Smiling at Boys
Raine found her daddy at the kitchen table, head dipped and red-eyed. He’d been out the whole night.
The kitchen light was burning. She glanced out the window and saw nothing but night. The storm would break soon. The last one had run north of them, hit Huntsville so hard it turned out houses.
Raine made herself a bowl of cereal and sat.
“Anything?”
Joe shook his head and thumbed his eyes. He wore an old plaid shirt, the sleeves rolled to his biceps. He had a tattoo, just one, a dove swooping down from his elbow. It faded more each year, like it knew it no longer fit. He got it in Holman. Raine never did manage to figure out what her daddy had done, but eight years was time enough for her to know it weren’t nothing petty.
Escambia County was a couple hundred miles from Grace but they’d made the trip every month. Raine had dying memories of the visitation room, of tight smiles and sitting on her daddy’s knee, of screaming herself tired on the long drive back while Summer read stories beside her.
“I need you to talk to the other kids in town. Maybe she’s staying with one of her friends,” Joe said.
She nodded. Sometimes she caught her daddy watching her. She didn’t dwell on what she’d lost, on what he’d lost, but it was there in his eyes. Uncle Tommy had helped with money and filled the role as best he could. Summer got pushed down at school one time and Raine had sorted the bully, a fat kid named Charlie Hicks. She’d broke his nose with a stick then caught a lashing from her momma. Tommy took her for ice cream after and told her she was right to protect her sister.
“You want me to fix you somethin’?” Ava said as she walked into the kitchen.
He shook his head.
“Your sister’s in for it when she shows her face again,” Ava said, tried to smile but couldn’t quite.
“You sure there’s nothin’ you ain’t tellin’, Raine?” Joe said.
“Shit, I already said all I know.”
“And you’re sticking to that,” Ava said, sharpening.
Raine pushed her bowl away and glared at both of them.
She heard a knock at the door, then her momma led Black into the kitchen and poured him a coffee.
Black sat. He slipped the gun from his belt and set it on the table.
“Took your time,” Joe said.
“Rusty came,” Black said.
“Rusty ain’t Chief.”
“I take it you’ve not heard nothin’.”
Joe shook his head.
Black kept his face even. “Milk’s been making calls. We’ll knock doors. I need to take a look in her bedroom.”
“Waste of fuckin’ time,” Raine said, glaring at Black. “All of you out there and you ain’t found her yet.”
“Watch your mouth,” Ava said.
Joe raised a hand and Raine quietened but didn’t draw her eyes from Black. He’d sent her daddy to prison all those years back and she hated him accordingly.
“Could be she’s hidin’ out in Hell’s Gate –”
“She wouldn’t go there,” Raine said, waving him off. “In case you forgot y’all never caught the Bird. Ain’t no one dumb enough to go into Hell’s Gate now.”
“Well then she’s with someone. Maybe she’s staying with a friend.”
“Raine’s gonna ask round today.”
“You’ll catch most of ’em at church this mornin’,” Black said.
“I’m headin’ out again. I’ll drive up Hallow Road then cut in by the yellow fields, see if I can get Tommy to round up some more men to walk the trails with me,” Joe said.
“You’ll need flashlights, I got a couple in the trunk. And keep watch for the storm, you don’t wanna get caught,” Black said, glancing out the window.
Black stood, Ava stood with him.
“Y’all should be treating this like another one,” Raine said. “Summer could be girl six and you ain’t doin’ shit. I’ll have to find her myself ’cause Black’s a gutless –”
“Enough,” Joe said, warning in his tone though his eyes never left Black.
*
“She’s got a lot of books,” Milk said. “Ain’t just stories, there’s reference and art history and all kinda shit.”
There weren’t much to go through ’cause the room was all function. There was a bed and a desk and a closet. Nothing on the walls but paint in a shade of lace that called reservation. Summer Ryan was not a wild child, not even close.
“There’s boxes full of ’em in the garage too,” Black said. “Ava said they wanted to throw ’em but Summer kicked up about it.”
Black found a bottle of perfume buried under clothes and studied it. It was expensive looking, some kinda French name he wouldn’t even try to pronounce.
He saw a white dress on the rail, the dress she wore that day she played for them at St. Luke’s. He lingered for a second then turned when he heard Ava by the door. Milk went over and put a hand on her shoulder and told her shit she wanted to hear. Milk was black, he was big and he acted tough, a decent front for the kindness beneath.
“I ain’t liking this,” Milk said, as Ava went to fetch coffee. Milk lowered his voice. “It’s him again.”
Black waved him off. “More likely she’s run off with some boy her daddy wouldn’t approve of.”
Milk saw through it too easy. “You know that ain’t what happened. She’s young . . . she’s a church girl. She’s pretty. Sound familiar?”
