She Rides Shotgun

by Jordan Harper

  He drove down an empty highway that ran parallel to some tracks, long trains coming up out of Mexico full of goods running the other way. The land was flat, dotted with a little scrub and old houses. It rolled on forever in every direction.

  Hangtree seemed irradiated. Across a field on the side road something burned, maybe a shack or an old mobile home. It threw up black smoke. The smoke was perfect black, like it came from something burning away in its entirety. Packs of feral Chihuahuas ran the streets. They had missing eyes and mange. They scrapped. They ate trash out of the gutters. They humped on the road and in the dead grass where sidewalks should have been. People on the street came in two modes, too fat or too thin. They looked like they had been through the same atomic blast as the town.

  Nate ate breakfast at the diner on the edge of town. He chewed stale toast and made murder plans. Now that he was here he had an ugly problem to deal with. Out here country stretched forever. It was forty, fifty miles either way before he’d hit highway junctions in either direction. To kill a cop in Hangtree, he’d need an hour’s head start on the getaway or they’d seal off the roads before he could reach safety.

  Like you’re ever getting out of here, the ghost of his brother said in his head. You knew this was a one-way ticket when you bought the ride. An escape plan is a joke. Nate thought about Polly and made one anyway.

  He finished his breakfast. He left a hundred-dollar tip. At the register he picked up a candy bar and a bottle of water. What the hell, make it two candy bars. As far as last meals went, he’d heard of worse.

  He drove out toward Slabtown. He used the map Charlotte had put together from what she’d heard about the place. He rolled through hills on a gravel road. He saw a tree filled with shoes against the pure blue sky that stood in as Slabtown’s flag. He parked off the road. He walked up the hill and crouched down. He looked down on a half-dozen concrete slabs with trailers sitting on them. The residents had no problem advertising their insanity. A goat head pentagram had been painted on the desert floor. One lab, white vapors drifting from a chimney cut through the camper roof, marked the edges of its slab with totem poles of melted and charred doll heads. Broken glass shimmered like a dry river down one of the gulches. Broken-glass wind chimes hung from flagpoles clattered when the breezes came.

  He watched the trailers long enough to pick out the signs of life. The camp seemed empty. Only the lab with the doll heads looked active. After a while a man came out, naked except for his plastic apron. The man sat down bare-assed on the desert gravel.

  Nate sat on the crest of the hill with the sawed-off in his lap and thought about fate. About how it wasn’t the hand of God or anything like it. It was just the things that got passed down to you, the blood and the things the blood carried in it. And Nate could blame the blood or he could blame himself, but it didn’t matter either way. He had to murder this man, this stranger he’d never know, who’d come here riding his own river of blood, half swimming and half following the current best he could without drowning. Killing him would summon Houser out here to the far desert where Nate could murder him and maybe, just maybe, get away clean. Well, not clean. Never that again.

  Polly, I’m sorry.

  He went to the green monster. He popped the trunk. He loaded up the shotgun. He walked down the hill to Slabtown. He dodged fossilized dog turds. He waited for himself to slip into that other world. That world of slow time, of seeing everything. But it didn’t come. Something wrong. He wanted to see clearly, but all he saw was Polly.

  He kicked in the door to the lab. Empty, although he’d just seen the aproned man go inside. Nothing but a bare-bones cook operation.

  He checked the back window. Saw the aproned man run bare-assed across the desert. He had a big head start. Like he’d known Nate was coming.

  They’d known he was coming.

  It’s a trap.

  Polly, I’m sorry.

  Gravel roared out in front of the trailer. Nate moved to the front window. A cop car came from behind a hill on the far side of the encampment, a pink hairless cop behind the wheel. Two truckloads of Slabtown Aryan Steel cowboys with hunting rifles and handguns came behind it. Nate guessed they’d been deputized. Time didn’t slow down. It sped up so the breath moved too slow in his lungs. He was drowning in the desert air.

  A trap a trap a trap. The song sang too loud for any other thoughts. The cop car stopped in a dust plume. One truck parked. The second one moved around to flank him.

