Waylon leaves the hoe on the ground, gets up, and stands before her. She squints up at him, smiling her bad-luck good-luck smile. Right then they are the only people in the universe, yet Waylon is too shy to say out loud what he leans over to whisper against her neck.
Maggie could wind herself through the bush, no matter how snakey and dense, but Waylon was like a big calf and stumbled after her, hair flopping, eyes wide, lips pink and lustrous, skin darkly glowing with sweat until at last she pushed her hand on his chest to make him stop.
Okay, this is the place, she said. My place.
It was an old oak so huge that it had choked out all other brush but the long pale grass they lay on underneath.
Do you love me? asked Waylon.
No, said Maggie.
You’re lying, huh. You love me.
I said no. Maggie laughed.
He put his hand around her face and adored her chin. She was thinking about her volleyball kill score — she had got up to 200 last season. It would take at least another couple years to hit 1,000.
Okay then?
All right then, said Maggie. Let’s try it. I mean, if it hurts too much you have to quit.
She leaned toward him and he tried not to grapple with her, not treat her like he couldn’t wait, not lunge or buck, tried to be all manly and collected, but it was all too unbelievable. She was just so small but just so quick. She got on top of him and moved aside her panties, unzipped him and got him out and started to try.
Put it in, she said.
They couldn’t get it in. She got off, lay down, opened her legs. He got on top and tried that way. It worked better, but she screamed.
Get it out!
He moved backward.
Okay, she panted. Try again.
Waylon sweat and worried, trying to slow down but stay hard all at once. Then it was suddenly better and she relaxed under him and said it was okay and she could handle it.
So move, she said.
His uncles had teased him, Hold back, you got to hold back. They had eased their arms in slow cranks like pulling a boat back to an idle. So he tried to hold back, yet to keep moving. This was only the third time for him, and he had promised himself he would hold back by counting, thinking of numbers, as he was bad at math.
That’s good, said Maggie.
He thought of the wrong number and lunged too hard. She cried out, dug her nails into the small of his back, so deep he could feel the blood. He stopped. His eyelids drooped, but he wasn’t at all mean, he was just trying to hold it.
Okay, said Maggie. Now go.
He moved and moved in a trance of happiness. She moved with him underneath that tree and suddenly she lifted out of the pain. She was right at home with herself. She was Maggie. The owl had entered her body and she was staring out of its golden eyes.
FATHER TRAVIS FORCED himself to back the van from the Ravich driveway without laying rubber, to shift calmly from reverse into drive. Then he gunned it to Landreaux’s house, jumped out, and knocked on the door. Emmaline appeared, shadowed by the screen. He tried not to rest in the cool shade of her gaze, her presence behind the mesh door. She said come in. He stepped inside. She stood too close to him. No, it was a normal distance. Any distance was too close.
What’s happening? Is everyone okay?
Father Travis could not think of how to put words to the buzzing in his head.
They’re okay, except I need to find Landreaux. He. . Romeo. . he had this idea or notion he’s been putting together that Landreaux was, well, he was high when he killed. .
No, said Emmaline, standing taller. He was not. Romeo makes things up.
She stood taller, stepped back from him. She made more distance between them. He wanted to cross that, step toward her, but wrenched back to stay focused on Landreaux. Emmaline read him. She folded her arms and drew into herself. Wisps of her being had dispersed and she gathered them abruptly in. In that moment she went back to existing as one with the father of her children. She was expressionless, waiting.
Romeo makes things up, she said again.
I know, said Father Travis. But he sounds convincing. He told Peter.
Emmaline’s arms dropped away, to her sides.
Where are they?
I need to know where they’d go if they went out hunting.
Her eyes went a pale green and she knew what was happening.
Federal land, west.
Emmaline told him how to get there but she didn’t ask to come along. She just stood there holding herself together.
LANDREAUX APPEARS FIRST to Peter’s naked eye as movement, a faraway shift of greeny blur as he parts leaves. Then he gets Landreaux in his gun sights and watches. Peter’s hands are cool and steady because they belong to the other man, the one who pictured doing this and did not, the man who split Landreaux’s skull a thousand times chopping wood. The other man who dreamed what Peter is doing now.
Landreaux is still far away, stepping carefully along. He stops from time to time and pulls aside a branch, giving Peter a clear shot. When he sees that Landreaux isn’t going to obstruct him, Peter feels the reason they were friends. He sees Landreaux’s lips move and is glad that Landreaux is praying. The way it has to end feels right. An agreement signed by both parties. Witnessed by two sons. He lets Landreaux come close enough for him to take the infallible shot. Closer and closer yet. There it is. Peter squeezes the trigger gently with his heart exploding. Nothing. He knows his rifle’s loaded because he always keeps it loaded. He never did unload it and nobody knows where he hides the key — so he puts the crosshairs on Landreaux’s third eye. Shoots. Nothing. Peter wills himself to pull the trigger again. But now his hand won’t do it. Won’t do it. Landreaux’s face fills the sights.
Peter lowers the rifle but holds it close to him. He watches Landreaux still stepping wearily toward his death. From a human distance, now, Peter sees LaRose in Landreaux’s solid, hip-slung walk. Funny, he never noticed. Then he sees more. Sees all he has kept himself from seeing. Sees the sickness rising out of things. The phosphorus of grief consuming those he loves. A flow of pictures touches swiftly, lightly, through his thinking — all lost things; then all the actual lost things: the aspirin, the knives, the rope, all deadly in Nola’s hands. And the bullets deadly in his own hands.
LaRose.
The picture of those small capable boy hands now fills Peter. Those hands curving to accept the bullets. Loading and unloading his gun. And the ropes, the poisons. Those hands taking them from their places and getting rid of them. The missing rat poison, strychnine, the missing bleach. LaRose saving him now, saving both his fathers.
Well, Landreaux. Peter turns from the murderer. Landreaux doesn’t need any help to die. Let him hoof out his dread alone. Let him walk. Peter will be the only one who knows he pulled the trigger. The knowledge engulfs him. There is a slough glittering in the new air. Peter walks to the edge, runs, hops, and tosses the rifle like a spear toward the sun-sequined water.
As it crashes in, he feels one moment of lightness. He lifts his arms. He holds his arms up waiting for the energy of absolution. Nothing comes. Nothing falls from the warm, sunny, ordinary sky except the same knowledge. He pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. He killed Landreaux. Nothing happened.
FAR OFF, DOWN the broad county gravel road, Father Travis spots a small figure moving along the ditch. When he recognizes Landreaux, he feels the cold tension leave his arms. Weakness, so foreign he doesn’t know what he is feeling, washes down his body, from his heart, draining his nerves. He pulls over and switches off the engine. His heart is still vibrating, his nerves on alert. Whatever happened, Landreaux is right there in front of him.