John Hart - The Last Child

Johnny looked down, kicked at a stone.

“I’m sorry, man. I wish I’d done something, but I just didn’t. It didn’t even look real.”

Johnny stood and stared at the river. After a minute, he nodded once. “Give me another beer.”

They drank beer and swam in the river. Jack smoked. After an hour, Jack asked: “You want to check some houses?”

Johnny skimmed a rock and shook his head. Jack liked the game of it, the risk. He liked creeping around and seeing things that kids were not supposed to see. For Jack, it was an adrenaline thing. “Not today,” Johnny said.

Jack walked to Johnny’s bike, where the map was wedged into the spokes of the front tire. He pulled it out, held it up. “What about this?” Johnny looked at his friend, then told him about his run-in with Detective Hunt. “He’s all over me.”

Jack thought it was bullshit. “He’s just a cop.”

“Your dad’s a cop.”

“Yeah, and I steal beer from his fridge. What does that tell you?” Jack spit in the dirt, a universal sign of disgust between the two boys. “Come on. Let’s do something. It makes you feel better. We both know it. And I can’t sit out here all day.”

“No.”

“Whatever,” Jack said, and shoved the map back between the spokes. He saw the feather tied to Johnny’s bike. It dangled from a cord looped around the seat post. He took it in his hand. “Hey, what’s this?”

Johnny stared at his friend. “Nothing,” he said.

Jack ran the feather between his fingers. Light made it glisten at the edges. He tilted it against the light. “It’s cool,” he said.

“I said, leave it alone.”

Jack saw the new angle in his friend’s shoulders, and he let the feather drop. It swung once on its cord. “Jeez. It was just a question.”

Johnny relaxed his fingers. Jack was Jack. He meant no harm. “I heard that your brother picked Clemson.”

“You heard that?”

“It was all over the news.”

Jack picked up a rock, rolled it from his good hand to his bad. “He’s already being scouted by the pros. He broke the record last week.”

“What record?”

“Career home runs.”

“For the school?”

Jack shook his head. “The state.”

“Guess your old man is proud,” Johnny said.

“His son is gonna be famous.” Jack’s smile looked real, but Johnny saw how he tucked his bad arm more tightly against his ribs. “Of course he’s proud.”

They went back to drinking. The sun crawled higher, but the daylight seemed to dim. The air grew cool, as if the river itself had chilled. Johnny got halfway through his third beer, then put it down.

Jack got drunk.

They spoke no more of his brother.

It was noon when they heard the car downshift on the road. It stopped at the bridge, then turned onto the old logging track that led to the high bank above them. “Shit.” Jack hid the beer cans. Johnny pulled on his shirt to cover the bruises, and Jack pretended that it was a normal thing to do. It was an old argument between them, whether or not to tell.

A high, metal grill pushed through the weeds that grew between the ruts of the track, and Johnny saw that it was a pickup, waxed. Chrome threw off glints of sun and the windshield was mirrored. When it stopped, the engine revved, then died. Three of the four doors opened. Jack stood up straighter.

Blue jeans. Boots. Thick arms. Johnny saw all of that as the older kids circled to the front of the truck. He’d seen them around. They were high school kids. Seventeen, eighteen years old. Grown men, or close to it. One had a pint of bourbon in his hand. All three were smoking cigarettes. They stood on a lip of earth where the bank fell away to the water. They looked down on Johnny, and one of them, a tall blond kid with a raspberry birthmark on his neck, nudged the driver. “Look at this,” he said. “Couple of junior high faggots.”

The driver’s face showed no emotion. The guy with the bourbon took a pull on the bottle. Jack said, “Fuck off, Wayne.”

Birthmark stopped laughing.

“That’s right,” Jack said. “I know who you are.”

The driver thumped the back of his hand on Birthmark’s chest. He was tall and well built, handsome in a postcard way. He regarded Wayne coolly, then pointed at Jack. “That’s Gerald Cross’s brother, so show him a little respect.”

Wayne made a face. “That little dipshit? I don’t believe it.” He took a step, leaned over the bank and raised his voice. “Your brother should have signed with Carolina,” he said. “You tell him Clemson is for pussies.”

“Is that where you’ll be going?” Johnny asked.

The driver laughed. So did the kid holding the bourbon. Wayne ’s face darkened, but the driver stepped forward, cut him off. “I know you, too,” he said to Johnny, then paused and took a drag on his cigarette. “I’m sorry about your sister.”

“Wait a minute,” Wayne said, and pointed. “That’s this guy?”

“Yes, it is.”

The words came without visible emotion, and the blood fell out of Johnny’s face. “I don’t know you,” Johnny said.

Jack touched Johnny’s arm. “That’s Hunt’s son. The cop’s son. His name is Allen. He’s a senior.”

Johnny looked up and saw the resemblance. Different hair, but the same build. The same soft eyes. “This is our place,” Johnny said. “We were here first.”

Hunt’s son leaned out over the bank, but was clearly not disturbed by the confrontational tone. He spoke to Jack. “Haven’t seen you around in a while.”

“Why would you?” Jack said. “We’ve got nothing to say to each other. Gerald either, for that matter.”

Johnny looked at Jack. “He knows your brother?”

“Once upon a time.”

Allen straightened. “Once upon a time,” he said, and there was no emotion in the words. “We’ll find another place.” He turned around, stopped, and spoke to Jack. “Tell your brother I said hi.”

“Tell him yourself.”

Allen paused, then offered an empty smile. He gestured to his friends, then got in the truck and started the engine. They backed up the dirt track, disappeared; then it was just the river, the wind.

“That’s Hunt’s son?” Johnny asked.

“Yeah.” Jack spit in the dirt.

“What’s the problem with him and your brother?”

“A girl,” Jack said, then looked out over the river. “Water under the bridge.”

The mood soured after that. They caught a garter snake and let it go, shaved driftwood with their knives, but it was no good. Johnny was talked out and Jack sensed it, so when a distant whistle announced the southbound freight, Jack pulled on his shoes and packed up. “I’m going to split,” he said.

“You sure?”

“Unless you want to pedal me back to town on your handlebars.” Johnny followed Jack up the bank. “You want to hook up later?” Jack asked. “Catch a movie? Play some videogames?”

The whistle called again, closer. “You’d better roll,” Johnny said.

“Just call me later.”

Johnny waited until he was gone, then unwrapped the pinfeather from his shirt and slipped the string over his neck. Dipping his hands in the river, he dabbed water on his face, then smoothed the feather on his bike. The water made it gleam, and it slid between his fingertips, crisp and cool and perfect.

Johnny skimmed some more stones, then went back to the rock and lay down. The sun was warm, the air a blanket, and at some point, he dozed. When he woke, it was with a start. The day had slid to late afternoon: five o’clock, maybe five thirty. Dark clouds piled up on the far horizon. A breeze carried the smell of distant rain.

Johnny hopped off the rock and went to find his shoes. He had them in his hand when he heard the whine of a small engine. It approached from the north, fast. The whine climbed to a scream, a motorcycle, pushing hard. It was almost to the bridge when Johnny heard another engine. This one was big and running wide open. Johnny craned his neck, saw the concrete abutment that ran along the bridge and beyond that a slice of green leaves and sky gone the color of ash. The bridge began to shake, and Johnny knew that he’d never heard anything hit it so fast.