Life or Death (3 page)

Another key slides into a lock. The hinges barely squeak. Two new guards take custody. Moss is ordered to strip down. Shoes. Pants. Shirt.

‘Why you in here, asshole?’

Moss doesn’t answer.

‘He aided an escape,’ says the other guard.

‘I did no such thing, suh.’

The first guard motions to Moss’s wedding ring. ‘Take it off.’

Moss blinks at him. ‘The regulations say I can keep it.’

‘Take it off or I’ll break your fingers.’

‘It’s all that I got.’

Moss closes his fist. The guard hits him twice with the baton. Help is summoned. They hold Moss down and continue to hit him, the blows sounding oddly muted and his swelling face wearing a strange look of astonishment. Falling under the blows, he grunts and gargles blood as a boot presses his head to the floor where he can smell the layers of polish and sweat. His stomach lurches, but the ribs and mashed potatoes stay down.

When it’s over they toss him in a small cage of woven steel mesh. Lying on the concrete, not moving, Moss makes a wet noise in his throat and wipes blood from his nose, rubbing it between his fingertips where it feels like oil. He wonders what lesson he’s supposed to be learning.

Then he thinks of Audie Palmer and the missing seven million dollars. He hopes Audie has gone for the money. He hopes he spends the rest of his life sipping pina coladas in Cancun or cocktails in Monte Carlo. Screw the bastards! The best revenge is to live well.

3

Just before dawn the stars seem brighter and Audie can pick out the constellations. Some he can name: Orion and Cassiopeia and Ursa Major. Others are so distant they’re bringing light from millions of years ago, as though history were reaching across time and space to shine upon the present.

There are people who believe their fates are written in the stars, and if that’s true then Audie must have been born under a bad sign. He’s not a believer in fate or destiny or karma. Nor does he think that everything happens for a reason and that luck evens itself out over a lifetime, falling a little here and there like it comes from a passing raincloud. In his own heart he knows that death could find him at any moment and that life is about getting the next footstep right.

Untying the laundry bag, he takes out a change of clothes: jeans and a long-sleeved shirt that he stole from one of the guards who left a gym bag in his unlocked car. He pulls on socks and laces his feet into his wet boots.

After burying his prison clothes, he waits until the eastern horizon is edged in orange before he begins walking. A creek crosses a narrow gravel wash, feeding the reservoir. Mist clings to the lower ground and two herons stand in the shallow water, looking like lawn ornaments. The mud banks are pockmarked with holes made by nesting swallows that flit back and forth, barely brushing the surface of the water. Audie follows the creek until he comes to a dusty farm track and a single-lane bridge. He sticks to the road, listening for vehicles and watching for clouds of dust.

The sun comes up, red and shimmering above a line of stunted trees. Four hours later, water is a memory and the blazing orb is like a welder’s flame against the back of his neck. Dust cakes every wrinkle and hollow of his skin and he’s alone on the road.

Past midday, he climbs a rise, trying to get his bearings. It looks like he’s crossing a dead world that some ancient civilization has left behind. The trees are huddled along the old watercourses like herded beasts, and heat shimmers off a flatland that is threaded with motorbike tracks and turkey trails. His khaki pants are hanging low and there are hoops of sweat beneath his arms. Twice he has to hide from passing trucks, slipping and sliding down loose rocks and shale, crouching behind brush or boulders. Stopping to rest, he sits on a flat rock and remembers the time his daddy chased him around the yard because he caught him stealing milk money from people’s doorsteps.

‘Who put you up to it?’ he demanded to know, twisting Audie’s ear.

‘Nobody.’

‘Tell me the truth or I’ll do worse.’

Audie said nothing. He took his punishment like a man, rubbing the welts on his thighs and seeing the disappointment in his daddy’s eyes. His older brother Carl watched from the house.

‘You did good,’ Carl said afterwards, ‘but you shoulda hid the money.’

Audie climbs back onto the road and continues walking. During the afternoon he crosses a sealed road with four lanes and follows it from a distance, taking cover when traffic blows past. In another mile he comes to a dirt track curving north. In the distance, along the rutted road, there are mud tanks and pumps. A derrick is silhouetted against the sky with a flame burning from the apex, creating a shimmer in the air. At night it must be visible for miles, standing atop a mini-city of lights like a fledgling colony on a distant planet.

