Final Scream

  Angie didn’t seem to notice as she leaned forward and blew across her nails, but another bluish mark showed on her inner thigh, maybe just a bruise, but the perfectly round shape could have been made by lips—Brig’s lips as he sucked on Angie’s skin in the height of passion.

  Vomit threatened the back of Cassidy’s throat.

  “Hey, thanks a lot,” Angie said as Cassidy, without a word, turned on her heel and hurried out of the room. She clutched her stomach and wished she’d never seen the telltale marks. So Angie had hickeys—so big deal. Didn’t she date a million boys?

  Yeah, but last night she’d been with Brig, and if she’d been covered with hickeys earlier, wouldn’t Cassidy have seen them when Angie was swimming naked in the pool? True it had been dark, but…Oh, God, she didn’t want to think about Brig making love to Angie, then turning his attention on her. It was perverted and sick and—she ran to the bathroom and threw up in the toilet.

  Fool! That’s what she was—a stupid, naïve fool. Brig must be laughing at her now, at her inexperience, how she’d nearly melted when he’d touched her, how she’d arched up, silently begging him to do to her what stallions did to mares. Like an animal in heat—that’s what she’d been.

  She flushed the toilet, then rinsed her mouth out in the sink and brushed her teeth so harshly she probably stripped off some of the enamel.

  By the time she reached the stable, Brig wasn’t around. Remmington was in a field grazing, and the night before seemed almost as if it had been a dream—a silly schoolgirl fantasy—and that’s how she was going to think about it, as if her lovemaking with Brig had never really happened.

  Ten

  “Well, if you don’t look like something the cat dragged in and then, on second thought, dragged back out again.” Chase, stripped to a pair of faded jeans and tattered leather gloves, was spreading gravel on the drive, filling the potholes. A toothpick was wedged into the corner of his mouth and sweat gleamed on his skin.

  Brig climbed off his motorcycle and his back popped. “About how I feel.” Every muscle and joint in his body ached, and all he wanted was a cold bottle of beer and to fall face first into bed. He’d sleep around the clock if he had to. Maybe then he’d quit feeling so damned guilty about Cassidy. Maybe then he’d stop considering what it would feel like to lie naked with her and make love to her hour after hour, all night long. Shit, he was getting hard just thinking about her. A drop of sweat slid seductively down his spine.

  And what about Angie? What the hell are you gonna do about her?

  “Out tom-catting last night?” Chase asked.

  Brig forced a smile. “Chasing runaway nags. That mule of Cassidy’s took off on me.” Wincing, he worked a knot out of his shoulder.

  “Sure.” Chase picked up the handles of the wheelbarrow and shook out a load of gravel before grabbing a rake and spreading the dusty pebbles.

  “You need help?”

  “’Bout done.”

  “Guess my timing’s just about right.”

  Chase leaned on the handle of his rake and rubbed his jaw. “You know, I saw Angie in town today.”

  “Did you?”

  “Yep.” Chase looked thoughtful and all his cockiness faded. “I hate to admit it, but I think she’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

  “You like her because she’s got money,” Brig reminded him.

  “That helps,” Chase admitted, “but even if she was dirt poor, she’d still be something.” He smiled ruefully, as if he were ashamed to admit he could look beyond the almighty dollar.

  “Christ, I don’t know what I’m saying. Just that she’s gorgeous, I guess.”

  “If you like trouble.”

  Though his eyes didn’t spark with their usual light, Chase’s grin was wide, showing off even teeth. “Since when don’t you?”

  “There’s trouble…then there’s trouble,” Brig said. “You know the kind I’m talkin’ about, the kind that follows you to the grave. That’s the Angie Buchanan kind.”

  “Yeah, but what I wouldn’t do for a little piece of it.” He pushed the wheelbarrow back to the pile of gravel and began shoveling. Pebbles rained on the rusted bottom of the metal cart.

  Jamming his hands into the torn back pockets of his Levi’s, Brig said, “She wants me to take her to the Caldwell barbecue.”

  “Jeeezuz.” The muscles in Chase’s back stiffened for a minute before he threw himself into his task again. “You goin’?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “You’d give up a chance like that?” Chase threw down the shovel. “You can’t, Brig. You’ve got to go.”

