“I don’t see anything,” Earl said.
“It’s through those trees. I’d like to go, but they see me, they’ll deal with both of us the same way, no questions.”
“Get the car off the road, out of sight,” Earl said.
Loretta produced a handgun. “You want to take this along.”
“No, I’ll handle it my way.”
“There’ll be a guard out front.”
“Don’t worry,” he said.
Earl opened the door and stepped out with his cane and dark glasses in hand, his camera still strung around his neck. “Jump!” he called to Melon. And together, they set off through the trees — blind dog and seeing-eye master — to face whatever fate held for them.
“You stay close now,” Earl said to Melon, putting his dark glasses on.
Melon gave him a whimper in return.
In minutes they arrived at a cabin set deep in the woods. There was a single light over the porch. A muscled young white boy in blue jeans and a tank top stood guard outside the door.
Earl came out of the trees, tapping with his cane, Melon at his cuff.
“The hell you doing, old man? You lost?”
“Come looking for Masta Tarvis,” Earl said, laying it on thick.
“Yeah, well, you got the wrong place. This here’s private property, so just turn your black ass around and head on back the way you came.”
Earl never stopped walking. He continued tapping his way forward, ignoring the threatening glare, until he was face-to-face with the man.
The young guy was a good head shorter than him, Earl now realized, and probably half his weight. But Earl was also a good fifty years older. He couldn’t let this boy get the first strike.
“Nigger, you deaf as well as blind —”
In one swift move, Earl came up with a right and drove a huge fist into the young man’s face. It caught him square on the nose and dropped him like a loose sack of grain onto the porch decking. The force of the blow also drove pain up Earl’s arm and into his shoulder, and for a second he thought he might cry out.
He rubbed at his shoulder until the pain subsided. “Stay,” he said to Melon. Then he dragged the boy off the porch, letting his head bang on its way down the steps. He found a section of the telephone line leading up the side of the house and used a switchblade he found in the kid’s boot to cut a long section of it free. He wired the kid’s feet and hands and cut a slice of his shirt away and used it to gag him. Then he dragged the still-limp body into the trees and dumped it there. All the while, Melon remained on the porch.
Earl returned to him and let them both quietly inside.
The cabin was dark but for a wedge of light that spilled from a room at the end of a long hallway. He could hear men’s voices, bawdy laughter and crude talk, over the wash of southern rock. He crossed down the hallway, the switchblade closed but cupped in his right hand. Melon followed.
Through the open doorway, Earl saw what he had feared the most. His granddaughter was on the bed naked and spread, tied to the bedposts. Four men were ganged around and over her. All were in their late fifties to early sixties; flabby white bodies, hairy backs and legs. They spouted crude epithets as they worked, prodding and jabbing with implements to coax some life into their crippled prey.
This was the Atlanta boys’ club, minus one — Ray Tarvis — and they were preparing for another round.
Earl stepped into the room and tapped his cane hard on the floor twice. It brought four faces swiveling toward him.
“Jesus Christ!”
“What the fuck?”
“Who the hell are you?”
The protests came in unison.
Earl didn’t respond. He raised his camera and clicked off a series of auto-shots in quick succession, capturing the men, their naked bodies, the implements in their hands, and the girl tied spread-eagle on the bed.
“Now, wait a minute,” one of them said, stepping away from the bed, a bottle of Southern Comfort in his grip. The other men came to join him, the gang of them standing there, genitals dangling.
Earl snapped another shot.
There was a stunned moment in which no one moved. Earl was broader and at least a foot taller than any man in the room. But there were four of them. He no longer felt the need to keep his eyes distant. He slipped his glasses off and leveled a steely gaze their way.
Just then, Melon began to bark. Another man had entered the room behind Earl. “The fuck you doing here?”
It was Ray Tarvis, come to join his club mates for the festivities.
Earl put his glasses back on and stepped to one side, his shoulders in line with his flanking opponents’.
“Who the hell is this asshole? What’s he doing with the camera?” the man with the bottle wanted to know.
“He’s fucking blind!” Tarvis said. “He ain’t seen a thing!”
“He sees enough to take pictures!”
Tarvis studied Earl more closely now, trying to peer beyond the lenses of his dark glasses.
Earl tipped the glasses forward on his nose and looked across them, let the man see the truth of the matter for himself.
“You’re going out in a fucking box!”
Tarvis started forward, then —
— the sound of the switchblade clicking open stopped him in his tracks. The other men had closed a step. They also halted.
“I see you all understand the language of the streets,” Earl said. “I took it off your boy.”
Earl pointed the knife alternately at Tarvis and at the gang of men.
Tarvis grabbed a heavy ashtray from a nearby dresser and hurled it in Earl’s direction. It whizzed past Earl’s head, missing by inches. Tarvis followed with a charge. “Give me the goddamned camera!” Tarvis cried, rushing Earl, head down like a bull.
Earl let the cane drop and caught the man about the neck with one big arm. The momentum of his charge rocked Earl back a step, but he used his size to quell the force. He wrenched Tarvis’s head upward so he could see the bed, the girl, the savage damage that the men had inflicted. He still had the knife pointed toward the men.
“Take a good fucking look!” Earl said.
There was nothing but hate in the man’s eyes. “Fuck you!” Tarvis said. “And fuck the little whore!”
Earl brought the blade around in a swift arc and buried it deep in Tarvis’s stomach, just below the rib cage.
There was an expression of startled disbelief on Tarvis’s face. Earl let it linger there a moment. Then he shoved the knife up hard beneath the ribs and held on until the light in Tarvis’s eyes flickered and died.
Earl let him drop to the floor. Melon let out a chuff.
The others had remained fixed in place, unsure of Earl’s prowess, perhaps, or just insecure in their naked vulnerability. But now they started forward as a group.
Loretta suddenly burst into the room. She had her gun out. Her eyes were wild with fear.
It halted their advance.
“Cut the girl loose!” Earl said to them.
A couple of the men moved to carry out his orders; the other two glared at him as if trying to say
Loretta handed the gun to Earl and rushed to her daughter’s aid. The girl-child lolled, made dopey by the weight of Rohypnol or some other rape drug. But her eyes were aware and shifting between Earl and her mother.
Loretta dragged her to her feet, gathered her clothing, and dressed her as best she could.
When they were at the door and ready, Earl popped the small memory card from his camera and held it for