  Nate shot the pistol dry. The trailer window puked glass. Windshields shattered. Cowboys dove for cover. The truck out front rolled forward like the driver panicked and pushed the gas. The truck slammed into the trailer. Nate’s whole world shook. He went down on his ass. Bullets snapped over his head. Nate ditched the .38. He grabbed the shotgun and ran toward the back of the trailer. He went through the door feetfirst. He surfed it onto the ground outside. He fell. He landed in dead grass. He rolled. He bounced off a chain-link fence. He climbed it. He swung a leg over. The wire spine at the top of the fence drew a quick bright line of pain across his calf. He dropped to the other side. He ran full blast. Engine roars bounced off the hills. Tires growled through gravel. War whoops floated.

  He tried to think his way out. He had to get to the green monster. He would have to drive it off-road into the desert.

  Gunshot.

  He fired back with the sawed-off. The blast of it knocked the sounds out of the world. Nothing but hummmmmm. He looked behind him. He saw cowboys sprinting. He saw the flanking truck roll around the side of the house heading his way. Gravel rolled in waves as the truck spun out. One of the cowboys fell out the back of the truck. He crunched headfirst. He did a severed-spine shimmy. Nate fired again. The truck swerved. It ran over the man they’d just dumped. The truck cracked into a big rock. Truck tires spun in the air. The cowboys in the back kept shooting. Death missed Nate by inches.

  He ran into the desert behind the lab. He dodged cactuses. He climbed a hill. He crested it to find another cop car. Houser was waiting for him, a short black rifle in his hands. Nate lifted the shotgun. Houser was faster. The rifle coughed. Nate went down. He ate gravel. The nerves of his chest one bright red ball. He puked up all his air. His lungs seized up. He flopped onto his back. His fingers fumbled on his chest looking for the bullet hole. Nate held his fingers in front of his face. They came up clean. He couldn’t find the bullet hole. He ordered his body to scramble to its feet. It didn’t. Houser came into his view. The cop loaded another shot into the rifle. Nate watched him. He tried to talk. His vocal cords didn’t work. His voice came out nothing but rasps. It didn’t matter. What he was trying to say wasn’t for the cop anyway. It was for Polly. Houser raised the rifle to his shoulder. He pointed the rifle at Nate’s head point-blank.

  Polly, I’m sorry.

  Polly, I’m sorry.

  Polly, I’m sor—

  38

  PARK

  I-10

  Park drove bullet fast down the highway. He called Houser’s cell phone again. He steered with his knees. He drank coffee. He chewed gum.

  Voice mail. Third time.

  “Sheriff Houser, this is Detective Park out of Fontana PD again. Following up on my lead on Nate McClusky. Wondered if he and his daughter had been spotted out in your neck of the woods. Sure you’re busy so I just decided to hop on the ten and come on over to Hangtree myself. Maybe you can take me by this Slabtown.”

  What he said on the sheriff’s voice mail was a lie. He wasn’t paying a courtesy visit. He was chasing a buzz as strong and pure as he’d felt since he’d missed Nate and Polly at the motel.

  It had been days of pure police work since he’d left Lompoc. He’d run Charlotte Gardner. He’d gone by her place, learned no one had seen her in a week. He’d gotten her auto info from the DMV. Charlotte made poor parking choices. She had parking tickets on the regular. She had a street cleaning ticket in North Hollywood. Park went to that block. It only took a couple hours of canvassing before he found
a woman who recognized both Charlotte and Nate, knew where they were staying. Polly she wasn’t sure about. She said there was a girl, but not the one from Park’s photo. A girl with bright red hair.

  He called in an assist from L.A. County deputies. He ran a records search to find the house’s landlord. He got verbal permission to go in. Inside he found clothes for all three of them. He found open drawers like they’d packed in a hurry. He found a glass of water with slivers of ice still floating in it. He’d missed them again, by hours this time. Park got mad. He kicked over a trash can. Wadded up papers rolled out. He unwadded one. A hand-drawn map of a town called Hangtree. A hand-drawn map of a place called Slabtown. As lab techs scoured the house for other clues, he’d talked to Sheriff Houser. He’d given the sheriff the lowdown on Nate McClusky. How he might be with a little girl. How he’d been robbing Aryan Steel spots. That he’d hit banks and storehouses. It looked like he was heading someplace called Slabtown. Looked like there were labs there. The sheriff said he’d look into it. That had been yesterday.

