Rumrunners

by Eric Beetner

  It took Calvin a few hacking motions to cut through the four layers of duct tape, but he got a loose end and pulled it around the man’s head, pulling tufts of hair as it went.

  When the man’s mouth was free he coughed as he tried to speak. A fine spray of blood came from his mouth in the same tiny red sparks as the flares.

  “Unhook me!”

  His panic seemed undiminished even knowing his killers had turned his saviors.

  “Relax pal, we’re not gonna kill you,” Calvin said as he stepped around to a leg of the chair to start sawing.

  “You gotta get this vest off me. We’re all gonna die.”

  Tucker brought his flare around to see the man’s eyes more clearly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “C4. They strapped me with it. To kill us all.”

  Calvin reached up and tore open the man’s plaid shirt. He wore a Kevlar vest taped with four small rectangles each with wires leading out. He turned over his shoulder and looked at Tucker.

  “Cut him loose.”

  The man bucked the chair more in a frenzy.

  “Sit still,” commanded Calvin as he started in on the tape with his impotent blade.

  Tucker stepped forward. “Is it on a timer or is someone going to trigger it?”

  “Timer.”

  Tucker remembered the Stanley man checking his watch and telling his men to hurry up.

  “Bring that light over here,” Calvin said. Tucker swung the flare down low so Calvin could see what he was cutting.

  Tucker looked back at the man. “Did you kill my father?”

  “I don’t know who it was. I just followed orders.”

  “From who? From Kirby?”

  “How the hell could Kirby give any orders? For fuck’s sake, cut faster.”

  A tiny crack could barely be heard over the steady white noise of the flare. Calvin’s sawing motions stopped. Tucker looked down. The knife blade had snapped.

  Calvin’s eyes met his. They asked, do we run?

  “Keep trying.”

  Tucker dropped his flare and began clawing at the tape around the man’s wrists. The tape was layered and thick and wet with rain. He continued his questioning with a deep seated feeling that this might be his only chance.

  “Why can’t Kirby give any orders?”

  “He’s an invalid. A half-wit. Ever since the accident. Can’t even wipe his own ass.”

  Hugh lied. Tucker tried to meet Calvin’s eyes but his granddad was too busy pulling at the tape, his fingers sliding off each time he tried to search for the start of the tape with his fingernail.

  “What happened?”

  “Hunting accident. Blew half his face off with his own gun. Will you hurry the fuck up.”

  A tearing sound came from down low. Calvin pulled a loose end of the tape off the right leg of the chair. He unwound the spool eight times around until the leg came loose.

  Tucker found the end of the tape on his right hand. He pulled and the sound of duct tape tearing brought a crazed laugh to the man in the chair.

  Another eight loops around were made difficult by the man’s moving and tugging at his arm trying to break free even a millisecond sooner.

  When Tucker pulled the last bit of tape free the man immediately clamped his right hand down on his left and started tearing at the tape. He stood with his one free leg and spun the chair knocking Calvin away into the soaked ground. His jeans immediately took on water.

  “Get the vest off,” Calvin said. “Don’t worry about the legs.”

  The wild man ignored him. The laugh turned to more coughing as the trapped man spun like a wild dervish in the wet grass on the ridge top. Calvin rolled out of the way and almost spun himself on top of a flare.

  The man started moving faster, running away before he was free.

  “Wait,” Tucker said.

  Calvin put a hand on the ground and pushed himself up. He snatched the flare as he stood and put his free hand in the crook of Tucker’s elbow.

  “We gotta go.”

  Calvin pulled Tucker along backwards as he watched the man in the chair hopping and stumbling toward the trees clawing at his wrist and shaking the vest trying to release it from his chest.

  Calvin tripped forward keeping one foot barely beneath him as he pulled Tucker down the incline back the way they drove in. In his retreat he could see the taillights of the truck and two Hummers making their way down the trail. The truck had finally gotten free, but the men had been too preoccupied to hear it.

