“Whipped ’em up,” Hydrant said.
“And then we beat ’em on down.” Spitz grinned and adjusted his visor. “Beat those scrawny little rabbit runnin’ muck bunnies into fluff.”
Charlie could feel Mack’s hands tighten slightly on his shoulders. “You did,” he said. “A school four times our size beat us down. Twice. My freshman year. My sophomore year. What happened the next two years?”
Spitz laughed and waved off Mack’s question like a gnat.
“Sure, you got a couple wins, too,” Spitz said. “But Bobby ran you out of the state. Hydrant, what did Bobby put on the Terps junior year? Two hunnies? Three?”
Hydrant cleared his throat and lifted his chin. “Two hundred and seventy-four yards rushing.”
Spitz whistled. “That’s something else.” He pointed at Mack, but he was looking at Charlie. “Your daddy should’ve been the one off in the league, making millions. Your daddy, Charlie Reynolds, and don’t you forget it.” He looked at Mack. “Kinda strange, Prester Mack, you linking up with Bobby Reynolds’s old lady like that. Raising his son.”
“Strange,” said Hydrant.
Prester Mack stepped around Charlie, big hands on his hips but an easy smile still on his face.
“This why you boys came?” Mack said. “Get some cracks in to my boy?”
Spitz wrinkled his mustache with half a grin. “You mean Bobby’s boy?”
Hydrant stepped forward, sliding between the two taller men. They stared at each other over his hat. Mack pulled off his sunglasses.
“If you have any real business, I’d get to it.” Mack’s voice was riding on a growl. “If you don’t, I’m likely to forget you’re a cop.”
Sheriff Leroy Spitz raised his hands and smiled at Mack. Then at Charlie.
“Played quarterback myself,” he said. “People called me Firecracker on account of my red hair and my knowing how to light people up.” He patted Mack on the shoulder and stepped around him. “Girls just called me Fire.”
“Boys just called you Cracker,” Mack said.
“That they did,” Spitz said. He pulled off his sunglasses and winked at Charlie. His eyes were grimy blue. “Jealousy is a sickness.” Reaching back, he snapped his fingers behind him. Hydrant tugged a little notepad out of his shirt along with a tiny pencil.
“You know why we’re here?” Spitz asked.
Charlie nodded. Then he shrugged. Finally, he shook his head.
Spitz laughed. “Boy, don’t ever get yourself arrested. You look guilty sideways to Sunday.”
Charlie licked his lips, and as sweat sponged out of his forehead, he wiped it on the shoulder of his T-shirt.
“This morning, we got a call about René Mack,” Spitz said. “Asked around a bit and heard you might know something.”
Charlie blinked. He looked at Mack and then back at the sheriff.
“René? I don’t know who that is. I’ve never met her.”
Spitz grinned. “Not a her.”
“He means Cotton,” Mack said. “His real name is René.” He looked at Spitz. “What kind of call? What happened?”
“Wish we knew.” Spitz pulled off his visor and wiped his head with his hairy forearm. “He never turned up home last night. His mama called us this morning. She calls us on him at least once a month, so we’re not throwing any panic switches just yet, but the way things have been around Taper lately, we figured it might be best to start poking around.”
“The way things have been?” Mack asked. “What do you mean?”
“All the runaways,” Spitz said. “Been real high cross the whole county the last few weeks, and young ones, too.”
“Too young,” Hydrant said.
“Not talking about punks and dropouts,” Spitz said. “Good kids. Twelve, eleven years old. Couple just ten.”
“Ten,” said Hydrant. He clicked his tongue and shook his head.
Charlie wasn’t listening. Cotton was missing? Hadn’t made it home?
“Charlie?”
He looked up into his stepfather’s dark eyes. Mack nodded toward the sheriff.
Spitz cocked his head. “We got someone says they saw René jump out at you from behind a parked car last night just about where Dredge Street dead-ends. Says René took off running. Then you took off running. That right?”
Charlie swallowed. He bit his lip. Then he nodded.
Hydrant made a careful note—thick fingers pinching tiny pencil.
Spitz tugged his belt up against his belly. “Now what were you boys up to?”
