Small Moving Parts

CHAPTER ONE

BUFORT, TEXAS—THE SUMMER OF 1958

There he is. Watching him watch himself like some mute carnival barker in a dream. Sitting off in the moonlight. A .45 to his head. His reflection in the window glass the sole witness to the last of his undoing. He had come to this place stowed in the back of a wagon, an afterling born to a railroad tracklayer dead before the child’s sixth birthday, a mother dead before his seventh. Passed from house to house. Working in the coal mines, a breaker boy at the age of twelve. A runaway road-kid hopping freights at fourteen.

Harland Cain, he heard the doctor say, there’s nothing more we can do. That had been a month ago. The old man set the pistol down, rolled a cigarette, and struck a match. The flame flared. He held it to the paper and inhaled. He shook the match. The flame died. The cigarette glowed, then dimmed. He watched the smoke rise before his face and trail upward to the porch ceiling, where it stalled.

A final drag off the cigarette. Cain stared off into the gloom of the desert, ground the cigarette butt into the glass ashtray on the table before him, and then took up the pistol.

He watched the image in the window glass raise the .45 and edge the muzzle across the hollow of his cheek to the temple where his pulse throbbed against the smooth steel bore.

This was it.

First would come the explosion. The bullet spiraling down that empty corridor, twisting its way to him. The impact. The scattering of flesh and bone and gore that would follow. The shutdown of the cerebral cortex. All before the brain could process any sensation of pain. Then darkness.

He considered the after-journey. For the first time, it occurred to him that there might not be one. No matter. He had made his peace.

Cain squeezed the single-action trigger partway. A faint click at the first detent. There it was—that absolute and liberating shift of power as he took control over his destiny. Death was now his choice. His time. His place.

He eased up on the trigger, smiled, slipped his finger from the trigger guard, and set the pistol on the table with the hammer cocked. It was all done but the doing of it.

No urgency now. One more cigarette, a final cup of coffee. So simple in the end. He tapped the tobacco out onto the paper, poured himself a fresh cup of coffee, and then leaned back in his chair.

He closed his eyes and tipped his head back when he inhaled. He wondered how he had ever taken such a pleasure for granted. He lifted the cup to his lips, its aroma intoxicating.

Cain took another drag, flipped the butt into the yard, and then picked up the pistol and pressed it again to his temple. For all he had agonized over the right and wrong of it, the guilt, the shame—in the end it was an uncomplicated act. The fear in living was death. Now, so close to death, his only fear was living.

He leaned his head forward and held his breath. God forgive me.

The sky cracked like thunder, a howl coming in off the nearby blacktop road, ripping through the night like the onset of Armageddon. An engine roared. Tires screamed. Headlights pierced the emptiness like the fiery eyes of something from the inferno as they lurched and bounded out of the murky abyss and then dipped and went black. Shearing metal, exploding concrete—the final crescendo in an eerie quiet followed by the gasping, dying sound of radiator steam. The noise was coming from the direction of the bridge.

The old man dropped the pistol. He stared wide-eyed out into the blackness, expecting to see Satan himself come to collect his dues. He waited. He listened. There was no sound save that of the hissing, which sent a chill through him.

He waited. Nothing. He hurried off the porch and across the driveway, poking in his trouser pocket for the keys as he ran. He slipped in behind the wheel of the old ranch truck. The keys rattled as he thrashed about, searching for the ignition. It started on the second try. Gravel sprayed out from beneath the rear tires as he fishtailed out of the driveway and onto the blacktop.

He came upon the fresh skid marks first. Then, in his headlights, the smoking wreckage. Before him sat a half-ton pickup angled across the shoulder, its hood collapsed to the firewall, steam rising from beneath it. Both doors were sprung open and bent. The bed partially torn from the frame. The front fenders wrapped around the concrete bridge abutment. The entire scene covered with the broken glass of every window.

The old man stepped out of his truck and hurried to the driver’s side of the wreckage. There, behind the wheel, sat a young boy, fifteen at best, staring through the missing windshield with eyes white and reeling. He was wearing an old felt cowboy hat, a threadbare shirt, and worn-out Mexican boots.

Cain leaned in, supporting his weight with one hand above the doorframe. You okay?

The boy, red with blood and reeking of alcohol, turned half toward him. His head bobbed and he coughed.

I ain’t sure.

Cain took him by the arm.

C’mon, we gotta get you to the hospital before you bleed to death.

Don’t move me.

You need looking after.

I can’t go to no hospital.

Why can’t you?

I said I can’t.

Well, can you walk?

I ain’t tried.

The old man reached for the boy, pulled on him.

