Poachers Road ik-1

by John Brady

  He glanced over.

  “Let me guess,” he said to Felix then: “‘That’s another story?’”

  “You said it, Gebi.”

  “Does this place have a name?”

  “It’s called Pfarrenord,” Felix said, looking back down the valley.

  “Is everyone here holy or something, this ‘parish’ thing?”

  “It’s a local name. Not the name on a map. It’s windy here.

  Colder, people say. So someone came up with ‘The North Parish.’”

  Gebhart sighed and rubbed his nose.

  “Watch, there’s a bend here.”

  The road twisted at the spot Felix had fallen off his new bike all those years ago. He remembered having a tantrum, and his mother had soothed him. Later, when he’d brought it up in some argument as to why he had to visit his grandfather at all, she’d told him that anxiety did strange things to a kid. It was something to get over, she’d said; something to build on.

  “So tell me,” said Gebhart. “How are you going to get things going here? This ‘little chat’?”

  “We’ll see how it goes, I suppose.”

  “Which page of the manual is that see-how-it-goes technique on?”

  Felix was suddenly glad of Gebhart’s breezy sarcasm.

  He turned to him.

  “Maybe it’s changed since you last looked at it. Back in nineteen-eighty-nothing.”

  “Listen to you. You spend a couple of days with suits from Strassgangerstrasse, and now you’re a thick-head like them. Well done, Mr. Know-It-All.”

  Felix studied the cloud shadows that now lay over much of the forest cover on the hills about.

  “So now you know what I think about your new friends,” said Gebhart.

  “They didn’t fool me,” he said. “Completely, anyway.”

  “Richtig? But you’re still going to unload that stuff on them, aren’t you? Those maps and documents you were talking about?”

  “Soon.”

  “‘Soon’? Cheeky.”

  “I’ll decide after I hear my opa.”

  Gebhart looked over.

  “Well you know those two are not sitting on their hands,” he said. “I’ll bet they’re knocking on that guy’s door already, Fuchs.”

  “And that’s why I want to be here first.”

  “We, Gendarme, we. Remember that, will you? I’m wearing a big bull’s eye on my arsch here for these couple of hours.”

  “Gebi”

  “Don’t tell me how you appreciate it. That only makes me worry more. The clock is ticking. Ninety minutes, and I’m back in my uniform at work, at the post.”

  “Watch for water on the road up ahead. Sometimes you get a pool here before the warm weather.”

  Gebhart left the Golf in second, pulling up the hill at a steady rate, the poles passing slowly.

  “Scheisse,” said Gebhart with quiet malice, placing his foot over the brake pedal. “You were right.”

  The pool of water seemed to run for 20 or more metres on the road.

  “Deep, do you think well look.”

  Gebhart brought the Golf to a stop slowly. An Opel blocked the road beyond the pool. Its back wheels were still in the water.

  “There’s your answer,” Gebhart said. “That guy tried to plough through.”

  He moved the gearshift from side to side in neutral.

  “Is that your opa’s jalopy?”

  A rally stripe with some kind of blue sparkly stuff ran across the top of the back window.

  Felix heard Gebhart stroking his bottom lip.

  “The alloy wheels I could forgive,” Gebhart murmured. “But Maria, the Michael Schumacher stuff tacked on there? Your opa’s hardly a Rock 100 FM man, is he?”

  Felix couldn’t be sure of another sticker, but two he recognized.

  “The plate’s local,” said Gebhart.

  “Yamaha,” Felix murmured.

  Gebhart stopped playing with the gearshift. He looked over, his eyebrows raised.

  “Herr Red-head? Our person of interest? Mr. Fuchs up here on a visit?”

  Felix shrugged.

  “How very damned convenient,” said Gebhart. “Ran it through here, stalled it.”

  He put the car in reverse.

  “What are you doing?”

  “You think I’m going to just park it on this cow path? I’m going to turn it around. And you’re going to help me.”

  Felix stood by the entrance to the field.

  “Make damned sure my wheels don’t get stuck when I back it in there,” Gebhart called out. “Or you’ll pull this car out yourself.”

