Grave Promise

by David R Lewis

  It was after midnight when they passed Ogden and the turn-off to Manhattan. Crockett’s phone rang.

  “Yeah, man.”

  “That Hummer must have a sixty gallon tank,” Clete said. “Those things eat gas.”

  “You’d think they’d have stopped by now.”

  “They gotta,” Clete said. “Been on the road over three hours. Can’t be long now. Female passenger is gonna have to pee. You doin’ okay?”

  “Fine,” Crockett said. “You?”

  “Sure. Look sharp, Crockett. This can’t go on much longer.”

  Crockett rang off and called Ruby’s cell.

  “Hello?” Ruby, weak and whispering.

  “Hey, Sweetheart. Got the hospital staff whipped into shape yet?”

  “Crockett! Are you alright?”

  “Of course I’m not alright. I’m driving through Kansas. How’s by you?”

  “I have three broken ribs, a broken arm, a dislocated left shoulder, a cracked pelvis, and five stitches on the inside of my upper lip, which now sticks out farther than my handsome nose,” she slurred. “I also have some lovely Demerol, and some equally nice Compazine. Plus, a delightful young dominatrix in white named Cheryl Ann drops in every few minutes to make sure I am not sleeping, in case I have a concussion. I am not sleeping because I am in a body cast, Crockett. A fucking body cast that stretches from my nether regions to my Adam’s apple and completely swathes my body and left arm in six hundred pounds of plaster. Should I succumb to my injuries, they won’t even need a fucking casket! If I am good, however, it is rumored that they will let me go home after tomorrow.”

  “Jesus. I’m sorry, Ruby. If we hadn’t gone out for food–”

  “Stop that!” Ruby said. “If you had not gone out for food, you might have been killed when the bad guys showed up. Remind me to get Nudge something extravagant and shameless. That ratty cat saved my ass. Where are you?”

  “On I-70 not too far from Junction City, following the kidnappers and the kidnapped. Nothing to report. I gotta get off the phone now, Ruby. I have to keep the line clear for Clete. Just wanted to tell you how much I love you, and see how you were.”

  “Keep in touch, David,” she said. “I love you, too. Get our girl and be safe.”

  She rang off.

  Crockett saw Clete’s brake lights flash several times and punched the speed dial.

  “Stay off the fuckin’ phone, willya?” Clete said. “I think they’re fixin’ to stop. We got a rest area a couple of miles ahead. Slow down and give us a lead. I’ll follow them in and let you know what the setup is. It’ll look less suspicious if you and I don’t drive in right behind each other.”

  Crockett backed off the gas, slowing to around forty. Traffic was very light.

  “You talking to Ruby?” Clete said.

  “Yeah. She’s in a body cast.”

  “No shit?”

  “No shit. Pelvis to throat.”

  Clete giggled. “Man, your life can sure get complicated, huh Crockett?”

  “Shut up.”

  “I mean, you finally get all this gay crap lined out, and now a body cast. Have any luck in the lottery?”

  “Shut up.”

  “Slowin’ down, Son. Signal on. They’re turning into the rest area. I’m goin’ in as slow as I can. Lay back.”

  Crockett dropped his speed to thirty and crept along. After a couple of minutes, Clete spoke up again.

  “Okay,” he said. “Parking area is empty except for a couple of tractor-trailer rigs in the truck and RV lot. Bad guys are stopped in a handicapped spot as close to the front of the little building as they can get. I’m a hundred yards from ‘em, toward the drive, beside the pet walking area. Two of ‘em took Marilee inside. She was walking okay. The other two are standing on the passenger side of the Hummer, bullshittin’ each other. Where are you?”

  “Just coming up on the rest area entrance ramp,” Crockett said. “I’ll take the two in the parking lot. When you see me drive by where you’re parked, wait a few seconds and go for the building. I’ll be right behind you.”

  “Got a plan?” Clete asked.

  “Yeah. Reprisal.”

  “Good plan,” Clete said.

