Bound by Blood and Brimstone (20 page)

As we walked together the morning of the first day of school, Lorrie Beth’s usual chatter

was absent. Max knew her thoughts were heavy. He kept whining and licking her hands as if to

say,
Hey, perk up, it’s okay
, I’d given up trying to draw her out, so I just resigned myself to

watching her out of the corner of my eye.

She was wearing a circle-tail skirt and a green sweater that made her eyes look like

polished jade. Her hair had grown to her waist by then, and she’d pin-curled it into a mass of

glossy corkscrews. Poor Lorrie Beth was blissfully blind to her extraordinary looks, but I knew

the world around her would, in time, force her to come to terms with them.

When we reached the edge of the schoolyard, I did a quick scan for Caleb and Sue Lee,

but only three girls from Lorrie Beth’s class were waiting for Miss Hacker. They looked up when

we approached, uncertainty written all over them. They knew me, but who was my friend? The

limp should have clued them in, but everything else was so different.

Then Lorrie Beth spoke to them. It was funny how their eyes rounded out and their

mouths opened, funnier still, watching them try to hide it. As the shock wore off, they rushed

over, encircling her, touching her hair, her sweater, squealing, gushing.

I heard, “Oh, Lorrie Beth, just look at you! You’re a sight! I love your hair like that.”

And the best one yet, “I swear, you look just like Elizabeth Taylor!” Max swished his tail and

barked a few times in agreement. He already knew his mistress was something special.

I was feeling pretty content with the cozy scene when, from behind me, I heard a man’s

voice. “Well, well, if it ain’t Crip-Hop, come back from the dead.” I turned to see a much bigger

Caleb Jacobs and his faithful sidekick, insolent grins plastered on their faces. They’d witnessed

the entire reunion.

I heard a sharp intake of breath as the girls took a step back and somewhere to my left, a

deep rumbling. It was coming from Max’s chest. I had one glimpse of his raised hackles and

bared teeth, and then Lorrie Beth said smoothly, “Stay, Max.” He did.

Next, without missing a beat, my sister stepped up beside me and flashed an angelic

smile at the two of them. “Hey, Caleb, hey, Sue Lee, you all have a good summer?”

I couldn’t have spoken if my life had depended on it. From the looks of their slack-jawed

expressions, Caleb and Sue Lee were having the same problem. I studied them swiftly, trying to

put my finger on what was different about them.

Caleb had broadened through the shoulders and was lean and wiry. He wore his hair

slicked back in a ducktail and had ditched his overalls in favor of cuffed jeans and a tee shirt. I’m

sure he thought he looked like James Dean, before he went to Hollywood and could afford a

dentist.

His gray eyes dragged the length of Lorrie Beth’s lush body, and I could almost see his

heart beat faster. Lorrie Beth saw, but didn’t let on. When his eyes finally settled on her face, his

difference hit me like a kick in the ribs.

His dangerous edge, the hardness he always projected, was somehow softened. It was like

he was just going through his tough-guy motions with her. The malicious joy was gone.

Just the inkling of that thought shook me to the roots of my hair, and Mike Sheldon’s face

rose in my mind.
Caleb Jacobs
is not what you think,
he’d said
. What did he mean? Is the clue

right here in front of my nose?

I glanced at Sue Lee. Murderous rage was all over her pimply face. She elbowed Caleb,

and something seemed to click inside him, like he’d just remembered his name after a bout of

amnesia.

“Where’d you find the mutt?” he demanded. Before Lorrie Beth could answer, he

continued. “A lot of folks around here hate strays. Might be a good idea to keep him locked up,

in case something was to happen to him.” The corners of his mouth twitched.

Lorrie Beth stiffened but didn’t let it break her stride. “Oh, I’m not worried about that.

Max can take care of himself.” Just to emphasize her point, Max went rigid and growled again.

“Stay, Max,” she repeated as before. He did.

It was quite an impressive display, but clearly, brother and sister weren’t bowled over.

Just as Sue Lee opened her mouth to speak, Miss Hacker tottered up the dirt path, followed by a

crowd of stragglers. For the moment, disaster was averted.

