Late One Night

14

Shooter finally got Captain settled down after the fire — got him to bed after the boy had paced the house, his face wet with tears, muttering from time to time. Now, he’d near about dropped off to sleep, and Shooter was sitting in the living room with the lights off, staring into the darkness, unable to get a handle on what had happened that night and what might be required of him now.

Then the ambulance came down the blacktop, siren shrieking, red lights spinning.

Captain was up in a snap, tugging on his jeans and throwing an orange University of Illinois sweatshirt over his head.

“We got to go.” He stuffed his feet into his boots and wrapped the laces around the tops, tied them into loose bows. “C’mon,” he said. “Get your coat. Maybe they’re bringing them back.”

Out the window, Shooter saw the ambulance pull into Pat and Missy’s driveway. He saw Ronnie’s Firebird there, and Wayne Best’s pickup. He saw a fire truck across the road, a crew still spraying down the smoldering ashes and the debris from the trailer fire.

“Bringing who back?” Shooter asked Captain. “What are you talking about?”

“Della and her kids. Maybe they took them to the hospital and made them all right.”

Shooter took him by the arm. “Now listen to me, son. You know what happened tonight.”

“No.” Captain shook loose, and before Shooter could stop him, he was out the door and running up the road, no thought of a coat.

Missy saw him first. The EMTs had left the front door open when they brought the gurney into the house, and she felt the cold air sweep over her. She turned toward the door just as Captain stepped inside.

Ronnie was still out cold, and the EMTs were loading him onto the gurney. Missy knew that one of them, the taller one with the black hair and the black moustache, was a boy from Goldengate, but she couldn’t recall his first name. His partner was a stocky boy with a little bow to his legs. He had a pierced ear, the left one, where he wore a silver stud. Missy knew they’d already had a tough night — they’d been the ones who’d had to drive away with the bodies of Della and her kids. A man knocked in the head was nothing next to what they’d had to do at that trailer fire. Della and her babies. Missy’s throat closed up with the thought.

No one else took notice of Captain. Pat was trying to calm down Wayne, who was beside himself with worry that he’d done exactly what Lois had said — killed Ronnie — and Pat was trying to tell him that no one knew yet how badly Ronnie was hurt. Hannah and Sarah and Emma had gotten up from the couch and gone to stand with Angel, as if to say the only thing they knew on this night when they’d lost their mother, two of their sisters, and their baby brother — and now their father lay unmoving on the floor — was that they had one another and didn’t mean to let go. Even Angel and Hannah’s little spat over the goats was forgotten. Lois, for whatever reason — maybe just to give her something to do with her hands — was busy taking the bobby pins out of her curls.

“Wesley, what are you doing here?” Missy asked Captain. “This isn’t any of your business. Now, go on back home.”

He shook his head. “What happened to Ronnie?”

“He fell down. He hit his head.” Missy didn’t figure she had any obligation to explain what had really happened. Not to Wesley Rowe. What was he doing out anyway, and here it was after two o’clock. Good heavens, what a night. She felt a headache coming on, a dull throb just above her eyes. “Wesley.” She used a stern tone. “Wesley, do I have to call your daddy?”

Now there was another siren screaming outside, and red lights swirling, and she saw the sheriff’s car pulled off the side of the blacktop. The siren died away, but those lights kept spinning, and she could barely look at them. Her eyes were so tired, and the pain from her headache was starting to pulse behind them.

Shooter Rowe came up the driveway just ahead of Ray Biggs. Shooter stepped into the house, and Missy saw the sadness in his eyes. His nose was red from the cold. He had hands roughed up like bricks — big hands with stubby fingers and swollen knuckles, the skin nicked and scarred and crosshatched with wrinkles. He rubbed a hand over his face, pulling his thumb and forefinger down his cheeks, stretching the loose skin beneath his eyes and making the sadness in them even more pronounced.

“Captain,” he said in a low voice, and Missy heard the weariness in it. How many times over the years had he been in a similar position, having to rescue Wesley from some moment of awkwardness. “Son,” he said, “we need to get out of the way here.”

The EMTs had Ronnie covered with a blanket and belted to the gurney. They were headed toward the door, the tall boy pushing the gurney while his stocky, bowlegged partner walked alongside, using one hand to help steer.

Missy stepped out of the way. Shooter took Captain by the arm and pulled him back against the wall. The stocky boy took the end of the gurney with both hands and eased it through the front door, down the two small steps, and out onto the driveway. There, Ray Biggs had a few words with the EMTs.

“Not another one dead, is there?”

“He’s good and concussed,” the bowlegged EMT said. “But he’ll come around.”

