The Last Road Home (17 page)

C
HAPTER
35

I
drove the truck down near the tobacco barn and parked it where it would be out of sight, then rushed up the path as fast as I could manage in the dark. At the clover field, clouds blocked the moon. I ran to the side of Fancy's house and tapped loud on the window.

Roy pushed up the sash. “What's wrong, Junebug?”

“Fancy's hurt bad. We need Clemmy to bring her medicine.” Clemmy appeared beside Roy. “What happened?”

“I'll explain later. Come as fast as you can. I'll meet you there.”

They came in the back door just a few minutes after I did. “She's in Grandma's bedroom.”

Clemmy flew in. When she saw Fancy, she yelled out, “Fancy! Fancy, what happened to you?” Blood covered one side of Fancy's face, still wet in her hair, and soaked the front of her dress. “I been shot, Momma,” she whimpered.

Roy stood at the foot of the bed, his face twisted in a fierceness I'd never seen. “Who the hell did this? I warned you about what could happen, Junebug.” He wanted to hurt somebody real bad, and I figured it was me. “Lightning! Boy, bring your ass in here.”

Clemmy got hold of herself. “Don't you come in here now,” she called out to Lightning. “And you get out, Roy, so I can find how bad she's hurt.” She tore Fancy's dress back to expose the wound. “Junebug, bring me a sheet and heat up plenty of water.”

“Yes, ma'am.” I got a clean sheet from the closet. When I crossed the living room, Roy and Lightning were sitting nose to nose. Lightning looked at me like he needed some help. I hoped his daddy would beat the shit out of him and save me the trouble.

I put a cast-iron pot of water on the stove to boil. When it started to bubble, I dipped a pan full and carried it to the bedroom. Clemmy had cut strips out of the sheet. She laid her palm on Fancy's cheek. “I need to see if the bullet's stuck in you. It's going to hurt, but it'll only last a minute.” As easy as possible, we rolled her to one side. Fancy moaned and cried.

Clemmy looked closely at the wound. She let out a breath and wiped her forehead. “It's good, Junebug, the bullet went all the way through.” She washed blood from Fancy's face and neck. “I don't see she's hurt anywhere else.”

“Am I going to die, Momma?”

“No, my sweet baby, I'll see to it.” She went to work cleaning the wound with the hot water. The damage was in the meaty part above her armpit and below the shoulder. “The bullet didn't hit any bone.” Clemmy talked to Fancy in a reassuring voice. Of course, after all that soothing talk Grandma's doctor did, she still died.

Clemmy got a dark bottle from her bag. “Fancy, this Mercurochrome is going to burn.” She coated the red, torn flesh with the liquid, then topped it with salve and made a bandage around the shoulder. “Junebug, get me some vinegar and baking soda.”

Clemmy mixed them together and held it to Fancy's lips for her to drink. Grandma had used the same remedy when one of us was hurting. Next she reached in her cloth sack for a bottle of paregoric and a small bag of white powder. “This white dirt will help absorb any poisons and keep her from being sick or having diarrhea.” We leaned Fancy up enough not to choke while she swallowed. After several minutes she started to close her eyes. Clemmy covered her good. “That's all we can do for now. Let her sleep.”

In the living room, Clemmy and me pulled up two rocking chairs and Roy moved to sit on the couch next to Lightning. The two of them stared at Lightning and me, the only sound coming from the clock on the mantel. Every muscle in Roy's neck and arms bulged. I wouldn't have been surprised to see steam when he opened his mouth. “Tell your momma what you been telling me, Lightning.”

Lightning cut his eyes in my direction. “Junebug took me to Durham a few times, and I stayed with Aunt Pearl. I got to messing around with this girl, and her boyfriend didn't like it.”

I came partway out of the chair. “Shut up! Ain't going to be no more lying around here!” I should have killed him at the creek. “Tell 'em.”

Roy came off the couch, fist clenched. Lightning put up his hands in defense.

“Sit down!” Clemmy pushed Roy back. “Sit down! Everybody stop!” She waited while Roy sat. Lightning put his head in his hands. “Tell us what happened, Junebug. I want the straight truth.”

I told the whole story, except I didn't mention we took the money, just that they tried to rob and kill us. If Lightning wanted to tell about the money, let him do it.

“How the hell would two idiots like you even know where to get that stuff?” Roy grabbed Lightning by the neck of his shirt and yanked him. “You better answer me, boy, or you'll wish you were laying dead up there with them other niggers.”

Lightning grabbed Roy's wrist, eyes on fire. “Why you jumping all over me? Junebug was there just like I was! Why ain't you grabbing him? Or are you so used to kissing white folks' ass, you ain't got the guts?” He got to his feet. I slid my chair to be out of the way.

