Out of Darkness (36 page)

◊ ◊ ◊

Morning. Blue sky. Velvety soft clouds. Small coffin. Hymns. Dirt clods tossed into graves. Cari's body, in the ground. Their mother's birthday on the wooden marker that would turn into a gravestone for Cari. Everything else, packed inside him. Beto waited to cry but couldn't.

 

WASH
Wash heard Naomi coming. When she climbed into the tree, he folded her into his arms.

“We buried her,” Naomi said.

“I know. If I could've...” He'd watched from a grave four rows over as Cari went into the ground in the casket he'd made. He'd seen Beto's face tilted up toward the sky, not blank, but strange. Naomi stood behind him. And there was Henry's hand on Naomi's elbow. Wash had seen that. He could only imagine what it had cost her.

He held her close and felt the sob rise in her. Her body stiffened against it.

“Shh,” he said, “I'm here.”

She pressed her face against his chest. “How soon?” she whispered.

Now, he wanted to say. But there had been no way to get away from the digging, no chance for a trip to Tyler to get the train tickets. “I'll go for the tickets first thing tomorrow,” he said. “We'll leave Tuesday morning. Catch the train in Tyler where nobody will know us.”

She began to cry then.

“It's okay,” he said, “I know.” He did not, though. And still he had to try to take the hurt from her.

He began to touch her, and he could feel the change coming over Naomi, the wildness climbing up out of her. He breathed in the warmth from her neck.

And then she was gone, pushing her way out of the tree.

She was fast, but he was faster and caught up to her before she could get out of the woods, where it would be too dangerous for him to follow her.

“Please, Naomi,” he whispered as loud as he dared. His breath came fast.

She shook her head. “I can't.”

“It's okay,” he said. “Let's go down to the river.”

 

NAOMI
Naomi could feel the space between them as they stood at the edge of the bank and watched the river. The water was so dark and smooth it looked like oil. Cottonwood seeds drifted down on their pale cushions, disappeared into the blackness. She thought of her desire that way, a thing floating away from her and vanishing safely into the water.

“
Mañana
,” Wash said. He took her hand, squeezed it, released it.

“Tomorrow,” she said.

 

THE GANG
We filled the days after the explosion however we could. The boys helped build the coffins and dig the graves. So many graves. Blisters that ached and burst. The girls laid out meals and put them away. Washed up. So many meals, so many dishes crusted with casserole. Knuckles and fingertips raw from hot water and steel wool. We avoided mirrors and went to funerals. Some of us sat in church after church after church. Sat through eulogies and prayer meetings. Learned to turn to the Lord again. Learned to lean not on our own understanding. Trust His wisdom. Others of us followed our fathers out into the woods, carried guns and rods. Hunted and fished and trapped with them. Opened beers for them and also drank them ourselves.

Six of us, the last of the football team, followed our fathers to Big T's. We slipped into the crowd.

“Backsliding,” someone said to the beer in his hand. But we were not. Backsliding. We were sliding for the first time. Only Fred Carter had the guts to belly up to the bar. The rest of us just listened.

We learned things.

We learned where they buried the body parts that could not be identified.

We learned that Tad Schmitt found a bright blue vein of gas still burning when he was clearing rubble from what used to be the school's crawl space.

Somebody asked why nobody called the gas company to get it switched off.

Tad shrugged. “I did. But they told me the school quit buying their gas three months ago. Said the school probably switched to bleed-off gas.”

We learned how news moves through a crowd of men. We felt them weigh the possibility. We tried it, too. Was it green gas that did our school in?

We were still at Big T's on Monday night when the evening newspaper came with word of the investigator's report. Graham Salter stood on a chair and read it out. The men watched, listened. So did we.

“According to the investigators of this tremendous tragedy, no one individual was solely responsible for the New London school explosion. It was the collective failure of ordinary people caught up in the common practices of their community and ignorant or indifferent to the need for precautionary measures. The report concluded that even criminal negligence does not apply because lack of knowledge prevented school officials from anticipating the hazard caused by their actions. ‘What we should take from these terrible events,' the lead investigator suggested, ‘is the urgent need to impose strict and enforceable safety standards on each and every building in which children spend their days.'”

