At a clearing in the woods, a mile or so from the cabin, a young man, seventeen years old, Babe’s age, lay on a blanket and watched his girlfriend snap her bra back on and then shimmy her lightweight summer dress over her body.
“Wow,” Carl said. “The moonlight hits you just right.”
Tammi laughed, dropped down, and snuggled into Carl’s side. He wore jeans and a T-shirt. He’d left his shirt on the seat of his pickup that he’d parked at the tip of the clearing. For a while, he and Tammi held on to each other, listening to the night sounds, a breeze rippling through leaves, critters skittering, snapping twigs. Mainly, they listened to the low hum of their breathing and the beating of their hearts.
“I wish we didn’t have to do this,” Tammi said.
Carl half sat up. “If you don’t want to—”
Tammi swatted Carl’s chest. “No, fool, I love this. I mean sneaking around, driving ten miles out of town so we can be together.”
Carl put on a scary voice he’d heard on a radio show. “Their love. It is forbidden.”
Tammi giggled, but then she went quiet.
“I’m serious,” she said.
“I know,” Carl said. “But what can we do?”
“We could stop,” Tammi said.
Carl leaned forward onto his elbows. “Do you, I mean, do you want to?”
“No.”
“Good,” Carl said. “Me neither.”
Carl pulled Tammi closer to him. He rubbed her back and brushed her tightly curled hair. For some time now, months at least, he had wanted to tell her something, but he hadn’t been able to formulate the words. Or he hadn’t been able to summon the courage. But tonight, he thought he might try.
“Um,” he said.
Then—nothing.
“There’s more,” Carl said.
“I hope so.”
Tammi waited. Carl started to speak, then stopped.
Tammi bit her lip, forcing herself not to burst out laughing. “Does he speak?”
“I’m trying to tell you something serious.”
“I’m serious. I’m very serious. Look at me.”
He leaned forward. Tammi had put on a fake, cartoony expression. She ran her finger over her bottom lip. “See? Serious.”
She laughed.
“Okay, really, I’m ready,” he said.
And waited.
Finally, Carl exhaled. “Here goes. I want to tell you that I, ah, um, I—love. I, ah, love, um—”
Tammi lost it.
She roared, laughing out of control. Then she waved her hands rapidly in front of her, fanning herself.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, no, no, please, go on—”
She breathed in, out, composed herself, exhaled again, and then burst out laughing.
“Well, if you’re gonna laugh—”
Carl began tickling her.
“Stop it, you Jeff, you know I’m ticklish. Stop.”
He didn’t stop. He tickled her harder, frantically, all over—her sides, under her arms—then amped up the tickle attack even more until Tammi thrashed helplessly, panting from laughing, Carl joining her, laughing as hysterically as Tammi. They laughed this way, in sync, breathless, their tears of sheer joy streaming down their faces, their laughter, separate and together, pounding in their ears.
Which is why they didn’t hear the men coming out of the woods.
Five of them.
In their early twenties.
Farm Boys.
Thick, heavyset, deliberate.
White.
They carried bats and knives.
One held a noose.
They came through the trees, fanned out, circled the edge of the clearing, and started to close in. Carl sensed them before he saw them. He could feel their presence. Their menace. Their violence.
Carl gently pushed Tammi behind him and scrambled to his feet. At this point, he identified them only as five pale rounded body shapes outlined in the night. But in a matter of seconds, his eyes adjusted, and he could make out their features. He didn’t know them. He may have recognized one. He wasn’t sure.
“Y’all having a party?” one of them said.
Carl drew himself to his full height. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and strong from baling hay and working the farm. He stepped off the blanket for better traction and balled up his fists at his side. He could hear Tammi trembling behind him. One of the Farm Boys stepped closer to her. Carl kept his focus on him, but behind him he heard Tammi whimper.
“What have we here?” the guy Carl recognized said. He stepped past the first man. In the moonlight, Carl now made out his face clearly. He knew of him. Johnny Galvis. The Farm Boys called him Johnny G. He was a few years older than Carl. Twenty, twenty-one. He had a reputation. Thief. Brawler. Drunk. Son of a major domo in the Klan. Total loser. All-around piece of shit.
“Who you hiding behind there? Is that a girl?”
Johnny G stepped closer, the other four at his back, tightening the circle around Carl and Tammi.
“Oh, no, my mistake,” Johnny G said. “It ain’t a girl. It’s a female nigger.”
He cackled. Carl smelled liquor on his breath.
“What are you two doing out here, all alone?” Johnny G’s speech came out slurred and loud. “Wait, no, you ain’t. You can’t be. Are you—fucking?”
Carl glanced at Tammi. She had somehow curled herself up, almost into a standing fetal position. She started shaking violently. Carl could hear her lips chattering.
“You want a piece of me,” Carl said. “Let’s go. Leave her be.”
Johnny G made a gurgling sound in his throat, swirled saliva in his mouth, and launched a missile of spit at Tammi. She tried to duck, but a wad of yellow spit spattered the side of her face. Johnny G hollered and slapped his leg. “Bullseye!”
The other four laughed with him. Johnny G turned to them.
“We don’t want a piece of him, do we?”
They shouted, started coming closer, bearing down on Carl.
“Nah,” Johnny G said. “We want all of y’all. Y’all breaking the law. We can’t have that. You know who we are? Law enforcers.”
Carl shifted his weight and looked at each of the five men, trying to decide who to go at first. Maybe the leader. Johnny G. That might be his best move. His only move.
“Just so you know,” Johnny G said, “we have a plan. We’re gonna string you up so you can watch the five of us fuck her, and then we’re gonna slice her up before we burn her. Then we’ll lynch you both. Side by side.”
He pulled a knife out of his pocket. A switchblade. He sprung the blade open and tossed it from hand to hand. Carl kept an eye on the knife as he watched Johnny G’s face. He raised his fists in a boxer’s stance. He didn’t back up. To Johnny’s surprise, he stepped forward, toward Johnny G. Thrown off, Johnny G backed up a step and then thrust the knife at Carl’s face. Carl leaned out of the way, the knife blade zipping past him. He came back, flicked a jab at Johnny, catching the side of his jaw. Shocked, Johnny howled. Then he went crazy. He charged Carl, and the other four swept in behind him, onto the blanket. One guy grabbed Tammi. Carl spun away from Johnny and smashed a right cross into this guy’s throat, then he cracked him with a left to his jaw. The guy fell. Tammi wailed, but then another guy grabbed her and lifted her off her feet. She screamed at the top of her lungs as Johnny G and the other two men pulled their own knives and descended on Carl.