The red brake lights of the pickup truck illuminated the darkness, accentuated by the reverse lights as Colten backed up to the fallen rider. He put it in park, got out, and walked up to the man, who lay moaning on the road. Squatting down, he pulled the wallet out of the man’s back pocket and looked through the contents, pulling out the driver’s license.
“David Wilcox. Nice to meet you, Dave. Nice night, huh?”
The man lay on his back, trying to control the pain that was shooting through his body. He looked up at Colten.
“Says here you’re from Minnesota. Long way from home, ain’t you?”
“P . . . p . . . please—” the man was gasping—“call a . . . an am . . . bul—”
“Naw, ain’t no need for that. Don’t worry, it’ll be over soon enough.”
Colten walked over to his truck and reached into the bed. He pulled out two large chains and fixed them to his hitch. Then he strung one back and hooked it to the handlebars of the motorcycle. Taking the end of the other chain, he bent down and tied it around the waist of the fallen man.
“W . . . what are you . . . no please . . . not like this.”
“Why not . . . got to be some way, don’t it?”
Colten got into the truck amidst the screams of the man lying on the ground. He put it in drive and turned off the road into the desert. He felt a slight jerk as the slack from the chains abated and he slowly eased his tow off the road. Once on rock, he looked back through the rearview and saw the man wrestling with the chain. Funny thing, thought Colten. The man knew what was coming, knew there was no way out of his fix, and yet still fought to prevent it. Colten didn’t see the use but waited to gun the engine for a few seconds. An animal toying with its food.
Suddenly consumed by unmitigated rage and fueled by the pounding rhythm of the truck’s soundtrack, Colten hit the gas and went plowing through the desert. The sound of scraping metal and flesh, screams of agony, and sparks of rock followed him as he drove on.
Faster and faster, swerving now and then to let the tow swing in arcs, rooster-tailing stone, spark, and blood behind him. He was crazed, like a heroin addict struggling to tie the tourniquet with shaky hands. He drove, dodging boulders and looking back as they reached up to punch both man and machine. After several minutes, he drove up to a dry creek bed. Colten hit the brakes and stepped out of the truck. He walked back to check on his quarry.
The machine was wrecked. The handle bars bent from the force of the dragging and the once-shining machine now triturated scrap. Small pieces of metal glinted in the dark, stretching behind them out of view. Colten reached down and unhooked the chain. He gathered it up and threw it into the back of the truck.
He walked around to the passenger door, opened it, and pulled a pair of gloves out of the console. He also grabbed a half-filled water bottle, shut the door, and walked back to the man. Or what was left of him.
There on the ground, unidentifiable to anyone who may have known him, lay Dave Wilcox of Minnesota. His limbs broken, contorted beyond repair. His clothes ripped and torn, pieces of fabric woven into the open wounds of his body. With slow, intermittent pushes, the man’s rib cage would rise, forcing yet another breath into his pulverized body.
Colten squatted next to him and looked at the man’s face. With all the energy he could muster, Dave Wilcox of Minnesota tried to speak, but only blood streaked down his torn cheek.
“Shhh . . . no use talkin’. Just let me enjoy this for a bit,” Colten said as he took a swig of water.
“W . . . wh . . . why . . .”
“Ain’t no use askin’ why. It’s done. Nothing you can do about it now.”
The man looked up at the clear sky above him. Cloudless. Black. The streak of an airplane’s exhaust high in the sky etched into his cornea as his rib cage fell and he died. Colten took another mouthful of water and spit it into the dead man’s face.
He got up and removed the chain from the body, wrapped it up, and put it back in the truck. He got in the cab, turned down the radio, and slowly drove back to the county road.
It wasn’t the grand night he had planned, the release he had hoped for since finding the girl at the diner, but it would have to do.
Only until he found her.