“What in your Aunt Pussy's name does ‘criminal negligence does not apply' mean?” one man shouted.

“Nobody's to blame, that's what it means,” came a second voice.

This news did not go over well. Because without blame, how would there be punishment? Who would pay? The men began to murmur.

We could feel it. An idea beginning to form.

◊ ◊ ◊

We knew a thing or two about how an idea spreads, having spread a few in our time. Before the gas filled the halls of our ruined school, we regularly filled that space with another kind of combustible, invisible poison. Gossip that could travel slow or fast, nearly silent at first. And we knew that when an idea was quietly everywhere, had been whispered far and wide, all that was needed was the right person to blow it sky-high.

◊ ◊ ◊

We felt the idea spreading at Big T's. At first, it carried Superintendent Crane's name to everyone's lips. But he had lost his son. And a nephew.

Then someone asked, “What about Gibbler and them other school board cronies? They had to know, too, the greedy bastards.”

Dalton Tatum slammed his palm down on the bar. “Gibbler! That's the one to talk to. Didn't lose nobody in the blast. Cain't nobody say we tried to break a broken man.”

Another twenty minutes of debate followed, and then the men headed to their trucks. We were among the last out, so we saw the bartender—the only sober man in the place—pick up a phone and make a call.

◊ ◊ ◊

By the time the caravan of mud-splattered pickups turned up the long winding drive to Zane Gibbler's house, there were four mounted Texas Rangers posted in front of his porch.

“You boys go on home,” one of the Rangers told our fathers and their friends. “You're not makin' any trouble here. Turn around and go back.”

We watched as Dalton climbed out of his truck. “We want to talk to Gibbler,” he called. “We got a right to some answers.”

A roughneck in coveralls stepped out of the crowd and faced the house. “Come out of there, Mr. Gibbler! You can't hide forever in your big house, not answering us. I buried my baby girl yesterday. Nine years old, dammit! I got—” Before he finished speaking, Mr. Gibbler came out, banging the screen door and scowling.

One of the Rangers trotted closer to the porch. “Best to stay inside, sir.”

Mr. Gibbler ignored the warning. “What y'all want?” he growled. His voice carried easily in the still twilight. He crossed his arms over his chest and looked straight at Dalton. “Suppertime's over. It's late to come calling.”

Dalton cut to the chase. “Did you know about the school switchin' to raw gas?”

The idea was heading in a certain direction.

“Cut the bullshit. Don't be getting high and mighty about the school tapping into a bleed-off line. Y'all use the same gas to heat your houses. You think of yourself as a criminal for that? One look at that heating bill from December, and you would've done the same thing. You hear me?” Gibbler pointed a finger and swept it across the line of trucks. “Y'all would've done the same damn thing in Crane's place, every one of you.”

We looked around, saw the men knowing the truth of it. There was a faltering. The idea was in danger of fizzling before it could explode.

“We want answers!” Dalton hollered.

“I know something more.” The voice was high and thin and nearly swallowed up by the night, but it took us only a moment to place it.

Miranda stepped out on the porch in a nightgown and wrapper. Her forehead was still bandaged, and her face was bruised and scratched. But knowing her, we figured that what had pained her most was being alone. No one to echo her every petty remark, round out her laughter. Her followers were mostly buried now. Miranda was not one to bear the pain of going unheard.

“You ought to be in bed, Emmie,” Mr. Gibbler said, turning to her.

“I know something,” Miranda repeated, this time more loudly, sensing the size of her audience. “He was there when they did it, when they tapped the line.”

“Who?” Dalton called.

“That black boy. The one Mr. Crane always has working at the school.”

“So what?” Tad asked.

“And he was there when it happened. He didn't like us having such a nice school. Daddy, you heard what he said that one time. When he came to see Mr. Crane with his father. About some books.”

