Nothing.
“Luke, I know you got questions, and I know you ain’t yourself. But like it or not, I’m all you got left, and you’re all I got. Time for both of us to make a clean break, son.”
Leaves rustled as something scurried over them, but there was nothing to suggest he wasn’t alone.
Breathing fast, he scanned the trees.
“Son?” Luke said suddenly, coldly, close to Papa’s ear, and with a startled grunt, the old man turned. He had time only to register that Luke was holding a machete before it was buried in his shoulder, all but severing the arm holding the gun. His hand spasmed. The gun fell to the ground, and he staggered back screaming as Luke, bearing a face far too malevolent to ever be that of a mere devil, yanked the long blade free with a spurt of blood. The world dimmed and Papa clenched his teeth, animal panic paralyzing him. “Stop Luke…stop…for God’s sake…” He raised his good hand, palm out. “Please, just… listen…”
With a short swing, Luke severed the hand. It tumbled into the leaves.
Papa screamed a second time, a hoarse guttural sound of horror and disbelief, the echo of it caught and sent back by the trees and the hills beyond. He dropped to his knees, unable to cradle the severed limb due to the unimaginable agony in the other.
“Stop it,” he told Luke. “Listen…you have to stop. They…they poisoned you—”
“You poisoned me,” Luke said tonelessly.
“No. No, there’s only us. Only us, Luke,” Papa babbled. “Me and you. Ain’t too late. Not yet it ain’t. Only us, Luke.”
He looked up, tears streaming down his face.
Luke, bare-chested and blood-spattered, stood with his body lit by the moonlight, his face a patchwork of shadow. He was breathing calmly, his eyes like black ice.
“There ain’t no us no more,” he said, drawing back the machete like a baseball player aiming for a home run. “Only me.”
The swing took Papa’s head clean off at the shoulders.
For a moment, the old man’s body stayed kneeling, the neck spurting blood upward like an offering to whatever God might thirst for such corrupted wine, then it dropped heavily to the ground.
Afterward, Luke tossed the machete into the brush and set about making a fire, being careful to ring the shallow pit he’d dug with stones to avoid burning down the woods. Then he stripped the old man’s body naked, cut off the genitals and cooked them over the fire.
Under the stars, the eyes of his father still watching, the dead face given the impression of life by the flames, Luke sat alone, lost in thought.
He ate in silence.
-41-
“I guess I gotta go,” Pete said, looking longingly at the house in which Claire had said she expected a minor kind of Hell was awaiting her in the form of Kara’s histrionics. Although he didn’t say it, Pete would have considered such a greeting a fine one if it meant there was a house and people in it who loved him enough to care what became of him. Back in Elkwood, there was nothing but questions and the memory of violence he wasn’t sure he’d been given the right to commit, if a right indeed even existed for such terrible acts. On the surface he’d done what he’d had to do to protect Claire, just as he had blinded a stranger to protect Louise, but when it came time for judgment, whether by man or by God, would those reasons be enough to save him?
“You don’t have to,” Claire said. Since leaving Elkwood, she had not let go of his hand, and he cherished the contact, the feel of her skin warm against his own. He knew he would wed her right then and there if he thought for one second she’d agree to it, but it was a preposterous idea. He could hope until the stars burned out and it wouldn’t change the fact that they were two people from completely different worlds. For a time they’d walked the same road, but ultimately they were bound for different poles. It saddened him to think of leaving her, but staying would only mean more hurt.
“I do,” he told her, meeting her watery gaze. “I don’t belong here and I reckon over the next few weeks you’re gonna have your hands full all over again.” He sighed heavily. “Me too, I expect.”
Around the truck the sky was vermilion, the clouds bruised violet. Morning birds awoke and began the opening strains of their day’s symphony. The world was waking. To Pete, it signaled the end of their shared nightmare, but also the end of their association. He knew they would promise to stay in touch, but wouldn’t as time forced them to grow back into their own routines.
“You did nothing wrong,” Claire said, the sentence dropping in pitch as she glanced toward the house. Pete followed her gaze and noticed that a light had come on. “You were there for me.”
“We’re friends,” Pete said with a shrug, wishing he had the courage to say more. We’re friends and that’s all we’ll ever be, but I love you, Claire. And right now, you’re all I got in the world.
“That sounds so simple,” Claire replied. “And wrong.”
With another wary glance at the house, she leaned over, cupped a hand behind his head and drew him close. During the drive here, he had rationalized the kiss at the Merrill House as one of relief or gratitude, particularly considering the iciness she had shown him prior to that moment, but there was no mistaking the motive behind the kiss she gave him now. It was soft and wet, and prolonged. As soon as she broke contact, she quickly initiated it again, her tongue briefly touching his own until he felt like he’d been electrocuted.
Finally she drew away. “We will see each other again,” she said, and smiled. Then her face darkened. “Shit,” and she opened the door and got out. He started to say something but instead watched as she hurried into the street. Her sister, Kara, was doing the same, coming from the opposite direction, dressed in a robe, her hair tousled, face grim, eyes dark with anger. Pete’s hand moved to the keys, waiting for the moment when he would know without question that it was time for him to get moving.
The women met in the street and immediately began to argue, Kara’s eyes roving over her sister, registering every cut and bruise as she gesticulated madly. Claire had her hands in her hair and was shaking her head with a pained expression. Then they stopped, and Kara looked directly at Pete.
He glanced away. The look had been his cue, and yet he couldn’t turn the keys. His fingers gripped them tightly, his eyes on the road, his heart pounding, but he couldn’t start the engine. He didn’t want to, aware that as soon as he did, he would not just be leaving a quiet street in the rearview.
A tap on the glass made him jump. He looked and was surprised, and more than a little dismayed to see Claire’s sister looking in at him. He cleared his throat, watched as she made a circular motion with her index finger.
He rolled down the window, the word Sorry already on his tongue.
“You got a call,” she said, and that made him swallow the word. It had been the last thing he’d expected to hear.
“A call?”
Kara ran a hand through her hair. She looked tired. Dark bags hung under eyes made shallow with worry. “Yeah. A cop in Detroit.”
Pete swallowed, felt himself stiffen with panic. “What…?” he started to say, then shook his head.
“They said they want to talk to you.”
“About what?”
“About a woman up there. Louise something.”
The mention of her name made him ache inside. In all that had happened, his mind had not been able to entertain more than one sorrow at a time, but he realized now, in the days ahead, he would have nothing but time to ponder them.