  “Why?”

  “’Cause of the people you’d meet. Might be someone there who’ll give you a way out of this hellhole.”

  “Is that any way to talk about our hometown?”

  “This is no time for jokes. You go to that party, Brig. Hell, I’m trying to find a way to wangle an invitation myself. I’d go with Velma Henderson, if I could, and she’s got to be eighty-five.”

  “Ninety, I think.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I’d kill to get there. And now you have the chance to go with Angie Buchanan? Hell, Brig, what have you got for brains?”

  “This is where we’re different, college boy. See, to you getting ahead, getting out, making a whole pile of money, matters.”

  “And it doesn’t to you?” Chase asked.

  Brig reached into the pocket of his shirt and found his pack of Camels. He shook out a cigarette and squinted at the horizon. “I figure it’s the same here as anywhere else. Oh, maybe there’s more people, or less. Some good, some bad. But the rich ones still own the town, and the poor bastards just try to scratch out a livin’.” He scraped a match against the book and lit up, blowing a cloud of smoke into the air.

  “Yeah, well, I’d like to try being on the other side.” Chase grabbed his rake and began moving the gravel again. “Sure beats breaking your back working for someone else.” He frowned a little, then spit out his toothpick. “Besides, aren’t you tired of being known as the son of a half-breed fortuneteller?”

  “Doesn’t bother me.”

  “Well, it should, Brig, ’cause she’s getting worse. Just today, before she took off for town, she had one of her ‘spells.’ The headache didn’t last long, but she had one of her ‘visions’ or whatever the hell you want to call ’em. Claims it was so vivid, she was sure it was real. Says that you and me are in some kind of danger.”

  “She always says that.”

  “I know.” Chase’s face became stern, and when he gazed up at Brig, his eyes were serious. “But it’s worse now. She was nearly hysterical. Like she was on LSD or peyote or some such crap. I’m telling you, Brig, sometimes she’s real spooky. She drove off into town to get something—hell if I know what—but she took off like a bat out of hell and I haven’t seen her since.”

  “Leave her alone.”

  “I think she needs to be committed.”

  “You what?” Brig said, then sucked hard on his Camel. The old metal sign with its faded single eye creaked on its hinges in a gust of wind. PALM READING. TAROT CARDS. FORTUNE TELLING.

  “She’s got more than one screw loose, you and I both know it. Always been that way, but ever since she lost Buddy—”

  “That was years ago—”

  “Yeah, well, I remember it like it was yesterday—him falling into the creek and screaming and me not able to get to him.” Chase’s face turned chalky and his eyes centered on the middle distance as they always did when he thought about the brother Brig had never known, the boy who was only two years younger than Chase.

  “You’re still blamin’ yourself.”

  “Can’t help it,” Chase said as he picked up the damned shovel and rammed it into the diminishing pile of gravel. For years Chase had tried to erase the memory, but still it haunted him—disturbed his dreams, sometimes crept up on him unaware in the middle of the day.

  “You were only five, couldn’t swim yourself.” r />
  “Let’s not talk about it,” Chase snapped and Brig, flicking his cigarette onto the freshly strewn gravel, seemed to agree.

  “I need a beer. Want one?”

  “Later.” Chase pushed the wheelbarrow farther down the road and heard Brig climb up the steps and go inside the house. Don’t blame yourself. How many times had he heard that same tired phrase? From his mother, even his old man while he was still around. A school counselor somewhere along the way had mouthed the same empty words, but Chase knew the truth. Though it had happened nearly twenty years before, he could still remember that cool spring day as if it had been yesterday.

  His mother had been in the trailer house recuperating from giving birth to Brig. Hers had been a difficult labor, an emergency cesarean, an expensive delivery and Sunny’s last. She’d nearly died, though Chase didn’t know it at the time. He only knew that he and Buddy had been left with their father, and while Frank McKenzie was working at the Buchanan sawmill, some starchy women from a church had watched him and his little brother. They’d been all smiles when he’d looked their way, but had clucked their tongues and gossiped on the phone when they’d thought he wasn’t listening. They’d talked of Jesus being good and God being wrathful. Chase had been only five at the time, but the memory of that day was forever seared into his brain.

