James Burke - Feast Day of Fools

He felt his foot pressing on the accelerator. He had never thought so clearly about his life. The thunder rolling through the hills, the smell of the ozone, the cold tannic odor of the rain and dust, the branches of the mesquite and scrub oak bending almost to the ground all seemed like the pages of a book flipping before his eyes, defining the world and his role in it in a way he had never thought possible. Let Temple Dowling and his men do their worst. What was so bad about ending here, inside an electric storm, inside a clap of thunder that was as loud as God slapping His palms together?

Cody had all of these thoughts and was almost free of his fear when he drove into Anton Ling’s yard and his headlights lit up the scene taking place by the windmill. Then he remembered why he had been so afraid.

Two men were holding Anton Ling by her arms. Her bare feet were bloody, her wrists duct-taped behind her. They had just lifted her out of the tank. Four other men stood close by, watching. All of the men were masked and had shifted their attention from Anton Ling to Cody. The only person not staring at him was Anton Ling, whose head hung on her chest, her wet hair wrapped around her cheeks. Cody Daniels braked and stared back at the men staring at him. He felt he had walked into someone else’s nightmare and would not be leaving it any time soon.

He opened the door and stepped out of his vehicle, the engine still running. The ground seemed to shake with thunder, pools of quicksilver rippling through the clouds. “Howdy, fellows,” he said.

No one answered him. Why did they look so surprised? Hadn’t they heard or seen his truck coming? Maybe the sound of the engine had gotten lost in the thunder. Or maybe Temple Dowling’s people had recognized his truck and had already dismissed his presence as insignificant. “It’s me. Cody Daniels. What’s going on?” he said.

“Turn off your engine and lights and get over here,” a tall man said.

“I was just doing like y’all told me. Keeping an eye on the place and all. I don’t think y’all should be doing this to Miss Anton.”

“Did you hear me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then cut your engine and your lights.”

“Yes, sir, I’m on it,” Cody said. He reached back in the cab and turned off the ignition and headlights. He looked at the sky in the east and the wind flattening the trees on the hillcrests and the darkness that seemed to extend to the edges of the earth. “Boy, this has been a frog-stringer, hasn’t it? Where’s Mr. Dowling at?”

“What are you doing here?”

“Motoring around and such.”

“Motoring around?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Take out your wallet and put it on the hood of your vehicle.”

“You don’t know me?”

The tall man approached him. “Don’t make me repeat myself.”

“See, I thought y’all might be the cops I called earlier. I saw the lights on down here, which didn’t seem right, so I did a nine-one-one and figured y’all were with Sheriff Holland. I expect he ought to be showing up any time now.”

“You’re a damn poor liar, boy.”

“I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t call me that.”

“Get on your knees and put your hands behind your head.”

“That woman hasn’t done anything to y’all. Why don’t you leave her alone?”

The tall man drove his fist into Cody’s stomach, burying it to his wrist. Cody doubled over, his breath exploding from his chest, his knees collapsing in the dirt. The tall man shoved him over with his boot, then stepped on the side of his face. “Who are you?”

“A guy who lives up in the cliffs.”

“Who’d you call?”

“Nobody. I didn’t call anybody. You cain’t get service out here.”

“You know a man name of Noie Barnum?” The tall man pushed his boot tighter into the side of Cody’s face.

“I’ve heard of him. I don’t know him.”

“Where did you hear about Barnum?”

“From a man name of Dowling. I thought that’s who y’all were.”

“What did you see here this morning?”

“Nothing,” Cody replied, his mouth mashed against his teeth.

“Sure about that?”

“I know better than to mess with the wrong folks.”

The tall man did not release his foot from Cody’s face. He seemed to be looking at a diminutive man in the background, perhaps waiting for instructions. Cody could feel the lugs and grit on the bottom of the tall man’s boot biting into his cheek and jawbone. He could smell the soiled odor of the man’s foot and sock and the oil that had been rubbed into the boot’s leather. The pressure on Cody’s skull and jaw was unrelenting, as though the tall man were on the edge of cracking Cody’s facial bones apart.

Cody was not seeing the tall man now. He saw two prison-farm gunbulls walking him from the trusty dormitory to the shed with the sawhorse standing under a bare lightbulb. They were both drunk and laughing, as though the three of them were only having fun, not unlike kids putting a friend through a harmless initiation ritual. Maybe at first that was all they had intended to do-just scare him and knock him around for sassing one of them that afternoon, what did they call it, making a Christian out of a hardhead? He knew the reality was otherwise. These were men for whom cruelty was as natural a part of their lives as eating breakfast. Their only task had been to hide their intentions from themselves, to set up the situation, then to simply follow their instincts, not unlike flinging gasoline on a fire and stepping back to watch the results. Cody would never forget the lustful cry of release in the throat of the first gunbull who mounted him. He would also never forgive himself for being their victim, accepting what they did to him as though somehow he had deserved his fate.

“I didn’t see anything here except six men tormenting a he’pless woman,” he said.

There was a pause. “You saw what?” the tall man asked, twisting the sole of his boot on Cody’s cheek.

“Saw a tall man that’s got so much chewing tobacco in his mouth, he cain’t swallow. Saw a li’l bitty fellow over yonder by the horse tank. Saw one man that’s bleeding through a hole in his mask, like somebody seriously fucked up his face. Saw a big gray truck with a diesel engine and a stack on it. Saw a bunch of men that dress like they been in the military. Saw a bunch of men that wouldn’t believe me when I said I called Sheriff Holland. I’m here to tell you the sheriff of this county is one mean motor scooter. He’ll flat kick a two-by-four up your ass. I know. I’ve been in his jailhouse.”

Cody thought the torque in his neck was going to snap his spinal cord. He could hear the windmill’s blades spinning, a loose door banging in the barn, the thunder in the clouds retreating in the hills. Through the dirt and sweat and rain mist in his eyes, he could see a pale band of cold light appear beyond the hills in the east, as though the season were winter rather than spring. He heard someone snapping his fingers, as though trying to get the attention of the tall man. Then the boot went away from Cody’s face.

“You’re a lucky fellow,” the tall man said, lifting Cody to his feet by his shirtfront. “But let me leave you this little reminder of what happens when you wise off to the wrong people.” He drove Cody’s head into the truck fender and dropped him to the ground.

Cody felt himself descending into a deep well, one that was cool and damp and colored by a sunrise that had the texture and pinkness of cotton candy. As though from a great distance, he could hear glass breaking, furniture being overturned, a telephone crashing through a window into the yard, a computer being smashed into junk. These things were not his business any longer. Somehow Cody Daniels had faced down and bested the men who had raped him when he was seventeen. That an event of that magnitude could take place in his life seemed impossible. All he knew was that after a few minutes at the bottom of the well, the truck with the diesel-powered engine drove away, and he found himself cutting the duct tape on Anton Ling’s wrists and ankles, wondering if she was still alive.