Covenant

by Jeff Gulvin

  ‘Yes, mam.’ Harrison shook his head then. ‘Jeanie, you really don’t wanna go there.’

  Jean laughed. ‘Ah,’ she said. ‘I see.’

  Harrison looked up at her then and saw for the first time since he had met her, something like hope in her face. ‘You look happier than you have in a while,’ he said.

  ‘I am. At long last, I feel as though I’m achieving something. I don’t feel impotent any more.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said gently. ‘I know you’re risking your life.’

  Harrison stood up and stretched. ‘Wouldn’t be the first time. In fact, it’s the third since I joined the Bureau.’

  ‘You’re doing it for me, though, aren’t you?’

  Her words cut into him as he looked out of the window at his truck. He did not reply. And then he felt her hand on the small of his back. He turned and looked into her face. ‘It’s my job, Jean. It’s an FBI investigation.’

  ‘Even so. Thank you.’

  He had all his gear laid out now: a spare shirt, his combat jacket and hat, and a tightly rolled sleeping bag. He also had his ancient Coleman stove and a small set of folding billycans he used whenever he went hunting. Next to these, he had a snub-nosed .38 with the serial number filed off, a 9mm Beretta and a bowie knife. Two guns, he thought: one in the bag, one in his boot. He had had to discard the ankle holster in favour of a home-spun leather affair he had rigged up during his days undercover in Idaho. It enabled the gun to sit just in the top of his boot, so that only a portion of the handle rested against his calf. A regular holster was a giveaway every time. He lit a Marlboro from the crumpled pack, sucked smoke and exhaled without removing the cigarette from his mouth. ‘There’s one thing in my favour,’ he said.

  ‘What’s that?’ Jean rested her back against the window ledge, her head framed in the sunlight, hair in silhouette.

  ‘Nobody knows who the hell these assholes are.’ Harrison tapped the ash from his cigarette. ‘No law-enforcement agency has taken any official notice, apart from the odd arrest here and there, and I reckon they’ve been running this scam for years. They won’t be looking for anyone to go in undercover.’ He glanced at his weary features in the mirror. ‘I look the part, too, don’t I?’

  Jean laughed then. ‘You most certainly do.’

  Harrison sucked on the cigarette. ‘I talked to the office about you and, of course, they won’t go for it,’ he said.

  Her face fell.

  ‘Officially,’ he added quickly. ‘There’s no way they can, Miss Lady Mam. D.C. would hang Mayer by his balls if he approved it.’

  ‘I’m going, anyway.’

  Harrison nodded. ‘I know. You got enough money for the gas and stuff?’

  ‘Money isn’t a problem, John. I want to help. I need to.’

  Harrison smiled. ‘I might be gone a while. These things can take a whole lotta time, and I mean years, in some cases.’

  ‘Well, I don’t have years, but I do have months. I took a year-long sabbatical, and rented out my flat to fund this.’

  ‘OK.’ He stood up. ‘We’ll swing by the office and then I hit the road.’ He reached under the mattress and took out another 9mm pistol. This is a Glock,’ he said. ‘It’s automatic. Once you rack in the first round, you just keep pulling the trigger. There’s no safety catch, just a hair trigger.’ He handed it to her. ‘You figure you can use it?’

  Jean stared at him. ‘Yes. But why?’

  ‘Because you’re a lady driving an old pick-up to God knows where. Keep it in the glove compartment. Now, you’ve got Matt Penny’s pager number?’

  She nodded.

  ‘OK, Any trouble, you get hold of Matt.’

  He opened the closet and took down an old five-string banjo from the shelf at the top. He had not played it in years and there were only four strings on the fingerboard.

  Jean stared at him. ‘Do you play that?’

  Harrison nodded. ‘I’m taking it for company.’

  They walked outside where the heat was softening the pavement and Harrison climbed into the passenger seat of his truck. He nodded to the other side. ‘You drive, Jean. You’re gonna have to get used to it.’ From the glove compartment, he took his cellphone and the charger that plugged into the cigarette lighter in the dashboard. ‘Keep this charged and wait for my calls. When I’ve got something to report, I’ll get in touch and we can meet up.’

  ‘Will you be wearing a wire?’

