Moon Shadow: The Totally True Love Adventure Series (Volume 1) (24 page)

M
y knees are watery weak; I can hardly stand. I want to help Daniel, but I can’t. I feel transcended by it all. I know that I am paralyzed with fear.

For a second I’d thought Frank glanced at me in a fatherly way, only to realize I was mistaken. He just wanted to see if I was holding the diary. When Frank looked away I flung the book over my shoulder, into the dry brush.

Now as Frank rushes at Daniel I yell instinctively, “Watch out, Daniel!” Daniel with the full force of his fist strikes a blow to Frank’s stomach. Frank doubles over and drops the flashlight. Daniel jumps on Frank’s back and hangs on.

As the scuffling grows nearer, a scream rises in my chest and erupts as a wordless gasp. Black clouds move across the sky, eclipsing the moonlight and casting a long shadow over everything. For a moment all is shrouded in darkness. When the moon obligingly lifts itself clear of the clouds, I see that Frank has freed himself from Daniel’s grasp. Frank punches Daniel in the face, and Daniel staggers backwards, struggling to stay on his feet. He’s near the edge of the cliff, above the Kumeyaay fertility site. He falls to the ground and Frank jumps on him, swinging his fists. Daniel tries to block the punches with his arms.

I run towards them with clumsy stumbles. A strangled cry comes out of my throat, “Stop it, Stop it ...”

Frank is sitting on Daniel. I draw near and extend my arms to knock Frank away, but he backhands me across the face. I fall to the ground. A fierce shudder runs through my entire body with the pain.

While I’m sitting in the dirt and weeds I put a hand to my aching cheek as a long roll of thunder reverberates in the hollows of the mountain, increasing my sense of anguish and desperation. Then a flash of lightning illuminates the black body of the mountain. I catch a glimpse of my mother, down the path, in the momentary brightness, but I don’t have time to think about it. I realize now that Frank, maybe my father, is going to kill Daniel. Frank has his hands around Daniel’s throat in a death grip, and Daniel is emitting a muffled gurgling sound, like the zebra on National Geographic braying madly as it fights against death in the jaws of a crocodile.

I need to do something fast, yet I don’t know what. Then I notice a rock the size of a softball sitting on the ground beside me. As I stand, I inhale deeply, pick up the stone and rush towards Frank. He sees me coming, and as he releases a hand from Daniel’s throat, I’m shaken by the ferocity of his expression, but I do not stop. I feint to the left, and Frank goes in on the feint and loses. As his fist sails past me, I swing my rock-laden hand forcefully in a sidearm motion and meet Frank’s head directly. Frank lurches sideways and topples into the dark hole of the ravine.

I
had let go of the rock when it hit Frank and then I’d dropped to the ground and wrapped my arms around Daniel. Now as my mother approaches on the run, Daniel lets out a soft moan. I’m on my knees, holding Daniel’s head in my lap, consoling him. He’s coughing incessantly and massaging his throat with a hand.

My mother arrives and stands by quietly. Daniel sits up and puts a hand on his swollen jaw. It seems he’s all right, despite the bruises and the bloody lip. His neck looks as red as my face feels.

I get up and walk over to my mother, and she hugs me. She brushes the dirt from my clothes. As I speak, I stutter with wrenching sobs: “Mom, I think I killed ... huh ... huh ... Frank. Maybe I killed my ... huh ... real dad. I know I’ve sinned, and I’m ... huh ... huh ... going to hell, but he was ... huh ... hurting Daniel.”

My mother hugs me again and pats my back. “You did the right thing, dear.”

“And Mom ... huh ... huh ... you’re not going to ... huh ... believe this, but Mike is ... huh ... huh ... there was an accident, Mom, with ... huh ... Daniel and the gun.”

My mother’s mouth goes agape with the shock of it all. She’s rendered speechless, it seems, and she looks like she’s going to cry.

I watch as Daniel stands and brushes off his shirt and jeans. He walks gingerly over to Frank’s flashlight, lying in the dirt. He picks it up and walks back to the edge of the promontory and points the shaft of light into the canyon. My mother and I shuffle over, arm in arm, and stand next to Daniel. The three of us gaze downwards.

Frank’s fall has been cut short by the outcrop of boulders and trees fifty or sixty feet below the shelf on which we are standing. Frank’s body lies face down, spread-eagled atop a large boulder. There’s blood all over the place, on Frank’s head and on the surface of the rock. I look away.

My mother begins to cry openly, sobbing like I had sobbed a few minutes ago. She probably feels very alone, just as she did when William ... uh, my dad, died. My mother probably loved Frank, or thought she did, actually, because she didn’t even know the real Frank.

“He fell onto the fertility site,” I say. “Right on the yoni stone.”

Daniel adds, “Sarah’s blow didn’t kill him. The yoni stone did.”

“What’s a yoni stone?” my mother asks, sniffling. She needs a tissue but she doesn’t have her purse.

“I’ll tell you later about the yoni stones, Mom,” I say, flushing a little.

“I’m going down to take a look,” Daniel says boldly.

“Wait just a minute. I’ll go with you.” I run to the base of the escarpment and pick up the red diary, and then return to Daniel’s side.

“This belongs to you,” I say, handing Daniel the book.

“The diary belongs with my mother,” he replies. He puts an arm around me and kisses my hair when I rest my head on his shoulder.

“Young lady, it’s time to go home,” my mother interjects with authority. “We have phone calls to make. An attorney and then the police.”

I look at her with defiant eyes. “No, Mom,” I say. “I’m going down to the fertility site with Daniel.”

My mother relents. “You can go,” she says, “but not without me.”

