The Best American Mystery Stories 2014

Pleasant Grove by Scott Loring Sanders

FROM Floyd County Moonshine

THE SNOW HAD JUST BEGUN to really fall when Johnny’s mother reminded him for the third time that she had to have milk and eggs. He’d been through fourteen winters in his lifetime, all of them in that same Virginia farmhouse back in the woods near McPeak Mountain, so he felt he had a pretty good feel for how bad this storm might be. The way the sky hung heavy, the way everything turned gray, the way smoke chugged from the chimney, not in a straight column but instead barely making it out before spilling and hovering over the roof like a witch’s brew. And by Johnny’s calculations, this was going to be a whopper. He’d seen deer feeding in the neighboring field in the middle of the day while he’d been splitting stove wood. Another sign.

“Johnny, I’m telling you, we have to have milk,” said his mother. “Henry’s probably going to close early. If the babies don’t have their food, there’ll be hell to pay. The truck isn’t going to be able to deliver in this snow. Not for a few days, most likely.”

“I know,” said Johnny, buttoning his mackintosh and securing a wool toboggan on his head. “I’m going.”

His mother reached into her coin purse and handed him four quarters. “Get as much as you can carry, and at least a dozen eggs. The hens aren’t laying good in this cold.”

“All right, Ma,” said Johnny as he threw a canvas rucksack over his shoulder and headed out the door.

Those babies. Those damn babies. They were enough to drive him insane. What his mother meant, what his mother called her babies, were the eight or nine or maybe ten cats, Johnny wasn’t even sure anymore, that ruled his mother’s life. They ate better than he did most of the time, and he resented them for it. There’d been many a day, while his mother was at work and he’d already gotten home from school, when he’d considered taking the twenty-gauge and culling the kitty population by a few. But he’d never mustered the courage. Not yet, anyway.

He cursed those cats as he headed down the road to Henry’s General Store-the dirt and gravel already covered in a thin layer of snow-working his way through the Pleasant Grove section of McPeak Mountain. It was the only store on the mountain, and he knew his mother was right: Henry often closed shop early, for any reason he felt like, though usually it was because he’d run out of liquor and needed to get home before his throat got too dry. So a snowstorm was a perfect excuse for him to close, head home, sit around a fire, and get down to some proper drinking.

The temperature wasn’t cold, barely freezing, and there was no wind to speak of. The flakes fell straight down, fat and heavy, as Johnny trudged along, his boots giving that comforting crunching sound as they marched through the absolute quiet. Johnny loved the silence that a snowstorm brought. No birds chirping, no cars straining to make it up the hill, no clopping of horse hooves or the creaking of wagon wheels from old-timey farmers who’d still stubbornly resisted the purchase of an automobile.

The road was narrow and hilly, twisting and turning through stands of oak and pine. Henry’s was only a mile away, but in the snow everything took longer, and besides, Johnny wasn’t in any hurry. During the walk home it would be a different story, wanting to get the weight of the glass bottles off his back, but at the moment he was in no rush. At the moment he was going to enjoy it.

He stopped at the little stone bridge crossing Oldfield Creek and stared downstream, seeing rounded mounds of white on the exposed stones in the middle of the water. He often came down here and set leg-holds for mink, raccoon, and muskrat, selling the hides to Henry for a little spending money. But he preferred using snares, which he set in the fields by his house, occasionally catching the ultimate prize: a red fox.

As the creek gurgled along, as the snow continued to fall, now catching on the overhanging sycamore limbs that curled over the water, he wondered if his daddy had ever trapped. He wondered if his love for the hunt was inherited. He thought about that often when he was in the woods, imagining what his dad had been like, fantasizing about how different his life would be if his father hadn’t been killed during a training exercise in the army. His mother had told him she was still pregnant when his father died, at a barracks in South Carolina, never even getting the chance to go overseas and kill some Nazis. She only had one photo, a handsome man in uniform, his face turned to the side in profile. But he felt that he resembled his father, and hoped that when he was grown he’d have the same strong jawline, those same rugged features.

Johnny snapped out of his reverie when he heard the high whine of a pickup approaching. The engine raced and the truck moved fast, coming down the hill and heading toward the bridge, the back end fishtailing. It was an older model, probably a ’50 or ’51, and definitely a Ford, judging by the rounded roof and distinct eyeball headlights.

Johnny had to make a decision and make it fast. The truck now slid from side to side, out of control, the man frantically working his hands over the steering wheel, trying to right the ship. But it wasn’t going to happen. That ship was going to sink.