  The earth sucked at Felix’s shoes as he took another step back.

  The diesel smoke from Gebhart’s car seemed to settle around his face, like gnats. He slapped the roof when he saw the wet ridge of mud begin to form to the side of the tire.

  Gebhart took his time making the 50-point turn. Felix watched his hands and arms work the wheel, but he did not make out any words in Gebhart’s steady, philosophical-sounding muttering.

  Gebhart stepped out of the car eventually, testing the margins of the road to both sides. Felix was listening to the breeze that was coming over the fields here, suddenly quiet after the Golf’s engine was finally off.

  “I’m locking it,” said Gebhart. “This is the end of the road, after your opa’s place, right?”

  Felix nodded. He thought he had heard something on the breeze. Maybe a bird, or the faint whistle and sough from the stirring blades of new grass. He looked toward the trees that surrounded three sides of the house again, and caught a glimpse of the roof.

  There was no smoke from the chimney.

  “Come on,” said Gebhart. “Get it over with. It’s going to be a mud fest anyway.”

  After a few steps, he put out his arm to stop Felix.

  “He has a dog, right?”

  “A Shepherd, yes.”

  “Where is it?”

  “We’re a bit from the house yet.”

  “And does this dog listen to you?”

  “Usually. It knows me.”

  “‘Usually’? Wait a minute.”

  Felix watched him skip back to the car and open the trunk. After a brief rummage, he drew out a rusted rebar, with a curve in it.

  “I am not a dog man,” said Gebhart. “But I’m not a masochist either.”

  The Kadett was unlocked. There were magazines on the back seat, rolled-up wrappers from McDonald’s, and some pieces of machined metal covered in a fur of oil and dirt. The ashtray was used, a lot. The custom steering wheel had a wood trim.

  “A boy racer,” said Gebhart. “In this piece of junk?”

  Felix looked at the floor mats in the front. There were moist sections on them.

  “Not much of a Schumacher, is he,” Gebhart muttered. “You think he’d know better.”

  The side of the house came into view now, its whitewashed wall looking more grey in the shadows of the trees. Felix sought out any movement that could mean the dog was about, and had at least heard them, and was coming to investigate.

  “Not much farming done here,” said Gebhart. “Rented out?”

  “A few years now,” Felix replied. He stopped and listened.

  “You hear something?”

  Felix couldn’t be sure. They stepped down off the road by the stone pillars that marked the entrance to the farmyard.

  “Cattle, before he retired?” Gebhart asked.

  Felix realized that Gebhart was nervous now. The walk up from the car had him breathing loudly too.

  “Yes,” he said. “Look, the dog’s name is Tilla. And don’t worry, he’s old now.”

  “Tilla? Big?”

  “Atilla. He’s a fair size, but lazy, if I remember.”

  Felix looked at the kitchen window. He could only make out the reflection of the trees on the surface.

  “I’d sure like to know where the beast is,” he heard Gebhart murmur. “I mean, how does it look I come visiting with an iron bar in my han
d?”

  Felix looked toward the window again. Beyond the mirrored trees and patches of sky, there was someone moving around in there.

  He stopped completely when he heard the voice. It was raised, like a question, and angry, but he couldn’t make out the three or four words.

  “What the hell was that?”

  There was no movement there now.

  Then a door slammed inside the house. It was followed by a shout, and thumps that seemed to move through the house toward the side door.

  “Is this how?”

  The rest of Gebhart’s sentence was cut by the sound of the side door crashing open. It was hard enough and fast enough for Felix to hear the metal grind as it hit its limit, and bounce back.

  He was already moving toward the noise when he heard the rasping scrape of a shoe digging into concrete, its owner running.

  A red-haired man came around the corner of the house then, his mouth wide open as much as his eyes. Felix saw that Gebhart too was manoeuvering to block Fuchs. Fuchs was breathless already, panicking. He gave a quick glance back at the house even as he came at the two policemen. He wasn’t slowing.

  “Fuchs!” Felix yelled, and he went into a crouch. “Stop!”

  Fuchs had his arms out already. Gebhart also yelled at Fuchs to stop. Felix heard another shout too, and the sound of the door opening and rebounding again.

