Purgatory Road

by Samuel Parker

  “Waiting. The misery of waiting. It can tear a man up.”

  The crunching of rocks below their feet beat a rhythm to Boots’s story. Up the mountain.

  “Then one day, word gets to him that his kin are still alive, but stuck in a mountain pass in the dead of winter. Stuck in a place that got turned to all kinds of evil.”

  Boots stopped, and straightened his back. He looked up the two-track as if looking through time.

  “Some of the worst things swept through that pass. Folks turning savage. Not human.”

  Boots resumed the upward trudge.

  “Anyway, that man hears that they are up there. So he goes back for them. Pushing through snow and cold. He finds them all and brings them home.

  “Man had everything, lost it all, then he guts it out and gets it back. Not all, but what mattered most is what he saved. All it took was a little beatdown to set him straight.

  “You may not like me, Jack. You may hate me. It doesn’t matter. What matters is, are you goin’ to go up there and get back what matters most?

  “Not too many folks get a chance like this. To prove themselves. But it was what you always wanted, ain’t it. Wanted to show what you’re made of? Well, here you go. Served up on a stick for you.”

  Jack watched his feet, his legs beginning to burn from the climb. He had the vague feeling of a man being marched to the gallows.

  Halfway up the ascent, a small foot trail broke off to the left, and Boots stopped and sat on a rock. Jack came up a couple paces behind, bent over, and put his hands on his knees. This uphill slog was torture, his legs were burning, and sweat was pouring out of his pores. Boots looked little affected as he reached into his satchel and handed Jack some water. He drank it down in several gulps, feeling ashamed that he didn’t ask if Boots needed some. By the looks of it, he didn’t.

  “How much farther?”

  “Not too much. Just about a half mile more,” Boots said, taking the container back and closing his bag. He stood up and pointed up the two-track. “A couple more turns and the road ends in a clearing. On the other side, there is a cave. They’re in there. Both of ’em.”

  Boots stretched his back, and then started up the foot path, away from the road. Jack started after him.

  “What’re you doing, Jack?”

  “Following you.”

  “Naw . . . your road’s right there. That’s the path you’re supposed to take.”

  Jack looked back at the road, surprised.

  Alone. He was being told to go alone.

  “But . . . where are you going, Boots?”

  “I got my own business needs tending.”

  Lost, his head swimming. Jack was paralyzed. He took a couple steps back but couldn’t get himself to start the climb up the two-track. Apprehension filled his body and rooted his feet in place.

  “It’ll be all right, Jack. You can do this. Just head up that road and get Laura. Whatever gets in your way . . . you take it down.”

  Easy advice from someone going the other way, thought Jack. It made absolutely no sense to him. The old man had taken him this far, knew exactly what road to take, where Laura and Molly were; he even had a shotgun in his hand, all the keys to save them right and quick. But now he was leaving Jack just when he could have been of some use.

  Running away. Just like he ran away to his shack in the desert. All talk and no muscle. All back-country wisdom and no action.

  Jack looked at the gun in Boots’s hand, imploring the old man to hand it over with his eyes. Boots slung it over his shoulder in response.

  “Naw, Jack, you don’t need this. You’d probably shoot your hand off . . . or kill one of them girls by mistake. Nope . . . you need to just march up that hill and take back what’s yours. Simple as that.”

  And with that, Boots headed up the twisting foot trail and out of sight. He didn’t look back, but his voice boomed down from above, “Now get going, Jack!”

  Jack started slowly up the two-track, the way ahead now surrendering to nightfall.

  66

  His mind thumped with the crunching footsteps of his wasted legs. Up the road, he half expected to see headlights appear and charge at him, running him over after he had come this far. Or a boulder, rolling down like a Mayan booby trap. The thought of Laura up there kept him going.

