Hell Enough
JARYD PORTER
The Dunham ranch was a few miles out of town, down a long, flat dirt road. The house was a burnt dirt color with blue paint chipping from the skirt of its porch and its windowsills. A wooden sign kicked back and forth in the wind, shaped like a coat of arms with the motif of a griffin. Lettering across the breast and abdomen of the beast read Dunham Den. My old Caddy kicked up a dirt storm behind us. It was a wall at our backs, closing in slowly. The feeling of no way out. The feeling of too-late-to-turn-back.
Our tank was almost empty, but all the pumps in town had shut down. The town of Ithaca, Kansas, had felt shut down itself. We weren’t about to push a Cadillac to Liberal. The gas station attendant had recommended we stay at the ranch and come back in the morning.
“This is a good thing.” Luna whipped her head around, long, straight black hair brushing my shoulder. She spoke so fast that I had to stop and think. She didn’t wait for me to catch up. “It’s good, because we can recuperate. Ya know? Put our heads together on this thing.”
“Luna, I’ve got a bad fuckin’ feelin’ about—”
“Eddy, dude, fuck your bad feelings. Shelve it, box it up, ship it out, fuck it.”
Luna turned down Aretha Franklin for the first time in hours. The thumping in the back seat picked up. Luna twisted the dial and Ms. Franklin’s R-E-S-P-E-C-T got louder. I got the impression of what it meant to her, too. I got the impression that it would mean a lot to Luna if I could get tough and get over my bad feelings.
I pulled the car up a few feet from the front porch’s steps at the end of the dirt circle drive. I got out of the car, then helped Luna out. She took my hand and turned her head away from me. She wore a long-sleeved cropped sweater and cargo shorts with chains dangling over the sides. A clean bandage wrapped around her calf. Her neck was long, swan-like, and exposed. A tattoo of a black widow crawled from the lobe of her left ear toward her jugular vein. A spider web spanned the space in between.
“I can walk fine, dude.” She hid her limp well, strolling easily.
Mr. Dunham met us at the door. His neck sagged and jowls hung from once-squared jaws. A thick mustache swallowed his upper lip, completely gray in color and shining like Mr. Dunham’s slick hair. His baby blue dress shirt was tucked into a pair of even lighter blue jeans. His bolo tie had a pin made of jet at its center.
“Well, now, you must be that young couple who rang. It’s not like young’uns to call ahead, but, let me be certain, me and the misses appreciate it! Come on in and have a seat in the den. The name’s Kenneth Dunham. I’m the ranch’s owner, but the proprietress is my lovely wife, Jeannie.” He held the door open for us.
I shook his hand and headed in. “Nice to meet you. I’m Edward and—”
“Luna Dan. Eddy’s girlfriend,” Luna said. “We’re on a little road trip and low on gas, so we’re very, very thankful for a place to sleep, Mr. Dunham.”
Jeannie Dunham crocheted some unrecognizable red-and-white blob on the couch. She hadn’t stood up when we walked in, but she smiled the whole time. Her gray twin braids rested neatly over her shoulders and her baby blue eyes were magnified by her thick lenses. She nodded along with her husband and hummed.
“Luna Dawn,” Mrs. Dunham repeated. “Such a pretty name.”
“How do two kids like you meet? School?” Mr. Dunham guessed. “One of those dating games they put on the phones now?”
I resented the question. He implied that someone who looked like me wouldn’t organically bump into someone like her. Or maybe I brought that implication with me. A chip on my shoulder about my mama who had light skin and no accent and who married my papa. My papa was “Black as Birmingham.” He had a Southern fast-talk and loved to sing and dance. That was how my parents met: singing and dancing.
“A concert,” I said. “Luna tore up the floor, and I had to dance with her.”
“Dipshit,” she whispered, stepping close to me. “I don’t dance. Especially not on this leg. What the fuck?”
“Now, that’s delightful! That’s how me and Jeannie met!” Mr. Dunham howled, clapping his hands. My lie breathed so much life into the old man. “Square-dancing down in Oklahoma. Showed her some of my Kansas charm, heh.”
“You’ve gotta show us!” Mrs. Dunham begged, setting down her crochet nightmare.
Luna’s face turned red. She glared at me and pulled her lips tight. She’d rather slap me than dance with me, and the whole sham would crumble on that one request from Mrs. Dunham.
“It’s not the kinda dancing I’d do in a nice Christian home, Mrs. Dunham,” I said. “I don’t think you’d much like the music, either.”
