Free The Brat by Gil Brewer Page B

Burma fishing poles leaved against the side of the main house. Fish nets were strung in webs across a row of sawhorses just up the riverbank. Down by the pier I noticed an air boat, two skiffs, and a rowboat. With daylight, I could see the beginnings of the swamp now, where the river fanned out. A buzzard, the first of the day, wheeled high and slow in tight circles.
    Then I saw Berk Kaylor leaning against the rear corner of the house. Showing just beyond the corner was the rear of a fender-dented Mercury convertible that had once been cream-colored. The top was missing.
    Kaylor watched us as we moved toward the house.
    “Berk,” Luz said, hitching at his jeans. “Look what come drifting in.”
    Kaylor said nothing.
    Luz and I paused for a moment in the yard. Kaylor didn’t move. He wore khaki shirt and trousers, the cuffs jammed into worn old Army combat boots. His thick hair was combed slick and back from his forehead, his face burned dark from the sun. He leaned there, hands in pockets, waiting.
    “Ain’t you going to say nothing to him?” Luz said.
    “I don’t reckon so,” Kaylor said.
    “You said you had plenty to say to him,” Luz said.
    Kaylor didn’t speak.
    “All that damned hollering you done was down a barrel, that right?” Luz said, spitting a string of amber into the cool dust.
    Kaylor spat, kept looking at the two of us.
    “Sullivan!”
    I turned toward the porch at the front of the house. A quickly moving dark-haired girl peered at me across the two-by-four railing, then ran off the porch and over across the yard toward us. Her eyes were on me, as black as her hair, and she was smiling.
    It was Rona.
    She had changed. She had filled out in what are called the “right places,” and there was something new about the way she moved and spoke. She wore tight blue jeans and a white shirt tucked securely into the slim belted waist. Her moccasins kicked up the dust at she ran up.
    “Sullivan! What are you doing here?”
    She stopped and stood in front of me, legs slightly apart, hands on hips, head cocked to one side. Her breasts moved full and quick beneath the taut white shirt, and Rona Helling was truly something to see.
    “Well?” she said. “What
are
you doing here?”
    “Hello, Rona.”
    Luz spat.
    “I’m looking for your sister Evis.”
    Luz said something I didn’t get, and moved off toward the house. I glanced over at Kaylor. He hadn’t moved from the corner of the house. He was staring at the ground in front of his feet.
    “Sullivan?” Rona said quickly, softly. She kept smiling at me, standing in the same position, but speaking very quietly, so Kaylor couldn’t hear what she said.
    “See the edge of the field, over yonder? Past the far side of the house, by that shed?”
    She didn’t turn, or look away. I glanced over beyond the front porch, then nodded.
    “You go over there and wait for me. Don’t go in the house, Sullivan. Just do as I say.”
    “All right.”
    I was plenty worried about Hugo DeGreef showing. I wanted to get out of sight, and I couldn’t figure Rona at all. It was almost as if everything had stopped to wait for me, as if a stage were set.
    “Sullivan,” she whispered. “Oh, Sullivan, I’m glad you came back.”
    I started to reply, but she turned quickly and moved on around the rear of the house, her body gracefully effortless under the tight, worn denim.
    When I looked toward the corner of the house, Berk Kaylor was gone.

Chapter 9
    L UZ H ELLING was inside the house. I heard his voice and the low, disparaging tones of a woman speaking. Not Rona, who had vanished into the backyard. And not the grandmother. I listened intently. It wasn’t Evis.
    The sun came down hot now. I had this trapped feeling, and it wouldn’t go away. Any minute, DeGreef might show.
    I had to get inside the house. Rona had acted damned queer, warning me away. What had she wanted? Was Evis in there?
    Crossing the yard, I stepped onto the porch.
    Everything was still. I moved