Johnny hopped onto the stone wall and then leapt, dropping 8 feet before hitting the creek. He landed on his feet, but his momentum carried him forward. He put out his hands, catching himself in the icy water, and avoided falling flat on his face. At the same instant his hands hit, a terrific crash sounded above him. Johnny looked back, arching his midsection over the water to stay dry, and saw metal colliding with stone, then a horrible scraping as sparks showered over the bridge. Finally there was a deadening thud as the truck careened across the road and slammed into the trunk of a fat oak.

Johnny’s boots sucked up the shallow creek water before he stepped out and climbed the gentle embankment toward the road. Steam hissed from the front of the truck, and the snow, which was hammering down now, disappeared as it hit the hot steel of the crumpled hood. The two tires on the driver’s side were flat and shredded.

The driver’s window was clouded over with fog, preventing Johnny from seeing inside. He looked around, hoping someone would magically appear who could help him. Could tell him what to do. But all he saw in either direction was a column of peaceful hemlocks, holding soft pillows of snow as they lined the road. Johnny grabbed the handle and pulled, but the door, dented and now showing streaks of silver in the red paint, was stuck. He tugged harder, throwing his weight into it, and the door opened awkwardly, sending off a horrendous squeak and pop through the otherwise silent afternoon.

Inside, the man sat slumped over the bent steering wheel, the top of it nearly touching the dashboard, almost as if it had melted. The windshield was fractured like pond ice, the epicenter containing pieces of hair and skin and blood. Johnny had never seen a dead person before, and though he was scared, he was also surprisingly calm. He grabbed at the wool collar of the man’s red-checked hunting jacket, pulling him back so he could sit properly. His head lolled, as if he had no neck muscles, finally resting against the cold rear window, his bloody chin pointing toward the roof.

Johnny hadn’t recognized the truck as one he’d seen around town before, nor did he recognize the man. But he didn’t figure anyone, not even a best friend or a wife, would have recognized him right then. His smashed nose had shifted to the left. A large piece of skin was absent from his forehead, presumably clinging to the windshield, and mashed wire from his glasses had wedged into his cheeks, though somehow the lenses had stayed intact. His entire face, from forehead to chin, was sopping with blood, and a pool of it stained the thighs of his dungarees.

But he was still breathing. At first Johnny thought for sure the man had to be dead, but then he heard a slow gurgling, similar to Oldfield Creek rolling over the rocks.

“Mister, can you hear me? Mister, you okay?”

There was no response, and Johnny hadn’t expected one. He wasn’t sure what to do but figured since he was about halfway between home and Henry’s, the smartest thing would be to go on to the store. His mother didn’t have a telephone, but Henry did, and he could call the police once he got there. Except just as Johnny was about to leave, he looked across the man’s lap and saw something lying on the passenger’s side floorboard. It was a beige gunnysack, and spilling from the top, where the drawstring had loosened, were gobs of twenty-dollar bills, fanned out like tail feathers.

He closed the door and ran around to the other side, where the passenger door opened easily. As quickly as he could, without forethought of repercussions, he snatched the gunnysack and stuffed it inside his rucksack. He also found a pistol, which he grabbed before thinking properly. As he was about to close the door the man said, “I see you, boy.” The voice was strained, weak, gravelly. But he heard it all the same.

Johnny slammed the door, ran to the bridge, and tossed the pistol as far as he could downstream. Then he took off for home, shuffling through the snow-now boot-high and rising fast-practicing the words he’d tell his mother once he arrived. “Henry’s was already closed, Ma. I’m sorry. I know I messed up.”

That evening, once he was sure his mother had gone to sleep, he pulled the bag from the back corner of his closet, where he’d hidden it beneath empty shoe boxes and a mound of dusty quilts. He dumped the cash onto his bed and began stacking the crisp twenties into piles of ten. When he’d finished, he couldn’t believe the tally. He counted it again, and then again, before he uttered the amount aloud. “Four thousand eight hundred dollars.”

Johnny didn’t sleep well, tossing and turning, wondering about the man. Wondering if he was still alive. Most importantly, wondering if he-Johnny-would get caught for what he’d done.

The next morning, when there was a pounding on the front door, his heart screamed. He scrambled out of bed, slapped on clothes in a mad dash, and tried to beat his mother to the door, not at all sure what he’d do once he got there. Especially if it was the man.

But it wasn’t the man. Instead, standing on the front porch was the local sheriff, dressed in a heavy coat and Mountie hat. “Hey, son,” said the sheriff. “Your mama at home?”

