A Sky for Us Alone Page 20

  “Heard you lost him. Sorry about that.”

  “Thanks.”

  That was the whole of our conversation until I spotted the tin roof of Ryan’s cabin ahead and said, “That’s it.”

  Macnab put the truck in park and waited while I slung my pack over my shoulder and reached for the door handle.

  “Once I rebuild my house, you’re welcome to come visit,” he said. “I’m sure you’ve already guessed I’m not the best company. I’m lucky Nuna disagrees. But we’re neighbors, after all.”

  “I’ll remember that,” I said, thinking of how Tennessee and Omie and I would be on the road to somewhere else by tomorrow night.

  We said goodbye and waved, and it wasn’t until I was close to the door of Ryan’s cabin that I heard his truck drive away.

  The cabin looked like no one had given it much thought since the last time I was there two years ago. The weeds around it had grown three feet high, and the roof was covered in brown leaves. After seeing Ryan’s decked-out basement the night of the party, I expected that things here would have been upgraded, too, but it almost looked like no one had been there at all. It made me even more nervous when I knocked on the door. I didn’t hear anything from inside, so I glanced around the side of the cabin, but there was no sign of Ryan’s Dodge. I hadn’t thought what I would do if I didn’t find Jacob, and suddenly that struck me as pretty stupid.

  Then I heard the sound of something falling to the floor inside, and a voice say “shit.” I knocked again, and heard footsteps coming toward me.

  “What is it?” the voice asked through the door, sounding hoarse and sleepy.

  “It’s Harlowe,” I answered, and wondered if I shouldn’t have. “I’m looking for Jacob and Ryan.”

  There was silence—then the sound of a lock and chain rattling. I wasn’t sure why at that moment, but I remembered the gun was in my backpack if I needed it.

  When Jacob opened the door, I wanted to unsee him. He’d dropped at least fifteen pounds and his eyes were red and bulging. He swayed back and forth on his feet and his eyelids drooped like he might fall asleep standing up. He looked nothing like the Jacob I’d last seen, only a fading shadow of the kid I grew up with. He squinted at the sun shining behind me, but said nothing at all.

  I stared at him, trying to figure what to say first, and finally landed on the only thing that I felt mattered. “Let’s go,” I said.

  Jacob opened his mouth and what came out sounded like laughter underwater. “Nah,” he said, and leaned against the doorframe.

  “Let me in,” I said.

  “Can’t. Promised Ryan I wouldn’t let anyone in.” He yawned.

  I tried to see around him into the cabin, but he blocked my view. “Just for a minute,” I said.

  He blinked at me, arms crossed against his sunken chest. “Only if you promise to go as soon as I say.”

  The place smelled like rotten milk and mold. I took in as much as I could in one glance, and then wished that I hadn’t when I saw stacks of bottles in clear boxes, and next to them, a pill press that took up almost the whole table.

  Chapter 45

  JACOB WALKED AWAY FROM the open door to a couch in front of the TV and fell into it. I wanted to scream at him, shake him, drag him away from it all. I shut the door behind me.

  “How long?” I asked.

  He wouldn’t look at me, but stared at the TV screen instead. “Like this?” He glanced down at himself. “Got bad after Nate, I guess.”

  Red had been right about that.

  “Did Nate know? That you were using?”

  Jacob chuckled once.

  I couldn’t take it anymore and walked over to the couch and stood between him and the TV. “Tommy’s dead,” I said. “Fentanyl powder.” I looked over at the pill press. “There’s more, but I need you to tell me what Nate had to do with all of this.”

  He didn’t lift his head from the back of the couch, but scooted up a little higher. Finally, when he saw I wasn’t going anywhere, he looked into my eyes.

  “We found we could beat the Praters at their game,” Jacob said. “Well, Ryan did, and we knew Nate could find out where Tommy was picking up and when.”

  “That was what he wrote in the notebook, and texted you about Woodvale?”

  Jacob nodded.

  “Then what?” I asked.

