The suns rose, breaking the horizon together. Del streaked into the sky, while Sol lumbered after.
She sat on the side of road, staring first in one direction and then the other. She inventoried her memories as she looked up again at the two suns. She remembered everything about her life, every detail, except how she ended up on the side of a road that appeared to be made of plants on a world with two suns in the sky.
Fat lot of good her marketing degree was going to be now.
Any shred of evidence, anything at all, would be enough. She had been looking for two days now, going through every scrap of paper she could find: drawers full of folders, boxes in the attic, and every nook and cranny of enormous roll top desk that seemed to have no end of nooks and crannies. When she had started, she had been moving quickly, scanning everything for a name, a word, anything that might support his claim. As minutes turned to hours, and now a second day, she began searching more methodically, stacking things in neat piles, but she still avoided reading anything that didn’t relate directly to her search.
—
“I am not your father,” he had said. “I raised you, but your father was someone else.”
As soon as he said it, she realized that she had wondered for years. There was something intangibly distant about her father. The normal distance of a man unsure how to deal with the woman his little girl has become? She had thought so, but now she wasn’t sure. She tried to get him to say more, but he was asleep. Confirmation would have to come from the house, somehow.
—
She had three more stacks of letters to go through, each bundled and tied with a string, but she was too tired to focus. At least she should be able to finish in the morning, and having run out of places to look, she would have to decide whether to forget what he had said.
As she carried the letters up the stairs, she thought about why this had consumed her for two days. Whether he was her biological father or not, he had raised her. He had been there her whole life. He had taught her to ride a bike, taught her to read, even. He had been there for her first broken heart, raging at the boy who hurt his daughter. What was she concerned about, some accident of genetic material? It didn’t matter. Not really.
She had been fighting the realization, but tired as she was, it slipped through: why it mattered was what it told her about her mother.
Her father, her dad, was who he was. If he wasn’t actually her biological father, that just explained the few frustrations she had with him, and maybe made him some kind of hero. But her mother? She didn’t even know what to think about her mother if it was true.
As she set the piles of letters on the nightstand next to her bed—her old childhood bedroom, now a guest bedroom—she noticed a curious stamp on one of the letters. Not like the other stamps she’d seen for the last two days. Not American, perhaps? A “5c” stamp that seemed British, or maybe Australian. She left it while undressing for bed, but it nagged at her, so when she returned to her bed, she sat down and picked up the stack with the unusual stamp.
—
Hours earlier, she had been too tired to continue, but now she was wide awake. Each letter, each postcard, each piece of mail fit together into a story she had never suspected. It was hard to imagine that these letters and postcards had anything to do with the mother she had known. Her mother now seemed like a stranger.
When her mother had been younger, she had somehow fallen in love with two men. She had to choose. She was forced to choose. She chose the man now dying across the hall, but she hadn’t been able to let go of the other man. These letters and postcards were from him, the other man.
It was clear that her mother had remained in love with this other man. At first he had lived nearby, and many conversations must have happened in person. About a year after her mother married, he had moved as far away as he could, to Australia. He wrote long letters explaining why he felt he had to stay away, even though it seemed to break both of their hearts. Every few years he visited the States, and it seemed like they couldn’t stay away from each other.
It wasn’t certain that this man was her father, but it seemed possible. Did her father, the man here, know for certain? Or did he just suspect? In his current mental state, she might never find out.
The final postcard in the pile had a postmark within the last year. Was the affair ongoing? Given that her mother met the two men around the same time, “affair” hardly seemed adequate to describe a relationship that had lasted nearly 30 years. She hardly knew where to start, what to ask, or even what to think.
She slept uneasily.
—
The stone watches over the valley, or once did. What it sees now is open to debate.
The sapling reaches for the sky, for the sun. What is seeks now is life itself.
Immovable stone, settled in place, makes way for the green grasping growth.
Two stones watch over the valley, framing a tree.
After the sun disappears, maybe forever, and the only light in the diner’s kitchen is coming through the one high window from the streetlight outside, and maybe the moon, he sits. His thoughts are cold, and he doesn’t move. He doesn’t even twitch.