Studying the derrick, Audie fails to see an old man watching him. Stocky and brown, he’s wearing coveralls and a wide-brimmed hat. He’s standing next to a boom gate with a painted pole and a weighted end. Nearby is a shelter with three walls and a roof. A Dodge pickup is parked beneath a lone tree.

The old man has a pockmarked face, flat forehead and wide-set eyes. A shotgun rests in the crook of his arm.

Audie tries to smile. Dust cracks on his face.

‘Howdy?’

The old man nods uncertainly.

‘Wondered if you might spare me some water?’ says Audie. ‘I’m parched.’

Resting the shotgun on his shoulder, the man steps to the side of the shed and opens the top of the water barrel. He points to a metal ladle hanging on a nail. Audie dips it into the barrel, breaking the still surface, and almost inhales the first mouthful, bringing water up through his nose. He coughs. Drinks again. It’s cooler than he expects.

The old man takes out a crumpled packet of cigarettes from the pocket of his coveralls and lights one of them, drawing the smoke deep into his lungs, as though seeking to replace any fresh air.

‘What are you doing out here?’

‘Had a row with my girlfriend. Bitch drove off and left me. I figured she’d come back – but she didn’t.’

‘Maybe you shouldn’t be calling her names if you want her to come back.’

‘Maybe,’ says Audie, ladling water over his head.

‘Where did she dump you?’

‘We were camping.’

‘By the reservoir.’

‘Yeah.’

‘That’s fifteen miles from here.’

‘I walked every one of them.’

A tanker rumbles along the track. The old man leans on the weighted end of the boom gate, making it lift skywards. Waves are exchanged. The truck drives on. The dust cloud settles.

‘What are you doing out here?’ asks Audie.

‘Guarding the place.’

‘What are you guarding?’

‘It’s a drilling operation. Lots of expensive equipment.’

Audie holds out his hand and introduces himself, using his middle name, Spencer, because the police are less likely to have released it. The old man doesn’t ask for anything more. They shake.

‘I am Ernesto Rodriguez. People call me Ernie because it makes me sound less like a spick.’ He laughs. Another truck is approaching.

‘You think one of these drivers might give me a ride?’ asks Audie.

‘Where you heading?’

‘Anywhere I can catch a bus or a train.’

‘What about your girl?’

‘I don’t think she’s coming back.’

‘Where do you live?’

‘I grew up in Dallas, but I’ve been out west for a while.’

‘Doing what?’

‘Bit of everything.’

‘So you heading anywhere and you do a bit of everything.’

‘That’s about it.’

Ernie gazes south across flatlands that are scratched by ravines and dotted with rocky outcrops. A fence runs away from them and seems to dip off the edge of the earth.

‘I can give you a ride as far as Freer,’ he says, ‘but I don’t finish for another hour or so.’

‘Much obliged.’

Audie sits in the shade and takes off his boots, gingerly fingering his blisters and the cuts on his hands. More trucks pass through the gate, leaving full, returning empty.

Ernie is a talker. ‘I used to be a short-order cook until I retired,’ he says. ‘I make twice that now, because of the boom.’

‘What boom?’

‘Oil and gas, it’s big news. Ever heard of Eagle Ford Shale?’

Audie shakes his head.

‘It’s this sedimentary rock formation, runs right under South and East Texas, and its full of marine fossils from some ancient ocean. That’s what makes the oil. And there’s natural gas trapped down there in the rocks. They just got to dig it up.’

Ernie makes it sound so easy.

Just before dusk a pickup truck arrives from the other direction. It’s the night guard. Ernie hands him the keys to padlock the boom gate. Audie waits in the Dodge. He wonders what the two men are talking about and tries not to get paranoid. Ernie returns and climbs behind the wheel. They negotiate the rutted track and swing east onto Farm to Market Road. The windows are open. Ernie dips his head to light a cigarette, holding the wheel with his elbows. He yells above the rushing air, telling Audie how he lives with his daughter and his grandson. They got a house just outside of Pleasanton, which he pronounces ‘Pledenten’.

To their west a jungle of clouds has swallowed the sun before it dips below the horizon. It’s like watching a flame burn through a soggy piece of newspaper. Audie leans his elbow on the windowsill and keeps watch for roadblocks or police cruisers. He should be clear of them by now, but he doesn’t know how long they’ll keep looking for him.

‘Where are you fixing on spending tonight?’ asks Ernie.

