An American Outlaw (14 page)

The day of the patrol his company was maybe four miles up the Euphrates, from where we were. Neither Nate or me would've lived, if not for Michael.

Let him rest.

I left his bedside, crossed to the back of the room, to the small table I'd left the pistol on. 

The SIG was gone. She'd taken it.

I walked from the room, sat out on the front porch. Tried to think. 

If I challenged her, how would it go? 

I watched the track leading from her property. Listening to the wind, stomach screwed tight.

I took a walk. Light fading minute by minute. 

I crossed the sloping field in front of the house, reached the barn, stared inside—into the dark interior. My truck. The busted lock. I put it out of my mind. 

I went back up the field again, to the house. And sat on the front porch. Thought of Leon, the gun.

It was close on eight. Wind lifting dirt off the ground. Juice in the air. I could smell it, feel it.

 In the sky, over the mountains, flat bursts of dull light. Dry lightning.

I thought of the robbery. Two shots I fired in the doorway of the back room. Trying to make myself see it—what was there.

I heard the door creak behind me.

Tennille came out. She was wearing a red sleeveless-shirt; the skin of her bare arms velvet-dark. Her hair loose; a black swathe. Silver bracelets at her wrists. 

No SIG. She stood watching me.

“Where's the dog?”

“Out there,” she says, “somewhere. He won't come in.”

“You think he'll be alright?”

She didn't answer.

“You count the money yet?”

“Five thousand, three hundred and eight dollars.” Running a hand through her black hair.

“This daughter?” I says.

“What about her?”

“Where is she?”

Tennille sat. “Somewhere safe,” she says. 

“Some place her father doesn't know?” 

She let her gaze run out to the distance. Staring into near darkness. “I crossed a line today.”

I put my hand up to the bruise on my skull. “Last night. You really thought...”

“I knew you weren't any hiker. After I hit you, I searched you.”

I thought of the M9 Beretta. Nate's gun. It'd been in my jacket, somewhere at the back of the house. She hadn't found it.

She shivered softly. “I think a storm’s headed in.”

This feeling came over me, from way back. Something I used to think on; wonder on. First time I remember it was my first morning F.L.O.T. The forward line of troops. Our unit came under attack. And I learned what it felt like to have another human being try to kill you. I mean
kill
you, do everything in their power. How strange it was. Different from anything you'd imagine. The speed. Guile. The absolute intent.

Afterward, this feeling, this strange mix. Wondering what the hell we just did. Empty sky overhead, smoke hanging. The smell of burning. Hunkered in the rubble of a stone wall. Watching dust falling out of the air. Everything changed. Everything still the same. Wondering what was the difference? 

She was looking at me. I could feel her staring at the side of my face. 

“What is it?”

I shook my head.

“Those shots?” she said. “Those two shots you fired?”

I thought of the moment I span around, firing. The blank doorway in the gas station. The speed.
Absolute intent
.

I thought of the big-veined hands on that cashier. His dumb face. Giant eyes, hardly blinking.

She said, “You couldn't see what you were shooting at? You don't know what happened?”

“Sometimes it's like that.”

Wondering what the hell we just did.

“What are you supposed to do with that?”

I didn't have an answer.

We sat. Darkness coming in all round us. Breeze blowing up a gust, dropping again. 

I could smell rain.

“Being out here takes me back,” I said. “Overseas. The desert.”

“You think a lot about the past?”

“I guess,” I said. “It just won’t quit.”

I watched a fork of lightning spit white in the distance. Felt the pressure fall, set my shoulders against the dark. The first sound of thunder came. It was far off, rolling, barking around the mountains.

Down by my boot, yellow-head flowers of a rocknettle set trembling. I dragged a line in the dirt with my heel. “You think he could come back?”

She nodded. Lit a cigarette with a kitchen match. Her face in the flame glow. Like the first time I saw her.

“Tonight?”

“Maybe.”

“I ask you something? About him?”

She threw the match out into darkness. I watched it trace this arc of orange light. It guttered on the ground. For a second it caught again, then it was gone. 