  Tucker turned his body and joined Calvin in retreat. They’d gotten three steps in unison when the blast came.

  Both men were thrown to the ground. The explosion echoed from the top of the hill. Tucker wasn’t sure how much time had passed before he found himself sitting up. The flares had gone out. He turned to Calvin who was rubbing his head.

  The sound of debris falling through the trees told Tucker he wasn’t out of it for long. He patted his pocket and felt what he wanted—keys.

  “Come on.” Tucker tugged at Calvin’s sleeve as he stood up.

  “What are we gonna do?”

  “What we do best. We’re gonna drive.”

  28

  Tucker behind the wheel of the Hummer, pounding through the woods on some sort of internal navigation, gave Calvin a sweet déjà vu. Memories of his own forest runs came flooding back with each buck and pitch of the vehicle. Those sweet days when a few cases of booze were all that was at stake. When the gun in his glove box went ten years without being fired. Simpler times.

  Calvin barked direction even though there was only one road leading away from the lake. Stating the obvious made him feel useful.

  The windshield wipers slammed back and forth as the rain fell in earnest now.

  “Are we stupid? Is that it?” Tucker asked.

  “No, we ain’t stupid. We don’t think like they do. That ain’t a bad thing.”

  “I don’t want to be like them.”

  “We’re not.”

  Tucker had to shout over the engine and the rain. “I don’t want to be a criminal.”

  “You’re not a criminal, kid.”

  “Goddammit, Granddad. Can’t you see what we’ve done? It’s time I owned up to it. I’m a McGraw, through and through.”

  “I’ll give you that.” The Hummer dipped into a rut on the dirt road. Both men came up out of their seats for a second before crashing down again. Tucker kept the wheels straight and true. “But, McGraw men are not criminals.” Calvin turned to Tucker who flicked his eyes off the road for a moment to meet him. “We’re outlaws.”

  Tucker turned onto more solid road. He stabbed his foot down on the accelerator.

  “I can live with that.”

  Up ahead tiny red dots wavered in the air like fireflies. Tucker bore down on them. The back of the line was another Hummer, then the cube truck, then a Hummer out front.

  “What do I do?” Tucker asked.

  “Spin him.”

  “How?”

  “Put your right headlight on his left taillight and cut the wheel. He’ll fishtail out and you hit the brakes. Don’t ram him. We need this car for the rest of it.”

  Tucker tightened his grip on the wheel. The engine revved angry as he angled the front corner of his black behemoth into the back end of its twin.

  “Now cut it right,” Calvin said.

  Tucker turned the wheel.

  “Brake.”

  Both men were pulled taut into their seat belts as the Hummer slowed. The black car in front of them veered wildly then overcorrected and swung across both lanes of the wet asphalt.

  “Amateur,” Calvin scolded.

  The Hummer ahead of them dove off into the ditch like a dog after a squirrel. The front end hit the upside of the ditch and came up like a shark breeching the water and rolled until the three-ton vehicle came down on the hood in a field of seedling soybeans.

  Tucker sped up again, feeling a surge of adrenalin as he hunted down the next in
line.

  Calvin smiled a prideful grin. “Go get ’em.”

  The Hummer in front slowed and so did the cube truck behind it. The loss of a colleague seemed to come as a surprise. Tucker pulled his Hummer alongside the cube truck, Calvin’s door facing the driver of the truck.

  Calvin could see the man’s confused and angry face and recognized him as the one who did all the talking.

  A shot rang out from a big gun. Tucker saw a man leaning out of the passenger door of the Hummer ahead. He fired again and a bullet ripped into the hood with a dull metallic clank.

  “You still have your gun?” Tucker asked.

  “Yeah, but it’s not gonna do us any good. We gotta bait ’em. Head for the ditch.”

  “What?”

  “The ditch. Trust me. Don’t hit it too fast.”

  Another shot blasted the night like the rainstorm decided it needed some thunder but couldn’t make its own.

  “Now!”

