Page 71 of The River Is Waiting

I know he’s right.

On our second day of scraping, the work assignments get juggled—everyone’s but mine and Solomon’s. Piccardy isn’t going to buck authority, but Manny’s right: I need to watch my back. Things go without incident all morning.

At lunchtime, Piccardy leaves Goolsby in charge and takes off over the hill toward the facility. Later, when we get back to work, I can see from my vantage point on the ladder that he’s coming not from the prison but from the woods. Anselmo’s with him and his voice is the one that carries. “I thought you said this shit was mellow, but I’m fuckin’baked, man. I gotta sit.” When he plops down on the grass, Piccardy sits, too. Whatever he just said makes the two of them giggle.

I look down at Solomon to see whether he’s heard or seen any of this, but his attention is elsewhere. A turkey hen and her young are pecking and circling at the crest of the hill. If those are the same ones he’s watched so closely before, the chicks have grown. They must have started molting, because their birth fluff is mostly gone. When Solomon takes five or six steps toward them, the mother hisses and ruffles her feathers and her young scurry in different directions, then freeze in place. Solomon stops in his tracks and Momma somehow gives the all-clear. The poults unfreeze and rejoin her, resuming their scavenging for bugs and seeds. They’re about halfway between Solomon and the two stoned COs.

“Ten bucks says you won’t do it,” I hear Anselmo say. Do what, I wonder.

“The fuck I won’t,” Piccardy says. “One of those stupid birds put little dents in the door of my Mustang last week, right after I’d washed and waxed it. Saw its reflection and attacked it like it was an enemy. How dumb is that? Sanborn seen it when he was coming on shift and chased her away.”

He gets up off the ground and draws his canister of pepper spray out of its holster. Arms extended like he’s holding a Glock, he says, “This is for you, bitch!” and shoots. The mother hen takes a direct hit. She screams in ear-piercing agony, then falls over, beating her wings against the ground. Her panic-stricken young run around her in frenzied circles.

Laughing, Anselmo calls his buddy “one crazy motherfucker” and says he hopes no one comes across the injured bird and starts asking questions. Piccardy tells him he worries too much. Then he walks over to her and stomps her head. Picking her up by her feet, he rears back and flings her into the woods. “Don’t forget my ten bucks,” he reminds his bud.

It doesn’t dawn on me that Solomon’s just witnessed what I have until I see him charging Piccardy, his paint scraper raised like a weapon.

“No, Solomon! Stop!”

Alerted by my shouting, Anselmo and Piccardy turn and short-circuit his kamikaze assault. Anselmo grabs his wrist and twists it until Solomon cries out in pain and drops the scraper. Piccardy picks him up from behind,then slams him down against the ground. Solomon’s screaming, “You murdered her! You murdered their mother!” As Piccardy comes at him, Solomon curls into a fetal position.

I scramble down the ladder fast as I can to stop what’s happening. Piccardy presses his boot against Solomon’s neck, eases up, then kicks him in the head and in his side—once, twice. “Cut it out!” I yell.

Reeling around, he faces me, red-faced and furious. “Stay the fuck out of this, Ledbetter, or I’ll have you down on the ground next!”

Anselmo tells his buddy to calm down. “They’re not worth it,” he says. He looks scared, but Piccardy is still seething.

When a voice behind me asks what happened, I turn around and see Officer Goolsby. Lured by the commotion, the other crew members are standing behind him. “Stop dogging it and get back to work!” Piccardy screams at them.

“Nothing to see here,” Anselmo says.

Some of the guys look from Solomon to me, their faces asking what’s just gone down. I shake my head. Not now, maybe later. I can tell from the look on Goolsby’s face that he can’t figure out what’s happened either.

After the onlookers have been dispersed, I approach Solomon to see how badly he’s hurt, but Piccardy steps in front of me. “Weren’t you supposed to control this little psycho?” he says. “Isn’t that why I had to make sure you two worked together?”

I stand there, glaring back at him, saying nothing.

“You saw him try to attack an officer without provocation. And you had better corroborate that if there’s an investigation,” Piccardy says.

“But therewasprovocation. He saw you pepper-spray an innocent animal.”

His pupils are still dilated from the weed, but his eyes flash with hatred. He gets right up in my face. “You didn’t see a thing. Understand?” When I don’t respond, he says, “You saw nothing except this batshit-crazy little freak try to attack me out of the blue.” Spittle flies from his mouth and lands on my face. “And if you claim otherwise, I’ll make your life a livinghell. Got that? Now get back up on that ladder, Daddy, so that we can haul your twink out of here.” I stand there, hand in my pocket, fingering my river stone. “That’s an order,” he says. “Unless you want me to write you up for insubordination.”

“Yeah, go ahead,” I finally say. “You write me up for not following an order and I’ll write you up for what I saw you do.”

“Keep it up, big shot,” he says. “And I’ll fuckin’breakyou.”

“He means it,” Anselmo adds. “You better play it smart.”

Climbing the ladder as ordered, I look over my shoulder to see them pulling Solomon up on his feet. Piccardy shouts to Goolsby that they’ve got to take care of something, but they’ll be back before quitting time.

“Okay, boss,” Goolsby shouts back.

I climb higher and watch the three of them head off. Anselmo’s and Piccardy’s upper arms are hooked under Solomon’s armpits and they’re walking him backward. Half walking and half dragging him. The way Piccardy slammed him down on the ground, he might have injured him, and those kicks he delivered could have broken one or more of his ribs. From my vantage point, I watch them lead Solomon not toward the facility but into the woods. My better judgment says to stay put and scrape paint—that I can’t help him—but I climb down anyway.

Entering the woods where I saw them go in, I follow Piccardy’s voice. From behind the trunk of a good-sized oak tree, I watch what’s going on. They’ve got the kid down on his hands and knees. When Piccardy orders him to do it again, louder this time, Solomon barks like a dog. “I can’thearyou,” Piccardy keeps saying. He makes him repeat himself until the sound coming from Solomon is part barking, part sobbing. Seeing what those motherfuckers are doing makes me lightheaded. I have to lean against the tree to steady myself.

Anselmo asks him why he got so bent out of shape about some stupid turkey when he’s in prison for killing a bunch of defenseless dogs. “I don’t know!” Solomon cries. “I don’t know!”

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