  When Sunny had returned from the hospital, she was still weak, and, Chase learned years later, she’d been released too early because of trouble paying the medical bills. At home, Sunny wouldn’t accept any help from the ladies. “Thanks much, but we’ll get along just fine,” she’d told Earlene Spears, the spindly, severe-faced woman who was married to the preacher. She wasn’t as old as Mama, but the lines of strain around her face and her too-thin body aged her beyond her years.

  “The boys will be too much for you.” Earlene always smiled, though her grin somehow looked forced and grim, as if she were in pain.

  “They’re my boys. We’ll make out,” Sunny had insisted, but she hadn’t counted on the fact that she would start hemorrhaging or that while she was nursing her infant son, she would fall asleep and both Chase and Buddy would escape out the front door of the trailer.

  It had been an early spring, the weather in the surrounding hills warmer than usual, the water runoff from the snowpack filling the creeks and rivers to the tops of their banks. Chase had met Andy Wilkes down at the bend in Lost Dog Creek, which was normally little more than a brook that cut through the southeast corner of the property. Andy was a year older, and they’d decided to build a dam at a narrow point and catch crawdads and salamanders.

  Chase hadn’t only forgotten his jacket; he hadn’t realized that the door to the trailer hadn’t latched, that he’d left the gate to the fenced yard open and Buddy had followed him, wandering past the old stumps and clumps of berry vines in the field.

  “Why’d ya bring him?” Andy asked. He was knee-deep in the stream, piling rocks from one bank. His hands were red, his nose running.

  Chase turned and saw his brother for the first time. “Go home,” he said, angry that Buddy had puppy-dogged him. Ever since Mama had come home with the baby, Chase had been expected to look after Buddy.

  “No.” Buddy clambered after Chase, even when he waded into the stream in his tennis shoes. Mama would kill him when he got home because he hadn’t bothered with his boots, but he didn’t care. Andy was his best friend, and Mrs. Spears, from the church, hadn’t let him play outside while she’d watched them.

  “Get outta here,” Chase said. “We don’t wanna play with you. You’re just a baby.” Buddy’s little face folded in on itself and tears threatened his eyes. If he ran back to the house now and tattled, Chase would be in big trouble. “Okay. You can stay. But don’t come near the water.” He turned back to Andy. “Don’t pay any attention to him; he’s just a kid.”

  Andy laughed, wiped his nose with the back of his jacket sleeve and began working again. Chase waded across where the creek wasn’t so swift and he began building from the far bank, forgetting about Buddy as the water started funneling swiftly through the narrowing channel. Spurred by their progress, he and Andy piled rocks as fast as they could.

  Andy began telling dirty jokes—the kind Chase didn’t understand, but he laughed anyway, trying to impress the older boy. From the corner of his eye he saw Buddy step into the swift water just downstream of the dam. “Hey—don’t—”

  But it was too late. Buddy took another wobbling step and was in over his knees.

  “Buddy, go home!” But the stupid kid started plunging through the water. “Mama’s gonna tan your hide, and if she don’t, I will!” Chase yelled, using his father’s favorite threat to impress Andy.

  “I help, too!” Buddy said as he stepped on a slippery rock and lost his balance. With a scream he fell into the water.

  Chase felt instant terror. He scrambled over his dam, knocking off the top layer of rocks and splashing through the icy current.

  Buddy surfaced, screamed again, then his head submerged as he was carried downstream.

  “No!” Chase ran through the water, slogging through the ripples, and Andy, too, plunged through the current trying to catch the flailing boy. “Buddy! Hang on! Buddy!”

  “Chase!” He heard his name over the wind and from the corner of his eye saw his mother, carrying the baby as she stood in the open doorway. “Is Buddy with—”

  “Mama! Help!”

  “Oh, God!” Her scream was filled with anguish. She ran, still clutching the infant, her black hair streaming behind her. “Catch him, oh, please catch him!” The baby started to wail.

  Buddy was facedown in the stream. Chase slipped, fell and gulped water, but kept plowing forward. Andy climbed onto the bank and ran, trying to get ahead of the drowning boy.

