Grabs you by the throat and doesn't let go until the very last page

- Bestselling Author Marius Gabriel

Excerpt

Chapter 4
The Hunters

Keller sat in the stationery Chevy. He had his father’s ashes strapped into the seat belt on the passenger seat beside him, along with a bag containing Othaniel Baye’s personal effects:

A wedding ring – no inscription.

A fake Shinola watch, which was still keeping time but the Roman numerals for IX and X had fallen off, so that the time between eight o’clock and eleven o’clock stretched eerily. Keller put the watch on his wrist and looked through the rest of his father’s belongings. Mostly they were from the first prison, before his crime was upgraded to capital.

There were several certificates detailing qualifications in mechanics and an Enhanced Driver’s License. Othaniel would have been hoping, back when he was first incarcerated, to land himself a decent job as a prisoner.

There were some faded pajama bottoms.

A diary, with no entries. Keller shook his head at that. ‘Dumbest thing I ever saw.’

Couple of pair sneakers.

A wallet with photos. Keller took out the picture of his father and Aunt Joya. They looked younger there than Keller was now. They were going somewhere in fine clothes, laughing, both of them. His father wore a suit with a vest. There was still hope in Othaniel’s eyes.

Keller got out of the Chevy with the carryall and walked towards Greensboro’s South Main Street. He slung the bag up on his shoulder and slowly ripped the photograph in half, dropping Aunt Joya on the sidewalk. He walked up to a homeless man outside Kitty’s Nails. The guy wasn’t begging, just sat hunched by the doorway. His foot was rattling, in the aftermath of some substance ingestion most likely, and the little sandy dog at his side fixed his stare on that trembling foot. Keller stared at the man’s shoes, as he did every time he passed a homeless person. But there was nothing remarkable about these scruffy loafers. Keller put down the carryall next to the odd couple and walked away. Neither the man nor the dog seemed to notice.

For the ashes, Keller had no idea where to take them. He’d hoped something on the landscape would speak to him as he’d been driving from the mortician’s, but nothing had suggested itself. If he was honest, he could barely remember living in a place with his father. His memories were more an awareness of a time when his father was simply present, there in the house, there in his life, but he struggled to see him at a table with a plate of food in front of him, or shaving at a bathroom mirror, or ever being out in the yard. Keller had no photographs of their own home, when he had lived with his dad down in Fayetteville, but he guessed Joya had ditched all that. There was nothing left of them.

In the end, Keller took the ashes down to Horsepen Creek which held significant memories for himself at least. Lots of alright memories and one very bad one, in the denser part of the forest. He would stay well away from that area. Keller walked by the river for a half mile or so to be clear of the dog walkers and then studied the urn to see how it opened. It was easy enough, just newly sealed.

The water was moving slowly on the Creek as the heat built to full summer and the ashes settled on the surface as one shape, like a grey continent, breaking only when it slipped over boulders. Keller took off his shoes and sat on a rock near the edge of the river, with his feet in up to the ankles. He wished his father could have been to this place with him just once. He tried to think of something meaningful to say, not a prayer exactly but something about the man who gave him life.

His teacher had told Keller he had a way with words. He couldn’t remember her name, Miss Rake or Miss Rooney or something. She’d taught him over at Jefferson too, when he lived with his dad. Always seemed to have a word of encouragement for Keller. She used to call him ‘son’. C’mon son, nice looking boy like you. Get your head down into those books. Make something of yourself. I know you can. She’d pick up a hunk of his untended blond mop and pretend to tug. She even brought him novels from home, White Fang and Johnny Tremain. He could see the book covers now in his mind’s eye. That teacher came to see Aunt Joya on one occasion but she didn’t get past the front porch. Now Keller couldn’t even remember that lady’s name. Was it Rook? Miss Rook? Many times, he thought he’d seen her since school but it was just wishful thinking. Whenever he got close, it turned out to be someone else. Even after the execution, he thought he saw her at the press conference, sitting near the back but when he looked for her afterwards, there was no sign.

Keller turned the empty urn around in his hands. There was no inscription, Keller couldn’t see the point. He wasn’t keeping the urn. The mortician had just typed up a sticky label with his father’s name and date of passing. Keller peeled off the label and pressed it inside the back pocket of his new jeans.

There was nothing in Keller’s head to say to his father. He looked around the huge tulip poplars lining the Creek. Impossible to tell which one had held the old rope swing he’d used as a boy but Keller left the urn at the foot of a particularly grand specimen.

It had taken Othaniel Baye just under nine minutes to die.

 

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