Mr. Dunham chuckled. “That’s mighty considerate, Edward. I appreciate your restraint. If that’s the case, we’ll just have to take your word. Anyway, we’ll get to know each other plenty on the tour. I’ll show you around Dunham’s Den.”
“Of course, Mr. Dunham. We’re right with you.” I took Luna’s hand.
“Please, call me Kenneth. You an Edward or an Eddy?”
“Eddy, truthfully. My dad’s Edward Senior.”
“Hah! That makes us two Juniors! You look it more than me, I must admit.”
Jeannie Dunham wasn’t so aloof. She set aside her big pins and shuffled over to us. “I’m sorry, dear, if I made you uncomfortable,” she said to Luna. “It’s nice to have company and you seem like such a sweet couple. If I ever step on your toes, please let me know.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Dunham,” Luna said.
“I beg you, dear, call me Jeannie.” She pinched Luna’s bicep. Luna let go of my hand and walked with Jeannie, following a few steps behind me and Kenneth.
The Dunhams made me nervous with their country kindness, and how they talked as if we were staying for a while. If we followed our plan and disappeared the next morning, our tour of their ranch might’ve been our last interaction with the couple.
Kenneth walked me through his dining room, showing me his heirloom wooden chairs and table set. His great-grandfather had been a carpenter. I told him that I’d helped my dad make bunk beds for my little brothers. He laughed and said that he wished either of his sons were handy, briefly lamenting that he was the last craftsman in the Dunham line.
“If you’d come a little earlier, we’d have prepared a couple of plates for you at dinner.” Jeannie fixed her hands to her hips and sighed. “Help yourself to anything in the kitchen, if you get hungry.”
They took us on a tour of the house and, eventually, we all headed out the back door and through a blooming floral garden. Kenneth led me to his shed, while Jeannie took Luna around her garden. I had a hard time imagining Luna interested in gardening, but maybe I didn’t know her as well as I thought I did. From the garden, I noticed a rear entrance to the garage, but I didn’t ask about it. Instead, I followed Kenneth across the close-cut grass to a small shed.
The shed was set up like a woodshop. A few tables and vices, a belt sander, but nothing too fancy. A set of chair legs laid on a shelf, a bookshelf without shelves standing by one of the shed’s big windows, and other projects he’d begun but never finished. Sawdust had been swept into neat piles. I looked out the window, watching Luna on Mrs. Dunham’s tour.
Little stepping stones made a path between the fenced-in vegetables. When we’d come to town, we’d seen nothing but dirt. Even the drive up to their ranch had been dirt and patchy grass, but her garden surged with life. Mrs. Dunham took long, spry steps between the stones, much more able than I’d have guessed when I saw her seated and crocheting in the living room. Luna struggled to keep up, but quickly found her pace. I heard Mrs. Dunham suggest that Luna stretch more often, unaware of the bullet wound in her calf.
“It’s a beauty, ain’t it?” Kenneth chuckled, joining me by the window. “Prettier view by miles than what’s inside my little woodshop. I start projects, but I prefer to watch her work.”
“Gorgeous garden,” I said.
“Gorgeous girl, too. Haven’t proposed, yet?” Kenneth nudged me.
I laughed. “What? No.”
“Might be that I’m just old-fashioned, but you’re on the road together and you seem glued together.” Kenneth hummed to himself. “I’m of the mind you shouldn’t waste happiness. While you’re still young, Eddy.”
Happiness wasn’t what we shared, though.
I went out to the car and grabbed our duffel bags in the back seat. Thankfully, the sun was down. It was hot in the trunk and we couldn’t do anything to change that. I thought I heard my name when I slammed the car door shut.
Before I brought in the duffels, I walked to the trunk and whispered to it. “I’ll be out in a few hours.”
The room was small. There was a double bed, a dresser, a couch, and a nightstand. Based on how cramped the room was, I guessed that it used to be a second bedroom with a twin bed or two. It was dusty, seldom-used, and decorated with antique brass lamps with floral lampshades, wine red curtains, and a heavy wooden bedframe with a leaf motif hand-carved into it.
Luna lounged on the bed, scrolling her phone. “Took your time.”
“Are you being curt with me?”
“What?”
“Like, rude, Luna.”
“I know what curt means, dumbfuck. I’m not your sweetheart or your girlfriend.” Luna sat up, her hair matted in the back from the pillow.
I sat down next to her, hands folded in my lap. “I don’t want you to be. It’s a role. We were always friends. Let’s just be friendly and do what needs to be done.”
“If either of us were capable of that shit, it’d be done. I wouldn’t have to take a trip out to the car.”
“I can go,” I said.