Throughout the day, boys couldn’t resist darting glances at the new Lorrie Beth, and girls

went gaga over her hair and clothes. Naturally, Sue Lee didn’t follow suit. If looks could kill, my

sister would’ve been pushing up daisies before noon.

Since Lorrie Beth had ordered Max to go home before the beginning of class, I was

growing more and more uneasy at the thought of walking home without his company. Caleb and

Sue Lee made a point of amusing themselves during class breaks by hovering.

They put me in mind of a pair of red-necked vultures. I’d see Sue Lee grab Caleb by the

arm and jerk him closer. She’d put her hand up and whisper behind it in his ear.

At last, it was time to leave, and I hustled Lorrie Beth outside ahead of the others. I kept

urging her to walk faster. We were about halfway home when a rock whizzed by Lorrie Beth’s

calf and thudded into the weeds beside the road. I heard Sue Lee’s shrill, cackling laughter and

told Lorrie Beth to just keep walking.

“Don’t even turn around and look,” I said under my breath. We heard a quick patter of

footsteps, closing the gap of safety.

“Hey! Hey! Wait up, you two, I have to ask you something,” Caleb called out.

“Don’t do it. Don’t stop. Just ignore him,” I begged. Lorrie Beth was never any good at

taking advice. She stopped. They were directly behind us now, and with nothing else left to do,

we turned to face them.

“What is it?” I asked, trying for an impatient tone.

“I need to ask your sister something important,” Caleb said, as though he meant it. Sue

Lee stepped closer, and I caught a whiff of her stale sweat. She was grinning like a possum. “I

wanted to ask you,” he drawled, his eyes trained on Lorrie Beth’s face, “what it feels like to look

like a one-legged slut.”

Sue Lee capped a hand over her mouth, feigning shock, then chortled madly. I thought

with her stringy hair and hawk nose, she only needed green skin to make her a dead ringer for

The Wicked Witch of the West. Lorrie Beth had paled, but she squared her shoulders and

responded sweetly.

“Well, since I’m not sure what that is, I guess I don’t know how it feels. Maybe Sue Lee

could tell me what a slut is, and then I can answer your question.” I felt my face go cold, then

numb.
What do you think you’re doing? You trying to get us
killed?

Sue Lee had the look of someone who’d just bitten into a persimmon. It only lasted a

second. Then she was in Lorrie Beth’s face, nose to nose, the veins in her neck sticking out like

thin cords.

“I’ll tell you what a slut is,” she said through clenched teeth. “It’s like your Momma. It’s

a flat-backed whore. Don’t you know what everybody’s saying about her? That she’s lower than

whale turds, the way she took up with Preacher Man. I bet she even screams at night when he

crawls on top of her.”

At that, my face went from numb to about 1000 degrees Fahrenheit. My feverish thoughts

spun and skidded into the sickening sight I’d glimpsed by the moonlight streaming across

Momma’s bed. My stomach lurched, and black spots danced in front of me.

“NO! NOBODY TALKS ABOUT MY MOTHER LIKE THAT! Lorrie Beth told me

later that I went for Sue Lee’s eyes and yanked her hair so hard I was holding a fistful of it, roots

and all. This all happened so fast, Caleb barely had time to make a grab for me before a flash of

brown and white streaked from out of the nearby underbrush. Caleb went down hard and

screamed. I let go of Sue Lee’s hair and stumbled. Lorrie Beth jumped out of the way with a

breathless “Oh!”

It was Max. The adoring pet had vanished, replaced by pure killing machine. The hair

bristled down the length of his body, and both ears flattened against his skull. His growls

motored up out of his throat to deafen us, and his fangs sank into Caleb’s leg in a death grip.

Caleb kept trying to scoot away, squirming from side to side with his arms up over his

face. “GET HIM OFF! GET HIM OFF ME, OH, GOD, GET HIM OFF ME!” he babbled. He

was crying and thrashing, screaming vile words I can’t bring myself to repeat. Sue Lee was a

statue.