  Felix began to weave side to side to match Fuchs efforts to sidestep him. The red face and bulging eyes of a madman, he thought, and huge eyeballs rolling around. Was it drugs, he wondered, or a fit? But this flabby bastard wasn’t agile, and probably had never been. He was going to kill himself running like this.

  Felix kept calculating where to meet Fuchs, and get a hold on him without risking a head-on. He kept his eyes on Fuchs’ hands.

  The figure that now came around the side of the house at a dash drew a quick look from Felix, but Fuchs was within a couple of metres now. He was panting, and trying to say, or shout something. Felix was aware that Gebhart had come around to his left now, and he was shouting again. But Fuchs had given up any effort to twist his overweight, flapping mass into any more dodges.

  In the moments before Felix actually reached out to get hold of some passing part of Fuchs, his mind scrambled to put things together, and failed. A dog who usually met you down the road from the farm? This other man who had just run out of the house, with arms raised like wings to slow himself, had to be a policeman one of Speckbauer’s? Who else but a policeman would have a gun in his hand? Even as Fuchs filled up his view, Felix registered that Sepp Gebhart had raised the rebar and had gone into a crouch. Whatever Gebhart shouted was torn away when Fuchs barrelled into him.

  Felix felt his feet leave the ground with the impact. He heard a yell on his way up, and was suddenly aware of Fuchs’ smell, even the fabric of his jean jacket. His hand clung to Fuchs’ jacket for a moment, but his fingers slid as he was carried on and out by the force of Fuchs’ rush, and he felt himself falling. He reached out as his knee hit the ground, and grasped Fuchs’ leg. He was dragged for a moment, and he had time to feel the surge of pain coming from his knee and his hip. Then Fuchs’ fat legs were coming down at him, knee first.

  All he knew after Fuchs landed on him was that he still had Fuchs’ leg. So it was Fuchs babbling and kicking at him then. Grit ground into his elbows and then his face as Fuchs tried to twist free, his breath ragged and wheezing in between squeals and half-shouts.

  Fuchs rolled over on him, and pounded on his arm with his fist.

  Felix tucked his head in tighter, curling himself around the leg. A floating feeling came over Felix then. He wondered how you could get such a sound out of a man, like a drum. It was Fuchs’ hammering him in the ribs, while trying to kick him with his free leg. It wasn’t hurting. He wondered why there was no pain yet, especially now that this huge oaf was grinding him into the cement with every twist and blow. And over it all, the absurdity of all this, out of the blue.

  Then the hammering stopped, and something heavy slid over him. It was Fuchs, he knew, but a trick. His jacket smelled of petrol and cigarettes and BO. Fuchs was faking it, preparing for a sudden jerk, to get loose finally. Felix knew something was going on around him, but it seemed to be happening at a distance, in some muffled way. He called out Gebhart’s name. He wanted to hear him say that things were fine, or under control, or something. He braced himself for Fuchs’ big move, and he called out again. There were footsteps somewhere, and shouts.

  His head felt like it was full of water now. How long had passed since he’d seen Fuchs rushing at him? This was the same as what had happened in that soccer game years ago. He had run into the goalpost for a pass, and it never came. It was that time when all his teammates seemed to go away but they had left their bodies there, and their worried faces looking down at him. But was it really concussion, when you could even think concussion? Ridiculous.

  Now Fuchs was talking to him. That must be his head then, that big lump lying on his shoulders? The words were low and short and hesitant. Like talk in a dream, they made no sense.

  Someone called out his name. Felix pushed up but Fuchs wasn’t moving. He murmured and gave a soft lisp, like a kid in sleep.

  “Gebi,” Felix said, loudly.

  There was a thumping sound now and Fuchs gave a jolt. Here was his move then, Felix was sure, and he pulled hard on Fuchs’ jacket. Instead of the blow from Fuchs, or a sharp pull away, he only felt the oaf get heavier. Felix’s mind preoccupied itself for a time with how it could be that he seemed both bigger, or at least more spread out, and heavier. Was he trying to crush him? Something had to give.

