“For keeping that dumbass from shooting you,” Carson said. “I did you both a favor. And actually, you’re the second person I’ve had to save today.” He grinned, suddenly pleased with himself for his day’s work. Frank, despite the fact that he was quite sure he’d had an equal part in thwarting Tip’s shot, was amused to see his brother’s signature bravado bubbling to the surface, in spite of the day’s events. He looked at Elizabeth. She rolled her eyes, but then she smiled. Just a little.
“Well,
bravo,
Bravo,” Cryder said. “Aren’t you just the hero?”
“Look here,” Frank said. He leaned over and pointed to the Mercedes’s right fender, where the bullet from Tip’s gun had left an ugly gash in the finish. “I guess Tip got you after all, Mr. Cryder,” he said.
Carson bent and looked at the Mercedes. He ran his fingers across the ruined paint, then straightened up, sighed deeply, and shook his head. “Now
that’s
a shame,” he said.
Cryder pushed past the Bravos and climbed into the Mercedes. He started the engine and backed out of the parking space, then rolled down the window.
“You people are all crazy,” he called. “God-damned Crackers!” He gunned the Mercedes and drove away, hurtling up Seminary Street and running the red light in front of the Publix. They watched him go.
“For Pete’s sake,” Sofia said.
“In quite a hurry,” Biaggio said.
“Off to change his shorts, I bet,” Carson said. “I think he’s realizing how close he came.”
The Bravos fell silent, and Frank’s eyes met Carson’s.
How close we came, too,
he thought. Carson nodded.
“What was he doing here, anyway?” Elizabeth said. “I figured he’d close the deal on Aberdeen and hightail it out of Utina.”
Aberdeen! The property! Frank had nearly forgotten. He told them what Cryder had reported about Drusilla, and about the delay she was causing Vista.
“Lord!” Sofia said. She clapped her hand to her forehead. “Drusilla. I can’t believe we left her.”
“Who’s Drusilla?” Bell said.
“Granny’s friend,” Elizabeth said. “Looks like she’s putting a little wrench in Vista’s plans.”
“Do you think we should have had her exhumed or something?” Frank said.
Dean started to speak, then fell into a coughing fit and doubled over wheezing.
“We could call the funeral home,” Elizabeth said. “They might know what to do.”
Frank was feeling guilty now, as though they’d abandoned a member of their own family. Sofia bit her lip, and Carson looked away. But what in the world were they supposed to have done with a hundred-year-old corpse?
“Maybe I should call the medical examiner,” Frank concluded.
“Oh, Christ. There’s nobody buried there,” Dean said, getting his breath finally. He cleared his throat and straightened up looking very much like he might laugh. “Me and Huff put that stone there fifty years ago. Stole it from a cemetery in St. Auggie.”
They stared at him.
“For real?” Carson said.
“Of course for real,” Dean said. “We were kids. It was long before your mother and I bought the place. We were just fooling around in the woods. We had to get rid of the thing before we got caught with it.”
Frank looked at the sky for a beat, then back at Dean. “Why didn’t you ever tell Mom?” he said.
Dean shrugged. “Because,” he said. He cleared his throat again, then lit a cigarette and took a long pull. “She loved her.”
They were quiet for a moment. Dean wheezed.
“Should you really be smoking that cigarette?” Carson said.
“Should you really be such a pain in the ass?” Dean said.
“Well, I gotta ask,” Biaggio said. “Are you going to tell those Vista people there’s nobody buried there?”
The Bravos looked at each other.
“Hooo-doggy,” Biaggio said, grinning. “I didn’t think so.”
Bell wasn’t satisfied. “But
is
there a real Drusilla?” she said.
“There was. Once,” Dean said.
“Well, where is she now?”
“She’s with Arla, Bell,” he said. He blew a smoke ring and watched it dissipate.
“She’s everywhere.”
