The Slab

by Jeffrey J. Mariotte

  “Hey, Kelly, you think we’re gonna really go to war over there?” he asked.

  “What, Afghanistan?” Kelly asked. “We have to, Ray. What, seven thousand dead? We can’t just turn our backs on that.”

  “Can we win?”

  Kelly turned his bottle around in his hands, listening to the sound it made rolling against the wet wood of the tabletop. “There is no finer military force—has been no finer military force in the history of the world—than the U.S. armed forces. We can win any conflict we put our hearts and minds to. Whether we have the balls—as a nation, I’m talking—to stick it out for long enough to win, I can’t say. But if we do, then we can. That make sense?”

  “That seems to go for a lotta stuff,” Ray said. “If you got the balls and the desire, you can do it.”

  Kelly put his bottle down on the ring of condensation and rubbed a hand across his scalp, pulling his hair back from his forehead. “That’s the only way to live, Ray. The only way life is worth living.”

  Ray’s phrase had been Kelly’s motto for years, though he’d never encapsulated it into words like that. The same attitude was what he looked for in men to join him on the Dove Hunt. He had found an inordinate number of them on or near the Slab, as it turned out. He had a theory about that, and it was this: Men who lived on the Slab were men who cared less about material belongings than about freedom, that precious concept that no government could really give to anyone, but which every free man had to carve out for himself. Kelly was all for laws and regulations—they helped provide structure for those people who were willing to allow themselves to be so constrained. But for him, and those like him, they were ultimately meaningless, as much vapor as the latest pop song or TV sitcom that dulled the drones into submission.

  He had every faith that Ray Dixon would take care of the bitch who had done this to Cam. The men wouldn’t get their fun—she had seen to that, ruining the first Dove Hunt in fourteen years that hadn’t been one hundred percent successful. But neither would she get away without paying for it. Already, he’d heard an exchange of fire. The girl was resourceful and tough, but Ray was smarter and tougher and knew what he was doing when it came to firearms. Kelly half-expected him to catch up before they even made it back to the cabin and the car. When they’d heard the faraway thunder, Vic had wanted to turn around and go back, but Kelly ordered him to stay with the rest of them. They needed to get Cam back to civilization or they’d have a dead man on their hands, and if it came to it they’d have to carry him.

  They had covered about five miles, he guessed, when they found Terrance.

  The sun was dipping toward the hills, and when it finally went behind them the nearly unbearable heat of the day would break. Cam had stopped his moaning, or at least lowered the volume. Vic and Rock were both supporting him now, and he shuffled along, barely moving his legs. He looked dead already, his skin pasty, his lips dried and cracked, his eye torn and seeping.

  They came around a rocky bend and Terrance was there, sitting next to the trail, his back bent so his face, which was buried in both hands, rested on his enormous gut. At the sound of the walking men, he looked up. Dirt on his face was caked but streaked by sweat at his forehead and what looked like tears on his cheeks. His eyes were puffy, his nose red.

  “Have you been crying?” Kelly asked him. “Are you fucking crying?”

  Terrance wiped at his nose with one hand and looked away, as if embarrassed. Which he should be, Kelly thought. Fucking pussy. “What are you doing here?” he asked. “I thought you were supposed to stay at the cabin.”

  “I—I was,” Terrance said, sniffling like a first grader. “I…Kelly, man, someone dug up one of the girls!”

  At first Kelly didn’t understand what he was saying. The girls? But then it sank in. “What do you mean? How do you know?”

  Terrance spoke frantically, like if he didn’t get it all out in one breath he never would. “I was…I was walking around, keeping an eye out for the girl, you know. Like you told me to. And I went down into the wash where we buried them, and one of the graves was all dug up. Most of her was still in there but her head, her skull or whatever, was missing.”

  “So you decided to walk all the way out here and tell us?” Kelly demanded. “What part of that involved sitting on a rock crying like a teenager whose boyfriend just dumped her?”

  Terrance looked at the other guys for the first time, and when his gaze fell on Cam his mouth dropped open. “The fuck happened to him?”

  “Never mind him,” Kelly said. “I’m talking to you.”

