This Bitter Earth Part 30

Lappy could see the train now: the soft yellow glow of light as it spilled from the front window of the locomotive. They looked like eyes to Lappy, evil yellow eyes.

He could hear the whistle announcing its arrival in Bigelow and he could feel the earth beneath his feet tremble at its approach.

Circles, large black circles, moved in and out of his vision now. Sometimes the circles grew wings, eyes and bright yellow beaks. But each time he stopped to catch his breath and to dab at his wound, they would just become circles again.

The train tracks were right there; he could see them glimmering beneath the moon. A few more feet was all he had to go; just a few more feet and he would be there.

Lappy laughed, a long careening chuckle that broke through the night and informed the pack that followed him to s.h.i.+ft west.

Lappy walked now with his arms outstretched before him; he wanted to touch those rails, run his fingers along their sleekness.

So close, he thought to himself, so close.

Sugar saw Jude walking alongside her. Her head was lowered and her hands were clasped behind her back. She strolled, really, a gait that one took on at the end of a long and tiring journey.

Her eyes were focused straight ahead and were absent the revenge Sugar knew was present in her own eyes.

They walked alongside each other until Sugar realized she was walking through a part of the field that was dense with flowers. She looked down at where her feet stepped and knew for sure that that was the exact place Jude had taken her last breath.

Sugar's heart dropped and she stopped dead in her tracks.

Jude stopped too, and turned toward Sugar and smiled.

In all of the years they had been together and in all the dreams Jude had walked through she'd never smiled at Sugar. Now she did smile, and it was as wide and as bright as the moon that hung above them.

And just like that the years of pain and hurt fell away from her and she knew that everything from then on would be all right.

JJ moved in closer; he was so close to the rest of them that he could smell the scent of his mother's perfume and the sick sweat of Mercy's yearning body.

He s.h.i.+fted the shotgun from the left side of his neck to the right and cut deeper into the woods so that he could move up and ahead of them without being noticed.

Seth spotted him first and tapped Joe on the shoulder. Father and son took in Lappy's long arms stretched out ahead of him, the diamond ring on his pinky glistening in the black Arkansas night. Those hands so close to white that they glowed like the North Star, and the pack followed it as such.

Lappy let off another reel of laughter, reminding Seth that he had run away from him the first time. Tonight, Seth thought, tonight he would stay and fight.

Pearl knew what hate felt like. It had gnawed at her bones long enough for her to recognize the feeling immediately, and it had called on her like an unwelcomed visitor every time she looked at pictures of Jude or thought about Sugar lying half-dead and bleeding on the floor of #10.

Now it washed over her and she could taste it like bitters in the back of her throat. The small secret she clutched tightly in her hand felt as hard and as cold as the coffin lid Pearl had thrown herself on after they'd pulled it closed and she knew that Jude was truly dead and gone.

This man that stumbled ahead of her had taken her life away in one appalling act and she hated Lappy Clayton for that and would hate him even in death.

She supposed it wasn't a Christian feeling, this loathing she had for him. G.o.d would probably not allow her in the house he'd prepared for her in Heaven. Oh well, she thought, she would continue to hate Lappy Clayton in h.e.l.l.

Lappy could see the silver tracks, could see them even though the circles were getting larger, wider, stretching themselves into rectangles and squares.

All Lappy could think about was sleep, that and his mother.

The train came to a halt just ten feet in front of him, and the words "Home free" fell guttural and thick from his mouth.

They were closing in on him, walking in large circles like stalking cats. Lappy turned on them and grinned. He was safe now, he told himself, safe because the train was here and people would see.

These were good people, these people that hated him so. They were decent people too, well respected in the church and the community. They wouldn't hurt him, not now, not there.

Lappy laughed at the thought and stumbled backward.

"I'll have witnesses!" he screamed as his back touched the steel casing of the boxcar and he slid down to the ground. "Witnesses!" He coughed and a spray of blood sprinkled the night red.

All six looked at each other. The northbound #2276 was a freight train; there were no pa.s.sengers aboard at all. There was just the motorman, and he was lit on moons.h.i.+ne and twelve cars away.

Lappy laughed and laughed, even when Joe stepped forward, grabbed him by his hair and pulled his head slowly back on his neck.

There was a body found out by the tracks, right off the Hale land. Jed Hale heard the news spoken in whispers around him as he sat in a booth at the town diner sipping his coffee and staring at the backs of the young black men and women that had filed quietly in one by one and taken a seat at the counter.

"Beaten so bad that his face looked like a piece of raw beef."

The words rang in Jed's ear.

"Shot in the head and cut clean across his throat."

Jed placed his coffee cup down on its saucer.

"Second body found there in twenty-five years," someone else interjected.

"White man?" a soft voice inquired.

Jed reached for his morning paper.

"Colored man. Yella, though."

"Ohhhh," the soft voice moaned.

"Any suspects?"

"None. Who cares, anyway, he was just a n.i.g.g.a and probably deserved it."

"Yeah, well, don't tell them that," the soft voice said and from the corner of his eye, Jed could see a finger pointed at the backs of the blacks that sat at the counter.

Jed rolled up his newspaper and pushed himself from the table. He dug deep into his pocket and tossed a dollar down next to his plate.

He would put the Hale land up for sale today, he thought to himself as he pushed through the angry crowd of people that had formed around the counter.

The land wouldn't be much good to him anymore. After the first murder, the earth seemed to pull back, allowing wildflowers but nothing else.

Now Jed supposed the land wouldn't even permit that.

Too much blood had been spilled there, he thought, as he walked across the street and toward the building that housed the Sun Flower County Gazette. He'd farmed land long enough to know that the earth was fickle; too much blood spilled on it made it barren, barren and bitter.

end.