Feast for Thieves

by Marcus Brotherton

  A piece of flint lay in my jacket pocket, same as I always carried it, so I gathered some brushwood, lit a tiny flame so as not to be seen, and set about drying the chill out of my wet clothes. The thicket covered me well enough, so in stealth I counted out the cash, ventilating stacks of bills in the heat of the flame so they wouldn’t stay wet and grow moldy, and saw we’d bounced out of the bank with exactly $18,549. That amount of money would solve any man’s aggravations, I knew, including mine. But when I stared at the loot it looked oddly tarnished, as decaying as an enemy corpse found in the woods. As impossible as it seemed for someone like me, I actually whispered out loud, “I don’t want it.”

  ’Course, I didn’t know what to do with the money neither. A man can’t be roaming around the Texas countryside with fifteen years’ wages stuffed in a gunnysack. I clambered halfway up the bank, far enough so high water would never touch the mark, and eyed out a location at the base of a tree. I scraped out a hole, lined it with rocks to prevent rot, and buried the money still in the sack.

  My stomach rumbled. The adrenaline buzz of nearly dying gave me the shakes, and I reckoned some food might do me good. After making it up the rest of the bank, I stopped, momentarily mesmerized by the clearing of the clouds. The wind blew stormlike, except the storm was leaving, not coming, and high in the night sky as far as I could see was a breathtaking blue and black. Below that were the ends of a sunset, the purples and reds, and low against the horizon were the last oranges and yellows, all fire and brilliant, an absolute pure light.

  I didn’t want to leave this sight of wonderment but I knew a criminal needs to make haste. In front of me lay thin growths of tussock and salt grass. One lone juniper tree stood tall in the dark. I wondered what distant land I might run to now, far away from Cut Eye, Texas, and the law. There came another rumble deep in my gut, one I couldn’t shake no matter how hard I tried, and I recognized it as the kind of ache that brings about death if a man ignores it long enough. I wondered how I might find that good meal, the one the voice was talking about, and eat my fill.

  TWO

  They say the town of Cut Eye sits halfway between nowhere and emptiness. It’s been around for some one hundred and thirty years, ever since the days of the Wild West. The only highway for two hundred miles in any direction is Highway 2, which passes right through Cut Eye, and I knew if I didn’t find that highway, I’d be wandering around in the sagebrush until the buzzards ate me.

  So I left the riverbank, pointed myself southeast, and started walking. What I hoped to do was flag down a long-haul trucker, a man passing through who had no knowledge of the events that transpired the late afternoon before. What I didn’t want was any locals to come along and get suspicious of a man standing beside the side of the road with his thumb sticking out, someone they didn’t recognize straightaway.

  It took me most of the night to find my way back to the blacktop. I hid in the ditch while a car or two passed. When a tanker truck loomed in the distance I took a risk and stepped up. Morning sun was just beginning to show, and on the truck’s side was painted “Kansas City Southern Lines: For the Duration,” so I knew he was hauling for the railroad, most likely out of Shreveport or Lake Charles. Sure enough, he pulled to the shoulder and I ran to the cab.

  “Where headed?” He was a colored man, which didn’t bother me none, and although he was leaned over so as he could speak to me, I could still see a shotgun resting across his legs pointing my direction.

  “Next town ahead.”

  “You drifting?” He wasn’t smiling.

  I paused before answering truthfully. “Yeah.”

  He looked me up and down as if weighing his options. “Lots of fellas drifting these days. A man of your height and build surely saw some action. What branch?”

  “101st Airborne.”

  “I was Red Ball Express. We hauled your sorry butts up to Bastogne. You fellas had it tough up there, fighting surrounded like you were. Good thing Patton broke through the lines to save y’all.”

  I coughed and muttered, “Patton might have broken through, but he sure didn’t save us.”

  The trucker launched into a big grin, then laughed and set the shotgun back on the rack behind him. “Hop in. I can always use someone’s ear to bend on these long empty roads.”

