Текст книги "Poisoned Soil"
Автор книги: Tim Young
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Текущая страница: 21 (всего у книги 22 страниц)
Chapter 34
Easter Sunday arrived on the last day of March, earlier than most years. The date made little difference to Ozzie. Nor did the day of the week or the event itself, for that matter. He walked down the slope after patrolling the ridge. He looked up as he walked and noticed that most of the trees were still bare. Leaves would be coming soon enough, along with all sorts of new life on the mountain. Ozzie walked past Hal’s old garden to the pile of strewn lumber scattered about; all that remained in the woods of Hal and his cabin. Ozzie listened, hoping to hear the sound of the thumper keg, the sound of Hal’s guitar. To hear Hal rant one more time. He heard the sound of silence.
A solitary, juvenile grunt from underneath the woodpile broke the silence. Then another. Then a chorus of them as six little piglets came out to greet their dad. Ozzie looked down at the motley crew. Three were soot black, just like him. Two were black with tan or orange spots. One little fella was bright, solid orangish red, just like his mom. He was the squeaky wheel of the bunch, always whining until he was fed first, always the one claiming there was a monster in the woods coming for him. They named him Rusty.
Tammy came out from underneath a cove of boards that she and Ozzie had built from Hal’s old cabin. They pushed and shoved them around where his porch formerly stood just before Tammy had given birth two months earlier. She walked over and stood next to Ozzie and watched the little torpedos squirm around, snorting, sniffing and smelling everything in sight. Everything new and wondrous to them.
“Where’re my grand babies?” Isabella called from beside the stream.
Rusty looked up and started running toward her. The others took off, racing as well, and passed him. Rusty came to a log lying down in his path, one that the others had magically hurdled over, but seemingly impossible for him.
“Wa, wa!” Rusty squeaked and squealed.
“Rusty, grow up!” Ozzie said, looking at him firmly.
Tammy walked to Rusty and glanced back at Ozzie, shaking her head. She put her snout under his rump and lifted him up. He ran sideways toward the stream and soaked up his grandmother’s love.
***
The children raced out of the Sandy Creek Baptist Church as the Easter egg hunt was about to begin. “Not this year for you, little one,” Angelica said as she tickled her three-month-old son’s nose. “But you girls run along and have some fun,” she said to Rose’s daughters.
The girls ran off in the matching Easter dresses Angelica had hand sewn for them on her grandmother’s Singer sewing machine. Bright yellow dresses with shoulder straps, hemmed on the bottom in six inches of pink fabric with red flowers. Angelica had put a pink ribbon in their hair that flapped now as they streamed toward the eggs.
“They’re so beautiful,” Rose said to Angelica as she walked out of the church and soaked up the midday sun with John. “I just wish they’d never outgrow them.”
Angelica laughed. “Well, I want to see this little munchkin grow up,” she said. Rose smiled as Angelica looked down to her newborn son.
“I just love the name Clayton,” Rose said. “Surprising you never hear that name up here. I don’t know anyone up here named Clayton.”
“Well, now you do,” Angelica said as she leaned down and put her face right in front of her son’s.
Rose nodded as her eyes fixed on a tearful, middle-aged couple, dressed in black and kneeling to place flowers in the creek. “Who is that?” Rose asked.
“Mr. and Mrs. Dixon,” Angelica said. “They live down on Earls Ford Road. Shane was their son.”
Rose thought for a moment. “Oh God, you mean the remains of that boy that washed up, that head that—.” Rose was unable to complete the sentence. The flood of memories overcame her. Her own near personal disaster, such a tragedy at the time that became eclipsed by the horrific losses that everyone suffered from Savannah up to Clayton and beyond. Everyone had a story of loss, a story of a hero who helped and saved. The grief was so great for everyone that they had to surrender and allow themselves to focus not on what they had lost, but what they had left. Rose stood beside Angelica and recognized for the first time that those catastrophic events had brought her closer to church and closer to Angelica.
Angelica stood and watched the kids scramble for eggs along Warwoman creek. Rose took her hand in hers. Angelica looked at her with a smile, which unleashed a flood of tears from Rose. She threw her arms around Angelica and hugged her as if she hadn’t seen her in many years.
