John Hart - The Last Child

“Not even their names.”

“Then why are we here?”

“Geography.” Hunt crossed a narrow bridge over a small creek. “It’s the only thing that makes sense.” The road went to dirt. Small rocks clicked and banged on the undercarriage of the car. “Coming up,” Hunt said.

“The Chief still has my weapon.”

“Glove compartment.”

Yoakum opened the glove compartment and retrieved Hunt’s personal weapon. He racked the slide, checked the load. “Nice.”

“Try not to kill anybody this time.”

Hunt saw the old trailer, the pickup full of empty beer cans. Lights burned behind dirty windows. Inside the trailer, somebody moved. He killed the lights and coasted to a stop behind the truck. Keeping one eye on the trailer, he keyed in the license number on the truck. “Registered to Patricia Defries. Some misdemeanor convictions. Public urination. Drunk and disorderly.”

“Lovely.”

“Two felony counts.”

“What kind?”

“Check kiting and fraud. One more felony and she goes down hard. Three strikes. That could give Cross leverage if he caught her doing something dirty.”

“How do we play it?”

“Easy.” Hunt opened his door. “We lie.”

Yoakum tucked the gun away as they stepped onto the small porch. Through the window, they saw a long, low sofa, man on it, feet up. He looked the same to Hunt. Scrawny and unshaven. Dirty. He had a sunken chest and skinny legs, what could be the same beer can in his hand. The television put blue light on his face. The woman, too, was as he remembered. Short skirt. Mean face. From the way she was standing, she was angry about something. Hands on her hips. Mouth running. She stepped in front of the television and the man leaned left. “Domestic bliss,” Yoakum said.

Hunt knocked on the door and the television winked out. He stepped back as the woman’s heavy step put a vibration in the cheap structure. Her face filled the small window: brown teeth, bad skin.

“Be still, my heart,” Yoakum whispered.

Hunt put his shield against the glass. Bolts dropped on the inside and the woman appeared behind the torn screen. “Hold it up again,” she said.

Hunt held up the badge. “Detective Cross sent us.”

The woman lit a cigarette, blew smoke. Her eyes ran over Hunt, then up Yoakum and back down. “What does he want now?”

“May we come in?”

She looked them over one more time, took another pull on the cigarette. “Wipe your feet.”

There was no truck in front of the tobacco barn. No Jack. In the weak light from the car’s one headlight, Johnny saw a single splash of color, his blue backpack. It was filthy, still stained at the bottom. Jack had placed it neatly in the center of the barn door. Johnny got out of the car, but left it running. The moon was giant and low and silver white. The air smelled of gasoline and burned oil.

Johnny picked up the bag, which felt empty. Opening it, he caught a whiff of dead bird. In the bottom was a note, written on the back of a receipt with Uncle Steve’s name on it. The handwriting was Jack’s.

Meet me at the place.

The past few years were full of places, but Johnny knew the one. It’s where they went to drink beer and tell stories, the place they went to escape. It was the place that David Wilson died in the dust. The place this all began.

He turned in the scrub and the car bottomed out.

Johnny drove for the river.

He passed few cars. It was late. Large bugs clacked on the windshield and his vision blurred more than once. He was exhausted, stretched so thin that he almost missed the turn off the main road. The track was overgrown and rutted, weeds still bent from the cop cars that came for David Wilson. It dropped steeply toward the river, bridge rising on the left. Washouts twisted the wheel in Johnny’s hand as the track fell away from the road. He saw the truck forty feet in, a ghost in the brush. The cab was dark and empty. Johnny turned off the car lights and got out. He walked past the truck and looked down on the river. Moonlight rose off the water and the rocks were slabs of silver gray. Blackness gathered beneath the bridge.

Johnny slid down the bank, hit a patch of sand, then walked out onto one of the broad flat rocks. Water moved, and something dark floated past. The willow was to his right, bridge to the left. He didn’t see Jack.

“I’m over here, Johnny.”

The voice drifted out from beneath the bridge. Jack’s voice. Drunk sounding. Once under the bridge, Johnny could see him. He sat at the edge of the water. One of the pilings came down from the bridge there; it had a narrow concrete shelf and Jack was sitting on it, feet trailing in the water. Johnny stopped twenty feet away. Jack was blur, a hint of a face. He lifted a bottle and Johnny heard liquor gurgle. “Want some?”

“What the hell is going on, Jack?” Johnny wanted to stay calm, but he was losing it already. Alyssa was dead and Jack was drinking bourbon. Jack slid down off the concrete. He splashed out of shallow water, tripped once, and fell to a knee. “Come out here where I can see you.” Johnny stepped out from under the bridge. Part of him wanted to talk. Part of him wanted to hit his only friend in the face.

“I’m sorry, man.” His words were so sloppy Johnny could barely understand them. “Johnny, man.” Jack stepped out into the moonlight. He was wearing the jacket he’d borrowed from Johnny. His pants were wet to the waist. He stumbled again and dropped the bottle. It smashed on the rocks and a liquor-smell rolled over the mud. Jack sat next to the broken bottle. “I’m so damn sorry.”

“Sorry for what?” Johnny turned. “Tell me sorry for what?”

Jack shook his head, put his face in his hands. “Cowardice is a sin.”

Johnny stared at his friend, whose voice came out part sob.

“Would you say good things about me if somebody asked?” Jack ran a forearm under his nose. “Just a what-if, Johnny. If somebody asked? Would you say I’m a good friend? I’ve tried, you know. All those nights out with you. All those nights looking. I watched your back because I knew you wouldn’t stop. I tried to keep you away from the bad houses, the really bad ones. I’d have died if you got hurt. The guilt would have killed me, Johnny. It would have straight up killed me.”

“What about the rest of the guilt, Jack? What about Alyssa? You knew where she was? All this time?”

“Lies and weakness. Those are sins, too.”

“Jack.”

“God forgives the little sins.”

“All this time.”

“I tried to keep you safe.” Jack rocked on the stone. “She was dead.” He shook his head. “She was already dead.”

“What happened to my sister?” Johnny stood over Jack, hands fisted. He was losing it. He was going to lose it. “What happened, Jack?”

Jack pulled in a deep, rough breath, kept his eyes on the water. “I loaned her my bike. That’s all I did. I was trying to help. You’ve got to believe that.”

“Tell me the rest of it.”

“We were at the library, a bunch of us. You remember that project we had to do?” Johnny said nothing, so Jack nodded. “We were in the same group, Alyssa and me. Volcanoes. We were doing a report on volcanoes. It was late, just dark, you know. Everybody said it was time to go.” He trailed off for a second. “I loaned her my bike because your dad forgot to come and get her. He forgot and it was getting dark. Gerald had a new truck and was looking for every excuse to drive it, so I gave her my bike and called my brother for a ride. That’s all I did, Johnny. Nothing bad should have happened, see? I was trying to be good. That counts, right? That counts.”

Jack ground at his eyes. Small hand. Normal hand. Both of them balled and shaking. “He said he wanted to scare her.”