Black-Eyed Susans Read Online Free Page A

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     publicoutcry in a state that executes men monthly? Change a
     judge’s mind about exhuming the bones and considering a new trial? Convince me
     once and for all to dial the phone?
    The man in the suit suddenly pivots. I catch
     the flash of a priest’s collar before I duck behind the tree. My eyes sting for a
     second, struck by this furtive operation and the supreme effort to treat these girls
     with dignity and respect when no one has a clue who they are, when there is not a
     reporter in sight.
    The girls rising out of the earth tonight
     were nothing
but
bones when they were transported to that old wheat field
     eighteen years ago. I was barely alive. They say that Merry had been dead at least
     thirty hours. By the time the cops got to us, Merry was pretty well scavenged. I tried
     to protect her, but at some point in the night I passed out. Sometimes, I can still hear
     the animated conversation of the field rats. I can’t tell anybody who loves me
     these things. It’s better if they think I don’t remember.
    The doctors say my heart saved me. I was
     born with a heart genetically on the slow side to begin with. Add the fact that I was in
     peak running condition as one of the nation’s top high-school hurdlers. On a
     normal day, doing homework, eating a hamburger, or painting my nails, my pulse clicked
     along at a steady thirty-seven beats a minute and crawled as low as twenty-nine at night
     when I slept. The average heart rate for a teen-ager is about seventy. Daddy had a habit
     of waking up at two every morning and checking to see if I was breathing, even though a
     famous Houston cardiologist had told him to relax. For sure, my heart was a bit of a
     phenomenon, as was my speed. People whispered about the Olympics. Called me the Little
     Fireball because of my hair and my temper when I ran a bad time or a girl nudged me off
     a hurdle.
    While I fought for life in that grave, the
     doctors say my heart wound down to around eighteen. An EMT at the scene even mistook me
     for dead.
    The district attorney told the jury that I
     surprised the Black-Eyed Susan killer, not the other way around. Set off a panic in him,prompted him to get rid of the evidence. That the large bruise on
     Terrell Darcy Goodwin’s gut in the blown-up exhibit photograph, blue and green and
     yellow tie-dye, was my artwork. People appreciate pretty fantasies like this, where
     there is a feisty hero, even when there is no factual basis for it.
    A dark van is slowly backing up to the tent.
     O. J. Simpson got off the same year I testified, and he massacred his wife and left his
     blood behind on her gate. There was no solid DNA evidence against Terrell Darcy Goodwin,
     except a tattered jacket mired in the mud a mile away with his blood type on the right
     cuff. The spot of blood was so tiny and degraded they couldn’t tackle DNA, still
     fairly new in criminal court. It was enough for me to hold on to back then, but not
     anymore. I pray that Joanna will work her high priestess magic, and we will finally know
     who these two girls are. I’m counting on them to lead all of us to peace.
    I turn to go, and my toe catches the edge of
     something. I pitch forward, instantly breathless, palms out, onto an old broken
     gravestone. The roots have bullied the marker until it toppled over and broke in
     half.
    Did anyone hear?
I glance around
     quickly. The tent is half-down. Someone is laughing. Shadows moving, none of them my
     way. I push myself up, hands stinging, brushing off the death and grit clinging to my
     jeans. I tug my cell phone out of my back pocket, and it casts its friendly light when I
     press the button. I shine it over the gravestone. A red smear from my hands marks the
     sleeping lamb guarding over Christina Driskill.
    Christina entered the world, and escaped it,
     on the same day. March 3, 1872.
    My mind burrows into the rocky dirt,
     fighting its way to the small wooden box that rests under my feet, tilted,