“I’m so grateful to you for caring for the girls last fall while I was sick,” Rose cried. “I don’t know what they would have done without you.” Angelica pushed her sister back slightly so she could look into her eyes. “Don’t be silly! We’re just thrilled, so relieved that you’re okay. When we heard that a woman in your hospital in Miami had died of anthrax and we couldn’t reach you...that was the scariest moment of my life!”
Rose wiped her eyes and bowed her head. “I know,” she said. “I couldn’t believe that there were three of us in the same hospital who had all eaten at the same dinner. Oh God, it’s such a surreal, horrible memory.” Rose looked out at the girls running. She looked down at her nephew. “If that doctor on the island hadn’t had experience with anthrax in Spain and known what to do...,” Rose’s lip quivered. “I don’t know, Angelica, I know I wouldn’t be here.” Rose burst out crying.
Angelica thought back to the night of the storm, of staring out the kitchen window and seeing a vision of Rose. Of gingerly rubbing her beads and reciting a chant to heal Rose. A chant her grandmother had taught her that, somehow, she felt she had known for an eternity. She gave Rose a hug.
“Do you know he lost his sister to anthrax back in Spain?” Rose said. “That’s why he came to the island – to escape from the memory of her loss. But because of her death he was able to save me.”
Angelica smiled knowingly and ran her fingers threw Rose’s hair. “We can make some good memories now,” she said.
A hand landed on Angelica’s left shoulder along with a whisper in her ear. “Hi, hon.”
She turned around. “Hi, sweetie,” Angelica said to Blake. “Whatcha been doing in there?”
“Oh I wanted to talk to the pastor for a bit about the sermon. Just enjoying some fellowship,” he said.
Rose turned and smiled at Blake. She threw her arms around him. “I owe you a thank you, too, for being so good to the girls.” Blake stepped back and smiled, still uncomfortable with moments of affection.
“Happy Easter,” Rose said.
“You too,” Blake said with a warmer smile. “Now...let’s eat! What’s for Easter dinner?”
“Well,” Angelica said, “we all grew up eating Easter hams, but I decided to cook us a roast this year. I figure we’re all a little tired of ham.”
Rose nodded her head. “Amen, sis.”
***
Nick Vegas sat at the tapas bar in Barcelona. The mirror before him reflected the image of dozens of Jamón Ibérico hams suspended from the ceiling over the bar. He looked straight up, able to reach out and touch the symbols of his passion, the symbols of his demise. The bartender poured him another glass of cheap wine as Nick returned his eyes to the Sky News business broadcast on the screen. The Forbes magazine picture of Nick and his bulldog splashed on the screen as the British reporter read the story.
“American authorities are still searching for Nick Vegas, the restaurant chain owner who is wanted in connection with the deaths of seven people and the sickening of over one hundred last fall in the 50-Forks episode, as the anthrax event has come to be known.”
The bartender too was fixed on the screen and he turned to Nick. “Hey, you know I used to know that guy,” he said.
Nick looked at him closely. “Who? The reporter?”
“No, Nick Vegas.”
Nick took a hand and pulled his shoulder length blonde hair over his ears, giving himself a more scruffy appearance. It had been months since Nick had been clean-shaven or had worn neatly groomed black hair, but he still believed he looked like the man on the screen. As he fled the country, he managed to get a few hundred thousand dollars wired to his Spanish bank account, but within a week the Spanish authorities had agreed to cooperate with the U.S. and froze his assets. All to protect the reputation of their precious Jamón Ibérico, Nick assumed. Border authorities in the U.S. and Spain remained on the lookout for Nick, so with no place to run and no money to get there, Nick hid in the shadows.
“Is that so?” Nick said.
“Yeah. Spent a little time with him at The Culinary Institute of Spain. He headed to America and I ended up here.”
Nick stared at him through his dark sunglasses.
“He always said he’d go over there,” the bartender continued, “because over here he’d just be another good Spanish chef. Nothing special. But in America, he’d be one of a kind, so to speak. He said he’d make a lot more money because the market was so much bigger. He was always about the money.”
