The Troubles of Johnny Cannon (23 page)

I got up on the roof and felt around for one of the holes that Willie'd put in there with the gun. I found one, but it wasn't big enough to hold a tape. I moved over a bit and felt for the next one. It was empty too.

I remembered that he'd hit right on the corner with one of his shots, so I inched across the roof to check there. I got to where I could almost feel the hole with my fingertips. But then the roof remembered that it was old and weak. One of the boards I was leaning on fell into the shed. It banged against my bike and made one heck of a racket.

Not to mention that it almost took me down with it.

I heard the Captain cuss again, but I was dangling from the hole I'd just made and couldn't run off or nothing. I tried to hold my breath and be quiet, 'cause he came out the back door to see what was making all the noise.

“This is why I hate the woods,” he said. “Stupid beasts get into everything.”

Then he must have spied the shed.

“Of course,” he said as he went inside. “You hid it in the shed, didn't you?”

“See, that's the sort of thing somebody that don't know science would do,” Willie said. “But I know that rain and dirt will really mess up a good tape. Make it sound all funny. So I didn't put it out there.”

The Captain went back inside.

“You didn't put it in the shed, you say?” the Captain said.

“Yup. In fact, you know what? I'll tell you where it is. It's out in the lawn. In a hole I dug.”

“Come on,” the Captain said. I heard him cut the ropes that was holding Willie to the chair.

“Wait, why are we going out back?” Willie said.

“Don't throw me in the briar patch, Brer Wolf,” Captain Morris said. “You people all think alike.”

They came out the back door.

I pulled myself up onto the roof again and dug my hand into the hole. The tape was in there. I grabbed it and shoved it in my pocket.

I started to crawl back to the other side of the shed.

“What's that up there?” the Captain said. I reckoned he saw my shadow.

It was one of them moments when you know that you only got one shot to do the right thing. One shot to be a hero. One shot to be Superman.

And I was going to be the best dadgum Superman there ever was.

I ran to the edge of the shed and jumped off, both fists out in front of me. I soared through the air, and it almost felt like I was flying. Then I collided with the Captain's face.

That felt even better.

“Get out of here, Willie!” I yelled as I rolled off the Captain. He shook off my punch and tried to grab me.

“I ain't leaving you,” Willie said.

I smacked the Captain in the jaw and jumped up.

“What you going to do with one leg?” I yelled at Willie. “Get on home. I can take care of myself.”

The Captain grabbed my legs and pulled me back down to the ground. Willie watched for a minute and then he went off around the house as fast as he could.

I gave the Captain a kick in the gut and I braced myself for another hit from him.

He pulled a gun out instead.

“I don't know how you got here. But you're going back with me.” He cocked the gun. “Unless you're bulletproof.”

I was pretty sure I wasn't. I raised my hands.

He spied the tape that was in my pocket and fished it out.

“You made me swallow my tobacco,” he said. “But I'll forgive it for this. Now, get up to my truck. We've got a flight to catch.”

I kept my hands raised while he put the gun in the back of my head and we walked around the house to his truck.

“Didn't have to be like this, son.”

“I got my hands raised and I'm walking to your truck,” I said. “But you're going to need a bigger gun than that to make me listen to you calling me ‘son.' ”

He chuckled as he opened the door and made me get in.

“My God, you're as full of spunk as your mother.”

He got in behind the wheel and got to looking for his keys. They was apparently in the same pocket he'd stuck the tape in, 'cause he fished the tape out and threw it up on the dash. He started the truck and drove us off. He steered with one hand while he kept the gun pointed to my head with the other. I hoped he didn't get the trigger and the turn signal mixed up.

“So, I reckon we're headed back to Cuba, ain't we?”

He turned pretty hard down the road. He was going fast down the mountain. When he turned, the tape slid across the dash closer to me.

“Yeah,” he said. “For a little while, until you pledge your allegiance. Which you will. Then we'll go off somewhere else.”

The road turned right and the tape slid over to his side.

