Kentucky Straight: Stories by Chris Offutt

Author:Chris Offutt [Offutt, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
ISBN: 978-0-307-79181-8
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2011-04-12T16:00:00+00:00

Cody listened to the tape recorder humming in the silence. Night had spread across the land and into the house, and he could see the humped outline of Tar Cutler dead beneath the quilt. Cody ejected the cassette. He glanced again at Tar, expecting him to lean forward and grin at the prank. A mouse scurried along Tar’s stiffened arm.

Drops of rain rustled leaves outside, thudding against the sheet metal roof. Water dripped through the ceiling and landed in a bucket, loud as a pistol shot. Cody stood sideways in the door, not wanting to look at the bed, afraid to turn his back on the corpse. Everything was wrong. He ran to the yard and placed the tape on an oak chopping block. A hickory-handled ax leaned against it.

“The wicked shall be cut off in darkness,” Cody muttered.

He raised the ax and brought it down hard, scattering shards of plastic. He chopped and chopped until his arms were weary and the noise of the ax died away in the drizzling rain. Thunder rumbled low along the hilltops. He lifted his chin, panting, the ax dangling from his hand. He’d never felt so full of God’s glory.

A breeze brought Tar’s smell from the open door. Cody covered his nose. If he waited in the house while the storm passed, the low pressure and humidity would make the smell unbearable. He hurried along the dark path, his flashlight a dull gleam against the woods.

Halfway out the ridge, lightning hit a tree above his head. After a few seconds the lightning shot from the ground in front of him, having followed the tree to a root and struck a buried rock. Cody dropped the ax and began running down the steep hill. Branches tore at his face and he fell, tumbling in the dark. The flashlight shattered. He crawled to a hickory and crouched in its shelter.

Lightning cracked again, and in the sudden light Cody thought he saw movement in the woods. When the next quick flash came, he realized he’d gone down the back side of the hill and was hiding in the shadow of Shawnee Rock. He shivered, jaw tight. He pulled the small red Bible from his pocket and opened it. Rain began dissolving the glue that bound the pages to the spine. Wet paper flew like tissue in the wind. Cody trembled on his knees, watching the pages vanish in the darkness.

Wind and thunder bellowed above him. He curled his body around the tree trunk. The top was jerking wildly, and he could feel the roots pull from the earth. The ground was lifting beneath his body. A gust yanked the hickory from the soil, tipping Cody along the slope. He rolled onto his back and saw the heavy trunk falling toward him. A Bible page was plastered to the bark. Cody closed his eyes. He wished he had some whiskey and a gun.

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