Finally, when the cars are parked, and the footsteps have all walked away, he can hear the buzzing of the streetlight. It grows louder, drowns out his thoughts, becomes the only thing that exists for him, and finally he stands. Whether his eyes are open or closed doesn’t matter. The light from the window is dim, but he’s walked this path thousands of times.
This time, he steps over the body on his way to the door.
Last year, I didn’t realize it was my birthday until late afternoon. This year, I might not survive it.
I was running when the calendar turned over, trying not to look behind me, trying to watch the ground ahead to avoid stumbling. I was straining to hear any sounds other than my own thumping feet pounding the earth, and the grass whipping past my ankles. Left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot. My legs were aching and rubbery. I feared that any step now might be my last, that my legs might give way and I might fall to the ground, and then it would be all over. That’s when I realized that it was probably after midnight, and that I’d made it to my birthday. I knew that checking would cost me time, so I looked a bit ahead of my feet, scanning for anything that might trip me, and then glanced behind me, just for a moment.
I didn’t see anyone behind me, but I didn’t slow down. I tried to think, but my thoughts were jumbled. I was exhausted, running on adrenaline until it seemed the adrenaline might run out. I looked back again, for longer this time, before remembering to check the ground ahead of me. The field was lit only by moonlight and starlight, but I could see enough to see that I was alone. I slowed down, but kept moving, and kept scanning behind me. Nothing. I checked my phone. 12:14. I was alone. I’d made it. I was 18. I was alive. For now.
Everything in her life had led her to this moment. Her mother’s abandonment, her father’s detachment, and the frequent moving: all of it had kept her free of attachments, so there was no question about leaving anybody behind. She was sure that nobody on the entire planet would miss her.
Why her? The answer seemed both simple and nonsense. She had been chosen, they said, precisely because she was average. She felt ordinary, so it made sense, but she had been reading about people around the world, and it struck her that she might be an average Texan, or even an average American, but she could hardly be an average human. Being born in America might not have seemed like much until the previous week when her father had handed her a book and said only, “This is important.”
She knew her father well enough to not ask any questions. She would have gotten only grunts or silence, so she saved herself the time and examined the book she now held. “World Lifestyles” hadn’t seemed important, but she flipped through and found a section of photos at the center of the book, then backed up to read the foreword. After that she skimmed, looking primarily for countries with interesting names. All of them seemed to back up what she’d read in the foreword: Americans seemed to enter life with a head start, making them all above average.
Once she realized that the explanation she had been given didn’t ring true, but that it seemed designed to appeal to someone in her apparent place in life, she became suspicious. This was her father’s instruction, again, but she remembered that her apparent place in life was a lie. She wasn’t a typical suburban teen, bored and boy-crazy. That was the act she put on, the cloak she wore for safety. She had buried herself so deeply in the role that it took her a while to shake free of the illusion, but she was aware now.
Her father had told her this was for her safety, that she must never give even a hint that she hadn’t grown up in this town. It was the same speech he’d given in every town, every year or two, and she’d almost forgotten it. Instead, she’d fallen in the role so deeply she almost lost herself in it. A bored teen? She was 17, and truly bored of the intrigue. Tired of the moving, the hiding, and the lying. Her father had told her to pity the so-called “normals” around her, but she didn’t pity them. She wanted to be like them, to forget these ideas of danger lurking in every shadow. She wanted to be a “normal” so much that she’d almost convinced herself she was one, and then…
Then she’d been approached by a mysterious hooded figure who explained that she had been chosen to represent the human race, and she knew better. The fog was lifted, and now her senses were alert. Adrenaline coursed through her body, and she began to observe. With a jolt, she realized that this meant her father wasn’t crazy, as she’d believed, and she wondered if he’d known this day was coming. Had that been why he’d given her the book and said it was important?
The figure that had spoken earlier moved closer, “Are you ready?” She knew her survival might depend on the right answers, but she had no idea what the right answers were.
“No, I can’t, but thanks, I wish I could.” As she spoke, she resumed walking, this time in a direction that would take her past the hooded figure at more than arm’s length. “I’ve got to study tonight, and my father’s expecting me.” She lowered her backpack off of her back onto one shoulder and kept one hand on its base.
