The Last Days of Summer (38 page)

‘My mom's gonna be wondering where I am,' she'd said, nervous, squirming in her seat.

‘Don' worry, sweetheart,' Eddie had purred, putting his arm around her. ‘They'll know just where you at.'

She hadn't liked that. Hadn't liked the feel of his arm around her. She'd tried to pull away, but he had held her there, pressed against him as he drove, his arm locked tight around her. The a/c blew straight in her face at the angle he held her, and it felt cold on her cheeks. It
dried out her eyes and made them sting. Beside them, Ben had chuckled, then looked out the window. She had tried to pull away from Eddie again, but still he had held her close.

When finally he'd cut the engine and he and Ben had opened their doors and slid from their seats, they had stood in their open doorways, their eyes fixed upon her. ‘Well,' Eddie'd said, real loud, ‘you comin'?'

Her whole body trembling, Joanne had shaken her head. ‘This isn't Josh's house,' she'd whispered, looking at her feet. At the double knots that tied her laces. At her scabby knees. At the mosquito bites down by her ankle. She had not wanted to look at the abandoned oil site. Had not wanted this nightmare to be real.

A grin had spread across Eddie's face. ‘You know where we're at, don' you?'

He had grabbed her then. By the ankle. And she had screamed. So loud. Louder than she had ever screamed. But there had been no one to hear her. Only Ben. And he was smiling when her frightened eyes found his.

It seemed such a long while till Uncle Jasper came. The other truck had come first. The one with Mr Ryan in it. He'd looked at her a long moment when he'd first opened up the shed door. Roy Reynolds had come in straight behind him and had stopped short and turned right on the spot when he'd seen her. Both men had shut the door, and she'd heard a lot of swearing outside, though she couldn't make out most of the words they said. Eddie had punched her when he'd pulled her from the truck. ‘You little bitch!' he'd yelled at her. ‘See what you made me do?' His arm was bleeding from where she'd scratched him.
She didn't fight so much after that. Not after he hit her. She let him bind her arms and legs. The gag he stuffed into her mouth soaked all her saliva up the second it touched her tongue. It smelt like old socks mixed with gasoline. Tasted stale. And sour. She tried to turn her face away when first he came at her with it, but she couldn't move much with her arms and legs bound. He smiled as he pressed her cheeks together to pop her mouth wide open. Her face, where his fist had come down, felt swollen and sore. Her ear stung and her hearing sounded like she was under water. She thought of Uncle Jasper and the purple mask he'd been given. Then she had cried till she'd fallen asleep, crumpled and bound on the shed's dust floor.

When she woke, it was dark already. Eddie sat watching her from the corner of the room. Ben paced by the window. Both held guns. She heard a truck pull up outside and then its door slam. Voices called out she could not decipher. Then, clear as day, Uncle Jasper said, ‘Is she here?' Joanne's heart skipped a beat, just knowing he was there. She tried to call out, but her gag was too tight. Hot tears spilled down her cheeks. She wondered where her mother was. Where Katie was.
Were they here?
Ben crossed the room and opened the door from the inside. Uncle Jasper stumbled through and said something angry to Eddie. He fell to his knees there before her, a rifle digging into his back. A sound kin to a whimper escaped him, and Joanne wondered what they'd done to him. How badly must they have hurt him for him to make such a sound? ‘It's OK, honey,' Jasper says then. ‘I'm gonna get you outta here.' And it seems to her in that
moment that her hearing clears and those are the first words she's heard for a great long while.

She wants to run to him. To throw her arms around him. She wants to cry and beat him with her fists, wants to scream, ‘This is all your fault!' till eventually he will hold her. But her wrists are bound, coarse ropes leaving burns on her arms; her ankles are tied together, and her legs ache with stiffness, unable to change position all these long hours; the gag in her mouth tastes dusty and of oil, and the rope that holds it tightly in place burns against her cheek. So only her eyes implore him, beg him, ‘Save me.'

Eddie's laugh is cold. ‘Now just how …' he chuckles ‘… do you reckon you're gonna do that?'

Uncle Jasper tears his eyes from her to look up at the other man. ‘If you lay one hand on her,' he snarls, ‘I'll make death your final blessin'.'

Kerosene lamps cast deep shadows through the shed. Empty beer cans and bottles have fallen onto the dirt floor. Others stand discarded between rusty piles of tools. Eddie spits a large wad of tobacco onto the dirt floor. ‘You ain't never been no knight in shinin' armour.'

