The Last Days of Summer (37 page)

Josh's hands are up again, palms held out and open. ‘I ain't here to stir up shit,' he calls. ‘I got a message is all.'

Jasper does rise then, and steps from the shadows of the porch. He leans against the porch railing out into the open night. ‘Who from?'

‘Eddie.'

Jasper spits a large wad of phlegm onto the grass. ‘What's he want?'

Josh lowers his hands. He looks real nervous. Scared, even. Like maybe he would have preferred not delivering this particular message. ‘He got Joanne.' Pause. ‘He says you'll know where.'

A groan escapes Jasper he did not know was in him. A haunted sound.

‘You sick son of a bitch!' Lizzie steps forward, rifle focused at Josh's head. Even in the darkness, Jasper can see the boy's face drop all colour. He backs up slowly, hands held high.

‘Mama! No!' Her scream pierces the darkness, shattering the still of the just fallen night. The screen door slams behind her as she hurtles through it and down the steps to fling herself in front of Josh. Her mother's rifle still stays fixed upon them. ‘Don't hurt him, Mama! Please!'

‘Get back inside, Katie. Now.' No messing in Lizzie's tone.

‘Mom! No! You can't hurt him! Promise me you won't hurt him!' Katie's voice is shrill, tears streaming down her cheeks.

‘He took your sister!' Lizzie screams. ‘Those bastards took your sister!'

Feathers ruffle in a nearby shrub as birds wake from their sleep.

‘No! Mama!' Katie raises her arm up, palm out, as if to hold her mother off, as if to shield. ‘It's OK, Mom! It's ain't Josh's fault! They promised they won' hurt her!'

Silence falls.

The rifle barrel dips but does not lower. ‘What?' Confusion deepens the wrinkle across Lizzie's brow. ‘You
knew
'bout this?'

‘They said they wouldn't hurt her, Mom,' Katie whines. ‘They just wanted to get Jasper out of the house is all.' She's sobbing. ‘I swear, Mom, they said they wouldn't hurt her. They promised me!'

Jasper has heard enough. In one swift motion he swings over the porch railing and lands lightly on the ground. Fingers of pain shoot up his leg and knee while others curve around his ribs. He bites his lip, anger pushing him on through his pain. He doesn't run but crosses
the garden as quickly as if he had, ignoring his pain with each step. He slaps Katie hard across her face. Hard as he is able. A small cry escapes her as she falls to the ground, holding her cheek. Josh steps back, eyes wide with shock. As he sees Jasper's attention turn to him, he steps forward and swings for the older man. Jasper sidesteps the blow easily, then hits the boy twice, once to break his nose, the next to knock him cold. He turns to where Katie lies crumpled, crushed roses and buttercups and black-eyed susans all around her. It felt good hitting them, letting that anger out. She looks up at him with frightened eyes, and he'd be lying if he said he didn't like it. If it didn't turn him on just a little. His blood pumps through him, wild, thick, like it hasn't in so many long years. ‘Because I love your mother,' he hisses, ‘I'll let her deal with you.'

The crickets have fallen silent. Dark clouds move quickly across the sky blowing east to west. He turns to his sister. ‘I'll need the keys to the truck.'

‘I'm going with you.' Rifle now lowered by her side.

‘No,' he says quietly, ‘it's me they want.'

Her face is ghostly white. Whiter even, if there is such a colour. But when she speaks, her voice is strong. ‘Bring her home, Jasper. If you do one good thing on this earth, you bring my girl home safe.'

He holds her gaze a long moment. There is much he would like to say but the words are tangled in him. He nods to her. Just once. And she reaches in her pocket and throws him the keys. Katie lies crumpled on the ground between them, choking on heavy sobs. He steps over her as he moves swiftly to the truck.

‘Jasper!'

He stops, hand already reaching for the pickup's door.

‘You'll need this more than I.'

Daddy's Hungerford semi-automatic sails through the air. He catches it. There is so much he'd like to say to her, but he finds himself unable. He looks at his sister a long moment.

‘Go,' she says quietly. Arms wrapped around herself as if for protection.

Wordlessly he climbs into the truck. Puts the key into the ignition and lets the engine purr.

It's been ten years since he's driven. But it comes back to him like no time has passed. He knows these back-country roads better than the lines that map his palms. He doesn't really need to think about where he is going. There are no streetlights on the country roads, so he turns his high beams on, and with each passing second as he speeds forward, the world unmasks itself for him in flashed snapshots of light. He could drive anywhere. Up to Amarillo. Way out west, El Paso way. He could leave the state. Maybe find a forgotten town where they'd not know his name. But there is a little girl that needs him, and free as speeding down the country roads makes him feel, it is her face he sees round every corner, calling for him, afraid.