  Rolling up the ramp, Crockett slid his seat all the way back and reclined it as far as it would go as he held onto the wheel to maintain an upright posture and clicked on his bright lights. He drove through the parking lot at about fifteen miles-an-hour, passing Clete on his right and proceeding on toward the front of the lot. The Humvee was parked at the curb about fifty yards away from the small building containing restrooms and vending machines. Standing on Crockett’s side of the Hummer were two of Ricky’s boys. They watched him drive in. Crockett flipped his headlights to dim to reassure them, knowing they’d be unable to see after looking at the high beams. He slowed, and began to turn in to a parking space. When they both glanced away, Crockett straightened the wheel, floored the accelerator, and fell back in his seat.

  The truck was traveling around twenty-five miles-an-hour when it hit them. The grill guard crushed both men from chests to knees against the straight side of the Humvee, and Crockett’s air bag inflated with a roar, then immediately began to collapse. Crockett slapped the transmission into park, threw open his door, grabbed the revolver from where it had bounced to the floor, and headed for the building. Clete was crouched by the right side of the double doorway when Crockett arrived on the left.

  Clete’s voice was a rasping whisper. “Very effective,” he said. “Two down, two to go. Ready?”

  Holding the 686 two-handed and upright against his chest, Crockett nodded.

  “Good to see you’re packin’,” Clete said. “Women’s room on the left side. I’ll go high and straight, you go low and left. I’ll take whichever one is closest to Marilee. On three.”

  The count never finished. As it began, the front doors opened and Jorge of the broken nose stepped out, followed immediately by a shorter man who was holding tightly to Marilee’s right arm.

  “Don’t move,” Clete growled. “Police.”

  Jorge spun, clawing for something under his jacket. The twenty-year-old Super-Vels worked. Crockett fired twice. Jorge crashed to his back on the sidewalk, his head striking the cement with a sickening crack.

  The second man had taken refuge behind Marilee, crouching to get as much cover as possible, and was holding a Glock to her temple. Only the right side of his face was visible, the rest of him, except for the gun and his hand, was shielded by her head and body. Marilee seemed very calm. He dragged her backwards, increasing the distance between him and the doorway to about thirty feet. Jorge’s legs quivered and a thick sour odor rose from his body. Marilee’s captor chuckled.

  “It would seem that my friend should have used the restroom,” he said.

  “You are Ricardo Castaneda Junior?” Clete said, holding a Weaver stance, his Colt pointed at the man.

  “I am.”

  “Let her go.”

  “No, no, no, my friend,” Ricky said. “This is not going to happen. We are going to leave, she and I. We are going to drive away.”

  “Probably not,” Crockett said.

  Ricky’s gaze slipped back and forth between them from behind Marilee’s head. “Gentlemen,” he said, “you must drop your weapons or I will kill her.”

  “Fuck you,” Clete said, and shot him through the eye.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  Reunited

  Ricky’s body had barely hit the ground and Marilee was in Crockett’s arms, sobbing into his shoulder.

  “Ruby!” she said. “What about Ruby?”

  “She’s fine,” Crockett lied, not wanting to complicate the delicate situation with lengthy answers.

  Marilee hung on him and cried as Crockett eased her out of the light at the front of the building and across the dog walking area to Clete’s Explorer. He put her in the rear seat, assured her that he’d return, and hustled back to the building in time to see Cletus dragging Ricky to
the Humvee. Crockett got a grip on Jorge’s collar and followed along.

  They stuffed all four bodies into the rear of the Hummer and, while Crockett tailed him in the truck, Clete drove the big vehicle across the grass at the rear of the rest area and down a shallow hillside into a copse of trees. That done, while Clete wiped his prints from the steering wheel and door handle, Crockett dampened a wad of paper towels in the restroom and cleaned up some of the blood and vomit from the grill guard and hood of his truck.

  Marilee seemed very subdued when they transferred her from the Ford to Crockett’s truck. Clete led off down the exit ramp and, once again, they were westbound on I-70. Crockett’s cell phone rang.

  “Son,” Clete drawled, “I reckon the plan would be to return to Kaycee?”