“Cotton took me out in the cane. On his bike.”
“Why?” Mack asked. “He trying to scare the city boy?”
“I guess,” Charlie said. “But we both got spooked. He took off running and I followed him.”
“Guess you don’t have speed,” Spitz said. He winked again.
Charlie blinked. So many things could have happened to Cotton. He could hear the panthers. He could smell that … stench. He could see that tall man with the body on his shoulder. What had the man said?
Stay close with me.
Your mothers may be weeping nan maten.
“I didn’t follow him right away,” Charlie said. How much should he say? Charlie cleared his throat. “The moon was up. There were two panthers and this—”
“Heard them or saw them?” Spitz interrupted.
“Both,” said Charlie.
Spitz glanced at Hydrant. “Bobcats more than like.” He smirked at Charlie. “Plain ol’ cats, maybe. Things look bigger in the dark, specially to a city boy.”
Hydrant nodded and made a note.
Charlie wanted to argue, but he just shrugged. “Cotton ran. I ran. He jumped out when I was in the street. Said goodnight. Took off. I assumed he was going home.”
Hydrant made another note.
“Right,” Spitz said. “Well, I’m sure the boy will turn up when he’s hungry. His mama probably set out some big pile of book uglies he didn’t want to read. I swear she homeschools blisters on that boy. That’s why he took off the last couple times.”
Hydrant tucked his notepad and pencil carefully into his breast pocket. Then he crossed his hands in front of his belt like a soldier on guard.
Spitz moved toward the driver’s side of the cop car and pulled it open. He hesitated.
“Last question, Charlie Reynolds. There’s half a million acres of cane in this state. Where you boys go exactly? You have any idea?”
Charlie shifted, scraping his shoes on the asphalt. There was no reason to lie. Was there? And he wouldn’t lie to Mack. Still …
“Near the church.” He cleared his throat. “That’s where the panthers and … this … There was …” He exhaled and squinted in the sunlight. He shrugged. “It just got spooky.”
Spitz nodded. He tapped his visor, stuck his glasses back on, and folded himself into the car. Then he pointed at Mack, but he was looking at Charlie.
“Don’t be letting old bad knees Prester here tell you you’re a Terp. You’re a Reynolds and that makes you a Buccaneer, kid, and don’t you forget it. A Bucc! It’s in your blood.”
The sheriff saluted. The engine started. Gravel crunched as the cop car rolled to the edge of the parking lot.
The driver’s window slid down.
“Work on that speed!” Spitz shouted.
“Speed!” Hydrant bellowed.
Charlie and Mack watched the car bounce out into the street and pull away.
After a moment, Mack inflated his chest. And then his cheeks. When he exhaled, it all came out in a blast.
“Those guys are idiots.” Mack looked up at the sky. “Charlie … your dad …”
Charlie looked at his stepfather. Mack never talked about Charlie’s dad. None of them did.
“Not sure how to say this.” Mack pulled off his sunglasses. He massaged the bridge of his nose, and then he met Charlie’s eyes with his own. “Your mom wasn’t crazy. To marry him. He wasn’t always what he turned into.”
“He d
oesn’t matter,” Charlie said. He looked away. Thinking about his dad made his chest feel brittle. Even the flashes of happy memory. Especially the happy memories. They made the bad memories worse. If he didn’t change the subject in his mind, his throat would try to close and breathing would make his eyes water. And after last night, everything inside him was already too loose.
“Fathers always matter,” Mack said. “In high school, I respected what he could do, and he respected me. He wasn’t like Spitz. Then, in college, we were the only two Florida boys on our team. We were roommates. We were friends.”
Charlie knew this already. He wanted to change the subject.
“Charlie Boy,” Mack said. “Look at me.”
Charlie hesitated. But he did. Mack’s eyes were solemn.
“Your father made mistakes. We all do. But instead of working to set things right, he chose to protect those mistakes—he let them be. He even fed them, which made them so much worse. Mistakes don’t just hang on the wall like ugly pictures. Mistakes are seeds.” He thumped his chest. “In here. They grow. They take over. You make a mistake, you gotta make it right. Dig that seed out. Old Wiz used to say, ‘Fruit rots, wood rots, but lazy-ass boys rot the fastest.’ ”
Charlie exhaled. Then he nodded.