  Park waited overnight out of professional courtesy. Then he hit the road to Hangtree.

  Minutes after his last voice mail, his phone vibrated his nuts. He keyed it on.

  “Park here.”

  “Detective Park, this is Sheriff Houser.” His voice echoed, faint, like he was calling from deep under the earth.

  “Been trying to get a hold of you.”

  “Well, here I am.”

  “Any sign of McClusky?”

  “No, sir. No sign of your fellow up here at all. I went poking around Slabtown, didn’t see hide nor. Could might be you’re chasing a ghost.”

  “Well, I’d like to come up and take a look myself,” Park said.

  “No need for that,” Houser said. Weird—Houser’s tone buzzed him. “I’ll be sure to give you a holler if I hear anything.”

  “I’ll be in Hangtree in a hour or so,” Park said. Long beat of silence after that. More weird buzzes.

  “Head to the station,” Houser said. “Deputy Jim Callen will meet you there. Just ask for Jimmy.”

  “And he can take me to this Slabtown place?”

  Pops and hisses. A sound like Houser had a chest cold. Deep wet coughs.

  “You all right?” Park asked.

  “Fine as May wine,” Houser said.

  “So your man will take me to Slabtown?” Park asked again.

  “If that’s how you want it,” Houser said, then killed the call.

  Park had that feeling again, like he was a bullet midflight. Like it was way past up to him where he went or what damage he’d do.

  39

  NATE

  THE HIGH DESERT

  Nate woke up choking. He coughed wet red phlegm into his hands. A never-ending bomb exploded in his skull. The world came back in pieces. He bounced in the backseat of a car. A cop car. Houser in the front seat talking. Saying, “Fine as May wine.” Saying, “If that’s how you want it.”

  He touched his cheek where Houser had shot him. A hard swollen pocket on his face. Houser had taken him with a nonlethal round. A rifle that shot bags of pellets that took you down but didn’t break the skin. They had known he was coming. They wanted to take him alive. They wanted something from him.

  That scared Nate. Scared him bad.

  His eyes unblurred. He focused on the back of Houser’s head as the sheriff dialed his phone.

  “Jimmy . . . yeah. Taking our prize to the shack . . . he don’t think I know he’s listening. Bet he’s got a headache, though. Listen, it’s that chink cop. The one who tipped us that our prize was coming to town. He’s on his way down here. He wants to see Slabtown . . . an hour, he said. I told him to find you . . . Think I don’t know that? There ain’t no way to clean it up in time. There’s shit there no one can see, Jimmy . . . well then, that’s just what you’ll do . . . just do it. No time for your experiments. Use one of McClusky’s guns. Leave the chink out in the desert. Call me when it’s done.”

  Plain talk.

  That scared Nate most of all.

  The car rolled to a stop.

  Nate blinked. He sat up. He saw a shack with a dog guarding it, something bred to guard the gates of hell. Nate saw the shack and knew it was the place he would die. No way Houser would talk so plainly in front of him. He’d kept Nate alive for some reason. Once the reason was gone, Nate would be gone too. And Nate bet by the time death came he’d be glad to meet it.

  40

  POLLY

  SLABTOWN

  Venus had come to Earth and brought its storms with it. Slabtown looked like a spilled toy box. A truck sat crashed into the front of a trailer. Wisps of smoke curled up from the smashed trailer. Bullet holes pocked its face. Red stains on the gravel in front of it. A lump that used to be a man.

  Out in the desert past the trailer, a man wearing an apron, his bare butt hanging out behind it, dug a hole. Another dead man lying next to him.

  Polly looked at all the craziness and she knew it had come from her dad. She knew she was breathing in air he’d breathed not long before. And she knew that something had gone wrong. That if her dad wasn’t dead now he would be soon.

  I won’t let it happen. I won’t I won’t I won’t.

  “Polly,” Charlotte said. She put a hand on Polly. Polly imagined breaking her fingers. She put that thought in her eyes when she looked at Charlotte. Charlotte pulled her hand away like Polly was boiling. Maybe she was.

