Nothing Short of Dying (24 page)

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

C
ars were parked in the driveway of Deb's towering house when I pulled up on Beth Corrigan's Interceptor, Jen seated directly in back of me like she had a few days before when I'd worried she might fall off my horse. This time, riding with her arms locked around me and a small duffel bag between us, she did just fine, and we'd only caught a little rain. I'd phoned Deb's house about forty minutes before but just got her machine, so I simply left a quick message saying the “bad guy” had been caught and all was back to normal. Now, sitting in front of my oldest sister's house, I wasn't sure we'd find anyone home. So I did something I'd done only once before. I sent a text. I asked Deb if she was home, told her I had Jen, and asked if we could come in.

She didn't reply. Instead she opened the door. And standing next to her was my sister Angie, whom I hadn't seen in sixteen years.

Jen ran and hugged them both, and all three girls spun in a circle, laughing. Grabbing the bag that Jen and I had brought with us, I followed behind, suddenly feeling awkward in the midst of this family reunion. As I stepped across the threshold and dropped the bag just inside the door, Angie broke
free from Jen to give me a
you're crazy but I still love you
look. She seemed blonder and more beautiful than I remembered. “We're all so glad this thing is over, Clyde.”

“You look great,” I said, and meant it.

She smiled back and made a show of appraising my sodden, blood-smeared self. “And you look—”

“You don't have to say it—
like hell
. It's been a tough few days.”

As we sat down at the kitchen table, Jen swung her gaze around to take in the expensive decor. “This house is
amazing
,” Jen said. “Even better than the old one.”

“I forgot you hadn't been here since we moved in,” Deb said, handing her a blanket. She handed me one, too. “You know how it is—buy a new house, get a chance to make new memories.” She looked over at me. “Can I fix you two something to eat?”

I opened my mouth to answer but Jen beat me to it. “I'm fucking starving,” she said.

I waited for Deb to chew her ass, like she'd done to me on my last visit—and like she'd done to both of us when we lived with her as kids. But she didn't. She just went into the kitchen and pulled a pan out of a cabinet. “Beef and broccoli, okay?” she asked. She smiled when she heard enthusiastic grunts.

“I'll give you a hand, Deb,” Angie said, joining her at the counter.

“Kids aren't home?” I asked.

“Nick took them to the park,” Deb said as she went into the fridge. “Everyone breathed a sigh of relief after we got your phone message. And the kids were going stir crazy. So when the rain let up—”

I nodded. I was about to apologize and launch into the
speech I'd prepared on the way over, but Jen spoke up first. “Thanks for cooking, you two. And these blankets are heaven.”

“Anytime,” Deb said.

While our two older sisters busied themselves in the kitchen, Jen and I flashed a look. It was one of those
I can't believe this is over
looks. The truth was, we were probably both still in shock. We'd barely said anything to each other since leaving Alvis's house.

I'D DONE EXACTLY FOUR THINGS
before retrieving the Honda, coaxing Jen onto it, and roaring out of Alvis's front gate. The first was to phone Deb and leave that message. And the second was to give the Rover another quick check. That turned out to be a good decision. Underneath a panel in the rear of the vehicle, where a spare tire would normally be, was a small brown duffel. Inside were hundreds of bundles of large-­denomination bills.

My third move was to call Agent Peters and tell him about a rumor I heard concerning Mr. Lance Alvis. I gave Peters the address and suggested he might want to send an ambulance.

My final act before throttling out of Alvis's driveway was to ask Jen what that break-in had been about anyway.

“All I know is that those chemicals were very valuable to him,” she told me. “Some of his men talked among themselves about a special formula they were making at the three cookhouses he'd set up—yes, there were two others. The formula all depended on this hard-to-get ingredient. I could get them into the facility. I had the clearance, the pass-through. But at the DOE depot we work in one-week-on/one-week-off shifts. For security reasons. So Lance needed me bottled up until my next shift started. And then he was going to
discard me—like a used needle.” She wiped away a tear. “If you hadn't come . . .”

“But I
did.
I
did—
because that's what little brothers are for, right?”

She smiled weakly and nodded.

“Okay, so hold on tight,” I said, and then we zoomed out the front gate, leaving behind for good Lance Alvis and his demented visions of empire.

