A Dark Path

by Robert E. Dunn

  “Cherry Dando?”

  “Of course not!”

  I decided to ignore the offence in her voice. It was something else I wasn’t sure I wanted to know about.

  “His name was on a police report the kid had a copy of. His mother had been—” Panic showed in Carmen’s eyes.

  I read it as fear of even saying the word. “Raped.”

  “Attacked,” she corrected carefully.

  “Did you see the report?”

  “No. But he asked about several names from back then.”

  “What names?”

  “Cherry, Johnson, Lipscomb.”

  “Charlie Lipscomb?”

  “Yeah. Some others. But he was most interested in Donald Duques.”

  “Duck?”

  “Yes. He got kind of funny when he heard that name. Like Duck meant something to him.”

  There was a lot to ask about and a lot more to think through. I didn’t have the energy after that. We sat in the stifling fiberglass cabin alone with individual thoughts. Carmen moved first, rising after several silent minutes.

  “Why didn’t you ever come see me?” The question had been lolling around my mouth like a piece of broken glass since she came in. I was unable to swallow it, but afraid of spitting it out. At that moment though, I feared never seeing my mother again.

  “Is the interrogation over?” The pain in her voice was impossible to miss. “Are we family again?”

  “Were we ever?” It was one of those questions you don’t plan and you can’t take back.

  My mother wheeled about and pushed through the cabin door. I didn’t try to stop her.

  I did try to follow. It was a failure. Carmen crossed the dock, then dashed through the bait shop. I walked slowly. Reaching the far door, the one that led from the bait shop to the outside world, I was suddenly terrified of opening it.

  “You want a soda?” Uncle Orson offered from behind the counter.

  I hadn’t even seen him there. “No. I. . .” My gaze finished the sentence by shifting to look at the bottles of liquor Orson kept under locked glass.

  He walked through my staring and out of my view. The strawberry soda he pulled from the cooler spit when the top popped off. That was when I looked away from what I really wanted.

  “I can’t talk to her,” I admitted. “Why?”

  Uncle Orson sat the frosting bottle on the counter in front of me. “You don’t even know her.”

  “She’s my mother.”

  “It doesn’t work like that. If it did, no family anywhere would have problems talking. And families are pretty much all about problems communicating.”

  “I don’t think it was her problem.” I tasted the soda. Strawberry was not my favorite. When my body was wishing so badly for whiskey, it was a bad choice. I think Orson knew that when he opened it. “I wanted to talk to her. Really talk. I didn’t. I couldn’t.”

  “Try another time.”

  “I’m not sure there will be another time.”

  “What did you want to talk to her about?”

  I returned the bottle to my lips. The liquid was cold and the carbon dioxide bit at my nose. It took two tries to take a swallow. Super sweet, artificially flavored, and blood red, there was no doubt he was punishing me for getting drunk. “I wanted to talk. . .” I shoved the bottle away. “I didn’t talk. I questioned her about Cherry Dando and Johnson Rath.”

  “Did it do any good?”

  “Good had nothing to do about it. Is there any tea?”

  Uncle Orson drank most of my left over soda as he pulled a milk jug full of tea from the cooler, then poured me a cup. “Did you learn anything?”

  “Yes. No. And I don’t know.” I took a long drink of frigid tea, then rattled the ice at him. He refilled the cup and I said, “There’s one thing.”

  “Yeah?”

  “She said something about a Yocum dollar. She said Dad had one. And that you did too.”

  “I still have it.” He reached far under the counter, below the display of clear plastic lighters with fishing flies inside, under the pipe tobacco and pocket knives. From a deep slot, he pulled a shoebox filled with campaign ribbons and medals, the pieces of an incomplete pistol, keys, lures, and even a few rocks. It resembled a boy’s treasure box more than an old man’s secrets. From under the loose splay of naked lady playing cards, Orson lifted a tarnished silver coin.

  It looked like a child’s idea of money. On one side, crude raised lettering read, Yocum Dollar. On the other side was a dollar sign and the word, One.

  “That’s it?” I asked, astonished. “This is what people go looking for?”

  “It’s not about the coin. It’s about the almost-pure silver it’s made from.” He placed it in my hand.

  “It’s heavy.”

  “Silver is almost $20 an ounce right now. That’s a lot of incentive for some people.”

  I kept drinking tea. We kept talking. It was all space-filler. Uncle Orson did his best to keep my mind engaged. I could say I had other things to think about, but I would be lying to myself. I wasn’t thinking.

  What was in my mind was more of an absence. I was pulled away from myself, and the space in between was where I really was. It was nothing. It was everything terrible.

  I reached for my phone and realized it was gone. Another thing in the possession of Johnson Rath? “I need your phone.”

  Uncle Orson didn’t question me. He pulled an old flip phone from his pocket and handed it over.

  I didn’t even give him a hard time about the phone. I simply took it with me and returned to the houseboat.

  Dr. Kurtz was out of town. She left a number with the service for a therapist covering for her while she was gone. I didn’t call him.

  * * * *

  I don’t know how long it was, but the light had shifted to the other side of the dock and I had used up all the good air in the cabin when Billy knocked on the door. The phone was still clasped in my hands.