  I climbed aboard and the trucker took off at a slow crawl, working through the gears, gradually gaining speed.

  “I’ve always wondered what kind of courage it takes for a man to jump out of a perfectly good airplane,” he said. “How many campaigns was that for you, anyway—Normandy, Market Garden, Belgium? You make it into Germany too?”

  I shook my head. “Belgium but not Germany.”

  “So what now? Headed for the oil fields? That’s some hard labor, but a man can make a buck at it if he puts his back into it.”

  “Not me.” I was still telling the truth. Two months ago I spent a week working for a rig. Every day we worked from dawn to dusk, slippery crude covering us ’til we was black as darkness. But late one evening at a bar, I was drunk and punched out some yahoo who ratted on me to the company’s manager. The manager became mistrustful and asked to see my papers, which he’d overlooked at first. When he saw my dishonorable discharge, well, I was out on my ear. It wasn’t a new story.

  “Farmhand then?” the trucker asked. “Ranch hand? Lumberyard? Trucker like me? A man returns from war and he’s got to find his trade.”

  I shook my head and kept silent. I’d tried all those. Applied, anyway. With all the servicemen spilling home from overseas, there weren’t hardly no jobs to be had. The rare openings that came up, I was always last in line. Time after time they checked my papers and I heard the same thing: “Keep moving, boy.” I knew who I was.

  The trucker kept talking without seeking much feedback from me, and I let my mind wander. I guess I even dozed a bit because next thing I knew the sunrise was over and a city was upon us. He pulled to the side of the highway and motioned to the door with his head. “I can take you farther, but you said ‘next town.’ This is it.” He held out his hand. “You best be finding your purpose soon, friend. A man with no purpose is a man who don’t last long in this world.”

  I shook the trucker’s hand and climbed out. The truck growled and headed away down the highway. I took stock of my surroundings. Last meal I’d eaten was yesterday morning. Crazy Ake had a biscuit in his pocket and we’d split it between us. My pockets were bare of cash like usual. I hadn’t taken a dime off the loot we’d heisted. Somehow it just didn’t seem right.

  A diner sat on the edge of town and I walked around back of it and tried their garbage cans but they were empty still in the morning, so I kept walking up the road. In front of me was a bright neon sign that said “Union Gospel Mission of Texas—free meals.” I didn’t cater much to religion, but a man on the run can’t be choosy. The door listed open and I walked inside the entryway where a man behind the desk told me to sign in and join the line that was forming through the main door.

  “You gotta hear the preacher first,” the man said. “That’s rules. Breakfast is served afterward.”

  Well, that seemed like a raw deal to me, but I wasn’t arguing with my stomach growling like it was. I filed into the chapel, sat on the back bench, and leaned back with my eyes closed. I could use another thirty minutes of sleep.

  “Hear now the words of Isaiah.” The minister took his stand, flopped open his Bible on the pulpit, and cleared his throat. He was an older fella with a thin, sharp face and round wire-rimmed glasses. His suit was starched and clean-pressed and he looked to me more like a fella in an advertisement for the Arthur A. Everts jewelery company than any preacher I ever knowed.

  “‘Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord.’” The preacher began to read. “‘Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.’” The preacher looked up, paused for effect, and added in his own words, “I wonder if there’s a man out ther
e this morning who knows what this passage from God’s Word means?”

  Men were still filing into the room, knocking over chairs, sitting down hard. I glanced around. Most were winos, bums who’d never seen an honest day’s work in their lives. A few of the younger men looked sober, men simply out of work like me. Most still wore bits and pieces of their war uniforms.

  “It means that God is in the business of giving men second chances,” the preacher said. “It’s true your sins are reprehensible to God. You might be an adulterer or a reprobate, a slanderer or a gossip.” He cleared his throat again. “You might even be a murderer or a thief, but God’s Word declares there isn’t any sin that can’t be forgiven.”