  “Guess so,” Crockett said, as he swallowed the bile that adrenalin shock was bringing to the back of his throat.

  “Well,” Clete said, “since we’re going the wrong way and I have no desire to visit Abilene, we probably oughta turn around.”

  “Turning around would be nice.”

  “Good work out there tonight, Crockett. You got three of those four assholes.”

  “Yeah. But you got the one that counted.”

  “How you doin? Your mind right about all this shit?”

  “Pollution control,” Crockett said.

  He meant it.

  They reversed course at Chapman and were headed back toward Missouri when Marilee leaned into Crockett and clutched his arm. He could feel her tremble. Crockett sped up and passed Clete and, when the exit came up, left I-70 and headed into Manhattan. Marilee needed food. So did he.

  An old-fashioned diner sporting a neon sign that advertised ‘GOOD FOO ’ appeared on the right as they approached town, and Crockett turned into the nearly empty parking lot. Bouncing through the potholed expanse, he parked at the side of the building, the front of his truck facing an overgrown empty lot. Light rain was just beginning to fall when they climbed out. Good. Hopefully it would finish cleaning off the front of the truck.

  Clete joined them as Crockett and Marilee walked across the dark lot. Marilee gave him a hug and kissed his cheek.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  Clete grinned and reached for his accent.

  “Shucks, M’am,” he said. “Sometimes there’s thangs a ol’ boy lak me jest has ta do.”

  “Are they all dead?”

  “As Julius Caesar,” Clete said. “As dead as Ruby would have been, as dead as you would have been, as dead as Crockett and me would have been, if things had gone Ricky’s way.”

  “But they didn’t,” Marilee said.

  Clete smiled. “Not this time,” he said.

  When they stepped in the diner, the scent of To A Wild Rose was in the air. Clete led them to a table at the rear of the small dining area. Marilee sniffed and looked around.

  “What’s that smell?” she said.

  “Grandma,” Crockett said.

  Marilee shivered. “Wow,” she said. Clete noticed.

  “What’s up?”

  “Just explaining that scent to Marilee,” Crockett said.

  Clete’s nostrils flared as he inhaled.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I noticed it when we came in. What is it?”

  Crockett shrugged. “Marilee’s grandmother,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Marilee’s grandma.”

  “The haint?”

  “I believe the accepted term is discarnate spirit.”

  “Now see,” Clete said, “that’s the kinda shit I don’t want nothin’ to do with, goddammit! I don’t wanna be around no haints. I don’t wanna be around no place where haints has been around. I didn’t sign up to be no Ghostbuster, Crockett. That ain’t part of the deal!”

  “Take it easy, Texican. Your accent is getting thick again. She took care of Ruby and she’s here for Marilee. She has no business with you.”

  Clete glanced around the room. “She better not,” he said. “I ain’t got no business on her end a things.”

  They sat at a four-spot, Clete and Crockett to the rear as the Texican continued to scan the room, and Marilee with her back to the counter and kitchen. There was an ashtray on the table. Crockett lit a Sherman and leaned back.

  “Christ, I’m tired,” he said.

  “You’re not shocky, are you?” Clete said.

  “No, just low blood sugar.”

  “Carbohydrates, boys and girls,” Clete went on, “and some protein. Cheeseburgers and fries, pancakes and sausage, meatloaf and mashed potatoes, stuff like that.”

  Their waitress limped to the table and stood behind Marilee. At least sixty years old and fifty pounds overweight, she pushed back a strand of gray-blond hair that had fallen from her bun and dropped three menus on the table.

  “You folks want somethin’ to drink?” she said.

  Crockett ordered a chocolate shake. Marilee asked for a coke. Clete opted for coffee.

  They sat staring at the walls and each other, not even making small talk, a sort of group numbness overtaking them after the events of the evening. The waitress returned with their drinks. Marilee asked for a hot turkey sandwich, Clete chose a breakfast of corned-beef hash, eggs and biscuits, with a bowl of gravy on the side. Crockett ordered a double cheeseburger with fries and onion rings.

  The waitress smiled. “Have that for you in just a few minutes,” she said.

