Long Way Gone

by Charles Martin

  “Yes, sir.” He stood a little straighter. “Banjo.”

  “You practicing your rolls?”

  He nodded, then pointed at the scars on my right hand. “Does that hurt?”

  “Not anymore.”

  “What happened?”

  I held it up, opening and closing my fist. “When I was young and foolhardy, some stuff fell on me.”

  “Like a barbell or a brick or something?”

  “No, more like the ceiling.”

  He pointed toward my voice box. “You always whisper when you talk?”

  “Unfortunately.”

  “Why?”

  “I got caught in a fire.”

  “A fire made it sound like that?”

  “Actually, the flames weren’t too bad, but the heat mixed with some toxic fumes and did this.” I smiled. “Makes me sound like I’m angry all the time.”

  “Daddy says he’ll blister me if he catches me messing with matches.”

  I laughed. “You should probably steer clear.”

  As I started to stand, he tugged on me again. “Mister?”

  “Yeah.”

  He touched my beard, allowing his fingers to tell his mind that I was real and not the scary man behind the scars. “I don’t think you sound angry.”

  His words filtered down and into my heart where they met the welcoming echo of my father’s voice. Out of the mouth of babes you have perfected praise so that you might silence the enemy and the avenger.

  I liked that kid. “Thanks, pal.”

  When I turned around and looked back a block later, the old guy was playing my guitar. His eyes were as wide as his open mouth, and the smile on his face was worth a lot more than that pile of cash.

  2

  I drove south playing the kid’s words over and over in my mind. The rearview reflected me back at myself, speaking a truth I’d long tried to bury. Shoulder-length, dirty blondish hair. Darker beard showing some gray. Scruffy would be one impression. Mountain man might be another. Homeless wouldn’t be a stretch. Over the years I’d tried to hide the scars on my chest, back, neck, and right ear. When I “covered up” I found that people reacted more favorably to me. That said, I did look a bit scary. My right hand on the steering wheel caught my eye. I straightened my fingers and then made and remade a fist. Other than wearing a glove, there wasn’t much I could do about that. Some things you just can’t hide.

  The Jeep was thirsty so I stopped for gas on the edge of town. Ambient noise filled the air around me. The slosh of gasoline filling the tank. Trucks on the highway muffled with the hum and womp womp of snow tires. A couple arguing as they came out of the mini-mart. A semi driving over a steel manhole cover, first the front wheel, then the back. A bulldozer and an excavator working in tandem in a lot behind me. A siren several blocks off, followed by a second. Kids playing basketball somewhere over my shoulder.

  Given the mix of noise, any single sound was tough to follow. Like gnats at a barbecue. But every few seconds the noise would thin, and above it hung a melody. Someone was singing.

  I looked down the road and saw a woman standing in the dirt, just off the highway. Thumb in the air. Too far away to see her features, but I could tell she wasn’t young. Peroxide-blonde hair falling out of a purple beanie. Sky-blue Patagonia puffer jacket. Faded jeans tucked into scuffed cowboy boots. A backpack at her feet. And a guitar case. A little thin. Looked like she could use a cheeseburger.

  I would not say her voice was overly strong. In fact, it sounded tired. But weary or not, it possessed one thing that most did not. Near perfect pitch. Not to mention she had canary-like control of her vocal cords.

  There was something oddly familiar about it. But just as quickly as I latched onto it, it ended. The wind swirled, brushed my face, and brought the memory of a smell I once knew.

  As I watched, a rusted-out, green, long-bed Ford with a snowplow attached to the front pulled over. Not unusual for late September in Colorado. Three people sat in the front seat, two in the bed. I saw the woman nod, then lift her pack and her guitar into the bed and climb over the tailgate, displaying strength, grace, and a distance-setting amount of self-confidence. The truck descended into the valley in a cloud of smoke.

  Lost in the distant residue of something familiar that I still couldn’t place, and trying to gather the last of those notes as they faded off into the air, I was suddenly snapped back to earth by gas spilling out of my tank and sloshing onto my shoes. Up here the veil is thin, and it’s easy to get lost.