“Jesus,” said Biggs. “What a night.”

Inside the house, Shooter was apologizing to Missy for Captain’s interruption. “He heard that ambulance and he got confused.” Shooter paused and cast an eye toward the girls still huddled together by the window. They’d turned to look outside at the EMTs loading their father into the ambulance. “He got it in his head that Della and the kids didn’t really die,” he whispered.

“He was right there tonight,” Missy said. “He saw what was what.”

“Yes, he saw. Just like we all saw.” Missy could tell from the edge in Shooter’s voice that she’d been too harsh with what she’d said. “Sometimes I can’t explain him.”

“No,” she said, “I don’t suppose you can.”

Shooter heard the mix of pity and judgment in Missy’s voice, but he wasn’t interested at that moment in saying anything more about what it was like to have a boy like Captain. He didn’t think it was the time to get his back up, not in the midst of so much sadness. It was time for sleep, if sleep would ever come that night. It was time to lie down and give thanks for their blessings. It wasn’t easy having a son like Captain, but he was a good-hearted boy. He might not always know the right way to act, but he’d learned what it was to love folks, had learned that from Merlene. No one would ever be able to accuse him of not knowing that.

“Come on,” Shooter told him. “It’s time for us to go back home.”

Captain was looking across the room at the girls. “Who’s going to take care of them now that Ronnie’s hurt?”

“I’ll take care of my girls,” Lois said. She came to Captain and she touched him on his arm. “Don’t you worry about that, honey.” Shooter appreciated the kindness in her voice. She was petting Captain the way Merlene would have done, soothing him. “You go on with your daddy now. You be a good boy.”

Shooter put his hand on Captain’s back and tried to guide him toward the door. He wouldn’t budge. He was a stocky boy with thick legs, and he dug in and anchored himself. He looked down at the floor and then raised his head and studied Lois a good while. Shooter knew it was sinking in now, the truth of the matter.

“Della’s not coming back?” Captain said.

“No, honey.” There was a catch in Lois’s voice, and Shooter knew it was sinking in for her too. “None of them are coming back.”

Captain walked across the room to the girls. “I’m sorry,” he said, and Missy heard the quiver in his voice. “I’m sorry,” he said again, and he was still saying it when Shooter finally eased him toward the door and out into the cold.

The ambulance went back up the blacktop, headed toward the hospital in Phillipsport, and Ray Biggs came into the house. Missy closed the door behind him.

“Folks,” Biggs said, “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask some questions.”

“I hit him,” said Wayne. “I hit him with that there.” He pointed to the tire iron that Pat had laid on the coffee table. “I meant to hit him and I did it. Now go ahead and do whatever it is you have to.”

“Wayne, I’m not sure I have to do anything tonight.” Biggs spoke in an even tone. “Lord knows you folks have got enough to deal with. What say we let this ride until we know what’s what?” He went to where Wayne was standing by the coffee table. “Now, Wayne, I’m not going to lie to you. Could be you’re in for some trouble over this. The ambulance boys say they think Ronnie’s going to come to. Mind you, they’re not doctors, but let’s say they’re right. Let’s say Ronnie comes around. He could still press charges, Wayne. I’d have to arrest you for assault and battery. You understand that, don’t you?”

“I said I did it.” Wayne nodded toward Pat. “He’ll tell you the same. I’m not going to try to lie about it.”

“I’m counting on you not to try to run either.” Biggs narrowed his eyes and studied Wayne. “Do I have your word on that?”

“Good God.” Wayne could barely rein in his disgust. “Don’t you know I’ve got these girls to see to. You really think I’d run?”

Biggs said it to him plain. “All I know is you hit Ronnie with that tire iron.”

Wayne wanted to explain that he really wasn’t that kind of man at all. It was just that he’d been carrying this heat toward Ronnie for a good while, and it’d finally got out of his control when he found out Della and the babies were dead. He blamed Ronnie for that, but, if he had to tell the truth, he blamed himself too. He should have insisted that Della and the kids come to their house that night. He should have been a better father. He should have made Della agree. He never should have let her marry Ronnie, but if he hadn’t there wouldn’t be these four here — Angel and Hannah and Sarah and Emma. He wouldn’t have the joy of them, and now he’d let them down by pulling that stunt with the tire iron. Maybe he’d been that kind of man all along, and he just hadn’t known it.

“I won’t run,” he said. “Time comes you want to take me in, you’ll know where to find me. Now, I just want to take my grandkids home.”

He took a few steps toward them, but then the room started to spin around, and he had to stop.

“Wayne?” Lois said.

