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No, Joshua was as desperate for resolution as Jacob was, and the deal could only go down in one place—the shabby camp where it had begun.
The guinea hens emerged from the trees at the edge of the pasture, expecting to be fed. They were striped like granite, with rippling bands of dark blue and light gray. Some ancestral memory kept them lingering around the barn, raising their broods, fleeing the occasional fox or red-tailed hawk. They had staked out their territory, and not even the scent of the man who had once slaughtered their kind would roust them.
Guineas were stupid, and Jacob hated all stupid creatures. He knew he should get to the camp, because Carlita would be waiting.
Renee was now hurrying toward him, coming up the rise, her dress shoes slowing her down. He waited until she was close enough so that he could hear her shouts, then he turned from the cemetery. She had never been to this part of the farm, and he didn’t want to lose her. Joshua would never forgive him if Renee missed all the fun.
The slope grew uneven beneath his feet, the trail eroded since the days when cattle had made their way to the barn from far pastures. The sun was heading down toward the tops of the mountains, over where Te
He turned once to see Renee cresting the hill behind him, now rid of her shoes. Her hair trailed behind her, golden in the late-afternoon sun. No wonder Joshua loved her so. She was an ideal, a floating dream image of womanhood, someone who was loyal and stable and strong. A woman who could build a better man. She understood what it meant to be a Wells.
Well, most of it.
He reached the first of the Fraser firs, Christmas trees that were too deformed for market and had been left to grow wild. They threw long shadows as he ran between the rows, stumps of harvested trees dotting the hillside. Briars tore at his pants legs, and he knew Renee would have trouble following with her bare feet. He considered stopping, letting her catch up, but the roofs of the migrant camp were below him now, the tottering shed from where he’d first watched Carlita and Joshua, the land giving way to a sheer drop behind the mobile homes, falling away to the river. The blackened ruins of two fire-gutted trailers stood near the ledge, shards of ragged alloy spiking toward the sky.
The road to the camp ran parallel to the river, twin tracks of brown dirt bounded by oaks and white pines. A narrow, wobbly bridge spa
Joshua.
That had been the problem. She’d always called out “Joshua.”
He picked up the pace, excited now. Soon she wouldn’t call him “Joshua” any more.
The rusty, green Chevy was parked in front of the last mobile home. No doubt, Carlita was cleaning the cut on Joshua’s face, kissing his brow and telling him it would soon be over. His loco brother would bother him no more. They would be away from this place, wealthy, and then they could live as they were meant.
The grin felt like it was splitting his face. It wasn’t easy being a Wells, becoming a Wells. But the end was near. He would get all the good things he deserved.
Jacob gained speed as he ran down the slope, his legs rejuvenated. Time seemed to fall away, and he was sixteen again, the hills lush with trees, a thread of campfire smoke rising from the migrant camp, bacon in the wind. It was the day after their birthday, and both of the boys had taken their driver’s tests and gotten their licenses. Joshua said they should celebrate, said he had a special present for his favorite brother. He told Jacob to come by the camp that afternoon. There was a green bow on the shed door, and when he opened the door, heart like a jackhammer in his chest, he heard the grunting in the shadows, the frantic whisper of his brother’s name, then laughter. Joshua lay on top of Carlita, his skin pale against her brow
“Happy birthday to us,” he said.
And sixteen-year-old Jacob took a step inside, fumbling for the buttons on his shirt. Carlita didn’t rise, just lay on her back and smiled, her breasts lifting with her breath, the dark patch between her spread legs glistening in the half-light. Jacob’s trembling fingers finally managed to free the shirt, and he shucked his shoes, and he was approaching her, unbuckling his belt, wondering if he could do it with his little brother watching, when the back of his head erupted in a thunderclap of red agony.
The thirty-three-year-old Jacob rubbed his head now, remembering the dull throb, the rising from the gray mist to find himself on his stomach on the dirt floor of the shed. An ax handle lay beside him. His clothes were scattered, his pants around his knees, his wallet gone. Joshua had stolen his driver’s license, and Jacob had never gotten it back.
He now reached the camp and moved past the Chevy, peering through the tinted window to make sure the key was in the ignition. Carlita would want to make a fast getaway. That’s the way women were, especially when they wanted to rip out a man’s heart and show it to him while it was still beating, laughing all the while.
They would be in the last mobile home, the one with the faded silver stripe down the side and translucent polyvinyl taped over the windows.
The door was unlocked. He looked back up the hill and saw Renee’s silhouette against the sundown. If she didn’t fall, she’d be right on time. He yanked open the door. “Joshua!”
Joshua and Carlita sat on a couch in the dark living room. The couch looked to have been inhabited by rats, with cotton dribbling from its stitches. A brick propped up one corner. Carlita was leaning into Joshua, and he had his arm around her.
“Let’s go, Carlita,” Jacob said. “He’s got his.”
“Not so fast,” Joshua said. “Two more million.”
“You can get it from Renee.”
“You ain’t much of a horse trader, are you?”
“I just want it over with.”
Carlita looked at him with those maddening brown eyes. “Why do you bring that crazy woman into this, Joshua?”
“Nothing for you to worry about. We’re just giving you what you wanted all these years.”
“I want to go back to Te
“Get in the car, then,” Jacob said.
Carlita looked at Joshua, who squeezed her shoulder and lifted his arm from her body. He gave her a little shove. “You heard your husband. You promised to honor and obey, till death do us part.”
Carlita stood, her breasts swaying beneath her shirt, her ripeness in defiance of time and truth. Jacob licked his lips. He wondered how much she had changed, if she was still as moist and frantic as she had been that long-ago night of the trade. She’d lived hard in the meantime, and Jacob pla
“How you going to do her?” Joshua asked him.
“By accident, the way we always do it. I figure the river. It was dark, she slipped, hit her head on the rocks.”
“Too bad you can’t burn her up, huh?” Joshua’s stained grin was like that of an opossum’s in a chicken house.
“Don’t want to push my luck,” Jacob said.
“You’ll get all kinds of sympathy for your loss. If you get away with it.”
“I don’t like this,” Carlita said to Josh. “I thought we take the money and go home.”
“Jake and me, we made a new deal.” Joshua took a long swallow from the bottle in his lap. “I get the house and money, the fancy stuff. I get his good life, and he gets mine. I finally get to be a Wells, and he gets... well, he gets what he wants.”