Alex Bledsoe - The Hum and the Shiver

“Wow,” Bronwyn said, imaging the impact as the body crashed through the tree limbs before striking ground she knew was rock hard. “So he killed himself?”

“Our songs are important,” Bliss said. “We have to know them. We have to sing them. And someone has to listen. That’s why we meet and play, that’s why Rockhouse’s people meet and play.”

“But he did kill himself?” she persisted.

Bliss looked into the girl’s eyes. “He needed killing, Bronwyn. Whether he did it to himself or someone else did it, the result was the same.”

Now Bronwyn recalled that conversation in a whole new light. Had Bliss confessed to murder? Had she personally shoved Ardis the dog-killer off the cliff? And ultimately, was she right? Hadn’t Bronwyn been trained to kill, quickly and efficiently, anyone her superior officers said “needed killing”? Bliss had at least made the determination herself; Bronwyn simply followed orders.

She put the letter aside and picked up another. It read simply, Get well soon. The Davis Family: Bill, Suzy, Brittany, and Joshua .

Her laptop was still packed away. She hadn’t checked her e-mail in three days, since leaving the base for the flight home. Would it now be full of similar greetings? She’d learned in the hospital that Web sites devoted to her, or rather to the media’s image of her, had sprung up like mushrooms after a summer rain. She’d deliberately avoided them; did these people not have lives ?

She considered trying to get to the refrigerator for a beer to help her relax. She’d been sneaking beer out of that same fridge since she was twelve, and climbing out the window through which she’d spied the haint for almost as long. Lying in a drugged stupor in the hospital, she’d wished for this room with almost feral ferocity, but now that she was here, all the feelings that drove her away from it had returned. She felt more trapped than ever before.

She wanted a drink. She wanted to kiss a boy. She wanted that boy to put his hands all over her. She wanted to drive like a maniac, and pick fights with other boys’ girlfriends, and with other boys. She wanted to spray-paint something rude on the water tower in nearby Mallard Creek.

Instead, she was on her ass in bed, her leg assimilated by the Borg and her head numb and fuzzy. The Bronwynator had left the building.

She yawned. Now she was tired, after all those deep thoughts. She pushed the envelopes and cards aside and turned off the lamp. The sense of foreign objects under her skin was so palpable, she could barely stand it, so she closed her eyes and began whisper-singing one of the oldest songs she knew, something that always gave her comfort. She was so weary, she did not realize that this was the first whole song she’d been able to recall since her injuries. She just knew it felt wonderful to sing it.

The transition from song to dream passed without notice. Unlike her recent nightmares, in this reverie she reclined naked on soft grass, the night air warm and humid, the silver full moon overhead. Her skin was smooth and bore no injuries, no scars. In the dream she began to cry with happiness.

Deacon eased the tractor along the rows of knee-high corn. Dirt stirred by his passage sparkled in the morning sunlight.

He’d been up since before dawn, unable to really sleep. He’d heard the front door open, the creak of passage across the floor, and the distinctive squeak of Bronwyn’s bedroom door. He had a good idea who had come to visit, and why. At least this time it hadn’t been that damned Gitterman boy, but the knowledge did not help him relax.

He wiped his sweaty face with the back of his arm. The day was starting out muggy, so even though the temperature was pleasant he still dripped with perspiration. It wasn’t hard to farm in the valley, and this field was small but blessedly flat. All he had to do was keep the dirt turned, hum the right tune, and everything came up easy. They’d have enough corn for the family, and a little to sell besides.

Over the tractor’s rumble he heard a sharp whistle. He looked around, saw the source, and froze. He reached under the seat for the .22 revolver he kept handy to chase off rabbits and starlings and tucked it into the waistband of his jeans.

He left the tractor idling as he hopped down, feeling the impact in his knees and lower back. He strode across the field to the barbed wire fence, where Dwayne Gitterman stood leaning on a post. His truck was parked in the middle of the road behind him. He looked like he’d been up all night, with red eyes and a beer-stained shirt. Dwayne grinned and said, “Hey there, Mr. Hyatt. How’s the corn coming? Keeping the horseweed under control?”

“What do you want, Dwayne?”

Dwayne put one foot on the lowest strand of wire and lifted himself off the ground, using the pole for balance. “I was driving by, and when I saw you, I thought I might come by tonight and see Bronwyn.”

“Hm. When I saw you, I thought I might shoot you and bury you where nobody would find you.”

“Now that’s fucking harsh, Mr. Hyatt. I never did nothing bad to you or your daughter.”

“And you never done nothing good for anyone else in your life. Get outta here, Dwayne. If you come to the house, I won’t have to shoot you. Bronwyn’ll have your balls for paperweights before you get to the porch. And not a soul will miss you.”

“Well, I might still do it. I’m only a frog’s-hair less pure-blooded than you, you know, so I expect y’all to be civil.” He hopped down off the fence. “You might come outside sometime when I’m squirrel hunting and catch a stray bullet, you never know. Be a real tragedy. My conscience would never get over it.”

“I might mention you threatenin’ me to old Trooper Bob Pafford. He’s still got an eye out for you, and he’d love the chance to pull you over.”

“That asshole don’t scare me,” Dwayne said. “And he could never catch me.”

Deacon met Dwayne’s eyes. He was silent for a long moment, then said softly, “Do you want me to sing about you at the barn dance, Dwayne? Want me to come up with your dirge? Because if that’s what it takes to get Bronwyn shed of you, I’ll do it.”

Dwayne’s cocky grin slipped a little. “You be overreacting a little, Mr. Hyatt,” he drawled.

“No, you be taking up too much of my time. Go back to your hole and bother somebody else. You come anywhere around here again, it’ll be my trigger finger that slips before I can stop myself. And your dirge might get a thimbleful of tears out of the whole valley.”

Aunt Raby’s attic smelled like she did: a musty, abandoned accumulation of decades sticking around for reasons unknown even to her. The boxes stacked along the walls and at the eaves were unmarked, and bore the logos of defunct produce companies and other products that no longer existed. Don banged his head on the beam running down the center of the peaked roof and muttered, “Shit!”

“What was that?” Aunt Raby’s trembling voice called. She waited at the bottom of the rickety ladder, propped on her upstairs walker.

“Nothing, Aunt Raby.” He shone the flashlight around until he saw the box she’d mentioned, then crawled on his hands and knees to it. Dust puffed when he opened the flaps.

Inside the box were the contents of an old writing desk: innumerable pens, small white envelopes, and blank reply cards with faded images of birds and flowers. But beneath them, at the bottom of the box, he found the Swayback family Bible.