Boys of Blur Read online

  Breathing hard, Charlie wriggled up the hill beside Cotton. Tall, damp grass traced wet lines on his cheeks. His knees and elbows sank into the soft ground.

  A yowl rolled through the darkness and over the cane fields.

  “Panther,” Cotton whispered.

  The white church with the stumped steeple rose into view, now pearly with moon-silver. A breeze dragged quiet fingers across the back of Charlie’s neck and his skin sprang into bumps. Shaggy cane heads rustled, passing the moon’s light across acres of bladed sea, brushing the light up and away, defending the low shadows.

  The yowl came again. Longer. Closer.

  Cotton and Charlie peered through the graveyard’s iron bars at the small grove of stones that marked the planted dead. Every stone was painted with moonlight. Every stone left a long stripe of night shadow behind it.

  Charlie could hear the crunch and scrape of a blade biting through earth and hitting something hard, but he couldn’t see around the nearest headstone. He leaned closer to Cotton, shoulder to shoulder.

  A man was up to his ribs in Coach Wisdom’s grave, and he was digging. The moon shone on his strange helmet, and on his dark sweat-slick skin.

  Charlie felt his throat clamp shut as the man in the grave stopped digging. He sniffed the air and turned, his face only feet above the ground.

  Through the rows of stones, his eyes met Charlie’s. They were liquid with moonlight, calm and unsurprised. Then the man’s eyes moved on. They slid across the dim orange streetlights of Taper and settled on the jagged black tree line that marked the end of the cane and the edge of the swamp.

  Cotton was sliding back down the hill, but Charlie grabbed his cousin’s arm.

  “He saw us!” Cotton hissed.

  Charlie shook his head. He wasn’t running this time, and he wasn’t going to watch the rest alone.

  The man in the grave was still staring at the trees. And then wind swept over the fields and washed up through the tall grass around Charlie and Cotton, carrying a smell so foul that Charlie pressed his face down into his sleeve. Cotton began to gag.

  It smelled like gutted skunk, like rotten eggs and corpse and sewage. Like the deep slime bottom of a swamp, collected decay unstirred for a thousand years and then dredged up into the air.

  And it made Charlie angry. He suddenly hated Cotton for being faster than he was. He wanted to hit him. He wanted … he wanted …

  The man leapt out of the grave and tossed away his shovel. He drew his ancient rusty sword and dropped into a crouch, turning in a slow circle.

  “Bonswa kochon sal!” the man shouted. “Begone! I do not fear piti demons. My feet of flesh are bare in God’s jaden!”

  On the far side of the graveyard, a dark shape rose slowly behind the fence. The moonlight did little to it. The man with the sword faced it, straightening slowly.

  “You cannot be having him,” the man said, pointing his sword into the grave. “I am Lio, o diab! Begone, or the grave ground curse you. Go back to your cage—kote mò yo ye!”

  The shadow extended two dark arms, gripping the iron fence. Metal squealed and popped.

  The man with the sword raised his blade and pointed straight at it.

  A panther screamed in Charlie’s ear.

  Charlie yelled as the big cat sailed over him. Its tail snapped against his cheek and then the cat was across the fence and among the graves.

  Another panther landed beside it. Both cats slid toward the shadow, hissing and spitting, fangs bare in the moonlight.

  The shadow released the fence and retreated into the darkness. The cats launched after it, disappearing over the curve of the mound. The fence rocked quietly in the wind, bent inward where the shadow had been. The stench drifted away.

  The man with the sword turned toward Charlie and Cotton. “I am Lio.” He slid his sword back into his gator skin belt and picked up the shovel. “You must stay close with me until …” He gestured at the night. A scream rolled over the hill and rode away on the wind.

  Lio jumped back into the grave and began punching his shovel straight down, cracking it against the coffin within.

  “What are you doing?” Charlie stood slowly.

  “Don’t talk to him!” Cotton said, rising to his knees. “I don’t know what that thing was, but he’s digging up a dead dude. We have to get out of here, Charlie!”

  Wood splintered and Lio bent down into the grave.

  “Charlie!” Cotton shouted. “I can’t be here!”

