The Drifter's Wheel

by Phillip DePoy

  “Well.” Red closed his eyes. “Amen to that. He’s had a power of misfortune.”

  “So what can you tell me?”

  I watched his face demonstrate every thought and emotion that was playing out behind his eyes, a warring theater of jumbled impulses.

  “Well,” he sighed, “there was these two boys—they lived up past the Hearth, some kind of distant kin, they say. Never had much use for their like. They were part Deveroe.”

  The way he said the name Deveroe was the way most people talked about septic tanks.

  “Wild boys; fought all the time,” he continued. “No parental guidance. Heard they was gone to the army, but it might be them, come back.”

  I had no impulse to ask him how he could know so little about his relatives in such a small environment. Red kept to himself and his close family, and if he didn’t like you, it was unlikely that he’d ever speak to you or even look you in the eye. You didn’t exist to him. He’d treated me that way for the first half of my life. He was only conversant with me, finally, because I had recorded his nephew Toby—who had just killed a very large raccoon—singing songs about apples. The songs were all hundreds of years old, though Toby told me that he had made them all up himself. It had produced a great article: apple brandy and songs about making it.

  “And you think,” I prompted him, “that one of them might be the dead person, and the other might be the killer.”

  “Couldn’t say.” He was impatient for me to leave. He shifted his gun in his arms.

  “Okay.” I nodded once. “Take care.”

  I turned without any further farewell, and followed Andrews down the slope.

  Nineteen

  Once I caught up with Andrews and we were far enough away and around the curve of the mountaintop, I touched Andrews on the arm, stopped him, and put my finger to my lips.

  “We’re going back,” I whispered. “I know where the killer is.”

  “What?” Andrews’s voice carried, I was certain, across the mountain and northward to Carolina.

  “Sh!” I insisted. “We have to sneak back around, hug the ridge, and get to the cave where Red keeps his fermenting barrels.”

  “We do?”

  “I’m not certain if Red meant to tell me something, or if he was trying not to tell me something, but I think our guy is in that cave.”

  “You think that’s what he was saying?”

  “You have to know him—” I began.

  “So wait,” Andrews interrupted. “You want to tiptoe around in the dark, hoping that a man with a shotgun doesn’t see us, break into that very man’s secret stash, and confront a murderer who has both a loaded pistol and a history of shooting me?”

  “Yes.”

  He took a single breath before he shrugged. “All right, then, off we go. In for a penny.”

  There was the quintessential English spirit, I thought, the attitude that made a small island community into a world power—and gave most of the original fire to the American belly as well.

  I pointed out our route as best I could, and we set sail. The ridge would hide us from Red’s view, and if we were a bit more careful than we had been earlier, we might avoid making too much noise. There was Toby, in the woods with his big raccoon, to worry about. But I reasoned that he had not heard the conversation we’d had with Red, and would not be too suspicious, at least at first, even if he did see us still meandering around the caves.

  The cave we were looking for was called, I knew from many a previous conversation with Red’s brood, Barrel Cave. I’d never been inside, and hadn’t realized until that night that its name came from its contents, not its shape. I had always wondered why it was called by such an appellation when it looked no more like a barrel than any of the other dozens of caves around it.

  We hugged the lower edge of the rim; I was in the lead. Stepping over rocks and slippery moss made the way slow going. The moon dodged black clouds that shot past it in the high wind. Below us the harvest of weeds ran ragged; red clay and granite paved odd paths that started and stopped with no coherence. Farther down the slope, the woods seemed darker than they had been, and the pines swayed, creaking like an abandoned house and echoing up the mountain.

  As we would come to a cave, I would peer inside to check for bears, snakes, and, with a bit of melancholy, raccoons. I felt responsible for the big animal’s demise. There he had been, snug at home, when two maniacs broke into his castle and chased him out and, alas, into Toby’s line of fire.

  “The best-laid plans of mice and men,” I said softly to Andrews. “One minute you’re safe in bed—”

  “You’re feeling sorry for Rocky Raccoon,” he whispered back.

