Joe Lansdale - Waltz of Shadows

“It’s all right,” Bev said.

“You can bet pretty pronto quick Billy was ready to do what they wanted. They had him write a note. Then they took his belt, used my hammer and a nail they found somewhere, nailed the belt up, noosed it around his neck, made him stand on a chair while they asked him questions. They didn’t get what they wanted fast enough, Snake jerked the chair out from under him and let him dangle. I kept thinking that goddamn belt would tear leather, but it didn’t. It held. After Billy thrashed a bit, Snake would put the chair under him and Billy’d talk. He talked about you and me and himself and what we knew. I don’t blame him.”

“Me either,” I said.

“He held some things back. He did the best he could. I sat there on the floor with Fat Boy’s. 45 in my ear trying to loosen the ties on my wrist without looking obvious while they hanged little Billy. I got strong hands and wrists. I figured I’d eventually get loose, but I didn’t know if I’d do it in time, and if I did do it, I didn’t know it would matter. Certainly didn’t matter for Billy. Snake pulled on Billy’s legs and rushed things along at the end. Not out of mercy. They were in a hurry.”

“ Mothra, ” Bev said.

“What?” Arnold said.

“We’ll explain later,” I said.

“Wasn’t a goddamn thing I could do,” Arnold said. “I felt like a piece of shit. The biggest coward ever walked the earth. I’ve always considered myself brave, but I didn’t do anything.”

“Join the club,” I said.

Arnold looked at me and nodded slowly. He could see by my face that I had indeed been there.

“Fat Boy had him a box of photographs and he took the pictures out and showed them to me while Billy was tortured. Like I’d be interested. Stuff with little kids having sex with adults or dogs. Lot of it had devil worship crap in it. You know, masks and knives and goofy outfits. Where does a man get stuff like that, and why would he want it?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“You know what the photographs were about?” Virgil asked.

“I got an idea,” Arnold said.

Virgil got the newspapers and gave them to Arnold. Arnold read while we waited. He cussed throughout the reading. When he finished, he slammed the newspaper down.

“That’s kinda what I had figured,” Arnold said. “They’ve got us sewed up tight, don’t they?”

“Any tighter and we’d have our balls in our mouth,” I said.

“I figured it was all over,” Arnold said. “But they got too confident. They wanted me to go into my bedroom. I realized that wasn’t going to be a lot of fun. I mean, I didn’t think they were just gonna tuck me in and read me a story. I figure they were planning on killing me in there, make it look like Billy done it before he killed himself. You know, snuck up on me in my sleep and stabbed me about forty-lebbin times.

“They told me it was Billy they wanted, and if I’d cooperate, they’d tie me up in the bedroom and leave me. I acted like I believed that horseshit, made a big deal about how that was okay with me, but I couldn’t go anywhere with my pants down and my ankles tied. They said they’d pull me up and I could hop, or they could drag me, and I said that was okay, but it’d be easier if I had my pants up and I could walk.

“Fat Boy thought he was gonna get a free ride out of me, no difficulty. He told Snake to cut my ankles free, then they yanked me up and Fat Boy pulled my pants up and fastened them. Just as he was finishing, I brought my knee up and hit him inside his thigh, and he went down. I jumped Snake. Did one of those wrestler kicks Daddy used to like to see them boys do on TV, you know, with both feet. I hit Snake in the chest and knocked him against the wall, rolled to my feet. The door wasn’t closed up tight, so I kicked it open and ran outside. Went through the carport and fell over the body of my dog. I was starting to get up when Snake showed.

“All this time I’d been tugging at getting my hands free, and they came loose. I grabbed one of my rod and reels off the wall and slapped it at him. He brought his hands up and blocked the rodocked th, but dropped the knife. I made a run for it out the back of the carport and Snake came after me. Fat Boy had appeared on the scene, because I heard Snake yell at him not to shoot me cause I was his and he was gonna skin me.

“I heard Snake coming after me. I still had the rod. I turned and cast the line and hit Snake in the face with a hook and jerked back on the line hard enough to pull his feet out from under him. I let go of the rod and ran and Fat Boy decided he didn’t care what Snake wanted. He fired a couple of shots at me. I don’t think they were even close. I looked back once and seen Snake coming again, Fat Boy waddling behind him, blowing like a bull, and finally giving it up to put his hands on his knees and breathe. Then I wasn’t looking anymore and was over the creek and Snake never did catch up with me. I bellied down in the grass on the far side of the pond and gradually drifted back into the woods. I heard Snake stomping around out there, and I thought about trying to take him, but I wasn’t sure Fat Boy wouldn’t show up. I can wrestle a nut, but a. 45 I prefer not to tangle with.

“After a little while I quit hearing Snake, and a couple hours later I eased out of my hiding place and went back toward my trailer. I stopped by the barn and found they’d slashed the wrecker’s tires. I couldn’t make myself go back up to the trailer because I figured they might be waiting.

“I walked back through the woods and worked my way over a couple miles to old man Crater’s place and hot wired and stole his truck. I felt bad taking it, but I was in a tough position and had to do something. I didn’t want to ask him for it, because I didn’t want to pull him into things. So I crept around in his yard like a common thief and stole it.”

Arnold turned his attention to me, “I figured you were in trouble, so I drove over to your place, only there wasn’t any place. I could see smoke from the road. I parked up a ways, walked along the edge of the creek on your neighbor’s side and took a look. I could see fire trucks and a couple of cop cars and what was left of the house. The firemen might as well have brought along a crate of Jiffy Pop and a book of camp songs.

“Bubba, I thought y’all were done for, so I went back to the truck and started out here but ran out of gas a few miles back. I pushed the truck off the road and hid out in the woods today and slept best I could with it wet as it was, then worked my way over here when it was night. I figured I got here I could rest enough to organize my thoughts, and that’s when Virgil came down to the water with the pan. I don’t know what I was thinking, but I went for him, and you know the rest.”

I caught Arnold up on what happened to my family and what Virgil had told us. I told about what they did to me, and almost did to the kids, but I didn’t quite tell it all. When I didn’t, Bev told him about the rape. She said she wasn’t going to hold anything back. She told it straight and calm, as if it didn’t matter.

When she finished, Arnold said: “All I got to say is what they say in Zen. ‘When someone violates you, you back off, find your center, and make sure that cocksucker has drank his last Coca-Cola.’ ”

“That doesn’t sound like Zen to me,” I said.

“I’m paraphrasing,” Arnold said. “But the essence is, I think the law isn’t the answer here. It’s the law that’s burying us. Inch by goddamn inch.”

“The law is the only way out,” Virgil said.

“No offense, Virgil, but my faith in the law ain’t so big right now,” Arnold said.

“I’m not a purist,” Virgil said. “But there might be a way to make the law work for us.”