  The smile nagged at Crockett. As they waited silently for their food, it echoed behind his eyelids, repeating itself over and over again. He was missing something. Whatever it was, it was right in front of him, but he couldn’t get a handle on it.

  “What’s up?” Clete said.

  Crockett shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “Something that I am just too beat to shit to figure out.” He slumped in his chair and finished another Sherman before the waitress returned with a heavily loaded tray.

  She placed the plates on the table, reaching over Marilee’s shoulders to complete the serving. As she finished, To A Wild Rose flooded the air. Clete began scanning the room again, looking a little wild-eyed. The waitress paused for a moment to sniff.

  “You smell that?” Crockett said.

  “Yes, I do,” she said. “Every now and then, for the past few months, that scent just shows up out of nowhere.”

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, “but it always reminds me of my mother. She died when I was just a little girl.”

  Crockett’s ears felt full and a low roar rumbled inside his head. The walls seemed to move away and return, and he clutched the edge of the table to maintain balance.

  The waitress gaped at him. “You okay, Mister? You look kinda pale!”

  Red washed from his vision and the room came back into focus. Crockett felt tears form in the bottom of his eyes.

  He smiled. “Oh, yeah. I’m fine.”

  Clete and Marilee were both looking at him as if he had a pelican on his head.

  “I’m more than fine, M’am,” Crockett continued. “Would you mind if I asked you a question?”

  “I guess not,” she said. The hint of suspicion mixed with the concern remaining on her once lovely face.

  “The name Cindi Lake mean anything to you?”

  Her mouth dropped open. “Cindi Lake? What do you know about Cindi Lake?”

  Marilee swiveled in her chair to stare up at the woman.

  “Leona Marie Walters,” Crockett said, drawing the waitress’ attention down to the young woman sitting in front of her. “May I present your daughter, Miss Marilee Walker.”

  The tray clattered to the floor and Clete eased the waitress into the fourth chair at their table. The stunned woman gaped at Marilee.

  Crockett found it difficult to keep up with what occurred over the next hour. What affected him most was the way that all of them concerned with Marilee, Ricky included, had been manipulated by whatever powers are capable of doing such a thing, into the circumstances in which they f
ound themselves. The chances, the odds of the three of them arriving at the one location on the entire planet where Marilee would find her mother, were so laughably tiny as to make winning the lottery a certainty. And yet they had.

  In the dark of night, at a tiny diner in Kansas, the mother that they could not locate, the daughter of the Amazing Disappearing Woman, the pivotal piece in their three-way generational quest, just walked up to their table and flopped down three menus.

  When everything sank in, Crockett felt light and laughable, almost giddy with delight at the way he had been led and directed over the past months. How, after his decision to help, he had been guided and reinforced into the completion of some cosmically desired outcome.

  Grinning, he slapped a rather catatonic Cletus on the shoulder and excused himself from the two women. Standing in the early dark outside the diner, sheltered from the rain by an overhanging roof, Crockett took out his cell phone and called Ruby.

  “Hello?” Scratchy and sleepy.

  “Wake up, goddammit. You could have a concussion.”

  “Crockett! Are you alright?”

  “Just fine, Sweetheart. It’s all over. Everybody, with exception of Ricky and his pals, is fine. We shall not be troubled by the California contingent again.”

  “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Not a scratch. Clete and Marilee are fine, too. How you doin?”

  “Oh, I’m ripped. I’m gassed on heavy drugs, flyin’ low, never been better, considering I’m wrapped in stone and feel like a turtle on its back! I’m gonna be a real bitch when this starts to itch, Crockett. When I get outa here, you are going to have to devote your every waking moment to my comfort. I shall require constant attention and care.”

  “What else is old?”

  “Please.”

  “Okay.”

  “I won’t even be able to give you a hug, Crockett.”

  He could hear tears creeping into her voice, drug induced self-pity.

  “Big news,” he said, changing the subject before he started to cry, too.

  “What?” Ruby sniffed.

  “As we speak, Marilee is getting to know her mother.”