  Plus, I’ve always had a thing for girls who can sing.

  I pulled back onto the road and stared out into one of the more majestic windshield-framed settings in all of Colorado: the road west and south out of Leadville toward Buena Vista. Through the glass in front of me the sun had set behind the snowcapped peaks of La Plata, Mt. Elbert, and Mt. Massive. The sheer enormity stretched beyond my side mirrors. Between them lay the deep scenic and historic cut of Independence Pass that led into the jet-set lifestyles of Aspen and Snow Mass.

  Colorado is like a girl I once knew. Beautiful in any light. When the light or angle changes, something new is revealed. Something hidden rises to the surface. In late September and early October, the light in Colorado shifts. Snow dusts the peaks. The color in the trees has peaked and begun draining out. Colorado in the fall is a peek into the throne room. Colorado in winter is majesty defined. A declaration.

  When God carved this place with His words, He lingered.

  I pulled into Buena Vista forty-five minutes later to see blue puffer girl sitting on the curb. Head in her hands. Feet in the gutter. One shoulder leaned against the pole of a parking meter. Her Patagonia jacket was torn and one side soiled with skid marks. Small down feathers spilled out of a hole in the shoulder and a few fluttered on the breeze or snagged in her hair. Her jeans were ripped at the knee. The guitar case was gone, and scattered about her lay the pieces of what was once the guitar. The green truck was nowhere in sight.

  I sat at the stoplight, my Jeep idling, and stared at her. The light turned green, but traffic this time of evening was pretty light. I sat through the light cycle, watching as she stood and tried to shoulder her backpack. Her right hand was bloody, badly bruised and possibly broken. She brushed the hair out of her eyes but the beanie had fallen down, slanting at the same angle as her body. Blood trickled out from underneath it. Unstable, she clung to the parking meter and tried to catch her balance.

  I kicked the emergency brake on and hopped out of my Jeep just in time to see her eyes roll back and her head slump forward. She lost her grip on the pole and toppled.

  Into my arms.

  I stood on the sidewalk holding a bleeding woman I did not know. I grabbed her pack and walked her to the Jeep, where the intoxicating smell of her wafted up and wrapped itself around me. There it was again. The same fragrance I’d smelled while pumping gas. I sat her up and pulled the beanie off her head because it was covering up her mouth, and I thought she’d do well to get some air. Only then did I see her face.

  I stood up straight. No way. Can’t be.

  I leaned in, tilted my head to match the angle of hers, and looked a second time. The hair color had fooled me, and like me, she’d aged. But then there was the smell, and there was no mistaking Coco Chanel. Especially when she wore it. I spoke out loud. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  I drove three blocks to the hospital and came to a stop in short-term parking while she bled on my seat belt. I doubted her injuries were serious, but the lump rising on her forehead indicated a pretty good thump. I lifted her off the passenger seat and carried her through the front door.

  The receptionist was a sweet, plump woman who liked fuzzy navels and tequila shots. Gigging local bars tells you a lot about people’s thirst-quenching habits.

  “Little help, Doris?” I said.

  She saw the unconscious woman dripping blood on the tile and pushed a button that automatically opened two large doors to my right. I carried the woman into t
he ER and Doris followed, peppering me with questions.

  “What happened, Cooper?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “How’d she end up bleeding and in your arms?”

  “I saw her at the stoplight.”

  She brushed the hair out of her face and sucked between her teeth. “Did you hit her?”

  “No, I didn’t hit her.”

  “What were you doing at the stoplight?”

  “Doris, is there someplace I can lay her down?”

  She pointed, and I laid the woman on a table.

  “Cooper.” Doris looked at me over the top of her reading glasses. “You hiding something? You need to call your lawyer?”

  “Doris, you been watching too much CSI. Will you just call the doctor?”

  Doris didn’t really like me because over the years I had repeatedly refused her advances, which increased in frequency and severity as she moved into her third and fourth fuzzy navels. She frowned and tapped her clipboard with a pencil. Her eyes walked up and down me with a mixture of two parts desire and one part disapproval. She scratched her scalp with the tip of her pencil.

