“Something happened to Otis.”
Nadine felt her body kick, and she opened her eyes to see a slim silhouette in the open doorway of the bedroom. It took her a moment to ground herself, to piece together the words that had awakened her.
“What did you say about Otis?” she asked. “What’s wrong with him?”
“I don’t know.” Rodney leaned against the edge of the doorway and wiped an arm over his face.
They stood there in the clearing between the van and the outhouse, three points surrounding the body as it lay in the patchy light like a dropped marionette, the arms and legs bent in unlikely angles, the eyes gazing vacantly straight up at the moon.
Lester leaned down and touched the neck and cussed two to three of his usual words before making the call that he was good and dead. “Must of been that knot on his head,” he sniffed, standing and folding his arms over his chest like he was the detective at a crime scene.
Nadine retied her bathrobe around her waist. “Better go hook up the phone, Lester. We have to call someone.”
Lester put his fingers to his forehead. “No, no, no!” he snapped. “Jesus, woman! If you don’t realize half the state is probably looking for Butch and Sundance here, then you’re even more stupid than I already figured.”
Nadine felt her skin tighten. “Don’t call me stupid, Lester.”
“Don’t act it, then.” He walked around Otis’s body and gave Rodney a shove. “Get your shoes on, kid,” he said. “This pile of shit laying here is half yours.”
Nadine stood there thinking of how she might go with him, go with Rodney to the van and whisper for him to run, to follow the drive downhill until he got to the highway. He could crouch down among the sage, and wait until a set of headlights came up over the ridge. The driver would surely stop for a kid, she imagined. Take him straight to the police station if he asked them to.
But Lester had hold of her wrist now, and he was leading her to the house. It was only when she fell behind, her bare feet catching on every rock and root, that he let her go.
“What are we doing?” she asked. Her voice hooked in her throat.
Lester stopped, turning on his feet to look at her. She could not see his face under the shadow of the eaves, but of course she could see him plainly. She knew the way his eyes had narrowed at her, and the look of his teeth as he ground down on his lip.
“Otis Dell is gonna take a trip down the rabbit hole,” he said, clear as day.
“This is crazy, Lester!” she pleaded with him. “That’s a human out there!”
“You’re being generous with that,” he said. He moved toward her, and there was now something in his hand she couldn’t make out, long and cylindrical, and he slapped it against his leg like it was a riding crop. “He’s a criminal,” he said. “You know that.”
“You never told me he was.”
“Did you just say don’t call you stupid?” he said. “Well, I’m giving credit where credit is due, honey. You knew it, and you gave him safe harbor right alongside of me.”
She said nothing to that.
Rodney walked alongside holding the flashlight, Lester struggling with Otis’s legs, one pinned under each arm, Nadine cinching her hands behind Otis’s neck in a sort of full-nelson.
“Hold that light steady.” Lester’s breathing was all over the place.
“I’m walking down a hill,” Rodney said.
“I don’t give a shit if you’re rolling down it. Hold the fucking light steady or I’ll crack you over the head with it.”
“Lester,” Nadine said. “Jesus.”
Lester suddenly let go of Otis’s legs, as if the dead man had suddenly found a hidden pocket of life and offered one last kick.
“Give me the goddamned thing.” Lester snatched the flashlight from Rodney’s hand and panned it over the ground to the square of plywood that shone pale under the yellow beam. “Go down there and pull that piece of wood back,” he said, giving Rodney a hard shove that sent him stumbling.
Rodney steadied himself, then made his way down the hillside. At the plywood he turned and looked at Lester and Nadine, his face twisted in a confused expression, mouth cockeyed, eyes staring back with pupils shrunken to pinpoints.
“Pull it back,” Lester snapped.
Rodney reached down and took hold of the corner of the board, moving it back with broad, heavy steps. Once he was a safe distance away, he collaped onto the grass.
“It stinks in there,” he said.
“You think it smells bad now,” Lester said, “give it a week.” He turned to one side and spit something onto the ground, then handed the flashlight to Nadine. “I got it from here.”
Rodney stayed back against the tree as Lester walked the body to the edge of the well. There he seated Otis’s body against his legs as if he was a child, as if, any minute, Lester would start to rub his shoulders, or stroke his hair while singing one of those cowboy songs for him. Instead he called out, “Make a wish,” and shoved Otis away from him, letting the body fall freely into the darkness.
Rodney shifted himself against the tree bark. The sound of his back against the trunk was like a whisper of secrets Nadine could not stand to hear.
“Come here,” Lester said, waving the light at Rodney.
“No.”
“Get over here,” he said. It was not a hard order but something unsettlingly sweet, like a scatter of apples sinking into the ground beneath the branches of a tree.
“Lester,” Nadine said. “Leave him alone.”
“Look down in here,” he said to Rodney, panning the light into the pit. “You can’t even see the bottom. It’s like it goes on forever, I shit you not. Like, somewhere in the middle of China, that sonofabitch just flew up from a hole in some Chinaman’s backyard.” He laughed, a rattle of phlegm kicking from deep in his chest. “Now drag that board back over it,” he said, nodding to Rodney.
“I’ll get it.” Nadine took a step forward. Lester put a hand out.
“I told him to do it. Most of this is your baggage, kid. Now get off that tree and put the board back.”
Rodney moved slowly forward, taking the corner of the plywood in his hands. He slowly pushed the wood closer to the hole as Lester’s eyes narrowed on him, and his mouth formed thick commas at the edges, curling and trembling as if he were anticipating something at any moment.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Nadine said, pushing past Lester and taking one side of the plywood, and heaving it over the opening. “Go and wait up at the house, honey,” she said to Rodney. “We’ll pick apart this mess when the sun’s up.” She handed him the flashlight and held it tight in his hand, and explained that she and Lester would be fine, that they knew the way back in broad daylight or pitch black. “You know,” she said. “Just like the little bat.”
Rodney held her gaze for a moment before turning away. Nadine watched the light fan out over the ground, getting smaller as Rodney made his way up the hill, until he was gone.
“I want your word that you’re not going to do anything,” she said to Lester.
“What in the hell are you talking about?”
“With him. With the boy.”
Lester laughed softly, and Nadine started from the sudden touch of his hand on the back of her neck. “What do you think I’m gonna do?” he whispered. “You think I’m cold-blooded? Is that what you think?”
Nadine didn’t say anything as she pulled away from him.
“Answer me,” he said.
“I don’t know if I trust you so much.” She put her hands to her stomach and it felt like something was spinning in there, like a rabbit caught in a snare.
“When have I ever done you wrong?” he asked, almost in a laugh.
Nadine discovered the image of a big Rolodex in her head, one card after another of Lester’s misdeeds. “You really want me to go there?” she said. “You want to open up that can of worms?” Before he could leak out another of his smart retorts, she turned to go, letting her feet feel their way in the dark up the hill, where the house loomed in silhouette against a star-choked sky.