Half a mile from the old oil site, Jasper cuts his high beams off and continues on in darkness. He slows so as not to run into the deep ditches that he knows from memory line these country roads. A part of him is aware that he should have a plan. He had a plan last time, ten
years ago, on this same road, Rose beside him, unconscious as he drove. He'd planned that night out for a long while. There had been a certain kind of peace inside him as he had executed that plan. Had been a nervous excitement pumping through his veins. But everything is different now. This is not that feeling. Not that good kind of nervousness, the kind he likes. This is not that drive. He shakes his head to block out thoughts of Rose. Has to remind himself again that this is not that drive.

He slows as he turns off the country road onto the dirt drive that leads to the oil site. No lights for miles, just wide-open dark stretches of prairie that reach out further west into the dark deserts beyond. Little bits of stone catch in his tyres, spin back and hit the bottom of the pickup. Ting ting. Ting ting. As they fall away.

He rounds a bend, and there are lights ahead.

He does not turn his beams on. Drives slowly on through the darkness watching the far-off lights grow closer. He knows that, in this vast isolation, his truck will have already been heard.

There are two pickups parked in the site. Floodlights high up on posts illuminate the disturbed earth, the rusted-out forgotten bits of heavy machinery that were long ago abandoned here, left well and true behind. One of the trucks, Jasper recognizes as Eddie's. The bright blue of its paint stands out in sharp contrast to the dusty drilling site. The other truck is the beaten-up green Ford that helped plough through Mama's garden a couple nights before. Around him, swells of piled earth rise like dunes. The engine hums slightly as it idles. Two shadowy figures stand by the door of the old toolshed. Light spills
from its broken windows. Jasper pulls in to his left and cuts his engine. He knows he's been seen. But he had never planned on hiding.

He flips open the magazine on Daddy's old Hungerford, and checks all the rounds are loaded. He didn't think to ask Lizzie for more bullets. A part of him wonders if she had any spare. But it doesn't really matter now, he reckons. What's done is done, and what will be will be.

‘It's time now,' he says quietly, and slips from the truck.

The slam of the door behind him echoes across the barren land. Both dark figures are turned to him, but from this distance Jasper cannot make out their features. From what he can tell, both are armed. One, the taller of the two, has a shiny new Winchester laid casually across one arm. The other, shorter, wiry, holds a pistol by his side. It's then that Jasper realizes who it is.

‘Evening, Roy.' He lets his voice carry. ‘I didn't expect to see you here.'

Roy shifts uncomfortably, his face still in shadow. It is the other, larger, man who speaks. Chuck Ryan. ‘Well, I'll be …' he says. ‘Ain't you lookin' pretty?' He spits a big wad of tobacco down onto the dirt by his boots.

Jasper chooses his words with care. His swollen lips smart as they stretch to form each sound. ‘Well … I guess I got you boys to thank for that.'

Chuck Ryan's pearly whites flash and disappear.

Jasper kicks the dirt with the toe of one sneaker, and a tiny dust cloud swirls up around his foot. The Hungerford's still clutched before him, finger on the trigger, though the rifle's held at ease. ‘Eddie here?'

‘Yeah, he's here, all righ'.'

‘Can I see him?'

Chuck Ryan laughs. ‘You think we're just gonna let you waltz in there?'

‘Ain't that why I'm here?'

The floodlights block the stars from view.

‘You're gonna have to turn that gun over first.'

Jasper's finger tenses at the trigger. ‘Is she here?'

The other man pauses. ‘Yeah, she's here.'

Jasper feels the anger boil up in him anew. ‘I swear to God, if you hurt her …'

Chuck laughs. ‘You'll what?'

Jasper wants to shoot him, right then and there. But something stops him raising the rifle. From pulling the bliss of that ready trigger. He needs to know where she is. Needs to know that she is safe.
If you do one good thing on this earth …
his sister'd said. He clears his throat. ‘Let me see her.'

‘We're gonna need that firearm before this goes any further.' Chuck tilts his head towards Jasper, and Roy steps forward. Pistol still held ready by his side.

‘If you want the girl,' Roy says quietly, ‘you'd best play ball.'

‘Where is she?' A desperation to his tone he cannot mask.