Hold it, hold it, the boy protested.

We gotta get you outta there.

The boy’s head wobbled. He teetered side to side. Okay, okay. Let me do it.

The boy swung his feet out with great effort. It was not clear if it was the alcohol or the injuries that impaired him.

Cain reached for him again.

I’ll take you to my place, and we’ll see how bad you’re hurt.

I don’t need your help.

The boy stepped out and then stood shaking while he held on to the loose door. He took one step and then another, limping noticeably on his left leg.

That leg hurting you?

It ain’t the leg.

The boy turned and began staggering in the direction from which he’d come, and then he collapsed to the pavement.

He awoke on the old man’s sofa. His eyes darted wildly about the porch, and there was an unsettling fear in them.

Where am I?

You’re on my davenport. You’re cut up some, but you don’t look to be hurt too bad.

I gotta get out of here.

What’s your hurry? It’s two a damn clock in the morning and your truck’s all tore to hell.

It ain’t my truck.

The boy stood. He tottered side to side and then sat back onto the deep cushions of the sofa.

Whoa. You got anything to drink? He slurred his words.

Cain regarded him with disdain. Coffee.

Got any beer?

Ain’t that what got you here in the first place?

Probly—I’m drunker’n Cooter Brown.

The boy leaned his head back and held on to the sofa cushions. The old man poured him coffee in a tin cup.

Here—drink this.

The boy sat up and took the cup. He sucked in a hot sip, then another, and handed the cup back to the old man.

His legs wobbled when he tried to stand again. He sat down and leaned forward between his knees.

I’m ’onna puke.

The old man snatched the boy’s hat from his head and held it in front of the kid.

Puke in this then. There’s gonna be a big enough mess around here as it is.

The boy’s body convulsed as he heaved. The sour smell of half-digested alcohol made the old man turn away as he held the hat.

When the boy raised his head and wiped his sleeve across his wet mouth, the old man pitched the hat out into the yard.

You’re a sorry mess.

Yessir, I know it.

What the hell were you thinking?

The boy spoke without looking up. I was aiming to kill myself.

You didn’t do a very good job of it.

The boy shook his head. That was my first go at it.

That was a practice run?

No, sir. I didn’t think it would take more’n one.

Whose truck is that, if it ain’t yours?

It’s Eugene’s. He’s my momma’s boyfriend. When he sees it, he’s gonna off me himself.

The boy’s eyes closed. His head dropped to the cushions, and he began to snore. Cain lifted the boy’s feet onto the sofa. He sat back in the rickety chair at the small table, glanced over at the boy, and then rolled his fingers over the checkered wooden grips of the pistol. He lit another cigarette, took two quick drags, flicked the burning fag out into the yard, and pressed the muzzle to his head.

He squeezed the trigger, and the pistol exploded with an awful roar as it spewed fire at the same instant the old man jerked his hand and sent the bullet ripping into the ceiling. Dust, wood fragments, and debris fell upon the table. When the dust and smoke cleared, the old man cursed.

He looked at the pistol and released the locked-back slide. He set the pistol down, rose to his feet, and went inside. When he returned he carried a washbasin of warm water, a small brown medicine bottle, and a handful of rags. He sat next to the boy and set to cleaning his wounds. The boy did not stir when he picked out the glass fragments, and he did not stir when Cain turned him over, but he sat bolt upright when the old man daubed the deep wounds with Mercurochrome.

What the hell?

The old man pushed the boy back down. Be still.

The boy’s eyes, bloodshot and feral looking, flitted about the room as he attempted to control the spinning sensation and remember where he was.

When the old man finished, he walked the basin to the edge of the porch and slung the bloody water over the railing, where it was absorbed into the dust of the driveway. He returned to the boy, placed the bloody rags into the washbowl, and then surveyed his work.

You don’t look too good, but you’ll live, he said to the drunken mess of a boy.

The boy slept until late morning. When he awoke, he sat up and looked about. He heard the old man inside and smelled bacon cooking. He limped through the open door and said to the old man’s back, You the one doctored me up last night?

Cain turned to assess the raggedy example of a boy standing in the doorway. He appeared younger in the light of day. His wounds appeared more severe with their bruising and swelling.

That’s right. You want some breakfast?

No, sir. I don’t feel too good. The boy leaned against the door casing. You got any coffee?

Cup’s on the drainboard. Pot’s on the stove.

The boy filled a cup half full and sat at the table. He looked down at his shirt, stiff and dark from the blood that had dried on it. His blue jeans hung on him, bloody from belt to knees.

Where’s my hat?

Out in the yard.

