Page 18 of Scythe & Sparrow
There’s a flash of lightning, illuminating something lying at the edge of the driveway. It’s peeking from between the first stalks of corn at the edge of the field.
An aluminum baseball bat.
In another flash of light, I imagine every moment of Rose’s injury. The way Matt Cranwell must have struck her. The force of his blow. The rage and malice painted across his face. Her agonized scream. I hear and see it all. Ifeelit. Just like I’m standing right there, watching it unfold.
Help.
Before I truly realize what I’m doing, I’m halfway up the drive and there’s no turning back. My gaze slices to that bat, the dented metal beaded with rain. My hands curl into fists. It takes every last thread of my restraint not to pick it up as I pass.
When I’m a few feet from the barn, the grinder stops, leaving only the quiet crackle of an old radio behind. I halt, but the thought of backtracking down the driveway doesn’t cross my mind. I just wait in the rain, listening as something heavy collides with metal. A handful of words passes through the narrow wedge of the open door, the tone gritty, the sentence disjointed. Cranwell is talking to himself, but beyond the occasional swear, I can’t make out much of what he’s saying. A moment later, a ratchet ticks as it tightens a bolt, and I take the opportunity to move closer to the light and peer inside.
Cranwell faces away from me. I haven’t met him many times, but I remember enough to recognize him, particularly with the strap of an eye patch biting into shining flesh at the back of hishead. There’s a buzz of an incoming call on the phone lying on the metal frame next to him. I watch as he wipes a hand on his overalls and answers on speaker.
“What do you want,” he bites out, not a question but a demand.
“I need to run to the pharmacy before it closes. Macie’s cough—”
“I thought I told you to make dinner.”
There’s a pause. I hear a child cough in the background of silence. I’d be willing to bet my medical license that she has bronchitis. “Yes, I’m sorry.”
“Then go make it.” Matt presses the screen to end the call and refocuses on the engine. “You will be, you dumb bitch.”
My blood surges, a wildfire in my veins. Heartbeats roar in my ears. I close my eyes, lost in a moment of memory. An image of a man much like Cranwell. Filled with hate and loathing. My father.
His face is so clear in my memory despite the years that have passed. There was rage in it the night he attacked us for the last time. I can vividly recall the split flesh of Rowan’s lip and Lachlan’s scream, the tip of his finger missing, a pulsing spurt of crimson blood left in its place. I can picture every detail of my father’s back as he turned it on me, ready to deliver another blow to whichever one of my brothers was willing to face him next. And I still remember the weight of the knife I had hidden in my hand …
“Sonofabitch,” Matt hisses. I dart back into the shadows. But it’s the banged-up utility terrain vehicle that he’s talking to. It isn’t me. He bends over the engine and cranks the ratchet. “Dumb ol’ piece of shit.”
That’s right. Youarea dumb ol’ piece of shit.
I slide back into the light and watch as Cranwell reaches deeper into the network of metal, his arm buried to the shoulder. I pull the sleeve of my jacket over my hand and push the door open to step inside the barn.
There’s a table to my left where the grinder sits discarded on a stainless steel worktop, the surface dull with scratches and spatters of grease. Tools are strewn next to it. A rusty hammer. A set of screwdrivers. A roll of steel wire and a hacksaw.
My fingers wrap around the matte blue handle of a wrench and I lift it from the table.
Lightning flashes beyond the windows, the glass caked with a film of dust. Thunder rattles the walls a heartbeat later, so loud it feels like the world is breaking apart. Cranwell’s back is still to me, his hand buried in the belly of the engine. Thunder and rain. The radio drones a soothing melody. We’re blanketed in sound. Our own cocoon.
One hit is all it would take. No one would hear him scream.
My hand tightens around the wrench as I take a step closer.
I see Rose’s face. Her fear. He did this to her. Just like he hurts his wife. Maybe his kids too. And he’ll keep doing it, just like my own father did. It never gets better. It just gets worse. The only thing that stopped my father was death. The same will be true of Matt Cranwell.
I could do it. I could deliver the blow that ends his miserable life.
Something creaks in the shadows on the other side of the room, and I stop, frozen in time.
“Papa. I fed the chickens.”
I duck behind the end of the table, pressing my body against the wall, the wrench still gripped in my hand. There’s a grunt fromCranwell, a clank of tools. “Good,” he grunts. “Get out of the rain. You can help me with this piece of shit.”
There are some shuffled footsteps, the sound of a raincoat being discarded somewhere. I peer around the corner of my hiding place and watch as Cranwell hands his son a flashlight and tells him to climb up on the frame to hold the light above the engine. The boy does as he’s told, and the two of them peer down into the heart of the vehicle, only a few words passing between them as Cranwell twists the ratchet in the engine.
What the fuck am I doing?
Hands shaking, I turn back into the shadows and press my eyes closed. This question seems inescapable. More multifaceted than I ever realized it could be. I’m adoctor, for fucksakes. I chose my profession specifically so that I could right the wrong I can never take back. I am agoodman. Not a dangerous one. So what the fuck am I doing even thinking about killing a man I barely know? What the hell is wrong with me?
