Rovers

by RICHARD LANGE

  Stop playing around, he says when he comes in. You know how to put your clothes on. Don’t leave me, I say. What’re you talking about? he says. You got Johona now, I say. We’re driving her to Denver that’s all, he says. You know I can smell a lie, I say. I’m not going anywhere without you, he says.

  He carries our grips out and puts them in the trunk of the Grand Prix. I give Abby a bowl of Meow Mix and stand by while she crunches it. How old’s your kitty? Johona asks me. Twenty-five or thereabouts, I say. That’s ancient for a cat, she says. I turned her, I say. What? Johona says. I turned her into a rover, I say. She starts to cry. Jesse comes in and asks what’s wrong. You changed the cat? Johona says. Jesse gives me a look like he wants to kill me and sits down to sweet-talk her again. I’m glad she’s crying. The more you cry the less you have to piss.

  We set off when she quiets. Pretty soon there’s no more buildings no more cars no more town. Everything’s dark except for the speed meter inside and headlights outside. Jesse checks the mirror over and over. Johona falls asleep laying across the back seat. I sing to myself real quiet. Mama’s song. I would not die in summer, when music’s on the breeze, and soft, delicious murmurs float ever through the trees.

  15

  June 27, 1976, 10 p.m.

  FOR THE THIRD TIME TODAY I’M PUTTING PEN TO PAPER, THIS time to set down what happened in just the last hour while it’s fresh in my mind.

  I stayed here in the Econoline after my last entry earlier today, reading my Bible and trying to figure out my next move, had cold chili for dinner. Shortly after dark, as I was about to settle down to sleep, Czarnecki came out of the cabin mushmouth drunk.

  “There’s something else I need to show you,” he said.

  I got out of the van reluctantly and followed him to his pickup. He climbed into the camper, undid the locks on the crate, and opened it. The kid had been chained inside since last night and looked like hell. Dark circles ringed his eyes, and his bones would’ve torn his thin skin if he’d moved too quickly. Czarnecki backed out of the camper and stood beside me.

  “Come on,” he snapped at the kid.

  “I need—” the kid began.

  “I know what you fucking need.”

  The kid lifted himself slowly out of the crate. He took a second to reset his balance, then stepped onto the bumper and down to the ground.

  Czarnecki had his .45 in his hand. “The shed,” he said.

  The kid staggered to his prison, walked inside, and yanked the string to turn on the bulb. The light it threw was the color of a flophouse bedsheet. The kid sat on the cot and fastened his ankle chain to the bolt in the floor. Czarnecki passed the .45 to me.

  “If he tries anything, put a bullet between his eyes,” he said.

  I qualified for a marksmanship badge in the Army, but that was twenty years ago. I was as likely to hit him as the kid if I had to shoot.

  He drew a hunting knife from a sheath on his belt. Grabbing a bottle of rubbing alcohol off a shelf, he doused the blade and pulled up the sleeve of his coveralls. The inside of his forearm bore a series of short crosswise scars, twenty or so, some old, some freshly healed. They followed the arm’s main vein from elbow to wrist. He laid the blade on a patch of unmarred skin and sliced into it. Blood dribbled from the cut. Stepping to the kid, he held out the arm. The kid grabbed it and pressed his mouth to the wound.

  “You have to give him a little every now and then to keep him going,” Czarnecki said. “He’ll tell you he needs it once a month, but I make him go two. Doesn’t matter to me how lousy he gets to feeling. I want him weak.”

  “How long has this been going on?” I said.

  “I trapped him in ’67, so nine years or so. Me and Mr. Otto had a couple others, but he’s lasted longest.”

  The image of the old man offering his blood to the kid, the sucking sound, the smell of shit and sweat that clung to the concrete walls—this and the other horrors of the past few days hit me all at once. The urge to flee was powerful, but I was so woozy I barely made it to the doorway before sinking to the ground in a stupor.

  “You look like you’ve seen a monster,” Czarnecki said with a laugh.

  He was a foolish man, or, I don’t know, maybe a brave one, joking like that while I was holding the gun. Maybe he’s taken my measure and decided I’m not the kind that’ll lash out no matter how far I’m pushed. Maybe he’s had my number since he approached me in the parking lot and I agreed to follow him here.

