He hadn’t planned to. It just came out, as if independent of him, a rogue bypassing his decision-making process.
—Not knowing really bothers you, doesn’t it?
—She wasn’t trying to kill you.
—There’s more than one way to die. And some shit’s worse than death. A lot worse.
—Such as?
—Things that kill a man’s soul.
—Such as?
—Well, I’m sure there’re lots of things. Ruinin’ a man’s reputation comes to mind. Destroying his family. Taking away everything he’s worked for. I suspect prison would damn well do it, too. But I’m just speculatin’. Who’s to say what would kill a man—or cause him to kill?
—Bullshit justification.
—Don’t be too harsh on me now, killer. You and I obviously have more in common than you’d like to think.
—We’re nothing alike.
—We’ve both taken a life today.
—I killed a man, yes, but you . . . you murdered a woman. Self- defense is nothing like premeditated, unprovoked, cold-blooded murder.
Gauge doesn’t respond.
Remington realizes he’s said too much. He should’ve never started talking to him in the first place.
—Anybody hear anything? Gauge asks. Get a lock on him?
—No.
—Me neither.
—Nothing here.
—Keep looking.
—It’s time to call Spider, the big man says. Get the dogs out here and finish this.
—I think we’re closer to him than you think, Gauge says. Let’s give it a few more minutes. That okay with you, killer?
Remington doesn’t respond, and scolds himself for being stupid enough to do it before.
Allison Krause.
Jeff Miller.
Sandy Scheuer.
Bill Schroeder.
Protest.
Students.
National Guard. Guns.
Kent State Killings.
Four unarmed students murdered, shot from hundreds of feet away, at least one in the back.
The photograph, a Pulitzer Prize-winning shot by John Filo, shows Mary Ann Vecchio screaming as she kneels before slain student Jeffrey Miller, an utterly perplexed look of disbelief on her tear-streaked and contorted face, mouth open, arms extended, hands upturned as if everything in existence is now in question.
Lost.
Again.
This tract of land that belongs to him now is so much larger than he realized before. Of course, he may not even be on his property any longer. Depending on where he is exactly, he could have wandered onto paper company land or state protected property or . . . Who owns the piece on the other side? A hunting club?
Occasionally, the cold wind carries on its currents the smell of smoke, causing images of the burning girl to flicker in his mind.
He wonders if his pursuers have built a campfire to huddle around or if in the distance a raging forest fire is ravishing the drought-dry tinderbox of timbers.
Certain he should’ve reached the pine flats by now, he enters instead the edge of a titi swamp. Do the flats border the far side? All he can do is keep walking, shuffling his feet along the forest floor, scattering leaves, divoting the dirt.
He has no idea of the time, and though it feels like the middle of the night, he knows that even with all that’s happened since he’s been out here, not much time has elapsed.
It’s probably between nine and ten.
—What time is it? he asks into the radio.
The question is addressed to no one in particular, but it’s Gauge’s languorous voice that rises from the small speaker of the walkie-talkie.
—You got somewhere to be?
—Just curious.
—We wouldn’t want to keep you from anything. Remington doesn’t respond.
—It’s 10:39.
—Thanks.
Is Mom okay? Is she lying on the floor after falling while trying to get her supper or medicine? Hopefully she’s sleeping. Oblivious to how late I am.
Wonder what Heather’s doing right now.
He had told Heather he’d call her when he came out of the woods. Did she grow alarmed when he didn’t or angry that he had failed to keep his word again?
Did her bad feeling cause her to call Mom? Did she discover that I’m not home and call someone to come take care of her? Did she call the police? Even if she had, they wouldn’t begin searching for him until morning. Would he be dead by then?
They haven’t found my truck, he thinks.
It occurs to him that they’d know his name if they’d found his truck or four-wheeler. Or do they just want him to think that, get him to circle back, return to where he started and walk into a trap?
Will he reach his dad’s Grizzly to discover it won’t crank? Or will they let him get as far as the truck and find its tires are flat?
The thoughts of these men even touching his father’s vehicles make him angry and sad. Since Cole’s death, Remington had become both sentimental and protective over every one of his meager possessions—even those Cole cared nothing about and had discarded.
Dirty old hunting boots had become priceless, notes scratched on scraps of paper sacred texts, discount-store shirts Remington would be embarrassed to wear around the house invaluable because his dad’s scent still clung to them.
A father’s funeral.
World watching.
Veiled mother.
Tiny fingers form a young son’s salute.
The heartbreaking photograph of JFK, Jr. stepping forward and saluting as his father’s flag-draped casket is carried out of St. Matthew’s Cathedral.
Personal.
National.
Individual.
Universal.
His father’s funeral procession took place on John junior’s third birthday.
Frost-covered fronds.
Frigid wind whipping, whistling, biting.
Fog retreating.
Tiny ice shards like slivers of glass. Frozen dew drops sprinkled on limbs and leaves, grass and ground.
