Nightwoods - Charles Frazier [84]
Way around the back side of the lake, up a narrow dirt road, Bud pulled Lit out of the car and dragged him far off into the dark woods. Wilderness. Maybe some grizzled hunter in the distant future of flying cars would come upon chalky mystery bones gnawed by porcupines and woodrats.
Bud drove the patrol car back around to the end of the lake where the water backed up deep behind the dam. He found a steep slope of bank and rolled it into the lake. Windows down, hood and trunk lid up. Great silver moonlit bubbles broke the black water. Then the long walk home. Many miles, keeping an eye out for approaching headlights, but of course there were none in the middle of the night. In town, the three stoplights flashed yellow, streets empty. Bud, trying to prove to himself how fearlessness worked, walked right down the sidewalk.
CHAPTER 13
—YOU NEED TO LOOK at that bootlegger, Luce said. The sheriff, behind his desk, said, Look at who for what?
—Johnson. Killed my sister, and now probably Lit too. And I’m afraid for Lily’s children, if I can’t stop him. Bootlegs for most of the county, but you don’t know who he is?
—I know who the bootlegger is, but I’ve never heard Johnson. People call him Bud. And I appreciate your suggestions, but there are facts here. Do you want your back patted or do you want straight talk?
—Oh, sure. Straight talk.
—So then, fact is, the murder charge didn’t stick. And we don’t even know Lit’s dead yet. We know he’s missing. Which might be his way of resigning and moving to someplace like Florida or Maine. He’s not the type to give two weeks’ notice. Plus, Lit had enemies in four or five counties. But you know all this.
Luce felt weary. She said, I know Bud did it. And he hurt the children pretty bad.
The sheriff formed a look on his face like being indulgent wasn’t entirely beneath him. He said, And you know this how, Luce?
—I’ve lived with them. They’ve been hurt.
—They said it?
Luce was about to say, Not in so many words. And then she knew immediately that it was not the moment to be terribly precise in telling the truth. She shut up and looked the sheriff in the eye.
He paused, like an actor pretending to think, and then he said, I’m keeping an eye on Johnson, and I want to find Lit as bad as anybody. But the main thing is, I’m sorry for you. I’ve seen you around town since you were a little dark-headed girl whose mother ran off. You got a bad deal there. Now you’ve lost your sister, and you’ve had a pair of messed-up kids loaded on you. And Lit’s missing, and never was much of a father. It’s natural to look for somebody to blame. But life is mostly shit, and it heaps on more when you’re already so loaded down you think you can’t go on. Putting one foot in front of the other and keeping going is about all the pleasure you get in life after you quit being young.
—Going for what?
—For no reason. Stop looking for reasons. Lit’s never given up wanting every day fired up like he was eighteen, and that’s a lot of what keeps him in trouble. Don’t make that same mistake.
LUCE RIFLED THROUGH the few items of her previous life until she found her last birthday gift from Lit, a handsome fatherly present for a sweet-sixteen daughter. A slim straight razor with a shimmery pearl handle. The blade was a long rectangle of rippled blue steel with a crook at the end to flick it open by, an edge so keen you’d damage it by sharpening on the finest grit of whetstone. A thick oiled leather strop was the only way to go.
—Happy birthday, Lit had said. Cut a man anywhere with that, he’ll have a hard time quitting bleeding. With the least stroke, it seeks bone.
Teenage Luce had thought the gift of a straight razor stupid beyond belief, and her father an idiot. She hadn’t taken his message to heart, the dangers congregating all around. What a wonderful, peaceful world she thought she lived in back then.
So Luce had left the razor at the bottom of a shoe box where she collected purse droppings. Lipstick nubs, broken tortoiseshell barrettes, single earrings,