A Plunder by Pilgrims

by Scott William Carter

  There was no girl, but on the table next to the lantern was a candle far too pink and feminine for a couple guys to have brought.

  "I don't see her!" Marty said. "And her car's not here either."

  "For Christ's sake, keep your voice down. She's in there."

  "How do you know?"

  "Look on the table."

  When Marty saw the candle, he started forward, and Gage grabbed his arm. "Are you nuts? That one there on the left has a pretty distinctive bulge under his jacket."

  "Oh."

  "Yeah, oh. So let's call in the cavalry. Get out your cell phone."

  "But what are they doing there?"

  Gage thought about it. "I'm not sure yet, but they didn't walk here. At least one more person will be driving up in a few minutes, so I'd make that call now if I was you. Who knows what their buddy is going to think when he sees our car parked on the side of the road."

  Marty took out his cell phone, fumbled and nearly dropped it, and finally flipped it open. When the bluish light illuminated his face, Gage saw the stark fear — the wide eyes, the sweat drops as big as boils.

  "No bars!" Marty exclaimed.

  "Shh! It's all right. Here's what you're going to do. I want you to walk down the road until you get reception. If you hear anyone coming, duck into the trees. I'll wait for the police to arrive, and if they go anywhere, hopefully I'll hear where."

  "But—"

  "Just go!"

  Gage watched until the kid's shape merged with the rest of the darkness, then he returned his attention to the cabin. The skinny man threw down his cards in disgust, and the fat man started laughing. What were they up to? A bunch of hunters who interrupted the girl and decided to have fun with her? What kind of hunter packed a handgun instead of a rifle? Something else was going on. Gage didn't want to say anything to the boy, but he knew there was a good chance the girl was already dead.

  There was only one way to know for certain, and that was to creep up to the cabin and peer through the crack in the curtains. He didn't want to do it, but he couldn't wait for the police. If the girl was alive, who knew what the men in there would do when the police came roaring up the road?

  With excruciating slowness, taking great care to find good, solid ground to place his cane, he limped to the side of the house. There, he leaned against the wall, getting his breath back, trying to slow his heart.

  He started to round the corner, and that's when he heard a vehicle rumbling up the road. A pair of headlights appeared in the gloom, and just before the light fell on the cabin, he ducked back into darkness. The vehicle, a van or truck by the sound of the engine, pulled into the drive. The engine wheezed and sputtered and finally fell silent. The door creaked opened. Safely out of the driver's line of sight, Gage didn't dare peer around the corner.

  "Come on, inside," a gruff voice said.

  Gage felt a chill prickling up his neck. Then, when a voice responded, his fear was realized.

  "What—what are you going to do?" It was Marty.

  "That ain't your concern," the man said.

  "Look, mister, I—I told you, I was just looking for my dog. He—he ran off and —"

  "Without your leash?"

  "Well, I was, well, I wasn't going to—wasn't, you see—"

  There was a slap, a groan, and then the sound of Marty being dragged from the van. The door to the cabin banged open.

  "What the hell is this, Al?" a man demanded. His voice was high and reedy.

  "Found this kid skulking around in the woods," the man named Al said.

  "And you thought it was a good idea to bring him back here?" the reedy-voiced one replied. "Are you out of your mind?"

  "If you closed your damn trap a minute," Al said, "I'd explain. Take a look at what I found in his wallet."

  There was a moment of silence, and then another voice, also high but more nasally, replied.

  "Hollllll-eeee," the nasally one said. "That's a weird incidence."

  The reedy-voiced one snorted. "That's coincidence, you moron. The kid obviously came up here looking for her. Damn."

  "You got that right," Al said. "Now we got two of 'em. And the parade still four days away."

  "I think we gotta do something about this soon," the reedy-voiced one said.

  "What, Rick?" the nasally-voiced one said. "What we gotta do? You said we'd let her go on Wednesday. You want to let 'em go now. You think—"

  "Will you shut up, Eugene!" the reedy-voiced one, Rick, thundered at him. "A man can't think with you around. Here, do something useful — take the kid inside and tie him up with duct tape next to the girl." There was the sound of Marty stumbling, feet sliding on the dirt. "Think you can handle that without screwing it up? Make sure you put the gag in his mouth."

