“Larry?” Turner yells. “You out here?”
God Jesus. Larry’s on his belly, sweating and praying for this shit to be over with. He doesn’t want to lose another hand. Or worse. And what’s that Turner’s bringing up to his shoulder? It’s a fucking crossbow.
“Hut-hut-hut! Go long!” Turner yells, releasing an arrow into the treetops. The rushing thuck of it piercing leaves and vines and then whistling off into the sky. The moon has arrived. All goes quiet, and Turner gets back in the car. The red brake lights come on and go off.
The air smells void. Larry tastes copper in his mouth.
Arnett gets to his feet and his face flares with another cigarette. Larry sees the orange dot at the end of it. After a while, Arnett starts whistling to himself and begins moving back uphill toward the inn. He walks into a tree, spins and trips, the cigarette turning and making little line drawings in the dark.
Larry zips his windbreaker up and blows into his hands. It’s not cold yet but he’s got the chills from sweating. He hears Arnett walking and whistling. He can’t tell what tune it is. He’ll be goddamned if that guy thinks he can go around acting like this without anybody doing anything about it. But what can Larry do? He’s not a cop anymore. And look what happened when he was. He wishes he hadn’t seen what he saw.
Jones’s front passenger tire is low on air and slapping against the wet morning road. He’s been driving around for a while, stopping here and there to work out chords and words for this new song. Now he’s headed west on 15, which will take him back toward the lake, the Hickory, through dead-ass Ashland and on to Natalie’s house. The Gibson rests in the passenger seat beside him. “What’s wrong?” he says. “You don’t have anything to say about any of this?”
He reaches over and flicks the strings above the nut, right below the tuning pegs, bringing a thin, dissonant, high-pitched chime. “That’s what I think, too.”
Still bourbon brained, he’ll grab the case and leave it at that. No extra bullshit. None. They stopped doing that a long time ago. But what if it’s not there? Or if she trashed it? That’s not out of the question. His father gave him the case and guitar together. He knows better than to leave his shit around her place. Proof of how careless you really are.
He bites down on his tongue, hard, bites until he bleeds, and the flavor of it plus the alcohol from last night makes him heave. He chokes it back, sucks his tongue. The pain keeps his eyes open, alert and on the road.
He drives past a forgotten field of wheat, past random tobacco plants and scrub cedars, piles of trash in plastic bags with drawstrings, derelict farm equipment, collapsing Mail Pouch barns. The road’s rough shoulder pulls the low tire into its rut, the van jumps and he pulls back onto the dark pavement rushing toward him.
A straight line going in one direction is all he needs right now. It’ll be fine, so calm down. All this worry—it’s just his condition talking. The fields are steaming and drying beneath the day’s hard sky. He takes the almost empty bottle from between his legs and raises it up. Burns the hell out of his bit tongue. Serves him right.
The last time he saw Natalie was months ago, back when it was cold. They stood waiting at the end of her driveway. For what? A word, a cry—anything to break the paralyzing silence they were trapped in. He doesn’t remember what she was wearing, except for that red velvet cowboy hat. When he asked where she got it, she said from over the mountain and that she was planning to make some money with it.
He called her a slut and she smacked him across the face. I ain’t mad at you for saying that, she said. I’m mad at you for not saying it till now.
He drives into a tunnel of river birches, sucking on his tongue. A stretch of swampy land, miles of skeletal branches. A dead coon exploded on the shoulder, its mouth open in a scream. This is the marshland and floodplains of Hickory Lake. Sinkholes you can follow into Kentucky, some that men went missing in forever. Right ahead’s the Hickory, then five miles past that is her house. He cruises slowly and takes nips from the bottle, not enough to get drunker, just enough to burn the bite.
Larry’s sitting out front on the bench, smoking a cigarette. Shit. Now Jones’ll hear all about it. He only needs to get his hat. Grab it, maybe have one beer. He’s already half drunk, a beer would be nice.
He gets out of the van, walks up to Larry and stands there with his hands in his pockets. “Just came to get my hat.”
