Boys of Blur Page 5

  The realtor had ended by pitching houses in neighboring cities. Mack wasn’t interested. The realtor said he had a friend with rental listings all the way in Fort Myers—beach houses, right on the sand. He’d make a call. Mack had laughed, but he hadn’t argued. A rental might be good. Something comfortable. For a little while, until Charlie’s mom adjusted.

  They’d skipped lunch.

  Mack’s meetings at the school had been eternal. Charlie had been offered a brief secretarial tour, but he’d shrugged it off and gone wandering around on his own, staring through the glass in classroom doors. He’d been in the hall during one rush of bodies, and his out-of-placeness and the schoolness of it all had been too much for him. He’d finally fallen asleep in the library.

  And now, football practice. Sun. Heat. Shouting. Drills. Boys much bigger and much faster than he was, making his stepfather yell and bellow and laugh in a way that Charlie never had.

  He had found shade against the side of the small cinder block building that held two locker rooms along with the public restrooms. Hunger moaned inside him, but there wasn’t anything he could do about that. Shutting his eyes helped. But only slightly. Open or shut, all he could see was Cotton standing at the motel room door, pumping his bike, running through the cane, crawling up the church hill in the moonlight, disappearing down that alley.

  A long, sharp whistle jolted Charlie’s eyes open.

  The boys were all in the middle of the field, all on one knee, all with helmets off. And every head was turned toward Charlie—players, coaches, water boy, and even big Prester Mack, with his whistle in his mouth and a ball on his hip. Mack flipped the ball to a boy in the front of the crowd. Charlie recognized him as the boy caught the ball and jumped to his feet—white, skinny, slick black hair. At the gas station, his jacket had been labeled SUGAR.

  Sugar turned. He cocked the football back with a long, lazy arm, and then he threw it.

  Charlie could catch. He could run routes and dive for balls. He had done exactly that hundreds of times in the front yard while Mack chattered instructions and challenges, roaring like a crowd whenever Charlie made the catch, or mocking Charlie like a sportscaster when he failed.

  But this was different. This ball was coming from more than forty yards away. This ball was coming in like a rocket. This ball was coming in while an entire high school football team and dozens of scattered observers were all waiting to see if Mack’s boy—if Bobby Reynolds’s boy—could catch.

  Charlie hopped up, slipped on the grass, and slammed his back against the wall. His first instinct was to cover his head and dive out of the way. In one burst of motion, Charlie pushed off the wall, stepped forward in a crouch, and then jumped. He stretched his arms above his head, straining to snag the nose of the tightly spinning ball.

  He had jumped too soon. Charlie began to drop just as the ball reached him. It folded back his fingers and sprang up into the air. Charlie leaned backward, grabbing at nothing, watching his failure spin away behind him.

  He landed on his back in the grass and his breath exploded out of him. His eyes were on the sky. The ball hopped on the corner of the locker room roof and bounced back off. Charlie kicked himself toward it. He stretched out one arm and felt the ball slap against his palm.

  It rolled off into the grass.

  Groans washed across the field from the players and laughter trickled out of the stands. He shut his eyes.

  “Charlie Boy!” The voice was Mack’s. “Get on over here!”

  Charlie didn’t want to. He didn’t want to get on over anywhere. He wanted the grass to eat him, to erase him from this scene completely.

  “Charlie!”

  Ignoring Mack was going to make it worse. Charlie rolled over and stood. He snatched that stupid ball up from a little nest of grass and jogged onto the field toward his stepfather.

  The players were all stripping off their shoulder pads and dropping them onto their helmets. Sugar shot Charlie a smile.

  “Nice effort, Charlie,” Mack said, and he held out his hands for the ball. Charlie tossed it to him hard and tight—harder than he needed to. Mack caught it and laughed.

  Mack pointed away across the field, over the top of the cane, toward the swamp. Brown sugar smoke rose up in a jagged tower, slow and stiff at the base, torn and feathered by wind hundreds of feet up. Behind the smoke, gray clouds on the horizon were hatching a change in weather.

  “Time we ran some rabbits!” Mack said.

