An American Outlaw (15 page)

I stared in her eyes—shining in the light spill from the kitchen.

“The way he lives,” she said, “is different. The edge of things. Not like us.”

“Yeah? That it?”

“You want to wait till somebody shows up, your buddy in a God damn coma, bleeding to death...”

I watched the rain falling in the headlight beams. “What is he, ex-jail bird?”

“What do you care?”

“Forget it. You really trust that son of a bitch?”

“Their law's not his.”

The door opens on the 350. Joe gets out. He stares at the two of us on the porch.
“Get the hell moving...
”

She ran a hand through her hair. “I stepped across a line.”

I watched Joe Tree standing in the dark. 

He bunched his big shoulders, shook the rain off his cape.

“You're not through,” she said. “Neither am I.”

“You keep saying that.”

“There's patrols everywhere. Joe told me. We've got to get out, right now.”

Joe turned, climbed in the truck. The dog shifting in the seat beside him.

“Connie's going out there. Get Michael,” she said, “if you want her to see him.”

I ran in the house. 

Michael had to get help. 

I'd stay ready, the hell ready. 

In the spare room, he lay sunken on the bed, a blanket half on him, half off. In the dim light from the hall I could see him breathing, labored now. “Michael,” I says.

His head moved on the pillow.

“Michael, it's Gil.”

He didn't answer.

“I've got to move you, man.”

“He's not hearing you,” Tennille, behind me.

I put a hand on his shoulder. Felt the coldness of his skin. “Shit...” I took his good arm, put it around my shoulder. “He's losing too much blood. Come on, help me get him up.”

Tennille took the weight of his right side, we lifted him, she pushed his legs off the bed.

“Get the blanket,” I says. “Put it on him.” 

His legs gave out as I pulled him against me. We dragged him out, down the hall, got him on the porch. 

We staggered to the truck. 

Joe Tree twisted all the way around in the driver's seat, his black eyes unblinking. 

I pulled Michael in the rear of the crew cab.

“I've got to close up the house,” Tennille says. She runs back.

Joe raised the bottle of Jack, took a swig, snatched it away. “She didn't shoot you,” he says. “I will.”

I didn't answer.

“I'll shoot you if you fuck her over.”

I shook my head. I would've laughed.

“Her old man Leon cut the pair of you up.” His big face leering. “See what he did to the dog?” He looked at Michael. “Carve him up, too...”

“That ain't happening.”

Joe Tree wasn't smiling no more. “Maybe he won't live that long.”

Packsaddle Mountain.

From the door of the trailer, a set of headlights snaked its way up the mountainside. Joe's place was in the hills; rough land, barely a track in. Three trailers on it. Nothing else showing in the pitch black and rain. I watched the headlights coming closer.

I heard Tennille, moving behind me in the trailer. She came and stood by me in the open door. 

I felt the closeness of her, inches away. She wore a jacket of Joe's, draped around her, like a rug. She pulled out a pack of cigarettes.

I says, “That better be her.”

She took the brushed-steel Zippo from her jeans. Sparked a flame.

“Anybody else likely to be coming up this hill?”

Tennille lit her cigarette. “Not very.”

Joe was in the second trailer. With the bottle of Jack. Messin' with a lever-action Marlin.

I told Tennille, “Keep watching.” 

I went back by Michael, laying on a canvas cot. I knelt to him, he was cold, his blond hair in clumps. He was breathing shallow. I put his hand in mine. He didn't grip it. 

When I lifted his arm, it was like a dead-weight. I laid it back by his side.

“This friend?”

Tennille took a pull on her cigarette. “She lost her license.”

“She was really a doctor?”

“Fifteen years.”

“What happened to her?”

“Too many drugs.” 

I stood up. Crossed to Tennille, at the trailer door. 

She shrugged. “A lot of folk round here need a Connie.”

I could see the vehicle now— big SUV, a beat up Chevy Tahoe.

“That's her.”

She rolls in slow between the trailers. Cuts the lights. 

The driver's door swings open, a woman gets out. She's carrying a satchel bag. Mid-forties, hair in tight brown curls.

“Over here,” Tennille calls out.

