Out of Darkness (40 page)

“I can't do that, Mr. Smith,” Jim said.

“You can and you will.”

“Pa?” Wash said. “You all go on. We'll be all right.”

After a long moment, the engine started. “You know where to meet us. Don't be a fool, son.”

“Bye, bye,” Henry said, waving with the pistol. “Let's go, kids.”

◊ ◊ ◊

Henry had them walk single file in front of him. Beto in the front, then Wash, then Naomi. As they moved slowly down the path the wrongness of it all swelled inside Henry. All the disaster, all the pain the colored boy had caused already, and now the thought of him sniffing around Naomi. And worse.

“A nigger, Naomi?” He didn't bother keeping his voice down. “You take up with this nigger all the while you was being cold to me? Me loving you and you acting like that was nothing?”

“Stop it, Henry,” she said. She held her chin up.

“This looks all right,” Henry said when they came to a small clearing deeper in the woods. He dropped his hunting pack to the ground but kept his shotgun slung across his back. “Now, nigger, you walk real slow over to that big oak. That's right, walk on over.”

Naomi and Beto followed after Wash.

“Did I say for you two to move? I did not. Come here, son,” Henry nodded at Beto. “Come stand by your pa.”

Beto shook his head.

“Do what he says, Beto,” Wash whispered.

“You, shut up!” Henry glared at Wash as Beto shuffled over, eyes down. Henry grabbed the boy's arm. “Listen to me, Robbie. You think you can make a fool of me and nothin' will happen? And you,” he said to Naomi. “You.”

Wash took a step toward them, but Henry cocked the revolver and aimed it at his head.

“Don't think you're the only one I'll shoot,” Henry warned Wash. “Now listen, you dumb buck, move back with your hands up until you're up against the tree.”

Wash raised his hands and took a step back, then another.

“Back against the tree. Now, arms by your side,” Henry said. He glanced over at Naomi and Beto. “Y'all make a single move other than what I tell you, and I shoot him right between the eyes.”

Wash stood stiffly against the tree. He lifted his palms up slightly. “Sir, please. It doesn't need to be like this. There's nothing we can't work out.”

“Shut up,” Henry said. “Robbie, I want you to reach into my pack and find the rope. There's a good length of it in there.”

Beto shook his head no, but when Henry walked to the tree and shoved the gun under Wash's chin, Beto put his head down and ran to get the rope. He brought it to where Henry stood with Wash.

“Good. That's more like it. Now tie him up.”

“Please, Daddy. Don't make me.” The boy was crying.

“So now I'm your pa? Now that you want something from me?” Henry's eyes narrowed. “Do it, and do it right. I know you know how to tie those knots because I seen you reading up on it in your books. You tie him up tight. You do otherwise, and I'll shoot him dead.”

“It's okay,” Wash said. “I don't mind, buddy. It won't hurt me.”

“Don't talk to him!” Henry pressed the revolver farther up under Wash's chin until his breathing turned to a shallow wheeze. “He's my boy, goddamn it.”

 

BETO
Beto tied Wash to the tree with shaking fingers. He was sobbing now.

“That wasn't so hard, was it?” Henry said when Beto finished. He crossed to the tree and tested the knots one by one before turning his back to Wash. “Look at me, son,” he said to Beto. “Now I'm going to show you another side of what it means to be a man. What do you do with a field you own? You plow it.” He walked over to Naomi. “Lie down,” he told her.

“Don't do this, Henry.” Naomi's lip trembled as she spoke.

“Down,” Henry ordered.

She dropped to her knees. The clouds cleared then, and tears shone on her face. Beto wanted to run to her, but he couldn't move.

“Lie back. Open your legs. Stop crying. Don't try to tell me this is the first time you've done this,” Henry said.

“Henry,” she protested, “I haven't—I've never—”

“You've lied enough already,” he said. Then he pushed her back until her head was on the ground. “Beto, you come here. Watch. But don't try anything. I've got the gun right here.” Beto looked long enough to see the revolver his father held near his sister's face. The shotgun lay on the far side of Naomi, out of reach.

Beto did not watch. But he heard.