Black rubbed his eyes. “It’s been six months since Olive Braymer got taken.”
“Don’t mean shit. And it’s ours this time,” Milk said, an edge there. “This ain’t a runaway, Black, much as you might want it to be. Summer is a Grace girl. You gotta get on this again. Ernie ain’t got the men to chase everythin’.”
Black ignored him, turned back to the task till Ava returned. He stood, walked over, and handed Ava the fancy perfume.
“But Summer don’t wear perfume . . .” Ava said.
He saw the heat there so he followed her down the hallway into Raine’s bedroom.
There was music playing loud, Manson singing about cake and sodomy, till Ava walked over and cut it. The room was a long way different to Summer’s; a mess of color and posters. He saw makeup on the dresser, body glitter, and clothes strewn.
“What?” Raine said, glaring at her momma.
Ava held up the perfume bottle.
Raine took a moment then shrugged.
“You tellin’ me your sister took this?” Ava said.
Raine glanced at Black, then at her momma.
“Well?”
Black left them to it, heard the yelling as he stepped back into Summer’s bedroom.
“Anything?” Black said.
“What’s that?” Milk said, glancing over in the corner, at the black case.
“Cello,” Black said.
Milk nodded.
“. . . kinda like a big guitar.”
“I know what a fuckin’ cello is.”
Ava appeared at the door, cheeks hot like she was mad. “It’s Raine’s, the perfume.”
“She said that?” Black said.
“Didn’t have to. I know my daughters, Black.”
*
Purv was wearing his church clothes, slacks that were rolled at the feet and belted tight at the waist, and a shirt so large he could get his head through the buttoned collar.
“Mayland tonight,” Purv said.
“You comin’?” Noah said.
“ ’Course.”
They turned at the corner of Greenwood and fell into step with the nine thirty crowd. The air was sweet with tobacco and perfume. Some of the men had been laying out at the Whiskey Barrel so Noah could see more than a few red eyes. He overheard some muttering about the storm cloud that shadowed the town, some were grateful the heat had broke a little, others were scared of what was coming and glanced at the sky like it was about ready to fall.
Noah saw young boys with slicked hair and hand-me-down shirts, and girls wearing flowered dresses and pretty pins like it was 1950. Noah liked Grace on a Sunday. He’d been dragged along his whole life on account of his needing the Lord more than most.
They crossed the cut grass, dodging gravestones as they got the drop on the line forming.
“I see Ricky Brannon sitting front row again,” Purv said.
Noah craned his neck and looked. Ricky’s momma had brought him every week for a month ’cause he got busted playing Dungeons and Dragons with his cousin. Rumor was she asked Pastor Bobby to come bless the house in case any of the harpies got out.
They stood when Pastor Lumen drove in, even though he weren’t the pastor no more. The first stroke had been minor, just enough to thicken his tongue and drop a shoulder. The second near killed him. The docs said he wouldn’t pull through, but a year on and he was riding the streets on his scooter. The scooter was all white ’cept for one side, which was wrapped with The Creation of Adam. Painted intricate and beautiful, it was a gift from the people of Grace to their own savior.
Noah heard church funds were lifted to pay for it.
Even in the scooter and slumped a little, Pastor Lumen still cut the church silent with his watery gray stare. He’d kept a tight grip on St. Luke’s and its people, passing merciless judgment like it was his to serve, partiality limited only to those that bowed low enough for him.
The scooter whined as it passed them.
“Engine’s fucked,” Purv whispered.
Noah nodded.
Bobby stood and he cleared his throat and stared out at them awhile. He spoke of Summer Ryan, how her family were worried about her. He asked people to bow their heads or kneel, pray for Summer to come back safe and to give her parents and sister the courage to stay strong. Then he spoke of the Briar girls, like he did every week.
When the service was done, Bobby told them to stay well and take care, and to be mindful of the storm ’cause he reckoned it was gonna be a bad one.
*
Raine was standing at the end of Jackson Ranch Road, which was about as near to the church as she’d been in a while. Her momma had tired of getting on her about it.
She moved under a tall oak as folk spilled out, the men walking with Sunday football purpose while the women fell back into talk. There were lanterns on the wood fence, usually lit during winter months, but they flickered flamelight against the cloud cover.
She saw a group of girls she might’ve known once, arms linked as they talked Madonna and Courtney and diet pills. They glanced over, whispered, and laughed.
“Fuck are you lookin’ at?” Raine said, drawing death stares from a couple old ladies that passed.
The girls fell silent and turned away ’cause even three on one they wouldn’t like the odds.
She’d called a couple guys she knew, the kind that’d take her out in their muscle cars to watch their dumb friends muddin’ in the hill by Lossmon Lake, then go on to park and try and slip a hand up her skirt. They said they’d keep an eye out but wouldn’t take her driving the streets ’cause they knew the town would be hot with Joe and Tommy turning over stones, and they sure as shit didn’t wanna be found hiding under one.