  Lio grunted. More wood cracked. And then the body of a man in a suit rolled up out of the grave and onto the grass.

  Coach Willie Wisdom.

  Coach had not been a small man, but Lio hopped up beside him, dropped to one knee, heaved the body up onto his shoulder, and then stood.

  A panther screamed in what could only be pain.

  “Vini ave’m!” Lio grunted at the boys. “Li ugen!”

  “No Creole!” Cotton said, raising his hands. He stood beside Charlie. “We’re leaving.”

  “Stay close with me,” Lio said. “Or your mothers may be weeping nan maten.”

  Lio took long, quick strides around the gravestones, moving easily despite the weight of the dead coach over his shoulder, and then passed through the iron gate. Without a backward glance, he strode down the hill toward the cane.

  Charlie looked at Cotton. They both turned, scanning the darkness around them. No more yowling or snarling. Nothing but the breeze rattling the cane like bones.

  “Follow!” Lio shouted.

  “No, sir,” Cotton muttered. He backed away, eyes wide and white, then turned and ran toward the dim lights of Taper.

  For one moment, Charlie was alone. Fear turned in his gut and sent electricity racing through his skin. He wanted to run. He wanted to be under a heavy blanket inside a bright room with locked doors and closed curtains. But he could bottle fear. He’d been doing it his whole life. He could push it away and follow the man called Lio; he could ask about the panthers and the shadow and the stench and the anger it had made him feel.

  Charlie shivered.

  A foul ghost of reek touched his nostrils—a memory of that fence-bending shadow that his mind couldn’t explain.

  Or the first finger of its return.

  Charlie sprang after Cotton. He lengthened his legs and filled his lungs and he ran.

  The streets of Taper were empty. Leaning streetlights spread quiet cones of orange over hibernating cars and sealed storefronts.

  Charlie’s feet slapped on the asphalt as he ran down the center of the road. His chest heaved and his breathing was louder than the humming lights above him.

  A shut-down diner. A liquor store. A barbershop. An antique store. A tiny theater. All quiet. Some forever.

  “Hey!” Cotton jumped out from behind a parked car.

  Charlie yelped in surprise and almost fell down.

  “The sheriff will be nuts,” Cotton said. “Everyone will be all up about some crazy grave-robbing Swamp John. I’m not gonna lie about him, but don’t you go talking about that Stank. People think I’m crazy enough already.”

  Charlie panted. “We didn’t see nothin’?” His laugh came out as a wheeze. “Double negative?”

  Cotton shook his head. “This isn’t funny, Charlie. This is cops and bodies and some serious spook.”

  Charlie nodded, still panting, and braced his hands on his knees.

  “And next time, coz, don’t be hanging back when things go all Hound of the Baskervilles,” Cotton said, backing down the middle of the street. “That’s when it’s time to run.”

  “Hey, I was fine in my room,” Charlie said. “You were the one who brought me. And I don’t even know what a baskerville is.”

  Cotton turned toward a side street and broke into a jog. “Read a book, yo!”

  “Whatever,” Charlie said, but he was alone. He looked back over his shoulder. The street ran out of orange lights before it ran out of boarded-up buildings. At the end, there was an old half-broken ba
rricade and a rusty sign puckered with bullet holes dangling sideways from a single screw.

  Beyond the sign, swaying cane. In the distance, the little white church on the hill throwing quiet light back at the moon. Somewhere in the darkness, Charlie knew, a man was lugging a body. Somewhere, something with hands stronger than iron was creeping through the cane, trailing a smell as foul as hate itself.

  Charlie ran.

  Natalie Mack closed her eyes and splashed cold water on her face. With firm fingertips, she pressed the cold against her cheekbones and moved up to her brows.

  It was supposed to relieve stress. But she wasn’t feeling stress. She was just … nervous.

  Four suitcases were already sitting by the motel room door. Molly was dressed and fed and laughing on her father’s lap at the end of the saggy motel room bed.

  Natalie allowed herself one quick look in the mirror above the sink. Her blond hair was in a pile on top of her head, spiked in place by a motel pen swiped from the pad beside the phone. Her eyes were clear and sharp. For some reason, she felt like they were supposed to be bloodshot.