Shaking. Violently. Uncontrollably.
Too cold to think.
Body.
Dead.
Blink. Disbelief. Shock.
Beneath the base of a fallen oak, arm outstretched unnaturally, the gray-grizzled man he encountered when he first entered the deep woods lies dead.
Blood.
Tracks.
More blood.
Most of the man’s blood appears to be spilt on the cold, hard ground—splayed out along the path his body made while being drug toward the fallen tree.
Eerie.
Seeing a dead body out here, alone, on this cold, dark night disturbs him deeply. Frightening him far more than he wants to admit—even to himself.
Ghastly.
Ghostly.
Gray.
The man’s blood-drained body is even more pale than before, the pallor of his face advertising a vacancy, the departure of the ghost, the emptiness of the shell.
Holes.
Mortal wounds.
The man has been shot—more than once, though how many times, Remington can’t tell. Had he been with them? Is this whole thing about drugs? Poaching? More likely whatever he was up to out here was unrelated. He stumbled onto some men far worse than—
The man grabs Remington’s ankle, turning his twisted neck, opening his mostly dead eyes.
Remington startles, yanks his leg back, trips, falls, comes up with his rifle.
—Why’d y’all shoot me?
—What?
—I ain’t done nothin’ to nobody.
—Who shot you?
—Were it ’cause of the bear? Y’all kilt me over a goddamn old bear?
—Who—
Remington stops. Feels for a pulse. The man is dead. Fully and completely dead this time.
So he did kill the bear, but he wasn’t with Gauge and the others— and they certainly didn’t kill him for killi
ng the bear. This is their way of silencing witnesses. A man like Gauge doesn’t tie up loose ends, he cuts them off.
—Goddamn.
The sudden blast of voice on the radio makes Remington jump.
—What?
—It’s cold as fuck out here.
For the second time tonight, Remington leaves the dead where they lay and begins moving again, holding the radio to his ear to hear what’s being said.
—Coldest night of the year so far.
—Hey, killer, you okay? Didn’t look like you had on a very warm jacket.
—Can you believe this is fuckin’ Florida?
—It’s thirteen degrees out here. Colder with the wind chill. This is the kind of hard freeze we have only once every so often that wipes out citrus crops.
—Do us all a favor and blow your brains out.
Those final words uncoil an image from his subconscious, causing it to spring to the fore of his mind.
Eddie Adams’s Execution in Saigon. Another from his list of the greatest photographs ever taken. Perhaps the most memorable of all wartime photography, the picture captures the moment just before death. February 1, 1968. Nguyen Ngoc Loan, South Vietnam’s chief of police, shooting a handcuffed man in the head with a handgun at point-blank range on a Saigon street.
Facing the camera, the eye closest to the barrel of the gun, the right one, closed, his head tilted away from the weapon slightly, a horrific look of helplessness, hopelessness, and resignation at the inevitability of it all on his swollen face, the suspected Viet Cong collaborator has his picture taken just seconds before his life.
There’s something so casual in the stance of the uniformed South Vietnamese chief, something so terrifying in the expression of the North Vietnamese officer in civilian clothes.
We shouldn’t be looking at this. We can’t look away.
Feeling marginally better, less in shock, momentarily forgetting about his fatigue and the freezing temperature and the men with guns who are at this moment hunting him. He finds photography, even remembered photography, powerful and profound and inspiriting.
As if flipping casually, but quickly, through the pages of a photo album, he recalls other great, iconic pictures:
Muhammad Ali, mouth open, arm bent, standing over Sonny Liston, after knocking him out in the first round of their rematch.
Marilyn Monroe on a New York subway grille, white dress floating around her, one hand holding it down, the other behind her ear, mouth open in a seductive half-smile, painted toenails, high heels, arched feet, exposed legs. Sensual. Sexy. Seductive. Goodbye, Norma Jean. Hello, Venus rising.
Martin Luther King, Jr., in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial, waving to a sea of two hundred thousand people, Washington Monument in the distance. Activism. Hope. History. Birthplace of a dream.
Fall of the Berlin Wall, Nelson Mandela’s Release from Prison, 1948 portrait of Einstein, closeup of Louis Armstrong performing, first man on the Moon, press photo of a young Elvis demonstrating his patented pelvic twist, 1963 portrait of the Beatles following the release of Please, Please Me, the Wright Brothers’ first flight—all are pictures that make him happy, that remind him of the power of photographs, and why he takes them.
Exhaustion.
Fatigue.
Stumble.
Trip.
Fall.
Just as he’s about to reach the flats, he realizes he can move no further. He trips over an exposed hardwood root and falls. And doesn’t get up.
Rolling into a thicket of grass, palmettos, brush, and snake berry plants, he gathers leaves around him, covers himself as best he can, and falls asleep.
Dreams.
Evening.
Fall.
Teenage Remington following behind his father.
—Hurry, Cole says. It’s almost dark. We’ve got to get home. Mom’s waiting.
