Father and Son by Larry Brown Page A

of the car open for the prisoner, then got behind the wheel of the cruiser and put the gun on the seat. He cranked the car and turned up the volume on the radio. Jake got in beside him and they pulled out.
    Traffic was slow this Sunday morning. Churchgoers rising to leisurely breakfasts and dressing in their good clothes, lawns mown, clean cars parked neatly in their drives. The streets lined with big oaks that gave a welcome shade. He eyed the prisoner through the rearview mirror, but Byers never lifted his head. Jake tapped his fingers on the roof.
    â€œWe ought to go fishin sometime, Bobby.”
    Bobby glanced at him and pulled up at a stop sign, looked both ways, and drove on through. “Fishin?” he said. “If the county would hire me about four more deputies I might have time to. Hell. I’d settle for a day off once in a while.”
    They drove around the square, the shops closed, the sidewalks empty, as if nobody lived there. Easing around it Bobby saw a pint whiskey bottlestanding beside a curb. He pulled up next to it and halted the car, then stepped out and picked it up. It still had a drink or two left in it. He got back in the car with it and turned to look at his prisoner.
    â€œYou want a drink?” he said. Byers nodded and mumbled something softly and Bobby passed him the bottle and watched him twist off the top with his cuffed hands and turn it up. Bobby looked at Jake. “Might be the last one he gets for a while.”
    Jake didn’t answer. Bobby shut the door and they drove on.
    There was a patch of plowed ground furred with young grass out by the old house and there was a clean low mound of dirt humped up in the center of it. A good crop of turnips in a row along one side. Jake was looking at the turnips and Bobby was looking at the dirt. Byers stood still handcuffed and looking off into the distance somewhere.
    â€œThem’s some pretty turnips,” Jake said.
    â€œWhere’s the shovel?” Bobby said. It was hot out there under the sun and he wanted to get it over with.
    Jake winced a little and said, “Shit.”
    Byers had put a dreamy look on his face and he pointed toward the side of the house. Bobby walked over there and found a shovel so worn the blade was thin like a knife, fresh dirt caked in dull brown clots. He got it by the handle and walked back out to the plowed ground where Jake was still admiring the little patch.
    â€œI swear them is some pretty turnips.”
    â€œGet over here and uncuff him, Jake.”
    Bobby stood holding the shovel until the bracelets were off and then he handed it to Byers.
    â€œDig,” he said.
    The prisoner walked the few steps to the mound of earth and studied it for a moment. He looked up at Bobby with nothing showing on hisface and then he sank the blade into the ground. He lifted a spadeful of dirt and threw it backward and without pausing reached in for another one. Bobby squatted on his heels and fished a cigarette from his pocket and watched him dig. He hadn’t dug long before the shovel hit something soft. Byers stopped digging and stared down into the dirt for a few moments. Then he dropped the shovel and went to his knees and started pulling at the soil with his hands, piling it to one side. Jake made a move to come forward but Bobby stopped him with his hand. Byers stayed on his knees, clawing with his fingers as he started breathing faster and moving his hands more rapidly. He began to resemble a dog digging his way beneath a fence as the dirt flew back and landed on his clothes. He moaned as he dug and he kept shaking his head and muttering so that Bobby had cause to wonder who he was talking to.
    The head and face emerged first, closely cropped coils of gray wire encrusted with dirt, small pockets of dirt cupped on the eyelids. Byers brushed it away gently, gently, a bone hunter exhuming fossils. He had stopped moaning now. He paused and looked up at Bobby.
    â€œShit fire,” Jake said