A Dark Path

by Robert E. Dunn

  Dando kept slinging words, but backed away from the bikers. He made the mistake of getting back in Johnson’s reach.

  Johnson grabbed the skinny man in one big hand. His brutal grip locked onto the meat of Dando’s trapezius. He lifted Dando—kicking and swearing—from the dead grass. Johnson Rath pulled the man, who had been a friend, close. He spoke very deliberately into Dando’s grimacing face, then he pulled back a meaty fist and punched.

  It wasn’t until Dando hit the ground that I saw Carmen. She jumped from the car’s passenger side door and came to shield her husband from further blows with her body.

  The two men on the bikes settled back into their seats, but that didn’t mean they were satisfied. Both began pointing again. They looked to be asking hard questions—to which Johnson didn’t have the answers.

  I could have waded in and put a stop to things, but I wanted to see where all of this was going. Besides, I was dead certain Dando would not cooperate in a legal solution.

  “What’s going on there?” Ranger Carter asked.

  I hadn’t seen him approach. At first, I thought the question was coming from my own head. “You’d need a road map,” I answered.

  Carmen said something to Johnson who said something right back. He followed up his words by pointing at his crotch.

  “If I had the map, I’m not sure it would show any place I want to go.” Carter said.

  “Trust me, you don’t. I’ve been there.”

  Carmen appeared to be crying, and she was screaming at Johnson. I heard the words that time, but they were still unclear. Meaningless rage.

  “Listen,” Carter said to me. His gaze remained fixed, just as mine was, on the shouting match. “You don’t have a lot of time keeping this place protected. Those documents only go so far. A good lawyer can get them set aside.”

  “I don’t think we need a lot of time. See those two guys on the bikes?” I glanced at Carter long enough to see his focus shift. “I think they are the bankers for this project.”

  “They don’t seem happy.”

  “No they don’t.”

  My mother leapt to her feet and took a swing. She may as well have been striking brick. Her fist hit Johnson in the chest. All of its force died there. He responded, waving like a man might at a fly. Carmen was tossed aside and landed solidly, sprawled on her backside.

  Before anyone could react further, before I pulled the telescoping baton from my kit and started running, Johnson Rath was in the car. He spun the tires and fishtailed in the dirt following the two bikers back to the road.

  By the time the sheriff arrived, Cherry Dando was cuffed and seated on the dropped tailgate of my truck. His tormented nose was flowing blood. Sheriff Benson looked Dando over but didn’t say anything. I introduced him to Ranger Carter and gave him the short version. They kept talking as I went to the front of my truck and beckoned my mother over.

  She approached without looking me in the eye.

  “Where’s all this going?” I asked.

  “Everything goes to the same place.”

  “You have to explain that to me.”

  “Life is lived in one direction.”

  “I’m not asking about life. I’m asking about chasing imaginary treasure with a man willing to traffic with the worst of people to get it.”

  “I don’t know what you want from me.” Her look was both question and challenge and. . . I didn’t know. There was more. I couldn’t puzzle it out.

  “The truth,” I responded. I let the word come out blunt. It sat there between us for a silent half-minute before I added, “If not that, how about a plan? A reason? Any bit of sense I can use to get to understanding.”

  “Do you have a lot of understanding in your life?” She looked right at me—with my own eyes and a backward echo of my own face. “I don’t. I have. . .” She looked around as if searching for her words in the ragged, burnt field. “Time. I have a wind at my back that keeps pushing. Place. Person. Thing. None of it holds me.” Carmen tilted her head and a bit of thin, frail hair dropped. She pushed at it with a fingertip.

  I mimicked the movement but touching instead the scar curling out of my brow. When I realized what I was doing, I pulled my hand away quickly and turned to the back of the truck where she looked. “What about him?”

  “He blows with me.” She met my gaze, and for the first time I thought I saw something honest and genuinely painful there. “Your father was solid. Clement Williams was a monument—a man carved into any space he occupied. He had no doubt. No rambling. People came to him.”

  There was no way I could fail to see her longing to be understood. For the first time she was opening up, revealing something painful. For the first time, she put herself in the position to hope for forgiveness. Maybe I don’t have that kindness in me. I asked her, “What was I?”

  “You are your father’s daughter.” Even as she spoke the words, something about her faded.

  I imagined a wind in sails, blowing a ship from shore. The lights it carried growing dim with irretrievable distance.

  I left her with him and went to talk things over with the sheriff. He didn’t quite buy my certainty of guilt. He did accept my reasoning, as far as it went, and we agreed to arrest Cherry Dando on suspicion of murder. Arresting Dando gave us time to keep investigating—and to let the threat of the charge hang over him.

  Sheriff Benson assigned a deputy to stay on site and a rotation schedule. Ranger Carter promised to remain in contact. We all exchanged contact information, then he departed.

  “Now, that’s quite a character,” Sheriff Benson said with admiration as we watched Carter drive off.

  “That first name caught me off guard,” I admitted.

  The sheriff laughed, but instead of saying anything more about the ranger he said, “It’s done.”

  “What’s done?”

  “I called Riley Yates.”

