An American Outlaw (11 page)

I glanced at Michael, in the truck.

She says, “He stays with me.”

He was watching us, now. He calls out. “What's going on?”

“You've got no money,” she said. “And no car.”

“Are you for real?”

She says, “Are you?”

“That's what you been thinking on?”

Her chin juts. “You have a better idea?”

I shook my head. But she was right. 

We needed a car. And money. Fast.

“It's a gas station,” she says. “It services two interstates. It's big enough.”

“You need money—that bad?”

She didn't answer.

“I can't do it,” I told her. “Not alone. It'd take at least two.”

She looked across the lot, to Michael.

I says, “Forget that. No way he can do it.”

She stabbed the cigarette to her mouth. A wild look behind her eyes. She span on her heel. “Mierda...” 

She crossed to the far edge of the parking lot. Turned, blew out a thick stream of smoke.

I walked to the truck, to Michael. 

He puts down his piece of fried chicken. “The fuck's going on, man?”

“Just keep eating.” I picked a soda off of the tray.

I crossed the baking lot, to Tennille. Cars and trucks on the interstate, an endless stream of them. Who could say where they was all headed? It’s like a drone in the background; a drone that doesn’t ever go away. I thought of the night Steven and Michael and me first talked about carrying out a robbery. All the way back in Lafayette. The same sound playing—like some hex.

“You,” I says, to Tennille.

“Me, what?”

“You can do it. With me.”

I sipped on my cup of soda. Ice butting up against my teeth.

“You've got to be kidding.”

I took another pull on the drink. 

She started to pace back and forth. 

I glanced at Michael. “Look at him. He can barely sit upright.” I thought of robbing a gas station. Stealing a car.

She was talking to herself. Mouthing words under her breath; “Mierda, mierda...”

“You could do it,” I says.

She stopped.

“All you got to do is wave your shotgun. Look mean.”

She cocks her head at me. “Are you trying to be funny?”

I just watched her. Watched the flush at her face, in her dark skin.

“I get to leave with nothing.” She looks at me. “Or I get to rob a gas station...”

She clamps the cigarette to her mouth again.

“That husband of yours? Does he really want you dead?”

She threw the cigarette on the tarmac. Ground it out under her heel. “He wants our daughter.” 

She stepped to the edge of the parking lot. Staring out across the scrub.

Neither one of us spoke. A long moment passed.

Her world. Mine. Cold choices.

“You'll have to give me the SIG. That pistol in your pocket.”

She glares at me.

“You do what I tell you,” I says, “if we're going in. You freak out, I might kill you myself.”

Nothing.

“You do what I tell you. Understand?”

Nothin’ but her look.

“What you firing with that shotgun? Buckshot? Not a slug round?”

“No.”

“What is it, 870?”

“Remington. Yeah.”

“Regular four load. You got a choke in there?” 

“What?”

“In the barrel. To keep the spread tight.”

She nodded.

“What’s the set? Mid-range? Longer?”

“Mid. I guess.”

“You guess?”

I saw her jaw tighten. “It’ll take the head off a fence post at fifty yards.”

“How about flesh and blood. You draw a line on that, too?”

She only stared back at me. Eyes hot and narrow.

I already knew the answer.

Alpine.

Whicher pulls into 5
^th
Street—two blocks back from the main drag through town. He spots Lieutenant Rodgers' Crown Vic, parks up next to it, climbs down from the Silverado. 

There's a group of uniform men, two patrol officers, plus the lieutenant. They're standing beside a light truck—a ten-year old Nissan Frontier.

Whicher tips the Resistol hat back on his head. 

“What do y'all have here?”

“This thing,” says Rodgers, “is the truck belonging to Steven Childress. We've been through it. There was close on two hundred thousand dollars inside.”

“We're talking about the money from Lafayette?” says Whicher.

“Yes, sir.” 

“The money stolen at the airport?”

“It sure looks that way.”

Whicher stares at the dull white paint on the battered sides of the truck. 

“How come nobody spotted this till now?”

“Everybody's out on the roads, Marshal. There's hardly a soul left in town. We're trying to cover a big area...”