  Tucker hit the brakes and veered to his left and aimed the Hummer down into the ditch. The car dipped and lost traction for a moment before hitting the far end of the ditch and grinding to a stop.

  “Get out.” Calvin was already undoing his buckle. “We did this once in ’55 with a gang of feds. Worked like a charm.”

  Tucker stepped down out of the car and his foot sank above his ankles in water and mud. He pulled hard to get his leg out and followed Calvin around the back of car and across the road to the ditch on the other side.

  Down the road the twin sets of taillights glowed side by side as if a conference was going on between drivers. The Hummer turned first and the cube truck followed. They came cautiously through the rain to where the discarded Hummer leaned on its side, engine still running and lights still on save for the broken left headlamp.

  Both vehicles aimed their lights at the broken Hummer in the ditch and idled.

  Determined not to let their prey escape again the Hummer emptied of its men, both carrying the same large caliber guns. The cube truck opened its doors and two men got out. The one who had spoken earlier called out commands.

  “You two take the far side. Watch your crossfire.”

  The four men fanned out taking a military-style approach to the crippled vehicle. They ignored the rain as if they didn’t have time to be bothered. Each held a frightening-looking gun out ahead of them in a two-handed grip.

  They rounded the Hummer from all sides, moving slow and checking the field beyond for movement.

  Crouched in the ditch on the opposite side of the road, Calvin tapped Tucker’s shoulder. He moved first in a fast but quiet crouch-walk practiced over decades of hunting animals even more skittish than the gunmen circling across the road.

  Tucker followed, trying to match his granddad’s footsteps exactly. He hated being wet and by then he was soaked to the bone, but he felt grateful for the rain since the sound masked what little noise they made.

  Calvin reached the cube truck first and slid in through the driver’s side. Tucker followed. Calvin stayed low and Tucker did the same.

  “Hate to say it, Tuck, but you’re gonna have to pop up so you can see over the dash while you drive.”

  Tucker knew it. He also knew he didn’t have much time.

  “Do your family name proud, son,” Calvin said.

  Tucker flattened his foot down on the pedal as he swung himself up to see barely over the dash and turned the wheel hard to the left. He let the momentum of the turn slam the door shut for him as he aimed the truck down the road back in the direction they came, not confident enough to attempt a U-turn with four armed men blocking his path.

  Bullets pelted the payload of the truck and if they didn’t know better they would have sworn it started to hail.

  “Come on truck,” Tucker said. “Go faster Goddamn you.”

  Calvin whooped with laughter and slapped his hands down on the dashboard in an impromptu drum solo.

  “Worked exactly like it did in ’55.”

  “Yeah? You got away?”

  “Well, I’m here ain’t I?”

  “You said you went to prison once.”

  “That wasn’t it.”

  Tucker checked his side view mirror and saw headlights.

  “Did this happen in ’55?”

  Calvin checked his mirror. “Shit. It sure did.”

  “What?” Tucker veered into the oncoming lane. He corrected his course and continued to floor it. “What did you do?”

  “We started throwing bottles of moonshine at them. Crashed ’em up good.”

  “We don’t have any bottles.”

  Tucker began calculating where he was and how long it would be before another turn off, hopefully into a populated area where they could possibly lose the tail. Nothing came to mind. They were thirty miles from nowhere, and in Iowa that was saying something.

  “Let’s see what we got.” Calvin spun himself around on his seat and reached up behind the bench to a small access panel between the cab of the truck and the payload. The opening was no bigger than an air duct, but big enough for an eighty-six-year-old man with no plan B.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Trying something.”

  Calvin hoisted himself up and through the panel, landing with a thud.

  “You okay?” Tucker called over his shoulder.

  “Yep. Gonna hurt tomorrow,” Calvin called back.

  If we make it to tomorrow, Tucker thought.

  Calvin felt around his waist. No gun.

  “Tucker.”

  “What?”

  “I dropped my gun.”