  In any case, I didn’t shoot him. I sat against the doorjamb and stared out at the light spilling from the cabin, at the trees against the sky, at the stars sharp as needles. I inhaled deeply, trying to flush the filth from my lungs and refill them with clean air.

  The sound of a scuffle made me turn back into the shed. Czarnecki was struggling to pull his arm away from the kid.

  “Let go, motherfucker,” he growled.

  I stood and pointed the .45. “Should I shoot?” I said.

  “Should he?” Czarnecki yelled. “Should he?”

  The kid released him and backed away. He ran a finger over the blood on his lips, sucked it clean, and showed his gold tooth in a defiant smile, then stretched out on the cot and rolled to face the wall.

  Czarnecki turned off the bulb, and we stepped outside. He closed the door and locked it.

  “Might be time to get a new hound,” he said, loud enough so the kid could hear. “You can’t keep a biting dog.”

  He pressed a handkerchief to the cut. I held the .45 out to him. “Bring it inside,” he said.

  “I’m all wrung out,” I said.

  “Five minutes,” he said. “Sit with me while I patch this nick.”

  I could barely keep my eyes open, but I followed him to the cabin.

  He poured himself some whiskey and brought out a cigar-box first-aid kit. After painting the cut with iodine, he asked me to lay a bandage over it. My fingers brushed the scars on his arm—waxy pink worms spaced regularly as fence posts—and I pulled my hand away, repulsed.

  He smiled and lifted his other sleeve to show more scars.

  “My rosary,” he said. “Each a mystery to be contemplated.”

  “You’re religious?” I said.

  “I was, then I wasn’t, but I might be trending back. You?”

  “I believe in God,” I said. “I believe Jesus Christ died for our sins.”

  “How do rovers fit into your system?”

  “There are demons in the Bible.”

  “Demons,” he said. “So you won’t have any problem killing them?”

  It’s a question I haven’t answered for myself yet, so I wiggled out of answering it for him by replying, “That’s not what I said.”

  Czarnecki leaned back in his chair. “Here’s one way to look at it,” he said. “Before Jesus, you got rid of sin through sacrifice. For every sin you committed, you slaughtered an animal and offered it up to God. Now, if one little lamb erased a wrong from your record, imagine how many a demon must clear. You’ll be in the black in no time.”

  Too tired to respond, I rubbed my eyes with my palms.

  “Sure you won’t have a drink?” Czarnecki said.

  “No drink,” I said.

  Czarnecki sipped his. “I don’t understand why anybody’d want to live forever anyway,” he said. “Not even in heaven. When I die, I want to sleep for a million years.”

  I was struck again by how frail he looks in repose. His hatred for the monsters he’s hunted so long has dried him to brittle bones and leathery yellow flesh. In the right light, he looks dead already.

  The refrigerator clattered, spooking me, and I used the momentum from the jolt to get to my feet. Czarnecki didn’t say anything when I walked out, didn’t look up.

  Exhausted as I am, I was sure I’d drop off as soon as I hit the cot. My brain, though, keeps replaying what I saw in the shed, so I’m putting it down here—hoping, like a guilty criminal, that baring my soul will ease my mind. And now, God, let me sleep.

&nbs
p; June 28, 1976, Bishop, California

  After a long, rotten night I finally dozed off as the sky lightened and the first birds woke. When I sat up five hours later, weariness still clung to me like a spider’s web, but my mind was clearer, and I felt like I could put one foot in front of the other without falling.

  The banana in the cardboard box that serves as my pantry had gone black and gooey. Ants swarmed it, squeezing through a slit in the peel to get at the mush inside. The apple next to it was fine, so I cut that into quarters and ate it with spoonfuls of peanut butter and a cup of cold instant coffee.

  The day warmed quickly, and it was soon too hot to be reading my Bible in the van. I set up my chair in the shade outside and settled there. My eyes kept wandering to the shed, my thoughts to the creature that’d been locked inside it for almost a decade. I snuffed a flicker of sympathy by imagining him hunched over Benny the same way he’d hunched over Czarnecki, drinking his blood.