  He shook his head. ‘Not from the get-go, I won’t. If I get accepted, then maybe. Any time you wanna bail out and head on home, you just drive the truck to Poydras Plaza and tell Matt Penny. Y’hear?’

  Jean started the engine and looked at the stick shift on the column. ‘It’s a three-speed,’ Harrison told her. ‘Third used to jump out all the time, so you had to hold the stick, but I got that fixed. She’s been tuned and she’s ready to go. Get yourself some Wranglers, honey, and a hat maybe, and you’ll pass for one of the gals from Galveston Bay.’

  She drove him out of the city on Interstate 10 and then they crossed into St Charles Parish and headed north-west. They left Hahnville and bad memories behind, and Harrison sat with the window rolled down and chewed tobacco. Jean drove the truck a bit jerkily and he cringed for his clutch now and again, but by the time they had done a hundred miles, she was getting the hang of it. The highway opened up and then Harrison directed her to leave the main road and head north. The railroad was ahead of them at Donaldsville, and a few miles the other side of town, he asked her to pull over and stop. They sat there in silence for a long moment, then Harrison opened the door.

  ‘I’m heading west to begin with: Texas, and New Mexico, maybe. Be careful in the small towns. Keep out of the bars and stay in the best motels.’

  She smiled at him and nodded. ‘It’s you I worry about. I escaped from Vietnam before I was twenty, remember. I’ll be OK. Honest.’

  Harrison looked at her then, a softness in his eyes. ‘Course you did. Regular tough guy. Don’t worry about me, though. I got outta Vietnam as well.’ For a few moments, they just sat there, Harrison with his hand on the door catch, the door half open and the heat of the morning on his thigh. Then Jean shuffled across the bench seat and kissed him on the lips. ‘Be very careful,’ she said.

  Harrison could feel the lump congeal in his throat and at that moment he vowed to himself that he would. ‘Don’t expect too much,’ he said, and climbed out of the truck. He stood on the side of the road and hauled the pack between his shoulder blades. Jean handed him the plastic bottle of water he had filled before they left New Orleans. ‘Get outta here, Jeanie. Before another truck comes by.’

  She looked at him one last time, then gunned the engine, clunked in the gear and took off up the highway, with a shot of dust from the tyres. Harrison stood and watched until his Chevy was no more than a black dot shimmering against the horizon, and then all was quiet and he was alone again in the world.

  He squatted and rolled a cigarette, aware of the gun sweating against his leg on the inside of his boot. He licked the gummed edge of the paper, popped a match on his belt buckle and cupped both hands to the breeze that was not there. He flapped out the match, letting smoke drift, and looked up and down the highway. ‘Well, Johnny Buck,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Fifty years old and going under again. Good job you don’t have a wife.’ He looked into the distance and thought of Jean, saw her face, felt her lips on his. He stood up and pushed away those thoughts, consciously working them from his mind, and cold professionalism began to seep like iced water into his veins. Flipping away the butt of the cigarette, he stood up, shouldered his pack again and headed towards the railroad.

  He jumped a grainer running north out of Donaldsville on the Union Pacific line. The sun had gone and thunderheads gathered in anger above him. He jogged alongside the open boxcar and threw the water bottle in ahead of him, then he slid the banjo over and jumped up, swinging his legs away from the iron clank of the wheels. He g
ot to his haunches and then the train jerked, couplings bruising one another, and he rolled on to his side. He groaned and felt his gun work loose a fraction, and made a mental note to check the strapping. The interior of the boxcar was dark, but Harrison was alone and he sat by the door and dangled one leg over the side.

  The train rolled north through the swamplands, heading for Pineville, and the sky darkened still further before the first big gobs of rain slapped the dirt. Harrison rolled a cigarette, sipped from the water bottle and sniffed the air as the rain mixed up with the earth. For a moment he was at peace, at one with the motion of the train, the massed expanse of the cloud and the landscape unravelling around him. Under different circumstances, he could get used to this life and he wondered what he might have done if the border patrol and then the Bureau had not beckoned. The train took him north towards Shreveport, where he would switch lines and head west into Texas.

  The rain fell harder; a wind had whipped in from the gulf and was blowing due north, sending sprays of warm rainwater in through the open door. Harrison sat there long enough for it to dampen his face and then he moved into the shadows and dozed.