  Tucker spun his head around the cab of the truck. At first he didn’t see anything, but he spotted the pistol on the floor near the far door where Calvin had been sitting.

  “I guess you need it, huh?”

  “I could try throwing insults at them, but that hasn’t worked so far.”

  Tucker rolled his eyes and shook his head even though no was looking to see it. He leaned as far as he could while keeping one hand on the wheel and he was still a good two feet away. The road ahead ran straight so Tucker inhaled deeply, made sure the wheel was centered and let go. He lunged to his side, lifting his foot off the gas, and swooped up the gun with his right hand. He sat up quickly, almost giving himself a head rush, and grabbed the wheel again with his left. He put his foot back down on the accelerator, angry that he had to lift off at all and give them even a bit of a chance to catch up.

  He pushed the gun through the panel over his shoulder and heard the pistol land on the metal floor of the payload.

  “Thanks,” came through with a hollow sound like Calvin was speaking to him through a tin can tied to a string.

  Inside the cube was loud from the thin metal walls being battered by the rain, a simple spring storm turned into a tempest by Tucker’s leadfoot pushing them past eighty down the straight stretch of country highway.

  Calvin saw four neat round holes in the back roll door from the volley of bullets that fired as they sped away. He grabbed the walls for stability as he walked back to the door. Tucker’s driving was steady and felt more like riding in the boxcar of a train than in a high-speed chase. Calvin stepped up and put his eye to one of the holes and saw the bright xenon headlights of the Hummer approaching.

  He turned and took stock of the truck. Eleven banker’s boxes filled with money. Two thick quilted movers blankets. The empty cardboard spindle from a roll of packing tape.

  That was it.

  The first shot rang out from the Hummer. Nothing pierced the truck so they couldn’t have been too close, but close enough that someone felt like taking a shot.

  Calvin thought back to ’55. He wasn’t misremembering, was he? They did get away from the feds?

  Yep. He could still see and smell the moonshine as each bottle smashed on the windshield of the G-men’s Ford.

  If it worked once…

  Calvin tore through the packing tape and opened a banker’s box. He took out a stack of hundred-dollar bills
. The paper band around the money said ten thousand dollars. One hundred rectangles of paper. It was no moonshine, but the distraction might make them think enough for him to get off a shot.

  Calvin rolled the door up a foot. Spray from the road and the back tires spat over his shoes. The Hummer was close enough now he could hear the engine.

  He crouched to his knees and looked. Twenty feet away the grille of the black car looked angry, furious for being made a fool of. Calvin tore off the paper band binding the stack of bills together and side-armed a throw through the opening.

  Once out in the eighty-mile-an-hour backdraft of the truck the bills took flight and spread like confetti fired from a canon. Most of the bills scattered to the pavement but some ended up on the hood of the car and some made it on to the windshield, sticking to the rain.

  Calvin felt he was on to something. The wiper blades shoved most of the bills away but they were stubborn, thin enough to slide under the rubber of the wipers.

  Calvin undid another bundle and held it outside for a moment, letting the bills soak up some water before he threw. With more direct aim he hurled the next batch at the window. Again they scattered and again several clung to the windshield.

  For his effort he got a flurry of gunfire back.

  Bullets pierced the metal sides of the cube, passing through like they were balsa wood. Calvin didn’t know where to duck for cover so he stood still, hand on another stack of bills in the open box next to him. When the burst of gunfire was over he repeated his soak and throw action. A few bills from the last throw still clung to the glass, the paper starting to tear under the constant passing of the wiper blades.

  He sent another hundred bills out into the night and got another six bullets back, two of them tearing through the roll door dangerously close to him.

  As he turned to lift another stack from the box he noticed, as if for the first time, the two movers blankets. In his mind they had Ben Franklin printed all over them.

  Tucker waged an internal debate. Keep on the straightaway or weave to avoid the gun blasts? If he started swerving like mad Calvin would topple over and whatever he was doing back there would be impossible. But what was he doing back there?