got through it for them. I earned a Bachelor’s degree. Then a Master’s. I majored in Advertising and Marketing. I do all right.”

“Johnny’d be proud of you. He loved you and your brother both, but I think you were his favorite.”

She couldn’t stop the tears. “That’s why I have to know — to know the truth.”

“I know you
think
you do. Everyone thinks they want the truth, but no one really does.” Fred sighed, this time so deeply it made him shiver. “I just don’t know if I can give you the truth. I don’t know if I can go there again, even in my mind. And, if I do, I don’t think you can handle it.”

“Then, it wasn’t just a hunting accident was it?”

He remained silent.

“Please, Mr. Kyle, I have to know.”

He leaned back and shut his eyes. “Why can’t you just let it rest?”

“I need some kind of closure.”

“Whoever came up with an asinine idea like closure? What the hell kinda word is that? People die. It happens. Used to be that those who were left just dealt with it. Some did better than others, but that was life. There wasn’t any closure crap. People died and life moved on.”

“Please,” she was still crying and no longer cared. “Please tell me.”