“Moscow?” I said. “Going to help Che Guevara get them missiles?”

To the left. The tape was right in front of me again.

“Yes, that's the next stop. Then to China, North Korea, maybe into a couple of countries in Africa. It's like a tour of the world. You'll learn things, we'll make Fidel happy. Then we'll settle down in Switzerland.” He wasn't expecting the next right turn and the tape hopped across the dash again.

“And what about Pa?”

He grunted.

“What about him? I don't have time to do anything to him, and without this evidence, he'll spend the rest of his days in prison.”

I was trying to think of something else to say, 'cause I needed him to be talking when we got to the highway at the bottom of the mountain. That way he'd stop on instinct and I could hop out. But I was having a hard time thinking, 'cause I could hear something unusual coming from behind us.

I figured out what it was.

He came around the last turn, a left one, before the highway. The tape slid across right in front of me. I grabbed it and then I opened the door next to me.

He slammed on his brakes and I almost busted my nose on the dash. We was about five feet away from the highway.

“What are you doing?” he said. “You think if you get out I won't hunt for you? I won't track you down? Do you honestly think I won't shoot you? I'm a doctor, I could stop the bleeding.”

“I'd rather take my chances with you shooting me than with a truck hitting me.” I rolled out of the door into the ditch.

And I did it just in time.

Right then, a tore-up pickup with a busted-in windshield that had been parked in our yard slammed right into the back of the Captain's truck. Him and his truck went flying out across the highway and off the edge of the mountainside, flipped over, and bounced off a few trees on their way down the hill, until we couldn't see them no more.

Meanwhile, our pickup came to a stop a little bit in front of me. The driver door opened and Willie climbed out as best he could. I ran over to him.

“Turns out there's at least one thing you
can
do with only one good leg,” he said.

“Why'd you do that?” I helped him get his balance on the ground.

“We're blood brothers.”

I nodded. There wasn't nothing more to say or do about that.

The truck wouldn't start no more on account of the engine getting banged up as bad as it did, so we knew we'd have to walk wherever we was going to go. It wouldn't have been nothing more than a walk in the park to go up the mountain, but Willie was worse off than usual, so we walked along the highway and hoped we'd see a car to hitch a ride with.

After a little ways I was all done telling him about everything that had happened to me. We walked for a bit in silence until a Chevy came around the bend and I hopped in front of the headlights. It screeched to a stop.

“Johnny?” a voice said from the passenger side.

I squinted in the lights.

“Martha?”

Sure enough, it was Martha Macker and her ma. After a little bit of explaining, they let me and Willie into their backseat. They didn't even mention nothing about how beat up we both looked.

“Your hair looks nice,” I said to Martha. Then I realized it was the first time I'd ever said much of anything to her. But it did look nice, like Jackie Kennedy's hair.

She blushed.

“I got it done in Montgomery. Right before we went to hear Dr. King speak.”

“Dadgummit, I've had a real mess with doctors lately,” I said. That was two things I'd said to her. “They ain't exactly been good for my health.”

“No, Dr. King is different,” Willie said. “He's a regular SuperNegro.”

We was driving down the mountain toward Colony. I was sure thankful the Mackers hadn't been a part of the invasion.

We was coming around a bend on the highway and him and Martha was telling me about what this Dr. King fella was doing, and I just about thought things was finally better. Then Mrs. Macker screamed and slammed on her brakes and we all flew off our seats.

Bloody and all tore up, Captain Morris stood in the middle of the road with his gun pointed straight at all of us inside the car. He looked about halfway to death's door.

“Get out of the car, Johnny!” he screamed.

He wasn't the only one. Martha and Mrs. Macker was screaming too.

“Shut up!” He walked over and tapped the window right next to Martha's head. “Johnny, out.”

I didn't move. Didn't know how to.

He hit the window real hard with his gun and it shattered. Then he reached in and grabbed Martha by the hair and dragged her out. He held the gun to her head.