The boy turned to look back at the door opening.

It’s a Resistol, you know. They ain’t but one like it.

You puked in it last night.

It was my daddy’s.

The boy shook his head and blew into the cup before taking the first sip. He studied the bandages and the bloodied clothes, then he looked up at the old man. Thanks for what you done.

I’d a done it for anyone. It had nothing to do with you.

Well, thanks just the same.

The boy smiled a half smile. Cain did not smile back.

Where’s my truck?

In a pile where you left it.

Bad, huh?

The old man stared at the boy. You don’t remember?

I reckon I do—I was just hopin’, I guess.

It’s a miracle you’re still alive.

Yeah, I wasn’t countin’ on that.

Cain nodded. I know what you mean.

Did the po-lice come?

Cain turned and leaned back against the counter, and then he pushed himself forward and took a seat at the table across from the boy. I don’t see many cars come down that stretch of road. Unless someone calls it in, that truck could sit there a while before the police see it.

I’m going to jail over that truck.

Why’s that?

I done stole it.

From your stepdaddy?

He ain’t my stepdaddy. He’s just my momma’s boyfriend, but he will sure as shit kill me when he finds out.

You got a mouth on you for a kid.

What do you mean?

Cussin’ like that.

I heard that before.

Cain looked up over his fork. You still got time, you know.

For what?

To kill yourself.

Yeah, well, I ain’t in the mood any more. I was fixin’ to be drunk when I done it, anyways.

The old man finished his breakfast and watched the contemplative kid nurse his coffee. His expression dead serious, he held the boy in his eye. I got a bottle of whiskey in the pantry if you’re fixin’ to take another run at it.

The kid looked up and smiled an uncertain smile. The old man stared at him with no expression at all. The kid watched him and waited for a change in the old man’s appearance, but none came. The kid gave up and shook his head.

I reckon I lost the taste for it.

The old man nodded but did not say anything one way or the other. The kid directed his attention to the plate of bacon and bread on the table. Mind if I have me some of that?

Help yourself, but be quick. We got work to do.

What kinda work?

We’re going to burn what’s left of that truck, then call it in.

They gonna know I took it.

How they going to know that?

Fingerprints.

There won’t be no damn fingerprints. Does your momma’s boyfriend know where you were last night?

He thinks I went over to Bobby Washington’s house.

Who’s Bobby?

He’s my friend since fifth grade. He’s a good fighter.

Will Bobby vouch for you?

What do you mean?

Will he stick up for you if you ask him to say you were with him last night?

Yeah. He does all the time. Me and him’s best buds. He’s colored, and them other boys don’t like me or him that much, so we look out for one another. He beat up a lot of guys bigger than him that was pickin’ on me.

The old man looked at him and nodded toward the front door.

Eat up.

The boy followed Cain out to the barn. The old man motioned in the direction of a small shed off to the side of the main structure.

Go in there. Get them two cans of kerosene. Bring them to my truck.

They returned to the wreckage and, for as bad as it had looked in the dark, the light of day painted a clear picture of the totality of the devastation and the narrow margin by which the boy had missed killing himself.

The boy whistled and his eyes widened.

I prit’near got the job done.

Douse it good, and hurry up about it.

When the cans were empty, the boy watched as the old man threw a match to it. The whole affair belched into flames amidst a cloud of black smoke that spiraled heavenward and could have been seen for miles had there been anyone looking to see it.

Back at the house, the old man made the telephone call. The dispatcher noted the information and thanked him.

Now we gotta get you back to Bobby’s house. When you get there, can you call your momma’s boyfriend and ask him for a ride home?

Well, yeah, I can, but you know he don’t have no way to give me a ride now that he don’t have no truck. The boy’s tone softened. And he wouldn’t give me no ride even if he did.

That ain’t the point. We just don’t want him thinking you know anything about his truck.

Oh, okay, I get it.

Where does Bobby live?

In Bufort, same as me. I can show you if you can drive me there.

That’s thirty miles away. What you doing way out here?

I told you, I come to kill myself.

Seems like you could have found a place closer to home and saved us both a lot of trouble.

I didn’t know it was gonna be this much trouble or I woulda.

What’s your name anyway?

Bodean Cleon Cooper. What’s yours?

Harland—Harland Cain. Do they call you Bo?

No, sir, they call me Dodger.

Dodger? What the hell kind of name is that?

It’s what they called me since I was a kid.

Dodger?

Yeah. I was born in the back seat of a 1937 Dodge.

The old man shook his head. I reckon you’re lucky. It could have been a Studebaker.

CHAPTER TWO

Dodger asked Cain to drop him off a block from Bobby’s house.

