Of All Sad Words Read Free Page A

banks of that creek, and he didn’t want to have another one.
    Benton took off his hat and wiped his forehead with a white handkerchief from his back pocket. His forehead extended quite a way back. Rhodes thought that Benton was probably one of the few people in the county who wore a hat and certainly one of the few who carried a handkerchief.
    As Benton returned the handkerchief to his pocket, he turned and looked back down the road. Rhodes turned, too, and saw a rust-colored pickup headed their way. Dust billowed up behind it.
    The pickup’s brakes squealed as it slid to a stop. Larry Crawford jumped out and started to run toward what was left of his home. He was chubby and unathletic, and his arms flapped against his sides. He had a small mustache, which was the only thing that made it possible to know he wasn’t Terry. His eyes were wild. He was wearing a T-shirt with lettering on the front: I’M WITH STUPID. Under the words, an arrow pointed to the left.
    “Terry!” Crawford yelled. “Terry!”
    He didn’t seem to see Rhodes or the others. Rhodes stepped in front of him and put out a hand to stop him. Crawford ran right on past, knocking Rhodes’s arm aside.
    “I’ll get him,” Ruth said.
    She ran along after him, then reached out and grabbed his belt. He dragged her for a couple of steps before he came to a stop.
    He turned and looked at her. “My brother was in that trailer. I gotta get him.”
    “You’ll have to wait,” Ruth told him. “It’s not safe right now.”
    Crawford turned his round bald head and stared at the smoking remains of his home.
    “What if he’s hurt? We gotta help him!”
    “That’s what the EMTs are for,” Rhodes said, walking up to them, followed by Loam and Benton. “If there’s anything to be done for your brother, they’ll do it.” Rhodes paused. “You’re lucky you weren’t here.”
    “I had to go to Wal-Mart to get some groceries. Terry wanted to go with me, but I told him to stay here. I gotta find him.”
    He tried to run toward the double-wide again, but Ruth still had hold of his belt. His feet slipped in the sand.
    “If your brother was in there, you won’t be much help to him now,” Rhodes said.
    Crawford’s shoulders sagged. “Goddammit,” he said.
    “You shouldn’t talk that way in front of women,” Benton said. “It’s not polite.”
    Crawford looked at Benton the way he might have looked at a Martian had one walked up.
    “You’re that nosy asshole who lives down the road,” he said.
    “Usually only my students call me that,” Benton said. “Mainly the ones who have trouble with fractions.”
    Crawford glared at him. “I’ve never been any student of yours. And I might not know much about fractions, either, but I know I can kick your ass.”
    Benton gave him a superior smile. “I don’t think so.” He struck a pose that looked to Rhodes like something out of The Karate Kid. “I’m a master of the martial arts.”
    Rhodes hoped Ruth had a good hold on Crawford’s belt. Otherwise, he’d probably kill Benton right then and there. Not that Rhodes didn’t respect the martial arts. He just didn’t believe Benton knew anything about them.
    “I also play guitar,” Benton went on. Rhodes noticed that he was looking at Ruth, not Crawford. He raised up on his toes and sank back down a couple of times. “And I do fifty push-ups every morning. Except when I do a hundred.”
    Crawford struggled to get to him, dragging Ruth along, but she managed to hold him back. After a few seconds, he relaxed, and Benton dropped his pose.
    “I just want to find my brother,” Crawford said.
    “We’ll take care of that,” Rhodes told him.
    But they didn’t. After they got Crawford calmed down and after there was no more danger of fire, they determined that there was no body to be found, not unless it was covered by some of the wreckage that was too heavy and hot to lift, which was always a possibility.
    Crawford twitched with agitation. “I