“Yes, sir,” he said, his heart screaming louder still, his cheeks flushing as he turned to yell for her. But she was already there, directly behind him, wiping her wet hands on the bottom of an apron, her hair pulled up tightly in a bun. One of the cats walked a series of figure eights through her legs, arching its back as it brushed the hem of her dress.

“Hey, Bryson,” said his mother. “What brings you here in such pretty weather?”

“Patricia,” said the sheriff, pinching the edge of his hat and nodding. “Was wondering if I might talk to you for a minute.”

“Come on in. Get out of the cold. You want some coffee?”

“No, I’m okay.” He stamped his boots on the porch boards, knocking out clods of frozen snow.

Johnny looked out at the front yard before closing the door behind the sheriff. The morning was overcast, but the snow had stopped. He figured there was about a foot and a half on the ground; his tracks should have easily been covered. At least he hoped so.

The sheriff followed Patricia into the kitchen, where she pulled out a chair for him at the table. He took it while she grabbed the hot kettle from the stove. Johnny sat down at the far end, staring at the hulking figure of the sheriff. All he could think about was the load of money in his room, second-guessing whether he’d put it back in the closet or left it sitting out.

She poured two cups of coffee, despite the sheriff’s refusal, and set one in front of him. He warmed his hands around the mug before taking a sip.

“Johnny, you need to go get your chores started,” said Patricia as she sat down. “Sheriff needs to talk to me.”

Before Johnny could rise, the sheriff said, “Actually, he ought to stay. He needs to hear this too.”

Johnny’s cheeks flushed; his breathing went short, figuring the sheriff must know everything. Figured he’d found the man, the man told him that some boy had stolen his money, and the sheriff followed the tracks right to the front door.

“Last night one of my deputies located a truck right by the bridge at Oldfield Creek. Crashed into a tree. Thing was torn up pretty good. Looks like the fella lost control coming down the hill. Not sure how long it’d been there, but the tire tracks were already covered by the time my man arrived.”

Johnny discreetly exhaled.

“The driver okay?” asked Patricia, a look of mild interest on her face, but not overly so. Instead her expression seemed to say, So why are you telling me this?

“I don’t know if he’s okay or not. He wasn’t in the truck. There were some faint boot prints in the snow, but they’d pretty much filled up already by the time I arrived. And a fair amount of blood. Looks like he went to the creek and cleaned himself up before he took off to wherever he was going. But here’s the thing. The truck was stolen. It was used as the getaway vehicle in a robbery yesterday. The guy knocked off the bank over in Floyd. Got away with nearly five thousand dollars.”

Patricia took a sip of her coffee, her eyes showing a little more interest. “And you think he might’ve come here?”

“I don’t think so. I scouted around your place before I knocked. I didn’t see any sign. But he’s around here somewhere. We’re trying to get some dogs from over in Christiansburg, but with the snow, everything’s at a standstill. I just wanted to let you know. Make you aware. He’s got a pistol. Used it to rob the bank. You got a gun, don’t you? And a vehicle?”

Patricia glanced over at Johnny, suddenly showing more concern. “The alternator’s gone bad on the car. Haven’t had the money to fix it. We’ve got a shotgun.”

“What about a phone?”

“No, no phone,” she said, shaking her head. “You got any idea who you’re looking for? A description or something thereabouts?”

The sheriff hesitated, took a sip of his coffee, then scratched his nails across the grooves in the table, trying to buy some time. “Well, here’s the other thing, Patricia,” he said, talking to the table instead of her. “We’ve got a pretty good notion that the fella, the fella we’re looking for, is Martin.”

And with that, for the first time, Johnny saw a look of true fear cover his mother’s face. Her eyes widened. Her jaw went slack. Johnny reacted the same way because he recognized the name, though suddenly nothing made any sense to him.

“What… what do you mean?” she said.

“That’s the real reason I’m here,” said the sheriff, finally making eye contact. “Considering the truck is less than a mile away, we think he was probably coming here, looking for a place to hide. You probably didn’t know, but for the past five years he’s been locked up at Petersburg. For another robbery.”

Patricia barely nodded. She said, almost a whisper now, “I heard something about it.”

“Well, two days ago he escaped. Warden called and alerted us.”

“Bryson, I haven’t seen that man in nearly fifteen years.” Her voice was suddenly sharp. Angry. “Why would he come here? If he does, I’ll blast him to kingdom come. I swear to God I will.”

“I know you will. I’m not accusing you.”

“You can search the entire house if you don’t believe me. I wouldn’t put him up for nothing.”

