Family Thang

Estafay laughed. The gun barrel bumped the back of his head. “Guess I’ll see you when you get back.”

Eric closed his eyes, faintly aware he’d released his bowels.

Chapter 42

Gas, Sheriff Bledsoe thought, soured my memory. He forgot Leonard had told him Ruth Ann was at the Boy Scout camp.

Otherwise he could’ve avoided taking the good reverend to the liquor store, contributing to the purchase of a gallon of Wild Irish Rose, driving to the jail and then back to the liquor store because the good reverend suddenly decided Wild Irish Rose with Ginseng was what he really wanted.

The cruiser headlights rolled across a gray Lumina, a yellow Datsun truck and a blue Camry. Ida’s car! He killed the engine and looked around. Totally dark outside of the area spotted by the headlights.

Reaching for his hat, he heard gunfire. He grabbed the mike. “Tracy, come in!” Static. “Tracy, come in!” No response. “Tracy, come in!”

He turned off the headlights and all went black. “Tracy, come in!” No time to wait, he felt under the passenger seat for the flashlight, found it, and got out.

In Iraq, the first time, he wouldn’t sit next to a guy who wouldn’t cuff his cigarette; and now he’d be running in the woods like a neon target.

He waved the beam left to right. A handcrafted plaque marked Maumelle Trail indicated a break in the trees. It looked a good entrance as any, so he started in at full sprint, flashlight in one hand, trusty .357 Magnum in the other.

Not twenty feet up the trail, Sheriff Bledsoe heard something coming toward him. “Police! Halt!” It sounded like a horse, hooves clopping incredibly fast.

A blur appeared in the light and before he could blink, whatever it was ran smack into him, sending him airborne, knocking the flashlight and the .357 magnum out of his hands. He landed on his back on a thorn bush. “Sheriff!” he shouted, getting to his feet. “Freeze, right where you are!”

Gurgling and groaning. “Ohhh, my head!”

“Don’t move!” Sheriff Bledsoe warned. “I’ve got a gun!” Somewhere around here.

“You busted my head!”

“Robert Earl?”

“You broke my nose, too!”

He spotted the flashlight, still shining, picked it up and pointed it at the noise. Robert Earl lay flat on his back, hands over his face.

“Robert Earl, you all right?”

“Uh-uh!”

Where’s the gun? He played the light in every direction and didn’t see it. He dropped to all fours and inspected the ground. It had to be somewhere close.

“Robert Earl, who’s shooting up there?” No response. Thorns scratching his hand, he probed the base of the bush. Nothing.

“Robert Earl, you busted your nose, is all. Who’s up there shooting?”

Robert Earl hawked and spat. “You busted my nose!” His voice a nasal twang. “I didn’t bust it myself. Hey! Listen to me! Oh no, like a homo!”

Sheriff Bledsoe tossed up clods of dirt. “What’s going on up there?”

“What you looking for?”

“Nothing!”

“You looking for something. What did you lose?”

“Don’t worry about me, Robert Earl.” Where in the world is my gun? “Stop evading the question. What’s going on up there?”

“I don’t know.”

He stopped searching and pointed the light at Robert Earl sitting up, pinching his nose, head tilted back, overalls blood splattered.

“Robert Earl, what’s going on up there? Don’t lie to me!”

Robert Earl shook his head and shrugged.

“Don’t BS me! I heard a gunshot and you come running like a scalded hog. Don’t tell me you don’t…” A thought occurred to him. “Stand up, Robert Earl!” he demanded, standing up himself. “Interlock your fingers behind your head. Do it now! Slowly.”

Robert Earl stood up, left hand behind his head, right hand pinching his nose.

“Both hands behind your head! Do it!”

“Sheriff, if I let go my nose will start bleeding again.”

“Do it!”

Clean, save for a bunch of junk in his pockets. Time wasted; someone could be up there hurt—and he couldn’t find his blasted gun.

He resumed searching for it. “One more time, Robert Earl, and if you lie to me again I’m charging you with what you did to that Chinese girl. Who’s shooting up there? Your mother?”

“She was Okinawan, not Chinese.” He hawked and spat again. Then, in a stream: “I told Estafay to come home with me and she wouldn’t listen—I couldn’t burn nobody up ’cause they my family and burnt bodies stink worse than burnt cats and I didn’t want the nightmares and she said Eric would tell even though he promised he wouldn’t and she shot in the air and told me to go home—

“Hey, hey, hey! Slow down. Estafay shot in the air?”

“Yes.”

“Where’s your mother?”

“In the cabin.”

“Does your mother have a gun, too?”

“They laughed at her.”

“Laughed at who?”

“Estafay… and me.”

What the hell? “Anybody up there hurt?”

“Eric. Estafay… Estafay sort of shot him.”

“What?” He lay flat on his stomach and fanned his arms and legs. The gun was nowhere to be found. It seemed it had sprouted legs and walked away.

“Robert Earl,” stirring up clouds of dust, “how did she sort of shot him?”

“I guess she sort of aimed and pulled the trigger.”

What? He fanned faster.

Robert Earl sighed. “She’s gonna set the cabin on fire with Momma them in it.”

“What! Momma them? Who are them?”

“Momma, Shirley, Ruth Ann, Leonard.”

The entire family! He quit the search and stood up. “Listen closely, Robert Earl. Go to my patrol car, get Tracy on the radio and tell her to send everything she’s got to this location. Police, fire department, EMT’s, everything she’s got.”

“You deputizing me, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, yeah. Go!”

Robert Earl headed down the trail pinching his nose. He had a bad feeling Robert Earl would somehow muck up the simple task, but didn’t have any other choice except to send him. And he didn’t have any other choice but to go up the hill without his weapon.

The flashlight showing the way, he ran up the trail. Twenty feet later his lungs betrayed him and he started