When Ghosts Come Home(31)

Jay had walked around the corner of the house, past the gate that led to the backyard, and along the narrow strip of sandy soil tufted with grass that separated the neighbors’ fence from theirs. He had not spoken and did not stop walking until he and Cody were in the woods.

By the time they’d stopped, Jay had led Cody deep into the trees behind his house, well out of earshot of anyone’s backyard. Jay had knelt and set the case gently on the earth, making sure there was nothing beneath it to scratch the plastic shell. He unfastened the clasps and opened the case. Cody stepped behind him and looked over his shoulder.

“Well, looky there,” he’d said. Jay stood and looked down at the rifle. Cody stooped to touch it, but Jay beat him to it, scooping it up with his left hand and letting the barrel drop into his right.

“That’s a Springfield,” Cody had said.

“Yeah,” Jay said, although he had no idea what that meant or if it was true.

“Do you have any cartridges?”

Jay looked at him. The only time he’d ever used a cartridge was to play Atari with Kelvin in Terry’s room when Terry wasn’t home.

“Bullets,” Cody said. “They hold the bullets.”

“Yeah,” Jay said. Cody smiled. “There’s a couple boxes of them in the closet.”

“In the closet?” Cody repeated. “Go get them. Let’s fire this thing.”

Jay looked at the gun in his hands, thought about the sound it would make, what kind of attention that might draw. If someone found out, he wouldn’t be able to explain it to Rodney and Janelle, not the taking of the rifle or the showing it to Cody or the shooting it with someone Rodney clearly didn’t want him hanging around. And worse, he knew they’d tell his father, and Jay couldn’t bear the thought of that.

“I just wanted to show it to you,” he said. “We can shoot it some other time.”

“Let me see it,” Cody said. He reached out his open hand. Jay hesitated for just a moment, but then he passed the rifle over.

Cody bounced the rifle in his hand the same way he’d bounced the hammer he’d stolen, and for a moment Jay feared that Cody might tear off toward home and that he would never see Rodney’s rifle again. But instead, Cody lifted the rifle in a firing stance, closed one eye, and sighted down the length of the barrel.

“Man, I wish you had some cartridges,” he said. He squeezed the trigger, something even Jay had not yet done, but nothing happened. “Pow,” Cody whispered. He kept the rifle pointed into the distance, and he turned his head and looked over at Jay. “Your brother-in-law hunt deer?” he asked.

Jay opened his mouth to say something in response, but he wasn’t able to say it before the two of them heard a voice they had not heard before.

“Drop that rifle, boy.”

Jay spun around to face the woods leading to the development, and that was where he saw a white man standing, pointing a huge pistol at Cody. From the corner of his eye, Jay could see that Cody had lowered the rifle. He was staring at the man too. “You keep that rifle down, boy. You raise it and I’ll blow your goddamned head off,” the man said. Cody seemed to realize the implication of what holding the rifle meant, and he lowered it even more until it was pointing at the ground. The man crept forward, his pistol pointed at Cody’s chest. With his free hand, the man gestured toward the rifle, his palm upturned, his fingers curling in the air as if trying to catch something floating there. “Give me that rifle, boy.”

Cody turned the rifle sideways in his hands and held it out like an offering.

Panic pushed Jay forward. If the man took the rifle, Jay knew he would never get it back, and Rodney would discover that he had taken it, and everyone would consider it stolen. Without thought of either the danger or his own foolishness, Jay lunged for the rifle, but the man lunged too, and he snatched it from Cody’s hands before Jay could reach it, and then he swept his pistol through the air until it was pointing at Jay’s chest.

“What the hell are you doing, boy?” the man asked. “You trying to get your goddamned brains blown out?”

Jay’s heart roared in his chest, and he could feel it beating in his ears, his body pulsing with terror. Although his vision felt sharper than ever, he could feel tears beginning to rim his eyes. He stared at the pistol’s barrel where the man held it pointed at his chest, and he imagined the sound of the bullet leaving the chamber, coursing through the long cylinder, and striking his body. He looked up at the man’s face; the man was smiling.

“You going to cry, boy?”

“Give that back.”

“This?” the man said. He holstered his pistol, and then he studied the rifle. He opened the bolt to see if it was loaded, and then he closed it. “Where’d y’all steal this from?”

“We didn’t steal it,” Cody said.

“Oh, yeah?” the man said. “How about I call the police and ask them.”

“It’s Rodney’s,” Jay said, immediately regretting it.

“Rodney’s?”

“Yeah,” Jay said. His breathing had slowed and steadied, and his heart, while still racing, was not governing his body in quite the same way it had been just moments before. He could smell the man’s body—either his cologne or aftershave—and he feared that even if he were able to get the rifle back, the man’s smell would forever taint it, and Rodney would immediately know it had been taken out and handled, and he would suspect Jay.