  “Ryan started intercepting the pickup. He’d call the clinics first and tell them he was working with Tommy. It was crazy, but we got away with it, for a while. Once we saw how much money we could really make, we couldn’t stop.”

  “Did Nate know about that part?”

  Jacob nodded again.

  “And then Tommy found out.”

  “Ryan screwed up the Woodvale pickup and the guy called Tommy to double-check when he suspected. Tommy put it together that Nate got info from his work computer.”

  “What did Tommy want from you at the party?”

  Jacob squirmed on the couch and looked at the door.

  I walked even closer to the couch and blocked his view of anything except me.

  “What he found in the shed?” I wasn’t going to accept silence this time.

  “Our recipe,” he said.

  “That was why he opened the powder,” I realized. “And I guess the other boxes—it was easier for you to ship the stuff.”

  “Other than pickups, we don’t have to leave. What were you saying about Tommy?” His eyes darted back and forth like he was fighting falling asleep.

  “He found that shit in the shed,” I said again. “What if it had been me? Did you ever think of that? Or someone else? What are you still doing up here? What about your kid, Jacob? I saw Clarice. She told me they haven’t seen you in months.”

  “Shut up, Harlowe. You always thought you were better than everyone else.”

  “Did you talk Nate into doing it? Or did Ryan?”

  “We didn’t talk him into anything. He saw a chance to make money, and took it, just like us. Just like plenty others would have done.”

  “But it got him killed. And it’s gonna do the same to you, sooner or later.”

  “Well, it’s either that, the mines, or cancer, far as I can see.”

  “This is a fucking waste,” I said, looking around the room, feeling nauseous at the stink coming from the piles of trash in the kitchen and the sight of Jacob wasting away.

  “The thing is,” he said, rolling his head back and forth along the couch, “I don’t even care anymore. It feels so—” He stopped when we both heard the sound of an engine outside the cabin.

  The back door flung open and bounced against the wall, but Jacob didn’t even lift his head. Ryan crossed the room in wide steps until he stood in front of us, his eyes big and round and his fists clenched. “Told you not to let anyone in,” he said. “What’s he doing here?”

  “Ask him,” Jacob mumbled, and blinked, trying to focus his eyes.

  Ryan looked at me like I was someone he’d only ever met in passing. “Guess you’re coming with us, then,” he said, “because we have to go right now.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  “We’re running late, and we’re supposed to be in Knoxville by tonight. Come on, let’s go. Grab some of those.” He pointed to the boxes on the counter. “Pull it together, Jacob, we’re leaving.”

  Jacob looked at him like he hadn’t heard anything he’d said, or even remembered him walking into the room.

  Ryan took a bottle from his pocket and opened it, then walked over to Jacob and pushed something into his hand. “That’ll set you straight,” he said. “Go on.” From the sound of his voice, he’d already taken whatever kind of upper it was he’d just given Jacob.

  Without even looking at it, Jacob put the pill in his mouth and swallowed. I wondered at what point he’d stopped thinking for himself entirely.

  “Won’t take long,” Ryan said, and started stacking the boxes. “Just a fast pickup. We’ll be back by morning.”

  Jacob stood from th
e couch and walked toward Ryan, but bumped into the counter before he could reach him.

  “All right,” Ryan said, holding the boxes under his arm. “Let’s hit it.” There were still two trays of pills left on the counter, and some on the kitchen table, surrounded by empty beer cans and half-eaten rotted food.

  Jacob followed him to the door.

  “I’m not going,” I said.

  Ryan pushed the boxes onto Jacob and crossed the room to where I stood. He grabbed the collar of my shirt and pulled me into his face. “Listen,” he said. “If I hear anything from anyone, I’m coming straight after you.”

  “That’s not fair,” I said. “You know Amos is already looking and will find out about this soon enough. It will have nothing to do with me.”

  “You better make sure he doesn’t.”

  I looked at Jacob and hoped to find traces of my best friend left in his face, but saw only a stranger as he looked away again.

