Page 148 of The Reformatory

Be sure to get him in the water, Blue had said.

“You sure about that?” Robert said. “Then come and see. I dare you.”

Haddock laughed. His smile faded with a moment’s uneasiness, but then he smiled brighter than before. “You dare me?” he said. He pointed his gun at Robert so he could see the wide hole of the large revolver’s muzzle. Every part of Robert wanted to duck and run, but he held himself steady. Blue had told him to stay where he was no matter what.

“If you shoot me and you’re wrong… you’ll never see your stupid, nasty photos again,” Robert said. “Ever.”

“But I’m not wrong,” Haddock said. A gun sounded.

Robert thought he had died, until the water six feet beside Haddock sprayed and bubbled with a stray bullet and Haddock leaped away. Robert realized he had felt the bullet sail past him. He looked back at Crutcher, praying he was awake and alive—but Crutcher had not moved, his gun still abandoned. Of course not. The shot had come from behind him.

“Leave him alone!” Gloria’s shaky voice said. “That was just a warning. Drop your gun, or I’ll put the next one in your head!”

Robert whirled around, sure he had slipped into a dream. Gloria was standing near the bank, a small pistol raised like she meant it. Gloria barely seemed real, dressed in too-big men’s pants, talking like a mobster with a gun in her hand. If he was dreaming his sister so vividly, maybe he’d dreamed these past days at the Reformatory too. If Blue hadn’t told him to stay exactly where he was, Robert would have run to her.

The only person more shocked to see Gloria was Haddock, squinting his eyes in her direction, pointing his gun toward her instead. That was the only way Robert was sure she was real, and pain bloated his belly. He’d never thought Gloria would come to try to find him, although now it seemed he should have known he would lose everyone he loved. Mama first. Then Papa. And now Gloria was in a place she shouldn’t be, face-to-face with a man who was the closest Robert had seen to the devil himself. Nothing had been right for him in the world for as long as he could remember, so of course Gloria was about to get killed while he watched.

“I’ll be goddamned,” Haddock said. “That explains this whole thing. You had help.” He didn’t sound the least bit concerned about the gun. He’d flinched at the gunshot, but now he was at his full height again. The bloodhound barked angrily at Gloria, tugging hard on his leash.

“Put the gun down!” Gloria said again, although her voice was less steady.

“Who is that, Robert?” Haddock said. “Is she kin to you?”

Robert didn’t answer, as if telling would cause Gloria immediate harm. If he moved at all, Haddock might shoot her. Or he might shoot him to spite her. Gloria didn’t have good pistol aim—she was just playing a part to try to seem scarier—but Robert was sure Haddock loved to practice.

“Ahhh…,” Haddock said, and a small smile returned to his face. “I bet that’s the sister who came to visit on Sunday. Is that when y’all hatched this crazy idea? Is she the one who cut the fence?”

“Drop your gun!” Gloria said again, screaming with rage now, although clearly Haddock had no plans to obey her. Her gun seemed to mean nothing to him.

“With all due respect, miss,” Haddock said, turning to Gloria, “I admire your gumption, but I will not. I’m betting that wasn’t a warning shot; you just missed. Now, you can come closer and try to shoot me again with that little lady pistol, but I guarantee you Robert will be dead before you can get a bead on me. You’re lucky you didn’t clip your brother at that angle. I think we both know that, don’t we?”

Robert heard Gloria breathing faster, frustrated and frightened. Blue landed on the tree branch, watching as a crow. He cawed so Robert would see him. Finally!

Robert’s relief died when Haddock fired back at Gloria, and wood chipped from the tree trunk near her head. Gloria ducked away with a shriek, splashing in the water. Robert felt faint with worry that she’d been shot, but she was stirring behind the brush, climbing to the bank to hide. The dog barked and growled madly now, wading toward Haddock.

“Now, that was a warning shot,” Haddock said. “See the difference? But I’m not gonna kill you yet, little miss. I want you to see this.”

Robert covered his ears, which were ringing terribly from gunfire so close, especially the ear Red McCormack had hurt. “Gloria, get back!” Robert yelled to her. “I don’t need your help!”

Again Haddock looked at Robert with nervous confusion. He was more worried about Robert than he was about Gloria. Maybe, deep down, he knew.

“What’s got into you?” Haddock said.

“Now, Blue!” Robert shouted. “What are you waiting for?”

Haddock crouched slightly, looking over his shoulder to make sure no one else was coming. When nothing on the bank moved, Haddock canted his head as he glared at Robert. “You’ve wasted enough of my time. I’m getting that envelope back. Move an inch and I’ll shoot you where it’ll hurt most.” Haddock waded toward Robert, so close that Robert could see his rage-reddened eyes. “First I’m gonna kill you… then I’ll get your sister too.”

The water around Robert’s knees turned cold, as if he were standing in the freezer. He thought the cold might be from fear, his limbs losing sensation—until the fog began to rise.

In his last moments of life, Fenton J. Haddock thought about his baby sister.

It was a lie to say he’d never wanted a sister. The idea had seemed fine at first: someone to dress up, someone to tease who couldn’t cuss him like his mother or beat him like his grandfather, who had once made a living whipping slaves he tied to an oak tree on the McCormack plantation. But he’d quickly learned that a baby drained away what little time and care his parents had for child-rearing, and it wasn’t long before he’d hated how they only smiled at Lucy and never at him. They didn’t notice whole days he missed school or the wild rabbits he caught to torture in cages in the barn. Lucy had been staring up at him with those giggles that turned so easily to tears, and one day he’d had enough of his parents’ new favorite pet. He didn’t plan it out or choose the day; he simply picked up her blanket and covered her face until her crying stopped. He wasn’t sure she was dead at first, since he hadn’t pressed the blanket especially hard. He was a little surprised at the new color of her face, how her breathing had stopped along with her wailing. But he made his peace with it.

He’d been more superstitious as a boy, thinking God would storm into his room and drag him straight to hell. But it never went that way. If anything, he gained more sweets and a later bedtime because his parents coddled him after Lucy died. Maybe he tried to make it up to Lucy by brushing her thin hair so pretty and heating up the iron all by himself so her dress wouldn’t have a wrinkle on the photo-taking day. But while he posed with her on the sofa with her feeble weight on his lap, her skin cold, eyes closed, he felt certain that Lucy would exact her revenge one day. Sure enough, that very night, a drinking glass flung itself from his nightstand and broke to pieces on his bedroom floor. A piece of glass he missed when he tried to clean up the mess cut his foot so deeply that it had left a blood puddle that could never be washed away from the wood. That was the first of his long association with spiteful haints.

And this ordinary summer day in Gracetown might be his last. Haddock suspected it as soon as the creek turned to ice water, but he only knew when Kendall Sweeting appeared in front of him, blocking his view of Robert Stephens, solid as living flesh. Even Colonel saw Sweeting, the dog yanking so hard on the leash that he finally freed himself as Haddock’s hand went slack.

“You,” Haddock said, the last word he would ever speak.