As she drew nearer to the hooded figure, it twitched, as if to reach for her. She swung her backpack as hard as she could, directly for the figure’s head. As it the bag made contact, she heard a brittle crack. As she started to run, her peripheral vision saw the hood drop to the ground. After just a couple of steps, she stopped, turning to see her assailant. What she found was an empty hooded cloak in a pile on the sidewalk, with nothing inside it.
Taking a deep breath, she took stock of her new reality. Her father wasn’t crazy. Her father had probably saved her life. All the moving, all the secrecy, all the defense training, it had all been worth it. Why? Her life had been in danger today, she was sure of that. Her father owed her some answers, today, right now.
She pulled her backpack onto her back and started jogging for home, determined to get answers.
Richie is lying on his back, squinting against the sun, tossing a baseball into the air. It has been a long summer, but it is almost over. Richie was hoping to meet a few of his friends here in this field to play baseball, but all of them are busy, so he is here alone.
Turning over onto his stomach, Richie notices the ants. The ants are traveling in a somewhat straight line that extends roughly from right to left about two feet in front of Richie. He scoots up to see the ants more clearly. Lifting his head, he can not see the anthill that must be their goal. Most of them do not appear to be carrying anything, but occasionally an ants crawls by with what seems to be a tiny rock or bit of wood.
Richie picks up a rock, just a small one. He is not sure what he wants to do with the rock, but there is a vague association in his mind between ants and rocks. Watching the ants move in the nearly straight line, Richie holds the rock over them. Richie’s older brother explained to him that each ant just follows the ant in front of it. What would happen if the path was disrupted? By using the rock to kill a few ants, the never-ending chain of ants would be broken. Would they form a new trail in roughly the same place, just heading straight until they met up with the old trail? Would the grow confused and wander around in circles? Would they turn around and try to head back from where they came? There is only one way to find out.
Richie starts to lower the rock to kill a few ants, but then he raises it again. Now he is remember something his mother read to him. “Go to the ant. Consider her ways and be wise.” Richie can’t remember the exact words, but his mom had said that ants were not ever lazy. They all work together to help each other. Richie thought for a moment and realized that this upset him. It is summer, and Richie deserved a vacation, but now at the end of it, he is starting to grow bored. There is nothing for him to do, so he sits out in the middle of a field by himself. What is his Mom doing? Probably working, maybe cleaning the house or probably working on the computer. The ants may not be lazy, but Richie realizes that he sure is. That must be why his Mom told him the story.
Angry, Richie looks back down at the ants in front of him. Now they must all die. Not to see how disrupting their path works, but just because Richie is jealous. This puny little rock will not be good enough. Too many ants would escape. Richie tosses the rock away and scrambles up onto his knees to take a better look around. Standing, he sees the anthill.
Richie remembers something else his brother told him, about how all of the ants are just mindless workers. They all work from birth until death to take care of one queen. One big fat queen sitting in the middle of the anthill having baby ants forever. That queen must die. Richie walks along the trail of ants, not stepping on any of them, until he gets to the anthill. What will happen when he kills the queen? Will the rest of the ants immediately die? Are they all linked somehow, so that they go crazy if there is no queen?
“Richie!” His mother’s call burns his ears. “Richie! Come home!” Richie feels the red spreading from his ears across his face. Briefly he considers taking the extra minute or so to dig out the queen ant before going home, but then he feels ashamed. Not because the ants are not as lazy as he is. So what? Richie is ashamed because his first response to an uncomfortable thought was violence. Even more than laziness, his mom has warned him against violence.
Richie suddenly feels that his mother has been watching him. He knows it simply isn’t possible. His mother is back at the house, and he can’t possibly have been seen. But then why is she calling now, of all times? Why did there seem to be just a slight note of disapproval in her voice? Could she have somehow seen him consider torturing or killing the ants? Could she just know it was happening somehow, like she seemed to somehow know a lot of things that Richie did? Impossible. But still, Richie is worried.
Richie jumps over the trail of ants leading to the anthill and starts walking toward the house. He walks slowly, wondering if his mother can possibly know what he was doing. Jealousy and violence. Richie is not proud.
