Young God: A Novel by Katherine Faw Morris Read Free Book Online

him. He grips Renee by the shins.
    “One, two, three,” he says.
    They drag her off the ledge and onto the deer cut.
    She looks freakish without a face. She no longer looks like a person. With his knife Coy Hawkins strips off her clothes. He cuts off her panties with one flick. She’s not shaved. She’s peach-fuzzed.
    Nikki takes her wrist brace from him. It reveals a weird tan line, a block of white skin. In the flashlight it’s almost translucent.
    “Did you rape her?” Nikki says.
    “What do you think?” Coy Hawkins says.
    He slices the pads off each of Renee’s fingertips.
    “Ax,” Coy Hawkins says.
    Coy Hawkins jams the butt into what’s left of Renee’s mouth. Then he raises the ax above his head and brings it down hard on Renee’s neck. Nikki bangs into the tree behind her.
    “Fingerprints and teeth.”
    She stares at him.
    “Nikki.”
    “What?”
    “You’re shaking like a leaf.”
    “No, I ain’t.”
    “Trash bags,” Coy Hawkins says.
    After they’ve finished she looks at the blood on the ground.
    “It’ll rain,” Coy Hawkins says.
    Coy Hawkins carries the heavy bags. Nikki follows with the light ones. She waits for him to look where the money’s buried. But he doesn’t once turn his head.
    “Are you mad?” she says.
    Wesley’s car is gone from the yard. Coy Hawkins looks at the place where it was. Then he goes to the pickup. He flips back the tarp and hefts the heavy bags up into the bed.
    “Where’s Angel?” Nikki says.
    “Throw her clothes on the trash pile,” Coy Hawkins says.
    Near the other trailer Nikki thinks she sees Levi, sitting on his bike in his pajamas.

     
    THE NORTHERNMOST PART OF THE COUNTY is wilderness. It’s a state park that straddles the county line. It has trails that end in sheer drops. It’s had fugitives hiding in it. Hunters get lost in here all the time.
    The pickup jerks from the gravel road to grass and then a dirt path. They climb at ninety degrees. Branches slap the windows. Coy Hawkins pulls the emergency brake and Nikki slams against the bench seat.
    It’s dawn now.
    “We gotta hike this last little bit,” Coy Hawkins says.
    He throws the bags out of the bed.
    It is so much heavier going up. The light bags thud against Nikki’s legs. They’re hiking forever. Finally Coy Hawkins crouches below a boulder and Nikki takes huge gulps of air.
    He takes out his knife and slashes all the bags of Renee.
    “So the animals will eat her.”
    Nikki grabs the laces of Coy Hawkins’s boot.
    “Please don’t call DSS on me. I can’t go back there.”
    He looks at her fingers. Coy Hawkins wipes his face on his sleeve.
    “You ain’t going back there now,” he says.
    He holds on to a trunk to stand up. He tosses a bag over the boulder. He reaches back until all five bags are gone and then he shakes his hand like Nikki has forgotten one.
    “Come here,” he says.
    Nikki looks at him.
    “Come here,” he says.
    He pulls her up to stand beside him.
    “Look at this.”
    Nikki looks where Renee went. She didn’t realize they were this high. It is like she could touch the blue mountains. Blue froths everything. Blue fog puffs from the gorge below.
    “The Blue Ridge Parkway,” Coy Hawkins says.
    He points off in the distance at a floating road. Up here the air is like cigarette smoke.
    She has the weird feeling he’s going to push her. He’s still holding her by the arm.
    “Can we go?” Nikki says.
    “What kind of daughter does that?” Coy Hawkins says.
    “Does what?”
    “Brings her father a whore.”

     
    SHE TRIES TO HIDE what she’s doing.
    “You seen that lighter?” Nikki says.
    She hunts from one end of the trailer to the other. Eventually she comes to stand in front of the TV.
    “She’ll probably come back,” Nikki says.
    “Who?” Coy Hawkins says.

     
    NO SIGNAL. Nikki stares at it.
    When she looks at Coy Hawkins he’s turned in his chair to face her. He has his arm propped up on his elbow. He has his chin in his