  When he woke, he was not alone. He heard the voices first, talking low as if not to disturb him, and he opened his eyes without moving the hat from where it was set across his face. He was lying full stretch with his head on his pack, and his banjo against the wall. He moved his left leg a fraction until he felt the weight of the .38 and then he took the hat from his eyes. Two hobos sat opposite him, cross-legged. One was much older than the other, with a shock of white hair and a red and white bandana tied about his neck. He was playing cards by himself, but talking to his buddy, a younger, long-haired man in military green, who sucked on a bottle. Harrison looked at the younger one, and he looked back and gestured with the bottle.

  ‘Howdy,’ he said.

  Harrison nodded, but said nothing. The older man half closed one eye and peered at him through the shadows. It was growing darker now, the rain still hissing past the open side of the car, and Harrison was stiff and sore from the boards. The couplings clanked and metal grated against itself, and the boxcar rolled slightly as they swung into a bend.

  The old man grinned at him then, showing a set of long grey teeth. ‘Ain’t seen you afore,’ he said.

  ‘Ain’t seen you.’ Harrison sat more upright, then he flipped his feet underneath him and stood up. He stretched and yawned, then bent to his bottle and sipped the warm water.

  ‘You ride this section often?’

  ‘Nope.’

  These two were not Southern Blacks. They wore no colours, which in itself meant nothing, but Harrison just had the feeling. The old man leaned forward and offered a hand. ‘My name’s Uncle Ted,’ he said. ‘This here’s Billy.’

  Harrison ignored the hand, but nodded. He rolled a cigarette, wetted the paper and lit it. ‘You wanna share that bottle, Billy?’

  Billy looked a little doubtful and glanced at the old man, then he shrugged and passed it over. ‘Swap you for a smoke,’ he said. ‘Ain’t had a cigarette in days.’

  Harrison took the bottle and tossed him the pouch. ‘Make it jail time, Billy. That’s all I got.’

  Billy nodded and rolled himself a skinny cigarette, and then Harrison split one of the paper matches he carried in half and popped the head with his thumb. He put the other half back in the pouch and swigged cheap vodka from the bottle. It made him gag, but fired up his throat the way only hard liquor can, and he whacked his chest with the heel of his fist. ‘Goddamn,’ he muttered. ‘You make this stuff yourself?’

  ‘Bought in a liquor store,’ Billy mumbled. ‘Just like reg’lar people.’

  Harrison took another stiff pull and handed the bottle back.

  They sat awhile in silence, and Harrison moved to the lip of the door and gazed out into the night. The rain eased, then ceased altogether, and then started up again as soon as the darkness was complete.

  ‘Where did you jump the train?’ Uncle Ted asked him.

  ‘Donaldsville. Hitched me a ride from New Orleans.’

  ‘New Orleans’s too hot in the summertime. Too much fucking humidity.’

  ‘What’s humidity?’ Billy asked.

  ‘The stuff that makes you sweat.’

  Billy nodded. Harrison glanced at him and let smoke escape from his nostrils. ‘Where y’all from, Billy?’

  ‘Arkansas. I’s born in Junction City. S’right on the state line thar. Ain’t been back in a while.’

  ‘What about you?’ the old man asked him.

  Harrison shrugged. ‘Upper Michigan.’

  ‘Right up there, by Canada?’

  ‘Right up there by Canada.’ Harrison crushed out the stub of his cigarette.

  ‘Cold in the wintertime.’

  Billy was looking at the banjo. ‘You play that thing, mister?’

  ‘Some.’

  ‘You figure to play it some now?’

  Harrison drew breath in through his nose and then shrugged. ‘I could, I guess.’

  ‘Be nice to have some music. Can’t play a note myself.’

  Harrison reached behind him and took up the instrument. He tweaked the tuning keys and made a face. ‘Darn thing’s only got four strings.’ He showed the banjo face to the other two. ‘Shoulda had five, but one got busted in Jackson Square.’

  ‘You play music down there?’

  ‘Enough to bum a smoke now and again.’ Harrison took the fingerpick and plucked a little ditty that Dewey had played him once in Nu Nus Café: a James Booker song.

  ‘I like that, mister. You’re real good.’ Billy’s simple face opened in a smile and he settled back as the rain drummed on the roof above their heads. Under them, the wheels rolled and Harrison picked up the rhythm and beat time with the banjo.