  “And?”

  “And I made an official announcement of my retirement.”

  “Oh.” I had known it was coming. I didn’t know it would hit so hard.

  “You’re going to have some things to work out.”

  “What things?”

  Sheriff Benson pivoted and took a solid two foot stand with both hands on his gun belt. “Are you being intentionally dense? Or are you really not thinking about how this is going to change things for you?”

  “Both probably. Honestly, I’ve tried not to think about it.”

  “Well I know that. But it’s done now, and I gave Riley the second half of my announcement.”

  “You endorsed Billy in the election.”

  “You got it.”

  I stared out at the open space. The ground was flat and the cropped foliage dead. In places, you could see where graves or markers had been discovered. There was a deep border of scrub and wood between where the field had been cleared and the lake beyond. I wanted to be out there, past the border and floating, away from complications.

  The sheriff, my boss and friend, waited without pushing anymore. He was always understood that I needed to take my own long path—to understand how I felt.

  “I bought him a car.” I didn’t mean it to sound dramatic. The look on the sheriff’s face told me it was a bigger deal than I’d admitted.

  “An El Camino?”

  “How’d you know?” It’s funny, but his knowing was somehow a relief.

  “People do talk when you’re not around.” He said it as a gentle admonishment. “And pretty much everyone talks to Billy Blevins.”

  “I talk with him.”

  “I know you do. And—I know he sees beyond the fact that—mostly—you talk to him about you.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “I said mostly. Mostly about you or you and him, or. . .”

  “There are other things.”

  �
��Meaningful things?”

  I opened my mouth to answer. Then I closed it. I didn’t know what to say.

  “If he wins this election, Billy will need more than an old car.”

  “I know.”

  “And you. . .”

  “Me?”

  “If you can’t be more, you won’t do him any good.”

  “More what?”

  “Be a friend.” He looked straight into something inside me. Under his bushy white brows, his dark gaze was fixed on the damaged Katrina behind the hurricane. “Need and love aren’t enough.”

  I looked away. “I told Billy he might not be the man for the job.”

  “Why?”

  “Why did I tell him or why—”

  “You know what I mean.” I didn’t have to look at him—to see the anger or disappointment. “Your reason.”

  “I said he may not have the right kind of toughness for the job.”

  “Were you talking about you or him? It’s like you don’t even know the man.”

  “I know it takes a certain kind—”

  “No.” He cut me short then waited for me to look at him. “It takes all kinds of toughness. Not any certain kind. You’re the certain kind. You reach for your gun or your baton more than any officer I have. It serves you well. It serves the department at times. And in circumstances that fit your. . . proclivities.”

  “But?”

  “How many times have I had to go to bat for you?”

  I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. I knew there were times the sheriff had been at my back without ever making a point of it.

  “Sometimes, it was a hard task to keep you on. You drank. You’ve made examples of people. You’ve killed. Worse, you’re notorious for your particular violence.” He paused to let it all sink in. Then, with kindness I didn’t feel deserving of, he said, “We try harder for friends. Don’t make it easy for the next guy to let you go. Even if it is Billy.”

  * * * *

  Moonshines is a bar and distillery restaurant. For most people like me, dry drunks fighting the cravings every day, it would be the last place to run to at the end of a long day. Most people like me don’t own the bar though. When Nelson died, Moonshines was another of the options he left behind for me. It was also a refuge—because of the vigilance of a friend. Clare Bolin was the distillery master and bartender. He was also my personal roadblock. There was not a chance in the world I was getting drunk on his watch.

  Again, I was dressed to express the feminine side that I usually worked so hard to hide. I wore a white linen, eyelet, lace skirt and a gray silk top under a light weight black jacket. The jacket was there just to cover up the cuffs, baton, and pistol I had clipped to the broad black belt. Sometimes a lady. Never not a cop. I had ditched both boots and sensible shoes for some pretty heels. They were only two inches though. No point in over doing a good thing.

  Even though I had gone home, showered and changed, I dragged the day behind me as I went to the bar.

  Dando was in our jail. Earl Turner was doing his own investigating and I had let it happen. That’s a lie. I had encouraged it. Johnson Rath and a bunch of bikers were running loose. None of them were in my thoughts though.

  I didn’t know where my mother had gone. That didn’t bother me. At least that was what I told myself. Questions that I wanted to ask her kept showing up in my mind—then the anger flashed behind them. It was two-fold. It bothered me both that she had never been there for me to know, and that I wanted to know.

  I didn’t know where Billy Blevins was either. I had no more pretending in me to spare for that. It bothered me. I wanted to talk to him. I wanted to be right with him—more than I wanted to be right with anything else in my life. The sheriff was right about me. I dealt better with violence than with honest feelings. What does that say about me? What does it say about who I am—that I had to wonder if honest feelings were worth the fight and worry?

  Clare was at the bar. He had an iced tea poured and ready before I sat down. Ours was an interesting relationship. Maybe not so much interesting—as pathetic. Clarence was another old man who thought he was my father. And he was my employee. When Nelson died and left me in control of Moonshines, who else was I going to turn to but an old bootlegger? He had much worse character flaws. I could trust him because his secrets were as big as mine.