39
Hours before the dawn, Jack was awakened by the front door slamming shut and the sound of Boots walking across the porch. It took him awhile to realize where he was. Laura was in the bed with Molly, and he had taken the couch. His eyes adjusted to the darkness as he rolled off the cushion, moved to the window, and peered outside.
He watched as Boots stepped off the porch and strolled out into the light of a gibbous moon. Into the front yard where there was another man standing in the dust.
The man wore a black button-up with pearl buttons, an obnoxious silver belt buckle with the standard Wrangler jeans. His black hair was greased back. His cowboy boots appeared black under the layers of mud and dust caked to them.
Behind this mystery man there seemed to be a void in the horizon, as if cloud and shadow swept his footprints as he walked. Now he stood there, waiting for Boots to saunter up to the fence post where he was standing. Jack strained to hear them talk through the pane of glass.
“It’s been awhile, Boots.”
“I reckon it has.”
“I can’t believe you’re still living out here. Place is a dump . . . but I guess that suits you.”
“What do you want, Seth? I ain’t got the patience for you right now,” Boots said as he spat on the ground near the man’s feet.
“Come on now, can’t we just have a good ole heart-to-heart?”
“Speak. It’s late and I’m tired.”
“Word on the vine is that you’re tinkering around again. Now, Boots, I thought we all had an arrangement that we were supposed to follow. We get to do what we want, and you stay out of the way.”
“Naw, that ain’t the way I see it.”
“Hmm. Let me just tell you something. Things are a lot different than they used to be. I don’t think you really have what it takes to step back in. So take my advice. You stay out here with your rocks and dust, and leave the world for us who know what to make of it.”
Boots relaxed his shoulders and put his hands in his pockets. He chuckled and sneered back at Seth. “Ain’t your place. You have a hard time rememb’ring that, don’t you?”
“Where’s the girl, Boots?”
“What’s that?”
“Where’s the girl?”
“What girl?”
“It’s funny, you acting like you don’t know anything.”
“I know enough. I know your boy had no claim on her. Ain’t had no claim on anything he’s been doing.”
“Suppose I send him down here to see if you ain’t got her tucked away. He’s real determined.”
“You know how that would end . . . he’d be dead before he knew anything.”
“You really had no business, Boots. That boy was just having a little fun. Now what is he supposed to do to pass the time? He gets cranky real fast these days.”
“Ain’t my concern.”
“Nothing is ever your concern, old man. It’s your excuse for everything.”
“You come down here just to hear yourself talk?”
The man glared at Boots, then at the cabin, then back at the old man. “I see you got some company?” Seth said, licking his bottom lip as he stared up at the house and let his eyes settle on the window Jack was looking out of.
Jack swung himself back against the wall, a sudden chill running down his spine.
“I guess you can say that.”
“Come on now, Boots, you can’t lock people up against their will.”
“I ain’t lock no one up against their will.”
“Really? From what I see, that man in the window doesn’t want to be here at all. We saw what you did out there. That highway bit? Real nice. Ain’t fair, but real nice. Make them waste out there for a while so they look at you as their savior. From
the sounds of it, you almost left them out there too long. We almost took them in. You know, to help them out. Why don’t I just go ask him if he wants to get out of this prison?”
Jack ducked back from the window again, his heart racing in his chest.
“He’s doing just fine. I’m looking out for him. You don’t need to worry.” Boots spat again, but more out of attitude than necessity.
“Listen,” the man said, straightening his spine. His hand still rested on the fence post, but the air behind him began to move in Edvard Munchian waves. “You can’t keep him here if he doesn’t want it. By all accounts you should kick him out. Them the rules. You going to go breaking the rules now? Huh?”
“Don’t talk to me about no rules, Seth. What do you know about rules? You get what I give you.”
The man growled, but he released his tension without saying a word. Mimicking Boots, he tucked his hands in his pockets, his shoulders relaxed, and the air stood still. “You’re right, Boots. I get what you give me. And soon enough, you’ll give me him. He doesn’t belong here and you know it.”