  "Okay, Rick," the one called Eugene said. "Okay, I'll do that."

  There were footsteps on the deck. The door banged shut. After a moment, Rick let out a long, agonizing sigh.

  "We didn't need this," he said.

  "What're you thinking?" Al said.

  "I'm thinking we should have off'd that girl soon as she showed up on Friday, no matter Eugene would have freaked out or not. I mean, we got lucky. What if you hadn't seen him on your way up here? Obviously he was going to sneak up to see if she was here, then go call the police on us." There was a pause. "Hell! He could have done it already! There's no cell coverage here, so maybe he was on his way down."

  "He didn't have no cell phone," Al said.

  "So? He could have thrown it in the woods when you stopped."

  "We could beat it out of him."

  Rick sighed. "It don't change what we gotta do. We have to kill them. Now."

  "Now? Aw, man."

  "It can't be helped," Rick said. "Police could be coming up here, you never know. Right now they'd just get us for B and E. Kidnapping — now that's a whole 'nother ball of wax. We gotta get 'em killed and buried lickety-split — at least in shallow graves."

  "Man," Al said, "I haven't killed nobody since 'Nam."

  "What, you going to go all jelly-kneed on me now?"

  "Naw. I just didn't sign up for this."

  "Look," Rick said, "I'll do the actual thing. You just have to help."

  "What about Eugene?"

  "What about him?"

  "He's going to go nuts," Al said. "Remember what he did when you killed that mouse? He practically started foaming at the mouth."

  Rick took a few steps on the dirt. "I'll tell him . . . I'll tell him we're going to take the kids into the woods and let 'em go. I'll tell him he's got to stay and watch the van. Stand guard."

  "Well, he's your brother," Al said. There were more footsteps.

  "Where you going?"

  "To take a dump," Al said.

  "But the police could be—"

  "Nature can't be helped."

  Rick sighed. "Fine, I'll go tell Eugene we're letting the kids go." The boards of the deck creaked. "All this for a lousy bank job," he muttered.

  The front door opened and shut. There were footsteps through the dirt, then the outhouse door let loose with a ghastly creak and boomed like a drum when it banged shut.

  Gage heard the murmur of voices inside the cabin. If he was going to act, it had to be now. The same thought that had been spoken aloud moments ago ran through his mind: I didn't sign up for this.

  But then Gage was moving — staggering toward the outhouse, as quietly as his decrepit body would take him. It was always this way with him — propelled by some unseen force, despite his best protests. He could move three thousand miles, buy a house in a town he'd never even visited, and get an unlisted phone number, but it didn't matter. The world might go to hell, but in the end, Gage would go to hell right along with it. Somebody had to, for God's sake. Those were just kids in there.

  He finally got a clear view of the Dodge van, the light from the bay window shining on the side. The words Three Point Bait and Tackle Shop were written on the side, decorated with an ocean scene of tropical fish
. Three Point was one of the smaller towns a few miles south of Barnacle Bluffs. All at once it made sense to Gage what was inside the cardboard boxes stacked inside — decorations. They were going to decorate the van for the parade, then the bank robbers would load up the van with their loot and drive it out of town under the police's noses. A perfect plunder by some scheming pilgrims.

  The stench from the outhouse was awful. He heard shuffling of feet inside and the clink of a belt buckle. Crouched on the side of it, Gage was still deciding what to do when the door swung open. There were footsteps on the dirt. Gage followed the closing door, the creaking of the hinges masking his footsteps. The man's silhouette was framed by the lighted window.

  Right when the door banged shut, Gage swung his cane and hit Al on the side of the head. The man didn't even cry out — just a short, sharp grunt, and then he was toppling to the dirt.

  Gage stumbled forward, catching himself before he fell. He was deathly afraid the man was going to spring right back up, but he lay completely still. Painful as it was, Gage got down on his knees and checked the man's pulse. Faint but steady.

