An American Outlaw (18 page)

“Lieutenant?”

“Yeah.”

“News on that gas station robbery. I think we got your perps. You send that VT to Arlington?”

“I did, Marshal, but it didn't come back yet.”

“Don't matter. Looks like we got a confirm for Gilman James. And the girl's Tennille Labrea—age twenty six.”

“I'm writing that down...”

“We found his truck. In a barn. A ranch property, middle of no place. ”

“Anybody there now?”

“No. But the ranch is occupied by her. Description fits the girl at the gas station. And seen at Paisano Pass.”

“That description was pretty loose...”

“She has a bank robber's truck parked in her barn.”

There's a pause at the end of the line. “Alright, sir. Does she have a vehicle?”

“Ford F350. I'll have Sergeant Baker radio up the details, I'm about to go pick him up. There's a daughter, second-grader. Some kind of trouble, with the father. Guy runs a haulage business, on the border. Lajitas. I'm down there now.”

“Any record on either of them?”

“On her, no. Varela's got a juvie file, according to Sergeant Baker. He runs more than drill parts south of the border...”

“That make her a gas station robber?”

“Where is she? Where's the kid? That's what I want to know.”

“Copy that,” says Rodgers.

Whicher switches out the call.

He swings the truck onto a two-lane highway. Runs along the road. Scattered buildings at either side—ocotillo and desert candle. Ahead is the low shape of the trading post. He slows up, steering toward the lot in front. Sergeant Baker waiting beneath a shaded gallery.

Whicher parks and jumps out. “Any news on the kid?”

“Child Protection Service have been up there, Marshal.”

“How come?”

“She's been cutting school. They've had anonymous reports the mother ain't fit. And ought not to be living up there.”

“You find this school teacher feller?”

“Inside, sir.”

The marshal thinks of the fire again, up at the ranch. The break-in. 

“Why's she stay living out there, you think? With her kid?”

Baker shrugs. “Her father built that place. Him and Joe Tree, what I heard on it. Guess she ain't lookin' to quit the family plot.”

A ceiling fan turns inside the darkened interior of the trading post. Whicher surveys the double room; a combination bar and general store. In one corner is a stuffed goat. Long-neck bottle of Lone Star in its upturned mouth. A painted sign above it reads: Henry Clay—Mayor of Lajitas.
'Vote for the Goat'.

Standing alone is a man in his late thirties. Rimless glasses. Sleeves rolled on a checkered shirt.

“I'm Jed Reynolds.”

Whicher steps forward. “Sergeant Baker here tell y'all what this is about?”

The man pushes the rimless glasses up his nose. “Tennille Labrea. Mother of one of my students, Maria.”

“The kid's been cuttin' school?”

Reynolds nods. “She's missed some, yes. Like I told Troy.”

“Enough for Child Protection to hear about it,” says Whicher.

“The school's obliged to make a report, if it goes beyond a certain number of days.”

“She was a regular wildcat, when they started in about her daughter,” says Baker.

“Troy,” says Reynolds, “that's not real helpful.”

“What I heard, is all.”

“There's no denying the family have had problems,” says Reynolds.

“But?” says Whicher.

“That intervention was heavy-handed and totally unnecessary.”

“Y'all here to defend her?”

Reynolds reddens.

“She is a hell of a looker, Jed,” says Baker.

A bar-keep in a cut-off T-shirt comes out from in back. He eyes the sergeant in his uniform. Whicher. The suit, big hat. 

“Gentlemen. I get you something?”

“Just business,” says Whicher. “Another time.” 

The cooling air from the ceiling fan washes over him. Reynolds shifts his weight from one foot to another.

“Considering the harassment from the father it's not surprising there have been problems.”

“What harassment?”

“He wants his daughter. He's made all manner of threats.”

Whicher turns to Sergeant Baker. “Any of that make its way to police?”

Reynolds cuts in; “There's a perception round here it wouldn't make any difference.”

“Hey, Jed,” says Baker, “she didn't file any report.”

“She knows nothing'll happen.”

Whicher folds his arms across his chest. “Don't start in, that kind of crap.”

“A lot of families around here are different,” says Reynolds. “Not exactly conventional.”