  A few boys whooped. A few boys groaned.

  Sugar crossed his arms. The sleeves were missing from his sweat-soaked shirt. His arms were purple and green with old bruises above the elbows.

  “Seriously, Coach?” he asked. “Rabbits? I mean, I know you’re old school, but that’s kid and tourist stuff now.”

  “Tourists? In Taper?” Mack laughed, tucked the football on his hip, and walked toward Sugar. Charlie could see sparks growing in his stepfather’s eyes. His voice was part drumbeat, part growl. “Old school? Son, it’s as old school as going undefeated and wearing rings, old school as quickness and toughness and white stripes on grass.”

  Sugar worked hard to meet his coach’s stare, but Charlie saw the boy’s Adam’s apple bobbing. Mack leaned his face close and let his words roll.

  “Now, I know my team captain isn’t standing here whining like a pussycat at a granny’s back door. What is it you need, son? A little scratch behind the ears? Or would you like to win some games?”

  Sugar said nothing.

  Mack grinned and thumped Sugar on the shoulder.

  “Nah. You’re no pussycat. Wildcat, maybe. But when this coach tells you something, you don’t open that gap-toothed mouth of yours unless a yes, sir or a yes, coach is hopping out.”

  Sugar nodded. Mack turned back to the whole team. “Time I saw some speed, boys! And, you know, my wallet’s a little heavy. Think you all could lighten it for me?”

  “Yes, sir!” the boys shouted.

  “I’ve got a five for every muck rabbit,” Mack said. “A twenty for any cottontail. Practice is over when the team has snagged ten.”

  Charlie watched the boys laugh and yell and bounce while Mack formed them up in two lines and sent them jogging away toward the smoke.

  Mack faced Charlie. “Sorry about that ball. I thought you were watching.”

  Charlie shrugged. The crowd was trickling away. Assistants were collecting balls.

  “You want to get out in the cane and run some rabbits?” Mack asked.

  Charlie looked at the rising smoke. At the cane. At the pack of boys jogging toward it. He wanted to know more about the muck and the fields. About what was out there. He wouldn’t be alone. And the sun was up and shining. But he still felt his chest tightening at the idea.

  “Are you coming?” Charlie asked.

  “Prester Mack!”

  Mack and Charlie both turned. A fat man in a yellow polo shirt stood beside a brand-new silver Range Rover parked on the grass next to the field. He held up car keys and jingled them.

  “New car,” Mack said. He glanced toward the smoke. “Awful timing. I’ll have to sign something.” He pointed after the running players. “Catch up to them. You’re doing this, too, Charlie Boy. Go! I won’t be far behind you.”

  While Charlie watched, Mack clapped his hands and jogged toward his new car. Stragglers who had been watching practice now drifted toward the silver beauty. It shone like lake water in moonlight—like a lure.

  Charlie turned away from it. And he ran.

  There were trucks in the smoking field. And huge machines with faces like monstrous steel insects, grinding up acres of sugar stalks with the leaves all burned off. Charlie was moving down a long dirt road beside a deep canal. Overhead, charred leaves fluttered through the air, slowly turning to brown feather ash. Beside him, the machines chewed through patches of cane still crackling with flame—blades whirling and slicing, mandibles gnawing, filling huge bellies with diced sugar knuckles, spewing piles of sweet smoking segmen
ts into the backs of dump trucks that were slow-roll-floating over the soft dark muck on huge balloon tires.

  Charlie slowed to a stop, transfixed by the total annihilation of the field beside him. Everywhere that he had seen a peaceful tower of smoke quietly climbing the sky, this onslaught had been going on below.

  The roar of the harvesters was enormous, but a long, sharp whistle still found Charlie’s ears. He turned. Sugar was standing on another dirt road across the canal behind him. The lean quarterback pointed at a little stone and culvert bridge fifty yards farther up. Then he turned and loped away.

  Charlie found the boys crouching in a long line in a shallow ditch between two fields. The black dirt was bare and loose on both sides of the ditch, and it swallowed his feet like soft sand as he crossed.

  Sugar had taken his place near the center. Charlie stopped at the end, beside a boy with a baby face on a body the size and shape of someone’s front door.