  Ryan let go of my shirt and scooped up the last of the trays from the table. “Now that I think on it, you’re no threat to us,” he said. “You’ll always go along with the flow because you’re too scared to do different. That’s probably why Nate said you could never be a part of this.” He grabbed Jacob’s elbow on the way to the door.

  I was left standing in the cabin alone, holding my backpack in one hand by a strap. I tried to understand what had just happened, how I felt hearing what Nate had done and how much he’d kept hidden from me. I’d never understand how he could have gone through everything he did with helping Mama get clean and then choose this.

  The door opened again and Jacob walked inside. “Hang on,” he said, walking back to the bedroom. He came out again and handed me a brown paper bag, the top folded over. It weighed a couple of pounds at least. “That’s Nate’s cut,” he said. “Forget what Ryan said. Nate didn’t want you involved because he wanted to get out. If you want to blame someone, it’s me. I asked him to snoop on Tommy’s computer.”

  I opened my mouth to say something, but there were no words that would do. Jacob was standing at the back door again. “I’m sorry, Harlowe,” he said, and then he was gone.

  There were twelve tidy stacks of hundred-dollar bills inside the bag, each stack a thousand dollars. I should have felt like the people jumping up and down on Wheel of Fortune to be handed so much money, but the bag couldn’t hold the weight of what that money cost. I looked around the filthy cabin once more, put the money in my backpack, and left before the smell of the cabin could make me vomit.

  I started the trail back home and my ankle screamed that it was far from healed. If there was any place that should be burnt to the ground, it was the cabin I’d just left, I thought, not Macnab’s home. Part of me wondered if I had ever really known my brother at all. He’d shown things about himself to Jacob that he’d never share with me. I thought I’d leave the mountain with all of the stories straight, along with my ideas about who Nate would always be to me. Because I wanted to keep him alive. But he’d tossed both me and Mama aside for the hope of buying a ticket—even if he thought he could get one for all of us, I couldn’t believe that he hadn’t learned better by then.

  Limping down the mountain and catching myself from falling again when I slipped on a pile of leaves, I remembered how slick the rocks had been under our feet when me and Nate looked for crawdaddies in the creek during summers that weren’t so dry. One time he’d fallen, and his toes got stuck under a rock. At first I laughed at him, thinking he was making too big a deal of things, but then he looked up at me and I saw the truth of the pain in his eyes. “I’m stuck,” he said. I waded over to where he sat and lifted the rock from his foot and then helped him walk home. Through my tears and my own pain there on the mountain, I realized that more than being angry at Nate—I just missed him.

  By the time I made it close to Nuna’s cabin the pain of my ankle was unbearable and I decided to stop and ask her for help. Again.

  Chapter 46

  “HAPPY TO GIVE YOU a ride home,” Macnab said after I told them what happened.

  “How ’bout I wrap your ankle again?” Nuna asked when she saw me limping and the tears on my face.

  “Thanks, but I should really get back as soon as I can,” I said.

  “You know how I feel about rushing, but have it your way,” she said. “Here, take these at least.” She poured something into her hand from a small bottle and then handed me two brown pills and a mug of water.

  “What are they?” I asked.

  “Advil,” she said, like I was silly for not knowing.

  “Thought you only used natural stuff,” I said after swallowing them.

  “Sometimes you have to reach for a little more,” she said. I thought of everything I’d just seen at Ryan’s place, and figured that one way or another, that’s what everyone was doing—reaching.

  After we got in his truck I asked Macnab if he knew anything about the grave I’d fallen into on my way up the mountain.

  “Nuna’s seen a lot of strange things on the mountain over the years,” he said. “It hasn’t been there long, I know that. Maybe a couple of weeks at most. If I had my way, I’d bury Amos in it.”

  I wondered if Tommy had dug it for Nate and then changed his mind and brought him home to us instead. I’d never forget the relief I felt when I realized it wouldn’t be mine, and wished Nate could have known the same feeling.

  Macnab drove me down the mountain, and turned into our driveway, where I told him to stop. “You know where to find us now,” he said.

