by George Wier
He was likewise asked to leave, and when he came out the front door Sheriff Dupree was waiting for him. He coaxed Keithley to come across the street to the jail where the Sheriff showed Keithley the empty cell that was waiting for him if he dared stir up one single whit of further trouble in his county. Thereafter Keithley appeared to get right with Jesus, got on his bike, went back to the hotel and apologized to Nellie Boscum and talked Boscum into letting him have a room for another night at double the price for all of Boscum's trouble. And being a forgiving and thoroughly Christian fellow, Boscum caved, but with the admonishment that at the first sign of trouble, Keithley would be told to leave without a refund.
Thus far, in Sheriff Dupree's tale, there had been no mention of Bob Helmsley of Eden, Texas, who had died on the highway outside of Trantor's Crossing, and only a passing reference to Dale Freeman of Liberty, Nebraska, who had dropped dead in Sonny Raleigh's bar. I could tell he was rapidly drawing to a close, at which point the tale took a major turn—south. And by south, I'm not referencing the cardinal direction, but more closely the place where those things of a nefarious nature reside and probably from which they are birthed.
*****
“He did what?” I asked Sheriff Dupree.
“You heard me. Missouri Keithly began speaking another language. It happened right in the middle of his conversation early this morning at the Star Of Texas Cafe, and while Jill was taking his order.”
“What language?” I asked.
“It sounded like Spanish, but no Spanish anyone around here has ever heard. Nellie reports that Jill said: 'Come again?' and the fellow answers her in a stream of gibberish as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Nellie overheard it all and came over and tried to get Keithley to make sense, but that wasn't about to happen. There was another patron there at the time: Oscar Guttierez. Oscar speaks fluent Spanish.”
“What was his take on it?” I asked, and noticed I had drunk every bit of my coffee. I sat the empty cup on the edge of Sheriff Dupree's desk, where he adroitly ignored it.
“Oscar said that he was speaking some form of Spanish that hasn't been spoken in a long time. Like it was mingled with a little Italian and maybe a little Portuguese and a little something else he'd never heard of. Oscar went to school up in Boston, and while he may seem like a simple rancher, the guy has much higher than your average intelligence.”
“It sounds like,” I said. “I'd like to talk to him, but I don't think we have time.”
At that moment the door opened behind me and Hank Sterling walked into the room.
“Bill,” he said. “We've gotta go. I think I know the direction Hague took Keithley.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Well shoot,” Sheriff Dupree said. “I could have told you which direction. I thought you needed to know where.”
“Where would be good,” I said, getting to my feet. “Hank, you'd best talk fast.”
“One of those supposed NRC guys went around asking questions. One of them was overheard to say something about, quote, 'the mole man', unquote.”
“What the hell does that mean?” I asked.
“Bill, you remember me showing you my little phone thingy, right?” Hank asked.
“Your Android. Right.”
“Well, while walking back over here, I did a little internet search on my phone. I'm surprised this place has the proper signal, being so far west and south, but I was able to pick it up just fine.”
“Spit it out, Mr. Sterling,” Sheriff Dupree said.
“Well, I got too many search results for 'mole'. Thousands of listings, in fact. So I jumped back about five hundred or so—just leafing through, you know—when I ran across M-O-L-E. It's an acronym.”
“For what?” I asked. Hank was speaking far too slowly for the amount of adrenalin I felt at the moment.
Hank held up his phone, tapped the screen and read: “Microbacterial Optimization of Latent Energy. Or 'MOLE'. At first I thought it might be a reference to... you know—”
“The dirt.” Sheriff Dupree and I said at the same instance. “Keithley had said something about the guy who died near Austin was covered in dirt.”
“Yeah,” Hank said. “But I believe his reference wasn't to dirt. I think it was to this M-O-L-E.”
“How can that be where Hague and Keithley are headed?” I asked.
“Because,” Hank said. “It's a place. I've already pulled it up on the map my phone.”
“Where is it?” Sheriff Dupree asked.
Hank whistled. “It's over two hundred and forty miles north of here as the crow flies, not far from Midland, Texas. Make it closer to three hundred by highway. I think I need to top off my gas tank.”
*****
While my old time computer-less cellular phone is nowhere near the gadget of Hank's hand-held office, I still prefer it when talking to another person. Hank took off to gas up the truck while I begged Sheriff Dupree's pardon and placed a phone call: Patrick Kinsey.
“Patrick!” I said. “It's Bill.”
“Bill! There's been a vacuum of trouble here, so I'm figuring you're out of town.”
“Right,” I said. “Look, I'm in West Texas. Leakey, to be exact. Hank Sterling and I are about to head north towards the Permian Basin. Is it too much to ask your help?”
“Let me get this straight,” he said. “You're off in West Texas on this Moe Keithley slash dirty corpse slash government conspiracy thing, you didn't ask me along to begin with, and now you need my help?”
“Exactly!” I said.
“Well why didn't you say so before? You would beat me there by car, but I think I can beg a ride on a Department of Transportation helicopter.”
“That'd be fine, Patrick. If necessary, you could put in a call over at the Texas Rangers Barracks on North Lamar. I wonder if Walt Cannon is around about now?”
