Wrapped in Rain(97)

I stood, leaned against the window, and let Rex watch my back. "You are the root of most everything evil in me." I leaned the bat in the corner of the room and stood over Rex. "The sins of the father stop here ... and my love begins."

I walked to the judge's bed and pulled the covers up around his neck. Under the glow of the fluorescent nightlight, his eyes cracked open. He whispered, "I'm proud of you, son." I opened the drawer, slipped the cedar sleeve off a Cuban, and lit it, turning it over and over in the flame to get an even burn. I placed it next to the Judge's lips, and he breathed slowly and deeply. For an hour, I held it while he inhaled the entire thing and wrapped us in a haze of nicotine. Satisfied, he nodded, and I set the smoldering nub in the ashtray next to his bed, angling the fan so it wafted across his nose. Somewhere around two in the morning, I walked out of Rex's room, empty-handed.

"Tucker." The judge's bloodshot eyes spotted the bat leaning in the corner. "If you leave that thing, the orderlies are liable to thump me in the head and I'll be dead by morning. You sure you want to do that?"

I looked at the bat, then at Rex, and nodded. "Yeah, I'm finished with it." The judge closed his eyes, lifted his nose into the last traces of cigar smoke, and smiled.

I walked past the receptionist desk, where an orderly slept, drooling on a comic book. He jerked when I walked by, causing spit to spew out of his mouth like a bull in a rodeo. I waved, and he wiped his mouth on his shirtsleeve, looked at his watch, and said, "Happy New Year, sir." When I started the diesel and shoved the stick into first, the thought of living through another year didn't bother me at all.



The rain had let up by the time I pulled around back of the house and parked next to the fence. Mist covered the windshield, but a new moon was breaking through the clouds and scattering in dim spotlights across the pasture. Black and brilliant specks of shiny flint covered the pasture like a rhinestone blanket. I pulled my collar up, stepped through the fence, and trudged through the soft dirt, picking up arrowheads. Halfway across the pasture, my hand was full.

I looked around me while the moonlight and rain sewed themselves into my shoulders. At the edge of the pasture, I stood and looked into the pines where Mutt's cross rose like a coastal lighthouse.

The night had grown cold and dry, my steps were silent on the pine straw, and the air smelled of turpentine. On the edge of the forest, I cleared away the pine straw and dug my hands deep into the dirt. It felt cold, gritty, and moist. I walked closer, weaving in and out of the cathedral of pines. Circling twice, I reached out and placed my hands on the beams, and the black dirt sifted through my fingers, spilling around us. I wove my fingers beneath the patchwork of vines and felt the smooth, slick wood beneath. The deep vertical grain rose up from the darkness below me and wound upward like candle smoke toward the moonlight above. I followed it. Reaching higher, I fell, pressed in, and rested my forehead against the beam. Not knowing where to start or even what to say, I whispered, "Touch my lips with the burning coal, light me, and let it rain."





Chapter 45


DAYLIGHT SPARKED THE TREETOPS AND SLOWLY BURNED off the fog. The sun rose, broke through the clouds, and found my face staring into it. The rays felt warm after so cold a night. Around me, the rest of the world was waking up too. Off to the east an owl hooted, from the west a gobbler answered, in the north a dog barked, and somewhere south of me a rooster crowed. I breathed deeply.

Tires squealed on the back side of Waverly, Katie screamed, a high-powered engine revved, and a vehicle sped down the driveway. The only sound higher than the whine of the engine was Katie screaming, "Nooooo! Not my baby!"

At the end of our driveway, the driver could only turn one of two directions, so I pushed off the cross, gambled, whistled, hit Glue's back on a dead run, and kicked him all the way down the side of the pasture. Glue pulled up at the fence, and I soared over and started running east alongside the fence toward the elbow in the hard road. I cleared the thorns, hit the pine straw, and dug as deep as my lungs and flailing arms would let me. The car still had a mile to go, and I had about four hundred yards. I heard the squealing turn, the whine again, and knew they had cleared the gate. A half-mile and I still had a hundred yards. I reached a barbed-wire fence, dove beneath it, sliding on my stomach, mucked through the cattails that lined the highway, and climbed the incline. When I reached the top, I jumped as high as the break in my back would let me.

I don't remember the car hitting me, cracking the windshield, flying back over the fence, or hearing the car lose control and spin sideways into my neighbor's pasture, flinging mud like Katie's Volvo. But I was conscious enough to know that car wasn't going anywhere. Dressed in black, the driver dialed his cell phone, pulled Jase from the car, and began dragging him screaming and hollering down the road and into the woods.



I tried to stand up but felt a hand on my shoulder, pressing me gently back down.

Mutt held a baseball bat cocked over his left shoulder and was looking off in the direction of the kidnapper. I had never seen his eyes so clear. He patted me on the shoulder. "You know how you asked me to tell you before I hurt somebody?"

"Yeah," I said, holding my cracked ribs.

"Well, I'm telling you."

Mutt jumped over me, carrying the bat like a tomahawk, and ducked and dodged his way through the woods like the last of the Mohicans. He disappeared behind the trees, headed for Jase's harrowing squeals and muffled screams. I pulled myself up on a gnarled fence post, steadied my head, and listened. If I could pinpointJase, I still had time. Two seconds later, I heard the crack of Mutt's bat on bone and a bloodcurdling scream from a man in agony. I hobbled toward the sound, afraid of what I might find, and discovered Mutt walking toward me with Jase riding piggyback. Mutt's expression was no different than if he'd gone shopping for a loaf of bread. Jase buried his head on Mutt's shoulder and shook between sobs. Crumpled on the ground, with a grotesquely broken left leg, lay a man in horrific pain. His left knee had been torn sideways, and both bones in his shin had snapped in two, adding a new joint. Mutt, breathing calmly and not sweating at all, pointed at the man as if he were identifying a dog. "Trevor."