BACK IN THE PRESENT, WITH
a full meal in their bellies, Deb, Angie, and Jen were poring over some of Deb's photo albums, and I noticed at the corner of one of the pages an old photo of Mom—one of those schoolgirl shots. The girl in that photo was young and beautiful and no doubt looking forward to a bright future. At some point in our childhood, we
all
look at life that way. What happens to us?

My sisters called me over, asked me to look at a runty photo of me when I was in the third grade. They all began laughing at my big ears. I laughed, too, and realized I was enjoying myself. Hell, I'd gone at least an hour without sweeping the horizon for a threat. It felt good.

“I love you guys,” I suddenly blurted out. Everyone stopped talking and looked at me.

“What?” they said, almost in unison.

I'd never said it to
any
of them. I'd insinuated it, when we were little, and I'd tried to show it, but I don't remember using the words. I'd missed my chance with Allie, and that was a lesson I'd have to live with—live with and, I hoped, benefit from.

“You heard me,” I said. I looked at Jen specifically. “From now on, you need anything, I'm a phone call away. No matter
how far away I am. Swear. You just have to promise me one thing.”

“What?” she asked.

“No more drugs.”

“Promise,” she said. She smiled at me like she had when Dad was still around, and our lives hadn't been flushed down separate sewers.

Deb and Angie flashed broad smiles, too, which was when I heard the front door swing open and the wild, animated voices of two young boys, followed by a booming “Take off your shoes, varmints—you're going to muddy your mother's carpet.” That could only be Nick.

Our brother-in-law meeting wasn't as awkward as you'd think. Nick caught the mood in the room and rolled with it. We even found that we both had something in common—our hatred of modern technology. Or learning how to
use
it, at least.

As for my nephews, they were a hoot. They seemed fascinated to have another uncle. And they were even more fascinated by my scars. They wanted to know how I got them and I told them “working construction.”

After I'd visited for another hour, I knew it was time to go. Too much had happened that day. There'd been too many intense emotions. I needed to be alone—organize my thoughts.

“Welcome home,” I told Jen as I stood up awkwardly from the couch. I left her in the capable hands of Deb and Angie, shook Nick's hand, gave the kids affectionate punches in the shoulder, and headed for the front foyer. On the way out, I grabbed the duffel I'd set down by the door.

I rode to the nearest hotel, used some of the cash in the duffel to check in, and took the hottest shower the place al
lowed. Then I pulled the sheets and comforter off the second bed, piled them on the one closest to the door, and burrowed into a blanket nest. Finally warm, dry, and more at peace than I'd been in a very long time, I fell into the depths of much-needed sleep.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

W
ith no goddamned cell phone to wake me up, I slept until almost noon. I had to pay for a second day, according to the angry little woman who could barely see above the registration desk. I didn't care, since it wasn't my money.

Remembering my windfall, I went back up to the room and counted the contents of the duffel. A little less than 500K. I shoved one of the bundles into my pocket, unscrewed a ceiling vent, crammed the duffel into it, then replaced the grill. As I left the room, I hung a “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door. Downstairs, I told the clerk I'd be back and made her promise not
to have the room cleaned. Then I went outside to the parking lot and climbed on the Honda.

Beth Corrigan was greatly relieved when I returned her bike. I tried to give her an extra two hundred for getting the Honda back to her so late, but when I told her there'd be no more finger cutting going on in Junction for a while, she stuffed the bills back into my hand.

“You done good, Clyde Barr,” she said.

I tipped my hat and walked out.

I continued walking to a cheap used-car lot three blocks away. One of those places that trade cash straight across for the title. No paperwork, no questions. For now I figured I'd get myself a temporary rig. I knew a guy five hundred miles north who'd help me out with a deal on something more permanent. After ten minutes of wandering a lot full of dented and rumpled cars, I traded the flighty woman in the bullet­proof kiosk a grand for the keys to an AMC Eagle. The four-wheel-drive car was an obsolete, rugged precursor to the more complicated, less tough, modern crossovers. Not as cool as a pickup, but it would do.

Then I headed to the nearest sporting goods store. I bought three backpacks and the basic supplies that would allow me to hit the trail on foot if I chose to. Water purifier. Cooking kit. Cordage, poncho, sleeping bag, and some extra lighters. I'd pick up a rifle somewhere on the road.