“Patricia,” said the sheriff, showing both restraint and calm, “I’m only here to warn you. You two need to be on your guard. We’re going to run patrols, get a search party going. But again, with this snow, it’s going to take time. From the looks of the accident and the blood we saw, he couldn’t have made it too far. He’s probably banged up pretty good. Could’ve frozen to death last night for all I know.”

“That man’s tougher than a pine knot. You know that, Bryson. He eats barbed-wire pie for breakfast and smiles while chewing it. If he’s got a pile of money to keep him warm, he’s not about to just crawl up and die.”

“Soon as we catch him, you’ll be the first to know. In the meantime, keep that shotgun handy.”

Patricia walked the sheriff to the door while Johnny remained at the table. He had so many questions. So many thoughts. What’s going on? Who’s Martin? That was my daddy’s name.

Patricia sat back down at the kitchen table after showing the sheriff out. She grabbed her coffee cup and raised it to her lips but couldn’t steady her hands enough to take a sip. “Johnny, baby, we need to have a little talk. There’s something I have to tell you.”

His father, as it turned out, hadn’t been killed in the army after all. Instead he’d been a cheating, lying scoundrel who’d left Patricia once he learned he’d swollen her belly. Disappeared, leaving her with nothing.

“And the picture of the soldier?” Johnny had asked. “Who was that?”

Patricia had tears in her eyes, her face filled with anguish. But also with relief, it seemed to Johnny. Her secret was a secret no more. “That was my brother. Your Uncle Bruno. He was the one killed in South Carolina.”

Johnny hadn’t known what to do with himself. He’d go to his room, check on the money, then wrap his mind around everything he’d learned. He decided that if his mother wanted to keep secrets from him, then he had a four-thousand-dollar secret he’d keep from her. But after stewing for a while, he’d become restless and unsatisfied, thinking of new questions, so he’d go back and grill his mother for more answers. By late afternoon they were both exhausted. Emotionally drained.

“Those chickens have got to be fed,” his mother said as dusk settled in. “In fact, why don’t you kill one and I’ll make us a hot soup. They aren’t laying for squat right now anyway. We could use a good meal.”

“Okay,” said Johnny, thinking that getting outside might do him some good.

“Take the gun with you.”

“I’m only going to the coop. It’ll take five minutes, tops.”

“Take the gun,” she repeated, and he knew enough not to argue.

With the shotgun slung over his shoulder, Johnny sloughed through the high snow until he entered the chicken coop behind the house. He let his eyes adjust, then scanned the shack before setting the gun down. He removed the lid of the feed barrel and tossed a few handfuls of grain out the door and into the fenced-in area where the chickens normally fed. The kibble sprinkled the snow like candies on cake frosting, and Johnny laughed for the first time that day as the chickens scrambled out the door, trying not to sink in the snow, flapping their wings furiously as they pecked at the grains.

For the next twenty minutes he kept himself occupied by sporadically tossing out handfuls, having a little fun with the chickens. He was in the process of sweeping the coop, his mind still abuzz with the events of yesterday, when he heard a commotion. Pots and pans clattered together, and at first he thought his mother had had an accident, probably dropping the soup pot on the floor. But then he heard her yell. Yell for him. And then a man’s voice. An angry, agitated man’s voice.

Johnny grabbed the twenty-gauge and ran toward the kitchen. When he entered, the man he’d seen the day before, his own father, stood near the stove, a knife in hand. His mother was backed into the corner by the cupboard, shivering as if cold, gripping a cast-iron skillet.

The man turned to face Johnny, looking better than the day before but still a complete mess. He’d fixed his glasses the best that he could manage, but they were bent and hung askew from the bridge of his mashed nose. The wide gash on his forehead was pink and raw but no longer bleeding, his clothes stained with crusty dried blood.

“Listen, boy, I just want my money. Tell me where it is and I’ll leave you both alone.” His voice was stronger than the day before, but rough, like he smoked cigars. His face hard, his eyes harder. He glanced at the barrel of the shotgun pointing at his chest but didn’t seem concerned. He’d strategically positioned himself in front of Patricia, so that if Johnny pulled the trigger, she’d also be hit by the birdshot spray. Because of the skillet, which she wielded like a baseball bat, he couldn’t grab her, but again he didn’t seem concerned.

“He doesn’t have your god-blessed money, Martin,” she yelled, the tendons in her neck straining like taut piano wire.

“Yes, he does,” he said calmly. He seemed to know that he was going to get his money back, regardless. It was only a matter of how much blood he’d have to shed before he got it. He shifted his eyes back and forth between Johnny and Patricia, squeezing the hilt of the knife. “I saw him when he stole it from my truck. Didn’t even bother to help me, Patty. Just took the money and ran. But I recognized him right off. Had blood running down my face, dripping in my eyes, but even still, saw right off he was the spitting image of his mama.”