Whicher glances at the stuffed animal in the corner. “No shit.”

“Is Tennille in trouble?”

“Could be.”

“Am I allowed to ask in what way?”

“Armed robbery.”

The school teacher's face blanches. “Good Lord. I didn't realize, Troy.”

“Heavy-handed or not,” Whicher says, “the law is the law.”

Reynolds stares at the bare floorboards through his glasses. “There's no mother more committed to her daughter in my school. I hope you're wrong about Tennille, Marshal.”

“Yeah. Keep hoping.”

“If Maria ends up losing her mother, whatever chance she had in life gets snuffed out pretty early.”

Whicher chews on the side of his lip. Thinks of Lori, his little girl, back home.

 “Everybody I ever busted is a nice guy. Or girl. I'm the son-of-a-bitch gets the job cleaning up after 'em.”

The teacher looks past the marshal, to the far corner of the room. “I do a little cleaning up the mess myself. Not everybody voted for the goat...
”

Antelope Mesa.

We followed Joe Tree's Dakota over a wide desert plain. Tennille driving the 350—Joe's truck kicking up a rooster cloud of dust ahead. 

I watched the waves of heat bending the horizon. Thought of Michael. He should've never joined the Corps. 

Nineteen years old, blond haired, blue-eyed, what he was then. Girls fighting over him. Living the life. 

Connie had him now. A doc with no license—no license and a taste for crank. Whatever happened, I'd get him out.

The Corps was Nate's thing. Nate Childress, best Marine you ever saw. He was always going in, from day one, ever since I knew him. 

Me, I had nothing better, that's all it was. My mother dead, no father. Only family Nate and Michael. And maybe Orla—Nate's girl, from second grade. We grew up a part of each other's lives. Closer than blood.

Michael joined six months behind us. He was kicked back, then some—a typical southern guy. But he put himself to catching up, he told me. First time in his life he ever really tried.

I scanned the flat-topped hills in the distance. 

Tennille watched the rear-view. She checked behind every few seconds.

She was something. Hiding her daughter in the desert, an outpost like that. I thought of Orla Childress. Two kids to feed. Some ways they weren't so different, one from the other. Her and Tennille.

I glanced at her, silent, steering the truck. 

Up ahead, Joe started making a turn, moving out, away on the right flank. Tennille drove on towards him. 

The Dakota was stopping, dust swirling around it. 

Tennille hit the brakes. She stopped the truck.

It was the middle of nowhere. Miles from any road.

She's looking at me.

I pulled the SIG from my jacket.

“You don't need that.”

“What the hell are you doing?”

She says, “Getting out.”

“You're taking me to see Michael.”

“No, Gil.”

I held the pistol level. “You told me we were going to see him...”

Out the window of the truck, Joe Tree's standing with his rifle.

“I told you that,” she said. “But we're not doing it.”

“The fuck we ain't.”

She says, “Can we get out?”

Joe swings the rifle to his hip. He points it in the cab of the 350, right at me.

I sat a foot apart from her in the truck cab. Hardly breathing. 

“What do you want?”

“I want to get out of this truck.” She put a hand on the door lever. “Are you going to let me?”

Her twelve gauge was propped between us, between the two front seats. She didn't try to reach it. 

She pushed open her door. 

I tracked her with my pistol. 

Joe held the rifle at his hip, pointed straight at my chest.

I slid out, held the SIG on Joe.

Tennille looks at me. “Nobody's shooting anybody.”

I didn't answer.

Joe Tree only grunted.

“I'll take you to Michael,” she says. “But not today.” 

She stepped away slow, eyes on mine. Till her back was against the battered sides of Joe's Dakota. 

“Michael's supposed to be pulling a robbery with you tomorrow.” She shaded her eyes against the sun. “Now he can't.”

I looked from her to Joe. “This your idea?”

“My idea would be shoot your ass.”

“Yesterday,” Tennille says, “I turned my life upside down.”

I kept the SIG on Joe. 

He watched me with shining eyes. Long hair loose, black as a crow's wing.

“I robbed a gas station,” she said. “I've got to get the hell out—to Mexico, with my daughter.”

“I want to see Michael.”

She held her hand to the glare of light. “I crossed a line. No going back.”