  He began to push at Fuchs. His hands and knuckles sank into the belly. He heard a wheeze and a sound like Fuchs was about to clear his throat. Felix got one shoulder off the ground, and he craned his neck.

  The light from the sky had changed, to a glary, milky luminescence. That was the house over there in the corner of his vision, and that policeman was there, the one that Speckbauer had sent here.

  He was standing a few metres back, toward the house, looking at the ground, away from him.

  “Get this fat idiot off me,” Felix said.

  The man turned to him. His chest was heaving, and he was saying something between breaths, quietly. A frown, something like incredulity or fear twisted his whole face. He began to take slow steps toward Felix, lifting his arm as he drew closer. The man stopped and said something louder, but then made a small staggering lurch off sideways. A sharp crack sounded, and echoed across the yard. He made one swerving step, and seemed about to shout as he fell. There was a dull scraping thud. Felix realized that the policeman hadn’t made any effort to check his fall.

  He drew in a breath to yell out. He had to get up, to move away.

  He got one knee working and levered more of Fuchs’ weight. He pushed again, and got his forearm into it. He had no strength.

  Fuchs flopped more as he pushed, and even seemed to roll back each time. His palms felt slimy grit on the cement under him as he tried to get his other shoulder free. Fuchs had knocked himself out, that was it.

  With both hands free, Felix took two tries to get a roll going.

  Fuchs’ weight began to budge.

  Up on his elbows now, Felix saw red on his clothes, and sprays of red like freckles on Fuch’s arms. Gebhart was lying down closer to the shed. He was not moving. Something else was: a knee waving slowly side to side. Speckbauer’s man? And now he was turning on his side, groaning louder, and pushing himself up on one elbow.

  A man called Felix’s name now, and before he could turn around toward the house to see where the voice was coming from, the man’s face flushed red and he seemed to bounce, and the noise of a gunshot echoed across the yard and into the hills.

  It was still echoing faintly in the distance when Felix heard footsteps crossing the yard now, slowly, and talking. There was a metallic scrape and a loud click, as metal was pushed against metal.

  Part of Felix
’s mind understood what the sound meant.

  Someone called his name again, in between his own shouts and Felix kicking free of Fuchs at last. The man with the rifle was breathing heavily and slowly, and in between breaths his voice was barely above a murmur in a slow, considered, disdainful tone that Felix recognized.

  He began to hear words he could understand. He wondered if the man was dressed in his grandfather’s clothes, and had a mask so exact as the slight stoop and the voice, even the dialect.

  “Opa?”

  “Bleib ruhig, kid. Quiet. I took care of him. Have you been shot?”

  “I don’t think so. I’m going to be sick, I think, or something.”

  There was a movement from where Gebhart lay. Felix saw a leg move, and watched Gebhart curl up slightly. He did not want to look down at Fuchs. He let his eyes move around the yard. There was a vague ripple to everything he looked at now. How small it seemed now, where it had seemed so huge when he had been a kid.

  Someone was asking if he could get up. His grandfather’s voice.

  “I don’t know,” Felix said, or thought he said.

  “The other one,” his grandfather said. “The other tschuschen?”

  “No, Opa. He came with me, he’s a Gendarme”

  Something made the air quiver. Felix had a moment before his throat filled, and then he was doubled up with the spasms. The vomit burned and scraped as it burst from his throat.

  Through swimming eyes he saw his grandfather lean down, stooped, over Gebhart. The spasms came slower, and he was able to call out Gebhart’s name. He saw his grandfather’s head turn his way before another spasm tore at him, and left him exhausted. He ignored the grit grinding into his elbow and got on all fours. He was wet, but he refused to look down as he began to scuttle slowly toward Gebhart.

  “Opa,” he said. “Is he okay?”

  “He’s saying something.”

  His grandfather had to pause to get his breath now. “I think he’s been shot.”

  “Gebi?” Felix called out. “I’m here, I’m coming.”

  He pushed off with his hands. Rising, his leg flashed a pain that almost blinded him, and he stopped, wavering. He worked out of his jacket and threw it in front of him. Everything was rippling and folding around him now. He saw his grandfather shuffling across the yard.