It must’ve been the sight of Caleb’s blood-stained pant leg that jolted Lorrie Beth to her

senses and got her moving. She clapped her hands sharply and strained her voice to yell, “MAX!

DOWN! NO, MAX! DOWN! She got through to him. Max relaxed his hold, let go, and trotted

over to Lorrie Beth’s side, where he let out one last growl and flopped at her feet.

We watched in silence as Sue Lee knelt over her brother, who’d collapsed, gasping and

trembling in the middle of the road. She murmured soft words in his ear and kept stroking his

colorless face. She raised him to a sitting position before he promptly turned his face and

vomited.

Even in his pitiful state, I realized I was now more scared of Caleb Jacobs than ever. His

cool outer shell had just been shattered in front of three girls. He’d lost face. He had nothing

more to lose.

I looked at Lorrie Beth to see if she shared my thought as she usually did, but instead of

fear, I saw tears sliding down her cheeks. “I--I’m so sorry, Caleb,” she stammered. “I never

meant that to happen.”

He lifted his head, shook it, and focused bleary eyes on her. “You better keep that mutt

away from me,” he said, his voice a hollow rasp. “If I ever see it again, I’ll cut its head off.”

Sue Lee let him lean on her as he staggered to his feet. Over his shoulder, she shot us one

last look of deadly calm. “I just got one thing to say. You all best be sleeping with both eyes

open from now on.”

As the days of that eternal school year clicked by, I began to feel like one of those guys

waiting for execution, Dead Man Walking, I think they’re called. Apparently, Caleb and Sue Lee

had regrouped and settled on a new strategy. Instead of their usual cat and mouse game, they’d

decided to slowly drive us insane.

We thought we’d actually caught a break when Caleb quit school. What else was he to

do? Complete fifth grade a fourth time? Enroll in medical school? The truth dawned when he

began showing up in the schoolyard every day to loiter and smoke.

He’d arrive shortly after classes took up, hang around until breaks, and stay until

dismissal. He and his gangly sister were thicker than fleas on a dog’s butt. She’d share her

meager lunch with him, and they’d slouch around within spitting distance of Lorrie Beth and me.

Once, I even exited the outhouse to find them nearby.

I kept expecting Miss Hacker to come to our rescue, to tell Caleb to go home. But no, she

either didn’t see what was going on or just chose to ignore it. Truth be told, I think she was

afraid.

It wasn’t just at school, either. They materialized
everywhere
we went. It always

remained a mystery to me how they seemed to know where to show up. They followed us

halfway home on a daily basis. If we happened to be in town on Saturday afternoon, there they

stood on the sidewalk. On the day they put in a first appearance at church, we knew things had

turned deadly.

We suffered our torment alone. I could’ve talked to Wonnie Dean, but stolen moments

with her were so few and far between, it didn’t seem right to waste them on the likes of Caleb

and Sue Lee. We could only cling harder to each other and to Max.

While I obsessed about living to see another sunrise, Lorrie Beth’s greatest concern was

Max’s welfare. “You heard what Caleb said,” she kept repeating. “I don’t want Max anywhere

near that baboon!”

“What about us?” I insisted. “In case they get tired of just hanging around, and they will,

we might stand a chance if Max is with us.”

“No! I heard Caleb started carrying a knife, and he said he’d cut Max’s head off!” Then

the tears would start and that would be that. In the end, Max would be spared, regardless.

She ordered him to go no further than the yard. He pled with his eyes, whined, licked,

pulled out all the stops, but she would not be swayed. Me, I kept waiting for the other shoe to

drop.

I was never sure why Miss Hacker latched on to the habit of making Lorrie Beth her

“assistant” that fall. Maybe she thought it would boost my sister’s waning confidence as a

student. It could’ve been that she truly enjoyed Lorrie Beth’s company. Whatever her motive,

she began asking Lorrie Beth to stay after school to help grade papers, prepare lessons for

younger students, and any other teacher-like duties she could come up with.

This would last until roughly five o’clock when I would make the trek back to school for