‘Haven’t decided.’

‘There’s a few motels in Pleasanton, but I never stayed in any of ’em. Never had the need. You got cash?’

Audie nods.

‘You should call your girl – say you’re sorry.’

‘She’s long gone.’

Ernie drums his fingers on the steering wheel. ‘I can’t offer more than a bunk in the barn, but it’s cheaper than a motel and my daughter is a good cook.’

Audie makes noises about declining, but knows he can’t risk checking into a motel because they’ll ask him for identification. Police will have posted his photograph by now.

‘That’s settled then,’ says Ernie, reaching for the radio. ‘You want to listen to some music?’

‘No,’ says Audie, too abruptly. ‘Let’s just talk.’

‘Fair enough.’

A few miles south of Pleasanton, the truck pulls up in front of a gaunt house beside a barn and a stunted grove of cottonwood trees. The engine dies clumsily and a dog wanders across the dirt yard, sniffing at Audie’s boots.

Ernie is out of the truck, mounting the steps, calling out that he’s home.

‘We got a guest for supper, Rosie.’

In the depths of an open hall, a light shows from the kitchen where a woman is standing over the stove. Broad-hipped with a round, pretty face, her skin is a milky brown and her eyes elongated, more Indian than Mexican. She’s wearing a faded print dress and bare feet.

She looks at Audie and back to her father. ‘Why are you telling me?’

‘He’ll want to eat and you’re doing the cooking.’

She turns back to the stove where meat hisses in a frying pan. ‘Yeah, I do the cooking.’

The old man grins at Audie. ‘Best get you washed up. I’ll find you some clean clothes. Rosie can wash those later.’ He turns to his daughter. ‘Where do you keep Dave’s old clothes?’

‘In that box beneath my bed.’

‘Can we find sumpin’ for this fella?’

‘Do what you like.’

Audie is shown to the shower and given a fresh set of clothes. He stands under the hot spray for a long time, letting the water turn his skin pink. Luxuriating. Daydreaming. Prison showers were truncated, regulated and dangerous activities that never made him feel cleaner.

Dressed in another man’s clothes, he combs his hair with his fingers and retraces his steps along the hallway. He can hear a TV. A reporter is talking about the prison escape. Audie looks cautiously through the open door and sees the TV screen.

‘Audie Spencer Palmer was nearing the end of a ten-year sentence for an armoured truck robbery in Dreyfus County, Texas, in which four people died. Authorities believe he scaled two fences using bed sheets from the prison laundry after short-circuiting one of the alarm systems with a chewing gum wrapper…’

A young boy is sitting on the rug in front of the TV. He’s playing with a box of toy soldiers. He glances up at Audie and then at the screen. The story has changed. A weather girl is pointing to a map.

Audie squats on his haunches. ‘Howdy.’

The boy nods.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Billy.’

‘What game are you playing, Billy?’

‘Soldiers.’

‘Who’s winning?’

‘Me.’

Audie laughs and Billy doesn’t understand. Rosie calls from the kitchen. Supper is ready.

‘You hungry, Billy?’

He nods.

‘We best hurry or it might all be gone.’

Rosie makes a final survey of the table, putting a knife, fork and plate in front of Audie, her arm brushing his shoulder. She sits and motions to Billy to say grace. The boy mumbles the words, but says ‘amen’ clearly. Plates are passed, food spooned, speared and consumed. Ernie asks questions, until Rosie tells him to ‘be quiet and let the man eat’.

Occasionally, she sneaks a glance at Audie. She has changed her dress since before dinner. This one is newer and hugs her a little tighter.

When the meal is finished, the men retire to the porch, while Rosie clears away the table and washes and dries the dishes and wipes the benches clean and makes sandwiches for tomorrow. Audie can hear Billy reciting his alphabet.

Ernie smokes a cigarette and props his feet on the porch railing.

‘So what are your plans?’

‘I got kin in Houston.’

‘You want to call them?’

‘I went west about ten years ago. Lost touch.’

‘Difficult to lose touch with people these days – you must have really made an effort.’

‘Guess I did.’

Rosie has been standing inside the doorway listening to them. Ernie yawns and stretches, saying he’s about to hit the sack. He shows Audie to the bunkhouse in the barn and wishes him goodnight. Audie spends a moment out of doors looking at the stars. He’s about to turn away when he notices Rosie standing in the shadows near a rainwater tank.