Kealan Burke - Kin

A farmer shoots the crows and sprays the bugs to protect his crop, don’t he? Momma had once told him. Shoots wild dogs and foxes and them sonofabitchin’ coyotes to keep ’em from eatin’ his chickens’n killin’ his herd, don’t he? Well, that’s what we do. We’re a rare breed, all of us, and what’s outside there in the world would love nothin’ better to destroy us because of what we believe in, because of our closeness to the Almighty God. To kill us outta jealousy because they ain’t never gettin’ so close to Him. They’re the predators, Luke. They’re the skulkin’ dogs creepin’ up on us, tryin’ to snatch you from my bosom, from God’s grace, like they did with your poor sister, fillin’ her head with sick thoughts and vile dreams, corruptin’ her till she was so diseased she went crazy and had to be put to sleep. Don’t let them do that to you, boy. Let your Papa show you how to protect yourself, and your kin.

“Luke,” Pa called. “Get your ass out here.”

It was too late. He could run, but they’d run him down. He could beg and they would ignore him.

He was going to die. Right here. Right now.

The warm breeze through the glassless window flowed over him, and still he did not move.

One by one, their heads turned to look at him. It was the scene from his worst imaginings come to life.

Y’all know what needs to be done when a dog ain’t no good no more don’tcha?

We do, Pa .

His father spat. Wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “You hear me boy?” He was holding the doctor’s gun. The gun with a single bullet left with which to end a life. His life.

Trembling uncontrollably, Luke let his hand slip from the door handle.

“Maybe he got shot,” Aaron said. Then louder, “Luke, you shot?”

Papa stared for a moment, waiting for a reply, then started to walk toward the truck. “He better be goddamn shot,” Luke heard him say.

He had seen their victims piss themselves many times over the years, had even seen the old doctor do it tonight, but had never really understood the kind of fear that could make that happen, make a person forget their dignity, and reduce them to the level of scared little children. But as he watched the lithe shape of his father striding toward him, that gun gleaming in the light from the truck, the understanding finally came to him, manifesting itself as a sudden wet warmth at his crotch. And as if everything that had been holding him back had been flushed out in that hot stream, galvanizing him into action, Luke choked back a sob and quickly scooted over into the driver seat.

“Pa?” Aaron called, in a worried voice.

Their father said nothing, but stopped walking. “Whatcha doin’ son?”

Son . It was the first time Luke had heard the man call him anything but “boy” in years, but whatever power Pa wanted it to have over him was diluted by the fact that affection didn’t suit him, and never had. His father was trying to stall him.

With clumsy hands he reached down, praying that his fingers wouldn’t find only air down there in the dark beneath the steering wheel, the keys tucked securely in Aaron’s pocket. A slight jingle of metal and he allowed himself a breath, then quickly straightened in his seat and turned the key. The engine rumbled to life.

He looked up, out into the night, into his father’s face.

The eyes looking back at him almost sucked the soul from his body, leaving him a withered empty shell with his hands clamped on the wheel.

“Don’t you fucking dare ,” his father said, and his right arm rose, knuckles tight on the trigger of the doctor’s gun. Behind him, the boys were frozen, pale faces making them ghosts in the headlights.

Time seemed to stretch, as if those dark tendrils Luke had feared earlier had finally burst from Papa’s eyes and mouth, and were anchoring the truck in place, crystallizing the breath in Luke’s lungs before it had a chance to reach his mouth.

When they were kids, Aaron had once surprised a backpacker who had stumbled upon the body of her friend. Before she had a chance to scream, he burst forth from the trees and wrenched her head around, breaking her neck. For Luke, who had been crouching on a branch above the scene, it was the first time he had heard the sound, and the memory of it had never left him. He’d heard it a hundred times since, but that first time had stayed with him because it had sounded like the hinges opening on a forbidden door, a door to a new and terrifying world he was preparing to enter.

This was the sound the gun in his father’s hand made as he slowly cocked the hammer.

“Was it the old man?” Pa called to him over the sound of the engine. “He say somethin’ that tripped the switch? Make you feel bad? Get you thinkin’ about your poor ’ol cocksuckin’ sister? Get you all choked up, wonderin’ if what we’re doin’ ain’t right?”

Luke cleared his throat, watched the exhaust fumes tumble out around his father’s feet.

“Maybe it was that pic -ture,” Pa said, mockingly. “You got a hankerin’ for some wrinkled ’ol cunt, that it?”

“Luke,” Aaron cried out, his voice unsteady. “What you doin’?”

“Fixin’ to run,” Pa answered. “Ain’t that it? He’s ready to turn his back on us. On God .”

Luke’s heart thumped so hard against his ribs he figured they could all hear it, even over the engine. His breath shuddered out of him, as he slowly brought his hand down to the gearshift and jerked it out of neutral, keeping his foot planted firmly on the brake. The vehicle rocked. The engine started to choke, and for one heart-stopping moment, Luke thought it was going to stall. But it coughed once and ran steady.

“You ain’t gettin’ far boy.”

Luke knew he was right. But then, he hadn’t far to go.

“Now why’nt you just cut that engine and step out here where we can talk face to face?”

His father’s eyes refused the light, but Luke leaned forward a little to peer into them for a moment. He had transcended fear now, the adrenaline in his veins burning through him, lapping at his brain, trying to force him over the border of that place he had kept away from all his life—the place where the truth, and his sister, were buried.

He pressed his other foot down on the gas, the other still on the brake. The engine whined, the sound deafening. The smoke from the exhaust rose like fog around the truck. When his father spoke, he did not hear the words, but understood the message on the lips that formed them.

“You ain’t leavin’ here alive.”

The faint trace of a smile faded from Papa’s face as if he too realized what was going to happen, what had to happen if he expected to maintain control of his children. Unlike the doctor, his grip was dead steady, the black hole of the muzzle targeting a point somewhere in the trembling oval of his son’s face.

From the light side of that secret place in his mind, Luke heard his sister whisper to him, and could almost smell her perfume assailing his senses. We was wrong, Luke. What he taught us was always wrong, and we are the sinners .

Swallowing back the tears, “Who said I was leavin’?” Luke said, and took his foot off the brake. The truck lurched forward, closing the distance between him and his father in a heartbeat. Just long enough for a whispered prayer, a plea for forgiveness, for Luke to shut his eyes, the image of Papa-In-Gray’s livid face made chalk-white by the lights branded onto his retinas as he pulled the trigger.

“You like to sing?” Pete asked, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel to some imaginary tune. “My Pa don’t. Second Ma—I call her that because she weren’t my birth Ma—was a great singer, and even my first Momma weren’t too bad, but Pa can’t carry a tune for nothin ’. I ain’t so bad myself, though I always forget the words, so I don’t much like to sing. Prefer to hum. Don’t need the words to hum.” He smiled broadly, and wished he didn’t have to watch the road, but every time he stared into the mirror at the girl lying swaddled in blankets in back, he heard Doctor Wellman’s no-nonsense voice warning him, And don’t you keep leering at that girl like you’re doing now, you hear me? You’re not going to do her much good if you run yourselves right into a semi . So he limited himself to short glances and resisted the urge to pull over for a while, just to sit in the peace and quiet and listen to the girl’s breathing, just so the false breeze of their passage didn’t keep creeping in the window and stealing away the smell of her. But the cranky old doctor had warned him about delaying too, said the girl mightn’t make it if he dawdled, so he kept the truck moving steady through the night, the high beams picking nothing out of the dark but gray ribbon and yellow stitching, and the occasional mashed up bit of roadkill.