  “Me too.”

  “Thanks for reading my mind.”

  “I only skim,” he assured me. “I really don’t want to read too much in there. I couldn’t take the nightmares.”

  “I think that’s it.” I pointed to a larger cave about fifty feet to our left.

  “What’s the plan?”

  He had a point. I came to a standstill.

  “What if we sort of hide our faces,” I suggested, “and just walk in, you know, as if we were Red’s henchmen.”

  “Red does not have henchmen,” he corrected. “He has kin—none of whom is tall and blond or as big as you are. And then there’s your high-beam white hair to consider.”

  “If we had hats—”

  “Good thinking,” he snapped. “I’ll just nip back to the truck and snatch up two, shall I?”

  “Maybe we could crouch low and hide behind the barrels.”

  “We’d have to see the layout.”

  I glanced toward the cave. “Only one way to find that out.”

  I headed toward it, as carefully as I could. Andrews followed behind, only a bit more noisily. We both grew more cautious the closer we drew to the wide opening. The mouth of the cave was roughly the size and shape of an old Volkswagen, and the entrance floor was worn and smooth from thousands of boots walking in and out over who could say how many years.

  As we inched toward the edge of the cave, I could make out old oak barrels close to the entrance. The moon broke through a chain of clouds and spilled a piercing silver over the mountaintop. I ducked down until my head was inches from the ground and moved to peer into the cave.

  Filled almost completely with fermenting apples in their wooden houses, the cave smelled much more pleasant than I’d thought it would—a bit like wine and bread. At first glance there didn’t appear to be anyplace for a man to hide. I beckoned and Andrews slid up beside me, lying completely on the ground.

  “I’m going in,” I mouthed soundlessly.

  I had to repeat myself three times before he understood, and immediately he began shaking his head and scowling.

  I ignored him. Feeling my way along the cave floor, I began to crawl on my stomach into the darkness. It was oddly warmer in the cave, and I wondered it if had anything to do with the fermentation process.

  Past the first few barrels, I saw that there was, in fact, a little room in the center of all of them. A table with an oil lamp on it and two small stools occupied most of the space. I still couldn’t see any human inhabitant.

  The moon was suddenly gone again, and I could barely see the table. I was about to back out when I heard a noise from further inside the cave. It sounded like a bear growling. My heart quickened. Andrews had apparently heard it, too, because he was tugging at the bottom of my pants leg.

  The noise came again, a sudden snort, and I realized that it wasn’t coming from a bear.

  I contorted myself weirdly, working my way to a crouching position, and pointed to the back wall. Andrews was still shaking his head, and his scowl had become a grimace.

  I beckoned him as insistently as I could without making any sound, and he relented, joining me in an uncomfortable hunker.

  “That’s someone snoring,” I whispered into his ear as quietly as I could.

  His head jerked back a little; he liste
ned for a second, and obviously concurred.

  We moved ridiculously toward the sound, a little like fat ducks waddling. As we came to the edge of the row of barrels, nearly to the table and stools, we could both see the pile of rags in the corner from which bear sounds escaped. The pistol lay on the stone floor in front of it.

  Without warning, Andrews leapt, like a great ape, the distance between us and the snoring man. He landed with a crunching skid, swiped his hand across the pistol, knocking it my way, and had fistfuls of the man’s clothing tightly in his grip.

  The man blathered like a caged gibbon.

  Andrews stood, dragging the man up with him. I managed to get hold of the pistol and march with great deliberation right up to them both.

  Even in the near absence of light, I could make out the general features of the man’s face. “Hello,” I said softly.

  “Shoot this bastard right across the temple, would you mind?” Andrews rasped, shaking the man. “Then he’ll know what it feels like. Teach him a lesson.”

  “All right.” I glanced at the pistol, then pointed it directly at the man’s skull.