She put her hand on my back, her whole body trembling. Her leg must’ve been flaring up. “I’m fuckin’ sorry. Questioning your intentions and shit, that’s fucked up. It’s just a lot to shoulder and sometimes I feel like I’m shouldering it alone, Ed.”
“He was my brother, Luna. This is ours to carry.”
I fished the gun from my duffel bag. It was a Glock, but I didn’t know much more than that. It’d belonged to my brother.
Luna laid down. “I need to sleep. That bitch Jeannie drained me.”
“They’re nice people.”
“No. Stop that shit. You’re gonna go out there and siphon the riding mower for gas. We don’t do that to nice people. Put every annoying thought about them in your head when you do it, so you don’t get cold feet about it.” She shut her eyes tight, brows furrowed, frown deep.
My insomnia was seasonal. I had sat in bed and read with Jeannie until she fell asleep with her book over her face. I turned off her lamp, and headed down to the kitchen. Whole house felt like a different landscape by night. Everything went ghostly around the house since Benson and Junior moved out. Those boys were always up late drinking and smoking during their teen years. I was up late pretending not to know what that wacky smell in the air was or why they were so giggly, but I made sure they lost their keys if I smelled fire water. I lost Benson’s keys often. He was a different color, but this Eddy fella reminded me of my boy Benson.
I stared out the kitchen window, admiring the garden at night, visited by a cluster of mating lightning bugs. Gold and green pockets of light floated above orange, violet, red petals. And they say the lightning bug is dying out. It had taken me some time to find beauty in a landscape I’d taken for granted. Past our yard was the property and past our property, beyond our fences, were the plains. Every night my sleep failed me, I came down to that window and dreamed of being a breeze through that tall grass. I hadn’t heard from Benson or Junior in years, so I prayed for their health and faith. I hoped they could feel that they had a home here, should they need it. Time softened me this way.
There was a light in the garden. That blue light that phone screens make. I would never confuse that sickening glow for a proper flashlight. The glow came from the back door into the garage, tucked behind the garage’s geometry. Someone was breaking into my garage. I thought to wake everyone, but I didn’t want to alert the thief, either.
I tiptoed to the garage door. The only three points of access were from the kitchen, the backyard, and the driveway. I stood in the laundry room, reached on top of the detergent cabinet, and grabbed Pa’s rifle, an S&W i-Bolt I’d nicknamed “Reconciliation.” It was bolt-action and more than enough for a car thief. I chambered a .270 Winchester round and slipped four more rounds into my pajama shirt pocket before I stepped into the garage.
There was no thief, but the whole concrete box reeked of gasoline. I found a couple dribbles by our riding mower. The couple had complained about the gas station in town being closed and needing a place to rest for the night. It seemed they had other things in mind. I snuck back toward the kitchen. I aimed to head back to the bedroom and wake up Jeannie. If the youngsters meant danger, I wouldn’t put my Jeannie at risk. I took one step from the laundry room tile onto the kitchen wood when I heard the front door open and saw that blue light shine on in.
I ducked into the laundry room, rifle tight against my chest. I closed my eyes and listened to creaking leather around a bullish, heavy body. Eddy did his best to creep, but those leather boots of his stomped and the house creaked with every step.
I peeked around the corner when a box of white light shone from the kitchen. Eddy dug through the fridge for leftovers, going for the roast, cornbread, green beans, scalloped potatoes, and peach cobbler. He piled all the tupperware and dishes into his arms and carried it all out to the car. In my curiosity, I tailed him to the front door and ducked by one of the front windows, watching him hustle around to the trunk. His voice carried over the chirps of crickets.
“You gonna behave?” Eddy asked the trunk.
Eddy nodded, drew a pistol—a Glock 48, by the look of it—from his belt, and reached one arm into the trunk. Ten rounds in a magazine, easy to conceal. His finger was off the trigger and gun pointed in the air. Trigger discipline or a combination of respect and fear of the firearm’s killing potential. It was too offline, though. No formal training or he’d have kept his captive online and downrange.
He fussed for a minute, then pulled a whole man from the Cadillac. The man towered over Eddy, his hands wrapped in tape and his mouth taped shut. This man was young, tall, and slim as angel hair. His green mohawk was messy from lying on the floor of the trunk, a tall bent fin on top of a long, gaunt head.
Eddy put the gun to the middle of his chest. “I’ll peel back that tape, if you keep behaving, Doug. I brought you food.”
The mohawk boy nodded.
Eddy peeled the tape away from Doug’s face. “You can talk. Don’t yell, though. Luna’d kill me if she knew I did this.”