  Most of the boys had stripped off their cleats. Some had stripped off their shirts and tied them over their faces like outlaws.

  “I’m Surge,” the big boy said to Charlie. He shifted slightly away, making room.

  “Hey.” Charlie nodded and crouched down beside him. “I’m Charlie. What now?”

  “Take off your shoes if you don’t want to lose ’em. They gonna light it soon. Then things is gonna be crazy.”

  “Why do they burn it?” Charlie asked.

  “Fastest way to strip the leaves,” Surge said. “Stalks is so wet, they don’t burn.”

  A heavy white farm truck turned into the field beside Charlie. The driver looked out his window at the boys, and, for a moment, he looked concerned. Then he laughed and shook his head. The truck bed held a large gas tank, and a gun that looked like a water cannon was mounted on top, pointed to the side. A small pilot flame flickered beneath the barrel mouth.

  “Here bunny, bunny!” someone shouted. The line of boys laughed.

  “We downwind,” Surge said. “They light the sides and it burns our way. Every living thing comes our way.”

  “Everything,” Charlie said. His eardrums were thumping with his heart. This was it. He had stepped into one of Mack’s party stories, and he wasn’t at all sure that he was ready.

  “Smoke, snakes, rats, and rabbits,” Surge said. “But mostly smoke.”

  The white truck eased itself into position between the canal and the crop. And then heavy, wet flame burst out of the barrel and into the wall of ripe cane, every stick of it clothed in dry brown leaves.

  Spewing fire, the truck bounced forward.

  At first, there was only a little smoke. Crackling. But the fire moved inward, into acres of dry and eager fuel. The wind pushed it toward the line of boys.

  Heat slammed into Charlie like a breaking wave. Beside him, Surge pulled his shirt up over his mouth and nose. Charlie did the same.

  The crackling became a growl, and the growl became a sucking roar. Sugar knuckles popped like gunshots. Brown smoke rolled across the ground; it rose and raced away through neighboring armies of cane. It swallowed boys. It climbed the sky and cut off the sun.

  Charlie’s eyes streamed. A long black leaf with fiery edges grazed his cheek and broke on his shoulder.

  Through the smoke he could see red tongues rising up taller than houses, snapping like circus tents in a storm.

  Boys were whooping. Surge lumbered forward.

  Charlie pressed his hand against his shirt mask and squinted at the black ground in front of the cane. Two rats raced out and veered toward the canal. Something much faster darted out—the first rabbit. Surge lunged and the rabbit veered away, back down the line of boys. A human shadow jumped after it. Hunched-over human shadows were darting everywhere.

  “Possum!” someone whooped.

  Charlie heard a snarl and Surge yelled in surprise. A large shape rose over the ditch and then a hissing bobcat landed beside him. Fur kissed Charlie’s leg, and then the cat was gone.

  The smoke was narrowing as the burn moved toward the center of the field. Charlie saw daylight and crawled toward it, ash tears dripping from his nose. A boy jumped over him, laughing. Another shape swore and dropped to the ground, rolling in the hot muck, slapping out a small fire on his shirt. Charlie rose to his feet and staggered away, just another living thing trying to escape the burn. And then a rabbit landed in the muck in front of him.

  It was big. Its tail was cotton white. Without even thinking, Charlie grabbed at it. He missed. Muck flew and a foot thumped against his fingers as the animal reversed direction and exploded away.

  Charlie was already running after it, back into the smoke.

  Shapes flashed in front of him. He ducked under a tall boy’s arm. He slammed into someone’s back. Twice the rabbit reversed almost into Charlie’s arms. Twice it danced back into the burning field and reemerged like a rocket. Twice it drew other hunters, and then shook them off onto easier prey. But it didn’t shake Charlie.

  Flames were pouring out the side of the field now—licking the muck, smoothing ash over silty earth with fiery fingers.

  Charlie hardly noticed. He was chasing, reacting, exploding after the animal. He was quick. His heart was pounding, his chest was tight, his breath was gone, and the soil pulled at his feet like deep sand. His legs and lungs were burning more than his eyes when he staggered out into the sun.

