by Jeff Gulvin
The Covenant
A Harrison & Swann Thriller
Jeff Gulvin
This novel is dedicated to my dad
I’d like to say a special thanks to my agent and friend, Ben Camardi, whose support, consistency, and advice has allowed my career to keep rolling when it looked like the roads were closed.
Contents
Prologue
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Glossary
A Biography of Jeff Gulvin
Prologue
February
TEXAS SKY, PURPLE AND black above his head.
Tom Carey squatted on his rucksack, gazing up, straining the muscles in his neck. Beyond the railroad tracks, the land stretched endless and flat to the shadows of mountains far in the distance. The warmth still clung to the ground, though darkness had fallen early. No stars. No moon. The cloud pressed the heat to the earth. South of him was the Rio Grande. This morning he had woken up in a cheap hotel in Del Rio, with last night’s beer thumping in his head, and even water was unwelcome in his gut. He had run out of cash: he and Steve in some dive of a cantina that rang with Tex-Mex music, where sweat-stained Mexican women danced with one another. A far cry from London. A far cry from anywhere he had ever been. He had woken with the hangover and then tried to get money on his MasterCard from an ATM machine. But it would not work and he could not understand why. Steve got the bus to San Antonio that morning, then on to Dallas for the flight home. Tom had thought about it, but he did not want to go back until he had seen Mardi Gras.
He looked at his watch, the hands illuminated in the darkness. Far in the distance, he heard the mournful lament of the train’s horn sounding across the desert. He imagined the clank of the wheels and the straining wood of the boxcars, and a shiver of anticipation ran the length of his spine. He had never jumped a train in his life, and yet here he was, sitting at the peak of the curve where the track circumnavigated the lake. Logic told him the train would be at its slowest at this point; and he had seen the open boxcars many times from a distance. Anything heading east would take him closer to New Orleans and there were only three days until Mardi Gras. Once he hit another big town, he would try his MasterCard again, and if that didn’t work, he could phone his mother in England.
Excitement bubbled in his throat as he watched the beam from the headlight cut into the vast expanse of Kinney County nothingness. Highway 90 uncoiled like a rattlesnake to Uvalde, with a few hick towns in between. No-man’s-land, that’s what it felt like. One hundred years ago this place had still been pretty lawless. Fifty years before that, it was totally lawless. Texas. Mexico. The Alamo. Images of the past clicked through his mind like a movie reel, as the train rolled closer and closer. Most of the afternoon he had sat here, waiting, hoping a train would come by before dark. But then, as the sky purpled above him, he did not care any more. The day had been soundless except for the distant drone of the odd truck on the highway, or an aircraft sweeping in low to Laughlin. When darkness fell, he still sat there, sipping water and listening to the sounds of the desert at night, watching desert squirrels make one last foray for food before heading for the burrow. The train drew closer. He stood up and headed towards the tracks.
His rucksack hung off one shoulder and he felt like some old hobo who had ridden the skids for years, not an awestruck kid from England about to begin his medical degree. He thought of his mother in London and his father in Cape Town, and for a moment he saw the beach from Table Mountain and imagined Christmas, surfing. The train drew closer and he was Lee Marvin, king of the rails, climbing through the Rockies in an open boxcar, with the sky grazed scarlet above his head and a harmonica pressed to his lips.