Thanks, Mr. Cain.

Yeah. Good luck to ya.

Cain sat with the engine idling as he watched the boy hobble down the street, hauling the bad leg along like some ill-conceived inbred. Glad to be rid of him and ready to get back to the business at hand. He wondered if surviving the crash was more bad luck than good for the kid, but that was not his problem.

When the old man pulled off the highway back at his place, he sat in his pickup in the driveway and considered what forty years of working the unyielding West Texas land had given him in return for his efforts. A small herd of thin-ribbed cattle, a house that needed fixing, and a barn with the doors sprung and half the corrugated metal roof blown away by the wind. All defined by a wire fence with scarcely a tight strand among them. All signs of neglect, not for the lack of money, but for the lack of will—the more egregious of the two in his mind.

Forty years for what?

He slammed the truck door, noticed Dodger’s hat in the driveway, and shook his head. One of a kind—like hell.

Cain stepped up onto the porch and hesitated at the top step. He turned and walked back to the hat. He picked the wretched mess up with his fingers, held it at arm’s length, and walked it over to the water hose. He flushed out the vomit, carried the one-of-a-kind hat to the porch, and laid it on the table to dry. He knew the boy could not come after the hat once they located the pickup, but still he treated it as though it might somehow find its way back to him. Neither the hat nor the boy were of any further concern to him.

Cain figured that when they found the pickup and then came to the house and found his own gunshot body, there would be speculation that the two were related, and that should take the heat off the kid. The boy was no longer his problem. He sat gazing at the pistol lying on the table where he had left it earlier.

He rolled and lit a cigarette, crossed his boots on the porch rail, and stared off into the west where the sun began its descent and left the dry earth blurred in the heat that rose off the desert floor against a sky the color of blood orange and sapphire.

He wondered what could drive a boy to the edge at such a young age. It bothered him to know he could have done more but had not. It was out of his hands, and he accepted that as his fate—and the fate of the boy.

He picked up the pistol and, with no contemplation or hesitation, placed it to his head and pulled the trigger. Click.

He looked up at the hole in the ceiling and then back to the pistol. He shook his head and laughed. I guess that’s a sign, he said to himself as he slipped the pistol under his belt at the back of his trousers and walked into the house. He packed the pistol away in the closet, swapped yesterday’s shirt for a clean one, lifted his hat from the peg in the hallway, and walked out the door. On his way, he picked up Dodger’s hat and strode across the gravel driveway to his truck.

He rolled up onto the blacktop highway, turned north, and headed for Bufort with Dodger’s hat on the seat beside him. The burned-out wreckage no longer smoldered and, for all appearances, could have been there a long time.

Cain drove back to Bobby’s house. He knocked on the screen door that hung from a single hinge and was surprised when an attractive middle-aged woman appeared before him.

Ma’am, I’m Harland Cain, and I was looking for Bodean Cooper.

Dodger? He ain’t here, Mr. Cain. Bobby and him said they was going to the Conoco down the street to get a pop. I give them a quarter. That was about two hours ago.

Thank you, ma’am. I’ll go look for them. If I miss him, will you give him my telephone number and have him call me?

Yes, sir.

It’s 9-7-8-0. Tell him I got his hat.

I’ll do that, Mr. Cain. 9-7-8-0?

Yes, ma’am.

Cain drove to the Conoco station but found no sign of Dodger or Bobby. He pulled up into the service area. A uniformed attendant walked briskly out to greet him. Behind him was a large glass window with DUANE’S CONOCO painted across its surface in bold red letters that hadn’t changed in twenty years.

Fill ’er up, Mr. Cain?

Cain nodded. Regular. Thanks, Duane. Hey, I was just wondering if you know a kid from around here name of Bodean Cooper.

Duane nodded to his left as he inserted the nozzle and began pumping. Yessir. Him and that colored boy left here walking thataway ’bout an hour ago.

Don’t know where he lives, do you?

Yessir. Drive down here to San Antonio Street. Take a left at the stop sign. Just before you get to the hardware store, take another left and go one block. It’s the first yeller house on the right—the one with the broke-down Indian motorsickle on the porch. You can’t miss it.

Much obliged.

How’s that oil?

Good, thanks. How much I owe you?

Two dollars and fifty cents, even.

Cain drove down as far as San Antonio Street. He stopped at the stop sign and, when he glanced into the vacant lot next to the hardware store, he saw Dodger sitting, straddling a wooden crate, blood on his chin, staring down the alley.

Cain pulled in and stopped near where the boy was sitting. He climbed down from the truck, and the boy looked up at him, his lips swollen, his nose bleeding.