Clemmy forced herself between them, staring down Lightning. “Boy, you better not raise your hand to your daddy.” She looked at her husband. “Roy, just stop and let them tell us.” Lightning sat back on the couch. Clemmy pointed at him. “Start talking.”

Lightning sulked at first, but then slowly admitted how he brought the seeds from Georgia, and had talked me into planting a crop. “I never thought it would turn out like this, I swear I didn't.”

“Lightning, you've always thought somebody owed you something, that there must be an easy way to fill your pockets. Now look at you. You're probably going to prison, if you don't get hung from a tree. I'm regretting you ever came back,” Roy said.

Lightning looked like he'd been whipped with a knotted rope.

Clemmy sat with her head in her hands. “Them folks you shot, are they still laying dead up there?” She looked up at me.

I nodded. “This stuff is way over my head. I don't know what to do.”

Roy shook a finger in my face. “What you're going to do is not one damn thing but keep your mouth shut. If there ain't nothing to tie you to them, I can't see how anybody would have any idea who did it. If they find out, they might arrest you, Junebug, but Lightning wouldn't live to get to the courthouse.”

“You think Fancy needs to go to a hospital?” I asked Clemmy.

She shook her head. “I'll come down here every night to clean and rebandage her shoulder. If she does turn bad off, we won't have a choice.”

Lightning had not mentioned the money. “You got anything else to put in?” I asked him.

When he lifted his head, his eyes were deep black, lifeless, and scary. “Don't guess so.”

An awkward silence fell over the room. These old walls had heard a lot of stories over the years, but I guessed none as wild as this one. Clemmy looked up. “It's three o'clock. Roy, you go back to the house. I'll stay here with Fancy and be home before sunup. What are we going to tell Mr. and Mrs. Wilson if they get to asking about Fancy?”

Roy rubbed his hand back and forth over the top of his head. “We'll say she's gone to visit your sister in Fuquay, that your sister's sick and Fancy's going to stay with her until she gets better. How long you figure it'll take her to get well?”

“At least a month, maybe more. I can make up the cleaning Fancy's been helping with at the big house.” Clemmy closed her eyes. “We'll go on like nothing has happened, and pray she don't get an infection. You keep her out of sight, Junebug.”

Roy stood to leave and I walked him to the back door. “Junebug, I can't believe you let yourself and Lightning get mixed up in such shit.”

I let out a breath. “You're right, Roy, you're absolutely right.” What I didn't say to him was that the only reason Lightning was still alive was because Fancy was. She was the only thing that mattered to me, and I would not have hesitated to kill Lightning and leave him in the mud with Twin.

“Come here, Junebug. Let me put something on that cut.” Clemmy wiped the blood and dabbed on some salve. “That should do it. I'll sit with her. You boys get some rest.”

Lightning went to the bedroom and I stretched out on the couch. “
Why?
” kept circling in my mind. Why did I need to kill Twin like that? I could have done something other than blowing his brains out, maybe used my shirt and smothered him, or dragged him to the lake, dumped him in, and let God decide how he died.

But there was something else, something hard to admit. When I crooked my finger around that trigger, it was as if a voice began to whisper in my head, “
Go ahead and shoot him, he deserves it, see what it feels like
.”

C
HAPTER
36

C
lemmy left before daybreak. Fancy seemed to be sleeping evenly, not wheezing the way Grandma had. I sat in a chair and laid my head beside her arm, dozing. I saw Twin's head blown to pieces and myself running around to pick up the parts, trying to put them back together. Then Grandma showed up, asking me if I was getting too hot plowing the garden.

Lightning walking around in the living room woke me. He poked his head in the door. “How's she doing?”

“Still sleeping.”

“Want me to make some breakfast?” He was calm, even friendly-sounding.

“Maybe fix coffee and we can put in a lot of sugar and milk and try to get her to sip a little.”

Fancy groaned and shifted. Her eyes blinked a few times. She searched the room, trying to get a fix on where she was.

“Hey, Fancy, how you feeling?” Her hair was still matted and pasted to her head. There was no brightness in her eyes.

She winced from the pain when she tried to move. “You all right?”

I rubbed her arm. “I'm okay.”

She moved her left hand to the bandaged shoulder. “Guess it wasn't a dream, huh?”

“No, but you're going to be fine. Your momma patched you up real good.”

She gripped my fingers and closed her eyes. “I love you, Junebug.”