They walked up Seminary Street, to where Biaggio’s van and Carson’s car were still parked outside of Sterling’s, and Carson left with Elizabeth and Bell. The rest piled into Biaggio’s van. When they arrived back at Frank’s house Biaggio and Sofia retired to the trailer. Dean showered and changed, then sat on the porch, where Frank stood on the steps, scanning the yard.
“He ain’t back yet?” Dean said. “He ever do this before?”
Frank shook his head. Never. Gooch wasn’t a wanderer. Frank could leave him in the yard for hours, sometimes all day, and he’d return home to find the dog waiting patiently on the porch, a look of mild reproach in his eye that gave way immediately to convulsions of wagging and writhing as soon as Frank climbed out of the truck and approached. But not today. It was nearly three o’clock. Frank hadn’t seen his dog since late last night.
Dean stood. “Come on, Frank,” he said. “We better look.”
They walked the perimeter of Frank’s property, calling and whistling. Fat, waxy brown magnolia leaves, once white, dotted the yard. A patch of sunlight appeared on a swath of pine straw, and Frank watched as a stout green lizard moved into position in the sun, stretching out to absorb the warmth. They kept walking. And then they found him. He was far from the house, nearly at the end of Frank’s driveway, deep inside a thicket of jasmine.
“Aw, damn, Frank,” Dean said. Frank slid Gooch’s body out into the sunlight, and they looked at him.
“There it is,” Dean said. He leaned down and touched the side of Gooch’s swollen face. “Snake bite. He got into a tangle. Rattler or cottonmouth, you never know.”
Frank shook his head. He knelt down and put his hands on Gooch, but the dog’s body was cold. He’d probably been dead for hours. Maybe since early morning. The ball of grief inside Frank’s chest expanded, and he closed his eyes for a moment. How much more was he expected to take?
He opened his eyes again. “But why did he come all the way out here? All by himself?” he said.
Dean shook his head.
“It’s what old dogs do when they know they’re done,” he said. He looked at Frank. “He wanted to spare you.”
They stood for a moment, looking at Gooch. In the silence, Frank could hear Dean’s breathing, rattling and wet.
“All right,” Dean said finally. “I guess we gotta bury one more,” he said.
“I don’t want to bury him here,” Frank said. He gestured around at his property, nodded at the banker’s place next door, the surveyor’s marks on the lot across the street.
“I know a place,” Dean said
They walked back to the house, and Frank found an old blanket, then he retrieved Gooch from the edge of the driveway and carried him to his truck. The dog was heavy, and Frank’s back strained as he pushed the dead weight up into the bed of the pickup so he could lift the tailgate. He walked to the shed, fetched a shovel, loaded it next to Gooch.
They drove south, out of Utina and into the thick woods north of Tolomato, where the hammock grew thicker and darker and the dirt road was lined with dwarf cypress and senecio.
“Here,” Dean said. “This here is county land. I don’t think it will ever get built on.”
Frank parked the truck and walked to the back, lowered the tailgate. He gathered Gooch in his arms. Dean took the shovel. They pushed through palmettos and Christmas fern, stepped over rotting palm fronds and pine limbs until they came to a clearing, a few prisms of sunlight making their way through the heavy canopy to the carpet of pine needles below.
Dean shoved the tip of the shovel into the dirt, but then he stopped, coughing. He limped to a fallen oak and sat down. He put one hand on his hip, and the other he held over his eyes for a moment.
“I guess you better,” Dean said. “I’m no use.”
Frank dug the hole, laid Gooch inside, still wrapped in the blanket. He took a last glimpse of the dog’s white back feet, then tossed the first shovelful of dirt into the hole. Then the next. When he was finished he straightened up, wiped the sweat from his face with his cap. He looked at Dean.
“It’s not his fault, you know,” Dean said. “That Carson is the way he is.”
“I know,” Frank said.
“You shouldn’t hate him, Frank.”
“I don’t hate my brother,” Frank said. “I just think we’re not who we thought we were. Any of us.”
A south September wind moved through the hammock, warm but dry and clear. Above, the pines swayed slowly, and the light played, dappled, on the newly dug earth.
