Smith Henderson - Fourth of July Creek

No.

Why not?

She thought maybe her mother would be so glad to see her that she would let her get away with anything.

Was she?

She slapped her. Right in front of the police. Then kissed her and held her and cried and asked why and answered her own question that she was a bad mother and they needed to leave this place, they needed a fresh start and in a week they were headed to Austin where she had a job waiting for her.

What job?

A guy knew a woman who had to go back to Charlotte and needed someone to sublet her place and even better would Beth take her shifts at the bar down there, it paid good enough, hell yes.

What did they tell Jimmy?

They just left.

He went back to work. He visited the Shorts armed with mace for the Rottweilers (gone), called Cecil’s uncle Elliot to check in on them (no answer), and paid a visit to Cecil’s mother, Debbie (skittish, defensive), and Katie (hale), but Pete was distracted. His mind kept turning to the Pearls, the boy, the coins. He watched for coins.

The cache of clothes and medicine was as he left it in the cleft of the rock. He sat listening to the forest, the chipmunks scurrying over the duff, the sky yellow with thin clouds and high smoke from a forest fire in Canada.

On his way down, Pete encountered a man dragging a travois of marijuana plants out of the cedar. When he spotted Pete, he dropped the plants and marched straight up the road toward him. Pete’s only options were up or down the mountain, or back up the grade behind him. He took his hands out of his pockets and waited. Told himself the guy just wanted to check him out. Tried to appear harmless and fearless at once.

The man was a panting six foot five, two-fifty. Not exactly fit, but formidable and aptly paranoid. He’d stripped his torso to a sweat-stained thermal undershirt. He wore leather gloves and a three-day beard and he looked like he meant business a little more than Pete expected.

“Who… the hell are you?” he asked.

“My name’s Pete Snow. I’m a social worker.”

“A social… worker…,” the man panted.

“Yes. There’s a family up here. ..”

Clearly the man had no idea what that could mean. He scanned Pete up and down and then stepped closer to him. Pete balled his fists at his side and backed up. The guy halted his advance and squinted sweat out of his eyes and dabbed them with his sleeves.

“I’m a need you to let me pat you down,” he said.

“What for?”

“Weapons. Whatever I find.”

“Would I be making fists if I had a weapon?”

The man sighed like he’d done this dozens of times, like a bouncer.

“I ain’t up here growing vegetables,” he said. “I gotta know who we’re dealing with.”

“My badge is in my car down at the gate.”

“Fuck,” he said. “Really?”

“What?”

“You’re parked at the gate? At the end of this road?”

“Yes. At the end of this road.”

He turned around and gestured for Pete to follow him. “Come on.”

“Like hell.”

The man stopped, turned around.

“One way or another,” he said wearily, “you’re coming with me.”

The grow was at the north end of a meadow where the uninterrupted sun nourished a dense half-acre of unremarkable cannabis all the day long. Two men halted chopping down the rows and stood straight up with their machetes at the sight of Pete and the man escorting him to their tiny plantation in the forest.

“Who the hell is this?” the nearest man asked. He’d gone bald, and an outsized Adam’s apple moved in his lank neck. The one behind him was from the looks of him a relation, bigger and with a full head of hair. A son or much younger brother or a cousin from one of those families where the kin bear too much resemblance and together seem like iterations of an old idea.

“Was coming out of the woods. Some kind of government worker.”

“The hell you bring him here for, George?” the bald man asked, chucking his machete into the earth and walking to them.

“He’s parked down at the gate.”

The other two men groaned. The bald man quickly looked at his watch and swore.

“Well Tom ain’t coming back.”

“I’m sure he’s spooked.”

“He’s cautious ,” the bald man said pointedly. He addressed Pete: “What are you, Fish and Game?”

Pete wondered if he appeared scared. How not to.

“I’m a social worker. I told your friend I left my badge in my car.”

The bald man looked at the other two. Pete couldn’t see the George who stood behind him, but the one with a head of hair shrugged in what Pete hoped was a benign indifference.

“Look, I really don’t have any sort of legal requirement to do anything,” Pete said. “I’m not a police—”

“Does your car have any kind of decals on it?” the bald man asked. “Like from your office?”

“Nope.”

“Give George your keys,” he said.

Pete hesitated. Thought he should break for it.

“I gotta see that badge,” the bald man said. He stepped close enough for Pete to see that maybe he could trust him. Close enough to hit him too.

Pete dug into his jeans and handed the keys over. The bald man told George to hurry, and George sighed and jogged off flatfooted in the direction of the road. At a gesture from the bald man, the other resumed chopping down the plants. The bald man pulled his own machete out of the ground and pointed with it at a place for Pete to sit. After a few minutes, he came and squatted in front of Pete, his arms across his thighs, the machete dangling between his legs.

“So what’s a social worker doing up here?”

Pete breathed through his nose, and studied a place just below the man’s eyes as he spoke clearly and without a trace of fear or impatience. As if all that mattered were facts, and with facts they would avoid all unfortunate outcomes. He explained about the Pearl boy coming to the school. How the boy said he lived up here, up this road, in these woods. How he returned the boy to his family.

“There aren’t any families up here, man.”

“This was some weeks ago,” Pete said flatly.

“There are not any families up here,” the man repeated.

“I can show you where I left them some clothes and food.”

The bald man searched Pete’s face for some sign of a lie.

“Stand up.”

“Why?”

“Stand up.”

“I’m afraid of what you’re going to do,” Pete said. “I won’t cooperate if you’re going to hurt me.”

The bald man looked at his partner, who had come over to see whatever was going to happen. The bald man half-laughed and half-sighed and said, “I’m just gonna pat you down. C’mon. Up.”

“Your friend already did that. Look, I’ll take you up to where I met Pearl,” Pete said. “At least let me show you the things I left.”

The man stood in alarm, as if a rattlesnake had emerged from between Pete’s legs.

“Did you say ‘Pearl’? Jeremiah Pearl?”

Pete nodded.

The man looked at his cousin or brother and put his palms to his kidneys and arched his back and looked at the sky. Then he grabbed a handful of plant stalks and started toward the trail.

“Come on,” he said. “We gotta move ass.”

They folded and stuffed as many of the grown plants into Pete’s trunk as would fit, and then laid several out on the backseat and floor and left many of the plants by the side of the road. Pete didn’t hazard an objection. They covered everything with their coats and climbed in. Pete backed down the road to the blacktop, turned the car around at the roadside, and asked them where to. The car was already pungent with sweat, dirt, and the aroma of their cargo.