  Heart roaring, sweat sticking his shirt to his back, Gage fished around in the man's jacket until he found what he was looking for — a Smith and Wesson .45, heavy and cold in his hand. He checked the chamber; it was fully loaded.

  He unlocked the safety and stuffed it in his jacket pocket. He started for the cabin, thinking he'd use the element of surprise to his advantage, hoping that would be enough, but the front door of the cabin swung open before he'd even taken two steps.

  It was the fat one, the one they'd called Eugene. He had the dumb, vacant look of a mule. He turned in Gage's direction and the two of them locked eyes. The front door banged shut and both of them flinched.

  "Get down on the ground," Gage said.

  Eugene blinked.

  "Do it or I shoot!" Gage cried.

  He still didn't move, and then there was a flurry of sound from the cabin — a chair banging against the floor, a yelp, and then the front door swung open.

  Gage swung his weapon in that direction. Two figures emerged — Marty in the front, pale, hands raised, and directly behind him, Rick pointing a handgun at the back of Marty's head. He leaned out just a little so he could peer around Marty's head at Gage.

  "Who the hell are you?" he said.

  "Santa Claus," Gage said.

  "Put down that piece or I'm blowing this kid's brains out."

  "Oh, that's not very nice. I'm afraid that this year you'll be getting coal in your stocking."

  "I'm serious. Put it down. Now."

  Gage knew if he put down that gun, they were all dead. Gage was a good shot, but it'd been years since he'd fired a gun of any kind. He also knew that the kid was Rick's only leverage. Once Marty was dead, he'd have no shield.

  "No," Gage said.

  He couldn't see Rick's face, but Marty looked like he was going to faint.

  "Excuse me?" Rick said.

  "I'm not putting it down."

  "All right, wise guy, I'm going to count to three . . ."

  "Surely you can make it all the way to ten."

  "Bastard! Fine, I'm taking you out first."

  It was what Gage was hoping for. As soon as the barrel of the Magnum came into view, Rick leaning just a little to the right to get a shot off, Gage leapt to his left, keeping his gun arm firm, the revolver trained on Rick's emerging shoulder. With his weak knee, it was more like falling down, but it did give him a slightly better angle — not much, still dicey, but it was improving the odds. The important thing was that Rick's weapon was no longer pointed at the back of Marty's head, so if there was a reflex shot it wouldn't make mince meat of the kid's brains. It was also putting Gage directly in Rick's line of fire, but he had no choice about that.

  He pulled the trigger. The boom made the world go silent, and in the same instant two things happened: There was a flash cloud of blood around Marty and Rick, and he felt searing, white-hot pain above his right ear.

  Then he smashed into the ground. There was pain everywhere — his head, his shoulders, his hips, everything on fire. The gun went flying. He heard screaming — more than one, more than two, by the sound of it. There was blood in his mouth. The next thing he heard was Eugene yelling.

  "You shot him! You shot my brother!"

  There was a stampede of footsteps. Gage managed to get his bearings just as he saw the elephant charging him — eyes full of madness, face contorted into utter rage. No gun. He saw his cane and he grabbed for it. Eugene lunged, and Gage managed to get the cane up just in time.

  The big man took it in the gut, and the force of his falling body made the cane bow, then splinter. But he fell away from Gage — spasming, gasping, and crumpling like a building hit by a wrecking ball.

  There was blood trickling down Gage's cheek, he could feel it. He'd been shot? There was still one person screaming. He rolled over and rose painfully onto all fours. There was the .45 — he snatched it up. He blinked through a world made blurry by sweat and saw two forms ahead — one on the ground, the other standing over him.

  When his vision cleared a bit more, he saw that standing one was Marty. He had the gun pointed at Rick, face a mask of terror. Rick's screams had changed to a series of high-pitched squeals and he was flopping around on the ground like a trout off the hook.

  The skin above Gage's right ear felt as if it had been scalded it with a branding iron. He touched it and felt the warm blood, but was relived that it was hardly more than a scratch. Leaving Eugene still moaning and doubled over, Gage picked up what remained of his cane — it was hardly more than a toothpick — and lurched his way to Marty. Even though he carried the cane like a baton, it was still strangely comforting.