Martin took a slow step away from Patricia and shuffled, with a subtle limp, a bit closer to Johnny. Johnny took a step back at the same time, performing some sort of awkward dance ritual, keeping the gun trained at Martin’s chest.

“You saw the wrong boy,” said Patricia, almost pleading. “Johnny was here with me all day yesterday. He doesn’t have your money.”

“Tell her, boy. Johnny, is it? Tell her how you took my sack of money,” he said, smiling a little as he limped a step closer. “Tell her, son.”

“It wasn’t me,” said Johnny. He wondered if Martin could see the end of the shotgun quivering. “I didn’t take your money.”

“Oh, but you did. You took it, and I want it back. Show me where it is, and I’ll even give you some. A little reward. Put the gun down and lead me to it. Then I’ll be gone.”

“I didn’t take it.”

Martin took another step forward, now only a few feet from the tip of the barrel, his head on a swivel as he kept a bead on both Patricia and Johnny. “You wouldn’t shoot your old man, now would you? Your dear old daddy?”

Quicker than Johnny thought possible, especially for a man in Martin’s condition, he snatched for the end of the barrel like a striking snake. And then Johnny felt his own shoulder blades slam into the wall. The pleasant smell of cordite clouded the kitchen, and Johnny’s ears rang from the explosion going off in such close quarters.

Martin lay curled in a ball on the slats of the pine floor, blood seeping into the cracks and meandering in different directions like raindrops dancing on a windshield. A couple of cats scurried away, taking cover. Patricia ran from her corner, the frying pan gripped in both hands above her head, and brought it down with all her weight on Martin’s left ear. For good measure. It landed with a dull, solid thud but hadn’t been necessary. It only caused the inevitable to happen a little quicker.

Johnny stood against the wall, the gun still pointed at his father, his shoulder aching from the kickback.

“You just killed your daddy, Johnny.” She didn’t say it in accusatory fashion. She didn’t say it happily either. Just matter-of-fact.

“I’m sorry, Ma. I thought he was going to hurt you. Hurt me.”

“That son of a bitch has been dead to me for years, baby.” She kneeled over the body and surveyed it but still held the handle of the skillet at the ready. When she was satisfied, she looked up. “Now where’d you hide that money?”

Johnny hesitated, still holding the gun, now realizing it was pointed at his mother as much as it was at Martin.

“You’re not in trouble,” she said, her voice soothing. Calming. The same way she purred to the cats. “Just tell me.”

He hesitated again. “It’s in my room. In my closet.”

“Good,” said Patricia, nodding and smiling almost imperceptibly as she stood up and set the skillet on the stove. “Now let’s find a better hiding spot. Then we’ll figure out what we’re going to do with him.”

Len had been a young teenager when the huge snowstorm hit McPeak Mountain shortly before Christmas. One morning, a day or two after the storm, he was told by his father that he needed to go cut down a Christmas tree for the family. Being the oldest of the three children and the only boy, he obliged and was thrilled to do so. It was his first time going out on his own with such an important job, and it made him feel like his father recognized that he was becoming a man. He relished that feeling, proud of the responsibility, and he didn’t want to disappoint.

So he bundled himself up, took an apple-butter sandwich his mother had made, and along with a canteen and an oiled crosscut saw he procured from the horse barn, he set off slogging through the deep snow. The sun was out, the sky a deep blue, telling Len that the front had indeed passed.

Len knew exactly where he was going. He often spent time in the woods, sometimes hunting, more often just hiking to see what he could see. But he knew that if he crossed the pasture behind the farm and then climbed the formidable wooded hill, there was a nice stand of white pine running along the ridgeline. The ridge that marked the end of his property line. The ridge that separated the land he lived on from several other families that were sparsely located in that little section of Pleasant Grove. Right on the other side of the ridge, and nestled down at the foot of McPeak Mountain, almost a direct shot as the crow flies, was another small farmhouse, where a mother and her son lived, the father having run off years ago.

By the time Len made it to the top of the ridge he’d already unbuttoned his jacket and let it flap open at his hips. He’d removed his watchman’s cap and stuffed it into his back pocket as sweat trickled along his neck. He took a drink of water and then decided that he’d explore a little before he cut the tree down. It was going to be an all-day affair, what with the depth of the snow and having to drag the tree nearly a mile back to home, so he had no reason to rush. Besides, the longer he was gone, the more chores his sisters would have to do for him. Len was no fool.

