Chapter Eleven

Joan Beck

Walkers Corner, Sunday November 2008

Joan and Ruby stood next to the house, watching Vicky expertly back up and out the narrow driveway, leaving a light plume of dust in her wake. Well, that was certainly interesting. The dog nudged Joan’s hand, probably sensing she was still on edge.

“You’re such a good girl, yes, you are.” Joan scratched Ruby’s head and back. Ruby had alerted her to Vicky’s arrival, which was fortunate since she couldn’t hear anything when she was in the basement.

She mentally replayed the conversation. Had she said too much? The nosy bitch got her to talk much more than she usually did. But then she’d also found out a few things about what Vicky was up to. Overall, it’d gone pretty well. She’d steered Vicky in the right direction. It was obvious she just ate up the story of the big bad sheriff dragging her and Mama back home. She’d seemed like the type to have a soft spot for someone who’d been through that.

Joan was certain Vicky had not revealed everything about her and Rick, which was interesting by itself. Well, it’s not like she’d been completely upfront herself. Still, she wondered if showing the bag had been a good idea. But that went all right. She could almost see Vicky picking up the scent, preparing to track it.

She walked toward the back of the house. She sure as hell hadn’t wanted a bunch of cops searching her property back then. And definitely not now. She wasn’t going to let anything mess up the deal. She paused and looked toward the creek, thinking back to when she was seventeen.

****

Joan had bookmarked her homework page with a pencil. “I’ll do it, Mama, you just sit.” She stood up from her seat at the small kitchen table.

Big Bill Beck was on his usual tear. “And get me a goddam beer!”

Jerk. What’s he expect? He shows up late, and no one even knows whether he’s coming. It’s better when he doesn’t come home at all. It was best when he was gone for days. Those were nice times, when Joan and her mama, Harriet, could cook good meals, sit quietly and read, or sew and watch a little TV.

This wasn’t one of those times. He stank of booze and cigarettes layered over his unwashed body. His boots had tracked dirt all over their nice clean floor.

He shoved her as she passed. Her ma caught her eye with a gentle look. Joan put the beer can down slightly out of his reach instead of crushing it into his face.

He always made them sit with him while he ate, so they had to listen while he wolfed his food and chugged his beer. Joan worked on her geometry homework. She funneled her rage into drawing sharp angles. When her pencil lead snapped, The Bastard ridiculed her, saying she was dumb, even dumber than her mother, and school wasn’t going to help, considering what little she was good for.

The usual.

Joan couldn’t remember ever calling her father Papa or Daddy. She might have when she was a toddler, but from the earliest she could remember, he came with bad things. As her vocabulary advanced, she didn’t call him Dad or Pa. If she had to refer to him, she just said ‘he’ or ‘him’ and everyone knew who she meant.

In her teenaged mind, he was The Fucking Bastard. Once, Joan let that slip out loud to her ma, who got upset and made her promise not to call him that. Out of respect to Mama, she dropped the F word, but not the sentiment.

Now, almost done with high school, Joan had started letting her hostility show. He didn’t even care his wife was so, so sick.

Joan clenched one fist under the table, sneaking peeks at her ma. She was frighteningly thin. Her wrinkled skin was stretched tight, almost translucent enough to see her skull. She was shrinking. She’d barely tasted her own good stew, the stew that The Bastard was stuffing into his hateful mouth. Mama wouldn’t last much longer. It would be horrible to be left all alone with him.

Finally, finally, he shoved his bowl across the table, crumpling Joan’s paper. He heaved his chair back and got to his feet. “I’m going out,” he announced. Joan smoothed out her homework, her face a mask, as he stomped out of the room. He always swaggered like he wanted to fight.

As usual, he slammed the front door. When minutes passed and the truck didn’t start up, Joan said, “I’m going to see what he’s doing.” He didn’t take the truck, so he was going across the creek.

“No, no. Honey, just leave it.”

“I’m going, Mama. He never walks anywhere. He’s being sneaky. I want to know what he’s up to.”

Joan was sick of him, sick of everything, and she was going to do something about it, even if she didn’t know how or what, or when.

She slipped out the back door and paused, listening. Yep, there he went, down the back path. It wasn’t hard to track him. He clomped around like a restless bull. Anyone could follow him.

Joan crept soundlessly in his wake. She had roamed outside all her life, ever since she was big enough to get out of the house by herself when the yelling and fighting and hating got to be too much. After dark was the best. There were so many ways to hide.