  The rabbit leapt off the edge of the canal in front of him, landed in the still water, and began to swim. The field across the canal was now bare down to the black earth. Vultures swirled above it, looking for the remains of all that had been slow. Two huge harvesters with steel mantis jaws sat idling in the cane rubble, waiting for the next burn to clear the leaves.

  Charlie staggered toward the canal after the rabbit, but a hand grabbed his arm and turned him around.

  “You crazy, coz,” Cotton said. He tugged Charlie’s shirt down off his face, grinned, and pointed at the water. Ten yards away from the rabbit a small gator was gargling back a rat.

  “Non compos mentis,” Cotton added. “I like that one. Now, let’s git.”

  Charlie blinked and shook his head, trying to focus. “Where?” Charlie asked. He snorted, spat, dragged his forearm across his nose, and spat again. “Where were you?”

  “Doing what needed to be done,” Cotton said. “Seeing what needed to be seen. Now we really gotta git. No lie, coz.” He pointed again, this time through the gentle ash blizzard, down the long dirt road beside the canal. The sheriff’s car was coming, trailing dust onto Mack’s new silver car behind it.

  Sugar jogged into the road and tugged his own mask down before leaning his hands on his knees. He watched the wet cottontail climb out of the water and bound up the opposite bank.

  “Hey,” Charlie said.

  Sugar looked up.

  “Tell my dad I found Cotton. Tell him I’ll see him back at the motel.”

  “Your dad?” Sugar sneered. “I’m not telling him nothing.”

  “I mean Mack,” Charlie said. “Tell Mack.”

  He left the quarterback coughing in the road.

  A man stood on the deck of his idling harvester. He had long hair the color of mud, a nose that had been broken more than once, and a blurry blue tattoo of a buccaneer on the back of his hand. A cigarette burned between two thick oil-stained fingers.

  He had forgotten to smoke. For the moment, he had even forgotten to breathe.

  He watched the two boys race down the road until they turned and disappeared between fields.

  One boy, he didn’t know.

  The other had been his son.

  Mack stepped out of his new car and squinted around. The field beside him had almost burned out. Brown smoke had become gray, and the wind was already stripping it away. Shafts of naked, bony cane stood in shadowy rows, ash below and smoke above. He knew what it would feel like to duck into that graveyard, he knew the heat the cane would press into his palm if he gripped a stalk. He knew the smell of the small, smoking bodies he would be su
re to find back in ash shadows if he went searching.

  He looked up. Dozens of vultures swirled around the thinning base of the pillar of smoke. Those birds knew it, too. Creatures of the cane were quick, but sometimes flame was quicker. When the harvesters had rolled, the vultures and crows would do their searching.

  Mack turned toward the heavy machines waiting across the canal just as one of the drivers ducked back into his cab.

  Sheriff Spitz and Deputy Hydrant were both already out of their own vehicle and adjusting their belts.

  “Hey, kid!” Spitz shouted at Sugar. “Charlie Reynolds make it back out of the smoke?”

  Sugar looked straight past the sheriff at Mack. “Charlie just took off. Said he found that kid and he’ll see you later on.”

  “Did he now?” The sheriff turned and eyed Mack over his glasses. “He saw something, Prester! You knows it and we knows it, and that’s that. There’s animal blood all over the church, a tree smashed right through a coffin in the bottom of an empty grave, and the bent-up bicycle of a missing boy—a boy your Charlie was with last night and says he’s with again. Someone’s going swamp-cat crazy, and no mistake.”

  “No mistake,” Hydrant said.

  Sugar’s mouth was open. His eyes bounced from the cops to his coach.

  “What coffin?” Sugar asked. “Whose grave?”

  Mack watched the vultures. He watched smoke sliding away. Mack had known Charlie needed to talk, but he’d assumed he was just nervous about the new school, or worried about Cotton.

  A grave robbery? Who would want to steal a dead football coach? Why would they want to steal a dead football coach?

  Why would they want to paint blood on a church?

  There were no nice answers in his head. Whatever was going on, it was far from friendly.