As the door shut behind him, he flinched. He was standing facing the mirror, so he looked at the reflection and found dull eyes staring back at him. The man in the mirror looked tired. His eyes were not just dull, but bloodshot, either from lack of sleep or maybe the effects of alcohol. The stranger in the mirror was wearing a dress shirt and tie, but the shirt was wrinkled and looked almost slept in, while the tie was loosened and twisted. The image was clean-shaven, and his hair looked as if it had been recently combed straight back. A tuft of hair near the left - or maybe right - ear was sticking out in defiance of the best efforts of a comb.
In a dull haze, Roger walked forward to the mirror. His eyes focussed on the errant tuft of hair. Was it over his right or his left ear? He glanced down at his hands which he noticed were tightly clenching the sink in front of him. He willed his hands to stay where they were, not moving until he was sure which ear was involved. He looked back up at the mirror. He could clearly see that the misplaced hair was on the right side of the mirror, but did that mean it was on his right side? Or as the image reversing everything so that the developing cowlick was actually on his left side?
Roger closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on his scalp. He directed all of his attention to the nerves on his scalp, hoping to be able to feel which side had the mussed hair. After a few seconds he began to feel itching and crawling all over his scalp. He told himself that it was his imagination, and there weren’t really bugs crawling around on his head, but the more he tried to convince himself of that, the more intense the itching and crawling got. He squeezed his eyes more tightly shut and clenched the sink. The itching got worse.
Finally he could stand it no longer and he released the sink and began pounding the sides of his head. The pain was welcome relief from the itching, but in his rage, Roger began to swing his arms wildly, pounding everything he could reach. When he calmed down enough to realize what he was doing, he looked up at the mirror again. It was cracked. One of his wild blows must have cracked the mirror. There was blood on the mirror. Without looking, Roger knew it was from his hand, but that was not was he was thinking about. Roger was looking at the distorted reflection. The eyes were still dull, but now there was a dull smoldering fire behind them. Roger was breathing very heavily, he realized. He watched his nostrils flare as he breathed deeply. He was sweating, and he could see the individual beads of sweat on his forehead.
The door opened behind Roger, and another man walked in. The man glanced at Roger as he headed for a stall and paused momentarily when he saw the broken mirror and Roger’s disheveled condition. Then he turned, deliberately ignoring what he saw and refusing to become involved.
Roger’s concentration was broken. He could no longer remember why he had flown into such a rage, and he was aware now of only the throbbing pain in his right hand and the blood dripping onto the floor. He shook his head, hoping to clear his thoughts. When he looked back at the mirror, the smoldering fire, the rage that had been behind his eyes, was gone. Only dullness remained. Roger used several paper towels to stop the flow of blood from his hand. He combed his hair carefully, paying special attention to the hair just over his ears. He tucked his shirt in carefully, and straightened and tightened his tie. The sweat on his face chilled him now, so he used another paper towel, wetted by the faucet, to wipe his face.
Roger stared at the stranger in the mirror. He dimly heard a flushing sound as the man who had entered earlier left again. Although the mirror was cracked, Roger could still see the bloodshot empty eyes that stared back at him. He shook his head and straightened his back. Standing tall, he glanced at his hand. Without knowing where to look, nobody would notice the cut. He turned and walked to the bathroom door. With his hand on the door handle, he paused and looked back over his shoulder at the man in the mirror. With great effort, he forced a smile onto his face, a smile that was not reflected in his eyes. Roger opened the door and walked back out into the world, smiling.
The call came in at 9:47pm, and Sheriff Monohan grunted in boredom as the dispatcher relayed the details. When the dispatcher spoke the word “murder” the Sheriff grunted again, this time in interest. It had been three years, two months, and four days since the last murder in Brushy Creek. Things were rarely that interesting around here. Sheriff Monohan drawled his response into his handheld radio as we walked briskly out to his car. As briskly as he could, anyway. He had put on a little weight in the last three years, two months, and four days.
He pulled his vehicle up to the house slowly, without his lights on. He had found that it helped him to understand any crime scene if he could observe it and gather his own opinions before being bombarded with the opinions of eager but inexperienced subordinates. He stopped the car short of the fence that marked the property line and got out to walk along the fence.
