Starfish_ A Novel - James Crowley [56]
“We should never have stopped,” Mr. Hawkins went on, mumbling to himself. “As much as I love that little lodge in the summers, we should’a kept going the second we saw the smoke rising from that crumbled and crooked ol’ chimney. Nine times outta ten, these days, where there’s smoke, there’s people; and where there’s people, there’s problems. And now, oh now, we got the lion’s share in all of ’em.”
Mr. Hawkins threw his saddle to the ground and flung himself into an unhappy heap against it. The children gathered in a small circle around a fire that wasn’t there and sat, eating the stringy smoked meat.
The moon rose, accompanied by the ever present sounds of the night. Lionel knew that the steady creak and moan of the trees, the swelling cacophony of crickets, and the intermittent calls from the night owls had been there all along; but now as they sat without speaking, the nocturnal cries took the forefront, and lay over the already heavy weight of this particular evening.
Lionel was looking up at the stars when Corn Poe spoke.
“Excuse me, Mr. Hawkins. I don’t mean to intrude or wake ya if you’re sleepin’,” he said, just a notch above a whisper.
“I ain’t sleepin’,” Hawkins responded, lying on his side with his head turned to the night.
“If you don’t mind me askin’ ya some-thin’. Somethin’ of a personal nature?” Corn Poe continued.
Mr. Hawkins rolled over, looking more curious than disturbed. “I suppose it would depend on the nature of the question, and if I was you, I’d think long and hard about what you’re askin’.”
Corn Poe sat quietly for a moment and then continued, “well, I suppose in one sense it ain’t none of my business. But, on the other, it truly is. Ya see, I figure that now that we’re travelin’ with each other, I got a right to know on account it may have some influence on me and my well-being and that of my friends.”
“Well, this ought to be one helluva question,” Mr. Hawkins said, sitting up and gazing across the patch of moonlight toward the children. “Well, then, go ahead. I’ll do my best to answer if I choose to.”
Lionel studied Corn Poe’s expression. He always looked a little uneasy, so it was hard to tell if there was any sort of change in his demeanor. Tom Gunn sat next to him, staring at his feet.
Corn Poe continued, “well, what it is I’m wonderin’ is how come you and Junebug here are on the run? I mean, Lionel and Beatrice is runnin’ on account of bein’ horse thieves. I suppose I fell in with ’em, so that puts me as an accessory to the crime. But what about you? what about the Junebug? why y’all out here? why y’all so hell bent on runnin’?”
Lionel looked at Junebug, and then at Beatrice and Tom Gunn. Lionel had never thought to ask and doubted if he had ever wondered why Mr. Hawkins and Junebug chose to live in the mountains. Lionel just assumed that this is where they lived. He wondered if Beatrice knew. He wondered if she cared.
“I suppose I can tell ya, as it may have a bearing on how this all unfolds. Hell, maybe it’ll sway ya to decide it’s time to part company, and we can move on guilt-free,” Hawkins said with a distant look in his eye. He leaned forward and stared at Corn Poe with a blank expression on his face.
“I killed a man—two men—with my bare hands. I’d killed men before, but then it was all right. It’s all right to a kill a man as long as the government tells ya to kill ’im. But in this case, I did it on my own; and now they’re dead, the both of ’em, dead.”
Corn Poe’s face lit up, but he fought to control himself and spoke again in the same hushed tone with which he had started the conversation. “Well, if ’n you did, you must’a had your reasons.”
Mr. Hawkins looked over at Junebug and then to the harvest moon that hung like a rotting pumpkin over the treetops. “They came after my missus and the boy there. She was dead when I found