“That girl,” Larry says without looking up. “She might be the biggest mistake you ever made. You didn’t listen to a word she was saying last night.”
“Oh, I heard her. You actually believed that shit? She just likes getting a rise out of folks, seems to me.”
“That right? Well, listen. I drove to Nitro after y’all left and I walked up onto something worse than she even knows about. I saw the guy she was talking about. Arnett. He was digging a grave. Then he rolled something into it.”
“What the fuck?”
“I went home and Sharon called the cops. I could’ve been killed. I run a bar. That’s what I do.”
“Was it my bass player?”
Larry opens his hands like a book, lays his face in and begins crying. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I just ain’t slept is all.”
Jones watches Larry’s thumb rub the thick, fingerless area of his left hand. He never really believed Larry’s story about getting shot. He figured he’d just accidentally pulled the trigger on himself, something like that. A careless mistake. But now he’s starting to worry. “You didn’t do nothing wrong,” he says.
“I ain’t finished yet.”
Jones always wondered if Larry actually came from here, and now that he’s crying you can tell he did. When people start crying, their true voice comes out. That was how Jones taught himself to sing.
“Sharon called the cops after I got back,” Larry says. “I couldn’t even do it. Then I spent the rest of the night talking to these two trooper boys, Ricky and some monkey mouth behind him. They like to bit my head off for calling Turner first.”
“Jesus, man. Turner probably wasn’t your best choice. Just because y’all were buds in uniform back in the day.”
“They came close to arresting my ass. I was like, ‘You got a possible murder out there under a foot of dirt on top of that mountain. And you’re worried about me?’ Look, Jones, you need to stay quiet for a while till this gets sorted out. Things didn’t used to be like this, not around here, anyway. You don’t need to be playing out right now. At all. Stay low till it blows over.”
Jones turns his head sideways, like he’s trying to hear something that’s too faint to make out. “Things’ve always been fucked around here. You know that. You need to sleep, man.”
“If you’re half as smart as you think you are, why’d you go home with Jennifer last night?”
“Jennifer,” he says. “My, my.”
“You’re drunk.”
“And you’re wrong. We didn’t go home. We went to the Lakewood.”
“So now where you headed?”
“Over to Natalie’s.”
“Yep, he’s still drunk.”
“Get my guitar case, that’s all.”
“Whatever you do, not a word about Jennifer. Fucking hell, man. You’re in some crazy shit. Jennifer’s mixed up in it and so are you now. You better stay down.”
“Can I play the rest of this week like you said?”
“Didn’t you hear me? Somebody’s up there dead.” He points vaguely toward the mountain. “You can stay at my place and keep quiet about everything. That’s what you can do.”
“I got to go to Natalie’s. Then I’ll be back.” Instead he might skip around for a day or two, but it’s nice to know he’s got a spot to go. “If that’s all right with you.”
“I guess. Don’t forget your hat.”
“And can I get that box of demos? I’m about broke. Might try to sell a few.”
“I paid for those to get made,” Larry says. “I’ll give them to you. Just promise you won’t te
ll Natalie any of what happened. She’ll get to talking. All her friends will too.”
Jones pulls a pack from his breast pocket, taps one out and offers one to Larry. “You think we could have a morning pint together, one of them unfiltered whatevers? Just one. My head’s hurting bad.”
“Well,” Larry says, “as long as it’s for medicinal purposes.”
Behind the bar, he pulls him a cold draft. Sunlight comes in the front window through the jar of pickled eggs on the counter and sends wobbly prisms across the wall. Jones has been in the Hickory this early only once, the time he had to sleep here because Larry hid his keys.
He takes a swallow even before the pint glass touches the bar. It’s cold and yellow. Larry tells him to drink it slow, then goes into the kitchen. Jones puts it down and lets it sit there in front of him while he counts to a hundred and twenty.
Pans clatter back there, and by the time the beer’s half done Larry comes out with a plate of scrambled eggs, toast and fried bologna. “You’re looking pale. Better eat something.”
“Yeah, I better.” And like a humble bum in prayer, he picks up a fork and leans over the plate.