Jasper straightens. ‘I wouldn't've pegged you a kidnapper, neither.'

Eddie chuckles and spins his pistol round his index finger to catch it again by its grip. ‘You know,' he says quietly, ‘I've waited a long time for this.'

‘Leave the girl out of it.'

Her heart pounds in her chest. The oil fumes from the rag make her head feel spinny.

Eddie shakes his head. ‘I'm afraid I can't do that, Jasper. You see, it's a girl that started all this, ain't it? It's a
girl
I
love, my own kin,
my own sister
, that
you
chose to start all this with. So the way I see it, it seems fittin' that it's a girl that ends all this too, now, don' it?' Eddie pauses. ‘You see, that's the problem with all you psychotic motherfuckers.' He shakes his pistol at Jasper as he speaks. ‘Y'all got no soft spot. No goddamn Achilles' heel.' He spits another large wad of tobacco down onto the earth. A slow grin spreads across his face. ‘Except now you got one. I finally found the monster's heart.'

Ben laughs nervously from the broken window where he paces. Eddie rises and walks slowly across the shed to bend down by Joanne. He grabs her roughly by the arm and pulls her up to stand. She tries to cry out, but the gag's too tight, and even to her, her scream sounds more like a whimper. She looks from her uncle to Mr Ryan, to Roy Reynolds, to Ben, and back again. She's too afraid to look up at Eddie. He leans down, his breath hot upon her. Stale and sour with alcohol. She tries to cry out. Tries to break free, but his grip is too strong. Her legs are too weak. His tongue feels hot and sticky against her cheek as he licks the side of her face. The swollen side where he punched her. Inside, every part of her is screaming. She coughs, choking on the oil rag that gags her.

A darkness passes over her uncle's face as he watches.

‘It ain't nice, is it,' Eddie purrs, ‘watchin' what you care 'bout suffer?'

Jasper's jeans are covered with sandy earth. He kneels still, watching them, his broken face twisted with some form of rage and sorrow. Dirt streaks his swollen cheek from where he wiped his hand. ‘What do you want from me?'

Eddie's grip tightens, bruising her arm.

‘You want me gone? OK, I'm gone. Just leave her outta it. This ain't no place for little girls.' He runs a dirty hand through his hair and it stands up wild.

Eddie takes his time answering. ‘Would you say that it's a place to bring a woman?'

Her uncle opens his mouth, then shuts it. Ben laughs again, that nervous laugh, as he paces by the window. Eddie leans down low once more so that his breath's upon her. ‘You wanna grow up, honey?' he whispers right in her ear. ‘Want me to make you a woman?'

She shuts her eyes tight, squeezing tears out.
Wake up, wake up, wake up
, she thinks.
I'm ready to wake up now.
Eddie's lips feel warm against her cheek. Less sticky than his tongue.

Jasper feels the rage boil up within him. Like it used to all those long years ago before prison, before he'd learned to push it down. He wants to snap Eddie like two fingers. Wants to grab his tongue and rip it out. He doesn't like the other man's hands on Joanne, let alone his lips, his tongue. She's just a girl, he thinks, but even now, Eddie licking her face, he can see the woman she's so quickly being forced to grow into. Jasper gets Eddie's point. He can see why this is the other man's chosen revenge. Can understand it. A part of Jasper even respects Eddie's choice. Just a little. Respects the depraved cruelty of it. But Eddie never watched what Jasper did to Rose. And Jasper knows himself he'd rather die than watch the child in front of him be forced to grow up like that.

‘Wooo-weee!' Eddie hollers, tilting his head back, like a wolf about to howl. ‘Tastes like peaches!'

Jasper slowly rises to his feet, one leg, then the next. He
starts forward. The butt of the Winchester hits the base of his skull and for a moment he sees stars before he falls back down. Chuck kicks him hard in the ribs, and Jasper doubles over, coughing. Joanne screams against her gag, barely making a sound. Eddie laughs, sips Bud from a can and twirls his pistol round and round his index finger. The young man Jasper does not recognize kicks a cloud of dirt into Jasper's face as Jasper coughs. Then he grabs another bottle and pops the cap right off. The cap rolls when it hits the earth, drawing a spiral in the cool sand. The Hungerford points down into Jasper's face as Roy stares down the barrel at him.

‘Do what you gotta do to me,' Jasper gasps at length. ‘Get it over with. I won' even fight back. You just let that girl go free.'

The barrel in his face falters before once again being held steady. Empty beer cans and a few tequila bottles litter the dust floor. Long dark shadows bathe the shed in half-light. Outside the crickets fall silent, then start their song again.