The woman runs through the rain to the trailer. She glances at me, then at Tennille. 

Up close, her eyes are quick; pained. A worn face, older than her years.

I stepped aside.

She turns to Tennille, “What's going on?”

Tennille backs into the trailer, to Michael on the cot. “Connie, this is the guy.”

She puts down her bag. Kneels by him. “Gunshot,” she says, “yes?”

Tennille nods.

I says, “There's two wounds. Right arm—where you can see. And left leg.”

“How long?”

“Two days. Monday.”

“Jesus.” She pulls the bandage from his arm. Lifts the blanket, to look at his leg.

I says, “The leg's not too bad...”

She glances at me over her shoulder. “He's in stage four hypovolemic shock.”

I just stared at her.

Tennille says, “Can you do something?”

“He needs oxygen, a drip...”

“Do you have that?”

“You've got to be kidding, honey.”

I watched her kneeling by Michael.

“He's been shot two days,” she says. “Bleeding out. Joe doesn't even have running water...”

Tennille says, “There must be something...”

Connie stands. Crosses her arms tight on her skinny chest. “Not for this.”

Terlingua.

Whicher sits on the bed at The Old Mission, watching the storm outside the window. It's late. Now there's nowhere left to go. 

He glances at the night-stand, his Ruger revolver laying flat on it; Glock still at the gun belt around his waist. 

Nothing's moving on the road outside. The room silent, except for the creak and moan of the wind. The lights are dim. There's a stillness in the motel air as he leans his weight back against the headboard, and swings up his legs. He stares at his western boots, splayed on the bed. At the tooling, lines etched deep in the leather.

His hand rests on a report. A file printed earlier in the day, back in Lt. Rodgers' office, up at Alpine.

USMC Dated xx xx 20xx

RECONNAISSANCE PATROL

Platoon Commander:
Second Lieutenant H Black

Patrol Leader
: Staff Sgt G F James

Security Team: Staff Sgt G F James

Reconnaissance Team: Sgt N Childress

Patrol Objective:
xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Movement to Depart Point: 12:24—13:00

Depart Friendly Lines/Area: 13:00

He thinks of two Marine sergeants. One a suicide. The other an outlaw.

He watches the rain on the black window. Wind pushing it upwards, in crazed patterns, against the glass.

It's two hundred miles home, to Pecos. Too late, the storm the way it is. She'll be asleep. Lori. Eight years old.

Or maybe still awake. With the sound of thunder.

Her mother would leave the door ajar. Maybe he should call. How come Leanne didn't get back anyhow, she must've picked up the message—letting her know he'd be staying out. 

Three hours up there. Four, maybe, in the rain. He thinks of two souls, as he sits alone in the motel. Two souls that never leave him.

He could've gone up. But first thing in the morning, he'd have to have been all the way back down again. 

He wouldn't have seen Lori, even if he went. Leanne wouldn't thank him any. Showing up, turning everything upside down. Disappearing again next morning. 

Forty years old, to have a first kid. Life already half done. Everything set, the routine of days, too much to do, no time ever. 

But still. One was enough. More than the sum, what folks said. A light, in all of it. 

He thinks of the doctor, at Brooke Army Medical. Dr. Zemetti.

A combat Vet puts a gun against his head. Little brother holds up an airport, three weeks later. With the same gun. Then heads out to rob the bank that used to pay his wage check.

Michael Tyler. Some bum. Gilman James. And some gas station, up in Reeves, on the interstate. 

He pulls out his cell phone. Dials the number for the Alpine police department, the number the lieutenant gave him.

It's diverting. The guy must've left.

He'd be home with his family. His right place. Whicher thinks of hanging up the call as he rubs a hand against his jaw. 

Give it another second.

It's answering.

 “Lieutenant?”

“Marshal.”

“Y'all don't mind me calling?”

“Not a problem.” 

“I'll make it fast,” he says. “That gas station? What's the word on it?”

“We've been looking at VT. I was going to call you.”

“You think it's them?”

“It could be James. It's inconclusive, but pretty close.”

Whicher sits up straighter on the bed. “We get his face?”

“They had a camera behind the counter. But it's blurry.”

Whicher stands, takes a pace around the room. 

