They Call Me Crazy (5 page)

Chapter Six

Cass

I
’m not used to driving, especially at night on wet gravel. The rain has stopped, but water flows through the ravine on either side of the road, rushing in the opposite direction and giving the illusion that I am traveling slowly, moving without moving, going nowhere. I have the windows down to air out whatever the stale smell is and let in the fresh scent of newly fallen rain.

In the past few years, I’ve begun to doubt Grams’s ability to see things. Maybe she’s losing her sight as she gets older. Maybe she never had it, and I just wanted to believe. I told her the truth. I told her I killed Roland, and she acted as if I didn’t do anything. But he’s dead, lying in a hole and turning to fertilizer.

Damn!
I forgot to get daisy seeds at the store.

She’s been wrong before. When she said all those years ago that Roland and I were meant to be together, she was wrong. Dead wrong. Sure, I loved him. I always have, and in a way, I always will. But just because you love a man doesn’t mean you should live with him for the rest of your life. I tend to think it’s the opposite. If you want to keep loving them, maybe you shouldn’t live with them.

A car passes, one of the few that travel this road. I appreciate the extra light. It’s very dark out here with no streetlights. However, the approaching car means I have to move closer to the rushing water on my right. I slow almost to a stop, not wanting to slide the truck into the ditch, into the water that may carry me away. I close my eyes and wait for the other car to pass. I focus on my breathing and try to keep my heartbeat from rising. It’s time for my medicine, and I’m almost home.

No.
No medicine. It fogs my mind. Besides, I have the herbs Grams gave me. I’ll make tea instead.

My driveway is mud now. I carefully maneuver the truck up the steep hill, trying to keep control as it slides sideways in the muck. Pressing the gas pedal harder doesn’t help much because the truck isn’t moving. In the side-view mirror, I see balls of mud flying through the air as I slam my foot down on the accelerator.

Our house—
my
house—is on a hill. The people in town call it Booker’s Hill, named for Shady Booker, who once lived on the peak in a two-story A-frame he built himself. When that house burned down, somebody replaced it with the shack that I now call home. Maybe it was nice in its day. I tend to doubt it.

The front overlooks nothing more than a narrow country road. The backside of the hill leads to Spring River. It’s a beautiful view, if you fancy rivers. I like to go down to the small landing where Roland keeps—kept—his johnboat and watch the moonlight shimmer on the water.

The driver’s door creaks loudly as I step out of the truck, holding the brown paper bag that contains my raspberry bubble bath. Grams taught Lola and me from an early age that raspberry is the only thing a woman should put in her bath. She says it will keep your man from wandering. As I mentioned, I’m beginning to doubt Gram and her ideas. It obviously didn’t work for me, and now I’m buying it out of habit.

Both my feet sink into the muck, which covers my sandals in dark slime. I struggle to keep my balance while I yank one foot free. The earth protests and keeps my shoe. I take one step and fall on my ass. The ground sucks me down, claiming my backside for its own.

Rumor has it that Booker had a bootleg operation going out here, using the entire house as the still and the hot water heater, which ran on propane, as the furnace. I don’t know if it’s true, but when the house burned, it didn’t just catch on fire—it exploded. Booker never had to answer for it, since he was extra crispy when they found him.

He’s still around, though. I see him once in a while, walking the grounds. I haven’t told anyone that, not even Grams. He doesn’t hurt anything, and no one would believe me anyway. I’m sure if he’s out there now, watching me sit in a pool of mud, he’s laughing. I am, and I don’t even know why.

I toss the bubble bath back in the truck. I’ll get it tomorrow. I begin to crawl down the driveway. My hands, knees, and feet are consumed by the sludge as I head toward the yard. I lie in the wet grass, breathing hard, and look up at the stars. They are always brightest after a rain, and they seem to be twinkling at high speed. They must be laughing, too.

It’s not too far up the hill. I make the walk every day after my trip to the mailbox. But I’ve never made the trip at night, soaking wet and covered in mud. I hear the crickets rubbing their legs together to serenade a partner. I’m used to it being just me and the crickets. And Old Man Booker. But Roland is home now. I don’t feel alone tonight.

I think I’ll miss our conversations, but all in all, I’ve missed those for a long time. The past few years, he seemed so preoccupied. Maybe we’ll talk more now. Maybe this will be better for us.

I decide to check on Roland and tell him goodnight. In the darkness, I can see that something is already growing on his plot. That was fast.

As I get closer, I realize it’s a finger sticking out of the mud. “Damn it!”

I tilt my head back and scream. I can’t leave him here. Another big storm and he’ll be sliding down the hill like a Jamaican bobsledder, and I can’t have that. I sit down next to the koi pond and imagine the pretty orange and white fish that should be swimming around in there. Instead, I’ll have another damn flower garden. I watch the river rushing by below, a violently churning deluge.

If I wait too long, the ground will dry and harden, and I’ll have the only garden in town with a pinky finger sticking out of the earth. I already stand out enough. I’ll have to get my new shovel, and I remember seeing a weather-beaten tarp in the barn. The river will wash everything away… wash Roland away.

I stand up, take a deep breath, and turn back to the truck. From inside the shack comes the faint meow of the black cat clock, chiming nine o’clock. I turn to the house and then back to the truck and then back to the house again. It’s going to be a long night, and I could use some herbal tea before I get to work.

Then I’ll send Roland on his last float trip.

Digging up a body is a little harder than burying one, especially in the dark, when the only light is from the moon and a small kerosene lamp. Finding that lamp was nothing but luck. When I went to the shed for the tarp, I spotted it right next to Roland’s canoe. It even had kerosene in it. All I had to do was find a match and not set myself on fire lighting it.