“I didn’t know about Corvis.” Doug choked on his tears. He tore into the roast beef with his fingers. He was white, pale, and dressed in a leather jacket and black ripped jeans. His boots were spiked and his ear lobes were long with big gauges in them.
“You weren’t there when they killed my brother, but you saw what Luna and I did,” Eddy said, lowering the gun. He let it dangle by his side and took a step away from Doug, far enough to shoot the guy if anything didn’t go as planned.
If there was a time, it was now. I looked behind me, watching the shadows, listening for footsteps. I counted a few Mississippis and headed to the front door, rifle ready. My knees popped when I kneeled. I wasn’t going to take a shot at the guys, but I wanted to have the drop on Eddy and his gun.
Eddy and Doug looked at me, frozen in place.
A sharp crack and a spreading pain in the back of my head. I fell forward onto my front porch. Everything went black.
I wasn’t out for long. I sat against the grill of the Cadillac. My rifle laid in the dirt by the porch steps. Eddy walked over and kneeled next to me, pointing his pistol at me. “You should’ve stayed in bed.”
“What is this, Ed?”
“I just cracked you with a fucking bat, Mr. Dunham. We’re asking if you’re good,” Luna said, swearing like a sailor. “Don’t act tough. I didn’t wanna hit you and I definitely don’t wanna kill you. So, how’s your head?”
“I’m an old country boy.”
“I thought I told you not to act tough, so don’t fuckin’ act tough. We don’t wanna hurt you or your wife,” Luna said.
“And we won’t,” Eddy added.
Luna and Eddy looked at one another. Eddy’s face softened and slackened, while Luna’s scrunched and wrinkled.
“That remains to be fuckin’ seen, doesn’t it?” Luna scoffed.
Eddy handed the pistol to her. “I trust you. But no one’s dying today.”
Doug’s wrists were raw from adhesive residue. He didn’t smell of piss, so they must’ve allowed him bathroom breaks. If they meant to kill him, it didn’t make a lick of sense to cart him around in their car, feeding him and keeping him hydrated. If he thought they’d kill him, I imagined he’d take off running the moment Eddy and Luna put their eyes on me.
“You don’t wanna hurt anybody,” I said.
Luna put the gun to my head, pressing the cold barrel to my temple.
“Fuck, if it was about what I wanted, none of this would’ve happened. I’d be at home with Corvis. Our paths would never’ve crossed. I don’t wanna hurt you, but I will kill you.” Luna’s eyes cast a cold glare at me as I challenged her. “I didn’t wanna kill Doug’s friends, but I’m glad I did.”
“They deserved it,” Eddy said. “Kenneth doesn’t.”
“It’s not about deserving, is it? You two want to get away with it,” I told them.
Jeannie threw the front door open, stomping down the front steps with her shotgun’s double barrel shining ahead of her. Her nighty wafted around her shins, bare feet in the dirt, and shotgun shells clenched in her teeth. She had four shots ready to go and she’d only need three at that range. She aimed at Luna and spoke to Eddy and Doug through her teeth. “Hit the dirt! Now!”
It was hard to make her out with those shells in her mouth, but Eddy and Doug got the gist of things. They both dropped down on the ground and laid flat. Luna froze.
“You already made a few mistakes, tonight,” I said. “Don’t make another one.”
Luna dropped her gun, but she didn’t lie down with the others. She looked at my wife and shrugged. “Why not shoot—”
Jeannie fired into the dirt a few inches from Luna. Luna screamed, falling into the dirt and gripping her leg. She’d caught some of the birdshot in her calf, peppering the bandage she’d showed up with. She showed grit, biting down on her own wrist to muffle her cries.
Jeannie popped the shotgun open, ripped the smoking cartridge from the right barrel and loaded a fresh one, snapping the thing closed. “One freebie. I won’t be missin’ on purpose from here on.”
I understood. I’d have done the same if I found Eddy holding a gun to Jeannie. But something twisted hit me when Eddy jumped up and ran to Luna’s side, ignoring Doug, Jeannie, and the shotgun. I got up and grabbed my rifle. I joined my wife on the porch, both of us keeping guns on the criminal couple.
“Luna, bite on this,” Eddy said, pulling his leather jacket off. She sunk her teeth into the leather sleeve while he put his lips to the few little holes in her flesh, sucking out the metal BBs and spitting them into the dirt. Thanks to the ricochet, they were shallow enough that a few bloody kisses did the trick.