  But they were too late. Buddy didn’t stop until he hit the fence line, where a cattle guard spanned the creek. Buddy’s little body caught against the metal grate and Andy, crying, yanked him out of the tangle of weeds and leaves and branches that had been blocked from being carried farther downstream.

  “Buddy, Buddy, oh baby!” Mama cried. Her bathrobe billowing in the wind, she plunged into the water. Still cradling baby Brig, she managed to get an arm around Buddy. “Go home,” she yelled at Andy. “Tell your mom to call an ambulance! Get help! Now!”

  White-faced and scared spitless, Andy scrambled over the sagging wire fence and took off like a shot.

  Chase was crying, sobbing wretchedly as Mama worked her way up the bank. “Go into the house and get dry. Take the baby and put him in his bassinet,” she ordered, placing a howling Brig into Chase’s sodden arms.

  “But Mama, I’m sorry, so sorry!”

  “Go!”

  “Buddy—”

  “I’ll take care of Buddy!” she’d said, looking fierce. For the first time Chase noticed the stains of red running down her legs—the way her nightgown was plastered to her body, that her lips were a strange, scary shade of purple.

  “You’re bleeding,” he said, his chin trembling, tears rolling out of his eyes.

  “Just go!” she said sternly as she lay Buddy on the ground, face up. Buddy’s skin was blue; his eyes were open and didn’t move. His chest didn’t rise or fall. I’ve killed him. I’ve killed my brother! Chase was more scared than he’d ever been in his life. Mama leaned over as if to kiss Buddy on the lips, then blew hard for a few seconds before pressing with both her hands on his little chest. She lifted her eyes to his and there was an unusual tranquillity in her eyes. “Go on, Chase, be Mama’s helper. Take care of the baby and call the sawmill—tell the secretary to send your dad home. It’s an emergency. And…and tell the secretary to tell Rex Buchanan that there’s trouble at the McKenzie place.”

  “W-who?”

  “Daddy’s boss. Now go!”

  Again she leaned over Buddy to blow into his small mouth and Chase took off, running, nearly tripping, holding the baby next to his sodden chest.

  He’d murdered Buddy. He knew it. As sure as i
f he’d shot him with Daddy’s hunting rifle. Chase glanced up at the gray skies and realized that God was punishing him for being careless. Hadn’t Mrs. Spears preached to him every day for a week that God punished evil little boys who didn’t obey, and today, because Chase had gone against his mother’s orders, he’d made God mad. Real mad.

  Chase had never seen Buddy again after the ambulance took him away. His mother had explained that Buddy was in the hospital, that he would come home someday, but he never had. Nor had he died, at least not that Chase knew of. He’d never gone to a funeral; never had his mother taken him to a cemetery. When he’d asked about Buddy, Sunny had always seemed distant and only replied that his brother was fine—being taken care of.

  When he’d gotten older, Chase had gleaned that Buddy was probably alive, but paralyzed or severely retarded or unable to take care of himself, a ward of the state in some institution somewhere.

  And the guilt had never left him. Maybe that’s why at twenty-four, Chase hadn’t moved away. He felt as if he owed his mother something. Buddy’s accident had changed the climate of the little family, and Frank McKenzie, unable to deal with the loss of his son and his wife’s depression after another hospital stay for a hysterectomy, had gone off to work one day and never come home.

  He’d left his family the small scrap of land he’d inherited from his father, and a beat-up old Chevy and a pile of hospital debts that Sunny couldn’t possibly pay. For years there had been talk in town of taking Brig and Chase away from a mother who couldn’t afford them. The welfare people and social workers had made monthly visits.

  Chase and Brig had grown up with the knowledge that at any minute they might be stripped away from their mother. They’d heard the talk in town. Not only had Sunny proved herself unfit and already lost a healthy son by her own neglect, but her husband had left her because of rumors of infidelity. Worse yet, she couldn’t support herself and the boys properly. Chase had taken a paper route at age seven and his mother had started reading palms.

  He and Brig had gone to school in hand-me-downs and torn jackets—shoes with holes in them and bare heads. “It’s no shame to be poor,” his mother had always said. “But there’s no excuse for being dirty.” So his ragged jackets were always clean and pressed, his patched jeans crisp, his too-small shoes polished.