“Yeah,” says Whicher, “the Trans-Pecos, I know. I got the low down from Sheriff Emory, out at the roadblock.” 

He kicks a boot toe against the tire of the Nissan. 

“Alright. So, the boys that pulled that robbery up in Lafayette is the same bunch tried to pull this. What do we know about it?”

“Not much. Lafayette police are sending down everything they have.”

“Know something? I just got off of the phone to some doctor. In San Antonio.”

Lieutenant Rodgers leans against the truck.

“Brooke Army Medical Center. They got a Captain up there. Former unit CO, for Gilman James.”

From the other side of the Nissan, a patrol officer calls over; “Lieutenant. There's a radio message coming in here for you, sir.”

The lieutenant steps to the Crown Vic. Squats by the car's open door.

Whicher scans the strip malls. Dollar joints. The dome of a church in the distance. 

He watches the lieutenant sitting on his haunches at the kerbside. Then reach in his car and replace the radio receiver.

“What's goin' on?”

“Some rancher just reported a vehicle abandoned. Paisano Pass. A pick-up. Blood stains on the seat.”

Whicher looks at the lieutenant.

“Louisiana license plate. A girl and two men. A young woman—pointing a shotgun at them. They took off in some truck.”

“Where y'all say this was at?”

“Paisano Pass. About ten miles west of here.”

“This rancher feller? He get a number for the truck they took off in?”

The lieutenant shakes his head. “He said they were too far off for him to see it.”

“We better get somebody the hell up there.”

“You want to put out a general alert?”

“Two guys and some gal riding in a truck?” says Whicher. “We'd have to pull half of west Texas off the road.”

“You don't want any action on it?”

“Put out the alert. And check for a description of the truck from the rancher.”

The lieutenant reaches for the radio.

I-10 intersection TX.

At the turn for I-20, I made a right. Tennille smoking in silence. We swung around a bend in the road. 

Now we could see it. I pulled over. We sat there, staring. 

“What?” she says.

“Nothing. Let me get a look, okay? Just give it a minute.”

There were people coming in and out of that gas station, a lot of people. Two interstates feeding it, state roads, farm roads. I didn’t like the way it sat there. 

I took out Michael’s SIG, slipped the magazine; Smith & Wesson .40 caliber. Fourteen rounds. 

I ran a finger up the length of the clip, felt the sheen, flexed my hand on the pistol grip. I turned to Michael, in the back of the cab. 

There was a point more life in him. His face still pale, blue eyes sunk.

“Me and her'll get out behind the gas station.”

He nodded.

“You drive the truck—back to Popeyes. You good for it?”

He pushed himself straighter in his seat. “Half a mile?” he croaks.

“All you got to do.”

Tennille took a hit on the cigarette. The set of her face hard as stone. 

She rolled the window, flicked her ash. 

I stuck the truck into drive.

“We'll park up in back,” I says, “sit a minute. See if we can get it clear. Probably won’t happen, though.” 

I pushed at the big throttle pedal.

“When I say go, you follow me inside.” 

She flashed me a look.

“Stand in the door with your shotgun. Don’t let anybody in. They see you, they probably won’t try. I’ll already have a pistol in the cashier’s face. You know I never done this before?”

“I know...”

“I don’t know what’s going to happen. We’ll take whatever we can get—but we got to be quick. Then we take a car. Any car. You drive us out.”

“Why me?”

“I’m on covering fire.”

She took the shotgun out from under her seat. Fed two slugs into the tube mag, fast—bending forward, the gun below the line of the window.

“Put it on your lap,” I says. Heart pumping.

We turned in to the gas station. Looking everywhere; at every car. 

Through the glass-front of the store, a guy and a woman were moving around inside. It looked like two cashiers behind the desk. 

I drove the truck around back, where we could just see the forecourt. Engine running, blood banging in my ears.

Another car pulls in. Sweat's running cold on me. 

Tennille's staring straight ahead. 

A green station wagon swings in from the road.

I put my hand on the door lever. Jumped from the truck.

Michael slid out from the back of the cab. He could barely stand, I had to hold him. 