Though Eddie's been drinking, his words do not slur. ‘You wanna go home, honey?'

Silent tears stream down her cheeks. She nods. Her throat trembles as she hiccups ragged breaths into her gag.

He draws his index finger down her face, wiping her tears away. ‘You know,' he says, real quiet, ‘I bet my sister just wanted to go home, too.' There is a coldness to Eddie's gaze that Jasper knows too well. He has seen that look in the eyes of guards before a senseless beating. In the hollowed blank stares of inmates whose crimes make nightmares real. He has seen it in his own reflection.
This
is what Eddie's waited for
, he realizes.
Eddie's had ten years to form this plan …

A cold chill runs down Jasper's spine even though the night is warm. He wipes dust from his eyes. Rises up to kneel again, pain stabbing his ribs, then sits back on his heels a bit so that his weight is shared between his toes and knees. His swollen face throbs with its own pulse. He wipes his hands on his thighs and watches even in the half-light as his jeans go from blue to brown. Crickets call in the night. He closes his eyes to listen to their song. To stop the world spinning.

Opens them.

He doesn't see stars any more, and counts that as one tiny blessing. Eddie sits the other side of the shed, on a wooden stool by an old workman's table, Joanne held tight against him, sitting on his knee. His pistol rests beside them on top of an old can of paint. Jasper knows what will happen if he does not act soon. He knows what he did in this very shed so long yet not so very long ago. He knows just what darkness lies in Eddie's heart. Has himself felt that same calling so many times before. It feels to Jasper like time is messing with his sense of now and then. ‘I'm sorry, Joanne,' he says at length. His words hang suspended in the humid air between them. ‘I really never meant to bring you any trouble.'

Doe Eyes blinks back tears. Her hiccuped sobs further choke the gag into her mouth.

Eddie grins and licks her face again, temple down to chin, and her eyes get wider, wilder, truly a deer about to bolt. ‘Ummmm-hum.' Eddie smacks his lips. ‘Just like I said, sure does taste like peaches.'

‘I didn't sign up for this, Eddie!' Roy's face twists, distraught. ‘I ain't standin' by watchin' no little girl get hurt.' The cold barrel of the Hungerford lifts out of Jasper's face. Roy thrusts the rifle at Chuck. A moment later, the shed door slams behind him as Roy steps into the darkness, cussing.

The young man laughs and takes a long swig from his beer. Eddie doubles over, laughing so hard he leans into Joanne. His laughter shakes both their bodies. He slaps the knee that Joanne is not perched on. ‘I always knew that skinny fucker lacked a spine.'

Chuck Ryan laughs too, but joins in late and seems a bit less certain. Still holding his Winchester, he sets the Hungerford down, propping it by the shed door.

‘Hey, Jasper!' Eddie calls, still laughing. ‘Watch this.' He reaches a hand up inside Joanne's shirt. Real. Slow. He passes over her flat stomach, his fingertips just visible grazing the dark contour of her belly button. He moves his hand up further over the swell of her ribs. Her chest hammers in and out with short, shallow breaths. Her eyes widen. Eddie's hand stops over her chest just inside her shirt where her tiny breasts have yet to form. He twists her nipple, there beneath her shirt. A slow grin casts light across his face despite the darkness in his eyes. ‘Would you look at that?' he says, grinning. ‘Ain't nothing there but mosquito bites!'

Jasper's world colours crimson.

He does not care in that moment if he lives or dies.

‘Is this your great plan, Eddie? Rape a little girl while I watch?' Jasper spits a wad of blood onto the earth beside him. His saliva catches and reflects the light cast by the
kerosene lamps. He allows a smile to twist his battered face. ‘Must have taken you a real long time to think this one up.' He scans the shed looking for something, anything, he can use.

Eddie laughs. ‘Well,' he says, ‘it ain't my fault this girl's your only weakness. I always thought it'd be her sister, but …' he shakes his head ‘… guess you're more perverted than we thought.' He chuckles till his laughter's spent and then his voice goes quiet. ‘See, I ain't hurtin' her, right now, Jasper. You are. I thought that when we beat you the other night you might finally get the message. Might realize finally where you're not welcome. Might leave well enough alone. But old dogs don' learn new tricks. Ain't that what they say? And you've always been a selfish bastard. You're “all done with trouble”. Ain't that what I keep on hearin'? Shit, boy. You don' know trouble. It's time someone taught you just what trouble's like. Your sister ain't here to save you this time.'