Wiley Cash - A Land More Kind Than Home

“Jimmy,” I said, whispering, keeping my voice as low as I could so Jess wouldn’t hear me. “It’s Clem Barefield.”

“Who?” I left the front room and walked all the way into the kitchen. I leaned against the counter and closed my eyes.

“It’s Clem Barefield,” I said again.

“What do you want?” he asked. I opened my eyes and looked around the kitchen and tried to think of what to tell him about what had happened.

“I’m over at Ben’s,” I said. “And Jess is here with me.” I paused because I figured he’d want to ask me some kind of question, but he didn’t say anything, even though I imagined that his eyes were open and he was wide awake now. “We had a little trouble over here this morning, and I just thought you should come down here and be with Jess. He needs somebody to be here with him right now, and I just didn’t know who else to call.”

“What’s happened?” he asked. His voice was clear and sharp, and I sensed something in it that hadn’t been there before-panic maybe, or fear, or both. “Why are you out there?”

“There was just some trouble,” I said. “We can talk about all that when you get here.”

“Let me talk to Ben,” he said.

“I can’t let you do that right now, Jimmy,” I said. “Just get here as soon as you can. Jess needs you here.” I could hear him moving on the other end of the line, and I thought I heard him stumble. Then the sound of something falling to the floor. He whispered something to himself under his breath.

“Jimmy,” I whispered. “Are you okay to drive? I mean, you haven’t been drinking?” The line grew quiet, and I could tell that he’d stopped moving and was standing still. I could just barely hear him breathing.

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t ask me that,” he said. He hung up. I held the receiver to my ear until I heard the dial tone kick in, and then I turned and sat the phone back in its cradle. I understood that I’d just made the kind of phone call to Jimmy Hall that he’d never considered making to me, but that didn’t make me feel one bit better about making it, and for a minute I thought he might’ve had the right idea about trying his hardest to disappear all those years ago. I walked back into the front room and saw that Jess had his eyes open and was staring at me.

“Did you call my grandpa?”

“I did,” I said. “He’ll be here real soon.” I looked around the room and considered whether I should stand and wait or if I should sit with Jess or maybe even go back outside and get one of the paramedics to come into the house and sit with him once they arrived. Jess lay back against the sofa and folded his arms across his chest. He closed his eyes, and then he opened them slowly. They were full of tears.

“Did you call my grandpa because my daddy’s going to die?” I shook my head no and walked across the room toward him.

I thought about how I’d stared into that shotgun’s empty barrels just a few minutes before, and even though my hands were empty too I felt the heft of my pistol and the kick it gave when I fired. In my head, I heard myself say, I wish I could’ve done it all different, Jeff , but by the time I kneeled on the floor in front of him I’d caught myself. “Jess,” I said aloud. “Jess.”

THE AMBULANCES HAD KILLED THEIR SIRENS ONCE THEY’D PULLED up into the yard, and if somebody hadn’t known everything that had taken place out in the driveway that morning they would’ve thought me and Jess were just two strangers sitting together on the sofa and waiting for something to happen. I’d covered him with a blanket and gotten him a glass of water from the kitchen and some toilet paper from the bathroom, and I’d sat both on the coffee table in front of him, but he hadn’t touched either one. We’d hardly spoken since I sat down.

It was so quiet that you could almost make out the voices of the paramedics outside, and occasionally I’d hear Robby say something, but I couldn’t quite understand it. But I could just barely hear the sound of another car coming up the driveway from the road, and I listened close as it stopped and somebody opened and closed its door. I knew it was Jimmy Hall, and I stood up from the couch and walked to one of the windows that looked out onto the driveway.

Chambliss’s car sat facing the house. The doors on both sides were open, and I figured the paramedics had covered Chambliss’s body by now. I could see that they’d covered Ben too where he was laying out in the gravel by the front left bumper. They’d lined up two ambulances on the passenger’s side of Chambliss’s car, and I watched a couple of paramedics strap Julie onto a gurney and lift her into the open doors of the ambulance closest to the house. Robby stood by her, and I could tell that he was talking to her, but I wondered just how much she was able to hear.

Jimmy Hall must’ve parked his truck in front of the ambulances at the bottom of the driveway. I watched him as he made his way up through the yard past them. He wasn’t wearing a hat, and his gray hair was matted down with sleep. He stopped for a minute and watched them lift Julie up into the back of the ambulance, and then he turned and stared at Chambliss’s car: the busted windshield, the blood-covered seats, the back window red with the same. When Hall walked past him, Robby turned like he was about to stop him from going any farther, but his eyes caught mine where I stood in the window. I raised my hand and motioned for him to hold off. Robby looked away from me and watched Jimmy as he walked along the side of Chambliss’s car toward the front bumper. He came around the bumper and stopped when he saw the blue sheet that covered Ben. Robby looked up at me again, and then he looked back at Jimmy Hall. He hadn’t moved yet, and Robby just turned and walked toward the cab of the ambulance that would carry Julie to the hospital.

I watched Jimmy Hall as he walked toward that blue sheet, and I watched as he kneeled down beside it. I wanted to open the front door and holler at him, let him know that he shouldn’t do it, not because I was afraid that he’d damage the crime scene or contaminate the evidence but because I knew that he might not be ready, might not ever be ready, for what he’d see under there. But I also knew that fathers want to see what’s become of their sons, and sometimes they can’t forgive themselves if they don’t. He reached out his hand and touched the sheet, but I turned away before I saw him lift it. I figured I at least owed them both the respect of that one last private moment.

Jess had opened his eyes again and was sitting on the edge of the sofa. “What’s going on outside?” he asked.

“Your grandpa’s here,” I said. I stepped away from the front door and stood in the center of the room and waited. Jess looked over at me, and then he turned and looked at the door too. We could hear Jimmy Hall coming up the porch steps and then the sound of the screen door creaking as he pulled it toward him. He opened the front door and stepped inside the house. We stood staring at each other for a second, and then he looked over at Jess.

“Hey, buddy,” he said. I heard Jess shift his weight on the sofa, and then he sniffed like he was about to cry. He stood up, and Jimmy walked across the room toward him.

“Wait,” I said. I stepped in between him and Jess, and I looked down at the fingers on Jimmy’s right hand. They looked like somebody had taken his prints by dipping his fingertips in blood. He looked down at them too, and he turned his hand over and looked into his palm like he expected to be holding something that wasn’t there. I leaned toward him and tried to whisper, even though I couldn’t say it quiet enough to keep Jess from hearing me. “You need to wash that off your hands, Jimmy,” I said. “You can’t let him see that.” I looked at him and nodded my head toward the kitchen. He looked down at Jess, and he tried to smile.