Now what happened?

Me and my momma got into a argument, and Eugene popped me.

What was that all about?

They seen me cut up and figured I was out fighting.

What did you tell them?

I told them I got jumped.

Cain looked at him. His expression asked the next question, and the boy answered without being asked to do so.

I figured I’d ruther take a whupping for fighting than stealing a truck.

Did he ask you about the truck?

No, sir, he didn’t say nothin’ about it.

What did your momma say?

She’s too drunk to say much.

So what now?

I don’t know. If I go back, he’ll beat on me some more. I ’spect I’ll just walk around ’til mornin’, then go on over to Bobby’s.

Won’t they come looking for you?

No. This happened before. No one comes lookin’.

Get in the truck. You can come stay at my place until we get this figured out.

Dodger smiled a broken smile. You sure that’s okay?

It’ll just be for the night ’til we get this sorted out for you.

The boy slid into the passenger side of the truck, slammed the old door, and looked down at his hat. He looked up at Cain with a fat-lipped grin.

That’s my hat.

The boy pulled on his hat and leaned over to look at himself in the mirror.

Minus the puke you left in it.

Thanks, Mr. Cain.

Look, just call me Harley.

The boy nodded, smiled, and sat back in the seat and stared out the side window. He fussed with his hat and sat up straighter because of it.

As they left town, the exhaust from the old truck rumbled and the tires hummed on the asphalt. Neither spoke as the roadside telephone poles blew rhythmically by the window. There was nothing to see but more of the same, and the boy stared out across that barren plain in the late afternoon heat a long time before he said anything.

The radio work?

It quit some time back.

They rode in silence for several miles, the old man contemplating his circumstances and those of the boy, while the boy marveled at the quiet.

So, what happened to your leg?

It ain’t my leg. It’s the ankle.

How did it get that way?

The boy looked up at the old man. He weighed his thoughts and then turned his head toward the side window when he answered. And when he did, he lied.

My momma fell with me when I was a baby. We never got it fixed. It just healed crooked is all.

After a long silence, the boy looked at the old man.

I don’t know it to be any other way, so it don’t bother me none.

It would me.

Well, it don’t me.

The old man looked across at the boy. He turned back to gaze out at the open highway and did not respond or ask any further questions.

CHAPTER THREE

Here’s a blanket and a pillow. You can sleep out here on the davenport. It’s cooler than in the house."

The boy took the bedding and set it beside him as he sat on the sofa and laid his head against the back cushion and stared up at the ceiling. He looked over at the old man and then nodded in the direction of the bullet hole.

What happened there?

That’s a bullet hole.

The boy laughed. You shot a hole in your ceiling?

A housefly was annoying me. I shot him.

The boy smiled. You didn’t shoot no fly.

He’s gone, ain’t he?

I don’t reckon there was one there.

Suit yourself.

The old man did not smile. The boy’s questioning gaze followed the old man as he walked back into the house.

When the morning sun inched its way up over the edge of the dry plain and began to heat up the day, the old man stepped out onto the porch. The boy lay on his back with a bare leg hanging out the side of the sheet that covered him, a foot resting on the floor.

Cain set out a clean shirt, an old pair of jeans, a pair of red boxer shorts printed with bird dogs in the hunt, and a clean pair of white socks for the boy.

He kicked the end of the sofa with his boot.

Come on. Get up.

Dodger sat upright, covered his face with his arms as though he were about to be struck, and then turned his head from side to side as his eyes darted about and quickly took in his surroundings. He relaxed, yawned, and swung his legs out and placed both feet on the floor.

A mite jumpy, ain’t you?

I thought for a minute you was Eugene.

He thump you around a lot?

Yessir. Some.

The boy looked down at his blood-soaked clothes and yawned. It don’t matter. I don’t plan on being around that much longer anyhow.

I brought you some clean clothes. Go in the house there and take a bath and put them on. I’ll get you a belt to hold them britches up.

You don’t mind me calling you Harley?

Whatever suits you.

Thanks—Harley.

The old man was standing before the stove in the kitchen when the boy limped into the room wearing the blue work shirt and the old jeans rolled up at the cuff.

You seen my boots?

Cain tipped his head in the general direction of the porch. They’re sitting on the step. I hosed the blood off ’em best I could.

The boy returned wearing the still-wet boots and sat down at the table, where Cain had a stack of pancakes waiting.

You like griddle cakes?

Yessir.

Pour yourself some milk. It’s in the icebox.

The ‘icebox’?

What do you call it?

Dodger laughed. We call it a fridge.

The boy reached