Raine saw Noah and smiled. She smiled at boys all the time ’cause she liked watching their insides turn to mush.
She pulled her top down a little and arched her back.
“Hi, Raine,” Noah said. “This is Purv.” He motioned in Purv’s direction.
“Seriously?” she said.
“Purv with a u,” Purv said.
She chewed cinnamon gum. “Well that’s somethin’, I guess.”
Purv looked down.
“Can you take the car out tonight?” she said.
Purv glanced at Noah. Raine caught it.
“What else you gotta do? You two got dates or somethin’?” she said.
Purv started: “Noah’s got –”
“Nothin’,” Noah cut in. “I can get the car, I ain’t got nothin’ to do.”
“Pick me up at nine.”
Noah nodded quick. “All right. There ain’t much gas in it though.”
“We’re only headed to Hell’s Gate, ain’t far.”
“Hell’s Gate? Tonight, in the dark?” Purv said.
“Yeah,” Raine said. “You ain’t scared, are you?”
Noah shook his head. “We ain’t scared of nothin’.”
“All right then.”
*
The Buick was grumbling, the idle dipping so low Noah worried it’d quit altogether. He kept the lights off, like she’d told him. She lived on All Saints Road, though he couldn’t make out her place from where he was sitting ’cause the trees were thick and vines hung low.
He jumped when the car door opened.
“Didn’t mean to scare you,” Raine said, climbing in.
“I ain’t the type to scare easy,” he tried.
“That line’ll work better once you’ve stopped shakin’.”
He drove slow, sticking to the narrow tracks of red dirt ’cause they were safer than the asphalt roads.
She shifted in her seat, her shorts riding high on her thigh. He kept his eyes pinned hard ahead. She had a bag; it was canvas and old and he wondered what was inside. She wore a ring with a stone the same blue as her eyes, and chewed gum—he could just about smell the cinnamon over the leather.
He wanted to talk but didn’t know what to say.
“Do you have a spare stick?”
She stared at him.
“Of gum. I wondered if you had some gum for me.” He sighed. It was bad.
“This one’s still got a little flavor.” She spit the gum into her hand and leaned across. “Open your mouth.”
He opened his mouth and she popped the gum in. Then she laughed. And he blushed.
He brought them the Lott Road way, passing the half-finished house the Laffoons owned. The bank said they were on the hook for twenty thousand, and maybe into Ray Bowdoin for even more ’cause he’d started work, though Rhett said they didn’t ever give Ray the work, he just showed with his men.
He stopped a couple houses down from Purv’s. Glenhurst was a road no one was proud to live on, so far from the pretty streets it felt like they’d crossed the town line. He could hear screen doors tapping and a baby screaming itself raw.
“I thought the Bowdoins had money?” Raine said. “I see the signs all over town.”
“They used to. They had a big place up by the Dennison house, land with it too. Me and Purv used to camp out under the cypress there. You seen it? It’s the biggest tree in the whole county. They sent scouts once but they reckoned it was hollow so they left it be.”
“So how come they ain’t still livin’ there?”
“Purv’s father lost his money, he built too many houses or somethin’.”
They watched Purv creep down the side of his house. He cut across the neighbor’s front yard, and then climbed into the back of the Buick.
Raine pulled a map from her bag and spread it across her knees. Purv leaned forward between the seats as Noah drove.
“I was lookin’ back at the Briar girls,” Raine said.
“Why?” Purv said.
“ ’Cause ain’t no one else doin’ it. It’s easier for Black if there ain’t a link ’cause him and Sheriff Redell couldn’t find none of ’em. But what if there is?”
Purv dropped his eyes.
“I remember the first girl was taken up near Standing Oak,” Raine said, drawing a red circle on the map. “And the second girl was taken by Highway 225.” She drew another circle, the pen jogging as the Buick rode a ditch. “Shit, keep the fuckin’ wheel straight.”
“Sorry,” Noah said quiet.
“Everyone knows the only thing linking where those girls was taken is Hell’s Gate National Forest. So that’s where we’re headin’,” Raine said.
“At night. Three of us, in the woods lookin’ for some kinda monster that looks like a giant bird,” Purv said. He tried a laugh but it had a tremble to it.
*
Hell’s Gate whistled and groaned, the trees making dark faces that Purv wondered if the others could see. Raine knew the tracks, reckoned her and Summer used to walk them with their uncle ’cause he had a cabin.
Purv was scared but tried to keep his mind on the task. He knew Summer a little. He’d been there when she played her cello at St. Luke’s. Near enough the whole town had.