The bartender chuckled as he put a plate of olives in front of Nick, “I like where I ended up better!”
The report continued. “Vegas is believed to have fled the country, but all of his assets were seized until the numerous civil lawsuits are settled against him. IBM lawyers are leading the legal efforts for all victims in remembrance for one of their own stars who was tragically lost. Indeed, IBM is the largest plaintiff in the wrongful death suits. Of course Vegas is also wanted by the FBI, which has issued a $500,000 reward for knowledge leading to his capture.”
Nick threw a twenty-Euro note down on the counter and walked out.
***
Angelica unlocked the door at Cherokee Traditions in Clayton at 8:45 a.m. on Monday. She flipped on the lights in the store and took in the fragrance of the medicinal and culinary herbs on the shelves. The shop was neat and tidy, as she always left it, so there was little to do before she opened the doors at nine. Walking back to the door, she inhaled the scent of coffee from Grapes and Beans across the street, but it was the comforting smell of fresh baked croissants next door that lured her. She walked in and was swallowed by the aroma of bread baking in the brick ovens and the sound of J.J. Cale from the speakers.
“Morning, angel!”
“Well good morning, Hal. How was your Easter?”
“Lousy,” he said. “Didn’t have a drink all day! Preacher said I couldn’t.”
Angelica laughed. “Well, you should have had yourself a few drops of tincture, Hal. You do realize they’re made almost entirely of vodka, don’t you?”
“Hot dammit all, I knew there’s something I liked about you other than the fact that you look like that girl Angelina Jolie. I’ll trade you this here croissant for some moonshine tincture.”
“Well...that’s not exactly what I have,” she said. “How about my Sweet Sleep Tincture?”
“Done!” Hal wrapped a croissant in paper and handed it to Angelica. “All righty, that’ll be one Sweet Sleep Tincture,” he said with a smile.
“I’m sure glad you stayed in Clayton and opened this bread shop Hal. We needed it...and you.”
Hal dropped his head and shuffled his feet. He was more comfortable goofing off than being serious. A brief flood of memories washed over him. Of making bread with Connie before she died. Of living alone in the woods for so very long. Of the horrible storm and flood that very nearly killed him before he managed to follow the raging stream to a road. Of finding the remains of that boy’s head and working with the churches on Warwoman to help so many who suffered in the horrific storm.
Mostly, he thought of Ozzie and wondered what happened to the little fellow. He reckoned he wasn’t so little anymore and figured he was probably all right. But you never know...he’d never know.
“Yeah,” he said, “I’m glad too. I like it better than Athens. Like this mountain air. And I’m glad you opened that shop of yours, too!”
Angelica took the croissant and smiled. “Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, 9:00 a.m. until 1:00 p.m., she said. Come by anytime!”
Angelica walked to the door and looked back. “Bye, Hal!”
She opened the doors to her natural herb shop and walked to the counter. Her eyes caught an aromatherapy candle that she and Blake had made together two months before. She lit the candle and smiled, recalling the fun-filled Valentine’s Day she had with Blake, making candles, watching movies and playing with Clayton. The candle flame began to burn brightly, but immediately–
“Oh no!” Angelica gasped, as the flame promptly died for no reason, leaving only a putrid trail of black smoke. Fumbling for the lighter on the counter, she placed the lighter over the flame, but even after two full minutes, the wick refused to light. Angelica looked around, feeling a twinge of unease that something was wrong. It reminded her of the feeling she had just before Rose went to the Bahamas. The same feeling she had at breakfast with her parents the morning their plane disappeared. She began to walk back to Hal’s to make sure he was all right, but the bells chimed on the front door as a couple walked in. Angelica checked the clock, 9:13 a.m., and summoned a smile.
***
“You ready to help daddy work in the garden?” Blake asked Clayton. The baby smiled, or so Blake thought, as he tickled his belly. “That’s my boy!”
Blake strapped Clayton into the infant carrier and walked out the front door. With the carrier in his right hand, Blake snaked his left hand through the air and showed his son how to do “the worm” as they walked to the garden shed. “Mama said we need to get the raised beds ready for tomatoes, little man,” Blake said in the childish, baby voice that all adults use with infants. “Now you just wait right here a moment.”