Naomi's pleas. Wash's shouts. The sound of him pulling at the ropes. Henry's fist slamming into his sister's face once, twice, three times. Henry shouting, “You like that? Keep it up, boy! Every time you holler, I'm gonna punch her again.”

Wash's silence. The rustle of dry leaves. His father's rapid breathing. An agony of waiting. His sister crying out in pain. And then the end of it. Henry's shudder, grunt, and gasp. Naomi's sobbing.

When Beto could look, Henry was standing up and zipping his pants with one hand. “I'll be damned, girl,” he said, pushing his hair back off his brow. “You were telling the truth—”

“Stop this!” Wash shouted, still straining at the ropes.

“You haven't had enough yet, huh?” Henry said. “I'll be getting back to you in a minute.” He scooped up the shotgun and jammed the revolver into his waistband. He turned in a slow circle.

Henry paused when he was facing Naomi again. Blood oozed from her lips. Her left eye was swollen closed. The front of her dress was damp and smeared with blood. There were swaths of red on her arms where he had held her down. She tried to cover herself with the torn fabric of her dress.

Beto watched Henry's face, but he could not understand what he saw there.

Then Henry crossed to where Wash was. He hit Wash again and again. He kicked him. He pummeled and jabbed and slapped. If Naomi cried out, he hit Wash harder. He used the end of the shotgun like a baseball bat. He did not stop until the only thing holding Wash up was the rope that tied him to the tree.

“I think that's enough for now,” Henry said. “Robbie, go untie him. I want to see him on his knees.”

 

BETO
Beto loosened the knots. He felt numb and dizzy now. Shocked at his own weakness. He would betray and betray and betray again. Betray the ones he really loved. He did not know how to make it stop.

When Beto undid the last knot, Wash tumbled to the ground and fell on his face.

“Here's your chance to redeem yourself,” Henry said to Beto. “I'm going to give you this,” he stretched out the hand that was holding the shotgun, “and I'm going to hold on to this.” He pulled the revolver out of the waistband of his pants.

Wash pushed himself up on all fours. He coughed up blood and something white.

Teeth, Beto realized.

Wash crawled slowly toward Naomi.

“You remember what I showed you when we went out to the woods?” Henry pressed the butt of the gun into Beto's shoulder. “If you need more shots, remember to pump it. Go on now. Aim at him. He ain't moving fast.”

Numbly, Beto did as Henry said.

His fingers remembered.

“Good boy,” Henry said. “Now shoot him, or I'll shoot your sister.”

Beto let the gun drop from his shoulder.

“I ain't playing, boy,” Henry lifted the revolver and pointed it at Naomi.

Beto swallowed, lifted the shotgun again, and stared down the barrel at Wash. Wash who had taught him to fish. Wash who had taught him to handle a hammer. Wash who made the woods magic. Wash who had saved him. Wash who loved his sister.

When he still did not shoot, Henry's face hardened. “He's a murderer. He killed Cari. And all them other kids.”

“No, he didn't,” Naomi called hoarsely, pushing herself up on her elbows.

“Stay down,” Henry warned.

Beto swallowed hard. “I can't, I can't.” He could barely speak the words.

Henry took a step toward Naomi, the gun pointed at her. “One ... two...three ... I ain't counting past seven, son.”

“Please,” Naomi gurgled. “Please don't—”

“Four ... five...six...”

A shot rang out. Wash moaned. Naomi's eyes widened in disbelief. Beto gasped at what he'd made happen.

 

HENRY
Henry stared down at the gun in his hand. He hadn't known until the moment he fired that he was capable of shooting a woman. Red seeped from Naomi's thigh. Her eyes were glassy in the starlight.

“Tell Robbie to kill the nigger,” he said to her.

She shook her head.

“Tell him!”

“
No lo hagas, mi amor. Sabes..
.”

“Tell him, damn it!”

“
Nunca, nunca...
,” Naomi murmured. Her voice sounded choked. Weak and weakening.

“I taught you to shoot, boy,” Henry shouted, “now shoot!”

Beto held the shotgun in his trembling arms.

