An American Outlaw (21 page)

“A guy I grew up with, went to war with. He came back. Severe TBI.”

I stared along the photographs on the near wall. In one polished frame, a young soldier with a canvas kit-bag. A Forties uniform. Grinning, by a roadside garage.

“After,” I said, “he lived on a farm. Near here.”

I stared at the grin on the young soldier's face. Square set of his shoulders. Behind him, a workshop. Tractor wheels. Metal rack of tires.

“We grew up in Lafayette,” I says. “Nate, his name was. After he got hurt, he came here. His wife had family, grandparents that owned a farm. They retired, Nate and Orla moved out. Took it on.”

“They say that's a hard life.”

From the corner of my eye I could see the counter guy. He'd seen me staring at the photograph. 

He walked towards our table—wiping a beer glass with his cloth. 

“That there's my old man,” he says. “Just back. After World War Two.”

“Fine picture,” I says.

“They came home, the world was a better place.”

Alongside the black and white photograph was a color photo, newly taken. Another soldier. In a desert uniform. I recognized the blue and white square on the sleeve. 

“3rd Infantry.”

“My son,” he says.

“They were out in Iraq...”

“Three times,” he says. He looks at me; “You?”

“Marine Corps,” I said. “Four tours, I'm done now. When's he coming back?”

The guy put a hand on my arm. I felt its slight pressure. And he took it away.

He stood in front of his rows of photographs. Hard wind rattling against the windows. He reached up, straightened the frame of the color picture. Glass cloth trailing from his hand.

“I buy you one?”

“How's that?”

“Cup of coffee,” I says.

He stepped away from the picture. Nodded. “Sure.”

He turned. Walked on back to the counter.

Tennille looks at me. A frown of question in her face.

I says, “You want to ask him?”

She shook her head.

He brings over another cup of coffee. Tennille made a space on the diner seat.

“Wild ol' night,” I says.

“Yes, sir.”

“Ain't great for business. Don't suppose.”

He shakes his head. “Wind and rain ain't the problem. I seen worse.”

“We were out riding,” Tennille says. “Couldn't hardly see.”

“It'll do that. This time of year.”

I tried to think of something guys from around there might talk about. “Guess the farmers get a bunch of water. If nothin' else.”

“Farmers all gone,” he shrugs. “Leastways, the ones I knew.”

I nodded.

“Got all them super-farms now,” he says. “Don't know who owns 'em even. No idea. Folk back east.” 

He straightens the menu card. Wipes at a loose grain of salt on the table. 

“People worked 'emselves to the bone. Them parcels of land...”

I says, “You had the place a while?”

“Grandaddy started it. The Great Depression. Just a roadside garage, it was then.”

“Long time. I guess a lot changed.”

“Everybody's broke. Same as then.”

I rubbed at my chin.

“Grandaddy's time, so many folk were on the road, looking for work, oftentimes, he'd fix their cars, charge 'em nothing.”

“That right?”

“Gramma'd cook by the side of the road. Before the diner got built. She fed 'em, waved 'em away again. Couldn't take a cent.” 

The guy stares unfocused, out the window. He drains his cup of coffee, leans forward on the table-top.

 “I don't reckon there'll be a fourth generation.”

“Maybe things can come good again,” says Tennille.

“I ain't no different from anybody, ma'am. Nowadays, it's all chains, ain't it? Big ol' chains. Restaurants, hotels. Even the damn farms.” He slid out of the booth. “Elsewise, a man might stand a hope.”

He turned back to his counter. 

We broke off looking at each other. Set to finishing our food. 

A score of weathered faces stared down from the photographs, eyes like glass, caught in a moment. Who could step out of the stream, slip the frame.

I thought of the border. High hills in the wind.

“What about Joe Tree?” I said.

“Joe?”

“Where's he fit?”

“He's his own man,” she says. “He's got his horses. His land. People say he talks with the dead.”

“Oh, they say that?”

“You think he cares a damn?”

I reached inside my jacket to a bundle of scrunched up bills. And thought of that gun. In my pocket. And all the things inside me, that pulled at my gut. 

I took out a fifty spot, trapped it under my cup.

 “Come on,” I says, “let's get the hell out of here.”

I looked back to the counter, but the guy's already gone. I pushed the big glass door open against a blast of wind and rain. 

