Kevin had it.
Kevin had shot Sheriff Aiken.
Aiken was the one yelling. Kevin hadn’t killed Aiken.
“Stop!” I yelled, “Stop, Kevin; don’t!”
“Why not?! Why the fuck not?!” Kevin yelled back from the other side of the car. I tried to slide myself along the car so that I could see him.
“Is he down?” I asked.
“Yeah, he’s down. And I’m about to fucking kill him!” Kevin said.
“Don’t. You can’t. Come—get me over there,” I said.
“What? Why not?” Kevin said, but I heard the crunching of gravel. He was moving toward me when his head popped up from the other side of the car. He came over and put his shoulder under my arm. The gun was still in his hand.
“Take me over there,” I said. My head was clearing very fast, and my body was screaming at me to stop moving, but I couldn’t; not now.
When I came around the car, I could see the sheriff. He was covered in blood, and the side of his face was barely held on. It almost flapped loose. There was also a large spot of blood near his left knee, and it was getting steadily darker. “Stop,” I said, and Kevin stopped moving. He leaned me against the car. He took a second to look at me, and I nodded to him.
“You boys better stop this horseshit right now, I mean. This innit—,” the sheriff started.
“Shut up,” I said, nearly whispering. Kevin turned and pointed the gun at him.
We stood that way for a few moments, me watching the sheriff, the sheriff watching me. Kevin stood with the gun on him, and it shook, but never lowered. “So,” the sheriff said, “what is it you plan to accomplish with this little show, boys? Do you think this somehow makes everything even-steven?”
“I said shut up,” I nearly whispered, then closed my eyes. When I opened them again, the thing that was inside me was at the front. I relaxed and let it come up. I knew what it was, now; I knew it wouldn’t hurt me. “And I meant it.” When I opened my eyes again, the sheriff’s face flinched.
“We gotta’ shoot him, Mikey. We gotta shoot him and figure out what to—,” Kevin started.
“You shut up, too,” I said.
The silence fell. The wind moved through the branches, like breath.
“My sister?” I asked the sheriff.
“What the fuck are you—,” he started to ask.
“Kevin,” I said, and Kevin understood. He pulled the trigger, and the sheriff’s other leg exploded. Blood flew all over the ground and onto the car’s paint.
“Shit! Fuck you, oh mah gawd! I’m gonna’ fuckin’ kill you, you cock suckin’—,” the sheriff continued, his eyes closed and his hands moving in vain toward his leg.
“I’m only going to ask you one more time. My sister?” I asked.
He quieted down some, and moved around less. “Your sister what?”
“Kevin,” I said.
When Kevin raised the gun to fire again, the sheriff burst out “I didn’t fuck her. I wouldn’ta never! She was too young!” I put my hand up, and Kevin didn’t fire. The gun stayed trained on the sheriff’s head, though.
“You did kill her, though,” I said.
“I had to,” the sheriff said, “I had to.”
I closed my eyes. “Why?”
“Your sister,” the sheriff said, and laughed, still squirming and trying to reach his shattered legs. “Your sister was the town whore, boy. Don’t tell me you didn’t know. She was pregnant by that boy Tommy Lyndon; the half-retard. She was always lettin’ him play with her, and I was gonna’ be gawd damned if I was gonna’ have another half-retard runnin’ around the streets of my town—,”
“Enough,” I said, and closed my eyes. The thing in me knew it wasn’t enough, though. I opened my eyes again, “and Randy?” I asked.
His eyes closed. I knew already, but that put the seal on it. Something in me sighed, and relaxed. This was the beginning of the end of it. I could rest, soon. It had all gone crazy, and there was no way to fix it back how it had been, but at least it would be over soon.
“Mikey?” Kevin asked, and the note in his voice said he didn’t know.
“It’s okay,” I said.
“You boys ain’t never gonna’ get away with this. Y’all can’t run forever, and soon enough, someone is gonna’—,” he was building up steam, and I knew I couldn’t let him. I knew I couldn’t let him get where he was about to go.
I looked at Kevin. He glanced at me, then down at the Sheriff.
One last thing, the thing in me said, and I nodded to myself. Standing there, with the gun in my hand, I will never be able to describe the feeling. I heard a woman on a talk show say, once, that the feeling she got on the last push before her son was completely born was powerful freedom, accomplishment, and a sense of tiredness that felt like dying. As I stood there, the light coming off the gun, and the sweat dripping down the Sheriff’s face, I felt just that. All those times my English teachers in high school had described that moment of ultimate action in a story or book; I finally understood. This was the last moment before everything resolved; I knew that, balls to bone. I steadied the gun in my grip, refocused my eyes on the Sheriff’s, and asked “Why?”
The Sheriff shook his head, and looked down. He spat some blood on the pavement, then looked back up at me. I could see in his eyes he was thinking of saying something insulting. At the last minute, though, he decided against it. “His mama wanted me to marry her. She wanted him to be my legitimate son,” the sheriff said, “she kept sayin’ that it wan’t fur her; that it was fur him. She said that if I didn’t marry her and make him legit, she was gonna’ tell somebody.”
I nodded to myself. It seemed so simple; so much like something on a stupid television show. I felt dumb for not knowing. “If he was gone, she wouldn’t have any way to prove it, anymore. She didn’t know about the others,” I said.
And he grinned. He grinned at me, through blood soaked teeth. “Ain’t half as dumb as Ol’ Albert always said you—,” And the gun went off just as I blinked. I turned away from what was left of him. Kevin stood there a bit longer, and the smell of gun powder drifted over me. It smelled right, somehow, as if none of this could have ended any other way. Something in me nodded, and I felt the strength in my legs going.
“Kevin,” was all I had time to say.
The world went blank, again.
THIRTY-FIVE
I woke up from total blackness. The only thing I had left of the sleep was the heavy, hot, slippery feeling in my limbs. My body wanted to stay asleep for the rest of my life. My head felt empty and my stomach wasn’t tense for the first time in a long time. The room smelled of fabric softener and something else, something clean. My mouth still tasted like wet copper, though. There was something cold against my head, and I wanted to talk but didn’t.
“Shh,” someone said, and a hand pressed against my chest. It felt heavy and distant, as if happening miles away.
“Where?” I tried, but my throat wouldn’t open. All I did was squeak.
“Shush, I said. Quiet,” someone said, this time more insistent. The hand patted my chest. The voice wasn’t Kevin; I knew that. I knew I should open my yes and see, but I couldn’t. “You’re safe,” someone said.
“Kev—?” was all I could manage before my throat closed again, and my arms got too heavy to talk.
“He’s in the other room resting. He’s safe, too.”
“The sheriff?” I asked.
“Seems to have up and left town; nobody knows where to,” the voice said, but something in the tone said ‘dead, son; dead’. It was then I recognized the voice. I smiled, and settled. “Kevin managed to tell us most of what happened,” Dr. Gantner said.