The man turned on his heels and started walking off into the night. He turned back to find Boots still standing firm, a small pool of spit forming on the ground in front of him and his hands still resting in his pockets.
“You’re a has-been, Boots. Ain’t no one want you around here no more. Pretty soon, you keep meddling, a world of hurt is going to come down on you.”
“Maybe so, but I’m still here.”
The man disappeared into the dark. The stars, which were unnoticeable before, began to shine brilliantly as if a curtain had been rolled back. Black cloth slipping from a tabletop.
Boots stood staring off into the night.
“I’m still here.” His loud whisper carried to Jack’s ear.
Boots stepped back into the cabin, slowly, like thick oil poured from a can.
“Who was that, Boots?”
“Him? Oh, you don’t need to worry about him. As long as you’re here, ain’t nothing to concern yourself with.”
“Nothing? Nothing?” Jack asked emphatically.
“That’s what I said.”
“He shows up in the middle of the night, asking about the girl and us, and you say it’s nothing?”
“He’s harmless, like I say, as long as you’re with me.”
Jack’s stomach turned, his confusion, anger, and fear mixing toxically in his gut. “What did he mean by the highway?”
Boots was silent as he walked to fetch some water.
“Don’t turn your back on me! What did he mean by leaving us out on the highway?”
Boots spun on his heels with fire in his eyes. “What do you want me to say, Jack? You looking for something to ease your mind about the way you drove yourself to the brink of dying? Take a good hard look at yourself. Deep. The way you been going, that road really seem like too much of a stretch? Totally didn’t see that coming? Naw, you did that to yourself. You been doing that for a long time, from what I can see.”
As quickly as the dagger was stuck into Jack’s heart, the old man’s mood shifted. His face eased and he looked sympathetically at the confused and broken man before him.
“It’s late. You need to get some sleep. Now, don’t worry about any of this. What’s done is done. You’re here now. That’s all that matters. Tomorrow, things will look better. Promise.”
The old man patted Jack on the shoulder, decided against the drink he had been going for, and went back outside to sit on the porch. Jack, left to himself, sat on the couch but didn’t sleep.
The cycle was wearing on him. Mystery, anger, guilt. It always came back to guilt.
40
They spent the day keeping themselves busy about the cabin. The heat outside kept them in. Jack found it hard to sit still, his mind racing through the scene from the night before, trying to make sense of the scattered clues and words.
Laura was a quick nurse with Molly. The girl cleaned herself up and was walking around by midafternoon. She talked quietly as if worried to disturb the stillness of the cabin, and Laura did her best to coax some background out of her. She was a scared girl, like one lost in a busy store, searching for her mother. She was bruised up, to say the least, but did not look to have been violated in the worst way imaginable.
Her dark hair hung over her face as protection and accented her darker eyes. With a little white powder, she could have passed for any emo girl in any high school, but her features were natural.
“So why did you leave home?” Laura asked.
“Just felt like the right thing to do.”
“Was it bad there?”
“Not really. Just bored, I guess.”
Home was just outside of Columbus, Ohio. Molly suffered the fate of the typical teenage suburbanite. No matter how domesticated a young heart is, it still seeks a harder edge, not realizing how sharp that edge actually cuts. Usually realization comes after the carotid artery is nicked and there is little strength left to switch paths. For Molly, it appeared that she may have just missed that episode.
With slow recall, she began to recite the ordeal of the diner, the man in the black pickup truck, the cave. The utter hopelessness of the cave. She had no idea how many days it had been. She cried and Laura held her, and then she stopped and continued on, remembering the man coming into the dark with some food. How many times? She lost track.
She told of the madness in his eyes when she thought he was going to strangle her, how she prayed for her mother to come, prayed for anything to save her. Laura wiped the tears from Molly’s face and listened quietly, her heart breaking for this child who had stepped out into a world she was not ready for. Laura would hold her when Molly needed it, and let her sit on her own when her strength returned.