  “Polly, listen,” Charlotte said. “I know how to talk to these people. I’ll talk to that man out there. He’ll tell me what happened. Just sit here and let me talk to him.”

  “Find out where he is,” Polly said. “Find out if he’s okay.”

  The car started cooking in the desert heat the second Charlotte’s door shut. Polly let herself sweat. She breathed in and out three times the way her dad had taught her. She tried to keep her mind on the flow of the air, how she felt it the most in the bend behind her nose where the air headed south to her lungs. She felt it in her belly swelling against her shirt. She didn’t let any more thoughts come. The bear and she locked eyes until time went away.

  Charlotte’s door swung open. The hot desert air felt cool against Polly’s skin as it rushed in.

  “There’s a shack up in the hills,” Charlotte said. “They’ve got him. Some kind of rotten cops.”

  “He’s alive?”

  “Yes,” Charlotte said. But her face said something different, something like but probably not for long.

  41

  PARK

  HANGTREE/THE HIGH DESERT

  The coffee the cop gave him tasted like cowshit. Park drank it anyway. The deputy, the one named Jimmy, gave him a grin like there was a joke Park didn’t get. Jimmy drove fast and sloppy with that cop carelessness for yellow lights and speed limits. Hangtree was a true shithole, but something about it glittered as the sun came down. Something about the way the light flickered against the window glass made Park’s eyeballs tickle.

  “Sure you want to go out to Slabtown?” Jimmy asked. Park fought the urge to tell the man he was the color of a shaved dog. The thought made weird laughter inside him. He tamped it down.

  “I told you already, Deputy, you don’t have to come with me.” The coffee at the bottom of the cup was gritty. He choked it down. Jimmy smiled so wide Park started to wonder if the fucker had spat in it.

  They hit a dirt road that took them up a hill. Halfway up it Jimmy took a right into a wash that barely even qualified as a road. Park had been in a car all day. His kidneys were jammed to shit.

  “I thought Slabtown was in an old army base.”

  “It is.”

  “This doesn’t feel like the road to an army base.”

  “We’re taking the back way in,” Jimmy said. His eyes seemed like they’d migrated to the sides of his head. The fat fucker looked more piglike than ever. When Jimmy moved his head it seemed to Park that some of the molecules in the fat man’s face moved slower than the rest.

 
Something was wrong. Not just with the situation, or with this dipshit townie cop. There was something wrong all the way down to the electrons.

  Park tried to remember the last time he’d slept. How much caffeine he was running on. Tried to find some explanation for the body-thick vibrations echoing through him. His stomach roiled with them.

  “Stop the car,” Park said. Jimmy smiled that secret-joke smile again. His tongue flickered behind his teeth, a wet snake. Park locked his throat to keep from puking right then.

  “Feeling poorly?” Jimmy stopped the car. Park undid his safety belt, ran out into the night, dropped to his knees, and puked into the rocks. He sat back on his ass and felt the world barrel roll. The sky above him was a smear of stars. They flickered; they danced.

  Jimmy came up behind him. Too close. He had a sour smell to him like kimchi. Jimmy said, “I better take that.” He took Park’s gun with one hand.

  “What’s happening?”

  “Ever hear of MK-Ultra?”

  Park tried to make those words make sense. They didn’t make sense.

  “You put something in my coffee.”

  “You know that psilocybin mushroom? I grabbed some off a hippie a little while back. The CIA thought they could use shit like that for mind control. I like to run my own experiments. And you’re a pain-in-the-balls chink who asks too many questions. So here we are.”

  The way his face throbbed to the beat of his words told Park this was no lie. Mushroom vibrations and adrenaline buzz all over him. You are going to die thoughts ricocheted all through his brainpan. But the animal panic was only a few inches deep. Something heavy and swelling sat underneath it.

  “They say you see colors and shit,” Jimmy said. “What do you see?”

  “You’re the color of a shaved dog,” Park told Jimmy. Park laughed, and then he laughed at the laugh. The sound of it unwound within him. Like pulling a thread, threatening to turn him into a pile of string.