“Kenneth, call the sheriff,” Jeannie said, still biting down on one shell. She was amazing. She could put down Doug and Eddy if either of them made a move and have plenty of time to load her last shell for Luna, especially with that wounded leg.
“Mr. and Mrs. Dunham, I’m begging you,” Eddy said, taking the shirt off his back and wrapping Luna’s bloody calf. Eddy’s back had a large purple and black bruise from the left side of his hip to his right shoulder blade. “We didn’t wanna hurt anyone. Let us go and you won’t see hide nor hair of us again.”
“Luna needs a hospital,” Jeannie said.
Luna panted, spitting the leather cuff from her mouth, that leather jacket draped over her chest. It held her like an invisible man. By God, it looked to me there were three of them in the dirt, Eddy, Luna, and a man in a leather jacket behind her, hugging her. She sucked her teeth, tears in her eyes. “I’ve been through much fuckin’ worse.”
“And it’s my fault.” Doug stepped in front of his captors with his hands raised and palms open. “My friends killed her boyfriend. That was Eddy’s brother. They killed Corvis Shelton. So Eddy and Luna killed my friends. They probably shoulda killed me, too. I don’t want anyone else to die.”
The wife and I heard out his filibuster. It didn’t take much for me to realize that they hadn’t lied about being a couple, just that they weren’t the young lovers they’d have us believe. Love wasn’t what tied young Eddy and Luna.
“Where will you go?” I asked.
“Mexico! As far south as the Caddy will take us,” Luna said.
“Get gone, then. Sun’s long set on Dunham hospitality. Take the food and gas you already lifted. Consider this the last courtesy.” I watched their faces twist. Eddy wiped his eyes, Doug shivered and dropped to his knees, and Luna winced, trying a smile.
Eddy stood up and helped Luna into the back seat of the car, wrapping the jacket around her chest before shutting the door. “Why are you lettin’ us go?”
“I’m thinkin’ you been through hell enough, Eddy,” I said.
In a cloud of dust, their car disappeared back up the road. Jeannie and I had begged Doug, the young man from their trunk, to stay, but he went anyway. I figured all they wanted, all three of them, was a way out. “They were in a hole, digging down, trying to get to the other side. All of them.”
As the dust settled, the lightning bugs danced and stirred.
That night, we called Benson and Junior, just checking in.
I clung to the wheel. Doug sat next to me, turning up Aretha Franklin.
“Don’t touch the music,” I said.
He nodded and crossed his arms. Much taller than Luna, he had his knees tucked to his chin.
“You can adjust the seat.” I checked the rearview. Luna had her eyes closed, sweat beaded on her forehead, my jacket cloaked her chest. She laid across the back seat, either trying to sleep or pretending. Given the shape of her leg, there wasn’t much difference. The bleeding stopped, but we’d need to find somewhere to clean and redress it. It was the same leg that had caught a ricochet during the shootout with Corvis’s killers. She soldiered all that pain, but neither of us had the stomach to finish the job. Hence, Doug.
“We can let you out at the next gas station,” I said. “You’ll be free.”
Doug fidgeted. His fingers hooked into his collar and dug inside, stroking the chapped black leather. “I won’t have anywhere to go.”
“Not my problem, Doug.” I sighed, squinting into the sunrise.
Luna opened one eye, pulling the leather jacket up to her nose and smelling it. “Corvis says let him stay.”
And he would say that, I think. He did say that. “Then we’ll let him stay.”
Aretha sang “You’re All I Need to Get By.” Cattle pens rolled by, the overwhelming smell of shit seeping through the windows. I spent the first few hours of our drive, stealing looks at Doug, then gave up. He could’ve been rid of us back at the Dunham Den. He had a game, but I didn’t know what he had left to win or lose.
“Wanna play a game?” Doug asked.
“Please,” Luna begged.
“I spy something green.”
“I fuckin’ swear, if it’s grass, I’m gonna riot.”
“What, why can’t it be grass?”
“It’s gotta be in the car.”
“You made that up!” Doug smiled.
When I looked in the rearview, I saw Luna smiling, too. I heard her laugh. I think if we’d killed Doug, maybe she’d never have smiled again. Kenneth was right. We’d had enough blood.
JARYD PORTER is a writer from Lawrence, Kansas, who writes about identity, perception, and intersectionality. He has an MFA in Creative Writing Fiction from Wichita State University and is currently studying to earn his PhD in Creative Writing from Oklahoma State University. His previously published works include “Brother From Another” at Your Impossible Voice, “Obama Black” at Fleas on the Dog and Fiction on the Web, “That Sinking Feeling” at JAKE, and “Dance of Hours” at Feign.