  She turned her head slightly, just enough to see the pale scar peeking out from behind her ear.

  Somewhere in this broad, flat land of muck and cane, there was a man she had once loved, a man who had given her that scar, who had given her Charlie.

  She blinked, pressed a towel against her face, and went to wake her son.

  Charlie’s shins and knees were smeared with dirt and grass. The arms of his sweatshirt were much worse—filthy from elbow to wrist. And he stank. The whole room smelled like horse. Or something less … alive.

  Natalie bit her lip and leaned back against the door-jamb. She couldn’t stop a smile. All in all, Charlie looked like a boy who had been having himself some fun.

  “Charlie?”

  Charlie jerked in surprise and slid up onto his elbows. “Hey.” He left his eyes shut for a moment.

  “Charlie? Are you okay?” He felt his mom’s weight dip the mattress beside him. Her hand touched his face, her fingers immediately tracking the largest cane stripe across his forehead.

  Charlie opened his eyes. “Yeah,” he said. “How about you? Are you okay?”

  Natalie smiled. A real one. Her eyes creased.

  “Yeah, Charlie Boy, I’m fine. We’re fine.” She tugged on his filthy sleeve and her smiling face became a question mark. Charlie sat all the way up and pressed his back against the wall. A television was selling something on the other side of it.

  “I’m sorry,” Charlie said. “I shouldn’t have gone out. But Cotton came by and you and Mack were talking. I thought Molly would be okay if I left the door to your room a little open.” He studied his mother’s face, but she wasn’t giving anything away. “I left a note,” he added.

  Natalie nodded. “I got it. It’s a small town, Charlie, but still, just taking off like that …”

  “I know,” Charlie said.

  He watched his mother’s eyes shift. The subject had just changed somewhere behind them.

  “What did you and Mack decide?” he asked. His mother looked at him, surprised. “About coaching. About staying here.”

  “He told you?”

  “Not exactly,” Charlie said.

  His mother’s eyes narrowed. “What do you think?”

  Charlie shrugged. “Mack wants to. You don’t want to. And I don’t get to vote.”

  Natalie smacked Charlie’s shoulder and smiled, lips tight. “Mack would die for us, Charlie. I can die just a little bit for him. There’s nothing for him back in Buffalo. He hates it. Showing up to sign jerseys for lines of old fans? Plus, he loves the idea of coaching you when you’re a little older. If you want to play,” she added quickly. “You don’t have to. But you’d be great.” She brushed a school of dirt crumbs off the bed. “I want Mack to be happy, Charlie. When I married him, I married his history, his roots, everything that makes him him. And when he married me—”

  “He got a white kid.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short.” Mack stepped into the doorway, smiling as he spoke. “You’ve got some freckles.”

  “Molly and I are flying back to Buffalo to pack up some things,” Natalie said to Charlie. “We’ll be back down in a week. You can come with us or you can stay here with Mack.”

  “We’re really moving here?” Charlie looked from his mother to his stepfather. “Seriously?”

  Molly muscled her way into the room between Mack’s knees.

  “Through the football season,” Mack said. “Then we’ll see.”

  “What about school?” Charlie asked. “Can I skip the rest of the year?”

  Natalie rolled her eyes.

  “Homeschool me!” Charlie said. “Just sign me up with Cotton’s mom. He’s homeschooled.”

  Mack grinned. “Boy, you don’t know what you’re asking. Now, are you staying or going? Your mom could use you back home, but I could use you, too. Got to find a car, a house, everything.”

  Molly climbed up onto the bed, bounced once, and then stood, studying her brother. “Charlie, take a bath!” She pointed toward the bathroom. “Now! You take a bath!”

  Charlie tried to think about Buffalo, about school and his bedroom and the bike he had left in the garage. But his mind slipped quickly back to the cane, to this place with the thick black muck and burning fields where both of his fathers had grown up, where Charlie had already seen things that he would never forget.

  “I’ll stay,” Charlie said.

  Mack nodded. Natalie kissed Charlie on the head, then messed up his hair. Molly poked him on one dirty kneecap.

  The goodbyes were quick. Two suitcases left and two suitcases stayed. Charlie got into the shower and watched the night before wash off him, swirling in a miniature swamp between his feet before draining away into even deeper darkness.