He saw that all of the activity outside the house was clustered in two areas. Deputy Willis was in the back yard with a flashlight, performing what he probably though was a methodical and thorough search for something. Probably the murder weapon. Sheriff Monohan watch the bobbing of the flashlight and shook his head. Willis would have been better off keeping guard on the lot until daylight and searching it then.
At the front of the house, Deputy Thompson had just joined Deputy Abrams with the family that lived here. The Sheriff searched his mind for just a minute before coming up with the name Samson. The Samson family had moved here about a year ago, he remembered, and had raised quite a stir with their moron son. That was him there, sitting on the steps.
He could see the wife and the daughter, but the husband and the other son were nowhere to be seen. Which one had been killed, or had it been a guest or stranger? No, for both of them to be missing it almost seemed like the son had killed his father and then run for it. Maybe. But then why hadn’t Thompson or Abrams started a search yet? It was time to officially arrive on the scene and get the details.
As he stepped out from around the side of the house, Deputy Thompson said, “There you are, Leo! I saw your car, but Abrams here said she hadn’t seen you. How do you do that?” Sheriff Leo Monohan ignored him and turned to Abrams, obviously the first person on the scene.
In response to his question, Deputy Abrams gave him the details. The older son had been away for three weeks and wasn’t expected back for another week. They hadn’t been able to reach him by phone. Mr. Samson was dead, shot with a revolver. The were powder marks on the dead man’s face and the side of his head, so he had obviously been shot at point blank range. There were also powder marks on the retarded boy’s hands. The gun had been found on the floor next to the dead man.
Now Sheriff Monohan noticed the handcuffs on the boy, and realized that the boy was rocking back and forth as he sat with his hands cuffed through the railing on the porch. He was moaning to himself and shaking his head.
At that point Mrs. Samson ran up to him and cried, “You must let my Jimmy go. He didn’t do it. Please, let him go! Can’t you see you’re hurting him?” As she talked, the boy on the porch rocked even more urgently and starting moaning even louder. The Sheriff held up his hand in what he hoped was an authoritative gesture. It silenced the woman, who had been on the verge of hysteria, but had no effect on the moaning of the boy.
The Sheriff addressed the woman quietly and as gently as he could. She responded by taking several deep breaths and stating that she believed her husband had committed suicide and that Jimmy had tried to stop him. “Jimmy could never have hurt anybody. He adored his father! Look at him, he’s going into shock. You’ve got to let him go! I know he didn’t do it. Please! Let him Go!” She was growing very upset again, very quickly.
Monohan turned away from her and glanced briefly at the daughter. She was standing near the porch, her eyes shifting back and forth from the retarded boy, Jimmy, to her mother. It seemed that she wasn’t quite convinced of Jimmy’s innocence, either. The Sheriff dismissed her for now as someone who didn’t have enough information. He turned back to Mrs. Samson and asked her why she felt her husband would commit suicide. She had no answer for that. The Sheriff gave a few instructions to his deputies and ambled out to his car to drive back to the station.
It was almost midnight when he got back to the station. Jimmy was sitting on a bench inside a jail cell, still rocking back and forth and moaning. Deputy Thompson was taking a statement from Mrs. Samson. He could hear her voice from behind two doors. Deputy Abrams was working on some paperwork and drinking what by now would be extremely stale coffee. The Sheriff lowered his bulky body into a chair near her and asked her for an update. They still hadn’t been able to reach the older son. The wife was still claiming it must have been suicide. The retarded son just kept moaning and bobbing.
The Sheriff was pondering the possibilities when he realized that Abrams was watching him quietly. She seemed to be expecting an answer to a question. As he focused on her, she realized that he hadn’t heard her and asked again, “So which one do you believe?” The daughter had been first to arrive on the scene, and she had seen the moron son come in through the back door. The mother knew more than she was telling, since she wouldn’t give any reason for her idea that her husband might have committed suicide. Could she just be trying to cut her losses? Would she be willing to demean her husband’s name to protect her son? The Sheriff had suggested the possibility of a self-defense plea to her and she had refused it, stating that her son would not even kill in self-defense.