  “Carmen was here,” Clare said as soon as I sat down.

  I pointed at the tea. “I’m going to need something stronger.”

  He nodded thoughtfully before reaching into the garnish trays. In an instant my glass was topped with a lemon and a sprig of fresh mint. “There you go.”

  “You read me like a book.”

  “Nope. I’ve seen the kinds of books you read. Do they sell those in regular stores—or do you have to get them in a plain brown wrapper?”

  “They’re about romance,” I protested but not too hard. “Besides, who buys anything from a store anymore?”

  “They have romance, but that’s not what they’re about. And that’s part of what’s wrong with the world these days. The loss of the corner store.”

  “How do you know what my books are about, if you’ve never read them?”

  “I peeked at that last one you left lying around here.”

  We went around like that for a while. He defended the lost way of life, and books in which people died—but without intimacy. I defended shopping in pajamas and books with strong women who knew what they wanted. It was all place-holding.

  Finally, I ran out of small talk and asked, “Did she say what she wanted?”

  “I didn’t ask.” Clare watched me take a long drink of my tea. He looked like a man getting ready for bad news.

  “She hasn’t gotten much of a reception around here.”

  He relaxed. I believed he thought he might get a fight from me. He arranged glasses that were already in perfect order. “In my experience—” Clare paused and looked to be thinking about what, exactly, his experience was. When he came to it, he began again. “In my experience, people rarely deserve what happens to them.”

  “But?”

  “But, we all have a way of earning how we’re treated.”

  “That’s harsh.”

  “I’m not talking about crime or random violence. I’m talking about family. Friends. The lack of both. . .”

  “Maybe. . .”

  I was saved from more of Clare’s speculation by Billy. He sauntered through the bar side doors laughing and smiling at the greetings of customers and service people. It wasn’t all about his role with the sheriff’s department. Some of them knew him as the guy who sings on the summer deck weekend nights. But they all knew him.

  He sat beside me. Clare already had a handcrafted root beer waiting. For an instant I thought, we’re a fine pair: a teetotaler and an ex-drunk. Then I thought saying ‘ex,’ was giving myself too much credit.

  “Hey,” Billy said as a greeting.

  “Hey yourself.”

  He took a deep drink of the foamy root beer, then let the mug thump heavily down. “That’s amazing, Clare.”

  Clare smiled his thanks then moved to the far end of the bar.

  “Something I said?” Billy asked.

  “He’s giving us privacy,” I answered.

  “Do we need privacy?”

  “You tell me.”

  Billy took another drink and drained his mug. “I filed papers with the county today.”

  “That was quick.”

  “It’s best when it’s icy cold.”

  “I was talking about the paperwork.”

  “I know.” He punctuated the small joke with an even smaller laugh.

  “I thought you were mad at me.”

  “Not mad.” He ran his hands over the condensation on the bar top. “And it’s good that you’re honest with me.”

>   “Just not so honest?”

  He didn’t answer. He nodded like it was another tiny joke. I was glad that I had invested in a rusted El Camino. Then, as if he’d read my next thought before it had even formed he said, “I’m working tonight. The sheriff asked me to sit on that field and make sure no one tampers with anything.”

  That was no surprise. Over the years, Billy had become the go-to guy for the kinds of jobs that required detail and attention. Sheriff Benson had once described the difference between Billy and me. He said one was a watchmaker and one was a bull with a bee on its balls. It was left to me to decide which was which.

  “Well, how about I bring you a soda later?” I suggested. “Something tall and cold, to help you stay awake.”

  “I’d like that.” It was a simple, direct statement. The warmth in the smile that went with it said so many things that I wanted, needed, to hear.

  After saying goodbye, Billy left and I sat at the bar talking with Clare. For the first time since leaving Billy’s bed Sunday morning, I was actually feeling good. That should have served as a warning.

  I was working my third glass of tea and thinking about being under the stars with Billy Blevins when the big biker I’d seen with Charlie Lipscomb came into the bar. He swaggered as if on display at some half-assed, white power fashion show. When he sat, he tossed his leg over the back of the chair like he was settling onto his motorcycle.

  “You want me to take care of it?” Clare offered.

  I didn’t know, and I didn’t want to know, if Clare was armed. I did assume he was though. That was one reason not to turn him loose. The other was the hot electric current running down my spine. A mutated version of Rick’s line in Casablanca started repeating in my head, “In all the gin joints. . .” The biker’s presence in Moonshines wasn’t a coincidence.

  I shook my head then told Clare, “Give him some rope.”

  The biker slapped a hand on the table and demanded, “Bring me something with hair on its nuts.”

  “Are we talking whiskey?” Clare snapped back. “Or your fantasy date?”

  “You’re a funny old man. You got a baby in that gut or are you just full of shit?” The biker slapped the table again. This time it was to amplify laughing at his own joke. When the flat of his hand smacked down the last time, the braying died with it. That was when I saw the tattoos again. I’d been right before. On his right forearm there were a pair of SS lightning bolts—centered directly over the number 88.