Remington is younger and faster than his dad, but mysteriously unable to keep up.
—Come on, son. Don’t make me tell you again.
—I’m trying.
—You’re not.
—I am. Something’s wrong. I can’t—
—You have to or I’ll have to leave you.
—Okay, Daddy.
He hadn’t called Cole anything but Dad in over a decade. Where did Daddy come from? And why did his voice sound so small and weak?
—Who’s Heather?
—Huh?
—Do you love her?
The two men, father and son, are now seated in a small boat on a slough in the early afternoon of a summer’s day.
—I let her get away.
—That’s not what I asked.
—I love her.
—Is she pregnant?
—No.
—You think your mother will ever get well?
—She’ll be fine. Don’t we need to get home and check on her?
—You worry too much.
—I thought she needed us to—
—You gonna take a picture of her corpse?
—What? No. Why?
—I thought that’s what you and she did.
—Photograph dead bodies?
—You love her, don’t you?
—Mom?
—More than me.
—No. What makes you—
—She loves you more. It’s gonna break her heart when Gauge kills you.
—Is he going to?
Suddenly standing on the bank, Gauge looks through a scope on his rifle and fires a round that explodes the center of Cole’s chest. Blood gushes out. Cole falls over backwards out of the boat and disappears into the black waters.
Driving down the streets of Orlando in heavy traffic, Remington rushes to reach Heather’s gallery before it closes. Behind him, in a black Mustang Shelby GT 500, Gauge pursues him, leaning out of the window, firing rounds that ricochet off the trunk and bumper.
Passing the occasional cop, Remington signals and yells for help, but no one responds.
Sitting outside at a restaurant in Winter Park.
Summer evening.
Amtrak train clacking down the line.
Waiting.
Heather arrives, having walked down from her gallery. It’s a little after six. She has worked all day, but she looks morning-fresh, as if she just finished getting ready.
Stylish.
Sexy.
Delicate.
Work of art.
—Did you see how many men turned to watch you walk in?
She shakes her head, opens her menu.
—Seriously?
—What?
—I’m asking you a serious question.
—I didn’t notice.
—None of them?
—I don’t know. Maybe a few.
—But in general.
—In general, what? Can I tell if a guy is checking me out?
—Do you notice how many guys take notice of you? The sheer volume. Are you aware of the effect you have on men?
—No more than most women.
—Most women. Are you kidding?
—Guys check out girls. Girls check out guys. Guys are more obvious about it.
—You know one of the things I like most about you? One of the things I like most about you is that you’re far more beautiful than you realize.
—Is that a compliment?
—It is. You’re not insecure. You’re . . . you’re so cool being you, it’s just not something you think about. You—your beauty, your appeal, your attraction—are not an issue.
—Those are all just physical, surface things.
—It applies to the other things, too—your mind, talent, ability, competence—but we were talking about your seductiveness.
—We?
—I was talking about your seductiveness.
—Guys checking me out because I fix up for work doesn’t make me seductive.
—You know one of the things I like best about you? One of the things I like best about you is you don’t realize how seductive you
are.
—You’re going to leave me, aren’t you? she says.
—No.
—Be honest.
—Eventually. Not tonight. Not for a while, but eventually, inevitably, yes.
—Why?
—I’m not sure.
—We should drive up this weekend and see your folks. You need to go hunting with your dad.
—I do?
—Yes. And I love spending time with your mom. Making love.
—Be quiet.
—What?
—Hold it down. I don’t want them to hear us.
In Remington’s childhood room, his parents just down the hall.
Clothes on the floor.
K-Y on the night stand.
Missionary.
Her favorite.
Loving.
Definitely not fucking. Sweet.
Intimate.
Tender.
—How many times you had sex in here? she asks.
—Thousands.
—With a partner?
—Not many.
Suddenly, they are in his parents’ bed.
Fearful his folks will come home early, Remington thrusts like a jackhammer.
Heather becomes Lana, his high school girlfriend.
—Is this okay? he asks.
She nods, blinks back tears.
—We can wait.
—No, I want to.
—You sure?
—I’m just scared your parents will come home.
—You won’t get pregnant.
—I won’t?
—I’m 98 percent positive. She laughs.
They kiss.
She’s gone.
Remington’s back in the woods of his family’s property—not with his dad, but this time with his mother. He’s an adult. She’s healthy. They both have cameras.
—Visualize your photograph, she says. Imagine it. Compose it in your mind before you ever bring out your camera. To be an artist, you have to think like an artist. See yourself as a painter looking at a blank canvas. You determine what goes on it. Once you know what the picture you want to take looks like, use time, light, and composition to achieve it.
He tries to do what she says.
—Take time to explore. Get to know the area before you try to sum it up in a single photograph. If your picture is to capture and convey a sense of place, you have to know that place intimately.
—Yes, ma’am.
—This is so nice.
The Remington James Box Set Page 8