  “God in heaven, don’t shoot!” the stranger exploded. “You have a whole lot of explaining to do,” I told him, still pointing the gun at his head.

  “I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

  I held the pistol up for a few seconds more, then dropped my hand, shoving the gun in my pocket.

  “You know the safety was on, right?” Andrews said, lowering the man so he could stand on the floor.

  “I glanced at the gun before I pointed it at his head, if that’s what you mean. I think the safety was on. I don’t know that much about guns.”

  There was a sudden clicking sound behind us. “But I do.” It was a familiar voice.

  I turned slowly to see both barrels of Red Jackson’s shotgun aimed directly at my chest, the hammers cocked back, ready to blow me to Judgment Day.

  Twenty

  Red coughed. It was the sort of sound a dying animal might make. It was impossible to see his face, backlit by the moon. Most of the light seemed to take pleasure in glinting off the cave-sized barrels of his shotgun.

  “If your aim, Fever,” he began, the words rattling in his throat, “is to fetch out a man from somewheres, you have got to learn you a portion of shut up.”

  “We were still too loud?” Andrews was checking to see if his translation of Red’s words was correct.

  “The thing about a cave,” Red explained, “is it acts like a megaphone. You know what a megaphone is? A normal sound in here is thunder in them woods.”

  “You heard us?” Andrews asked incredulously.

  “I heard somebody jump in here,” Red confirmed, “and then a lot of jabbering. You might imagine I pay pretty close attention to this particular cave.”

  “And plus,” said another voice behind Red, “I seen you’uns come up on this cave.”

  “Toby seen you,” Red repeated.

  Toby appeared, grinning. “Hey, guess what. You know how they say, like, you can make enough racket to wake the dead? That’s how loud you’uns was. That fat old raccoon? He hear all that noise, open up his eyes, take one look of me, and scatter.”

  Andrews relaxed his grip on the stranger and his face lit up. “He got away?”

  “That he did.” Toby seemed almost as pleased.

  By the next week there would be a nice story circulating in the upper part of the mountain. Toby killed a giant raccoon; a man from England woke it from the dead. And somewhere out in those woods there lurks an invincible creature, still alive despite great wounds—and still growing.

  “So who’ve we got here?” Red twitched his rifle in the direction of the stranger.

  “I believe this is the man,” I volunteered, “who killed the person that the sheriff found on Tuesday morning. It’s a little hard to see him in here.”

  “Drag him out.” Red backed away from the entrance, gun still leveled at us.

  Andrews looked the man in the eye. “Come on, then.”

  The man’s head was down, and he was sniffling.

  “Red,” I called. “I’ve got this pistol that he had. It’s in my pocket. I believe it belongs to Hovis Daniels. Just wanted you to know. It’s not mine.”

  “Show me,” he demanded calmly.

  I produced the gun immediately, holding it in the flat of my hand.

  “That’s an old’un.” Red was still backing away. “I know Hovis to brag about it, or one like it. Put it away.”

  I did.

  Andrews and I moved toward the entrance of the cave very carefully, ushering the stranger with us. Andrews still had a tight hold on the man’s old army surplus coat.

  Out in the moonlight, Red and Toby seemed a bit more relaxed, though their guns remained quite in evidence.

  “Let me see him.” Red lifted his chin in the direction of the stranger.

  Andrews turned the man so that the light could show him more clearly. Instantly I saw that he was, indeed, the man who had invaded my kitchen. Red took longer in his assessment.

  “Don’t know,” he said slowly. “Could be the one I’m thinking of. Got more hair and less meat on him. Mite older.”

  “I ain’t never seen him,” Toby offered.

  Red dropped the barrel of his gun, pointed it to the ground. “Nope. Can’t say for certain. Go on, take him.”

  Andrews shook the man he was holding. “You have nothing to say?”

  He looked down. “I’m Truck Jackson.”

  Red and Toby froze. I started to speak, but thought better of it when I saw the mixture of curiosity and terror on Toby’s face.