Something like gratitude crossed Mr. Gibbler's face. “That boy...”

“An explosion,” Miranda whispered hoarsely. Then she spoke more loudly. “When he walked away after sassing Mr. Crane and my daddy, he said it'd take an explosion to make us see.”

Boom.

◊ ◊ ◊

We looked back from the beds of the pickups and watched Miranda sit on the porch swing next to her father. They swayed gently in the silence. Maybe she knew what her words would do. Maybe not.

The Rangers' horses pawed at the ground. There would be no one to stop our daddies in Egypt Town. We were sure about that.

 

NAOMI
Naomi came into the kitchen at the sound of arguing next door. A screen door slammed, and a voice shouted, “I'll remember this, Bud. You watch your job, you coward!”

There was a hard knock at the back door. Through the screen Naomi saw Mr. Turner and four men behind him. She tried to think of him as a father who'd buried a child, but she couldn't forget how he'd shamed her in his store. She did not move.

Henry came into the kitchen. “I'll get it,” he said and opened the door.

“Listen, Henry,” Turner said, “we've got business to see to.”

Out on the porch, the men talked in urgent, hushed tones. She couldn't make out their words. When Henry came back in, he reached for his hat.

“Bring your boy,” someone called after him. “Wally's with me and keen on the fixing.”

Beto hovered in the hall. Naomi thought she saw his eyes brighten a bit. Out of the house, maybe he would stop thinking of Cari for five minutes. Maybe.

“Robbie, get your coat,” Henry said. “You can come help.”

Beto nodded and hurried to get his jacket from its hook.

“Don't wait up,” Henry said. He didn't look at Naomi.

She kissed Beto on the forehead. “Be careful and listen to Daddy,” she said. Already her mind was on to what she needed to do while they were gone. Pack. See what money she could find in Henry's things. Check the tree for instructions.

She did not consider what kind of fixing the men were fixed on. She pictured some broken piece of machinery. Beto perched on the hood of the Ford, drinking a Coca-Cola someone had brought along in a cooler.

She should have wondered at the toolbox Henry had left sitting in the corner of the kitchen. She should have questioned his sudden renewed interest in father-son bonding. She should have kept Beto home.

But she had other plans on her mind. Tasks to complete. Work, like always, was a certain kind of relief.

She emptied the guitar case and got out a drawstring bag. She rolled their clothes into tight bundles and packed them in. She took her mother's dress and the small treasures, but she left the shoes behind. If only she'd thought to bury them with Cari. She gathered a bar of soap, their toothbrushes, and two washcloths. She scoured the house for money, sweeping her hand to the backs of drawers and under cushions and into the pockets of Henry's pants and overalls and shirts. She said a prayer of gratitude for his carelessness and added four wadded dollars and a handful of change to her sock; it was something. She found Beto's notebook under his pillow and slid it into the bag. She brought Cari's ribbons. After that, there was only the food to pack. She wrapped cheese and biscuits in wax paper and took the last of the oranges.

Everything went back under the bed. Naomi shrugged on a sweater, rebraided her hair, and walked out into the moonless night.

 

WASH
Wash spent the day pulling off his plan to buy the train tickets in Tyler. No room for sadness, only scheming. He slipped into the living room early in the morning to get what he needed from the tin of Booker money. When he went out after breakfast, he wore his work boots and said he was going to help pack down graves. He headed toward Pleasant Hill Cemetery, then cut through the woods toward the road to Tyler. He walked far off the shoulder, only hitching a ride when he saw a truck he was sure was from out of town and so would not have any stories to carry back to his folks.

Now he had three train tickets to San Antonio and a world of details he needed to explain to Naomi about how they'd get to Tyler in the morning, early, early.

But she wasn't at the tree. She wasn't by the river. And for all his planning, he'd left his notepad and pencil inside yesterday's pants. He could not leave her a message.

He had to, though, which meant he needed to go back to the house.

On his way home, he made sure his boots and hands were caked with a day's worth of cemetery dirt.