  “I…I brought the Navigator,” Terrance said. He swallowed, looked at the ground, at the sky—everywhere but at Kelly. “But…but I think I fucked it up.”

  Kelly felt rage boiling up inside him, nearly uncontrollable now. He took a step closer to Terrance. The fat man was taller than him, and outweighed him by almost a hundred pounds, but right now Kelly was ready to pick him up and smash him against the rocks.

  “Fucked it up how?” he asked slowly, teeth clenched.

  “I high-centered it on some rocks and when I came off, one of the wheels ran into the ground at a weird angle,” Terrance explained, almost sobbing now. “I…I should have backed off it, I guess, but I didn’t want to…to get hung up again, and now the wheel is all bent weird. It’s…it’s a mile or so back there. I just started walking then, until I couldn’t walk anymore.”

  “Ah, shit,” Rock said. He spat into the dirt. “Now what do we do with him?” He still had Cam’s weight pressing down on him. “We got to walk him the rest of the way to civilization?”

  Kelly rubbed his hands together in frustration. He wanted to hit somebody but he didn’t know for sure who, or what good it would do him. Terrance had screwed the pooch, as they said, screwed it good. That dog wouldn’t be able to walk right for weeks, now that good old Terrance was done with her.

  Vic sat down on a ledge of rock, shaking his head slowly. “God damn it, Terrance,” he said. “God damn it to hell.”

  “Hey, I didn’t fucking do it on purpose, you know!” Terrance shouted.

  “Accidents happen, right?” Kelly asked. “Things go bad. Nothing you can do about it, right? Just bad luck, right?” Terrance didn’t rise to the bait, just stood there, shoulders slumped, gut hanging out. The sight of him made Kelly sick.

  And so did the situation they faced. They’d already been on their feet most of the day. To get to pavement, they’d have to hike another ten miles—on dirt roads, not cross-country, so it wouldn’t be as bad as the rest of the day had been, but it was still a long haul, especially with an injured man. Even in good shape, they’d have to rest for a while once they made it back to the cabin, and then move out through the dark to get to anyplace where they could reasonably expect to catch a ride.

  They had always come out in just one car, in order to reduce the chance of being noticed by anyone and to keep the number of tire tracks headed to the cabin to a minimum. But they’d always used a vehicle in good condition, well-maintained, with four-wheel drive. So far, none of them had been stupid enough to wreck it.

  Of course, it had to happen now. In concert with Cam’s eye being jabbed and someone—and what was up with that, Kelly wondered—digging up the skull of one of the earlier Doves. When the sun had come up this morning it had looked like any other sun, the sky was blue, the Earth turning in its usual direction. So how had everything—everything—turned to shit?

  As Kelly examined the situation, turning it over in his mind like a jeweler holding a diamond under his lens, he thought he saw an angle that might salvage something out of this colossal clusterfuck. He caught Rock’s eye and crooked his finger. “Rock, come here.”

  “But…Cam…” Rock said.

  “He’ll be okay for a minute. Won’t you, Cam?”

  Cam opened his mouth to answer, but only a single, incomprehensible croak came out.

  That was good enough for Rock, though. He disentangled himself from Cam, who swayed unsteadily,
and he came to Kelly’s side. “Yeah?” he asked.

  Kelly just looked away from him and drew his .50-caliber Desert Eagle from its holster. The thing was a cannon; the first time he’d held it, he thought he was holding Death himself, encased in steel.

  “What the fuck?” Rock asked.

  “Just stand aside,” Kelly said.

  He heard Vic’s sharp intake of breath, and a gasp from Terrance. Cam probably couldn’t even see the thing, Kelly figured, he was so far gone.

  “K-kelly, man,” Terrance protested, still blubbering. “You…you can’t…”

  “I’m not going to shoot anyone,” Kelly said, trying hard to sound reassuring. Then he spun the .50 around in his hand, and held it out to Terrance, who took it reflexively. When Terrance’s hand was on the grip, Kelly let go. “You are.”

  “What?” Terrance asked, eyes widening in horror. “No way.”

