The Hunt Club_ A Novel - Bret Lott [98]
I looked up at Tabitha, her eyes already on me. Her mouth was closed tight, a thin line, and I could see she knew what I knew: once we finished this job, we were dead.
Thigpen moved, the beam suddenly over us from a different angle. He was behind Tabitha now, and I couldn’t see her anymore.
He shone it down into the hole. The hole was about four feet deep, the beam falling on only black dirt, the tip of my shovel a few inches in.
“Keep going,” Thigpen said, his voice even shallower now.
Still the cable saw worked, off and away from us.
We were here.
“Huger,” Unc said.
The word came to me as if from across water, like some shadow of itself, light from behind it.
“You shut the fuck up, old man,” Thigpen said, and shone the light on Unc.
But I looked at Tabitha.
Huger. My name.
“You just keep your fucking mouth shut, Leland, or I’ll kill you now.”
“Son,” Unc said, on it the same distance, the same depth.
“Last warning,” Thigpen said.
And now I closed my eyes.
I could see things: this hole, four feet deep. Thigpen above and behind Tabitha, Mom and Miss Dinah, and Unc. I could see it all.
I heard the cable saw stop, heard Simons call out, “You find it?” and then I saw him, too, saw the distance from the statue to here, the narrow path he’d have to walk to get here, the time it would take, and I saw the gun tucked into Thigpen’s waist, saw one arm useless at his side, in the other the flashlight, pointed at Unc.
And still with my eyes closed I saw two shovels, one in Tabitha’s hands, the other in mine, and I saw behind her Thigpen turned a moment from us, saw he was close enough, close enough, and saw Simons start from the statue, and toward us, here, now.
Now.
I opened my eyes. There was light, more than I could need, more than the world of this night could ever need, all of it from a flashlight held on a man who could not see it.
I’d seen all of this, all of it, in an instant.
Son, he’d said.
I put my hand out in front of me, held it out to Tabitha, my index and middle fingers together, held them out for her to see, then brought them to my chest.
Trust me.
“Don’t blink, son,” Unc said.
She looked at my hand, looked at me. She nodded.
“That’s it, you fuck,” Thigpen said, and turned from behind Tabitha, took a step toward Unc.
I held my shovel handle with both hands like a baseball bat, nodded hard at her, with my eyes looked up at Thigpen.
She knew.
I saw Simons, still on the trail, still moving.
Tabitha turned, swung the shovel at Thigpen, caught him hard behind the knees, and he fell back, slammed full on the ground, and with it let out a jagged and deep cry, the air out of him in a moment, the flashlight flying like it’d done when I’d fallen, sending shadows and light everywhere, confused and torn light that made no sense.
But I didn’t need it. I’d seen what I had to do, seen how we might live.
I was out of the hole in the same moment Unc rolled to his side, tried hard to kick at Thigpen, though his hands were tied to his ankles, and in the same moment Mom and Miss Dinah cried out, the light finally settling, pointing away, and then I was on Thigpen, and pulled from his waist the gun, and turned, backed away from him and away from the hole, looking toward where in a moment I knew Simons would emerge.
Tabitha was up from the hole now, too, held the shovel above Thigpen’s head, ready to hit him.
I cocked the hammer and saw in the new angle of light Charles Middleton Simons, his own pistol drawn, step through the green and into the circle.
“Clever,” he said, and stopped.
He had the gun up, his arm straight and stiff, pointing at me, and slowly started toward us. Between him and me lay them all, watching him: Mom, Miss Dinah, Unc. Tabitha with the shovel.
Thigpen groaned, rolled his head back and forth, and Tabitha lifted the shovel, ready.
Simons pointed the gun at her, arm still out stiff, and Mom and Miss Dinah gave out quick yelps. “Her first?” he said, and stepped over a string.
Tabitha stood frozen.
“Or Mother?” Simons said, and quick