“Send a copy of the VT to Arlington. US Marshal's headquarters. In my name. They got a bunch of IT guys out there might be able to get a confirm.”

“Okay.”

“They're using bio-markers, facial algorithms—whole bag of tricks.”

“I'll do that, Marshal.”

“Tell me what happened?”

“According to witness statements, a man and a woman showed up. Robbed the place. Stole a car. Then took off.”

“That's it?”

“Pretty much.”

“Anybody hurt?”

“Three shots fired, but no injuries. They didn't get much, either...”

“How about this woman?”

“VT only got the back of her. She had a shotgun pointed at the forecourt. Young woman, possibly Hispanic. Long hair.”

“What about vehicles?”

“Zip on that. One old-timer said he thought some truck showed up, just before. Some big truck, double cab.”

“Y'all check back with that rancher feller? At Paisano Pass. He reckoned to see a truck...”

“I've been trying to get a hold of him, asking him to call back.”

“Chase that.”

Whicher thinks of a woman and a shotgun. It's not a fit. Not with the other robberies. Childress, Tyler and James were all from Lafayette. Linked to the airport robbery, by locale at least. 

The bank at Alpine, they had Childress. But where was a gas station in that—what was the link?

“Y'all think it's just a drive by?”

“I don't know,” says Rodgers.

“Listen, I'm down in Terlingua. Noon tomorrow I'm flying out of a strip airfield in Lajitas; to Brooke AMC.”

“Brooke?”

“In San Antonio. The military medical center. CO of James' former unit is going to talk to me. I can't afford the drive-time. Say y'all know this strip? It okay?”

“I never heard it wasn't. You think you'll find anything in San Antonio?”

“My job, ain't it? Alpine and Lafayette are linked, ATF have got that right. But not this gas station. Either there's a link I can find, or it's random. Which case, we'll be picking up the pieces till we're scraping 'em off the floor.”

“How badly injured is the CO?”

“I'm guessing pretty bad.”

Neither man speaks for a moment.

“Before I go on out there, first thing tomorrow morning, I'm heading out to check on a report James' F150 has been found. Got a local guy coming to show me around. Sergeant, name of Baker. Y'all know him?”

“Yeah, he knows that area real well, the local informants, too. There's a lot on the border.”

“That's what I heard. The guy that owns the diner here reckons Gilman James was stuck Monday. With no gas.”

“Really?”

“I know. None of it stacks up. I want that F150 truck, Lieutenant. If it's out there. Everything else, we're chasing shadows.”

Packsaddle Mountain.

Joe Tree sat on a wheel rim in a trailer full of auto junk. Flush of whiskey at his face. A Marlin rifle in his hand.

“Connie's here,” I says.

He grunted. Worked a screw at the receiver on the Marlin.

“She wants to know, do you got any clean water?”

He picked up the bottle of Jack. Sat hunched on the wheel. The rifle like a toy against his big frame. “No,” he says.

Tennille's dog lay in a corner. Blood dark on its back. A single light-bulb hung from the roof. Wired to a battery from a wrecker.

“We're not staying.”

Joe took a pull at the bottle. He gave me a sour grin. Set the gun across his lap, tilted in my direction.

“Her old man really want to kill her?”

“Man wants a bullet,” Joe said. “Between the eyes.” 

He worked the lever on the rifle. Peered in the side-ejector

“We're leaving,” I says,

“Your buddy ain't going nowhere, but. He ain't making it...”

I turned my back on him. Stepped out of the trailer.

I crossed the rain-slick ground towards the first trailer, to Michael. Staring at the Chevy Tahoe. And then at Tennille's 350. Michael had to go down the hill in one of them. Either that, or he was going to die.

I'd seen it, in the field, fatalities from shock. From loss of blood.

I'd checked the rounds weren't in him, he seemed okay. The leg pretty much a deep graze; a lateral hit. But the arm had an exit wound, two ways to bleed.

I stared into the black night. Rain swirling in the ragged air. 

I'd take him down the hill, find somewhere—some place they could treat him. At least he'd live.

We were hours from the nearest town. Connie ought to know the nearest place that could take him. They'd call the cops. It was too late to do any different.