—
The van leaves exhaust hanging behind it in the road. Larry sits in a chair in his empty barroom. Jones still hasn’t fixed that oil leak. Larry remembers when he was that age, but back then people had more respect. None of this sleeping around business. Well, okay, maybe there was some, but still, folks had more respect for one another. And for themselves, damn it.
He calls Tiff and asks if she can cover the bar the next night or two. “It’s going to be a pretty big show this evening,” he says. “The Jaguars are playing. I might be around tomorrow to help out.”
He closes up but doesn’t bother hanging the sign on the locked door. Tiff will be here on time. She’s how young people ought to be.
Backward, that’s how this world is.
Turner got suspended twice for what he calls “necessary unnecessary roughness.” When the sheriff, a man going by Ricky, suspended him the second time, Turner swung on him. And Ricky, he told Larry, vanished right in front of him, then reappeared behind him and choked him out. “He’s a magical man,” Turner said. “I don’t mess with magical men no more. I said this to Mr. Ricky, trying to get my job back, I said, ‘You are a magical man, Ricky, and I will not mess with you no more.’ ”
His service Glock was taken from him, along with the badge (not before he xeroxed it)—the only things in life that loaned him any dignity—and though he now operates outside the force, he doesn’t carry a gun because the written law is something to be respected. If Turner can’t carry firearms, well, so be it, he’s got something just as good.
Turner limps in place next to his hubcapless Impala on top of South Hill. The slope where he parked is worn bare from sickly cattle, hoof-patterns in the mud all around him. The wind is strong up here, and he holds down his hair with one hand while the other blocks the sun from his eyes. He squints over toward the Lookout, watching Ricky and a handful of other young uniformed fucksticks string yellow tape around the inn.
They’ve already been along the ridge. He heard sirens down there near where he’d been last night. Glad he didn’t go back looking.
Years ago, when Jack was building this place, Turner was still an officer of the law, but he let the project go. He figured if the construction didn’t cause an explosion or collapse into the earth, then the lunatic had earned it. But now he’s an officer not by law but by force, the same force he had witnessed and respected in Jack, and he hopes he doesn’t have to shoot Arnett, the nephew, with this damn crossbow. But he will if he has to. He once took down a deer from a hundred yards. He aimed high and the arrow just dropped right on top of it. He’d hate to see what it does to a human face. Well, probably just a quick hole and a spot of blood before the guy falls over sideways like in a western.
He reaches through the back window for the crossbow, but it’s too wide and gets stuck. He pulls harder and the damn thing goes off. The arrow pierces the seat foam and hits metal. He looks around, opens the door, pulls out the arrow and loads it back into the sliding lock, nicked tip and all.
Clouds chase their shadows over the valley of trees and across the hills and over the ravine and then past the raw clapboard hillbilly palace sitting in the middle of all the mud. From here it looks like a landfill with heaps of stuff and everything smoke gray or clay red. When he passed by on the access last night, that rat bastard was probably running around in the dark. No way was Turner getting out. He’d only stepped out of the car once to let go of an arrow, just to set things straight and get them going on the right track.
The tape’s up now and evidently they’re done poking around. Arnett’s nowhere in sight. Probably watching them from some tree. They’re never going to catch him. Look at them, standing around picking their assholes.
Turner brings out his telescope and the Lookout comes into focus. That tin roof, rusted the color of dried blood. The leaning walls and collapsing porch made from unpainted sawmill slabs puzzled together to make a structure that defies all logic and gravity itself. Some stained pink sheets and shirts on the clothesline in the side yard, advertising what Arnett has been cooking and selling. Probably pretty good stuff.
A couple pigs follow the troopers around and scatter when kicked at. The dogs slink and jog in a wide ring around all the action. They’ve known nothing but beatings followed by meals of uncooked rice and gunpowder. That’s how Turner used to do it, too. Keep them crazy. Great hunters.
He watches the cops gather around Ricky, who’s speaking to everyone with his hands in the air everywhere.