“Now, here’s the thing,” Mack said. “Your father hurt you and your mother in every kind of way. His mistakes are yours to overcome, but they don’t need to grow in you. You’ll make plenty of your own.” Mack smiled and his eyes warmed. “But your daddy’s cane-fire speed? His wildcat toughness? His laugh? That stuff is in your genes, kid. Yours to keep and yours to grow with sweat and effort. Bobby Reynolds squandered it all, but you don’t have to. If those things rot, it will be on you and me. Not him. Not anymore.” Mack thumped Charlie on the shoulder. “Got it?”
“I’m not that fast,” Charlie said. “Or tough.”
Mack grinned. “You think I haven’t seen you run? Kid, you’re a long way from slow, and you were already tougher at six than most at eighteen, though I wish you hadn’t needed to be.”
Toughness. Speed. More thoughts Charlie didn’t want to think. He pushed his mind back to Cotton. His cousin was somewhere in the quiet morning heat. So long as he hadn’t been caught by that … stink. Or a panther. But maybe the cops were right and he was just hiding from his mom.
“Is Cotton’s name really René?” Charlie asked.
Mack laughed. “It is. French, and not a girl’s name over there. His mama always wanted her boy to be all brain. Said muscles were only good for slaves, so she named him after someone famous for thinking.”
“But why does she call him Cotton?” Charlie asked.
Mack smiled. “That kid was three years old when some punk told him he had a girl’s name. From that moment on, he wouldn’t answer to it. Named himself Cottonmouth and that was that and no discussion. Cotton must have been time’s compromise.” Mack stretched his arms above his head, talking through a yawn. “Okay, Charlie Boy, I need breakfast and about ten gallons of coffee. Then we buy ourselves a car, I meet with the superintendent, and you can find your mom and Molly the house of their dreams.”
“What kinda dreams?” Charlie asked. “Nightmares?”
Mack laughed, ruffled Charlie’s hair with a heavy hand, and then shoved him away. Charlie slipped out of his shoes and hopped in socked feet on gravel. Mack was already walking away.
Charlie grabbed his shoes, unflattened the heels, and tugged them all the way on.
A long, sharp whistle sliced back to Charlie as Mack disappeared behind a low brick building. He was acting more like a coach already.
With shoelaces loose and their whip-tips clicking, Charlie raced after his stepfather.
Pastor Steve Beaux Revis was running late. It happened sometimes on weekdays, but it was never pleasant arriving at the church when the elderly early risers who made up the congregational steering committee and ladies auxiliary union were already gathered around the locked door of the sanctuary, watching him fumble with his keys with their eyebrows raised, winking wrinkled lids at each other as they all loudly agreed that young growing boys needed their sleep.
He was forty-eight years old, for goodness’ sake. He had two boys in college and his wife had been in the little graveyard for three years. But to his ancient congregation, a heavyset middle-aged widower was just another kid from the cane.
Pastor Beaux pulled his battered sedan to a stop at the bottom of the hill. So far, so lucky. The cars were all parked, but no white-haired shapes lurked by the church door, leaning on canes. He must have left the building open after the funeral. He hopped out and climbed the mound.
The front door was locked. No doubt his esteemed elders found that hilarious. His key required less jiggling in the church door than normal, and the iron hinges complained as loudly as ever when the door swung open.
Two steps into the sanctuary Pastor Beaux stopped, his heavy feet on the rough board patching the hole where the old church bell was buried. The place was empty. And something was wrong with the light. It was slanting into the room through a row of white windows as it always did, warming dust motes and pews. But there were shadows. He walked slowly down the aisle, looking at the windows. Dark stripes had been painted across every pane of glass.
Pastor Beaux ran out of the church, and puffed around the building and into the graveyard. His feet and his breath stopped at the same time.
