Nitro Mountain (21 page)

Turner looks at the open fiddle case with Arnett's hands inside. “You got a gun in that thing there, I bet.”

“Why ain't you pouring me a cold one?” Arnett says. “How long must Daddy gotta wait for?”

Turner grabs a pint glass from the rack.

Arnett aims the pistol and pulls the trigger. A bottle bursts and liquor pours down the shelves as Turner drops down below. Arnett gets up and trips as he fires again and a piece of the bar opens in a disaster of splinters.

“Officer down, officer down!” Turner yells. “We got a predicament. Send in backup.”

“Where'd I hit you at?” Arnett says. He falls back on the bench, gun now in both hands, and sweeps the barrel back and forth, aiming at bottles like at a carnival shooting gallery. But then, strange as hell, something comes whistling at him through the shattered bar board. He feels the speed of it grazing past and then there's a bolt stuck next to him in the bench he's sitting on.

“Fucking what, motherfucker?” Arnett finds himself moving toward the bar, unsure of what all the noise is about, until he realizes he's discharging bullets in Turner's general direction. Splinters of wood popping, bottles exploding. He's still pulling the trigger, the chamber turning and the hammer clicking, after the last bullet's spent. He steps around the bar and there's Turner with blood soaking his pants.

“Almost got me,” Arnett tells him. “With that damn thing there. How'd you
do
that?”

“You. You sick son of a bitch.” Turner's holding on to his leg. “And, and I know what you done and…” He spits through his teeth. “And where you done it. And.” His face closes up in pain. “You're under arrest. Police. Me.”

A crossbow lies on the floor against the cooler. “That the only arrow comes with it?” Arnett picks it up, checks it out, brings it back to where he was sitting and yanks the bolt out of the bench and tries to figure how to load it.

“Those troopers're bound to be back any minute now,” Turner says.

“You say that like you're praying.”

“They'll be back.”

“Then I don't got time to fool with this.” He sets the crossbow down, goes to Turner and shoves the pistol barrel into Turner's mouth, metal scraping against teeth. Turner cries out and Arnett pulls the trigger. The hammer clicks. Turner squeals a denial of his false fate and Arnett tosses the gun into the drain bucket by the taps where it splashes and disappears beneath the foamy muck.

He grabs a thick roll of duct tape from the top of the cooler, kicks some sense out of Turner's head, clamps his hands over his mouth, runs the tape around the back of his head, over and under his wrists and around the back of his head again and again. Then he tapes Turner's ankles together and staggers out the door.

Around the side of the building he unfastens the green hose from the spigot and pulls it over to the fuel oil tank, unscrews the cap and drops one end of the hose in until he feels it go slack from touching bottom. He unreels it alongside him as he shuffles back in through the side door.

He sucks and sucks on the end of the hose until the siphon finally works and he spits out the sour oil. The hose continues pissing onto the floor, filling the place with fumes. Turner's tape-muted shouts from behind the bar remind Arnett he almost forgot something. He steps over Turner and grabs a bottle for the road. Some beers for hydration. Keep this shit fucking going. The oil is pooling and mixing with blood. Turner kicks at his feet but Arnett stomps him and sends him into a distorted howl. The fumes are making it hard to breathe. Pretty good buzz. Fuck yeah. Arnett picks the crossbow up and gets his lighter out.

F
lames rise and lap in succession. Tall tongues of fire. Black smoke billows and hides the stars.

Three county elders have gathered, standing back from the blaze in solemn speculation. Their thin silhouettes bend and wave in the heat and light.

“Somebody call the cops,” says Elvin.

“We already done that,” says Bill. He's the one who started this Senior Citizen Security Force. He got out of bed to rush over here, and his sweatsuit's wrinkled. He taps a Maglite against his thigh and makes it come back on.

Elvin takes the cigarette from his mouth and points with it. “I seen his car driving that a way, boys, north toward 231 there.”

“Nah, he went there a way,” says Rob, pointing in the opposite direction. He's sipping from a steaming mug that smells of instant coffee and Old Crow.

“He didn't drive nowhere,” says Bill. “His car's still here. Right there.” He points. “That's Turner's car. I bet he done it, crazy rat bastard.”

They all step back as a section of tiled roof melts and collapses and the front of the building blooms.

“Jesus drinking a Bloody Mary,” says Elvin.

“Find a dimmer bulb than Turner,” says Bill, “and the whole world'll go dark. You want to burn down a bar, you oughtn't go leaving your car there.”

Rob drops his light. “Wait, y'all. Is that him there?”

And yes, it is.

Turner's crawling from somewhere behind the building, elbowing and kneeing and grub-worming toward them, cursing through his hands taped over his mouth.

S
haron and Larry, beneath the blankets. Just voice, breath, touch. Let the rest of the world fall away.

When the phone rings, she whispers, “Don't get it.”

“I'll be right back.”

“Just for once? It'll stop.”

She used to make him come so hard from a blow job that his feet would rattle the end of the bed. She plans on that now.

The phone starts ringing again.

He leaves the bedroom door open and the light from the hallway hurts her eyes. She brings the sheet up to her nose, smells the detergent in its fabric, then pulls it over her face and turns the light into a glow. She smoothes her hand down her belly and listens.

She can't make out what he's saying in there, but she pretends it's another woman. Back when they got together, he used to say all kinds of nasty things, even talk about other women when she let him. At first it embarrassed her. But when they were alone, in bed in the dark, she was okay with that talk. Sometimes she asked him to. Just don't go around thinking it's for real, she told him. And then he stopped for good when he admitted it was making him want others. But right now she misses those words. Those women. Even if they were names they both knew.

He's talking to one of them now. Telling her now's a good time to come over. Wife's in bed, ready to go. I'm waiting for you both, Sharon thinks, and dips her middle and ring finger inside herself.

His voice stops and she hears his footsteps in the hallway, heavier than usual. The weight of bad news. He walks across their room to the closet and gets his rain jacket. “That was Kevin,” he says. “Durty Misty's is on fire.”

“You're driving all the way over there in this rain?”

“Turner's asking for me. They've got him in an ambulance. Sounds like he's in bad shape. And the cops are questioning him.”

“Don't go.”

“I got to.”

She sits there on the side of the bed, listening to his car roll down their driveway and accelerate into the night. He better be careful going over that mountain. He knows damn well he doesn't always have to get involved. She pushes her toes into the thick carpet, traces the stretch marks on her breast with a bitten fingernail. Then she does something she's never done before. She gets down and prays, naked.

A
rnett knows you can't do over what you've already done. He knows that. And if you try to, that's you going back on yourself and still not fixing shit. Like any of it could be fixed anyway. It's all fucked up and you can't unfuck it up, shouldn't even think about it. That's you putting everything that makes you who you are in the dump, and then what are you? Nothing. Absolutely fucking nothing left of you, except for the trouble you started, and then you can't even stand behind that and say, That's right, I done that. I stood up for myself. No, you got to have something to live by. Some people have religion, family—shit like that. You got you and what you done. So say it with me: I am not sorry.