  The water cleared. The tub whitened. Steam flushed the last traces of that smell from his nostrils but not from his mind. It stuck to him like fear from a nightmare, like one of the dark scars in his memory that could never fade. He had buried those memories deep and left them undisturbed. But the stench on the mound had torn them loose. Feelings had exploded inside him without asking his permission, and their sour tracks still ached behind his breastbone.

  Charlie shoved his face in the water. Feelings would go away. There were other things to think about. A new town. A week with Mack. Normally that would be exciting. But panthers? A grave robber? And that shadow …

  Charlie tapped the faucet hotter and hotter until it was almost painful.

  He was still there when the sheriffs banged on the motel room door.

  Charlie jumped into fresh shorts and tugged a black T-shirt down over damp skin. He was alone. Mack and the sheriffs had already gone down to wait for him in the parking lot.

  Charlie felt like hopping out the motel room window and taking off. But that wasn’t a real option. He fought to get his socks onto his wet feet and then stepped most of the way into his shoes, crushing the backs under his heels. Good enough. He’d fix them later.

  Charlie skipped the elevator and raced down the fire stairs two at a time, shoes flapping. He jogged through the lobby and banged through the glass doors into eye-watering sun. The day was already several shades past warm and he hadn’t even had breakfast.

  Blinking, Charlie threw his arm up across his forehead and focused on the shapes of three men beside a police car. Mack was wearing sunglasses and an old Taper Terrapins polo shirt. His veined and knuckle-scarred hands were on his hips. One of the cops was black. Short and solid, he wore a flat-brimmed trooper’s hat. The other cop was white and even taller than Mack, though he hunched forward around a soft middle that teetered over his belt buckle. He was wearing a sun visor, jeans, mirrored sunglasses, and snakeskin boots. A fat red mustache reclined on his upper lip like an overweight caterpillar too tired to cocoon. On his right hand he wore two huge rings, and he was chewing gum.

  “Charlie Reynolds!” the man said. He glanc
ed back at the other cop and pointed at Charlie. “Am I seein’ things? Don’t he look like Bobby Reynolds?”

  “Don’t he just,” the other cop said. He adjusted his belt and stared at Charlie.

  “I’ll say.” The tall cop and his mustache leaned forward. “Holy Mother of Mo, you look like your daddy!” He stuck out his right hand. Charlie shook it. The hair on the back of the man’s hand felt like old rug. His rings felt even bigger than they had looked. “I mean, you don’t have half the bull meat on you that your daddy had, and you don’t have his stringy hair, and you still need some inches on your bones, but all that can grow.” He dropped Charlie’s hand and straightened up, adjusting his belt. “What position you play? You got any speed?” He glanced back at the other cop and raised his eyebrows. “Bobby had speed.”

  “Speed,” said the other cop.

  Mack stepped around behind Charlie and put his hands on his stepson’s shoulders.

  “Charlie, this tall talker is Sheriff Leroy Spitz, and that’s Deputy Hydrant Landry behind him. They wanted to ask you a couple questions.”

  “Ho now!” Sheriff Leroy Spitz tapped up his sun visor and peered down at Charlie over his sunglasses. “Prester Mack wants us to get down to business. I get the impression that he’d like us to move along, Charlie. You getting that impression, too?”

  “Hydrant?” Charlie asked, looking at the thick, shorter cop.

  “That’s right,” said Spitz. “His mama called him Steven, but we all called him Hydrant. I mean, look at him. He used to knock your stepdaddy there flat on his all-state backside just by standing there.”

  “Don’t know about that,” Mack said.

  “Sure,” Spitz said.

  “Sure,” grunted Hydrant.

  “Sure as I’m wearing rings,” Spitz said. He held up his hand and wiggled his ring-cuffed fingers. “Here’s the thing, Charlie.…” The sheriff dropped all the way into a crouch like he was talking to a little kid. Charlie stared down at him, confused and suddenly much too tall. The sheriff coughed, acted like he was stretching, and levered himself back up. “Thing is, Charlie, Hydrant and I played ball with your daddy. We whipped up on those Taper Terps and their Mack boys.”