  He knocked again, then came in without my asking.

  “I don’t feel like—”

  Billy held up my gun and baton in one hand, my badge and phone with the other.

  “How?”

  “I know a guy,” he answered as I wrapped my arms around him. He tossed everything onto the bunk and embraced me.

  I didn’t mean to stiffen my back or pull away, but I did.

  Billy ignored my reaction. “You have choices to make.”

  “What choices?”

  “The way I see it, we can call the sheriff. We can ask him to come here. Then, you can lie like a dog on a cheap rug, or you can come clean. The man loves you. You know that.”

  “He does. That’s why I can’t lie to him. And I can’t put him in the position of protecting me again.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “Want’s got nothing to do with it. I have to get myself back into the world. Maybe I do deserve to lose my job; but I want to lose it doing it—not hiding and crying.”

  Billy looked pleased. I felt better for saying the words. It would have been a nice moment if he hadn’t put his hands on my face and tried to kiss me. I take that back. The problem wasn’t his kiss—it was me pulling away.

  I saw the hurt. I believe I saw the understanding. I told him I still needed some time alone. That didn’t sit well, but he didn’t protest. Billy was patient. Kind. He was everything I needed, and at that moment, everything I needed pissed me off.

  * * * *

  Time again became indeterminate. I was unable to count out the hours. I judged everything by color. A sky so pale and blinding—it was almost white—had mellowed into deeper and deeper blue. Eventually, the far horizon took a beating and turned purple and orange. Thin, wasted clouds looked like sutures on a brutal wound. When the sun slipped low enough, it shone like an open arte
ry on the undersides of the thickening wisps. When the light burnished down to the dull sheen of old blood, I left.

  Clare brought my truck from Moonshines. I saw the keys hanging from the hook by the door that morning. Grabbing the keys was the only thing that slowed me. I raced through the bait shop without answering my uncle’s questions. Had I hesitated at all, I would have stopped at the door. I sped to a chugging jog down the gangway. The weight of my service weapon and baton pulled at my hip.

  While I had waited for darkness, I’d checked my phone. Earl Turner had called me five times. Each message was more excited, but less informative, than the last. He was sure he’d found his nephew’s killer. He begged me to come. He never said where.

  Even though Earl was already dead, I listened to each recording. As they played, I pleaded uselessly with him to call 911. In the final voicemail he told me, “Find the boy.”

  I didn’t know what he meant by that, which didn’t make me feel any less guilty. I may have been wrong when I told Earl about the legal constraints of tracking the phone. I’m a detective not a lawyer. We pull local use data from phones all the time. I probably could have made it work—warrant or not. I took an easier path, and let him go where he shouldn’t have gone. That was on me.

  I was driving the truck. The twin hands of guilt and revenge were steering. It took over an hour of searching to track the path I needed. I knew the area well. I began to recall my run through, and emergence from, the woods. Even with that, if I hadn’t seen the tail lights of a pickup bump their way down the hidden dirt track, I may have never found it.

  I spent another twenty minutes finding a place to stop and hide the truck. I had enough sense that I wasn’t going to simply drive into the single lane path—without knowing who, or what, was waiting. I passed by the tail lights, and found another break in the barbed wire fencing that led to an adjacent field. It was about ten acres of fallow pasture that had been given over to weeds and scrub. The grass was burned and dry. Junipers were thriving, but none of them were over four feet tall. My big GMC rolled over them effortlessly.

  I crossed the field and parked, with my lights out, alongside the overgrown fence row. That line of wire was a boundary—shared with the woods I had run through to escape Johnson Rath.

  The fencing was loose and rusty. It spread easily. I pulled it open and stepped through.

  It occurred to me that I might end up wandering around in the darkness—looking for the shack that housed the New American Covenant–The Word and The Sword. There was no reason to worry. I heard the rising sound, after only a few paces, through the woods. A minute later, the glow of headlights gave me a beacon to follow.

  Crouching at the clearing edge, I counted cars, trucks, and bikes. I gave up at twenty vehicles. Their numbers were not going to stop what I had to do. Most of the people were outside, milling around a fire pit and a half dozen coolers. They were all male. They were all white. Most were heavily tattooed.

  A scuffle broke out. Three men were pushing and cursing another near a group of motorcycles, on the far side of the fire. They were all familiar to me as Ozarks Nightriders, but two stood out. The one getting worked over was Roland Duques. The one leading the effort was Charlie Lipscomb, the Nightrider’s Sergeant-At-Arms. He was easy to pick out—because of the cigar stub sticking out of his mouth.

  I crept around the perimeter of the clearing to get closer. I stopped when I could make out the raised voices.

  “So what if I did?” Roland shouted, then pushed back against one of the Nightriders pressing him.

  “Club business stays club business,” Lipscomb bellowed back at the young man. “You know that. We all know that.” He inclined his head, and one of the other men punched Roland in the gut.

  They all laughed as the kid bent over and vomited out his belly full of beer. Roland fought to catch his breath. Between wet gasps he defiantly said, “Screw you.”

  The men laughed again.