Clouds skittered past the half moon, which gave off enough light for Joan to easily follow the overgrown path. The crunching of her father’s passage helped, too. He was either going to the lodge or the cabin. She’d know after he crossed the creek. Follow the path all the way to the lodge or take the turnoff for the back way to the caretaker cabin.

Before she stepped onto the first rock of the footpath across the creek, Joan glanced back at the house. The glow from the kitchen was the only light, other than the moon.

Joan hurried to catch up. He was quieter now. She didn’t want to lose track of him. He took the uphill path to the lodge. The path was overgrown and barely visible, with trees and bushes overlapping it. The ground was dry, branches and twigs brittle underfoot.

She had to move like a hunter. Joan had spent a lot of time in the woods with her big brother Bill Junior, back when he was still a good guy. He’d hunted ever since he could carry a rifle. Bill taught her how to track and shoot and get around in the woods and swamp. She missed him.

As she drew close to the lodge clearing, she heard men’s voices, but couldn’t make out what they were saying. She hunched behind a bush. The Bastard was nowhere in sight.

Silently she drew herself up to move closer. An arm snaked around her neck and cut off her breath.

“You little shit. You think I don’t know you’re sneaking around after me?” The Bastard’s horrible breath burned her ear as he tightened his grip.

Joan thrust herself up as hard and fast as she could, throwing him off balance. She kicked back at his knee. He staggered backward, cursing under his breath. The instant his hold loosened, Joan ran toward home, wheezing, furious that she’d let him catch her.

She could hear him behind her, running full tilt, breaking branches. He was catching up. He caught her hair and yanked her down just before the creek. He kicked her again and again. She rolled and scrambled, trying to escape him. She struggled to get back on her feet. He slammed his ham of a fist into her jaw.

She thudded down on the rocky ground, fighting the void at the edge of her mind. He dropped his knee into her belly, his big hands at her throat. He was breathing heavily but was otherwise silent, almost calm, as he throttled her. Joan struggled and twisted. She was going to die. His ugly face and the moon over his shoulder were the last things she would ever see.

The moon was fading away to darkness when The Bastard collapsed half on top of her, his hands still grasping her throat, but softening. Joan screamed silently, as she had learned to do as a child, and squirmed out from under him.

And there stood her mama, Harriet, holding a rock that was surely covered with her husband’s blood. The moonglow shone behind her, haloing her messy hair and tiny body in its nightgown and robe. It was so like Mama to place the rock on the ground instead of dropping it. She looked sadly at Joan and sank gently to the dirt.

“Oh, Mama, are you okay? Omigod. He was going to kill me!”

Joan picked up the rock and made sure The Bastard was good and dead, then crawled to her mother. They huddled together in the shadows, staring at the body, twisted on its side in the dim moonlight. A pool of blood spread around his head, a dark and fitting crown.

Joan shivered. “Goddamn, the fucker was going to kill me! You saved me, Mama.”

Harriet sighed. “I should have done that a long time ago.”

Joan closed her eyes, wishing it all away. After several minutes, or maybe it was longer, she shuddered awake. Everything was still there—The Bastard, bloody rock, blood on the ground. Where had her trembling, frail little mother found the strength?

“Come on, Mama, we need to get you back to the house.”

They stood, both quivering.

“We need to get rid of him.” Harriet’s voice was barely a whisper.

“I’ll take care of everything. Let’s get cleaned up. I’ll come back.”

Harriett didn’t argue. She could barely stand, much less help move him, but she had never appeared stronger. She had suffered more from the disease that was her husband than from the cancer within her.

The house appeared unchanged, but it would never be the same. Joan took charge. She started a washer load of their blood-splattered clothing, helped her mom bathe, and put her to bed before she jumped into the shower. She dressed in rough clothing and heavy boots.

“I’m going, Mama. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“What are you going to do, honey? You can’t lift him.”

“I’ll drag him. I know a place. First, I’m going to get rid of the truck. If anyone comes looking for him we’ll say he was here but left right after supper.”

Joan didn’t see anyone on the way to the bus station, twelve miles away by road. She left the truck parked at the station, which like everything else was closed up tight. She made the return trip on foot, taking the shortcut through the woods and the edge of the swamp.

More than three hours after she left the truck, as the sky began to lighten, Joan arrived back at the creek.

There was no pool of blood, no sign of what happened. The Bastard was gone.