Jeff Abbott: Promises of Home

“Nola. Where are the boys?”

She pointed at my rifle. “You answer me first. What’s that for?”

“Never mind! Where are Mark and Scott? ”

She pointed over her shoulder. “They wanted to go down by the creek… down by the graves.”

I bolted past her, shoving her out of my way, and dashed into the dark night.

Cloying mud pulled at my boot heels as I ran from the house. “Mark! Mark! Get to the house!” I screamed, hoping he could still hear me.

The clouds scudded over the moon, darkening the night into pitch. The porch light from Hart’s house provided hardly enough illumination to see my own legs as I tore across the gravel road, down the creekside to where two generations of Slocum men lay in eternal slumber, one in murdered sleep. I couldn’t let it happen again.

Branches tore at my face as I ran through the woods down to the creek. I stumbled over a ropy mass of roots, and cussing, skidded into the mud, tumbling head over heels. The rifle flew out of my hands and slid into the darkness. Still yelling Mark’s name, I pulled myself to my feet, trying to spot the rifle. And a bullet exploded into the tree next to me, spraying bark and oak.

I went back down to my knees and scrabbled behind the tree. I could see vague outlines near the graves of Louis and Trey: two, maybe three boys. Who else was there?

“Uncle Jordy!” Mark hollered. “Stay back, stay back! Scott, you asshole, don’t shoot, it’s Uncle Jordy!”

“Scott, listen to me! Listen! You don’t have to do this, let’s talk.”

Scott’s voice, when it came back, was petulant. “I don’t want to talk. Don’t run at me in the dark, you scared me.”

“Sorry,” I called back. Of course I wasn’t, but while Scott Kinnard was blasting away at trees he wasn’t hitting human flesh. “Let’s talk, okay?” Tentatively, I stood and began to walk down toward their voices. Wondering if each step would be met with a bullet. I needed the rifle, but I couldn’t spend minutes searching for it. The night held quiet.

Scott let me within ten feet of him, and as moonlight dimly slid along us as a cloud parted I saw Mark standing over his grandfather’s grave, keeping a trembling Bradley an arm’s length behind him.

“Go away, Jordy.” Scott’s voice was toneless. Not scared-not crazed-and that was more chilling. He sensed his control and he had a child’s smugness. The. 38 in his hand was rock still.

I kept my voice steady and assured. “No, Scott. I won’t go away. If you’re going to kill Mark, you have to kill me, too. And your mom and Hart are up at the house. I don’t think you can make this look like an accident.”

“Kill me?” I heard Mark repeat softly. I couldn’t see his eyes, but the realization charged the air between us. “He wants to kill me?”

“Scott. Listen to me. This won’t work. I know you killed Trey.”

“ What? ” I heard Mark sputter.

“That’s a lie! I loved Trey!” Scott shrieked. He was pointing a gun at me; he’d killed a man, but he still sounded like a child. An angry, temperamental boy who’d lashed out with rage at a wish denied.

“You loved him too much,” I started, hearing Nola and Hart rushing toward us in the undergrowth, Nola calling her son’s name. “You loved him, but he wasn’t going to stay. He wanted to go back to my sister and Mark. And you couldn’t stand that. You couldn’t stand that he was going to be like your mom’s other boyfriends and leave you. So you shot him dead.”

Scott didn’t speak. Mark seemed frozen in horror. Nola, breathless, managed to grab at my arm.

“You’re lying, lying! Scott wouldn’t hurt anyone!”

“Then have him give you the gun,” I said calmly. “And we’ll go back up to the house and talk about it.”

Nola’s fingers tightened on my arm. The moon glimmered from behind a wall of cloud and I could see her weathered face staring at her son in abject shock.

“Scotty, honey, give Mom the gun.” She took a step forward.

“No. Stay back, Mom, please. Go back to the house.”

“Honey-”

“No! Not after I did it for you, for us!” He waved wildly with the . 38 pistol that seemed too big for his hands.

“For us?” Nola repeated, cold shock edging her voice. “Scott, hush up right now! You don’t know what you’re saying!”

“Scott!” Hart’s voice, solid, commanding, the voice that had lectured Trey and me on shooting guns and riding properly. “Stop this foolishness, right now, son. Put that gun down.”

“You shut up!” Scott demanded. He turned entreating eyes back toward his mother. “I had to, Mom, I had to. He didn’t want us no more, he wanted Arlene and”-he moved the gun in a vicious swath toward Mark-“and he wanted you. You. I was the one that was supposed to be his son, not you!” Anger made his voice ragged.

“Baby, please,” Nola entreated. Scott ignored her.

I glanced at Mark, He still seemed transfixed by Scott, like the injured bird gazing steadily at the slithering cobra. He attempted to step back and stumbled into Bradley, who cowered behind him.

“Stay put!” Scott ordered him. “You stay right there.”

“Scott,” I said quietly. He swung the gun back toward me, quick and sure. If only one of us could get at him-I prayed we’d still be able to talk him down.

“You tell me. How did you know?” Scott demanded.

“Why? So you can shoot me, too? You’ll have to shoot us all, Scott, and I don’t think you want to do that. I don’t really think you want to hurt anyone anymore.”

“I will.” His voice broke with tension. “I have and I will. Why don’t you ask that stupid police chief of yours?”

I swallowed. “You were the only one who heard Clevey and Trey argue. You were the only one-besides Hart- that knew they shared any sort of dark secret in their lives before either of them died. And that Saturday morning, you came home early from the basketball court. So when you heard Trey pledge his undying love to my sister, and say he wanted her and Mark back, you decided to kill him. And you decided to make it look like he’d died because of some connection to Clevey. You heard the conversation between him and my sister, but they didn’t know you were in the house-at least my sister didn’t. And when she left, you got Trey’s gun and shot him in the back. Then you painted that 2 DOWN in blood to suggest that Trey’s murder was part of a pattern that started with Clevey’s death. Then you shot Junebug to keep the pattern going. No one would look twice at you that way, although a man you loved as your daddy was about to drop you and your mother.”

“No,” Nola moaned. “No, please, Scotty, no.”

“Mama! I couldn’t let him hurt you anymore.” Scott’s voice broke tearfully. “We were gonna be a family.”

“You decided you’d pretend to be friendly to our family, friendly in particular to Mark. Become his pal, spend time with him. You brought back those photos. You hinted that Trey’d corresponded with my mother, knowing full well that she’s sick now and couldn’t say she had or hadn’t written Trey. But there was no way in hell that she would have been writing Trey in secret. Not my mother. I should have seen through you then, but maybe I wanted to believe that Trey still cared about our family. You wanted us to trust you, like you. So maybe when you got your revenge on Mark, when you killed him or hurt him, it would look like an accident.”

Hart coughed and I glanced at him. “You broke into our house, Hart, looking for those letters. You couldn’t take a chance that Scott was lying. You had to see if there was any written evidence about what Trey had seen between you and his father.” Hart nodded mutely. I turned back and my heart stopped. Scott leveled the pistol directly at Mark’s head. Mark pushed a crying Bradley back and stared at Scott with hate.