 

NAOMI
Naomi did not hear Henry anymore. Pain knifed through her leg. Her body shuddered. She wanted to scream but could not. And then she felt very cold. She might have passed out from the hurt, from shame upon shame, but Wash was there, beside her, and her only wish was not to miss that moment.

He had dragged himself the whole way. It was only yards, but she could imagine the cost. He was shattered, too. Bleeding outside and in.

They lay together for a moment in their brokenness.

His hand found hers.

She looked up at him with her good eye. He smiled crookedly. Teeth were missing, and his mouth was full of blood. He spat to the side. “Strawberries,” he said. “Just eating strawberries.” Then he collapsed beside her, almost on top of her.

Naomi could not move. She watched the sky over Wash's shoulder with the eye that was not swollen shut.

It was the same view she'd seen when Henry held her down. She had wanted it to stop. The pain. She had thought, Henry is putting himself inside me. She had vomited a little, and bile had dribbled down the side of her mouth. But even in the midst of it, buried inside the desire to feel nothing and be nothing, was an even stronger desire. To live as long as Wash was alive.

Because the sky she'd seen as Henry raped her held the same stars that shone over Mexico. She had forced herself to imagine life going on. An after to this. She willed that after to wait for her. For them.

We are going to Mexico, she had told herself.

To Mexico.

 

NAOMI & WASH
“Just a dream, wasn't it?” Naomi whispered.

“That's right, baby,” Wash said. “What you thought happened now, it was just a bad dream. When we wake up, we'll be there. We'll wake up...
en México, mi amor
.”

“
México
,” she repeated.

There was the ferocious pain in both of them but also the promise beyond it. A moment of warmth that they could stand up and walk around in. A world bigger than their tree. A sunny plaza. Bobbing hibiscus flowers the size of dinner plates. Golden-fleshed mangoes. Tiny oranges they could peel with their teeth. The clang of cracked cathedral bells.

They walked through that promise together, the Mexico they imagined. They would meet there. And it would be heaven.

They were far enough into their dream that neither of them heard the next shot.

 

BETO
“Damn it, boy,” Henry glared at Beto. “Look what you made me do. You were supposed to put him down and when you didn't—when you didn't—”

There was a patch of red spreading across Wash's back. Henry nudged the body with his foot and rolled him over. Now Wash and Naomi were side by side, mouths open like they wanted to sing. The patch of red on Naomi's chest matched the one on Wash's back.

Beto felt the life go out of them. He felt it as he had in the explosion, the sense of being left behind.

He swallowed.

He turned to Henry. “This is what you wanted,” he whispered. “This was what you wanted to happen.”

“No, son. I just...” Henry wavered for a moment, staring at the revolver as if he didn't recognize it. “You helped with this, Robbie. You were here. You're a part of this. Now, you fill that bastard with buckshot. Just in case.”

“No! He was better than you!” Beto shouted. “Not just a little. Twenty times better! A hundred!”

“Do it!”

“I won't!” Beto screamed. But he felt his finger sliding onto the trigger, felt the gun lifting to his shoulder.

“See? It's easy,” Henry said. His Adam's apple bobbed against the skin of his neck. “I taught you this, son. Just fire.”

And it was easy.

◊ ◊ ◊

Henry fell backward. A good part of his head was on the trunk of the tree behind where he had been standing.

Beto had been aiming for Henry's heart, but he missed.

He looked around at what had been his family.

◊ ◊ ◊

Beto did not notice Jim Fuller's arrival. Did not register his presence until he pulled the shotgun away and tossed it in the direction of Henry's body.

Jim crouched down beside Wash and Naomi and checked for a pulse.

Beto vomited, took a step toward the bodies, then vomited again. He was still dry-heaving into the leaves, choking on his own sobs, when Jim turned around.

Wash's father was dry-eyed and calm.

“Come with me, son,” he said, taking Beto by the shoulders.

 

BETO
Jim stopped Beto before they got back to the car. “You don't have to say anything,” he whispered into his ear.

Beto nodded.

On the way to San Antonio, Beto rode on the back floorboards with a blanket over him.

It probably wasn't necessary, Wash's father told him. It was just in case. Jim didn't tell his wife and daughter about the horror, not right away. He simply said, “I only found the boy. Now we have to go.”