  Well, when he said that bit about being a thief, I was listening.

  “Isaiah continues,” the preacher said, “and he offers us this warning as well as an encouragement. ‘If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land: But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword.’”

  Well, now that preacher had my full attention. I was willing and obedient. I’d always been a soldier who followed orders. And there was that mention of eating from the good of the land. I wondered if that had anything to do with what the lawman beside the river shouted at me.

  “With God’s help, any man can change his ways,” the preacher said. “You may be lost and without direction. You might have led a life with a complete lack of purposefulness. You might be drifting forsaken through this world same as many of you are drifting through Texas right now, but the shed blood of Jesus Christ can make you a new man. When Jesus was crucified on the cross, two thieves were crucified along with him. Both men deserved death. The man on one side cursed Jesus and went to his condemnation. But the man on his other side asked to be remembered. Some consider that one of the first churches, a congregation of thieves, and Jesus extended mercy to that second thief and said to him, ‘Today, you will be with me in paradise.’”

  The man was preaching straight at me, I knew, and I respected him for it. He wasn’t fiddling around with his words or trying to sugarcoat the facts. There was a heaven and a hell, and I was bound for hell. I knew that. That preacher was to the point and he was calling out my life as he saw it.

  I stood to my feet.

  “Rev’rund,” I said. “Are you for real?”

  The minister looked jolted for a moment, like he wasn’t used to outbursts in the middle of his sermons. “Come forward and receive salvation,” he said. “You’ll know this is no lie.”

  That plank-hardened room was swimming in scent, I tell you. Something lay in the air of the room, and it wasn’t the smell of the winos. It was the good smell of bacon and eggs. The bacon was frying up crispy and golden; I could almost taste it on my tongue. Those eggs were real, not powdered, the kind a man didn’t need to pour ketchup on in the mess hall. I’d put salt and pepper on them. Maybe some chili sauce if they had it. And the smell of that breakfast cooking worked its way through my nose and down into my gut.

  “I’m saved!” I cried out. “Let’s eat!”

  The preacher’s eyebrows lowered. “Blasphemer!” He reared back like he was getting ready to shout out a mouthful, and sure enough it came forth mightily: “What right have you to partake of the kingdom of God?! If all you came for is a free meal, then out with you. Go out into the byways and highways, and let God have mercy on your soul!” He pointed at two burly looking types standing in the wings. Then strode over to me and grabbed me by the arms.

  “C’mon fella,” one of them said. “Time for you to leave.”

  I shook off his grip. “I ain’t leaving without a meal!” I shouted. “I sat through the sermon. Now I’m saved. Time to eat!”

  The other fella started shoving my shoulders, pushing me toward the side door. I hate to be shoved. He dropped his chin like he was getting ready to be rougher with me, and before he could move again I slugged him across the jaw. He went down into a million glass pieces, and the other fella jumped on my back and started whaling on my head with his fists. I crashed over backward on him to break his grip, leaped up in case he beat me to it, and another man’s fist came from out of nowhere and popped me in the eye. One of the out-of-work servicemen joined in. I walloped him back, and the room erupted. Men who’d previously sat together hearing the holy Word of God busted each other’s chins, broke chairs over each other’s heads, and knocked each other on the nose.

  A hard-backed Bible flew my direction. I ducked its sharp edges just in time, hit the deck, and crawled toward the door. Over the years I’ve learned the floor’s the safest place in any large fight. Not that I was always seeking a safe place mind you, but I figured the law would be called soon, and a man such as me would be wise to take an opportunity in the chaos to beat a hasty retreat.

  The sunlight streamed against my face and I slammed the mission’s door behind me. I ran across the street, spotted another trucker bearing down on me, and flagged him down.

  “You sticking around this joint long?” I asked as soon as he opened the door.

  “Driving straight through.”

  “Good enough.” I climbed aboard before he could say otherwise.