Old men and women were standing among the tombstones, staring and whispering. Beaux hardly noticed. A huge symbol—crescents and circles and swooping lines—had been painted on the side of the white church, crossing windows and stretching from near the ground all the way up to the roof. The paint was dark red, almost black, the color of dried blood.
Pastor Beaux turned slowly, moving his eyes from the wall down into the graveyard, to the grave where he had been standing yesterday, to the grave that should have been holding the body of the old man who had taught him just about everything he thought he knew.
Dirt mounds lined the sides of the open grave. The fresh headstone had been knocked back onto its granite heel.
Reaching up out of the grave, sinewy and knotted like a serpentine muscle, a black ironwood tree was growing.
It couldn’t be. But it was.
Pastor Beaux walked toward the grave like a dreamer. He looked down into the hole at the splinters of the very empty coffin. The tree had somehow grown up through the coffin’s bottom. Threads from torn white satin cushions were tangled around the trunk and snagged on the rough bark. Ironwood leaves fluttered level with the pastor’s head.
Coach had been replaced with a tree.
A live tree. Pastor Beaux leaned out over the grave and grabbed the trunk. The wood was rock hard and cool against his palm. He tugged. It was rooted. And iron solid.
Charlie sat on the grass with his legs spread out, his back pressed against the red cinder block wall of the locker room. Most of his body managed to be in the shade. He was tired. He was hungry. And his mind wouldn’t turn off.
On the field in front of him, high school boys yelled. Whistles chirped. Pads crunched. And Mack’s voice bellowed above all the rest. A few people were scattered through the bleachers, sitting in the full sun, there to watch the great Prester Mack run his first practice. Small groups of men huddled along the edges of the field for the same reason. At first, Charlie had cared what they were saying. But it had all been the same.
Boy’s been struggling. He turn it around?
Dunno.
He just might turn things around.
Sure enough. If he don’t, who could?
Dunno.
Think he’ll turn it around?
Charlie’s eyes shut slowly. The sun had simmered down his energy. And all the walking. No, not so much the walking. It was all the stopping and talking. They’d walked from the motel to a grimy little diner with just a few customers and a flock of flies so slow and heavy that Charlie figured Molly could have rounded them all up in five minutes.
Charlie had wanted to tell his stepfather about Cotton, about the grave, about what he had seen. But it wasn’t an easy story to start, and once Mack was in the diner, customers had packed in after him and all of them had been loaded with questions. Charlie had eaten his pancakes and watched Mack prod his waffle for more than an hour without five minutes to chew sprinkled through it. When they had walked to the little gravel lot to look at the used cars the town of Taper had to offer, at least half the crowd had followed them.
There had been only five cars for sale, all of them battered, all with huge bright yellow price stickers followed by exclamation marks. The two saddest were minivans bedecked with sagging balloons on each side mirror.
Despite the excitement of the large woman in turquoise pants who owned both the hair salon next door and the car dealership, the crowd groaned at every vehicle. None of them were deemed worthy of the great Prester Mack no matter how often the woman pointed out excellent features—like having four tires and a working radio—with the hair scissors that were still in her hand.
Charlie had watched his stepfather, curious. He knew Mack well enough to know that he would be fine just fitting in. But no one wanted him to fit in. He was the great hometown success story returned—they wanted to see his success, to feel it more closely than when he had just been Prester Mack running around on the TV, playing ball thousands of miles away.
Every man in the crowd had tried to sell Mack some relative’s car. They had argued with the hairdresser, but carefully while those scissors were open.
Finally, Mack had just called a luxury dealership all the way in Palm Beach. The crowd had cheered. The car was being delivered. The hairdresser had offered Charlie a trim. Charlie had ducked away.
Next was a visit to the realtor’s, and the realtor had been in high school with Mack, and he had wanted to show them three perfect houses right away, but he had wanted to be Mack’s long-lost best friend even more.
All three houses had been empty, yellow, overgrown, with yards that backed right up to a wall of cane. Charlie hadn’t even looked at the broken barbecues or torn trampolines. He had stared at three different backyards that all edged another world. He had seen what could come from that cane. He had smelled what could come from that cane. And even in the sun, as those cane sticks shook their heads in the breeze, he had tried not to turn his back on them.