We ran—back to the Dakota. Got in. 

I fired her up. Cranked the wipers full.

Tennille grabbed a cigarette. Pulled the lighter from her hunter's jacket.

I stuck the Dakota in drive. Headed her back out, on the highway—bagged it down the soaking road.

“What's burning you?” she says.

I glanced at her in the glow of the dash.

She sparked the flame. Lit the cigarette.

“I came back.”

She snapped the Zippo shut.

“Expecting what?”

I stared out at the dark land. With no answer.

She takes a hit. “It's not out there,” she says.

In the rear-view, I could see the last specks of light that still showed, in all of that blackness. Shining, from the diner. Its brave neon lights. About to disappear, consumed by night.

“War's not out there,” she says.

I watched it going, to nothing.

To nothing.

The red, white and blue.

CHAPTER 23

US Marshal's Office. Western Division, TX.

A third floor window. Friday morning, coming in hard. Across a tarmac lot, thin trees throw scant shade in the bright heat. Whicher's gaze drifts across the empty parking spaces. A water tower on the skyline. Past the donut shack, cars are starting to pull in from the strip. To America's Pizza. Welcome to lunch.

Whicher sits on a corner of his desk. Under flat light, in the hum of office machinery. A faint headache, from last night, still working on him.

Leanne had come out—met him, picked him up, when the Cessna got in. His wife but not his daughter. No Lori. 

Her best friend had invited her over; Leanne already told her yes. No knowing if he'd be home, or not, or when. Same as it ever was. And so he'd seen her ten minutes, before bed. Stole another minute while she brushed her teeth. Leanne trying to get her down, tired, wrung out. While he chased his ass around the country.

Somewhere, they were out there.

Brooke. Brooke'd got him down. 

Not the hospital, not the injured. A sense of something that lingered, unformed. His war was short; the Persian Gulf. Now everything was unending. 

When Lori had called down, awake, he'd gone up grateful. To sit in the dark, on the floor, his back against her bed. And listen to her breathing. Close his eyes.

There's a knock, at the open office door. “Yeah,” he calls out, “'mon in.”

US Marshal Reuben Scruggs enters the room.

At sixty-one, the skin of Reuben Scruggs' face is like waxed leather. Tan saddle leather. Eyes that seem to dance with mischief. He wears a suit, a crisp collar with a shoestring neck-tie. In one hand he swings a high-top black Stetson, the hatband marking a deep line in the cropped white hair about his scalp.

“Mornin' to you, John.”

“Good morning, sir.” Whicher pulls out a chair by the desk.

“Y'all looking to keep me here a piece?”

“Be just as quick as I can.” He picks up the sheaf of notes on the desk. Squares 'em.

Marshal Scruggs sits. His back straight. A little stiff. “I'm up to fixin' a pit-roast this weekend. Mrs Scruggs got her sister comin' by.”

Whicher nods, “I heard that.”

“Am I going to see you in Church, Sunday?”

“If I get the time.”

Scruggs places his hat on top of one knee. “Y'all ride up from Alpine?”

“I flew into Pecos last night. Out of San Angelo. Account of that damn monsoon.”

Scruggs gives a grunt. “I heard Alpine police department released all the cruisers to regular duty?”

“Border Patrol are keeping watch.”

“Okay, John. So, where we at?”

Whicher scratches at his temple. “Last solid lead was twenty-four hours back. Thursday. Outside Terlingua.”

“Y'all found this boy's truck.”

“Ford F150, yes, sir. In a girl's barn.”

“We got her for an accomplice?”

“Sure looking that way.”

Marshal Scruggs nods. “Y'all think this situation is ongoing. Like ATF say?”

Whicher pinches the bridge of his busted nose. “I get the feeling I'm about to get burned.”

“I'm division Marshal, right? My ass, then. You're the investigator, do your job.”

Whicher nods. Reaches for the top sheet of paper on his desk. “First up, we're confirming Gilman James on that gas station robbery at the interstate. Wednesday.”

“You got evidence?”

“Strictly speaking; circumstantial.”

“What about that CCTV?”

Whicher leans his head on one side. “Not good enough to take to court.”

“This girl ride him out there?”

“Tennille Labrea.”

“She help pull the robbery?”

“Matches the witness statements, yes, sir.”