“You got that twin thing?” Purv said. “You know, supernatural, where you can feel your sister?”
“ ’Course,” Raine said, and he didn’t know if she was messing or not.
“That’s amazing,” Noah said.
Purv could tell Noah had it bad. He didn’t blame him. Raine was fiery and blond, and her tits were big and her ass was small and that was a killer combo in anyone’s world.
Raine lit a cigarette then sat on a fallen oak.
“That’s some cologne you’ve got on, Noah,” she said.
Purv could tell Noah was blushing.
“That’s why we keep hearing the white-tails. You got yourself a following.”
“I like it,” Purv said. “What’s that scent? No, don’t tell me . . . top note of mandarin . . . little tonka bean creeping beneath?”
“The nose on this kid,” Noah said, shaking his head as they bumped fists.
Raine stared at them.
“What’ll we do if we come across the Bird?” Noah said.
Raine blew a jet of smoke from pursed lips. “You really believe that bullshit? Ain’t no fuckin’ bird monster, just some sick guy taking what he wants. Always is.”
“What about all the fires, and the white-tails they found all cut up and strung from the trees?” Purv said.
“Dumb kids. Probably Windale kids, or maybe from White Mountain.”
“Purv’s got a knife. Big knife for huntin’,” Noah said.
“Bring it next time,” Raine said to Purv.
“You reckon Black will start searchin’ for him again?” Purv said.
It’d been on the local news. Volunteers manned, college kids and church people, out-of-towners. They’d swept the fields nearest the spots where the girls were taken, found nothing every time but ran the same process again and again. Noah and Purv had rode their bikes all the way to Calder Creek to watch, and they were excited about the action till they got there and saw the parents of the missing girl huddled tight together and clutching a soft toy. They rode back in silence ’cause the shit they saw on TV was real and it was hard.
“Black is a drunk, he ain’t lookin’ for my sister.” She pulled her hair back, tied it, and spit on the leaves.
*
There weren’t no lights on when Purv got home, which either meant his parents were sleeping or his father hadn’t paid Southern Pine again. He jumped when he heard the neighbor’s dog start up.
He stepped onto the rear porch and reached for the kitchen door, cursing when he saw it’d been locked. He didn’t have a key, used to but lost it somewhere out by the Red.
He turned and headed in the direction of the copse by the Dennison place, by his old house with his old bedroom and maybe his old life inside. A life that’d been easy ’cause his father had money and worked hard and mostly let him and his momma be.
There was a new family living there now. They had a couple kids and sometimes Purv saw them climbing the big old cypress that used to be his.
When he reached the tree he curled himself up small and pulled his coat up over his head, and then he said a silent prayer that the storm would hold off till morning.
*
Noah pulled the Buick to a stop. Raine didn’t move to get out.
“We can look again tomorrow,” he said.
“She’ll probably show by then.”
“Won’t your parents worry you ain’t home?”
“They reckon I’m in bed.”
“Oh.”
“Purv,” she said. “I heard shit about his daddy.”
“What did you hear?”
She rubbed her hand over the leather seat. “That he’s a cunt. Likes to beat on his wife.”
“I told Purv he can come live with me but he won’t.”
She brought her legs up and rested her chin on her knee. The soles of her feet were dark with dirt. Her arms were gold and scratched and the hairs were so fine and so white.
“ ’Cause of his momma?”
“He pretends like he don’t give a shit about her. I mean, she takes her beatin’, which is one thing, but watchin’ Purv take ’em . . . sometimes she just runs, don’t even call no one. But it’s his mom, you know.”
She stared out the windshield and saw little but night unbroken.
“It’s funny,” he said. “Grace. It’s a funny kinda town. People go to church every Sunday, reekin’ of booze and the sins of the weekend. They pray it away then do it again, same each and every. I saw Purv’s father there today, hidin’ in the back where the Angel sits. What business has he got there, man like that?”
“Maybe he’s feelin’ bad about what a cunt he is.”
“Maybe. But what’s the point? Surely someone that evil ain’t got no place in heaven. I mean, if God lets him in then what does that say about God?”
She opened the door and climbed out.
He watched her go, easing the Buick forward till she was lost to the dark. Then he headed in the direction of the big old cypress tree, just in case Purv was camping out again.
*
Raine opened her sister’s bedroom door and slipped in, careful to close it quiet behind her. She walked across the dark room to the lone bookshelf where Summer stacked her worn favorites. On the nightstand was a photo in a sparkly frame that Raine thought was pretty and maybe wanted for herself. She reached for it, carried it to the bed, and laid down.
She held it tight, there weren’t the light to make out more than the outline, but when she closed her eyes she saw it clear: the two of them up by the Red, holding hands ’cause that was their thing they did since they were tiny. They held hands. Even now, if they were sad or mad or happy, they held hands.