The locomotive rumbled by at no more than ten miles an hour and he found himself walking, then trotting, as the coal-laden cars passed him first. He hoped they weren’t all carrying coal, the ride would be dirty if they were. But the train was long, even by American standards, and pretty soon the coal cars gave way to flatbeds carrying containers and then the boxcars, some open, some with roofs, and most with side doors slid open. He picked a roofed wooden car and ran alongside the track, thinking how foolish it would be to fall now and slip under those wheels and be ground into mincemeat in Texas. He was careful—the loose stones and shale dragging at his feet. Pack in hand, he hoisted it ahead of him, then grabbed the side of the door and jumped. Belly over the lip he dangled for a moment, getting his balance, and then hauled himself up and rolled into the darkness. He sat for a second just getting his bearings. The boxcar was very dark, blacker than the greyed landscape he had come from, and it took him a few moments to adjust his vision. He could smell wood grain and dust and what he thought was sugar beet, but he might have been mistaken. Getting to his feet, he found he could stand OK without holding on to the door. He shuffled his pack into a corner with his foot, then looked to see if he had interrupted any sleeping hobo. He had not and in a way he was disappointed. He had rather hoped he might share his car with some old-timer, some gentleman of the rails. A song suddenly rang in his head. ‘He rode the rails since the Great Depression, fifty years out on the skids.’ Bruce Springsteen. He had taken his mother to see the great man perform solo at the Brixton Academy, a couple of years previously. From his pack, he took out his Walkman and fitted the tiny headphones into his ears. The land rolled by, featureless in the dark. He sat close to the open side of the car, grateful for the breeze it generated. The wind tugged at his short-cut hair, and he sat and watched the landscape, lunar almost in the darkness. The rhythm of the wheels and the rocking motion of the boxcar carried through his headphones and music was suddenly incongruous with the solitude of the moment.
He woke to Texas sunlight, hot and insistent on his face. He was lying with his head crooked at an awkward angle in the fold of wood that formed the corner of the car. Still alone, nobody else had jumped the train in the night. Again, he was a little crestfallen. He thought he would have bumped into somebody riding the tracks along with him. Maybe the hobos didn’t venture this far south. Maybe they had trouble with the border patrol agents he had seen at various locations between here and the big river. Another Springsteen song came to mind and he hummed softly to himself as the car rattled and rocked around him. Outside the sliding wooden door, the world went by as sagebrush and bristled, scrub desert. He took his water from the pack and sipped from it before rescrewing the lid. It was warm, but eased the parched rasp that had developed, with sleep, in his throat.
Morning became afternoon, and he slept in the corner once again and woke as darkness was falling. The first thing he heard were voices. He sat up sharply and fumbled for his pack. Two men faced him. One was sitting directly opposite, looking at him: faded scuffed jeans, leather waistcoat over a yellow T-shirt, and half a beard on his face. His arms and neck were covered with tattoos and his hair was hidden beneath a black bandana. When he opened his mouth to smile, one overlong canine on the left side of his upper jaw dominated his teeth. The second man squatted on his haunches in the open doorway. He was smaller, thinner and younger than the other man. Tattoos protruded in spiders’ webs over his elbows from the cut-off sleeves of a denim jacket. He had a drooping handlebar moustache, black and grey with flecks of ginger, and one of his eyes was slightly slanted,
so he only half looked out of it. He was rolling a cigarette with one hand and balancing himself with the fisted knuckles of the other. His hair, too, was hidden beneath a black bandana.
‘Howdy.’ The one with the long tooth smiled at him.
Tom looked back, relaxed and grinned. ‘Hello,’ he said.
‘Where you headed?’
‘New Orleans.’
‘Mardi Gras?’
‘I’ve never been before.’ Tom spoke a little breathlessly, not quite believing he was sharing a boxcar with two ageing hobos covered in tattoos. ‘I want to see it before I go home.’
‘Where’s that?’ The man with the tooth reached out and took a newly rolled cigarette from his partner. He plucked a single match from his waistcoat pocket and popped it on his belt buckle, before cupping black-nailed hands to his face.
‘England.’
The two hobos looked at one another, then the second man spoke from his perch in the doorway. ‘England? Hell, I thought you was from Galveston.’
‘Galveston?’
‘Sure.’ The man gestured to the boy’s Asian features. ‘I thought all you guys were dug in deep there in shrimp country.’
‘No. No. I’m British. From England. My mother’s from Vietnam.’
Galveston Bay. Another Springsteen song. Tom smiled to himself and the first man cocked his head. ‘Guess we missed the joke.’
Tom shook his head.
