Russell reached for a piece of fish and Consuela folded her hands and bowed her head. Russell stopped and he and Mitchell waited while Consuela said her grace and then there was no more waiting.
Russell wanted to talk about his mother. About her last months and about the funeral but it didn’t seem like the right time. So instead he talked about how hot it was and how good the place looked. When they were done Consuela cleaned up and Mitchell and Russell went outside and smoked cigarettes. When Consuela finished she met the men outside. Father and son sat down in rockers and Consuela stepped out into the yard and began walking toward the statue. She stopped in front and paused. Gazed at the concrete face. Then she began walking around again with her eyes toward the ground as if she were looking for something.
“What’s she doing?” Russell asked.
“Walking around. Does it every night. Sometimes you can hear her singing to herself. Pretty songs. Sad sounding songs. Reminds me of your momma humming to herself when she was in the kitchen or working around in her flowers.”
The twilight surrounded them now. The first crickets chirped. An evening breeze. They watched Consuela. Her arms behind her back like a schoolchild in line. And then she started to sing and her voice blended with the coming night.
“Still think it’d be best if you stayed out here with us,” Mitchell said.
“Still think it’s best I don’t,” Russell said and he thought of Larry and Walt being there. Promising to come back. He knew they’d follow him wherever he went.
“What’d you do with the gun?”
“Sold it at the pawn shop.”
“Damn you, Russell.”
“Got thirty bucks.”
“Thirty bucks?”
“I’m kidding, old man.”
Consuela reached the pond and began making her way around it and she was only a silhouette in whatever light was left.
“How long does she do this for?” Russell asked.
“Don’t know. Sometimes I’m back inside before she’s done.”
Russell got them two more beers and they sat and rocked. Russell started to say something about finding a house to paint but he liked it better with nothing to say. Consuela finally came back and she went into the house and got a beer for herself and she sat down with the men.
“You know it. Don’t you?” Mitchell said.
“Know what?”
His father drank. Paused.
“It’s a pretty night,” he said.
“That ain’t what you were about to say.”
“No. It ain’t.”
“Then what?”
“Just that he’s gonna come for you, Russell.”
“He already has.”
“He ain’t all there. Never has been.”
“I’m aware.”
Mitchell raised from the chair and stood at the edge of the porch. He spit into the yard and looked out at the deepening night and said he’s gonna come and keep on coming. Until he thinks he’s done.
22
LARRY SAT IN THE TRUCK WITH HIS ARM HANGING OUT THE OPEN window. The truck was parked on the street in front of Russell’s house and the windows were down and the radio was turned low. A crowbar and empty beer cans rested on the seat beside him. He started out simply riding. After a few he’d kept on riding. Now he was parked and trying to figure out the best way to put another scare into the man who killed his brother.
Larry was known as the tall one because he stood a head taller than any man in the Tisdale family, all of whom lined up nearly identical at six feet. Grandfathers, uncles, brothers, all of them. Six years separated him and his brothers, the youngest to the oldest. All of them had square foreheads and chins and kept their black hair cut short and parted on the left and their mouths were small and serious. He was the oldest. And the youngest had been in the dirt for eleven years.
His problem was that he was as loyal as a dog and he thought everyone else should be the same way. Over the years that had kept him in parking lot fights over girls and then later in bar fights over women. And it had kept him thinking about the day that Russell Gaines was going to be set free.