“Any direct evidence?”

Whicher shakes his head. “It's them, but...”

“Yeah, I get it, John.”

“We found a car belonging to a Michael Tyler. Abandoned outside Alpine. Blood all over it. Tyler's former Marine Corps; I found out, at Brooke. He served with Gilman James. We think Tyler's the guy that escaped from the bank. Alpine police confirmed the blood type with USMC.”

Scruggs' eyes dance in the creases of his face. “Tell me something? Anybody catches these birds, they any reason not to take 'em down? With both barrels.”

“They're armed and dangerous. No reason to cut 'em any slack.”

“Alright.” Marshal Scruggs looks around the room. “I like to know, is all.”

“I found out at Brooke that Michael Tyler was invalided out along with the brother of Steven Childress. Direct result of some patrol. James was still in the service till six months back. But prior to discharge, they were seeing him—disaffected. He had a lot of friends got hurt. I guess it's just bad luck. But a lot of free time, he ends up spending on hospital visits.”

Scruggs flicks the brim of his black Stetson. “Not sure I follow.”

“I don't know,” says Whicher. “Maybe I been thinking on it too much.”

“I want y'all thinking. What about this Labrea girl?”

“She's got trouble with her ex. There's a kid involved. Threats, the husband wants the kid. I can't find a connection to any Marines...”

“Her place empty now?”

“No sign of her. No sign of the kid.”

“Anyone watching the place?”

“There's not enough manpower. She has a 350 truck—police are looking for it.”

Marshal Scruggs lifts the Stetson off his knee. He flips it over, holds it upside down peering into the high crown. “Feller that sold me this hat told me the weave is tight enough to catch rain in. This here felt.”

Whicher rubs the back of his neck.

Scruggs flips the hat back over again. “Take a drink out of it, you've a mind to.”

“Fine hat, sir.”

“Only damn thing in here holds water.” Scruggs raises an eyebrow. “What else?”

“There's a neighbor. Native American. Name of Joe Tree. I tried to pick him up. Owner of the gas station in Terlingua told me it was this guy found that F150.”

“Y'all got him in this somewhere?”

“I don't know. Record shows he owns a Dodge Dakota pick-up. No sign of it, when I searched his property. I put out an alert for it...”

“That don't get us anywhere.”

“James could've stolen it?” says Whicher. “Maybe he got out that way, with Tyler.”

Marshal Scruggs blows the air from his cheeks.

“Brewster County sheriff's office has a sergeant, name of Baker, bringing up my truck, from Alpine.”

Scruggs looks at him.

“Then I'll get back out there. For what it's worth, I think they're on the move, after pulling something else.

“Why's that?”

“Kind of fire and maneuver.”

“It's what?”

The phone rings in Whicher's office.

“Go ahead and take it,” says Marshal Scruggs.

“Whicher. Hello.” 

He pushes his chair back from the desk. Stands. Walks to the window.

Scruggs' sharp eyes search Whicher's face.

“Y'all are
where
now?” 

He grabs a pen. 

“When was this?” He scrawls something on a sheet of paper on the desk. “How come I'm only hearin' it now?” 

He listens a moment longer. And snaps off the call. 

“Two hours ago, a Tom Green County patrol car spotted a blue Dodge Dakota. Partial read on the plate. But fitting the description. They left a message for me back in Alpine. Thinking I was there. You believe that?”

“How come nobody called?”

“Desk clerk at Alpine was waiting on Sergeant Baker coming in.”

“But y'all had him up and drive your truck here,” says Scruggs. “John, the Lord sent his own son to walk the earth. But you got to ride in that Silverado?”

“Three hours closer to San Angelo, ain't I?”

“See, them smarts of yourn is what I like...”

Jackson Fork.

An abandoned farmhouse at the end of a tree-lined track. Rotting Santa Fe freight car across the field. 

Through a broken window of the empty house, I could see the Dodge Dakota, parked in back. Hidden from view. 

Two hours. Two hours waiting on the money van from Jackson Fork.

The weatherboarding on the farmhouse was shot. Paint peeled. Flaking. Dirty streaks running off the nailheads. Pieces of the shingle roof hung down, to swing in the wind. The porch was still good enough to take a man's weight. But the steps were gone—burned at a corner of the yard.