“What girls?” she said.
“I think they’re runaways. I think bad guys are making them sell themselves.”
His mother’s eyes were blazing. “Is this true, Rueben?”
“Yes,” he said. “We didn’t want you to worry.”
She looked at me. “See? You have your answer, Mr. Broussard. Would you like a piece of chicken?”
“I don’t think so.” I looked at the heads of the animals on the walls. “Did you know both the Old Testament and Saint Paul teach the protection of animals? Try the Book of Hosea 2:18. Or Isaiah 11:6–9.”
“You’re a bunny-hugger, huh?” Vickers said.
“Why don’t you guys fence in a big area in the desert and hunt each other?” I said. “Declare a three-day open season on people, put your jockstraps on outside your pants, and blow your neighbors to shit.”
“You get out of this house,” Vickers said. His son was rising from the table, a fork in his hand.
“You went up to Moon Child’s room, Mr. Vickers,” I said. “Did you want to see the job finished?”
He clenched my arm with one hand and tried to work me toward the door. Then I did something I h
ad never done with an older man. I ripped his hand from me and slammed him against the wall. “If you ever touch me again, I’ll tear off your arm and kick it up your ass,” I said. Then I slammed him into the wall again, shaking the glass of his gun cases. Mrs. Vickers’s mouth hung open.
I went out the door, the rain swirling in my face. I thought it was over. I should have known better. The greatest fear in men like Rueben Vickers is personal failure; they will destroy the earth rather than admit they’re wrong. He came after me.
“Step back,” I said, my car door half-opened.
“Apologize.”
“Before you hit me with the quirt at Mr. Lowry’s farm, you said your ancestors were burned to death by the Comanche. Is that true?”
His face was beaded with rainwater, his hair in his eyes. “What do you care?”
“I don’t,” I said. “I just thought you’d like to know they’re still out there.”
“You say the Comanche are still setting people on fire? Are you crazy?”
“I know two people who have seen them. They’ve heard their victims screaming.”
“You’re lying.”
“They’re coming for you, aren’t they? That’s what all this is about.”
He put his hand in front of my face as though trying to push back my words. “You’re a sick man,” he said.
“What drives you, Mr. Vickers?”
“Get away from me.”
“Your son put a playmate in an abandoned refrigerator, didn’t he?” I said. “You can’t get that image out of your head.”
His eyes were ball bearings, his face peppered with rain. I got into my car and drove away. He never moved.
Chapter Twenty-One
THE RAIN WAS still falling when I picked up Jo Anne at eleven p.m. and drove her home. She hardly spoke. The headlights of other vehicles made shadows on her face like dark water running down window glass. I told her nothing of my visit to the Vickers home.
“Did you think over my proposal?” I asked, half-smiling, my throat catching.