  “Yes,” Kelly told him flatly. “You’ve got to do it, Terrance. You’ve got to put Cam out of his misery. One shot, right in the eye.” He walked over to Cam, touched him on the cheek, right below the mass of jelly that had been his eye. “Right here. That’s all it takes.”

  “But, Kelly…”

  “But nothing, Terrance. There’s no choice. He’ll never make it to a doctor, not now that you’ve fucked up and ruined the car. Cam’s car, I should point out. Thing set him back, what, thirty-five grand? More? How happy do you think he’d be if he was capable of understanding what’s going on? Look at him, Terrance, he’s already dead. Death on toast, that’s Cam. You’re doing him a favor. Since you fucked up, this is the only way.” He lowered his voice for this last part, talking to Terrance as if he were trying to seduce him. “And, by the way, if you don’t do it, then we’ll just have to shoot you. And then Cam. Your call, really.”

  Terrance was shaking like a leaf in a windstorm. “But I…I…”

  “Do it, Terrance.”

  “Just fucking pull the trigger,” Rock chimed in.

  Kelly knew this was the only way things could go, now. No way would Cam make it to civilization, or survive long enough for help to get back if they had to hike out. This way, Terrance would be the one with powder burns on his skin from the gun that had killed Cam. If there was an investigation, that would come in handy, since Terrance would have to take the rap as punishment for abandoning his post and breaking the car. And even if there was no formal investigation, by doing it at Kelly’s urging, Terrance would deliver his own life into Kelly’s hands even more surely than killing the Doves did, because Cam was one of their own, not a lesser human. Kelly would own Terrance. He didn’t know what he’d do with such a fat pathetic loser, but life had a way of presenting opportunities, if you were strong enough to take them.

  He kept his gaze steady on Terrance, willing the big man to show some spine for once and do what had to be done. Tears ran down Terrance’s already-streaked face, rolling off his round cheeks and thwipping into the dirt. He kept quiet, though, for a change, his open-mouthed breathing catching, but his sobs soundless. Some small relief, Kelly thought. Hands quivering, eyes flooding, Terrance raised the gun.

  Cam seemed to snap into consciousness and realize what was going on, because his mouth started to work again, and he said “No, no, no, no” in a weak voice that sounded as dry as the desert that surrounded them. But Terrance was in motion. His mouth closed as if drawn shut by a string, his eyes narrowed. He had made his decision, Kelly thought, and that decision called for him to shut down some part of himself, some aspect of his humanity. Even his eyes dried up as he aimed the weapon, his hands steady now, at Cam’s head.

  Cam tried to raise his hands to ward off the shot but the movement knocked him off balance and he swayed at the same moment that Terrance fired. The shot didn’t hit him in the eye—Kelly was impressed that Terrance’s aim had been so true, after all—but in the forehead, above the left eye, skating under the skin just below that bizarre tuft of misplaced black hair, and penetrating the skull and then blasting out the top of Cam’s head even as the man continued his fall, spraying the rocks behind him with a sheen of red like an airbrush had passed over them.

  Whatever, Kelly thought. Done’s done.

  They were all silent, and all looking at him. He straightened his spine, met their gazes, one by one. “The way it had to be,” he said. “Now let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  ***

  “Why do you lead him on?” Billy Cobb asked. He used Mindy’s belly as a pillow, and his right hand traced random patterns on her thigh. They had moved, at some point, to the living room of her little cottage, and she sat with her head against the foot of the couch, partially upright, her ass on a throw rug she’d bought at the Big K in El Centro.

  “Who?” she asked.

  “Ken. Who else? You got some other guys I don’t know about?”

  “I don’t lead Ken on.”

  “What do you call it, then? Why do we have to hide from him, if you’re not trying to keep him on a string? You know he likes you, right? Think he buys his lunch from you three or four times a week cause you got good food? That’s his way of asking you to marry him!”

  Mindy slapped his naked stomach. “I’m sure he doesn’t want that!” she said, laughing.

  “How do you know?” Billy asked. “You asked him?”

  “He hasn’t asked me.”

  “It’s a modern world. Women can ask too, you know.”

