[Shelby Alexander 01.0] Serenity

by Craig A. Hart

11

  The thaw showed up, as Evans had predicted. Shelby woke up to the sound of melting snow dripping from the roof. The sun was out and almost blinded him when he put up the shade on his bedroom window. This small taste of spring immediately made Shelby think of fishing and he wondered if it would be possible to reach his favorite spot, an old rotting dock on Mosquito Bay, a small, inaptly named lake accessible only by hiking through a trail down from the nature preserve off Highway 22—or driving up the horrible road he and Evans had taken to check the maple tree taps. Few people went there, partly because it was difficult to get to and partly because of the horrible name. And it could live up to it. But this time of year, there would be no mosquitoes.

  Against his better judgment, Shelby packed a sandwich and a thermos, and loaded his gear into the Jeep. He briefly considered taking his hunter’s orange vest, as he did during peak seasons, but there wasn’t much going on this time of year, so he decided to leave it behind.

  The trail from the nature preserve was probably closed and, although it would be a simple matter to circumvent the gate, the trail would be a bitch to hike, especially with the melting, heavy snow. He decided to risk the shortcut up past Evans’ tree stand. It got muddy in the spring, but it would still be hard this early in the thaw and the Jeep wouldn’t have any trouble. In any case, he thought he might see Evans along the way. The sap was probably running.

  He made the turn and was relieved to find the road mostly frozen. There were a few bare patches, but nothing that gave the Jeep any trouble. There was no sign of Evans at the tree stand, so Shelby kept moving and arrived at his parking spot without event. He unloaded his gear and began the short walk to the pier. The lake was, of course, deserted and mostly frozen over. The ice near the shore was thin and melting, but Shelby knew he’d have to cut an icehole at the end of the pier.

  The pier itself was ancient and wobbly. Every year, Shelby thought it would be the last one it would survive, but it kept standing, refusing to die. He wasn’t sure what he would do once it finally crumbled into the lake. It would be nearly impossible to get a boat back here. Perhaps he could rebuild it, or at least shore it up enough to last a few more years. Maybe until the arthritis in his hands prevented him from fishing anymore. Then it wouldn’t matter.

  He stepped onto the pier, pausing as he always did to test its strength. It swayed, but no more than usual, although likely steadied by the ice around the support beams. Once spring actually arrived, things might be different.

  He walked slowly, carefully to the end of the pier and lowered to a sitting position. He pulled out a hatchet from his gear bag and began chopping at the ice, which was wet and crumbly and gave way easily. Within a couple of minutes, he had cleared a hole large enough to drop a line down. He settled in to wait.

  What people didn’t understand about fishing, at least non-professional fishing, was that it wasn’t simply about catching fish. Sure, there was the thrill of the jerk on the line, or the fight to bring the fish to land, the prehistoric elation of the hunt and catch. But for Shelby, it was more the act of fishing rather than the culmination of it that provided him with the satisfaction. The peace, the quiet, the pure natural state of what he was doing. It calmed him. If he were ever to believe in spirituality and the human soul, fishing would be what converted him. If there was a God, fishing was where he’d be found.

  But God wasn’t interested in fishing this day. Shelby got not even a nibble on the line. The joy of fishing might not be all about catching fish, but if you never caught anything, eventually you’d decide to contemplate life in the comfort of your own living room while sitting in front of the television. His back still hurt from Carly’s last visit and clouds had rolled in, obscuring the sun and dropping the temperature, both literally and psychologically. Around mid-afternoon, he gave up and repacked his gear. He had long since eaten his sandwich and drained the thermos, and his stomach was beginning to complain.

  He made it back to the Jeep and had his hand on the door handle when he heard voices. It sounded like they were coming from down the trail. He hadn’t heard a vehicle approach, but who would walk back here on foot this time of year?

  Shelby set his bag down and unzipped it, moving the zipper gradually to avoid noise. He took out the ice hatchet and began slowly walking toward the voices, taking care to stay behind trees as much as possible. Within a few minutes, he caught sight of something blue, a jacket or a hat, and heard the jingle of metal. It sounded like horse tack. Then he heard a horse stomp its hooves and snort. A minute later, he could see them. There were three men, all on horses, and their voices carried easily.