“Y’all ain’t gonna find this bastard,” Turner says, then mouths words to match Ricky’s arm movements: “Just, uh, I don’t know, go, uh, go get him, go find him, he’s got to be somewhere up here, just go get him, hear me?” Ricky goes into the house, and the rest of the men load into patrol jeeps and drive back down the access in a tight line.
Whatever Turner has to do to find Arnett and put him away, it’ll happen. This could win him his badge back.
Ricky comes out onto the porch shaking his head, looking around. He gets into the last vehicle left, a tan Bronco with tall antennas, and skids out in a furious tail of gravel dust.
“Ooo-hoo, boys, somebody’s frustrated,” Turner says.
As the Bronco rolls down the access, he looks up at the widow’s walk. There’s movement up there. He raises his telescope.
Arnett, looking over the railing.
Son of a mother.
And what the hell’s he holding? Turner adjusts the focus. A fiddle case?
Arnett opens a trapdoor and disappears.
Turner waits.
Finally Arnett comes out the front door carrying nothing besides that same case. He starts walking down the access, then cuts off into the woods. Dangerous bastard. Just like his uncle-daddy.
Turner Rides Again, the headlines will say. Picture of Big T standing next to a new cruiser. He scratches the hives breaking out around his groin. Every time his job called for bravery, he got hives like this. At least they don’t attack his face. Haven’t yet, anyway. So long as they stay in the pants, he can pretend he’ll do his duty, no problem. The burn after the scratching feels good. He pisses his underwear just a pinch to hydrate the welts.
So. He’ll follow Sapple Lane back down to 231. Cruise that stretch for a while. That’s the direction Arnett seemed to be heading. Turner works through his trousers with a clawed hand and continues scanning over to East Ridge. Down in there lies Arnett’s mother. It’s where Jack used to stash his shine too. He’d bury it in his wife’s grave—the one spot nobody ever dared to go. But that ain’t the deal now. This is some bona fide bullshit.
Where would Arnett go now that his last refuge is gone? Easy: where he’s not supposed to go. Misty’s. He’ll go looking for Bob to ask for money, a place to hide, and that’s where Turner will grab him.
Arnett wipes cobwebs and dust
off the window with his fingers, trying to make out who the hell’s parked over there on South Hill. He looks harder but still can’t tell. Can’t even be sure there is anybody. All he sees in that big pasture is a carlike splotch. It ain’t the cops. They already left.
He eats three cans of beans and gets ready for the hike. He can’t wait any longer, got to go somewhere. If anybody’s watching him, waiting for him, he’ll throw them off. He’ll walk out the front door like a normal man who just killed out of self-defense, start down the access a little ways and make them think he’s headed for 231. Then he’ll loop around through the gulch over to the other side of the mountain, jog down the western access to 15 and hitch a ride into Ashland. It’s a long walk, but that’s what’s got to happen. He’ll get a room at the Lakewood. They go by the hour there. Buy himself some time to decide what to do.
Burrs are clinging to his shirt and pants by the time he steps out onto 15 with the fiddle case in hand. On the other side of the road are cedar posts holding up miles of wire. In the tall grass beyond, bony heifers stand motionless with their heads bowed. Crazy that they know how to stay alive.
He goes back into the bushes on the westbound shoulder and through the leaves he can see every car coming down off the mountain. Heat dances in the distance. No cars at all.
The cows drift closer, heads lifted and mouths chewing sideways circles in stupid curiosity. His stomach twists in pain. A truck roars toward him but it’s some kind of business rig. Can’t do that.
Finally a sedan comes crawling through the heat waves like a mirage. He steps onto the shoulder holding his thumb out.
He pulls on the handle but it’s locked. When the electric window whines open a crack, he feels air-conditioning and smells chewing gum. “Where you going?” the man behind the wheel asks. “Do you smoke?”
“Just into Ashland,” Arnett says.
“Do you believe in aliens?”
Arnett ignores that. “Yeah,” he says. “I smoke.”
“I can’t take you, then. You’re the test subject of a long-term extraterrestrial experiment. That’s why they have you smoking. I’m at risk already. They’re probably tapping this conversation right now.”
Nitro Mountain Page 11