  He could not remember a time where he was more focused on her. No clutter. No waiting BlackBerry or office politics. All was shoved aside. It was all about her. That is what kept his legs moving, though they burned with an intensity that he had not felt since his high school sports days. It was thoughts of her that pushed the questions away, the arguments on why Boots wasn’t here. It didn’t matter, he told himself. The only thing that mattered now was getting up to the end of this road and saving Laura.

  The twilight haze made the surrounding rock glow, as if walking into a negative photograph. Color was gone. All was doused in a sepia tinge of dark and light. The white road below his feet an unmistakable path.

  Another sharp bend and Jack saw the clearing. He stopped in his tracks and hugged the rock, peering around the corner.

  In the middle of the clearing was the black pickup truck. It sat there like a slumbering mythological beast, a sleeping dragon. He half expected it to turn its grill at him and charge like a chained dog, but in the increasing moonlight, it created a black hole of rusting metal.

  Behind the truck, Jack could see a cleft in the rock wall. The cave. Its gaping mouth silent. Nothing stirred. It was dead quiet.

  Jack thought about what to do. It was about twenty yards to the truck, possibly another twenty past that to the cave. The clearing was smooth, with no place to hide. Rock walls lined the clearing as if a scoop of earth had been lifted from the mountain. The blood pressure in Jack’s veins built like a volcano.

  He took a step forward and was about to make a dash for the truck when he saw a thin stream of smoke appear from behind the cab. He stepped back.

  Jack could see the amber glow of a cigarette butt dancing in the dusk. A man was there, leaned up against the vehicle, facing the cave. The man inhaled again and blew the smoke into a giant ball over his head, which then dissipated in the stale air. Jack watched him cautiously. He was stuck.

  Charging across the clearing, yelling like Rambo, was not the thing to do. The guy could have a gun, a knife, a bazooka, for all he knew. For a man who had never been in a fight, Jack knew enough. A cavalry charge was not his best option. He waited patiently for something to develop.

  Soon the man flicked his cigarette aside and walked into the cave. Jack waited several seconds and then stepped out into the clearing.

  The sound of each step seemed amplified in his ears. The crunching gravel below his shoes seemed to be screaming out with every footfall. He made his way to the truck and crouched down. Halfway there.

  Halfway to what, though?

  He took a peek around the tailgate and could see the cave. Darkness started just a few feet from its entrance. He could not see inside.

  The tailgate. Smashed and bloody. It caught Jack’s attention in the fading light as he pressed himself against the back quarter panel of the vehicle. So close to the instrument of two killings not so long ago.

  Jack sat there, not knowing what to do next.

  67

  “How are we going to get out of here?” Molly’s voice shook. A plea for Laura to give a reassuring answer that would somehow be prophetic.

  “I don’t know,” Laura whispered.

  In the safety of the cabin, Molly had finally told Laura about this madman. Now Laura could feel the terror in the girl as Molly was anticipating what was coming. She had been here, had seen it before. She had stared into Colten’s eyes as he’d gripped her neck. She knew the evil that hung behind his pupils. The absolute insanity of bloodlust. She knew, deep down inside, that it was coming again. And by proxy, Laura knew it too. She searched for a grain of hope.

  “This is it?” Molly asked.

  “No.”
r />   “No?”

  “No,” Laura said with quiet reassurance.

  They heard footsteps come through the entrance and Colten appeared, his features illuminated by the small gas lamp he had affixed to the wall, making the place seem like a mining tunnel. His face more sinister, evil in the shadow light. He looked impatient. Fidgety.

  Laura could feel Molly trembling next to her as he stared at them.

  “You think you two are busting out of here?”

  The silence.

  Colten leaned against the wall, striking a demonic James Dean pose. “Huh . . . you might as well accept it. You’re already dead. Just a matter of the details.”

  A whimper escaped Laura’s bruised lips. Molly was nearly catatonic, rocking back and forth.

  “Yeah. The way I see it, this is going to be a good show. Never thought it would end this good. No way.”

  Colten lit another smoke, then continued on. “So tell me about Jack.”

  Laura’s heart surged at the sound of her husband’s name. She remained silent.