“If you want.”

“You live here together?”

“Most of my life, I've lived here. We had horses.” She pointed across the dark flats at the side of the house. “The Labrea Ranch. We had about thirty.”

“Why'd you stop?”

“Poppa left. They left with him. It's not the same, now they're gone.”

I watched her smoke.

Rain came. At first it fell sparse, in heavy drops. In the dark, I watched it spread out on the parched wood of the porch floor. The wind came up, an edge in it.

She eased herself up off the steps. Shoved her hands in her jeans. “I'm going inside.”

Rain started to hiss on the ground. I wanted to be in it. I could feel the wetness on my clothes, as the wind blew sideways under the porch. I didn't care. I waited. Still looking out.

It got later.

It was a storm now, regular storm. I moved out of the light from the window of the house. 

As the rain fell, and bounced up again, a mist rose up, like smoke. I thought of her 870 Remington. I could get it, keep watch. Tell her. In case of Leon.

I could put a line-of-fire to the perimeter, all the way out to the edge of the property. With that choke she had.

A burst of lightning split on the nearest hill; not a quarter mile distant. Something moved, at the edge of my sight.

I snapped my head around, strained to see through the dark—past the straight-edge of a fence broken up by ocotillo. The desert came right up to the house, but there was a mess of brush and scrub for cover. It wasn't any animal. I thought I'd seen the outline of a head. 

I jumped off the porch, kept low, ran towards it.

I was unarmed, but if I broke off I’d lose it. Keep the contact. 

I slipped down the line of the fence. Tried to listen above the hammering rain. 

I picked a stone up from the wet dirt; the size of my palm, slippery in my hand. Sharp on one side, like a blade.

A black shape stepped out from a clump of brush. 

I was looking into a snub-nose. With rain dripping off.

I stood staring as the black figure stepped in closer—gun-arm motioning at me. I could see his eyes, a sort of grin in them, like a wolf. He wasn’t smiling, though. 

 “Man, put your hands on your head.”

I did it.

“Where is she?”

For a second, we stood squinting at each other in the pouring rain, the snub-nose-38 the judge of both of us.

I jerked my head in the direction of the house.

He stabbed the gun arm toward me. “Let's see her. Move.”

I thought of going for the gun—I'd have to pick the moment. 

We started to walk back, through the rain, feet sticking in the wet ground. 

Every step, he kept a pace out of reach. We came to the porch.

“Get her,” he said. His voice harsh, grating.

“You want to see her?”

He grunted.

“She ain’t expecting nobody...”

“Call her.”

I climbed the porch steps. Opened up the door. Shouted inside; “
Tennille
.”

I heard her answer; “Hold on...”

I stepped away from the door—tried to edge up closer to him.

“Stand against the wall,” he barks.

Tennille came out. She stopped, mouth open; staring at the two of us. 

Light from the window spilled out on the porch. I could finally see him. He had a big, flat face. Mean eyes—hard to read. Long black hair, all tied back. He was rough looking; like a bar brawler. I guessed around forty.

I’d seen him, somewhere—I felt like I’d seen him before. 

He was Native American. Indian. From his size I’d have said he was an outdoor man, a physical guy. A rain soaked cape draped his chest and shoulders. The pistol too small in his big hands.

Then I remembered. The motel pool.
It was the guy I'd seen back in the pool.

“Joe?” she says.

“You alright?” 

“What’re you doing here? What’s going on?”

“I came for my horse
.
Esteban told me you had her...”

There was just the sound of rain on the porch roof, drumming down. Nobody moving.

“I called up Esteban,” Tennille said. “Since you don't have any phone...”

He stared at her.

“You want to put the gun away? Joe?”

He shook his head. “You got yourself a mess of trouble.” 

He scowled in my direction, eyes like black stone—the .38 locked onto me. 

“Yesterday,” he says, “I was up to the Gatlin spring. There's been deer. They coming up for water.”

She's just watching him.

“A couple miles from there, I found something. Something shouldn’t never have been there. I found me a
truck
.” 

His eyes searched mine for a reaction.