Before walking into the garden shed, Blake sat Clayton down at the entrance. Inside, Blake took a pair of garden gloves from a hook on the right wall and removed three tomato cages nested together from the overhead shelf, and then walked ten steps to place them beside his son. “We won’t be planting tomatoes for a few more weeks but might as well go ahead and set these out, right little man?”
Clayton reached unsuccessfully for the cages.
Blake walked back in and looked at the three plain cardboard boxes stacked on the shelf. He reached his hand for the top one, but it was just beyond his reach. He moved his fingers to the side of the box and tried to slide it so that the top one would tip off. It wouldn’t budge. “Hmmm. Whatever’s in there sure is heavy,” Blake said to himself and to the baby, if he was interested.
Looking around, Blake found a milk crate on the floor, placed it upside down under the boxes and stood on it. He looked over at Clayton, who still concentrated on reaching the cage that seemed impossibly out of his reach a couple of inches away. Blake landed the palm of his hand over the top box and pulled it toward him. It began to move, but stopped as the weight caused the middle box to crumple slightly, preventing the top box from sliding. He put a little more pressure on the side of the box and gave it a tug.
The shelf support to Blake’s left snapped loudly. As it did, the shelf and all the boxes fell hard and fast, hitting him squarely in the nose and knocking him off balance. As he began to fall backwards the milk crate tilted forward, causing Blake to crash through the waist-high bench behind him. The last thing Blake saw before he smacked his head on the concrete floor and fell unconscious was boxes flipping on the way down. They landed hard on his chest and face and slammed his head into the cement slab. Bags of bone meal burst open and covered Blake’s chest, face, and head in a thick cloud of moldy dust. He inhaled long and deep as he lost consciousness. Clayton’s attention was distracted from the cage at the noise and the white cloud that billowed thirty feet from him. He looked at it and reached again for the cage. He kept reaching for the next forty-five minutes until his father finally came to.
Aarrck!
A screeching sound jolted Blake. He opened his eyes and looked at the ceiling. The white cloud had settled now, but Blake couldn’t recall what had happened. As he reached back he felt a wet spot on the back of his head. He grimaced and closed his eyes, rubbing them and feeling the powder on them. Blake looked at his white finger and tilted his chin to see the thick powder that coated his chin. Alarmed, he inhaled deeply by instinct and began to cough immediately. He rolled over as he realized he was covered in dust and looked down at the torn bags of Black Rock Organic Bone Meal.
What? When did I put this here?
He snapped his head up in agonizing pain as he realized what the powder was, the ground up bones of diseased animals that had spewed death far and wide from the mountain’s poisoned soil. Exhaling, he tried with all his might to blow all the breath out of him. The more he blew, the more he coughed.
Aarrck!
Blake jerked his throbbing head to the sound that came from the garden shed entrance. Clayton had fallen asleep in the carrier. Blake rubbed his eyes at what he thought he was seeing. “What the–” Blake mumbled. A raven was perched on the infant carrier handle above Clayton. Blake dusted himself off and stood up, pushing against the wall to steady himself. “Shoo! Get out of here!”
The raven flew off as Blake picked up Clayton, careful to hold him well away from his own dusty body. He walked toward the house with the carrier in his hand and saw a shadow on the ground of the raven circling overhead.
Inside the house, Blake stumbled and sat the infant carrier on the kitchen floor. Clayton was sleeping peacefully. As Blake’s head pounded and his vision became blurred, he focused all of his concentration on unbuttoning his shirt. With great effort, he undressed and stepped into the shower where he scrubbed the powder off his body and out of his hair. Underneath the showerhead he coughed violently and spewed up blood. He couldn’t stop coughing for over a minute as he bent over and watched the blood swirl counterclockwise down the drain, looking from above like the bloody eye of a deadly hurricane.
He toweled off and pulled a jacket from a shelf high above the washing machine, draping it over a t-shirt and sweatpants. Stumbling, he made his way to the living room as he fought off the coughs, telling himself to not cough the way a spinning drunk tells himself to not throw up, to hold it in. He crashed on the sofa and pulled a blanket around his neck.