Daniel, with the flashlight, leads the way. I follow closely, and then my mother, right behind me. The sweat chills on my arms in the cool air as we descend slowly into the ravine. I can scarcely see five steps ahead, so I keep my eyes on Daniel as he walks.

When we reach the yoni stone, a huge boulder, Daniel walks steadily towards Frank’s unconscious form. He’s probably feeling, as I am, an imposing sense of dread. The side of Frank’s skull has been laid open. Blood is everywhere. I look away for a moment.

Then Daniel vaults to the top of the rock and leans over Frank, looking for signs of life. He put his hand on Frank’s shoulder and shakes him.

“He’s dead,” Daniel says flatly. “He isn’t breathing. He really is dead.” Daniel had spoken as if he thought he might have found his father alive.

Head down, I begin to cry again, and my mother draws me into her arms. I see Daniel grab the gun out of Frank’s waistband and shove it into his own pants. As Daniel moves away from the corpse, Frank’s hand seems to grip Daniel’s shirt. He starts, and then he scurries down the rock and jumps to the ground.

“I want to take the body out of here,” he says, “but I’ll need some help. I need one of you to navigate.” He looks questioningly at me, and then at my mother.

“I’ll help,” I say.

“I can help, too,” my mother says, with apparent reluctance.

The three of us climb onto the rock. Daniel braces his legs to adjust his leverage on Frank, and with help from my mother and I, he shoulders the corpse.

With the flashlight in hand, I lead the way back up the narrow path. My mother steadies the burden as Daniel, with seemingly superhuman drive and strength, carries his father’s body out of the canyon.

When we reach the top, Daniel, out of breath, walks over to the escarpment, kneels, and then rolls Frank’s body to the ground.

At the edge of the promontory, Daniel starts looking around for something in the dirt. He picks up a rock,
the
rock, and shows it to my mother and I.

“This is the rock Sarah used,” he says. I beam in with the flashlight. There’s a patch of blood on the rock. With his tee shirt Dan wipes off the rock, except the blood. Why is he doing that? I wonder. He fingers the rock for a moment with both hands, and then he drops it.

“All right, this is our story,” he says, with authority, just like my mother speaks sometimes. “Sarah was not involved, directly, in Frank’s death. My fingerprints are on the rock. I hit Frank with it while we were fighting. End of story.”

Daniel’s new demeanor seems to suggest the qualities of a real leader, like he’s commander of a Navy ship or something.

“Why did you take the gun from Frank’s body?” my mother asks.

Daniel looks at her soberly. “It belonged to my brother Mike, not Frank,” he says. He walks away from us, but then he stops, turns back around and says, in a casual tone, “Anyway, I have unfinished business to attend to. Sarah knows her way down the mountain.”

I run to Daniel and put my arms around him. “Don’t go, Daniel,” I plead. “Please don’t go.”

He holds me tight and kisses me softly on the lips. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I haven’t a choice. You know my heart will be with you, always.”

“I love you too, Daniel. Will you call me as soon as you finish whatever it is you have to do? Come see me?”

“I promise. I haven’t forgotten about the notices for Manny.”

Wiping the tears from my eyes, I back away from Daniel. I can do this, I tell myself feebly. I must let him go. He turns and trots down the path. As I watch him disappear, the crash of thunder sounds. The roar of it rolls through the mountain, and the echoes seem to cry savagely, “You’ll lose him, you’ll lose him!”

The faint smell of burning wood hangs in the air. I feel a raindrop. I miss Daniel already. I should have gone with him.

“Let’s go home, dear,” my mother says.

W
ith my mother’s diary in my back pocket, and the truth about her death revealed, I reach the base of the mountain. On the way down I’d sniffed the presence of a fire. As I jog towards The Gables, I see smoke rising from the house. Where is Julie?

The act of running, with the intractable metal of Mike’s gun moving against my belly, seems to ease my anguish. I wish I could let myself go, weep as I’ve never wept. I can’t; I have work to do.

Mike and my mother have been reduced to memories, but I’ll cherish forever those surrealistic dances of word thoughts and visions that play in my mind. Because the life force in Sarah is so fresh and immediate, she’s there to keep things real, and I’ll go on loving her in the only way that matters, the only way my heart knows.

Somehow, Frank’s downfall, his death, makes me feel uneasy, like an argument that, although won, leaves a taste of doubt. I vividly recall, with a sense of awe, the moment I’d spent gazing at Frank’s corpse, the dread of going near the cold, dark smell of death. Frank’s color had faded to bloodlessness under the skin. His mouth was open, his eyes dulled, motionless, as if, zombie-like, only the neck muscles could give them direction. Alone on the rock, staring into the face of death, it seemed I was sharing with Frank a place in his hell. It’s amazing when I consider the time Frank now has at his disposal, an eternity to reflect on the error of his ways.

Would Frank really have run off with Julie? Of course not. As with most everything Frank did, there was an ulterior motive. He wanted the diary. That Julie trusted Frank only attests to her delusional state of mind.

As I reach The Gables, I bound up the steps of the back porch and try to open the door, but it’s locked. Smoke pours from every crack and crevice in the big yellow house. The smell is noxious. I run quickly to the front of the house only to find another locked door. I make my way to the garage, roll back the sliding door and grab my old Louisville Slugger baseball bat.

At the front of the house again, I step onto the porch and rip the screen off a window that leads into the living room. With the head of the metal bat I shatter the glass.

The ensuing explosion, the force of escaping heat and smoke, knocks me backwards, sending me off the porch and onto the grass a few feet away. I lie flat on my back for a moment to get my bearings and then I sit up. Flames are licking at the vacuum I’ve created as smoke bellows forth into the night air.