My breath caught halfway down my throat. I'd thought it, felt it, even dreamed it. I squeezed Fancy's hand. We'd crossed every line but that one, and at this moment I wanted to say it back, even formed the words in my mouth, but it scared me. When I was little, Momma would say, “Keep your dreams to yourself, Junebug, 'cause if you tell them they might not come true.” What a horrible thing to tell a kid. I had loved her, Grandma, Granddaddy, Grady, and each time I wanted to tell them I stopped, but they died anyway. Afterward I wished I had. “Think you're able to drink a little coffee?”

She shifted again. “Maybe.” Fat tears ran down her cheeks.

“Just rest easy. You're going to have some pain, but it'll go away in time. Stay still and I'll be right back.”

“Is Lightning okay?”

“He's fine.”

I blew on the coffee to cool it, and Fancy took small sips. I mixed the vinegar and soda, got her to drink that, and then poured tonic in a spoon. “Take this medicine and you can sleep as much as you want.” In a few minutes she was breathing heavy.

I went back to where Lightning sat at the kitchen table. “You stay with her while I go clean the blood out of the truck and see what I can do with the rest.”

When I started for the back door, I could feel Lightning's eyes on my back. “What'd you do with the money?”

I ran my fingers through my hair, pulling until it hurt, and turned around. “It's put up right now.”

“I never thought things would happen that way, Junebug, you got to believe me.” He put on a face like a scolded puppy, but his eyes were as blank as a clean blackboard.

“What I believe is this was exactly what I told you might happen.” I slammed my hand down on the kitchen table. Dishes and cups bounced to the floor. “Your sister is lucky to be alive and so are we. And what do you think we're going to do if the sheriff finds out we were involved? Instead of the money, you better be concerned how a noose is going to feel around your neck when they swing your ass off a tree limb.”

Lightning recoiled and a flash of fear replaced the coldness. “It's not like that, Junebug.”

I held my hand up. “I don't want to hear anymore, Lightning. Let it lay.” I forced myself to calm down. “I'll be back in a little while. You look after your sister.”

I found another sheet, got some bleach and lye soap from the pantry, and carried them and a bucket of water to the truck. In the light of day it looked worse than I thought. Fancy's blood was splattered on the paper bags and cloth seats, glass was everywhere, several holes were in the tailgate, the back window was broken, and the windshield had red smears. Stuck in the dashboard was the stub of the bullet that must have gone through Fancy. I dropped the bloody sacks of money in the barrel in the pack house cellar, and scrubbed most of two hours to get the inside of the cab reasonably clean. By the time I finished, the five-gallon bucket of water had turned red. I would never get all the blood out of the old seats, but they were dark from dirt and age anyway, so the stains should blend in and not be noticeable. The windshield and vinyl cleaned up easily.

I walked around the outside of the truck trying to figure a way to somehow try and cover the bullet holes in the tailgate. Since they were pretty close together, a sledgehammer we kept for splitting wood might do the trick. A few swings with the heavy maul meshed them into one big dent. With a couple more whacks, it was hard to tell where the bullets had hit. At the feed barn was a five-gallon bucket of silver-gray paint Granddaddy kept to coat the tin roof of the house. I soaked the sheet in the thick liquid and wiped the tailgate real heavy, making it appear to have been bumped hard and the paint was to keep it from rusting. There was no disguising the broken back window, so I knocked out the glass and used plastic and black tape to seal it until I could get it fixed.

I surveyed my handiwork. It looked like shit. I cussed myself out, then got a wrench and just unbolted the tailgate and hid it under the woodshed. I slid down in the grass and leaned against the rear wheel, tired enough to pass out.

When I went back into the house, Lightning was sitting with Fancy.

“She wake up anymore?” I asked.

“Ain't moved since you left. You didn't give her too much medicine, did you?”

“Same as your momma gave last night.” I listened to her breathing and put my hand to Fancy's head like I'd seen her do to Grandma. Everything seemed okay. We went to the living room and sat down.

“Lightning, nobody else in Durham knows about us and would come looking, is there?” I was so exhausted I had to hold my face in my hands and look through my fingers.

He studied the ceiling for a minute. “Can't think of anybody. The only time I spent around Twin was at his house, and the only person I ever seen with him was the one at the creek. I know I can't show my face in Durham anymore. He's bound to have friends.”

I pulled my hands down, staring at him. “You just said nobody had ever seen you but them.”

Lightning looked irritated. “That don't mean he didn't tell somebody.”

“Shit. You think they would have any idea how to find you?”

“The folks who know Aunt Pearl would know my name, and if she was scared enough, she might tell them where Momma and Daddy live.”

“Then we need to warn them.”

Lightning shook his head. “Even if they did find out about me, it would take a lot to be riding down here making any trouble. All coloreds know that Chatham County is Klan country.”

I thought for a minute. “That makes sense. All we can do is make sure not to put our heads above ground. Christmas will be here in another month, and folks will have their minds on other things.”