It all hinged on this claim of suicide. What could have caused Mr. Samson to kill himself without leaving a note? Whatever it was, it had upset him so that he had made some noise. Perhaps he argued with his wife and then ran downstairs to get his gun, waking Jimmy in the process? The daughter’s bedroom was further down the hall from the stairs, so she could have missed the racket that caused Jimmy to go downstairs in time to try to stop his father. After the shot, the wife might have been frozen in shock for those few moments it took for the daughter to beat her downstairs and find the body first, as well as see Jimmy return from outside where he had disposed of… what? The gun was found next to Mr. Samson. Jimmy must have hidden whatever it was that upset Mr. Samson. Deputy Willis had found nothing but scattered trash and a few gardening utensils, certainly nothing that should prompt a hasty suicide.
The Sheriff realized that Deputy Abrams was still waiting for an answer. Instead of giving her one, he asked where Willis had left the trash from the back yard. She pointed him to a bag sitting on another desk. She looked as exhausted as he felt, so he told her to go home. Her eyes filled for a moment with indecision, as if her curiosity was battling with her fatigue. Finally, she glanced at the clock on the wall and sighed. As she was gathering her things to leave, the Sheriff started poking through the trash. Deputy Abrams had just started out the door when the Sheriff called her name. He was holding a page out of a newspaper.
It seemed that the older brother had been involved after all. Further rummaging through the garbage had turned up the envelope in which the newspaper clipping had arrived, complete with the older brother’s address and hand-written notes. Jimmy probably hadn’t understood what exactly was in the newspaper, but had been scared and upset about how it had disturbed his father. Sheriff Leo Monohan never showed anybody the clipping or the notes, just released Jimmy and sent him home with his mother and an apology.
The next day the coroner confirmed that the angle of the burn marks indicated a suicide, and a struggle consistent with the idea of Jimmy attempting to stop it. The coroner’s report was entered into the official file, but the Sheriff kept the clipping and the note locked into his personal office safe.
“Police! Open the door!” The pounding on the door woke Mike up from a sound sleep. How had they found him? Who had snitched on him? Who knew anything? His brain had been muddled by sleep and too much cheap whiskey, but it was clearing by the second.
Mike staggered into the back bedroom where the girl was, pulling on pants as he ran. That idiot Kevin was just sitting up, rubbing his eyes groggily. “Come on, you moron, can’t you hear the cops?” Mike hissed as he ran over to the corner where the girl was tied up. “We’re going to have to kill her!”
Kevin just stared at him, shaking his head in disbelief. “Who…” was all he managed to squeak out before they heard the front door smashed open. At that sound, Kevin finished waking up and dived for the window. He was out on the fire escape before Mike realized it, leaving Mike with the decision of what to do with the girl.
Mike heard the sounds of furniture being knocked aside as strangely muffled footsteps pounded closer to where he was standing. He looked down at the girl quickly and realized that there simply wasn’t enough time to do anything with her. She could identify them, but it was too late. There was not time. As he heard the sounds of running feet come closer, he dived for the window.
He half-climbed, half-fell down the fire escape to the ground below, watching the window he had just escaped from for cops the entire time. When he dropped to the ground he realized that he hadn’t even checked below him to make sure he could escape easily. He glanced around quickly for Kevin, and found him. He has being handcuffed by the partner of the police officer that was standing with his gun drawn on Mike. Mike first quickly glanced down the alley and saw that it was blocked by several more officers.
Defeated, he held up his hands and turned around to be handcuffed. As the officer was cuffing him, Mike though he heard the officer laughing. Mike spoke carefully to avoid saying anything that could be used later, but he asked who had tipped the cops off to come to their place. Hearing the question, the cop burst out laughing as he pushed Mike and over to one of the waiting cars. “What’s so funny?” Mike was desperate to know, now.
It wasn’t until Mike and Kevin were being booked down at the station that someone finally let him in on the joke. The cops hadn’t been raiding Mike and Kevin at all. Their attention had all been focused on the drug dealers in the next apartment. When Mike and Kevin jumped out of the second-story window, the cops decided to take a look at their apartment as well, which is when they found the bound and gagged kidnapped girl.