“Joe...”

He held up a hand to hush her—like he didn’t want to hear her try and lie. “This morning, I was down to Terlingua. There's talk. About a raid, Monday, at Alpine.”

Tennille's face was blank in the light from the house. 

“I heard the cops is looking for that truck...”

“Joseph,” said Tennille, “did you tell anyone?”

“I was coming to get my horse,” he said. “I came by the barn there...” He raised the barrel of the .38 an inch towards my chest. Eyes on mine.

I held his look.

“I saw it in there,” he says.

Nobody said nothing. There's just the rain, siling in on the roof. 

I had to get Michael. Get him out fast.

The man straightens his gun arm a fraction at me. “Hey. Don't be making no move.”

“This is my neighbor,” Tennille says. “Joe Tree.”

“Hey, Joe.”

All he give me was a fuck-you stare.

“Joe lives out the other side of the hill,” she said. “There’s no need for that. For the gun...”

“Hell they ain't.”

“Can we at least go inside?”

He shifted his weight. The rain-soaked cape dripping water at his feet.

“At least come out of the storm,” she said.

He waved the .38 at me. “Move.”

He made me walk in front of him, into the house. 

Inside, in the kitchen we edged to opposite walls, under the bare light. Tennille set a bottle of Jack on the table. Like it all was a regular evenin’.

He's staring at me across the room. 

“I seen you,” he says. “The motel. The day of the power outage.”

I nodded.

“You were in the pool.” He looked uncertain. Then, to Tennille; “I went to fix the roof, for Molly Kane.”

“At the RV park?”

“The power went. Couldn’t cut no lumber.” He made a face like he bit on a sour apple. “What I heard; the guy they searching for was one of them done Alpine. I seen him Monday, my own two eyes...”

“Look, Joe,” she said.

He stared at me.

“Can we talk?”

He gripped the revolver in his big hand. Didn't answer, looked from me back to her.

“You and me?” she says. “Just a minute, on our own...”

His eyes shifted a fraction. But the gun held level.

She reached for the bottle of Jack. Filled three glasses to the brim. “Gil; you want to leave us alone?”

I picked a blanket off the chair back in front of me. Pulled it on my wet shoulders. 

His eyes met mine, then cut to Tennille.

She put a shot glass of bourbon in my hand. “Get some air...”

I stepped out slowly from the room. Walked to the porch. Set the glass of Jack on the floorboards. 

Then jumped, and ran to her truck.

I wrenched open the door—no keys. 

I ran back to the house, got up on the porch, stood listening to the sound of their voices. 

We never should've come—what were the chances anybody else knew? What would they do, send a car up—a lone car. Wait; put a team together? They probably wouldn't wait. 

I heard a chair scrape across the floor.

Tennille came out. 

She stood in the doorway, in front of me. “We can’t stay here tonight.” 

She turned, stepped to the side.

Joe Tree walked out behind her. Instead of a gun, he held a set of keys in one hand. The bottle of Jack in the other. 

He stomped off the porch, towards her truck. 

Tennille's dog ran out from somewhere in the dark as he opened up the cab. He climbed inside, the dog leaping in beside him.

I turned to Tennille. She's just watching him.

He started up the truck. Snapped on the lights. Rain shining silver in the beams.

I looked at her; “What the fuck is going on?”

CHAPTER 17

“Get Michael,” she says. “We're leaving.”

I says, “You want to go
with
him?”

She stepped to me. Grabbed my arm. “You want your friend to get help?”

“We ain't going nowhere.”

“Joe's got a piece of land—he says it's not safe here.”

“The hell is it to him?”

She let go my arm. Took a step back. “I already called Connie. She's coming out. Coming to Joe's.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“His place makes here look like 6
^th
Street, Austin.” She stared at me. “You want to just sit and wait all night?”

“He's offering to
help
?”

“Not you,” she said. “Me.”

I watched him sitting in her 350 truck. His big frame, black outline at the wheel. 

“Does he know?”

She nodded.

“About the gas station? You told him?”

“I told him I'm in trouble.”