John Hart - Down River

“You get on out of here,” she said. “Don’t you be botherin’ these children.”

“Ma’am,” I said. “I don’t intend to bother anybody. I’m looking for number seventy-nine. Maybe you can help me.”

She thought about it, eyelids puckered, lips pushed together. The boy still hung from her arm, bent at the waist, arms and legs dangling straight down. “Numbers don’t mean much around here,” she finally said. “Who you looking for?”

“Zebulon Faith.”

Her head rolled on the stump of her neck. “Name don’t mean a thing.”

“White guy. Sixties. Thin.”

“Nope.” She started to turn away.

“His son has red hair. Mid-twenties. Big guy.”

She pivoted on one foot, lowered the boy by a wrist. He picked up his stick and stole the doll off the tire swing. The girl raised an arm and cried muddy tears.

“That red one,” she said. “Pure trouble.”

“Trouble?”

“Drinking. Howling at the moon. Got a ten-foot pile of shot-up bottles back there. What you want him for?”

“He’s dead. I’m looking for his father.” It did not answer her question, but seemed to satisfy her. She sucked on a gap in her teeth and pointed up the road. “ ’Round that bend you’ll see a track off to the right. Got a pie plate nailed to a tree. That’s what you want.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“Just stay away from these children.”

She snatched the doll from the boy and handed it back to the little girl, who smeared tears with a forearm, kissed the plastic face, and smoothed her small hand over plugs of ragged, vinyl hair.

The pie plate had seven bullet holes in it. The track was almost invisible, guarded by two things: the massive tree to which the plate was nailed, and the knee-high grass that grew between the wheel ruts. Whatever was down there, I doubted anyone used it very often. I drove my car around the tree and parked it out of sight of the road. Once out of the car, the smell of the place intensified, the fecund reek of stagnant water, still air, and damp earth. The track curved left, disappeared around a shoulder bone of wood and granite. Suddenly, I doubted the wisdom of coming here. It was the silence. The sense of hushed expectancy. A raptor called in the distance, and I shrugged the feeling off.

The ground was spongy, tire tracks recent. Grass stems were broken and bent. Within the last day or two, I guessed.

I hugged the left side until I came to the bend and pressed against the granite outcrop. The track cut hard left, back into the trees. I risked a glance, pulled back, then looked again and studied Zebulon Faith’s shit-box skinny. The trailer was old, probably thirty, which is about three hundred in trailer years. It canted to the right on cinder-block legs. No phone line. No power line. A lifeless shell.

There was no car, either, which made it unlikely that anyone was here. Nevertheless, I approached cautiously. The trailer was hard-used. Somebody brought it in new a lifetime ago or hauled it off a junk heap last year. Six one way, half dozen the other. Whatever the case, here it would linger until the earth managed to consume it. It sat in the middle of a jagged gash in the trees. Vines grew over the back corner. The pile of shot-up bottles was more two feet tall than ten.

I could see, in the grass, where a car had been parked.

Slick steps led onto a sagging square of wood at the front door. There was a single plastic chair, more bottles in the grass, and a lot of give under my feet as I stepped up. I peered in the window, got the vague impression of peeled vinyl floors and Dumpster furniture. Beer bottles ringed the kitchen table, fast-food wrappers and lottery tickets on the counter.

I tried the door-locked-then circled the trailer, stepping over discarded furniture and other refuse. The back looked like the front with one exception, a generator under a limp tarp weighted with bricks. I checked all the windows. Two bedrooms, one empty, the other with a box spring and mattress on the floor. There was one bathroom. It had toothpaste on the counter and dirty magazines on a stool. I checked the main room again and saw a rabbit ear television with a VCR and a stack of tapes, ashtrays on the floor, couple bottles of vodka.

It was a flophouse, a place to hide from the world, which made sense if you were a man like Zebulon Faith. I wanted to break in and tear it down. I wanted to burn it.

But I knew that I’d be coming back, so I left it.

No point in scaring him off.

I drove toward the farm, sun low and in my face. I called Robin, talked about a lot of nothing, and said I’d see her tomorrow. No mention of Zebulon Faith. Some things are best done in the dark, and I did not want her involved. Period. I turned off the phone and pushed harder into the scorching orange. The day was dying, and I wondered what it would take with it.

I saw my father’s truck from a distance, parked across the drive from Dolf’s house. I pulled in behind him and got out. He was in old clothes bleached by the sun. Miriam sat next to him, looking exhausted.

I leaned in the window. “You okay?” I asked.

“She won’t talk to us,” he said.

I followed the direction of his nod and saw Grace in the side yard. She was barefoot in faded jeans and a white tank top. In the soft light, she looked very hard, very lean. She’d put the archery target a hundred feet out. The compound bow looked huge in her hands. I watched her draw back and release. The arrow moved like thought, buried its head in the target’s center. Six arrows nested there, a thick knot of fiberglass, steel, and bright, feathered flights. She nocked another shaft, steel head winking. When it flew, I thought I could hear it.

“She’s good,” I said.

“She’s flawless,” my father corrected me. “She’s been at this for an hour. Hasn’t missed yet.”

“You’ve been here that whole time?”

“We tried twice to speak to her. She won’t have it.”

“What’s the problem?”

His face worked. “Dolf made his first appearance in court today.”

“She was there?”

“They brought him in wearing full chains. Waist, ankle, wrists. He could barely walk in all that. Reporters everywhere. That dickhead sheriff. The D.A. Half dozen bailiffs, like he was a threat. Goddamn. It was intolerable. He wouldn’t look at any of us. Not at me, not at Grace, not even when she tried to get his attention. She was jumping up and down…”

He paused. Miriam shifted uncomfortably.

“They offered him the chance for counsel and he turned it down again. Grace left in tears. We came out here to check on her.” He nodded again. “This is what we found.”

My eyes swung back to Grace. Nock and release. Smack of hardened steel on stuffed canvas. The feel of split air. “Grantham has been looking for you,” I said. “He seems to think there are still things to discuss.”

I studied him closely. He continued to watch Grace and his face did not change. “I have nothing to say to Grantham. He tried to talk after court, but I refused.”

“Why?”

“Look what he’s done to us.”

“Do you know what he wants to talk about?”

His lips barely moved. “Does it matter?”

“So, what’s going to happen with Dolf? What’s next?”

“I talked to Parks about that. The district attorney will go for an indictment. Unfortunately for Dolf, the grand jury is sitting this week. The D.A. won’t waste time. He’ll get the indictment. The dumb bastard confessed. Once the grand jury returns the indictment, he’ll be arraigned. Then they’ll figure out whether or not the death penalty is on the table.”

I felt a familiar chill. “Rule twenty-four hearing,” I said flatly. “To determine if a capital charge is appropriate.”