  “You got the stuff?”

  “Yeah. I got it. Cash?”

  “In the package.”

  “Mind if I count it?”

  “Do what you gotta do.”

  The man in the blue jacket took the offered package, opened one end, and flipped through the bills.

  “It looks okay to me.”

  Another man, unshaven and wearing a trucker’s mesh hat, bit off a short laugh. “What a relief.”

  “Cut it out, Mick,” the third man said. He was smaller than the other two, sported a dark goatee, and wore a brown corduroy coat. To Blue Jacket, he said, “Hand it over.”

  Blue Jacket handed over his own package, which Goatee inspected and seemed to accept.

  “Looks about right.”

  “What a relief,” Blue Jacket said.

  Trucker Hat growled at the mimicry, but Goatee waved him off.

  “Same time next month?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” Blue Jacket said. “But the boss wanted me to tell you the price is going up.”

  “Going up? How much?”

  “Fifty percent.”

  “You can tell your boss to stuff it.”

  Blue Jacket shrugged. “Suit yourself. But that’ll be the last delivery at the old price. If you don’t want to pay, you’ll have to find another dealer.”

  “This is bullshit,” Trucker Hat spat out.

  “I have to agree with my partner on this one,” Goatee said. “I’m not saying we wouldn’t pay a little more, say, a convenience fee given the circumstances, but fifty percent, well, that’s not going to work for us. We’re just getting started here.”

  “Exactly,” Blue Jacket said. “You guys are tapping new territory.”

  “It’s not new,” Goatee said. “We’re taking it over. There’s a lot of, well, overhead involved.”

  “That’s not our problem,” Blue Jacket said. “You got my number. Let me know what you decide.”

  “I can tell you right now,” Goatee said. He reached into the pocket of his corduroy coat and pulled out a gun. “The answer’s no.”

  The gun barked twice and Blue Jacket tumbled from his horse. Goatee slid to the ground, walked over, and put a third shot directly into the head of the prostrate man. The snow turned red around his body.

  Trucker Hat sat still on his horse, looking on with admiration.

  “I didn’t expect that,” he said. “But that cocksucker deserved it.”

  “Maybe I was hasty,” Goatee said. He began digging in Blue Jacket’s pockets.

  “Won’t they wonder where he is? You know, when he don’t show up?”

  “Probably. That’s why we’re going to tell them.”

  “We’re going to what?”

  “Tell them.” Goatee pulled something out of Blue Jacket’s pocket and held it up. “His cellphone. I’m betting if I call and ask, we’d find out his boss never said anything about a fifty percent increase and this asshole was going to take the excess for himself. If that’s the case, his boss probably would have killed him anyway. And this way, we get a direct line, none of this middleman bullshit.” He walked back to his horse. “Come on, let’s get the hell out of here. I’m getting cold.”

  Shelby’s cellphone chirped. He yanked it out of his pocket and stared at the screen. A text message. From Carly. She was responsible for him even having texting capabilities and
she was the only one who ever sent him one.

  I FOUND GOD, the text read. HE’S AT THE BOTTOM OF A TEQUILA BOTTLE. OR IS THAT A WORM?

  Shelby fumbled with the volume buttons on the side of his device, trying to silence the damn thing, but before he could manage it, the phone dinged once more.

  SPEAKING OF WORMS, it said, YOURS WAS GOOD ON THE COUCH. MAYBE TRY THE KITCHEN COUNTER NEXT?

  Carly was clearly enjoying a little early drinking. Not early enough to count as day drinking, in Shelby’s book, but still early. Alcohol made her sexual and, normally, he wouldn’t be against a little sexting. It was the medium’s one redeeming quality. But now was not the time. He cursed himself for not thinking to silence it earlier.

  He peered out at the two horsemen. They had stopped riding.

  “You hear something?” Trucker Hat said.

  “Yeah. A chirp of some sort.”

