Carnal Innocence

Lord’s my shepherd, boy. He does provide.” Still smiling, Austin ran his thumb along the edge of the blade. A thin line of red welled out of his skin. “And sharp is His sword. Now let me tell you what you’re going to do.”
    Austin turned the knife on his son. For one dizzying instant, while his bowels turned to ice, Cy was certain the point was going to plunge into his throat. But it stopped a whisper away.
    “Are you listening, boy? Are you listening?”
    Cy nodded. He was afraid to swallow. Afraid that the blade would prick his Adam’s apple if it bobbed.
    “And you’re going to do just as I say, aren’t you?”
    Cy looked above the blade, into his father’s eves. “Yes sir.”
    Cy worked hard on sweating out his fear. He hauled wheelbarrows full of mulch around the garden, dug holes for the new peony bushes Tucker had bought to replace the ones that had died off from being trampled. He scraped old paint and slapped on fresh. He yanked up weeds until his fingers cramped, but the fear stayed hot and hard in his belly like a bad meal that refused to digest.
    He didn’t eat the meal Della set out for him—not even the half he usually took for himself. Instead, he packed the thick pork sandwiches and generous slice of lemon cake into his knapsack.
    He couldn’t even stand to look at them, but he figured his father would eat well that night.
    He’d have a rare appetite after he’d finished with Tucker.
    Cy wiped sweat out of his eyes and tried not to think of right and wrong or good and bad. All he had to think about was surviving. Of getting through one day and onto the next until he’d finished up all those days that made up four years.
    He looked around Sweetwater, the green fields thriving with cotton, the dark, still water, the splashes of color from flowers. Maybe it was true, what his daddy said. Maybe it was only people like the Longstreets who could afford to plant flowers to look at instead of food to eat.
    Maybe it was true that they didn’t deserve the fine,big house, and all the land and the easy life they lived. Maybe it was their fault that his own family was poor as dirt and had to scrape for every penny.
    And Edda Lou had been his sister, his blood. Family took care of family. His daddy said it was Tucker’s doing that she was dead.
    If he believed that, if he could believe that, then what he had to do wouldn’t be so hard.
    It didn’t matter if it was hard or not, Cy reminded himself as he walked to the side of the house to rinse off his hands and face with the garden hose. It was something he had to do, because if he didn’t, his father would come for him. He would find him wherever he tried to hide. And he would come for him with more than a belt, with more than his fists.
    “If thy eye offend thee, pluck it out,” his father had said. “You’re my eye, boy. You’re both my eyes.”
    And he’d held that honed silver point so close, so close to Cy’s left eye that he’d been afraid to blink.
    “Don’t offend me in this. You bring him here, and I’ll be waiting.”
    “You done for the day, son?”
    At Tucker’s voice, Cy jerked back and managed to soak his shoes. Tucker merely grinned and put a match flame up to half a cigarette.
    “Della told me you were jumpy today. Better turn that hose off before you drown yourself.”
    “Yes sir. I’m all finished.” Cy stared at his hand, watched his own fingers curl around the metal and twist.
    “Good, ’cause it damn near wears me out watching you. You want a Coke, another piece of that cake?”
    “No, sir.” Cy kept his head down as he rewound the hose. He felt something perilously like tears in his throat. Maybe it wouldn’t work, he thought desperately. Maybe Tucker would just shoo him on his way. Lips pressed together, Cy limped toward his bike.
    “What’s wrong with your leg?”
    Cy kept his back to the house and stared straight ahead.
    Make him feel sorry for you, boy. You see that he gives youa ride in one of those fancy cars. And you bring him down here to me.
    “It’s nothing, Mr. Tucker. Guess I mighta pulled something.” He took another couple of limping steps, praying that Tucker would just shrug and turn away.
    “Why don’t you come on back in here, let Della take a look at it?”
    Cy closed his fingers around the handlebars of the bike and darted a look back toward the house. “No, sir, I’d best get on home.”
    Tucker caught the glint of tears in the boy’s eyes and frowned. Adolescent