  I listened to two squirrels argue. I watched a thunderhead balloon on the horizon. I opened my Bible to a random page and dropped my finger to the text for guidance. The verse was no help. A list of names of the sons of Noah, the sons of Japheth, the sons of Gomer. All the while I kept expecting Czarnecki to step out of the cabin, snorting, spitting, and blowing smoke, but he never did.

  About noon I walked over and called for him. There was no response. The cabin door was open, but the screen was closed. I climbed onto the porch and shouted again. Again, no answer. The flag hanging next to the door flapped once, loudly, like a whip cracking. A fat black horsefly circled and buzzed off toward the shed.

  Cupping my eyes, I peered through the screen, nose pressed to the mesh. A patch of sunlight lay on the empty bed like a brilliant quilt. Another spilled off the table onto the floor. The bright spots only made the rest of the room darker. I had to squint to penetrate the gloom.

  The first thing to come into focus was one of the chairs that’d been next to the table. It lay on its back in front of the fireplace now. The rack that held the fireplace tools had toppled, too, and the poker, shovel, and broom were strewn across the hearth. I raised my eyes higher, dread a dark fizz in my chest, and there was Czarnecki, two feet off the floor, dangling from a rope thrown over a roof beam.

  I rushed into the cabin, but it was too late. The old man was dead, had been for some time. One end of the rope was tied to a steel hook screwed into the wall, the other had been twisted into a noose. It wasn’t an easy death. His tongue was nearly chewed through.

  “You sonofabitch,” I said. He’d laid his burdens—the rovers, Mr. Otto’s crusade, the kid—on me, and I doubted I was strong enough to bear them. I came close to walking out to the van and driving off, close to turning my back on the whole nightmare and returning home. But I’m not that kind of man, and I think you know it, baby. I hope you do, anyway.

  It was too much to contemplate the big picture right then, so I focused on what was in front of me. Czarnecki’s body had to be dealt with, and there’d be no police or coroners or funeral homes involved.

  Grabbing a knife from the kitchen, I cut the rope and lowered the corpse. It weighed almost nothing. I pulled the sleeping bag off the bed and zipped the body into it, found a wheelbarrow in the yard, and used that to move the bundle. Wildflowers grew at the base of the pine tree where I dug the grave, shoveling through duff to packed earth. I kept digging until I was waist-deep in the hole, then rolled the body into it and recited what I could recall of the funeral prayer—earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

  The sun was dropping fast by the time I’d refilled the grave and spread pine needles to cover my tracks. Back in the Econoline, I lay on my cot. I dreaded the internal battle I was sure was coming over what to do next, but got to sleep just like that and didn’t wake until after dark.

  The kid turned to look at me when I opened the door to the shed. I stepped inside, put on the light, and threw him the keys.

  “Get up,” I said, waving Czarnecki’s .45.

  “Where’s the old man?” he said.

  I wasn’t in the mood to explain. I pointed the gun at him and said, “We’re leaving. Get yourself out to the camper.”

  He detached his chain from the bolt, picked up his slop bucket, and shuffled to the truck. When he was sitting in the crate, I gave him a tuna sandwich.

  “Thanks, boss,” he said.

  “Lie down,” I said, and lowered the lid.

  An hour later I was headed south on the 395, driving the pickup through the night. I don’t know where I’m going yet, but it feels right to be on the move. I’m still not thinking too far ahead. I couldn’t stay at Czarnecki’s place, so I split. I couldn’t leave the kid, so I swapped the Econoline for the old man’s truck so I could bring him along. And that’s where things stand now.

  After a few hours I got off the highway at this truck stop in Bishop. I’m parked facing the Sierras, and the peaks are glowing even though there’s no moon out, patches of snow bright white against the blue granite and black sky. I wish you could see how pretty it is.

  I’ll rest here in the cab, as I wouldn’t be able to sleep in the camper beside the kid. He’s my next problem, and I’ll have to deal with him soon.

  Good night, baby. I love you.