He climbed in the driver's seat, pulling himself up, hanging on the wheel. 

Tennille's out of the cab, gripping her shotgun. 

Michael gives me a last look. He pulls out in the truck. 

I ran, with Tennille—straight inside.

A woman in a blue dress. A guy in a brown Stetson. 

First cashier—a black mustache, thick glasses, skinny. 

He's making change for the guy in the Stetson. I headed straight in for the desk.

Second cashier’s younger. Red hair. He clocks it first.

I've got the SIG by my side, pointed at the floor. 

The guy in the brown Stetson's taking his change, head down, stuffing dollar bills in his wallet. 

I raised the gun in the air.  “
Everybody on the floor
...” 

There’s this split second of silence. Always happens, even with soldiers. 

The guy in the Stetson looks up; frozen. 

“
This is a robbery.
” 

I showed them the gun. 

“You guys on the desk. I want all the money. Right now.”

The Stetson guy drops to the floor. The woman in the blue dress is still standing, eyes fixed on a spot behind me. 

I checked it—Tennille in the doorway, facing out on the forecourt, shotgun up to her shoulder. 

People outside are starting to stare. Some running away. Tennille shouting, “
Get the hell out of here
...”

The Stetson guy’s down on the floor already, the woman starting to get down. 

I felt the red-head kid do something, don’t ask me how—I spun to face him, his eyes locked with mine. He’s trying to reach down to something below the counter.

I put a single shot two feet to his right. Clean through the plate-glass behind him. 

He reels back. The second cashier’s staring at me through quarter-inch thick glasses. Eyes giant, magnified; unreal.

“
Get a bag. All the cash money. Put it in.
”

He grabbed a paper grocery bag. Opened it; holding it by the badge on his shirt. It read; ‘Howdy. I’m Jonah ~ always Happy to Help!’ 

His mustache twitches. Like he has to think about it.

I flicked the nose of the SIG at him. “Get it in there.”

There's something about the guy—all skin and bone, big veins on his hands. Baseball hat high up on his head. Like he ain't the full ticket.

Outside, people are trying to edge back into their cars and trucks, heads down, closing doors like they was dynamite. A radio's playing, in one of the back rooms. Christian Country. 

Tennille’s blocking the doorway. I can only see the back of her. 

At the corner of the forecourt, there's an old man by an air-line. 

I turned back to the counter, the cash-register's about empty. “Take out the tray, too.”

“How’s that?” Staring through them glasses, like a dumb beast.

“The divider...” 

The red-head's about to freak; “The
tray
, Jonah, come on, the
tray
.”

I reached over. Grabbed the tray out the cash-drawer. There’s a bunch of fifty-dollar bills underneath. 

“Everything in the bag,” I says. “Come on,
move
...”

The red-head tips it in.

“Get that other register open.” 

Jonah’s black mustache twitches again. Then he reaches into his pants pocket.

“What the fuck’re you doing?”

“
No
,” the red-head shouts, “the keys. He’s just getting the keys. It’s locked.”

“You get  'em. Get  'em out of his pocket. Eyes on me...”

He reached into Jonah’s pocket—picked out the key. Opened up.

“Empty it all in the bag.”

He tips everything in.

“What else?”

“Nothing, man,” the red-head says, “that’s everything...”

“Bullshit.” I waved the SIG closer to him.

“Most of the pumps, you got to use a
card
. That’s all they’ll take. We don't carry cash...”

I grabbed the bag. It felt light, even to me. 

“What else?” I says, “come on.”

“That’s it."

“It’s the truth, mister,” Jonah says. “Company come take the money every two hours. All the cash money...”

There’s a noise behind me. 

I turned, fired two shots in the doorway of the back room—where the radio’s playing. Chest-high and abdomen. 

Tennille swings around with her shotgun. 

Somebody’s calling out. 

The red-head saying, “Oh my God.”

I shouted at Tennille, “
Get a car
—
now
.”

She looks; then goes.

Outside, the old man drops the air-line. 

He starts walking towards us. 

I’m moving into the doorway—taking Tennille’s spot.