"Sir?" Cy swiveled his head back. His heart bobbed up to his throat. "Nothing, Mr. Tucker. I've got nothing on my mind."

"I haven't been fourteen in a while," Tucker said easily. "But I remember what it was like. I remember what it was like to have a father with a heavy hand and a short fuse." Tucker glanced over, and his eyes were so full of understanding, Cy had to turn away again. You weren't limping when you got into the car, Cy."

The ball of fear in his belly spread. "I guess, I guess my leg's feeling better."

Tucker said nothing for a moment, then moved his shoulders. "If that's the way you want it."

They were driving along the skinny trickle of Little Hope now. Cy knew that they'd be coming up to the culvert in less than a mile. "I-I keep the bike down by the stream. In the culvert."

"All right. I'll drop you there if you want."

"Maybe you could…" Help me take it down. Help me wheel it down off the road and into the culvert where my daddy's waiting for you. You'll help me take it down, because you're willing to help when you're asked.

"Could what?"

Almost there. Almost there. Cy wiped the back of his hand over his dry mouth. It wasn't icy fear in his belly now, it was a sick green fist of horror. I just have to ask him, and he'll do it. And Cy caught the glint of light-reflected off the lens of binoculars. Or perhaps a knife.

"Stop! Stop the car!" In panic he grabbed at the wheel and nearly sent them into the stream.

"What the hell!" Tucker wrestled the wheel back and left the car diagonally across the road. "You lost your senses?"

"Turn the car around, Mr. Tucker, turn around. Christ almighty, go back." Sobbing, Cy leapt up and tried to turn the motionless car himself. "Please God, turn it around before he comes and kills us. He'll kill us both now."

"Just hold.on."

The Olds banked like a ship leaving port, then shot down the road. Cy huddled on his knees, sobbing against his clenched fists and staring out the rear window while the dead King sang about a hunk of burning love.

"He's going to come. I know he's going to come. My eyes, he's going to cut out my eyes." He doubled over, clutching his belly. Hysteria or not, Tucker veered to the shoulder. He yanked the boy out and held Cy's head while his body shuddered.

When Cy was down to dry heaves, Tucker pulled out a handkerchief and mopped the boy's face. "Try to breathe slow. You think you're done?"

Cy nodded, then began to cry. They weren't wild, wailing sobs, but soft, quiet ones that broke the heart. Baffled, Tucker sat in the open car door and patted Cy's head. "Get those out, too. I expect you'll feel better for it."

"I couldn't do it. I just couldn't. He'll kill me now."

"Who's going to kill you?"

Cy turned his blotched miserable face to Tucker's. Tucker thought he looked like a dog who'd already been beaten half to death and was just waiting for the final blow.

"It's my daddy. He told me to bring you down here. He told me I had to on account of Edda Lou, and if your eye offends you, you have to cut it out. I've been bringing him food every day. And I brought him his belt and a fresh shirt, the binoculars. I had to. And today I had to bring him the knife."

Tucker lifted Cy up by the shirtfront and shook some of the hysteria away. "Your father's back there in that culvert?"

"He was going to lay for you. I was supposed to bring you. But I couldn't." Cy's eyes wheeled around. "He could be coming right now. He could be coming. He's got those guns, too."

"Get in the car."

Cy figured he was going to jail for sure. He'd been aiding a fugitive and was an accessory after the fact, or something like it. But jail was better than having that knife carve out his eyes. "What're you going to do, Mr. Tucker?"

"I'm going to take you back to Sweetwater."

"Take me back? But-but-"

"And you're going to go inside, and you're going to call Sheriff Truesdale and tell him the whole thing." He aimed a hard look at Cy. "Aren't you?"

"Yes sir." Cy wiped tears from his cheeks. "I swear I will. I'll tell him where Daddy is. I'll tell him the whole thing."

"And you tell him he better get out here, quick, fast, and in a hurry." He turned through the gates of Sweetwater.

"I'll tell him. I'm sorry, Mr. Tucker, I was so scared."

"We'll talk about that later." Gravel spewed as he swerved to a stop. "Get on in there. If you can't get him at the office, you call him at home. Delia's got the number. You can't get Burke, you get Carl."

"Yes sir. What're you going to do?" He watched, wide-eyed, as Tucker popped the hood, tossed out the bike, then pulled out the shotgun. "You going back after him? Are you going after him, Mr. Tucker?"

Tucker broke open the shotgun, checked the load. His eyes lifted and fastened on Cy's. "That's just what I'm doing. You'd best tell Burke I've just deputized myself."

Cy turned and raced into the house.

Chapter Eighteen

Tucker didn't care to picture himself in a shoot-out. It just didn't sit right. As he sped back to Dead Possum Road, it occurred to him that this was the second time Austin had put him in the awkward position of carrying a gun.

It was damn irritating.

But he couldn't go back and sit on the porch, waiting for Burke and Carl to handle it. Not when he still had the picture of Cy's terrified face in his mind. Not when the scent of a young boy's fear was still hanging heavy in the car.

He'll cut my eyes out!

Where in Christ had the boy come up with that?

From his crazy, sick old man, Tucker concluded.

His face was set, his eyes the color of burnished bronze as he swung the car to the shoulder. He hefted the gun, then using the car as a shield, reached in the backseat for the binoculars Delia, and almost everyone else in Innocence, carried.

When he brought them up and focused, the concrete hump of the culvert jumped in front of his eyes. Slowly, he scanned, but saw nothing at the entrance, no movement along the slope of the Little Hope. Nothing in the field beyond.

He caught the glint of silver from the roofs of the mobile homes in the trailer park three miles away. Lowering his sights, he clearly saw Earleen's sister Laurilee step out of her trailor, take a swing from a can of Mountain Dew, and give a holler.

Calling the kids in for supper, Tucker thought absently, and slowly swung the binoculars away. He saw pigs rooting in the pen at Stokey's farm and the wash hanging on the line at the Marches', and a plume of dust toward town that might have been Burke riding out.

But on the fields and flats, nothing stirred. And the silence hung heavy, disturbed only by the stream croaking its way over rocks and mud and a few birds that sang disinterestedly in the hazy heat of the evening.

If Austin was waiting, he was waiting in the dim, dirty shadows of the culvert. There was only one way to find out.

Tucker took time to shove a few extra shells in his pocket, though he sincerely hoped he wouldn't have to use them. Keeping low, his eyes trained on the shallow entrance, he circled the culvert. When he got within five feet, he dropped down on his belly, the shotgun nestled on his shoulder.

"God, if You want to do me one favor in this lifetime, don't make me have to shoot this thing."

He took a deep breath, exhaled slowly.

"Austin! I reckon you know I'm out here." It wouldn't occur to him until later that his skin was bone dry, his hands rock steady. "You went to a lot of trouble to invite me out for a visit." He bellied his way to the slope of the bank. "Why don't you come on out and we can talk reasonable, or we can wait awhile until Burke comes along."

There was only silence from the culvert and the scream of a crow overhead.