  “Maybe a bird.”

  “No. It was…electronic sounding. Like a phone. I’ve heard it before.”

  “You think it has something to do with these tire tracks? I told you we should’ve checked em out.”

  “We didn’t have time before.”

  “We got time now. Let’s follow em back. Could be some hunter or hiker. What if they saw us?”

  “All right. Keep your eye on those trees to our left. The sound seemed to come from that direction.”

  Shelby managed to get his phone silenced and then shoved it back into his pocket. He hefted the hatchet, knowing it would make little difference against a firearm. He was glad now he hadn’t worn his hunter’s orange, as it would have been impossible to hide, given the lack of foliage this time of year.

  The two drug dealers turned their horses and began walking them up the trail, following the Jeep’s tire tracks. Shelby stayed behind the tree, easing around it as the men rode past, keeping the trunk directly between himself and their line of sight. He heard one of them speak to the other when they reached the Jeep, but they were now far enough away to make it difficult to make out the words. The Jeep door opened and shut, and he saw movement going toward the lake. They must have been following his tracks down to the pier. Then the movement stopped and Shelby heard one of them call out, “These tracks are goin into the woods!”

  Shelby winced. It hadn’t been likely they would miss the tracks he’d made moving toward his hiding place, but he’d hoped they’d be careless. Naturally, he wasn’t that lucky.

  The movements started up again, this time coming in his direction. Shelby began to move deeper into the woods, away from the trail, trying to put more brush between himself and the horsemen. But it was noisy progress, given the snow, and the dead branches and sticks lying underneath.

  “I see him!”

  Shelby gave up all pretense of stealth and ran into the trees. He glanced back and saw the two men trying to ride their horses into the brush. The animals were struggling and bucking. The riders would have to dismount if they had any hope of catching him.

  Something thwapped into a tree trunk beside Shelby’s head and the crack of a pistol shot sounded. There was a great crashing of branches and brush behind him and Shelby knew the men had dismounted. He risked another backward glance. They had split up, one on the right and one on the left. He’d been trying to reach Highway 22, but the man on his right was making it impossible to keep on course. It wasn’t only about staying ahead of his pursuer; it was also important to keep enough trees and brush between them so as to make a pistol shot difficult to perform with any accuracy.

  Shelby adjusted course, all the while feeling disturbingly like a steer on a roundup, as if they were herding him in a certain direction. He drew deeply on his energy reserves and the former athlete within came through. He surged forward and, within minutes, heard the sounds of pursuit fade and combine with the distant sound of cursing. He knew he was nowhere near safe. He had two killers between him and his Jeep, and was at least a couple of miles away from the lake. Highway 22 was to his right, but the course to reach it would intersect with an angry gunman.

  Shelby burst into the clearing before he saw it coming. He stopped and bent over, hands on his knees, and drew in great, gasping breaths as he looked around. A cabin stood in the middle of the clearing with a large shed—or small barn—off to one side. There was no one in sight around the cabin, but a tendril of smoke rose from the chimney. Either someone was inside or planning to soon return. A sound made Shelby perk up his ears and initiated an immediate flash of annoyance. It was the sound he heard too often while sitting at red lights, especially when he went downstate. It was the thumping bass of music turned up much louder than nature ever intended.

  Shelby made a run for the side of the cabin and edged along the wall until he came to a window. He peered inside, using his hand to shield his eyes so as to better see through the glass.

  The cabin was obviously not utilizing the services of a housekeeper. Bottles of beer sat around on nearly every surface, while a sink full of dirty dishes dominated the kitchen space. In the middle of the single room stood a large table at which sat a man wearing ragged jeans and a t-shirt with the sleeves cut off. On the table were scattered various metal pieces, which Shelby recognized as belonging to a rifle. The man polished the parts with a rag. A can of oil sat nearby. His head bobbed to the beat of the music and he mouthed the words of the song.