I pull the canoe out next to the koi pond, thinking it might be easier to use if tarp-hauling the body got to be too much. I’m not quite sure how I’m going to get Roland out of the ground—he’s a lot bigger than I am—but I’ve been doing a few things on the fly today.

The digging is hard. The shovel sinks right into the mud, but wet dirt weighs a lot more than dry. An entire shovelful is more than I can handle, so I can only remove bits at a time. I can’t just toss the dirt behind me, either. I have to walk a few feet away and put it in a pile; otherwise, it slides right back into the hole. I struggle to keep from skidding in with him as my feet sink into the ground with each load. I decide that barefoot is the way to go, especially since I already lost one shoe. The cool mud squishing between my toes keeps me moving. If there is one thing I hate, it’s dirty feet.

Roland is a giant mud ball. In the dark, with just the kerosene lamp, it’s hard to see what’s him and what’s another load of muck. The only way I can really tell the difference is by the resistance I get when the shovel lands.

“Sorry.” I say that over and over again as I strike dead flesh. I’m not aiming for him, but I sure seem to be hitting him plenty. I don’t want to have to move him in pieces.

I dig deep on the sides, trying to free his body from the grave as much as I can. I grab the two canoe paddles and slide one under his shoulder blades. With all my strength, I push him over onto his side, fighting the earth that tries to keep him. I wedge the other paddle beneath his ass, forcing the front side of his body to lie flat against the muddy edge of the grave, then use both handles of the oars to hold him in place. I consider making the hole deeper, but I decide it’s probably best to get him in the river. The current is moving fast tonight, and he might make it all the way to the ocean, or at least to Twin Bridges, which is plenty far from here.

I fold the tarp in half, put it beside him, then roll his body to the other side and pull the rest of the tarp underneath him, the way the nurses on
General Hospital
used to change their patients’ beds. Roland now lies in the hole with a tarp under him.

The black cat clock in the house screeches to announce eleven o’clock. Two hours of working strained my muscles worse than an all-nighter. Sitting back on my haunches, I try to figure out how in hell I’m going to get him out of that hole. A backhoe would be nice right now, but it would probably get stuck in the mud.

Mud.
I’m covered in it, and it’s starting to harden. Leaving Roland alone on his tarp, I grab the water hose that he uses to make sure his flowers are always damp. As the water flows over me, I see the canoe, the light from the kerosene lamp reflecting off its aluminum sides. Just like that, I have an idea. It may not be a great one, but it’s all I’ve got.

Old Man Booker stands at the head of Roland’s grave, his arms crossed in front of him, a smirk on his face. He doesn’t seem to want to leave. I don’t mind that he’s here. In fact, I kind of wish he would say something. I really wish he’d grab the other end of the canoe and help me put it in the pond.

“The least you could do is help,” I say.

But I see that he’s just going to stand there and watch me do all the work. “Fine. Suit yourself.”

Roland’s grave is about three feet deep. It doesn’t seem like much, unless of course you weigh a hundred pounds and are trying to get a two-hundred-pound man out of that hole.

I kneel and roll him back over onto his side. It is a lot easier with him lying on the tarp, where the mud doesn’t have a chance to hold onto him. I push him a bit too hard and slam his face into the side of the hole. I could swear I hear him grunt.

“Oh, shut up. This would be much easier if you weren’t dead weight.”

He doesn’t reply.

Luckily for me, the tarp is big enough to cover the johnboat, which means it is also large enough to line the bottom of the unfinished koi pond. Not that Roland ever used the tarp for that—he just let the boat stay down at the dock, tied up and rusting in the weather. Come to think of it, I never saw him use the tarp for anything. I wonder what he was saving it for. Probably so he could off me and drag my body to the river.

I punch him in the back. “Looks like I beat you to it, huh?”

But I know better. Roland never would have done this to me. He preferred to kill me slowly.

I climb out of the grave and get on the far side of the canoe: a twelve-foot aluminum Grumman, not too heavy but bulky as hell. It’s also two feet longer than the koi pond, which is hopefully going to be to my advantage. I push the end of the canoe a few inches over the rim of the hole and let gravity take over. As if someone is lending an invisible hand, the canoe slides into the hole and lands on its side on the tarp, right behind Roland. I pull the stern as far to the end of the pond as I can, but the extra length of the bow sticks out the other end, causing it to lie at a pretty steep angle.

“What are you laughing at?” I turn to Old Man Booker with my hands on my hips. “You just watch. I’m gonna make this work.”

When I push Roland away from the wall, the upper half of his body falls right into the top half of the canoe. I lift his legs, one at a time, and place them in the hull, then I get under his ass and haul it over the side, too. The weight of that ass—and the rest of him, I guess—is enough to force the canoe to right itself in the hole. With two feet sticking out the end, the canoe points right down the hill toward the Spring River.

Roland’s chest is against the back seat, forcing his body into a kneeling position, and his head and arms hang in the small area between the seat and the deck. I stick my tongue out at Old Man Booker.

Satisfied with my work, I go for the water hose, turn the spigot on high, and drag the length across the yard, washing my feet as I go. I put the hose in the pond and let the water run.

I’m tired, but I’m not done yet. I sit next to the grave. Booker sits next to me. Together, we watch the koi pond fill up. The tarp provides a waterproof bottom, so the earth doesn’t claim the liquid. This would be a great time for a cigarette, but I left them in the truck and don’t want to make that trip again.

“The trick to anything is that you have to be thinking. I’m already thinking better without those pills.”

“Damn, lady. This just might work.” Booker’s voice is hollow, not deep but not high pitched, either. Kind of a low echo.