“I’m dizzy.” He managed to get to the nearest chair, an overstuffed recliner, and he dropped down into it. “Everything’s whirling all merry-go-round on me.”

“He’s been having these dizzy spells.” Lois went over to where he was sitting, and she put her hand on his head. “Haven’t you, Wayne?”

“They come and go,” he said.

“Have you seen a doctor?” Biggs asked him.

“Doctors cost money,” Wayne said.

“It’s been a burden,” said Lois. “Seeing to him.”

For a while no one spoke. Then Biggs said to Lois, “You sure you want to take on these girls right now?”

“They’re my grandbabies,” Lois said, and her voice broke. “Lord, I feel like I’m a million years old.”

“I can call Laverne Ott. She can get the girls into a foster care. Might make it easier on you, Lois.” Biggs was talking in a gentle voice now. “Wayne, you hear what I’m saying?”

Missy couldn’t bear the thought of that. Those girls shuttled off somewhere, put into a stranger’s house right after losing their mother and their sisters and their baby brother. That wouldn’t do. It wouldn’t do at all. She caught Pat’s eye, and she hoped her look of disapproval would tell him what she was afraid to say with words. For just a while at least, couldn’t they take care of the girls? He nodded at her, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking, and she felt a rush of love for him, this man who was dependable, someone she could count on, a different sort of man from Ronnie Black.

Pat said to Biggs, “Is that really the best idea?”

“Well now, Pat. We’ve got to find a place for them. Ronnie’s sure in no shape.”

“We’ll take them.” Missy hoped she hadn’t spoken too quickly or with too much urgency in her voice. She tried to stay calm, tried to make it clear that this was a kindness she was offering, and that if Biggs said he couldn’t allow that, she wouldn’t feel her heart come apart as she feared it might. “They can stay here with Pat and me. We’re their godparents, after all. We’ve looked after them plenty before.”

“Oh, honey, are you sure you want to take on all that?” Lois said.

“I’ve given them showers,” said Missy. “I’ve combed their hair and got them into clean things.”

Should she try to do more for them? Do the things — she could hardly bring herself to say the word — that a mother would do? She wasn’t sure. In fact, the prospect scared her to death, but she really didn’t see any other choice, and she knew she wanted to try.

“Biggs?” Pat said.

“I guess it depends on what Wayne and Lois think of the idea.”

Wayne said it was up to her. “I’ve caused enough trouble the way it is.”

Lois nodded toward the girls, who were still in a bunch by the window. “Maybe we ought to ask them what they think.”

Angel spoke for all of them. “I don’t want to go back out in the cold. It’s fine with me to stay right here.”

She was afraid to be with her father because of how much she needed him now. It scared her to death to know that he was the one she’d have to count on and the one she would more than likely have to tell at some point that a few minutes before the trailer was on fire, she woke up and, through the slit between the panels of her window curtains, she saw sparks outside. At first, still not fully awake, she thought she was seeing lightning bugs because she’d been having a dream about summer, toward twilight, and a road snaking back into the woods, and suddenly Captain was there, and she was mad at him over something; she was yelling at him, and he kept asking her why, and then he was running and she was running after him, deeper and deeper into the dark woods.

As she watched the shower of lights, she began to understand that she was seeing sparks. She sat up in bed and parted the curtain panels. She saw the cardboard box of ashes, the one her mother had told her to take out to the compost, but she hadn’t. Someone had set it outside. Who cared? Not Angel, not then, not until the trailer was on fire, and she felt certain that it was her fault. If she’d only taken the box of ashes to the compost and emptied it there, everyone would be alive. She didn’t want to be around her father. She didn’t want to tell him that, nor did she want to tell him what else she’d done. She’d gone back to bed, let herself drift into sleep once more, not thinking another thing about that box of ashes, not until her mother shook her awake and said, “We’re on fire. Angel, help me.”

She wished she could stand in Missy’s living room now, knowing that she’d done just what her mother asked, but it wasn’t the truth, not at all. She and Hannah had run out into the cold night. She’d left her mother inside the trailer to try to save the others.

How in the world would she ever tell her father, or anyone else, any of that, and how would she tell him that as she fell asleep that second time, she heard a man’s voice outside, or at least thought she did. Sugar tits, she thought she heard, the way she’d heard her father — and then Captain — say too many times to count, but now she wasn’t sure she’d heard anything at all. Maybe it was just the wind, the same wind that was tossing the sparks from the box of ashes into the air. A shower of sparks that Angel could no longer see, asleep as she was and back in the dream from which she’d awakened, back in the woods calling for Captain, not knowing where he’d gone, only knowing she had to find him.