John Hart - The Last Child

“It’s overgrown now. I found it six months ago.”

The barn loomed ahead, a wall of grayed-out logs on a foundation of chiseled granite. Milkweed rose, pink and green, and fingers of ivy clawed up the length of the back corner. Black showed where chinking had crumbled to dust. Johnny pulled around to the other side and stopped. The doorway gaped. Charred wood and ash marked the fire pit. Johnny put the truck in park. “Give me the pack.” Jack shrugged it off. “Don’t turn off the engine until I say.” Johnny dropped the pack on the ground and pulled out the flashlight. He disappeared inside the barn, found the moldy blue backpack and three stubs of candle. “Alright,” he said.

Jack switched off the engine and the headlights winked out. The night collapsed to a twitching beam of light that flashed on white skin, wide eyes, and filthy clothes. “Ken’s house is that way.” Johnny pointed with the flashlight. “Through the trees. Not far.”

“How’d you find all this?”

Johnny squatted and dug the matches out of the pack. “Getting out of the house when things got bad. Looking for snakes.”

“About the snakes-”

“Hold this.” Johnny handed the light to Jack, then put the candles on a slab of granite and lit them. Jack watched and said nothing, but Johnny felt him there. “I’ve slept out here more than a few times. It’s not bad. Inside is full of spiders. Mosquitoes are worse out here.”

“I’ll take the mosquitoes.”

“Me, too.”

Jack put the light on the blue pack. “What’s that?”

“Let’s make a fire.” Johnny stood and began foraging for wood. Eventually, Jack helped him. They gathered twigs and fallen branches. The fire was still small when Jack found the scrap of Bible. It was pebbled leather, black; part of the spine, two inches long and charred. Some of the gold letters could still be seen. Jack held it for a long minute, and Johnny could tell that he knew what it was. He watched Jack’s tiny fingers trace the letters, then he stood, took it from him and threw it on the fire. Rocking back on his heels, Johnny watched his friend. Jack was not what most would call a good boy, but Johnny knew for a fact that he believed in the devil.

“I’m not going to burn in hell, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Jack’s small arm moved. He pointed at the fire. “What are you doing, Johnny?” His head shifted and red light filled up his eyes. “I’ve been good and I’ve been quiet. About all of this.” He moved his fingers over his face again. “What they said in the paper. The things you’ve been keeping secret from me. Snakes and charms and voodoo shit.” He shook his head. “But this ain’t right. Whatever this is, you can’t go burning Bibles. Even I know that.”

“It’s just a book.”

“You take that back.”

Johnny raised his voice. “It’s just a book and it doesn’t work. It doesn’t make a difference.” Jack’s mouth opened, but Johnny rode his words down. “The preacher said it would, but he was full of shit, too.”

“I think I might be sick.”

“Well, go over there if you’re going to do it.” Johnny stabbed a finger at the darkness. “I’m going to eat some dinner and I don’t need to be smelling your puke.”

Jack closed his eyes, and when he opened them, he looked better, less green. When he spoke, Johnny knew that he’d decided to let it go. “What’s that?” Jack asked, pointing at the pack.

An eddy of smoke wafted against Johnny’s face and he narrowed his eyes. “You really want to know?”

“I asked, didn’t I?”

Johnny unhooked the straps and dumped the contents of the bag on the ground. He separated the bundles of vegetation. There were four of them, each tied with string. He put them in a row, caught Jack’s eye and touched each in turn. “Cedar,” he said. “Pine. Spruce. Laurel.”

“Yeah. So?”

“They’re supposed to be sacred.” He touched them again, each in turn. “Wisdom. Strength. Courage. Perseverance. You’re supposed to burn them.”

“Is that an Indian thing?”

“Indian. Some other things.” Johnny scooped up the bundles and threw them into the darkness beyond the fire. They landed with a crunch, and Johnny spat on the dirt. “You hungry?” he asked. “I’m hungry.”

They ate peanut butter sandwiches and drank grape soda. Jack kept his eyes on his friend and looked away when Johnny caught him staring. Johnny ignored him. He didn’t want to talk about the things he’d done and he sure as hell wasn’t going to let Jack judge him. He wiped peanut butter fingers on his jeans and picked up the gun. It was heavy and smooth. He opened it up and saw that it was loaded.

“There’s no safety on that,” Jack said. “Careful where you point it.”

Johnny snapped the cylinder closed. “You know guns?”

Jack rolled his shoulders. “Dad’s a cop.”

“Can you shoot?”

“Straight enough, I guess.”

Johnny slipped the gun back into its holster. They fell into silence and night sounds rose up around them. Moths danced about the candle flames and their shadows licked the ground. Jack tossed his can into the fire to see if it would burn; paint blistered and burst. “Johnny?”

“Yeah.”

Jack kept his eyes on the fire. “Do you think cowardice is a sin?”

“Are you scared?”

“Do you think it’s a sin?” Insistent. Thin jaw clenched.

Johnny tossed his own can into the fire. Long seconds passed and he didn’t blink until he felt his eyes go bone dry. “That man at the river, David Wilson. He knew where my sister was. He knew, and I ran away before he could tell me.” Johnny looked at his friend. “So, yeah. I think cowardice is a sin.”

“God or no God.” Jack’s eyes were wide and still.

“That’s right.”

Jack stared into the dark and wrapped his arms around his knees. “What are we doing out here, Johnny?”

Johnny poked at the fire with a stick. “If I tell you, there’s no wimping out. No take-backs. So you need to tell me now if you’re in or out.”

“Hard to do if I don’t know what we’re talking about.”

Johnny lifted his shoulders. “I’ll take you home right now, but not if you know what I’m doing.”

“Jesus, Johnny. I wouldn’t tell anybody.”

“In or out?”

Across the fire, beyond the curtain of smoke and scorched air, Jack scrubbed a forearm across his nose. Orange glazed his eyes until he turned his head, then the color fell away and he was just a dirty boy with a washed-out tan and hair that stood out in all directions. “You’re pretty much all I have that’s good, Johnny. I don’t guess there’ll be any take-backs.” He turned back and his eyes were so simple and brown they made Johnny think of a dog’s eyes. “May as well tell me.”

“Come here.” Johnny dug into the pack from home. He pulled out the book on Raven County but did not open it. Jack came around the fire, sat in the dirt, and Johnny explained it from the beginning: David Wilson going off the bridge and what he’d said; Levi Freemantle, how he’d grabbed Johnny up by the river; the blood Johnny had found in Freemantle’s house.

Jack bobbed his head. “Dang, Johnny. That was in the papers, too. Same day as you. Not his name, I don’t think, but they found bodies in that house. Two people with their heads bashed in.”

“I kind of figured somebody was dead when I saw all the blood.”

Jack’s face scrunched up. “Was there a lot of it?”

“It was everywhere, and I mean like paint.”

The boys were silent for a minute.

Like paint .

Then Jack shook his head. “I don’t understand what this has to do with us.”

Johnny clicked on the flashlight and opened the book to the page about Isaac Freemantle. He pointed at the map. “Here’s town.” He moved his finger north, made a circling motion. “This is mostly swamp.” He moved his finger slightly. “This is where the granite rises up and you have that huge stretch of woods where those old mines are. You remember?”