  “Oh come on . . . got to be something worth talking about.”

  “There’s nothing for us to talk about.”

  “Hmmm . . . I think I would agree with you. From what I remember, he wasn’t much of anything. Kinda weak.”

  “He’s a better man than you,” she whispered.

  “What’s that?”

  “I said, he’s a better man than you.”

  Colten rubbed the back of his neck with his broken hand. Laura held her breath, willing his hair to catch fire from the cigarette still tucked between his fingers.

  “Yeah, maybe so,” he said. “I sure wouldn’t come up here after you. All broken up. Naw, I’d leave you up here and be on my way to Vegas. You sure that isn’t what he’s done? Go off and leave you?”

  Laura thought of Jack. Of the seeds of detachment nurtured and sprouted through the years of careful carelessness. Of the feeling she had had when she woke up yesterday to an empty bed. No letter. No note. No word. In her mind, though, she could not believe that he had abandoned her. In her hopes, he had gone to get help, in his own misguided way.

  “He went for help.”

  “Sure he did.”

  “And they’ll get back, and they’ll find us.”

  Colten laughed. “You think so? What, you marry Superman or something?”

  Another slow drag on the cigarette.

  “Naw, it’s all good. I want you to keep thinking that. Keep hoping. Keep hoping that you have a hero coming to save you. That’s what makes this good. Makes it worthwhile.”

  He pointed over to Molly.

  “See her? No hope left. Ain’t going to be as good as it could’ve been. But you—” the smoke seeped from the corners of his mouth—“you are going to be all right. Yeah . . . you keep hoping.”

  His head twitched as if coming out of a trance.

  “So . . . tell me . . . about Jack.”

  Silence.

  “Is he like a Kung Fu man or something I should know about?”

  “No,” she whispered with downcast eyes.

  “Guns, knives . . . some voodoo super power . . .”

  “No.”

  “Well, dang, woman! What you keep him around for?”

  She said nothing.

  “You had some spunk in you. I’m going to pay you back tenfold for what you did to my hand. Got me wondering if I should kill you first . . . before Jack. Don’t know if I can turn my back on you.”

  Laura looked up, eyes wide open.

  “What do you mean, before Jack?”

  Softly, the squeak of an ungreased door hinge flittered into the cave from the entrance. The sound of a truck door opening. Colten smiled, threw the butt down on the ground, and squashed it with his heel.

  “Looks like somebody’s come to save you,” he said as he walked outside.

  68

  Boots made his way up the winding path, rounding rocks and marching up to the heavens like a monk sans the orange habit. The shotgun on his shoulder bouncing up and down with each step. His breath was even, as if this walk up the side of the mountain meant nothing to him, yet he climbed with determination. He was on his way to clear the air, to set things back in order. To do some work of his own.

  He finally reached the termination of the narrow foot path. He stood on the edge of a ridge with a drop that went down several hundred feet. The ridge extended right and left, encircling the small clearing below. Dusk was born, and below, down in the circular canyon, Boots could see Jack making his way to the black pickup truck.

  Storm clouds started gathering overhead, and shadows began to accumulate around the far edge of the ridge. A pale breeze blew through the old man’s beard, then shot back and disappeared, as if stunned.

  The man with the black shirt and pearl buttons appeared from Boots’s left and walked toward him.

  “So, decided to leave your trailer, eh, Boots?”

  “Things need to get taken care of. The way I see it, you’ve overstepped your bounds this time. Now I got to make sure that it all gets put back straight.”

  Seth laughed, but anger filled the noises echoing off the rock walls. “I’ve spent a long time with this one. He hasn’t been easy to keep rounded up. But what you did, taking that girl, that just took him off the reservation.”

  “Ain’t my problem.”

  “Nothing’s ever your problem, old man! You think you can just come in here and tinker with things when you want to? Naw, not this time, Boots. I’ve put too much energy into this one. Too much crafting, molding. This one is perfect. You aren’t going to mess this one up for me, not this time.”