There was an old, abandoned woodcutter’s cabin that he frequented from time to time when he was out in the woods. A place he and his sisters would sometimes play. A place that Len thought of as his own. The foundation was made of granite, with a fireplace made from similar stone, while the structure itself had been built with roughly hewn poplar logs sometime around the turn of the century. When his sisters weren’t around, Len still enjoyed going there by himself, mainly because he’d stashed a pile of girly magazines beneath some rotted floorboards. And they weren’t just standard run-of-the-mill magazines, where women might be scantily clad but certainly didn’t show any nipples. No, these were underground magazines, because they showed women in all their glory. And not only women, but men too. Men who were doing unspeakable things to these women. Things that Len and his school buddies had often talked about when they were far away from the ears of adults, but certainly not things that he’d ever seen or been a part of.

So that’s where he was headed. It was an easy walk of about a half mile along the ridgeline. At least it was easy when there wasn’t high snow to slog through. But a boy’s urges are strong at that age, and an extra half mile of trudging through snow was a small price to pay.

He’d made it about halfway there, keeping his eyes down and following a set of deer tracks, when he heard something at the bottom of the slope. The slope that fell away from his house. Len had spent enough time in the forest to know the difference between the natural sounds of the woods and those that were manmade. And this sound was definitely human. He couldn’t discern it exactly, but whatever it was, there was the distinct sound of metal occasionally glancing against something hard. Maybe it was another piece of metal, or rock perhaps. Regardless, Len knew it was a sound that wasn’t supposed to be there, and it disappointed him because it might disrupt his plans.

With every step he took, the sound seemed to get louder. A rhythmic sound that kept an almost perfect cadence. Len slowed and walked as quietly as he could. Before long, by keeping his eyes trained down the mountainside, he was finally able to locate the noise. At the base of the hill, smack in the middle of the forest, were two figures. One was a hunched-over woman wrapped in a shawl, and the other was a thin young man, about the same size as Len, standing by her side as she worked at a bare patch of ground, dropping mounds of dirt onto the otherwise white blanket of the woods. The sound was slightly delayed as it carried up the hillside, but Len saw that the woman was diligently digging a hole. After a few more shovelfuls, she passed the handle off to the boy, and he took over.

Len stopped and kneeled in the snow, hiding behind the large trunk of a pine. He was thrilled and exhilarated, and it took no time before the cabin and magazines no longer mattered, because once he settled in, he realized that there was a third figure among the other two. But this third figure was slightly off to the side, lying in the snow, motionless and, from what Len could tell, facedown. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what was going on down there. And of course Len knew exactly who the people were. At least, at that time he knew who the two people still alive were. It would take another week of reading the newspapers and asking innocent questions of his parents about what had ever happened to Johnny’s father, over on the other side of the hill, before Len put it all together.

But at that moment he was mesmerized. A dead body. Two people, a mother and son, obviously trying to get rid of that body. Judging by the trough in the snow that ended at the man’s feet, the trough that wound through the trees and back toward Johnny’s farmhouse, the man certainly hadn’t walked into those woods on his own. It wasn’t like Johnny and his mother had found the man lying there while out looking for their own Christmas tree. No, he’d been dragged, and whatever they were up to, it was sinister.

Len watched the rest of the process with that same exhilaration. The pair struggled mightily to pull the body toward the hole, each grabbing an arm as if it were a heavy piece of furniture with no good holds, and finally rolled him into the rectangle they’d excavated. They both collapsed next to the grave once they’d dropped him in, not out of any grief, it seemed, but simply out of pure exhaustion. There was no telling how long they’d been working, but considering they’d dragged him through the snow a good half mile from the farmhouse-assuming that’s where he’d died-then dug a deep hole in frozen ground, it was no surprise they were worn out.

They rested for only a few minutes, each of them taking snow and stuffing it into their mouths like handfuls of popcorn at the picture house. Len couldn’t discern their words as they talked, but he imagined the conversation. Before too long they slowly got up and labored at refilling the hole. When they were close to finished, Johnny reached down and grabbed something about the size of a large cigar box. He opened the lid, took a peek inside, then carefully placed the box in the grave. He and his mother finished filling in the hole, then covered it with soggy leaves before finally tossing snow over top and smoothing it out as best they could. As if frosting a cake.

If Len hadn’t witnessed it with his own eyes, he’d have never noticed the area looking strange or out of the ordinary, except maybe the trough of snow that snaked through the trees. But a little wind or another snowfall would take care of that in no time. No, all things considered, Len thought they’d covered their tracks pretty well.