For hours they shared the burden of the girl’s misery until the weight of it no longer crushed her—the trick women have for surviving. Molly sat close to Laura through the morning and seemed to soak in the motherly attention she was receiving.
“I never thought it would end like this. I just wanted to get to LA, you know, see the big lights. Have a little fun. I just got tired of being a nobody in a nothing city.”
“You made it a long way.”
“I made it to the middle of nowhere, huh?”
Laura smiled back, secretly admiring the young girl’s fearlessness in chasing a dream. “That’s more than most people do. It took a lot of guts to come out this far. But you need to match it with a little smarts too. Does your mother know where you are?”
“I called her in Salt Lake City. She cried a lot on the phone. She was scared at first, then she was mad.”
“Sounds about right.”
“She told me to stay in Salt Lake and that she would come get me. I wish I would have done that.”
“Well, there is nothing you can do about that now. Only thing that matters is what you are going to do next.”
“I want to go home,” Molly said, looking up at Jack, who had stopped pacing and seemed to have taken interest in the conversation. “I don’t want this.”
“That might be a good idea,” Laura said, taking the girl’s hand in hers.
“Yeah, assuming Boots lets you out of this shack of his,” Jack blurted.
“Jack!”
“Just saying.”
Molly pulled her hand back and stared at Laura, giving her that Is he going to be all right? look. “Yeah, I think that will be the best thing. Go back home.”
“Good. We’ll get this straightened out, I’m sure,” Laura said.
The door opened and Boots walked in with lunch hanging from his fist. Some animal that had been kicking not more than an hour ago, now stripped of its skin and ready for the fire.
“Ah, good to see you gettin’ around,” he said, eyeing the girl. “I’s goin’ to gets this fixed and get some food in yous.”
Boots made short work of the meal and the cabin filled with the aroma of wild game, panfried in a bit of oil. The three visitors cou
ld feel the grease hang in the air and coat them like a pungent lotion but did not complain, the hunger pangs in their stomach overriding any sense of ungratefulness. Soon the group sat down for a Spartan dinner of meat served with an unrecognizable side dish of unearthly greens.
Molly devoured her plate as if she had not eaten in weeks, and Laura generously offered some of her share, which the girl took without reservation. They ate in silence, each to their own thoughts.
After lunch Boots took leave out on the front porch to sit in his chair and chew. Jack followed after him stealthily, the memory of last night’s scolding still weighing heavy on his mind. The image of the nighttime mystery man didn’t sit too well on his heart either. A sense of impending doom lurked behind every thought. He needed to get out of there. To get home. To get back to normal 9-to-5 life, away from all this confusion and meaninglessness.
“So you think we will be able to leave soon?”
“You in such a hurry, huh? What’s the matter, Jack? Getting sick of rabbit already?”
“Look, Boots, I’m grateful for what you’ve done for us—”
“Really?”
“—but we need to get back to our lives. I can’t afford to stay out here longer than I have to.”
“That’s a funny way of putting it, Jack. How long could you have afforded to stay on that highway? Looked to me like you were getting ready to sit out there for a while.”
Always with the guilt, Jack thought. Would he ever be able to live that down? Would he have to bear that mistake for the rest of his life? He could imagine himself back home in the grocery store with Laura, and her asking him what kind of cereal he wanted. He would say corn flakes, and she would respond with “Are you sure that’s what you want? It would be a pity if you were dying on a highway and you suddenly wanted shredded wheat.”
Any mistake Laura ever made would be a free pass. She could pay a bill late, stay out with friends all night, even have an affair with an old high school flame, and all she would have to say was “At least I didn’t almost kill you!”
He would always have this burden. Even though he was sure Laura would not use it to beat him into a lap dog, he could not let it go. He was convinced that Boots sensed this and was using it to get under his skin.
Purgatory Road Page 10