  “I helped to liberate Paris.” The man’s voice was absolutely affect-less, droning. “This is no way to treat a veteran.”

  “Truck Jackson’s been dead for more than fifty years,” Red said evenly. “You ain’t barely old enough to be his great-grandson.”

  The man’s head snapped up; his face changed. In the near-white ghostliness of the moon, I felt I could see a vivid, burning spirit inhabiting that body.

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” he said. His voice had completely changed. It was strong, certain of itself, and clear as autumn’s air. “And I’ll tell you why, if someone could get this limey dingleberry to let loose of my coat.”

  “What the hell is a dingleberry?” Andrews asked.

  “I’ll tell you later,” I assured him, voice lowered. “It’s not particularly nice.”

  “Then I’m not letting him go.” Andrews clutched the man’s coat tighter.

  “I’d love to hear how you could be Truck Jackson.” Red shifted his weight to his right leg and sniffed once.

  “I stumbled onto a very important bend in the River of Time.”

  The man turned to face Red with a look of such ferocious joy that it nearly knocked the old man over. “The River of Time is a roiling fountain, and it rushes in all directions at once.”

  “What?” Andrews glared at the man.

  “But what I’ve discovered is that certain scenes from the Grand Theatre are doomed to repeat themselves over and over again until something is done to jar the cogs of Time. I have determined to do just that, kick the wheels until they come loose. That way I won’t have to do my killing anymore.”

  “What’s he talking about, Red?” Toby asked, his voice barely audible.

  “Few human beings ever realize,” the man roared, “that their true journey as a spirit in this world is to wade through the waters of Time, here and there bumping into the debris of History, until they are properly baptized! Then they can rise up out of the water, into the light, and move on. That’s the metaphor of evolution—creation and evolution are as illusory as anything else, of course. It’s the metaphor that counts. Each individual lifetime is barely the blink of the spirit’s eye. We go rushing down those corridors frantically on our way to the Great Light. But we’re distracted by things—a strain of melody, the sound of laughter, a gunshot, the smell of bread and
coffee, the taste of a kiss upon the lips, the soft edge of a trellis rose. Sometimes it’s even a face. A single face can distract us from our forward motion toward the light, and we’d dally. That dalliance is called life. Another life.”

  Toby was clearly terrified. Red had taken a step or two back as well. I, on the other hand, was beginning to remember how well this man had played the cazier-than-thou game in my kitchen, and I thought I knew what he was up to.

  “I think that’s about all for now,” I ventured, moving closer to the man. “Let’s get you back to my place. You can have a nice cup of something, and I’ll call the sheriff.”

  “What makes you think I’d come with you?” the man asked, very congenially under the circumstances.

  “You’re the only one in this crowd without a gun,” Andrews told him, clenching the man’s coat lapels tighter.

  “You don’t have a gun,” the man answered back, blazing a look of overwhelming intensity directly into Andrews’s pupils.

  “I have a gun in my mind,” Andrews answered back with equal power, and just the right addition of barely controlled rage.

  “Get on, boy,” Red commanded. “Onliest thing to keep you from being shot dead and buried up under some rock is these two. I don’t like a witness. I could kill all three of you, I guess, but ain’t got the notion for that right now. It’d take up too much of my time. Maybe some other night, though.”

  “Maybe some other night,” Toby repeated gleefully.

  I couldn’t tell if Red had said that for effect or if he was serious, but it seemed the perfect exit line.

  “As I was saying,” I began.

  Andrews didn’t wait for the rest of the sentence. He headed toward the cemetery, and my truck, dragging his captive along as if he were carrying oversized luggage.

  “Good night, Red; Toby.” I nodded once.

  Red snorted, uncocked his shotgun, and offered me one quick wink. His entire face changed, and I realized that ninety percent of what he’d been doing—perhaps for the entire evening—was an act, a Deliverance parody of backwoods crazy. Andrews was so focused on getting his prey back to the truck that he was moving at a righteous clip, already yards away.