Roy hesitates. ‘She's inside.'

Light spills from the broken windows of the old toolshed. It looks just like it did ten years ago. Maybe a bit better lit. He thinks he hears a muffled cry, but he can't be certain. It could just be his memory playing tricks on him, recreating the muffled sounds of a different girl on a different night now long ago.

‘Go on, Roy,' Chuck calls. ‘You bring that antique of his on over here.'

Roy takes another hesitant step forward. ‘I'm gonna have to take that.' Jasper can see his face now. The gauntness of his cheeks. The coldness in his eyes.

‘How do I know,' Jasper says coarsely, ‘that when I hand this rifle over you just won't shoot me dead?'

Roy's face is blank. ‘You don'.'

Chuck Ryan laughs real long and low. ‘Hurry up now,' he chuckles, ‘you don't wanna keep her waitin'.'

‘ 'N' if I don't hand the rifle over?' His voice cuts through the darkness.

Chuck's smile falls. ‘Then you don't get your prize.'

Roy takes another step forward, his face hard stone. He reaches out a hand, palm up. The other still hangs by his side, fisted round his pistol handle. Jasper can see now that the pistol's cocked. ‘Go on, Jasper,' he says, real calm. ‘There ain't no other way.' When they were boys, they hunted with that same rifle, wandering hours across the open prairie. They used to bring tin cans to line up and practise shooting. Sometimes glass bottles and milk cartons, too. Roy's hand hovers, outstretched. Jasper watches it. Then he sets Daddy's old Hungerford semi-automatic on the waiting palm.

‘Take me to her.'

Roy's eyes hold his gaze, but do not soften. ‘You shouldn'ta come back here,' he whispers. ‘You never shoulda come on home.' Then, louder, ‘All right, Chuck, I got it.' Roy steps round so that he's behind Jasper now, the Hungerford pressed into Jasper's back. Even through his T-shirt, its barrel feels cold. Mutely, Jasper steps
forward, prodded by his once best friend. There's a deep hurt there he can't quite confront. Not now, anyway. He thinks of her and only her. Of tanned skin and dark blonde hair and her wide eyes upon him.
Please, God
, he prays,
give me the strength …

‘Hold it right there.' He stops before the doorway and lets Chuck pat him down. Reminds him of all those times in prison. All those hands laid rough upon him. Feels like his freedom being taken from him, and it is in a way, he reckons. ‘All righ', he's clean.' Chuck straightens before him. The cool rifle barrel still presses into Jasper's back. Not for the first time that evening, Jasper wishes he had a plan, but when he looks up, there aren't even stars to guide him.

The door to the toolshed creaks open and light spills out. Squinting against the sudden brightness, Jasper steps forward. The barrel of his daddy's rifle pushes him on into the light. It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust. For him to see her bound there before him lying in the middle of the shed's dust floor. A moan escapes him, soft and low and wild. A sound he didn't know that man could make. He falls to his knees. The sand floor of the shed feels cool against his jeans. Almost damp. She looks at him, eyes wide and wild with fear. All doe now. All set to startle and flee. Except she can't. Ropes cut into her flesh leaving angry red blisters on her wrists and ankles. ‘She don't have to be here,' he snarls. ‘She ain't part of this!'

‘You made her part of it.' Eddie's voice is smooth and cool as he rises from the far corner to step forward. ‘Can't you see that? Can't you see,' Eddie hisses, ‘how you're hurting her?'

There are tears in Jasper's eyes he didn't know would be there. Wild, angry tears. And softer ones filled with regret and sorrow. They do not fall, simply well in his eyes till he is able to blink past them. ‘It's OK, honey.' He wills his voice calm. ‘I'm gonna get you outta here.'

Eddie's laugh is cold.

She never should have gotten in the truck. She didn't know at first. Even as they drove on past town. And they'd talked to her so nice at first, too, had told her she was pretty. Had told her they knew Katie real well, that she was a real nice girl. Eddie had even laughed and said how much he missed her father. It wasn't often that men told her she was pretty. She liked the sound of the word rolling off their tongues. But as time stretched on, they'd gotten quieter. Their smiles had started to fade, to seem forced. ‘Will we be there soon?' Joanne had asked. And Eddie had answered, ‘Just a little further, now.' But it wasn't. It was
too
far
. Joanne could feel it. Town was
too far
behind. And the prairie seemed strange to her, burned golden still, but it stretched out into the deeper scorched browns of desert country, land she did not know.