  “I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be around here,” I said. “Could I get your number?” I felt kind of strange asking for it, but never talking to him or Nuna again didn’t feel right, either.

  He found a scrap of paper tucked in the seat and a pencil on the dashboard and wrote it down for me, then waited until I was on the porch to pull out of the drive.

  Walking through our front door, I felt a familiar heaviness return that I hadn’t even noticed had lifted while I was gone. The door was locked when I tried to open it. I knocked and a wave of panic rolled through me when I realized I hadn’t taken any keys with me. I couldn’t help but wonder if anything had happened to Mama while I was gone, and banged against the door even louder. When she finally came and opened it, her eyes held the same glassy expression that had been in Jacob’s. She stepped away from the door to let me walk through it, and this time, didn’t even bother asking where I had been or why it had taken so long. She just leaned against the counter, her head bobbing a little and her robe falling halfway down one of her arms. She wouldn’t like what I was about to do, but there was no way around it, so I walked past her to my room and began packing.

  I didn’t take much. Only what would fit in a duffel, plus my saw and blades and what was already in my backpack, including the money. I took Nate’s phone and wallet from the closet, and before I left our room, grabbed the photo from under the bunk of the two of us with the fish and cousin Beau.

  “I want to buy your car,” I told Mama, setting my saw and bags on the floor in front of her recliner.

  She gripped the arms of the chair and rustled, pulled herself up a little straighter. “How are you gonna do that?”

  I reached into my backpack and pulled out two stacks. She fumbled with the arm of the recliner, and I helped her get it down. She stared at the money in my hand and leaned forward. “Why do you need to buy it? You use it whenever you need it.”

  “I won’t answer any questions. Not right now. You could take this and get some new clothes, get some help, if you want to. I promise I’ll call very soon. I’m not disappearing, but I have to leave. Now, before I’m stuck here forever. Or I end up like Nate.”

  She pushed herself out of the chair and tied her robe around her. She lifted her hands as if they’d help her find the words, and then dropped them. Then she looked into my eyes, and for a moment, the glassiness cleared and a softness I recognized from too long ago took its place. Her feet shuffled a little clos
er to mine, and I reached my arms to wrap them around her. Her face pressed into my chest. Tears pushed from my eyes into her dirty hair. I felt her trembling, crying, and remembered the times when I’d woken from a nightmare, before I could even talk, and she’d rocked me back to sleep. With my arms around her and the money still gripped in my hand, I wished that I could take both of us back to before we became so hard. But I knew I’d only get harder for staying.

  “Okay,” I said, and loosened my arms from her. It hurt me to see the glaze return to her face when we stood in front of each other again, both of us wiping tears from our faces.

  “I don’t know how—” she said.

  “I know, I don’t either. But I think you can find out if you really want to. And if you ask for some help along the way. That’s what I’m believing for myself, anyhow. I’ll call you. Promise.” Before she could say anything in return, I walked over to the counter, picked up her keys, and then all of my things from the floor. Mama stood on the porch in the same spot where we’d found Nate and watched me leave the house where she’d raised both of her babies, and now was left to take care of only herself.

  Chapter 47

  I TOOK A CHARGER from the glove compartment and plugged it into the cigarette lighter. Once my phone got a little juice, it said it was 2:19. I had one last stop before picking up Tennessee and Omie.

  Mama Draughn opened the screen door for me as soon as I got out of the car. “Get in here,” she said once I was on the porch, and scooted me through the door.

  I dropped my pack under the table and sat down in my usual spot.

  “Hungry?” she asked.

  “I’m in a bit of a hurry,” I said.

  “You’re here to say goodbye, aren’t you?”

  I nodded and found it wasn’t any easier telling her than it was Mama. “I promised I wouldn’t leave without it.”

  “I knew this day was coming,” she said. “I just hoped that maybe it would take a little longer. But that was for my sake, not yours.”

  “Did you talk to Nuna?”

  “I did. You must have rubbed off a little on her. She said she’d like to visit soon. She also said you might have some questions for me after your time there.”