“I said get out, Johnny!”

I could tell Martha was as scared as she'd ever been in her entire life. I opened up my door and stepped out.

“Captain, let her go. This ain't about her.”

He stepped toward me.

“You're right, it's not. It's about my son.
My
son.” He wasn't letting go of her for nothing. “Why can't you just accept the truth? Your mother is dead. Your brother is dead. I'm the only real family you have.”

“Your son?” I yelled. Finally yelled at him. “
Your
son died. Back in Havana, I died. When my ma died, when you killed her by driving right in front of that truck. You killed us both.”

He glared at me and I thought I saw tears in his eyes.

“So, if you're aiming to put a bullet in somebody,” I said, “put one in me. Finish what you started. 'Cause God knows I've already been dead for years.”

He flung Martha off to the side and pointed his gun right at my head.

“Maybe you're right,” he said.

I closed my eyes. If my brains was about to be roadkill, I didn't want to see it coming. I always said them deers ought to learn how to close their eyes.

Standing there with my eyes closed, it almost felt natural. The crickets chirping, the breeze hitting me. It was the perfect setting to get sent to Heaven in.

Then a shot rang out.

But the Captain hadn't fired.

I opened my eyes to see the Captain falling to the ground with a bullet hole right in his chest. I turned around to see who fired.

It was Pa.

He and Short-Guy had pulled up behind us a ways. Judging from Short-Guy's empty holster, I guessed the gun was his. Pa must have grabbed it.

“Johnny, are you okay?” Pa said as he ran up at me.

I looked back at the Captain, sprawled out there on the ground. My flesh-and-blood father shot by my pa.

“Yeah, I reckon I am.”

*    *    *    

So it turned out that, while I was sleeping in the car on the way up from Mobile, Mr. Thomassen had stopped at a gas station and called up Short-Guy in Birmingham. Told him we had proof that Pa was innocent and everything. But he didn't get me no snacks. Still, I reckon he saved my life, so I wouldn't hold that against him.

In fact, it was pretty hard to hold anything against anybody after a night that had been filled up with fires and torturing Willie and guns and such. Nothing just seemed to matter too much. Besides that, it ended with three of the best things I'd ever gotten to have in my entire life.

First off, Martha Macker was so dadgum scared after what happened on the highway that she needed somebody to put their arms around her. And her ma got caught up in telling Short-Guy what had happened before they got there and asking for some explaining, so somebody else had to step up to do it. I was sort of scared to offer at first, but Willie told me if he could drag his burned-up legs into a truck to drive it down a dark mountain, I could offer to hold Martha. I had a bad feeling he was going to use that against me for just about everything from then on out. I'd have to draw the line at alligator wrestling. Maybe.

So I got to hold Martha in my arms and smell her hair. And if Heaven is anything like what that was like, I want to say my prayers twice a day so I can go there. Provided it don't have a body sitting in the middle of the road.

The second good thing that came from that night happened after the sheriff got out there. Short-Guy right away flashed his badge and gave him a real detailed account of what happened, except he took the credit for shooting the Captain away from Pa. Which I reckoned was good. Then Short-Guy had the sheriff help him load up the Captain's body into the trunk of his car, 'cause the folks at his office would want to see the body. He also mentioned something about always getting his man. That made me remember what Mr. Thomassen had said about us rewriting the ending to Short-Guy's story. It was starting to sound like maybe we'd done it.

After that, we headed up to the Parkinses' house to get Willie home and get ourselves some hot tea. Mr. Thomassen and Carlos was up there with Reverend Parkins, and he'd done told Mrs. Parkins about how I'd saved him from the Klan. Then Willie told the story about me getting him away from the Captain. Then Mrs. Parkins came over and gave me a hug. And it might have been one of the warmest, tightest hugs I'd ever felt. For the first time in a long time, I knew what it was like to be hugged by a mother.

Life was good.

Right then, the clock on the mantel dinged midnight and we was all super surprised at how late it was.