He waited until they’d both walked away and headed home before he left his perch behind the tree. He immediately dashed to cut a Christmas tree as quickly as he could. He’d learned early on that being privy to other people’s secrets could work to his advantage. He’d used the method repeatedly when he had dirt on his sisters. Dirt that they didn’t want their parents to know. So he could never be too sure when he might be able to use Johnny’s secret, but he knew he’d keep his mouth shut. Having a secret as big as this one, he felt sure, was something he could certainly use someday. Not to mention, as soon as he felt it was safe, he planned on finding out what was in that buried box.

That winter had been an especially brutal one for Johnny and his mother. It seemed that every time the snow had almost melted away, another storm would dump another foot. Which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. With every storm, the fresh snow helped hide the secret.

Before they’d buried Martin, along with the money, Johnny’s mother had decided to keep four hundred dollars, which they could use for expenses-unpaid bills, groceries, getting the car fixed. They had no idea if the money had been marked by the bank, but by using a twenty here or there down at Henry’s General Store, they didn’t figure they were in much jeopardy of getting caught. The sheriff had stopped by a couple of times-the first time only three days after Johnny had shot his father-to inform them that they hadn’t been able to locate Martin. He said he imagined Martin had probably either frozen to death or bled to death (or a combination of both) and his body would most likely be found in the spring melt.

By mid-March the snow had indeed disappeared, but his mother advised that they leave the money where it was for the time being. They were in no need at the moment, and the longer they let things settle, the safer they’d be. But that all changed after the engine on the recently repaired car seized in late April. It had to be towed down the mountain to a mechanic in Floyd, who informed Patricia that the car was ruined and beyond repair. Since she had to have a car to get to and from work, the solution was obvious.

“You need to go out there and dig the box up,” she informed him after he’d gotten home from school. “I think we’re safe now anyway. Besides, I’d rather have it hidden in the house than all the way out there in the middle of the woods. Or maybe we could stash it under the chicken coop. Doesn’t matter. We’ll figure that out. What’s important is that we have it nearby.”

He grabbed a shovel from the shed, slung it over his shoulder like a hobo with a bindle, and set out through the woods. It was a perfect spring day, warm with blue skies and a bit of a breeze rustling the tops of the mostly leafless trees. The poplar leaves were as big as squirrels’ ears, and the oaks had already formed their pollen-filled strings, reminding Johnny of pipe cleaners, which drifted to the ground when the wind gusted. Johnny enjoyed the walk, loving the woods as they came back to life after the winter. He even loved the mud and muck of a bog he had to tramp through to get to his father’s burial site. The beginnings of skunk cabbage had sprouted, their little green heads starting to poke through the mud, and Johnny stamped on every one he saw, sending off a strong, pungent odor.

When he made it to a dumping ground where old-timers had tossed their steel beer cans, brown medicine bottles, and rusted appliances, Johnny took a left and headed toward the foot of the hill. He’d always been fascinated with the dumping ground, wondering who had put all that garbage there. There were no houses around, other than an abandoned cabin on the ridge, so he’d never been able to figure out why anyone would have chosen that place to dump their trash. Regardless, as a younger boy he’d enjoyed rummaging around the dump site, imagining in his boyhood fantasies that he might discover some sort of hidden treasure.

But today, as he left the dump behind, he was in search of an actual hidden treasure. He was excited to uncover the iron lockbox, open it, and run his fingers all over that beautiful cash. The cash that would buy him some decent clothes so he wouldn’t get made fun of at school every day. The cash that would enable him to purchase candy bars and maybe even the occasional T-bone steak. The cash that would send him to Virginia Polytechnic Institute and get him out of the poor, depressed confines of Pleasant Grove. Confines that offered no sort of future. In short, the cash that would insure that he and his mother would escape poverty once and for all.

So he was excited to dig up the money, get back home, and count it. Over and over. Just sit there and stack each and every bill into little piles, the same as he’d done that day on his bed. The events of those few days, of the truck crashing, of him taking the money, of finding out the man’s identity, of then blowing the guts out of that same man, his father, of dragging him through the snow and burying him in a makeshift grave, all of those events had haunted him. But it had gotten better with every passing week. The memories weren’t quite as sharp, the guilt subsided, and there was always that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. That’s what really made it easier to deal with. That, and knowing that his father would have most likely killed him and his mother if he hadn’t pulled the trigger. That’s certainly the way his mother had rationalized it to him on those cold nights when they’d huddled around the woodstove and the subject had come up. They’d talked about it often for the first few weeks, until finally his mother had laid down an ultimatum, saying it was time to move forward. What was done was done and they had to try to forget about it. To be thankful that Johnny’s sorry excuse for a father had at least been able to provide them with something before he died, especially considering that for the past fourteen years he’d never given them as much as a penny.