‘Something funny?’ The man was staring at him and Tom, suddenly feeling awkward, tried to explain what had gone through his mind. An English kid in America, riding a freight train from the Mexican border to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. Bruce Springsteen songs stuck in his head. It was the stuff of dreams.
‘Dreams, huh?’ The first man looked at his friend. ‘Go figure.’ He shifted his position slightly, took a paper-wrapped bottle from his pack and drank. He wiped his mouth, looked over the neck of the bottle at the boy and passed it to his friend. ‘What’s your name, boy?’ he asked.
‘Tom.’
‘And you’re a limey. You’re all the way from England.’
The boy nodded.
‘What you doing in the United States?’
‘Just travelling.’
‘On your own?’
‘I did have a friend with me.’
‘Where’s he at?’ The man from the doorway again.
‘He took the bus to San Antonio. He had to get back to England.’
‘But not you.’ The first man again. ‘You wanna see Mardi Gras.’
‘If I can get there in time.’
The man took the bottle back, waved it vaguely in the boy’s direction, then put it away again. He folded his arms and sucked on his cigarette. ‘This here train’ll take you all the way if you ride her long enough.’
‘Really?’ Tom felt a small surge of excitement.
‘Oh sure. All the way to New Orleans.’ The man showed his tooth again. ‘Party town. Mardi Gras. The whole nine yards.’
‘How long will it take?’ Tom dragged both feet under him and squatted with his back to the wall.
‘Oh, you’ll be there tomorrow.’
The sun went down and the night was fresher and colder than the previous one. Tom took his fleece jacket from his bag and wrapped himself in it. He was hungry and regretted not spending the few dollars he had left on some bread or something, an enchilada maybe, before leaving Del Rio. But he had not, so he would have to go hungry. The two hobos did not have anything, or if they did, they didn’t eat it, just smoked and drank from the seemingly bottomless bottle. They appeared friendly enough. Tom laughed and joked with them, told them about England and his plans for the future, while outside, the moon rose full, clear and silver above the desert. When finally he fell asleep, they went through his pack, item by item.
He was dreaming he was lying on the beach in South Africa, watching the women in bikinis play volleyball, nurses from his father’s hospital. There was one in particular he liked, with red hair cut short against her scalp. The sand was in his face, irritating his lip, and he woke and rubbed his mouth with the heel of his palm. He could feel hot breath and for a second he wondered where he was. Then the jarring sensation through the floor reminded him—and in the morning he would be in New Orleans for Mardi Gras. But it was not morning. The darkness formed a blanket against the open side of the car and he was looking into the long-toothed hobo’s face. His breath stank and there was a coldness in his eyes that reminded Tom of a shark they had caught off Durban.
He scrabbled back, slithering to the wall opposite the open door, his heart rising against his ribs. The thinner one still squatted, almost out of the door and not appearing to hold on to anything, just balanced on the balls of his feet. Long-tooth was watching him, that chill light in his eyes and his head slightly to one side. The cotton bandana was very black and fixed low over his eyes.
‘What you doing on my train, gook?’ His voice was soft and burred and Tom almost did not hear it.
‘What?’
‘What you doing in my boxcar?’
Tom was pressing himself against the wooden wall of the car now. He looked from one of them to the other and back again. The skinny one was laughing, somewhere deep in his throat. The wind rushed in from outside and the night was cold and glassy over the desert.
Long-tooth reached behind him, slowly, eyes cold like twin dead weights. And then Tom’s own eyes balled as he pulled a revolver from his belt. He snapped open the chamber, gaze not wavering from Tom’s, and slipped out three of the shells. He weighed them in the palm of his hand, moved them over one another with his fingers. Then he snapped the gun shut and spun it round by the triggerguard. Tom had been so intent on him that he hadn’t noticed the skinny one move away from the door. Now he looked up and saw that a 9mm was pointed at his stomach. Long-tooth laughed quietly, spun the pistol again and handed it, butt first, to Tom.
‘We’re gonna play us a little game,’ he said softly. ‘Trip’s long and I’m bored. We got hours till we get to New Orleans.’