“Naw,” Patrick said. “Last I heard, Ranger Cannon was down in Mexico chasing drug runners.”
“That sounds like him. Look, Patrick, we're headed to some kind of installation called M-O-L-E. It's near Midland.”
“Mole. Huh. I'll see if I can punch it up real quick after I make the call and find out what I can. Are you leaving now?”
At that moment Sheriff Dupree tapped me on the shoulder.
“Hold on Patrick,” I said, and covered the phone with my other hand. “Yes sir?”
“If you guys need to move fast, I can blaze trail for you. Hell, I'm not letting you leave without me.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I'll take it.”
I put the phone back to my ear.
“Patrick, the local Sheriff is going to break trail for us. Your helicopter pilot will probably want to fly you directly to the closest State Trooper office. There's probably one in Midland or Odessa. Lets plan on meeting up there. I'd like to plan this raid.”
“Hoo boy,” Patrick said. “You may just beat me there yet.”
“Yeah. I might. See ya, Patrick.”
“Don't break your neck,” he said.
*****
“I regret,” I told Hank when I was back in his truck and the lights of the lonely little town of Leakey began to diminish behind us, “not being able to talk to more people back there.”
“Yeah,” Hank admitted, “this is called flying by the seat of your drawers. But then again, that's the way you've always done it, Bill.”
“I suppose.”
“What I regret,” he said, “is that I didn't get the chance to cook up a little brown rice.” And with that he handed me a clear plastic sack of rice tied off with a bread sack tie, and motioned to his glove box.
I opened it and said hello to the other rider in the truck: it was a silver forty-five automatic pistol.
“Hank,” I said. “I'll bet that thing's not licensed.”
He looked where I pointed and grinned.
*****
We ate up the night. Sheriff Dupree ran with his emergency lights flashing and the sage and creosote along the roadside stro
bed hypnotically while Hank tried to put his gas pedal through the floor of his pickup.
According to Hank and his damned computer, it was two hundred and forty highway miles between Leakey and the M.O.L.E. Compound. And since I didn't want to distract Hank from having his full attention on the road, I fished between the seat for something I was sure would be there. I found it: my safety belt. It was only then that I realized I'd driven across the breadth of Texas earlier in the day at speeds in excess of ninety miles per hour without one.
When I snapped it into place, Hank glanced over at me and frowned in the backlighting from his dashboard.
“For Julie,” I said.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I don't like the feeling of being 'had'. Nobody does. It has long been my inclination to take the people I meet at face value, and I believe that I tend to grant others the kindness and attention I would ask of them. I'm not so full of myself that I'm not aware when I have failed to live up to this creed, but when I see the same failing in others, particularly when it is through malice, I get a little... peeved.
If I found Bertram Hague, I would have a few choice words for him, but only after I ferreted out the truth. The problem is that with a liar, you're never sure what is and what isn't the truth.
I'd been deceived.
And as the miles blurred past, I festered, to use a bygone term.
*****
The Permian Basin of West Texas is an ancient seabed encompassing roughly seventy-five thousand square miles of desolate landscape, an area larger than some states. The vegetation consists of creosote bushes, sage, mesquite, and an assortment of scrubby cacti, while the wildlife ranges from white-tailed deer to brush hogs and rattlesnakes. As the human population density is far less than some desolate and arid third world countries, the locals tend to be insular, colorful and are prone to say or do most anything. Consequently the towns of Odessa and Midland sport a population that, in the main, indulge in the three favored passtimes of hard work, hard drinking, and hard religion, and often enough all three of these within the space of a given day.
In our run north, we managed to miss the bulk of both cities.
It was 9:00 p.m. before we made it to the DPS barracks on the outskirts of Midland. Patrick's chopper arrived five minutes later. Hank, Sheriff Dupree and I were waiting for him as he scrambled from beneath the still whirring helicopter blades.
I introduced Patrick and Sheriff Dupree and the two shook hands. Patrick finally shook hands with Hank, but I could tell he was attempting to be cordial. While I knew of no certain bad blood between the two men, I had always known that Patrick didn't completely approve of Hank. But, then again, I knew of few who did. I thought on the fact that Patrick had called Hank back in Austin after all this got started up, and then I realized the only thing to two men had in common was myself.
“You carrying dynamite, Mr. Sterling?” Patrick asked.
Patrick was in uniform, complete with badge and side-arm, and although he looked official, he was clearly travel-worn.
“No. Just brown rice,” Hank stated, and I thought about the forty-five in his glove compartment.
“I don't know what that means, but something tells me I probably don't want to know. No doubt there's a story in it.”
“Too long of a story,” I said.
“Well,” Sheriff Dupree said, “it takes twenty to make a platoon and seven to make a task force, so since we've got neither here, I should probably get on back to Real County.”
“You'll miss all the fun,” I said, “but suit yourself.”
“Before anything happens,” Patrick said, “I want to know what all this is about. The last I knew we were looking for a fellow named Moe Keithley who may or may not be radioactive.”
“He didn't get the memo,” Hank said. “It's beyond all that now, Deputy Kinsey. You tell him, Bill.”