  “You happen to know her name? Anything is better than ‘Jane Doe.’ ”

  “Yeah, actually, I do.”

  She waited.

  “Doris, meet Daley Cross.”

  Doris leaned in. The skin between her eyes wrinkled. “ ‘When-I-got-where-I-was-going’ Daley Cross?” She raised both her eyebrows.

  I nodded. “The very same.”

  I propped Daley’s head gently on a pillow and said good-bye to Doris. I even made it to the seat of the Jeep . . .

  But twenty minutes later the doctor found me sitting in the waiting room with a bad cup of vending machine coffee.

  “Cooper.”

  I shook his hand. “Hey, Bill.”

  “Doris says you know the patient?”

  “Long time ago.”

  “Well, she bumped her noggin pretty good. Slight concussion. Might have a headache for a day or so. A deep contusion in her hand where somebody slammed it in the truck door. Possibly a break in there somewhere, but if so it’s a hairline and won’t show up on X-ray for a couple weeks. Either way, she’ll be sore a few days.” He paused. “What have you got to do with all this?”

  “I was stopped at the light. She collapsed. Here we are.”

  “You didn’t see whatever happened?”

  “No. I saw her hitch a ride back in Leadville, but I didn’t recognize her at the time. Or the truck.”

  He stared out the window. “What color was it?”

  “Faded green. Yellow snowplow. Long-bed Ford. Salt rust around the wheel wells.”

  He pointed to a far corner of the parking lot. “Like that one?”

  I looked. “The very same.”

  “I just put fifteen stitches in the scalp of a long-haired bubba in overalls. Said he fell.”

  “She had a guitar,” I offered.

  He turned and looked down a long hallway, then back at me. “I’ll take care of him.”

  “She be here overnight?”

  “I can’t very well send her home. She’s sleeping now. We’ll monitor her. Probably discharge tomorrow early.”

  I turned toward the double doors and flashed my cell phone. “Let me know if that changes.”

  He glanced over his shoulder. “You really know Daley Cross?”

  I shook my head. “Twenty years ago. Another lifetime.”

  “Wow. What was her big hit called?” He searched his memory. “ ‘Long Time Coming’?”

  I didn’t bother to correct him. “Something like that.”

  “Wow. A one-hit wonder right here in Buena Vista. I’ve always wondered what happened to people like that.”

  “Actually, she was a four-hit wonder.”

  “By the looks of things, her luck has not improved.” He looked hesitant to speak. “Judging by the dirt, I think she spent the last few nights along the road somewhere. She’s also pretty dehydrated, so I ran an IV. I’ll keep it dripping most of the night.”

  “Thanks. You’ve got my cell.” I headed out to the parking lot, jumped in the Jeep, cranked the engine, and tried not to look in the rearview.

  It wasn’t easy.

  3

  The Roastery is the local morning hangout in Buena Vista. The epicenter of town until nearly noon. From there folks mosey across the street to the Trailhead—the local gear shop and farm-to-table lunch venue—where they move from coffee to local IPAs. The Trailhead is also where most of those “currently in transition,” aka the unemployed, spend their afternoons sitting at tables with window views of the street, staring at their phones and trying to look like they’re doing something important. Most are playing solitaire.

  Dinner options include Eddyline—an award-winning microbrewery that cooks up a decent pizza. The Asian Palace serves surprisingly good tempura and sushi, which is a bit of a mystery given its distance from the coast. A strategically parked food truck serves up a mean fish taco, while next door one man’s moonshine infatuation has found honest expression in the Deerhammer Distillery. The local favorite is a drink called a Black Bison. Seems a writer came to town a few years back and made some subtle changes to a Buffalo Negra, and today the Black Bison is the Buena Vista signature and its attraction has spread. It’s been added to menus in Steamboat, Vail, and Aspen, and folks come from as far away as Florida just to sip one.

  Like much of high-altitude Colorado, BV started out as a drinking town with a mining problem, and little has changed.