  Shelby moved around to the front of the cabin and what he saw made him wonder if he should rethink his doubt in God. A snowmobile sat in front of the porch, begging to be ridden, the key dangling from the ignition. He made for it but cursed when he realized anything that seemed too good to be true probably was. A chain secured the snowmobile to the porch. This was common in this area, since snowmobiles were notoriously easy to hotwire, particularly older models, but he had hoped hubris would have made the dealers careless. He should have known better. He quickly inspected the chain, keeping one eye on the tree line, expecting the other two men to appear at any moment. The chain wasn’t the heaviest he’d seen, but it would be difficult to break with his small hatchet. An ax or something with more heft might work, but he didn’t have time to sit around hacking away.

  Feeling resigned, Shelby walked up the porch steps, tried the door handle, and found it unlocked. A minor bit of luck. He stepped inside, completely unheard by the man working on the gun parts. The man was still rocking it out, completely in his own world. Shelby approached from behind and grabbed a handful of hair.

  “What the hell!” The man screeched in surprise and pain, and twisted in an attempt to escape Shelby’s grip on his hair.

  “The key! Where is it!”

  “I don’t know what the hell you’re talkin about, man!”

  “The goddamn key to the snowmobile chain!”

  “Shit, man, I—”

  A movement out the window caught Shelby’s eye and he looked up to see one of his pursuers emerge from the woods, quickly followed by the other. They were moving carefully but with purpose, clearly following his tracks in the melting snow.

  “Sorry, pal, I’m in a hurry,” Shelby said, and used the blunt side of the hatchet to fell his prisoner. The man slumped to the floor without a sound and Shelby went through his pockets. Nothing. He glanced around. From outside, he heard one of the men call to the other, “He must be in the cabin. Be careful; he mighta got Jethro.”

  Shelby had, in fact, gotten Jethro, but it hadn’t done him any good. He might have rendered his only bargaining chip unconscious and a good candidate for a bad concussion. He glanced around, his eyes probing any part of the room where a key might reside. It would have been much easier had the room not been such a disaster; as it was, the key could be anywhere.

  And then he saw it, dangling from a peg behind the door. He couldn’t be sure it was the one, but it was the right size and cut, and he was out of time. He reached the door in two large steps, grabbed the key from the peg, and ran onto the porch. The key fit the lock, but it took what seemed like an incredibly long time before he was
able to make it turn. The padlock opened at last and the chain fell away.

  Shelby drew it hand over hand as quickly as he could until the snowmobile was free, then jumped on. It barked and sputtered, which brought a shout from behind the cabin. Shelby was surprised they heard it over the music that still blasted from the cabin. He tried again. The engine coughed, hesitated, and roared to life.

  The two dealers appeared around the side of the cabin. Goatee had his pistol out and pointed. He fired. A bullet flew past Shelby’s head as the snowmobile surged forward. He bent as low as possible, while still being able to see where he was going, and turned the machine toward the trail. More bullets cut the air around him and one thunked into the snowmobile itself but didn’t hit anything vital. Within seconds, the cabin and the two gunmen were out of sight, but Shelby didn’t slow down until he reached the road that ran by his own place.

  The road had been plowed prior to the thaw and now there was little snow on the pavement, and Shelby left no trace as he rode the machine to his turn and pulled into the winding driveway. He drove straight to the barn and pulled the snowmobile in and out of sight. Then he grabbed a shovel and concealed the tracks he’d left on his own property as best he could. He was beginning to feel a small sense of relief, when a sudden realization caused both a chill up his spine and a sinking feeling at his own stupidity.

  The Jeep. It had his vehicle registration in the glovebox, which had his address printed on it. If the dealers got back there before he did, it wouldn’t matter how well he concealed the snowmobile or the tracks it had made. He racked his brain, trying to think who he could call. Not Stevens, as there was no way he’d be able to explain why he needed an immediate ride. Not Evans either. Carly would do it, although she’d have plenty of questions, but he didn’t want to put her in danger. Harper Ellis was dead. Shepherd?

  Shelby took out his phone and dialed.

  “What the hell?” Shepherd answered.

  “I need a ride.”

  “Who is this?”

  “Alexander. I need a ride. Now.”