But as he neared the spot where he’d buried both his father and the money, his excitement turned to dread. The idea of being alone in the woods with the body of his dead father didn’t seem so appealing. Yes, the day was beautiful, but deep in the woods it was almost impossible to see the sky. And every time the wind blew and the tree limbs slapped against one another, eerily clicking and clacking, he shuddered. Because of the wind, he realized he couldn’t tell if other people might be shuffling around in the woods. Might be hiding, waiting to jump him and steal the money.

And even worse was the realization that he was about to dig up a grave. His father’s grave. Yes, the iron box was right on top and he shouldn’t come close to the decaying corpse, but what if the ground had shifted? What if the box had sunk during the snowmelt, when the soil had gotten soft and saturated? What if he glimpsed his father’s dead face, the flesh rotting and peeling from the skull? What if there really was such a thing as ghosts?

At the foot of a steep hill, Johnny located the area where he and his mother had dug. He’d always been good in the woods, knew how to remember landmarks, and in this instance the landmark was a maple with a forked trunk. When he’d originally picked the spot, he’d stood with his back to the tree before walking six paces. Then he’d started digging.

But he didn’t have to recount his paces this time because, much to his surprise, the dirt still looked relatively fresh. Dead, windblown leaves had covered the area, but if someone who was really an expert in the woods-like the sheriff, for example-had seen the partially exposed patch, they would have easily recognized that it wasn’t natural. That something was off. Which bothered him. If the sheriff decided to get a search party together sometime soon, the grave might be detected.

These new thoughts, of getting caught, suddenly superseded his previous ideas about ghosts and rotting flesh, so he immediately stuck his shovel into the earth, amazed by how soft it was. How easy the digging was. He’d only been working for five minutes when he felt and heard the steel of his shovel clink against the lockbox. And what a beautiful sound it was. It was the sound of a cash register sliding open, offering up its riches.

Johnny dug around the perimeter of the box, then got on his knees, grabbed the edges, and shifted it back and forth as he loosed it from the rich, dark soil. He brushed away the dirt, then unstuck muddy clumps and clods attached to the hinges. When it was nearly clean, he blew across the top as if extinguishing a candle, removing the last tiny particles. He then lifted the clasp.

And that’s when, as he raised the lid, he would have much rather seen ghosts and goblins and wicked spirits rise from the ground than what he saw instead. He would have rather smelled his father’s decaying flesh, would have rather had witches creep from behind the trees and boil him in water. Because the box was empty. The cash, all of those crisp twenty-dollar bills, was gone. What he saw instead was a vacuum of empty space. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Johnny rapidly closed the box, then opened it again as if prying apart an oyster shell, hoping that he’d been mistaken and this time he’d find the pearl. But there was no pearl. He immediately tossed the box to the side and began digging around in the dirt with his hands. His fingers worked through the soil, spraying the surrounding dead leaves as he pawed at the ground like a dog after a bone. Maybe, he thought, somehow the money had fallen out when he’d dropped it in the hole. Maybe the money hadn’t been in the box to begin with, though he was positive it had been. He remembered taking one last glance before carefully setting the box in place. He searched all around, digging deeper and deeper, not even caring if he ran into the remains of his father. He frantically slung dirt out of the hole, ripping earthworms in half, scratching his fingers against small stones until they bled. But it was no use. The money was gone.

He almost vomited as he dejectedly filled in the hole as best he could. But his effort was halfhearted. He knew he had to make the scene look perfect. Knew he couldn’t afford to be lazy, but he simply didn’t care. At that moment prison sounded like as good a place as any to spend the rest of his days. When he’d finished sprinkling the area with clumps of dead leaves, he grabbed the box and shovel and turned to go, his mind racing with various scenarios. But there was only one answer, and rage and anger grew as the idea became more and more of a reality. There was only one possibility. Only one person could have known about the money. Only one person could have taken it.

He gripped the handle of the shovel tightly as he stormed off back toward the house, feeling the weight of the spade as it hung over his shoulder behind him. It would make as good a weapon as any. And if his mother didn’t ’fess up immediately, he decided, he might just bring the edge of that heavy blade down and across her neck. Because she’d betrayed him. He knew it for a fact. As the demons swirled in his brain, they convinced him that his mother had double-crossed him. They also convinced him that he’d be a fool if he let her get away with it.