  “You’re the only one getting screwed here,” Lipscomb shouted back. He took a long drag from the cigar and blew smoke into the kid’s face.

  “What about family?” Roland stood, still breathing hard. “What about brothers?”

  “It’s family business,” Lipscomb replied. “And business always comes first.”

  “You set me up.”

  “Prospects take the weight.” Lipscomb threw a hard punch that nestled hard into Roland’s eye socket. The other two men joined in. When the kid was on the ground—trying to cover his head and face—they started kicking. “And they keep their mouths shut.”

  Charlie Lipscomb pulled what was left of the cigar butt from his mouth, then field stripped it. When the last of his cigar had flittered away into darkness, he walked away. After a few more kicks the other two men wandered after him.

  For a second, I thought I should help Roland. There were many seconds during which I told myself that, sometimes, we make the beds we most dread sleeping in. Beyond that, Roland was not who I was there for.

  Someone at the shack’s front door blew a shrieking whistle.

  There was Johnson Rath—at the open entrance waving his arms—drawing the faithful inside. Headlights blinked out. Coolers slammed closed. He kept at it, whistling and waving, until Roland was the only person left outside. Rath closed the temple door.

  Chapter 15

  I stood with my back against a broad walnut tree to conceal my shape. From inside of the shack, I could hear the pulsing rumble of death metal and the rhythmic stomping of boots on wood. At one place in the old wall, there was a gap through which a beam of light shone and flickered as bodies entered.

  I was ready. Each moment I wasted chilled the fire that I allowed to flare in my heart. I wasn’t so far gone that I could completely ignore Roland. Had he been quiet, I might have convinced myself that he was dead. That would have been easier. I could have let him lie. After I’d done what I came to do, I would have sent deputies to pick up the three men who had beaten him.

  He wasn’t dead. He was sobbing. That was harder. Men don’t want to be rescued by women and they definitely don’t want to be caught by them—crying after a losing fight.

  I gave him a little time. Then a little turned into too much for me. As I approached, careful to stay low in high grass and skirt the line of motorcycles, Roland sat up. He stood up brushing dirt from his filthy clothes. It was wasted effort.

  “Roland.” I kept my voice low and soft.

  He froze. “Who’s there?”

  “Roland. It’s Sheriff’s Detective Katrina Williams.”

  “Hurricane?”

  I almost told him not to call me that. “Yes.”

  He returned to brushing away at his jeans and denim jacket with the sleeves sliced off. “What do you want?” His question was sullen and angry. I thought it was simply because I’d witnessed the shame of his beating.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Of course I’m all right. What do you care? You’re the reason I got my ass kicked in the first place.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You got your gun don’t you?”

  Billy had said, I know a guy, when I asked him how he got my weapon and badge back. He was talking about Roland Duques.

  “I’m sorry it caused you problems.” I was sincere. I’m not sure Roland was interested in apologies. “Why did you help?”

  He slapped at his jacket again—then pointed at the vibrating shack. “This place—none of it—none of them—nothing is what it was supposed to be.”

  “Did your father tell you it was something to be admired?”

  He turned to face me, straight on, for the first time. In the firelight, I could see the damage to his face and the boyish anger couched within. “Why don’t you get out of here? Cops aren’t very welcome.”

  “What’s going on inside?”

  Roland kept his
stare aimed at me.

  “Is that something you believe in?”

  “Is what something I believe in? You don’t know anything about it. Or me.”

  “I don’t know about you.”

  He kept staring. “You don’t know shit.”

  “I’m trying to help you.”

  “That’s why you’re here?” Roland let the question dangle—like bait. When I didn’t rise to it, he pressed. “You’re going to help me? Skulking around in the dark—asking about what’s happening in there? How are you going to help anyone but yourself?”

  “You’re right. I came here for something else.”

  He huffed loudly.

  “I came here for my own business. Is that what you want to hear?”

  “At least it’s honest.”

  “You want a little more honesty? Maybe I don’t know a lot about you, but I’m clear on what’s happening in that Mein Kampf church. I know enough about both to say you’re in trouble.”

  “Who says I’m in trouble?”

  “These are the deep waters, Roland. There’s no little bit in. Either you’re drenched or you’re dry. Right now, you think maybe you can sit on a dock and dip your toes. You think maybe, just maybe, it can be like you want it to be.” I paused to let it sink in. “You’re drowning. This whole thing is a weight taking you down.”

  “I already helped you. I took my lumps for it.”

  “Everyone takes lumps in life, Roland. It’s up to you to decide who you take them for.”

  “I’m out of here.” He walked straight at the small fire, then stopped and looked back at me. “If you go in there, you’re dead. They’ll kill you then dance on your bones.”

  “You can help me.”

  “No, I can’t.”

  “You don’t have to keep walking the straight line. Turn. Get off the road.”

  “Is that what you’re doing?”

  “Talking to some people is like chewing barbed wire.”

  “You said it, lady. You had the whole speech about deep water—but you got it wrong. I’m standing in a boat on choppy water. You’re telling me to fall in the boat. Someone else is telling me to fall in the water. The thing is, everyone wants me to fall.” Roland Duques turned his back on me and trudged right though the campfire and into the darkness on the other side.