“Let me see him.”

She just looked at me. “You'd rob the next place alone,” she said. “If you had any choice. We're taking Joe's truck.”

I turned to him. “Yeah?”

He gave me a sick-looking smile.

“Joe's switching with us.”

He grunts, “She might as well hang for more than gas money.”

“Then what?”

She says, “I want half.”

I laughed. No sound came out, though.

“After, Joe can meet us. I'll take you to Michael. That's it.”

In her eyes I saw the streak of sadness. For the first time, behind the lick of flame.

“How about you, Joe,” I says. “Ready to pull the house in on yourself?”

He stood by his truck, some thought working inside. He held the Marlin rifle flat. Pointed it at the horizon, sweeping a line along it. “Take a good look around...”

“At what?”

He cracked his mean smile. “That's just it.”

I turned to Tennille. “You getting any of him?”

She took a pace from the Dakota. “What he means,” she says, “is nobody's coming.”

“What?”

“Nobody's coming to help.”

Joe set the rifle at his hip. The muzzle gaping towards me. “My kind no more than hers.”

I stood facing the pair of them. Gripped  the SIG, desert sun at my back..

All she said was; “Yes or no?”

CHAPTER 21

Brooke Army Medical Center, San Antonio.

A plastic chair. A waiting room. The office of Dr. Benjamin Zemetti. Neat magazines, a coffee table, pot plants. 

Whicher takes off the tan Resistol. Reads the posters on the cream colored walls. Group healthcare, family counseling. Support numbers. There's a giant pin board, with upcoming events. Wheelchair basketball. A surfing clinic for amputees.

The door of Zemetti's office opens. A silver-haired man in his sixties emerges.

“Marshal? If you'd like to follow me?”

Whicher grabs the Resistol.

“Captain Black is down at the neuro care facility.” 

The doctor steps into a well-lit corridor.

“I could use a walk.”

The corridor stretches out, silent, under squares of light. Whicher tries not to think of the melancholy pull waiting, somewhere just out of reach. 

Twenty years gone, his own time, 3rd Armored Cavalry. All different. The Persian Gulf War. Six months, start to finish. 

No multiple tours, no bombs, no civilians, no kids with C4 taped to their bodies.

He thinks of the report again. A reconnaissance patrol. 

“Don't suppose y'all get a lot of visits from law enforcement.”

“You'd be surprised, Marshal.”

The two men reach a set of stairs descending to an open plan area. Floor to ceiling windows, flooded with afternoon light. There are men in wheelchairs, on crutches. Reading the sports pages, drinking coffee. A terrible asymmetry. Bodies missing arms, missing legs.

“Some of the people we deal with have a highly diverse mix of problems,” says Zemetti.

The room runs on, section after section. Stretching scale to the distance.

Whicher looks at the doctor, a question in his face.

“They can be hard to predict.”

Ahead is a reception desk, manned by two Army nurses. 

Zemetti leads Whicher past it to a circular ante-room, a smaller unit, leading off into private suites. He stands before a wood-veneered door. Knocks sharply.

“This is Captain Black's room. And Marshal, I have to ask you not to show any outward sign of distress at the captain's physical appearance. Also, you may need to adapt any questions to fit the situation here.”

Whicher nods. “Is everything alright with this?”

“Yes.” The doctor meets his look. “Well, no. But you'll see...”

Inside the private suite, at a picture window, a man, silhouetted, watches the leaves moving on the trees in the wind. 

From the threshold of the room Whicher sees the motorized wheelchair. The back of the man's head. No left arm. No legs.

The doctor leads Whicher to the center of the room. 

“Good afternoon,” he calls out. “How's it going, Cap?”

The man still stares out of the window. He wears an olive T-shirt, one sleeve flat against his side. “There's two birds in the tree over there. Yesterday there were no birds.”

“We have a visitor. The Marshal—wanting to speak with you?”

The man moves his fingers on the armrest of the wheelchair. It swivels to face the room. 

Whicher sees the burns that have consumed the man's face. Erasing the features once there. The hair line, at the front is raised, grafted. A reconstructed nose and lips. Too small for the dimensions of the skull. 

Whicher shows no reaction.

“Can we sit?” Zemetti asks.