  A siren sounded in the distance, and a sheriff’s car appeared heading toward us. It roared by and kept going, headed straight for the brawl at the mission.

  “Wonder what all that was about?” the trucker asked.

  I shook my head. “You know those church folks. Always squabbling about something.”

  THREE

  We was two hundred miles south of the mission before I asked the truck driver to pull over and let me out.

  “Here?” He kept his hands on the wheel. “It’s middle of nowhere.”

  “I’m heading the wrong direction,” I said. “There’s something I need to take care of up north.”

  The driver shrugged, geared down, and pulled to the side of the highway. The sun was high overhead when I climbed out. I crossed over the highway behind the truck and stood on the other side of the blacktop.

  After the truck left, everything felt desolate for some time. I kicked at a creosote bush and nibbled on the end of a blade of buffalo grass. Far in the distance lay a ridge of low hills covered in tarbush with some burro and salt grasses. Around me was wide wasteland. The sun beat down on my head. I stunk of sweat.

  I was actually listening to that preacher. I’m not exactly sure what got into me when I jumped up like that. I had in mind to come forward and ask him some more questions about the changes stirring in me, but the good smell of that bacon nearly drove me mad with hunger, it rightly did, and then when that fella started shoving me, well, that was enough aggression to cause a man like me to snap and lash out. The thought of that missed meal kept floating through my mind, and I thought, Wow, what I wouldn’t give for a plate of bacon right now.

  It was nearly an hour of waiting before a trucker picked me up and we started heading north again. Briefly I considered stopping back at the mission and seeing if I couldn’t make things square with the preacher, but I shook the thought from my mind and continued on with my other plan.

  We drove all the rest of that afternoon and into the night. I’d marked the spot where I first hitched a ride, and when the spot was reached I asked to be let out, then found my way back to the thicket, to the tree halfway up the riverbank where I’d stashed the loot. It proved straightforward to find again, and the sack came up real easy. I dusted off the dirt, counted the money to reassure myself it was all still there, and hiked back to the highway again just as the sun was coming up. It was now two full days since my last meal.

  The fella who picked me up this time drove a battered Ford pickup, and he eyed my gunnysack with a face full of suspicion until I explained it was some laundry I was taking into town to have cleaned. He squinted in disbelief but wisely kept his mouth shut until we were back in Cut Eye when he said, “This is the place, right?”

  I nodded. The pickup slowed to a stop, and I climbed out without a word. I squared my
shoulders, walked north a block past the school and the tavern and café and swung left when I got to Main Street. I knew exactly where I was headed. The sheriff’s office sat right on the corner. The front door faced Main. The bank was across the street and one lot farther down, although I noticed a big “closed” sign out in front.

  I stopped walking, inhaled sharply, and eyed the sheriff’s office again. It stood directly before me now, and I shaded the sun from my eyes. I nodded, found my feet, walked up the cement steps, and opened the door to the jail.

  Behind the front desk sat a young woman who kept her eyes focused on her work, even when I approached and cleared my throat. No one else on duty looked to be in sight. I could tell by the shape of her dress she was willowy underneath but I wasn’t here for womanizing, not this place. I cleared my throat again.

  “Hang on a minute,” she said. “What rhymes with ‘luminous’?”

  I furrowed my brow. “Not sure what you’re getting at ma’am.”

  She frowned, exasperated. “Where she had at one time descended into an aureole of light luminous—it’s my poem, see? I’m almost finished, but this last line needs a rhyme.”

  “Well, I’m here to see the sheriff.” My voice was curt, and I glanced about the room. Two closed doors on the left led into what I guessed to be offices. Behind the girl sat a row of four jail cells. One was occupied by six sleeping drunks. In the other, five wide-eyed men paced, all muttering to themselves. A third cell was packed so full I couldn’t tell how many men were inside, all yelling and hollering general deviances. The fourth held two women of ill repute. One was sitting with her head in her hands. The other raised her eyebrows and whistled my direction.