His nose and lungs felt thick. Thick with powder, thick with deceit and lies. He felt all the symptoms rising within him at once. Nausea, fever, aches. He couldn’t tell if they were physical or if they were imagined. If he was really feeling flu-like symptoms or if he was so run down from it all. More than anything he wanted Angelica and thought of calling her, but heavy fatigue gripped him. He was tired. So tired. His eyes made their way to the clock, 9:13 a.m. She’d be home in a few hours. He’d rest on the sofa.
Sleep, get some rest, that’s all you need, he told himself.
The blanket slipped to the floor as Blake’s breathing labored. He coughed loudly and his eyelids sank, sending him into a delirious journey to the darkest depths of a haunted forest. Alone he stood as the forest folded up around him. Trees inched closer; pigs squealed and stalked him with menacing tusks as coyotes circled concentrically while snapping their jaws. Jesse, Shane, Nick, Clint, and the sheriff held hands and joined the coyote’s circle as a menacing raven swooped and tormented Blake. His demons taunted, shouted and spun as they all moved closer and closer. Blake turned and turned, watching his flame flicker as the poisoned soil opened its wicked womb and prepared to swallow him. As the raven shrieked and dove straight for his face he crouched and surrendered himself into a fetal position, cradling his head while offering a final prayer for salvation.
***
Angelica walked through the kitchen door and saw Clayton sitting in the infant carrier on the floor, happily bewitched by the ceiling light. The feeling of unease she had felt earlier in the morning vanished as she smiled, bent over, and put her face just in front of his. Clayton’s eyes adjusted and focused on his mother’s face, and a toothless smile beamed as his body shifted with uncontrollable glee.
Filled with love and bliss in her heart, Angelica rose and began walking toward the living room. After three steps, she stopped abruptly. Fear seized her, sending chills up her spine and down her arms as her eyes widened at the sight of Blake curled in the fetal position on the sofa. Within an instant, her gut swirled with worry and panic, supplanting every loving emotion she had felt only seconds before.
Quivering, she stepped forward and looked down, staring in disbelief at the blood-stained blue jacket that cloaked the lifeless body of her husband, her son’s father. Slowly, her worry and panic began to fade as fury boiled within her.
She bit her lip and bored her eyes into a crucifix above the fireplace for answers, furious emotions stewing in her gut. A river of rage flowed down her cheeks as the realization set in that her dream of a simple life with Blake, an honest family life, was forever shattered. The tears turned bitter as Angelica stormed across the hardwood floor, narrowing her eyes on Blake as she feverishly paced back and forth. “Why didn’t you just return the jacket and do what was right? WHY?”
She stopped and stood there, staring at Blake for a moment longer, finding no answers to her questions. Angelica turned once more to the crucifix, fixing her eyes upon it firmly. “Well?” she asked. “Is he in a better place?” She thrust her arms overhead in exaspiration. “Does God have a plan?” Angelica held her breath and held a stern gaze upon the crucifix.
Movement from the kitchen distracted and disarmed her. She looked back to see Clayton’s arms dangle excitedly over the edge of the infant carrier as he was captivated once more by the ceiling light. Her shoulders collapsed and her tension faded. As she exhaled, tears began to swell, and her sadness, her rage, morphed into forgiveness and understanding.
She walked to the sofa and stroked Blake’s hair. Angelica thought of the day she first saw him. She thought of her junior prom date with Blake, and then thought of their wedding day. Turning her head to see the baby’s dangling arms in the kitchen, she looked back at Blake and smiled as she thought of the day, only months before, when Clayton was born. Of how happy Blake had finally become. She pictured the little Georgia Bulldogs outfit that Blake had bought for Clayton and recalled the smile on his face as he placed it on the baby. For an eternal moment, she looked at Blake’s face, caressed his cheeks, and smiled at him, one last time.
Then, Angelica leaned over Blake’s body. She reached for her walking stick that was leaning against the sofa; its razor sharp root spikes protruding like gnarly hair over the deranged face that had been carved for its head long, long ago. Angelica kissed the beads that hung from her neck as she knelt on the hardwood floor, weeping with the knowledge that justice had been served.
Baldev nodded in approval of the sacrifice.