Tom just stared at the gun. He could not quite believe this was happening.
‘Take the fucking gun.’ Long-tooth’s voice chipped like shards of glass. Tom flinched as if they had physically struck him. He reached out and took the pistol—it was heavy, much heavier than he would have thought. It occurred to him vaguely that he had never held a gun before. It was cold against his palm. Long-tooth leered at him. The other one sat against the wall with his gun arm resting on his knee. ‘Spin the chamber, asshole. Let’s see what you got.’
Tom still looked at the gun in his hand, then he felt the point of something sharp pressing against the soft flesh of his thigh. He looked down and saw Long-tooth holding a switchblade. ‘You got two choices.’ His breath stank of tobacco and stale alcohol. ‘Either you spin that chamber, put the pistol to your head and squeeze—or I cut your balls off.’ He grinned then, and pressed the knife a little harder.
Tom closed his eyes and squirmed. ‘Please,’ he whispered. ‘Don’t make me do this.’
The man shifted his position so he was closer to him. ‘OK. Then I cut off your balls, stuff them in your mouth and let my buddy here gut-shoot you. Ever see a man who was gut-shot? Ain’t pretty. Takes a long while to die.’ He jabbed his thumb at the open doorway. ‘We toss you over the side and let the vultures pick your entrails.’
Tom opened his eyes and stared at him, thinking this was a joke, hoping this was only a joke. He thought of his mother in London. His father. But the hobo was not smiling. His eyes were black and cold and he pressed again with the knife. ‘Spin the chamber, boy.’
Sweat on his palm, Tom span the chamber. Slowly, inexorably, he lifted the weapon to his temple and felt the chill of the metal against his flesh. Finger in the triggerguard, the breath stopped up in his throat. The hobo’s dead eyes, the knife and the black 9mm. He applied the faintest pressure on the trigger and his hand shook. ‘If it’s empty, that’s the end of the game. Right?’
‘
Sure.’ The hobo showed his tooth. Tom squeezed and, as he did, tears broke on his cheeks. He held the hobo’s glassy stare and a Springsteen song lifted spectral in his head: ‘Somebody killed him just to kill.’
Etienne Laforge nosed the white Crown Victoria through the open-fronted freight yard north of Hahnville and caught the security guard in the beam of the headlights. A tall black man with a pistol slung low on his left hip, he flagged the cruiser to a standstill. Laforge looked sideways at Robbins, his partner, and the two deputies got out of the car. Laforge tugged at his belt buckle as was his habit. ‘You the guy that called us?’ he said to the black man.
‘That’s right. You all got here real quick.’
‘We were in the area, bro. What you got?’
‘I got me a white male with his head blowed off, is what I got.’
Laforge cocked his head to one side, reached to his shirt pocket for a toothpick and stuck it in the corner of his mouth. He nodded. ‘You wanna show us where he’s at.’
‘He’s either in heaven or in hell, Mr Deputy. I can show you where the body’s at.’
Robbins stared at him. ‘Joke a minute, ain’t you.’
‘You ever do this job?’ Robbins snorted. ‘Do I look like I’m stupid?’ The black man laughed then. ‘Jokes is all you got, man. Jokes is all you got.’ He shook his head and twisted away on his heel. He signalled over his shoulder, shining his flashlight ahead of him, and picked his way between the empty boxcars and coal carriers to the lines at the far side of the yard. ‘Tracks ran in back here,’ he said. ‘Trains come in and unload for road freight to the river.’
‘Right on.’ Laforge tried to sound enthusiastic.
The guard stopped by an open-sided car and shone his torch inside. He looked back at them and his teeth were very white in the darkness. ‘Kinda messy. Hope you boys didn’t eat dinner.’
Laforge hated the sight of blood. He always had done. He swallowed, glanced at Robbins, then stepped forward, upending his own torch over his shoulder. The stiff lay against the far wall, a mass of bloodied bone and tissue above his shoulders. Laforge gagged, forced the vomit down and took a handkerchief from his pocket.