  “It’s not for you to decide. I thought you’d get that through your head by now. Besides, you got the story all wrong. Naw . . . this ain’t about your boy at all.”

  “What is it then? Why are you here now? Why shouldn’t I just let my boys run over and throw you down this mountain?”

  The shadows pulsed with adrenaline.

  “’Cause you tried before and couldn’t do it. I’m here right now. That’s all you need to know.”

  Seth looked at the little desert hermit. His long beard, his worn-out clothes, his grime. His eyes went to the shotgun that Boots carried and smiled. “What’s the gun for, Boots?”

  “Gun ain’t for you.”

  “Well, you should have given it to Jack. He’s going to need it.”

  “Naw, he’ll be fine without it.”

  “So why did you bring it? You just crazy?”

  “Naw . . . but you take a man’s wife . . . send him after her . . . make him fully realize that the only thing he has is his own hands”— Boots shook the gun—“and set him loose? Let me just say . . . they don’t make a reservation big enough to hold the crazy that man becomes.”

  69

  Jack took a peek around the tailgate and could see the cave, but nothing inside. He could see the distorted reflection of himself on the crumpled bumper. It looked like he had aged a hundred years. His face now spackled with stubble and growth, a few more weeks and he would be giving Boots a run for his money on the beard.

  Jack could see clouds overhead, dark shadows of night gathering on the peaks all around him.

  He wished Boots was with him. He never felt so scared and alone.

  Jack crawled over to the passenger door and opened it up. There were no keys inside. He opened the glove box, hoping to find a weapon of some sort. There was nothing. He stepped up into the cab and looked in the bed of the pickup through the rear window. Again, nothing. His heart sank.

  Climbing down, he closed the door. To his horror the hinge squeaked as he shut it, its metallic groaning echoing all around him. He crawled toward the back bumper again, finding safety by sitting next to the wheel well.

  Jack dared another look around the truck.

  He saw Colten come out of the cave at a slow walk, then stand at the opening.

  Colten scanned the clearing and the truck.

  “Jack
! I know you’re out there. Let’s get this over with.”

  Jack’s heart dropped. He looked back across the clearing to the two-track heading down the mountain. Every fiber in his body wanted to run, even though he knew he would not be able to make it. Colten would simply get in the truck and run him down. And he couldn’t leave Laura behind . . . he had done that once, he wasn’t going to do it again.

  Steadfastness in the face of terror.

  What is it that fills a man to make him hide in the foxhole or to storm the beach? To stand in the landing craft, waiting for the gate to open, knowing that death is just a step and blind luck away, and yet charge full-on amidst the exploding shells? Perhaps it is to consider oneself as the walking dead, that you’ve never been in charge of your own time. Clenching his fists, gathering every ounce of scattering bravery he had, and considering himself a dead man already, Jack stood up and walked around the back end of the truck. He could see Colten’s eyes light up as he approached. Jack’s legs started moving faster, knowing that if they stopped, his mind would convince them to run away. He charged, now at a full run. There were no speeches, no explanations, no high thoughts on the meaning of good or evil. Jack simply bum-rushed Colten, driving all his weight into the killer and smashing him against the rock wall next to the cave entrance.

  Colten’s legs buckled under him from the blow and he fell to the ground. Adrenaline flowed through Jack’s body. He raised his fist and drove it across Colten’s face, driving his rage into that one punch. Jack could feel his knuckles pop and pain shoot through his hand. Colten slumped, his already-broken nose exploding fresh blood, the pain knocking him out.

  Jack was stunned. In less than five seconds he had dropped Colten. He looked around, not knowing what to do with the guy lying on the ground, but wanting to search for Laura. There was nothing to tie him up with. Jack searched Colten’s pockets and pulled out a small key ring.

  Salvation.

  With Colten dispatched, Jack walked into the cave slowly.

  Several steps in, he could see a dull light coming around a slight bend. He stepped up and saw the stone room illuminated by the small gas lamp. Across the room, he saw Laura and Molly.