  I was first in line when the Roastery opened at seven. I ordered two triple-shot Honey Badgers and drove slowly to the hospital, trying to talk myself out of actually walking in. I parked, cut the engine, and continued to argue with myself. Finally I told myself to shut up and walked through the front doors. I rode the elevator to the fourth floor, and the nurse pointed me to room 410.

  When I walked in the lights were off, but a soft sunlight washed through the window. Daley was sitting up, staring out the window, her right hand wrapped in an Aircast and resting on her lap. A couple fingers were puffy. The bump on her head was gone, but the purple remained. When she turned and saw me, her jaw dropped. She covered her mouth and her eyes filled.

  All she could manage was a whisper. “Coop . . .” Her voice cracked. “Oh my . . .” She lifted her knees to her chest like she’d grown accustomed to hugging herself. I walked over to the edge of the bed, set the coffee cups on the bedside table, and sat with my hands folded in my lap—bringing us eye to eye.

  For several minutes she just sat there, shaking her head. Tears puddling. Her eyes had always been golf-ball big and Oreo-round. And big eyes make for big tears. Finally one cracked loose and cascaded down her cheek.

  She slid a hand across the sheet. Palm up. An invitation. “How are you?”

  I stretched my hands across the side of the bed and cradled hers in mine. She studied the scars on my right hand, tracing the longest with the tip of her index finger. A second tear followed the first. “Nashville?”

  I spoke softly. “Yeah.”

  “Is it okay?”

  I shrugged and tried to smile. Making and remaking a fist. “It gets the job done. Tells me when a storm is coming.”

  She was hesitant to ask. “Do you . . . do you still . . . ?”

  I nodded. “Some. When I can.”

  She reached out and was about to touch her fingertips to my throat, then thought better of it. “Your voice is so different. You sound like the Godfather.”

  I cleared my throat. “It comes in handy with people who call and try and sell me something.”

  She laughed quietly, and the weight sitting on her shoulders rolled to the edges, where it teetered. It would either fall outward and release her, or inward where it would crush what remained of her. She glanced around the room. Confusion on her face. “Do you know how I got here?”

  “I pulled up to the stoplight and saw you clinging to a parking meter. I caught you as you
fell. Didn’t know it was you until I got you in the Jeep and headed here.”

  She was having a tough time putting the pieces together. “You live here?”

  I sipped. “Yep.”

  She looked confused. “You pick up my guitar?”

  “Only pieces remained. Some splinters on the sidewalk. Got your pack, though.”

  The loss registered. I offered her a coffee. “The Roastery is our local coffee shop. They make a concoction called a Honey Badger that, if you add a triple shot, will start your day off the way God intended it to be started.”

  She sipped and nodded, but while the coffee began lifting the medication haze, it did little to move the gorilla on her shoulder. We sat there in silence. I handed her a tissue and pointed at her lip. “You got some foam—”

  She wiped her mouth and dabbed her eyes and tried to laugh. “I was saving it for later.”

  I broke the awkwardness. “Where you headed?”

  “Biloxi. A casino offered me a stage . . . and a room. I can wait tables too . . .” An embarrassed shrug. She didn’t need to say more.

  “You have a second guitar stashed someplace?”

  She shook her head.

  “How’re you getting there?”

  She smiled and stuck her thumb in the air.

  “Got a place to stay meanwhile?”

  “Wasn’t planning on staying.” She pointed at her backpack. “I’ve got a map of hostels. Some nights I can play at a bar nearby or . . . save a bit to get me to the next town. It’s just till I get to Mississippi.”

  Dr. Bill walked in at this point. “How you feeling this morning?” He lifted the stethoscope out of the pocket of his white jacket and began listening to her heart.

  She looked at him with one eye half closed. “Better if the world would stop spinning.”

  “You took a pretty good thump.” He shined a small light in the side of her pupils and then held her wrist, counting her pulse. He inspected her hand. “How’s this feeling?”

  “Tender.”

  “Take something for pain. Ice it. Give it a few days. Nothing permanent. You have any questions?”