So there, on the way inside the DPS barracks, I gave Patrick the Cliff's Notes version of what had occurred thus far. But when we entered the break room of the barracks, someone was waiting for us.
“Are you Bill Travis?” the man asked.
It was obvious, besides the badge—a small star encircled by a ring of silver—that the man was a Texas Ranger. His Resistol hat sat on the round break table in front of him. His hands were interlaced back of his steely-gray head and he wore a pair of silver-rimmed glasses before a pair of pale blue eyes.
“Yes sir,” I said.
“Thought so. My name is Reginald Johnson. I've been asked to detain you, at least temporarily.”
My heart sank. If you've ever been near the end of a very long race only to find yourself side-lined before crossing the finish line, you'll know how I felt.
“Why?” I asked. “And asked to do so by whom?”
“Bill,” Hank said. “Nobody says 'whom'.”
“Shut up,” I said, and waited.
Ranger Johnson came to his feet.
“None of that matters,” he said. “Now that you're here, you might as well take a seat.” He gestured to one of the empty chairs at the table.
I hesitated.
“It's either that, or I can detain you at the County Jail. Your call.”
I sat down at the table and gestured for Hank, Patrick and Sheriff Dupree to join me.
“The rest of you fellows aren't invited,” Ranger Johnson said. “This is a private party.”
“Well don't that beat all,” Sheriff Dupree said.
“Yeah,” Patrick agreed.
I glanced at Hank. His eyes were slitted. I sensed imminent danger on the wind.
“Do you know who I am?” Sheriff Dupree asked.
“I know who you think you are,” Ranger Johnson said. He sat back down at the table across from me. He reached for his hat and sat it on his head, leaving a gleaming Smith & Wesson revolver sitting there, pointed at me. “you're the Sheriff from County Real. Leakey, to be exact.”
“And me?” Patrick asked.
“Travis County Deputy, Patrick Kinsey,” the Ranger stated. “You, old son, are out of your depth.” He then looked toward Hank Sterling, and waited.
“You may know my name,” Hank said, “but you have no idea who the hell I really am.”
“Oh, I don't know about that. Of course, if you remembered me, you'd see that I know full well who you are.”
“I remember you,” Hank said, and the way he said it, I felt the barometric pressure in the room had fallen off to nil.
“Okay,” I interjected into the sudden long silence that had ensued. “What's going on here?”
“Bill,” Hank said, “meet the self-proclaimed Angel of Death.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“This is the specter from my living room,” Hank said, “or rather, it's ghost. I told you the truth before, but I didn't tell you everything. And I didn't tell you about Leiutenant Johnson and the village of Pho Tuc. 1968.”
“Those were the days, to quote Archie Bunker,” Johnson said. His mirth had a grim aspect to it that was not lost on everyone else in the room.
“Yeah,” Hank said. “The days of death and darkness. I decided to live because I knew this murderous bastard was still breathing. I understand they gave you a medal. You deserved a beheading.”
Johnson laughed. “Some men try to fight wars with words. If we were going to host a cussing war, Corporal Sterling, you'd certainly win. But for now, you can get out of my sight before I stomp your guts into the dirt.”
The silence in the room deepened.
“Naw,” Hank said. “I'm not going anywhere. I'm especially not leaving my friend in your company, gun or no gun.”
I heard a distinct unsnapping sound behind me. Patrick Kinsey had just freed his sidearm for potential action.
Johnson laughed again. “I see how you fellows want it,” he said. “I thought it might go this way. I was, in fact, counting on it.”
If it were possible, the silence in the room became more intense. It was then that I realized the building was otherwise complete
ly deserted and that the situation had been pre-engineered that way.
“So,” I said, “what's your proposal, Ranger Johnson?”
Another holster unsnapped behind me. Sheriff Dupree.
My cell phone rang, Jessica's rap tune an odd counterpoint to the tension in the room. Somehow, I knew it was Julie.
“Just a second gentlemen,” I said. I pulled the phone from my shirt pocket, answered it.
“Bill.” Julie said.
“I'm here. How's the baby? And how are you?”
“We're fine,” she said. “We're at home.”
“That's a good thing,” I said.
“You sound funny.”
“I'm sorry about that, honey,” I said. “There could be shooting any second now.”
She paused.
“Is there a way I can talk to him?” she asked.
“Sure,” I replied. I held the phone out to Ranger Johnson. “It's for you.”
“You gotta be kidding me.”
“I would take it,” Patrick said. “You don't know what she's like.”
Ranger Johnson took the phone and put it to his ear. “Hello?” he said, uncertainly.
I could hear her voice, but I couldn't make out a single word. It didn't sound overly loud, nor distraught. I waited and strained to hear.
“Uh huh,” Johnson told my wife.
“Uh huh,” again.
“Yes, ma'am,” he said.
“No.” Then he sighed and seemed to relax slightly.
He handed the phone back to me. I pressed it to my ear.
“Hi,” I said.
“Whatever happens, promise me you will come home to me.”
I looked Johnson in the eye.
“I promise,” I said.
Julie hung up.
“I told her there would be no shooting,” Johnson said.