  TODAY’S PASSAGE: Don’t let fear hold you back from your destiny. Be a hero. Strap on your armor and charge. If you give it your all, there is victory even in failure.

  —Listen, Respond, Win: A New Path to Success

  by Dr. Christine Pellegrino

  16

  THE ONLY BOB LEFT COMES TO ON HIS BACK, THE NIGHT SKY snapping into focus. Half a second earlier he was ten years old and swimming in the East River with kids he grew up with, Tommy Boyle treading water and reciting a limerick.

  There was a young man of Leeds

  Who swallowed a packet of seeds

  Great tufts of grass

  Sprouted out of his ass

  And his balls were all covered with weeds.

  But he’s back in Arizona now, lying at the bottom of a mountain, a sharp rock poking his liver. The pain when he straightens his broken left arm with his good right one nearly makes him scream.

  He knew when he jumped the fall wouldn’t kill him, but he’s pretty sure he got as close to dying as he ever has before. If the fuckers up top came after him now, it’d be all over. He wouldn’t be able to fight back. He lifts his head to look around. Nothing but moon rocks and stunted cactus. He tries to hurry the healing by concentrating on where he hurts most.

  Half an hour later his bones have knit enough that he can stand. He stomps to test his legs and sets off down the mountain. It’s a little after midnight. Five hours until dawn. He picks up his pace. Town is a long way off.

  He comes to a trail, follows that until it hits a Jeep track, and follows that to pavement, the road back to Phoenix. He walks on the shoulder, ducking when cars pass. Distances out here are deceptive. He sees the lights of a ranch up ahead and figures it’ll take fifteen minutes to reach it. An hour later the lights are as far away as ever. His plan was to get back to the motel on his own, but he worries he might have miscalculated, might wind up in the open at sunrise, so when he comes to a crossroads, a four-way stop with a red signal blinking above it, he hides in the scrub and waits.

  A pickup driving toward Phoenix approaches. Bob steps out in front of it, hands in the air. With his face smeared with dried blood, he’s a nightmare come to life. Still, the truck stops.

  “What’s wrong?” the driver asks.

  “I flipped my bike,” Bob replies. He fakes a limp as he moves to the window. The driver is a kid with a flattop and thick glasses. He’s wearing white pants and a white shirt with the words Danziger Dairy embroidered on it.

  “Are you hurt?” the kid says.

  “I’m banged up, but I’ll live,” Bob says. “My bike’s trash, though. I could use a lift into town.”

  “I’m on my way to work,” the kid says.

  Bob pulls a twenty-
dollar bill from his pocket. “Drop me at the first pay phone.”

  “Keep your money,” the kid says. “Get in back.”

  Bob climbs over the tailgate. When he’s settled against the cab, the kid hits the gas. The crossroads dwindles until all Bob can make out is the faint red throb of the signal. For the first time since the fight, he thinks of the other Bob. Rest easy, he tells him. You will be avenged.

  The kid stops at a gas station. Bob hops out and walks up to thank him, but he’s already pulling away. The station attendant is asleep in the office, head resting on folded arms. Bob goes to the phone booth, gets the number for the Apache Motel from the book, and puts a dime in the slot. The night clerk connects him to Antonia and Elijah’s room. Antonia answers.

  “Bob’s dusted,” Bob tells her.

  “Dusted?” she says. She sounds like she thinks he’s joking.

  “We got ambushed, and he was killed.”

  “Ambushed by who? Where?”

  “I’m not getting into that now.”

  “Are the rest of us in danger?”

  “I have no fucking idea, but if you are, you’ll be better off with me there, so hurry and send someone to pick me up.”

  Elijah and Pedro come for him. They ride back to the motel, and everyone gathers in Antonia and Elijah’s room to hear what happened.

  “We were at the spot where we were gonna feed,” Bob begins. “A rover and an unturned girl tried to snatch the kid, but I caught them at it.”

  He goes on to tell how the dude stopped his ticker with a lucky poke and Bob brought him back, but he was still too late to save Bob from getting dusted. He tells how he fought the rover who killed Bob and another who was with him and was almost dusted himself before escaping by jumping off the mountain.