  She shifted a little putting a hand on his chest to hold him in place as she did. The rug was beginning to tickle her butt, but she liked his weight on her and didn’t want him to get up, because if he got up he’d leave, and she’d be left alone in her tiny house with her TV and her cassettes and probably a frozen dinner from the Shop-R Mart.

  Billy wasn’t the kind of man she’d ever want to settle down with, but that didn’t keep him from being the kind she wouldn’t mind making breakfast for from time to time, and God knew there weren’t a lot of adequate choices in the Valley. Not that there was anything wrong with Ken. He was almost old enough to be her father, if he’d procreated young, she guessed. Handsome enough, in that kind of rugged, manly way, and hell, there was nothing wrong with that. But if he was interested in her—and he was interested in her, a woman could almost always tell these things and she was certain of it—he had never taken even the first step of asking her to a movie, or lunch, or even coffee. Yes, this was the modern world but that didn’t mean that some things shouldn’t remain the same, and this was one of them. The man, Mindy thought, should be the one to make the first move. A person had to have some rules for life, and that was one of hers.

  Outside, the sky grew darker. Billy hadn’t gone anywhere, but he hadn’t fallen asleep on her either. His hand continued to draw designs on her legs, and she thought maybe she saw signs of life returning to his penis. Maybe she could keep him here for a while longer, after all. Talking about Ken seemed to get a rise out of him, so she’d continue in that vein, see how far she could push it. She leaned forward, let her breast press against his cheek, and teased the hair around his navel. Yes, definitely some movement down there.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Jorge, Raul, and Diego stopped off in a bar before heading home. The sun was slipping behind the western hills. It would be dark soon, and they’d been crammed into Diego’s truck all day long and nothing had come of it. Diego pulled the truck into the parking lot of The Rig (“OUR WELL NEVER RUNS DRY”) and stopped it between a cream colored Toyota Tercel hatchback and a Datsun B-210 that had once been dark blue but now was kind of a glazed-white from sun and oxidation. A field worker in a mud-caked T-shirt and a baseball cap too big for his skinny head leaned against a low half-wall edging the parking lot, smoking a cigarette and bopping to a tune only he could hear.

  The bar was dark inside, and cooler than out, with ceiling fans that turned lazily overhead, fluttering the red white and blue bunting that had been strewn almost haphazardly around the room’s interior. Besides the bartender, a stock
y Hispanic in a white wife-beater T that showed off the multiple tattoos on his arms and shoulders, the joint was nearly empty, with one barstool occupied by a sad-looking Anglo drunk bent over a glass of tequila, and a blonde woman sitting alone at a table, spinning her empty bottle between her palms. She looked up expectantly when the men entered, as if hoping to see whoever would be buying her next drink come in. She tossed them a toothy smile, which Jorge returned. Diego just scowled at her and beelined for the bar. His mood had turned increasingly foul during the afternoon and the last thing he wanted was some barroom skank gluing herself to them.

  “Cerveza,” he ordered.

  The bartender met his eyes briefly and then turned away, setting down the glass he’d been toweling off and reaching for a clean beer mug. At the same time, the man at the bar clicked his tequila glass on the counter, hard. “Hit me again, Pablo,” he said.

  The bartender glanced at Diego again and showed some gold teeth in what was probably, Diego figured, supposed to be a friendly grin. “My name ain’t even Pablo,” he said. “S’Isidro.”

  “I give a fuck?” Diego said. “Get me a beer.” He flicked his thumbs toward Raul and Jorge. “Three beers.”

  The drunk at the end of the bar slammed his glass down, louder than before. “I said hit me,” he said.

  “I’ll hit you, madrone,” Diego offered.

  The drunk spun slowly on his stool and eyed Diego, letting his rheumy gaze slide briefly over Jorge and Raul as well. He looked like he’d been sitting there long enough to have become part of the barstool itself. But except for his typical barroom pallor, he seemed healthy enough, with muscles that rippled beneath his tight T-shirt and strong, bandy legs straining the pants of his jeans. Steel-toed work boots were hooked over the rail of the stool’s footrest.