“I always thought we were going to stay above the explosions,” Frank said.
“Me, too,” Dean said. “But I guess if you do that, you miss a lot of the show.”
Frank watched his father’s face, the way his lips pressed tight together, the way a nerve twitched in his cheek and his eyelids fluttered.
“We’ve all done some stupid shit,” Frank said finally. “But we’re not bad people.”
“You forgiving me?” Dean said. “Or yourself?”
Frank looked away, into the scrub, and he saw Will, pale, waiting, scared, and then he closed his eyes tightly, and he saw more, saw fireworks bursting below thick gray clouds, saw Will’s eyes shining, saw Dean’s hand on Arla’s shoulder. When he opened his eyes again and looked at Dean, the answer felt clear.
“All of us,” he said. “I guess I’m forgiving all of us.”
Dean exhaled. “Jesus,” he said, and his voice shook. “It’s been a tough row to hoe, Frank. A tough row to hoe.”
Frank dropped Dean off at the Gate Station on A1A.
“I got a buddy who’ll come get me,” Dean said. “I’ll go on back up to Jax for a while. I got some friends up there.”
“Like Sandy Vanderhorn?” Frank said.
“Hooo-doggy,” Dean said. “No Sandy Vanderhorn for me. I still got one cheek left. Plan to keep it that way.” He swung a duffel bag over his shoulder. The taxidermied bass, his one request from Arla’s house, poked a gaping mouth out of the end of the bag, and Frank had to smile at the sight: Dean Bravo heading out into the world again with a busted cheek, a wounded soul, and any number of ghosts to keep him company, but also with his one great catch, his one pure, beautiful, untarnished achievement.
“So I’ll see you?” Frank said.
“Maybe.”
Maybe not
.
“You watch for Sofia now,” Dean said.
“Biaggio’s on the job.”
Dean nodded. “And you watch for Carson, too,” he said.
“Carson can take care of himself,” Frank said. “And he’s got Elizabeth.” Dean raised his eyebrows, but Frank pretended not to notice, and he tested the words again in his mind:
he’s got Elizabeth.
“Does he?” Dean said, but he didn’t seem to expect an answer, so Frank didn’t offer one.
“But here’s the thing, Frank,” Dean said. He pointed his finger at Frank. “When you’re done watching out for all these other folks, you watch out for yourself, too, son.”
Frank nodded. Then he opened his wallet, took all the cash that was in it, and handed it to Dean. “Maybe four hundred or so,” Frank said.
“Fair enough.”
“But you need more, you call me.”
Dean put his hand on Frank’s arm for a moment, and Frank was startled by the heat of it, the weight. Dean’s eyes were still blue, though rimmed with red.
“I don’t need nothing,” Dean said, and then he turned away.
Frank drove north on A1A, and Dean became smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror, until he was gone.
Back at home, the rooms were still and empty without Gooch. Frank took a shower, ate a frozen dinner, and drank a beer. He lay down on his bed and listened to the cicadas outside his window, but they sounded different, higher pitched, more despairing than he had ever remembered them. Everything was different. The smell of jasmine drifted in through the window, but it was cloying tonight, oppressive. As he drifted off he willed an image of rain, and wet hair and bleachers on a football field, but he slept all night with no dreams at all.
The next day he drove to Ponte Vedra Beach and went to the bank Dean had directed him to. He showed his ID and checked the balance on the account. It was all there. He accepted a small book of temporary checks from the teller. “Thank you, Mr. Bravo,” she said, not batting an eye. Evidently they were used to these kinds of balances here. Ponte Vedra.
Damn.
On the way back to Utina, he told himself not to look to his right, where the passenger seat of the truck was still covered in white fur, and where a streak of dried dog spit still blurred the window. This one was going to take some getting used to, Frank thought. Oh, who was he kidding? It was
all
going to take some getting used to.
His cell phone rang, and he picked it up.
“I’m buying out the shitwit,” Carson said.
“Hello, Carson,” Frank said. “New phone already?”