  They rode through the night, and Harrison dozed and woke near dawn to find Billy and the old man gone. Opposite him, in their place, sat two heavyset men in their thirties. Both were tattooed, both had black bandanas wrapped round their heads and both of them were staring at him. He sat up slowly and reached for his water bottle. It was still dark outside, but the rain had stopped and the clouds were being swept away by the wind coming up from the south.

  ‘Hey, bro. What’s happening?’

  Harrison looked at the speaker. He was bearded and there were flecks of grey among the black. He wore a leather waistcoat over a T-shirt and spiders’ web tattoos spread over his arms. His partner was ginger-headed and bigger, belly bulging at the waistband of black jeans. He wore German parachutist boots with the jeans tucked in at the top. Harrison sipped water and eyed them both, easy smiles slack across their mouths. He remembered Spinelli’s words in Spokane: We’ll drink with you. We’ll be your best friend; and then, when you turn your back, we’ll kill you.

  ‘Where did the other two fellas get to?’ he said, as he fished in his pack for his stove. He had cold biscuits, some ham, two apples and a packet of chocolate-chip cookies that Jean had brought over.

  ‘Never saw no other two.’

  The ginger-headed one spoke then. ‘Where you from, fella?’

  ‘What’s it to ya?’ Harrison eyed him carefully.

  ‘Hey, no problem, man. Just bein’ neighbourly.’

  Harrison set the stove on its legs and pumped up the pressure. Then he lit it and poured water from his bottle into a tin mug. It boiled and he lifted it off using his jacket sleeve, and set it down by his feet to cool. He shook granules of coffee in, then took his bowie knife from his pack, looked the ginger-headed man in the eye and stirred the coffee. He opened the packet of cookies and took out two, which he dipped into the coffee and then sucked dry. The two men watched him and he watched them, the knife stuck in the floor between them. Harrison ate another cookie, deliberately not offering them any, and wondered where their guns were hidden. His pack lay open at his feet and he could see the butt of the Beretta, loosened from the shirt it was wrapped in.

  ‘Guess you don’t know the rules of the railroad.
Do ya, mister?’ The black-haired one was eyeing the open packet of biscuits.

  Harrison followed his gaze and then looked him in the eye. ‘I guess not.’

  The ginger-headed one laughed. ‘Friend, you got an attitude problem. We’re set here trying to be friendly and you’re set there like somebody shoved horse hair up your ass.’

  Harrison didn’t answer him, just chewed his cookies, sipped thin black coffee and swallowed. When he was done with the cookies, he screwed the packet down again and stuffed it back in his bag. Then he rubbed his palms on the thighs of his jeans and stretched out his legs, crossing them at the ankle. Laying his tobacco pouch in his lap, he set about making a cigarette. The two men said nothing, did nothing: they just watched him roll one thin cigarette, then split another match and place the unused half back in the pouch.

  ‘Where’d you come from, bro?’ the ginger-headed man asked him.

  ‘Quit asking me that.’ Harrison looked him in the eye as he spoke. ‘If I wanted to tell ya, I’d have answered you the first time.’

  The black-haired man gestured to the skinny cigarette and the split dead match lying just inside the doorway. ‘Where was you at—Angola?’

  Harrison pursed his lips.

  ‘Angola, then. You just got out, didn’t ya?’

  ‘What’s it to ya?’

  ‘It ain’t nothin’ to me, bro. But I can understand you being jumpy now, is all.’ He looked at the knife. ‘You buyed that the minute they cut you loose, didn’t you?’

  Harrison smoked the cigarette, stared at the night and said nothing.

  The two Southern Blacks dozed, and Harrison sat with his hat just above his eyes and pretended to. So far, he had played it about right—the moody, mistrustful ex-con, just out of the farm. The stagehands had set him up with a background in Angola State Penitentiary, and the man sitting opposite had cottoned on very quickly. Matches were at a premium in jail, and every ex-con Harrison had ever met was splitting match stems for years after. The two Southern Blacks would have automatic respect for a man fresh out of Angola, which, as prisons go, is about as tough as they get. Harrison had been there on two separate occasions to interview a guy who was serving life for heroin possession. It was not a pretty place and not one he would like to visit in any other capacity.