  Marty kept staring at Rick. The kid had a bruise on one of his cheeks, but otherwise looked unhurt. Rick was no longer screaming. His eyes were two full moons, and he wasn't moving. Blood soaked the right half of his body.

  Gage looked at the kid. The fear made him look different. It was like he was wearing a catatonic mask.

  "Hey," he said.

  Marty kept staring.

  "Hey," Gage said again. "Hey, Marty. You know I had to do it, right? You know it was the only way out of here alive?"

  Marty went on staring at the man who might have killed him. Gage wondered if the kid would ever be the same — it did happen that way sometimes. Some people broke. They'd go to therapy, of course, and talk about their childhoods, about how it felt to look death in the face, what it sounded like when the gunshot killed the guy next to you and not you, the particular flavor of their nightmares. They'd do all this, and some people would come out okay, or if not okay, at least enough to convince the people around them. Other people could sit in wood-paneled rooms with soft lighting, comfortable furniture, and soothing fish tanks all their lives after a night like this and never find the person they were before the night began. Some vases could be glued back together, others couldn't.

  "Marty?"

  It was the girl. They both turned and saw her on the porch — tiny and boyish in her jean jacket and jeans, a mop of blond hair half-covering her face, wrists still bound by duct tape. When she saw Marty, she started crying. It was the only sound other than the quiet moans coming from Eugene.

  Marty handed the gun to Gage and went to her. He took her in his arms and held her, shaking, against him. He tossed a quick glance at Gage, just a split second shared between them, and it was enough. Gage knew it would be a rough, but in the end, the kid would still be himself. He'd just lost whatever remained of his childhood.

  It had to happen eventually.

  * * * * *

  On Thanksgiving, it was raining so hard that even with the windshield wipers thrumming at full throttle, Gage could hardly see through the windshield. He passed the Levin house three times, looking for it. He passed it twice more, debating.

  Even when he finally parked — two houses down, because there were plenty of cars parked in front of th
eir house — he sat in the dark for ten minutes.

  After the police had arrived, after they'd recovered Tammy's car in the woods hidden by pine branches, and after the breathless, tear-filled thank you phone calls from the girl's parents, Gage had tried hard to settle back into his routine. Coffee with Irish Whiskey. The Times crossword in the morning, and at least two books in the afternoon. But it wasn't the same.

  With a sigh, he adjusted his fedora and grabbed his new cane — a hand-carved one made by a local artist, a gift from Marty. Even wearing his fedora, his face was instantly drenched. It was like walking through an ocean. He sloshed along the gravel road and up the walk to the Levin's door.

  The curtains were open, and he saw them eating there — a dozen people, all laughter and smiles. There was Tammy, laughing. There was Marty, gazing fondly at her. The parents. Lots of kids. God, so many people. The glazed turkey graced the center of the table like a trophy, and every square inch of the green tablecloth was filled — sweet potatoes and stuffing and cranberry sauce and bottles of wine.

  There was also an empty chair.

  It was right there, next to Marty. Gage stared at it a long time, the rain soaking his clothes, dribbling down his fedora. In the bleary darkness, they couldn't see him. He was a ghost. Could he see himself sitting in that chair? Could he see himself inside, all laughter and smiles?

  Some vases could be put back together and others couldn't.

  At least not now. Net yet.

  He turned and walked away — a slumped figure in the rain, limping into the darkness.

  About the Author

  SCOTT WILLIAM CARTER's first novel, The Last Great Getaway of the Water Balloon Boys, was hailed by Publishers Weekly as a "touching and impressive debut" and won the prestigious Oregon Book Award. Since then, he has published ten novels and over fifty short stories, his fiction spanning a wide variety of genres and styles. He's the author of two acclaimed mysteries featuring the curmudgeonly Garrison Gage, The Gray and Guilty Sea and A Desperate Place for Dying. His most recent book for younger readers, Wooden Bones, chronicles the untold story of Pinocchio and was singled out for praise by the Junior Library Guild. He lives in Oregon with his wife and children. Visit him online at www.scottwilliamcarter.com.