Back at the hotel I retrieved the duffel from the vent and divided the money into the three packs. I put 245K into two of them, and the last ten thousand in mine. I left the duffel itself in the room and checked out.

At the central library I sweet-talked a young woman with a nose ring and orange hair into helping me find two addresses. Using a series of arcane computer tricks, she tracked down the last two people in Junction that I needed to find. If I'd known locating someone was this easy, I might not have been as tired and sore as I was. Maybe technology isn't so bad after all.

The sun burned off the last of the clouds as I drove the Eagle to a place called Mountain Top. After filling out reams of paperwork—and lying on most of it—I left one of the backpacks with the nice round man in the office, who assured me that the money would be put into the account of Mrs. Martin. I figured that amount of money would take care of Allie's mom for at least twenty years. Someday soon I'd write the woman and tell her how brave her daughter was, but I didn't have it in me just yet. I left the assisted-living place in a hurry, vowing to myself that I'd wander into the woods and die of hypothermia long before someone wrangled me into a place like that.

My next stop was Mack, a small farm town just a few miles from the Utah border. I guessed it to be about four in the afternoon when I opened the white vinyl gate and walked to the house that matched the address the orange-haired librarian had given me. It was a little brown modular, well kept, with a tidy little lawn surrounding it like a moat. Outside the yard, close to two hundred squat, short meat goats roamed in groups. They nibbled the weeds and sparse grass inside the heavy fences, wandered to and from the little sheds, and frolicked in the sunshine.

I knocked. No one answered. I heard pounding from the side yard and headed that way, figuring it was someone working on a fence or a machine. It wasn't. It was a little girl, maybe four or five years old, and she was very busy pounding the side of a coffee can full of dirt, trying to liberate the muddy contents.

She looked up at me, and I saw the bright green eyes and the faint beginnings of freckles. Her dark black hair was cut in a bob, and my eyes watered. I coughed. She wasn't scared or startled to see me, simply annoyed that I'd interrupted her work.

“Your parents around?” I asked.

She looked back at the can, continued pounding, and pointed over to where I'd seen the goats.

I found one of the parents in a milking shed. As I entered, I heard the distinct tinkling of milk hitting a pail, and next to it mellow bleating. I called out, “Hello? Is this the Otterman place?”

A tall, thin woman in muddy jeans and a checkered shirt rose to greet me. She wiped her hands on her pants and stuck out her palm. “It is. I'm Liv.”

I shook the proffered hand, felt a grip strong enough to break bones. “I'm Clyde, from down the road.”

Liv looked me up and down warily, taking in the hat and the bag I was holding. “Can I help you?” she said, glancing over to the house and seeing the Eagle parked out front.

I handed her the bag of cash, which she took reluctantly. “Your girl?” I said. “This is for her. Her mom wanted her to have it.”

Before she could say anything, and before my eyes started to water again, I turned and walked away. I climbed into the Eagle and didn't look back.

IN THE DESERT FIFTY MILES
west of Mack, along a stretch of highway that was barren of cars, as the sun disappeared and smeared the sky with crimson, I saw them.

A band of eight wild horses, their heads and tails held high, ran through the sparse brush atop a ridge to the northwest. Their dark bodies poked holes in the streaming light of the dying sun, and as they ran along the skyline, it seemed as if they were being chased by billowing purple dust.

They weren't being chased, however. They were running because they felt like it. Because they were free. They were enjoying the blissful moment in between storms, kicking up their heels, snorting, and tossing their heads.

Up until I saw them, I'd been staring out my windshield, feeling sorry for myself and wondering where I was going.
Going
in the deeper sense. Jen was safe, back in the folds of family. And Allie was gone. There was no denying that, not after the finality of seeing her daughter. There was nothing for me here, nothing left to do.

The horses ran off the far edge of the ridge, out of sight, chasing the sun. It was then that I remembered what Allie had told me, and it hit me hard, seeing the horses following her sage advice. They weren't running away from a past. Or toward greener pastures. They were living in the moment.

I decided then that maybe I didn't need to go all the way to the north to find contentment. Maybe the Yukon was just a way of running from memories and looking for something that didn't exist. I could drive, or gallop, or walk in whatever direction I damned well felt like, doing whatever needed to be done.

There was
always
something that needed to be done. I was sure of it. The trick was to stay in the moment and accept each situation as it came—the way Allie would have.