Gone South

by Robert R. McCammon

  “Where’re you gonna go?” Arden asked when he’d finished the second burger. “After you take me to LaPierre, I mean. You still gonna try to get out of the country?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “Don’t you have any relatives you could go to? Are your parents still alive?”

  “Father’s dead. My mother’s alive, but she’s old and I don’t want to get her messed up in this. It’ll be hard enough on her as it is.”

  “Does she know about the leukemia?”

  “No. It’s my problem.” He speared her with a glance. “What do you care, anyway? You hardly know me.”

  She shrugged. “Just interested, I guess. You’re the first killer I ever met.”

  Dan couldn’t suppress a grim smile. “Well, I hope I’m the last one you meet.” He offered her his french fries. “Take some.”

  She accepted a few and crunched them down. “You don’t really have anywhere to go, do you?”

  “I’ll find a place.”

  Arden nodded vacantly and watched the sun sinking. The Bright Girl — a dream without a face — was on her mind, and if she had to travel with a wanted fugitive to reach that dream, then so be it. She wasn’t afraid. Well, maybe a little afraid. But her life had never been easy, and no one had ever given her a free ticket. She had nowhere to go now but toward the Bright Girl, toward what she felt was the hope of healing and a new start.

  I know who you are, she recalled Jupiter saying to the killer beside her.

  You the man God sent Miz Arden.

  She hoped that was true. She wanted to believe with all her heart it was.

  Because if Jupiter could be so wrong about Dan Lambert, he could be wrong about the Bright Girl, too.

  Dan finished his food and they started off again. Four miles south of Lafayette, they passed a state trooper who’d pulled a kid on a motorcycle over to the roadside. The trooper was occupied writing a ticket and they slid by unnoticed, but it was a few minutes before Arden stopped looking nervously back.

  The light was fading. Purple shadows streamed across the road, and on either side there were woods broken by ponds of brackish water from which tree stumps protruded like shattered teeth. The road narrowed. Traffic thinned to an occasional car or pickup truck. A sign on stilts said KEEP YOUR HEART IN ACADIANA OR GET YOUR — there was the crude drawing of a mule’s hind end here — OUT. Spanish moss festooned the trees like antebellum lace, and the mingled odors of wild honeysuckle and Gulf salt drifted on the humid air. As the first stars emerged from the darkening sky, heat lightning began to ripple across the southern horizon.

  Dan switched on the headlights and kept an eye on the rearview mirror. The heat lightning’s flashes reminded him of the battle zone, with artillery shells landing in the distance. He had the eerie sensation of traveling on a road that led back into time, back into the wet wilderness of a foreign country where the reptiles thrived and death was a silent shadow. He was afraid of what he might find — or what might find him — there, but it was the only road left for him to go. And like it or not, he had to follow it to its end.

  16

  Black Against Yellow

  IT WAS JUST AFTER nine o’clock when the station wagon’s headlight beams grazed a rust-streaked sign that said VERMILION 5 MI., CHANDELAC 12 MI., LAPIERRE 15 MI. “Almost there,” Dan said, relief blooming in him like a sweet flower. Arden didn’t answer. She’d opened her purse two miles back and taken from it the pink drawstring bag, which she now held in her lap. Her fingers kneaded the bag’s contents, but Arden stared straight ahead along the cone of the lights.

  “What’s in that thing?” Dan asked.

  “Huh?”

  “That bag. What’s in it?”

  “Nothin’ special,” she said.

  “You’re sure rubbin’ it like it’s somethin’ special.”

  “It’s … just what I carry for good luck.”

  “Oh, I should’ve figured.” He nodded. “Anybody who believes in faith healers has to have a good-luck charm or two lyin’ around.”

  “If I were you, I wouldn’t be laughin’. I’d think you’d want to find the Bright Girl as much as I do.”

  “There’s an idea. After she heals me, she can go back to Shreveport with me and raise Emory Blanchard from the dead. Then I can get right back to where I was, beggin’ for work.”

  “Laugh if you want to. All I’m sayin’ is, what would it hurt for you to go with me?”

  “It would hurt,” he said. “I told you what I think about false hope. If there really was a Bright Girl — which there’s not — the only way she could help me is to crank back time and bring the man I killed back to life. Anyway, I said I’d take you to LaPierre, and that’s what I’ll do, but that’s all.”

  “What’re you gonna do, dump me out on the street once we get there?”

  “No, I’ll help you find someplace to spend the night.” He hoped. The last motel they’d passed was ten miles behind them in the small town of Houma. Since the woods had closed in on either side of the road, they’d seen the scattered lights of only a few houses. They had left civilization behind, it seemed, and the bittersweet smell of the swamp thickened the air. If worse came to worst and a motel or boardinghouse couldn’t be found anywhere near LaPierre, Dan had decided to offer Arden lodging at the cabin and then he’d take her on into town in the morning. But only if nothing else could be found; he didn’t like having somebody depending on him, and the sooner she went on her way the better he’d feel about things.

  They crossed a long, concrete bridge and suddenly they were passing through the hamlet of Vermilion. It wasn’t much, just a few clapboard houses and closed-up stores. The only place that was lit up with activity was a little dump called Cootie’s Bar, and Dan noted that the four pickup trucks parked around the place all had shotguns or rifles racked in the rear windows. This did not help Dan’s hopes of finding a decent motel room for Arden. He had the feeling that a woman alone in this territory could find herself pinned to a pool table, and a man with a fifteen-thousand-dollar reward on his head would be torn clean apart. He drove on through Vermilion, luckily attracting the attention of only a couple of dogs who stopped scrapping over a bone to get out of the road.

  As they drew away from town, Dan watched the odometer. Susan had said the turnoff to Gary’s cabin was three miles past the bridge, on the left. It ought to be coming up any minute now. He didn’t plan on stopping there yet, but he wanted to make sure he found it. And then, yes, there it was, a dirt road snaking off to the left into the woods. Good. Now at least he knew where he’d be resting his head tonight. He passed the turnoff, and neither he nor Arden saw the black Eldorado hidden close by.

  Pelvis was asleep and snoring with Mama sprawled out on his chest when Flint saw headlights approaching. As darkness had fallen, Flint had pulled the car closer up the dirt road to the highway’s edge, and he’d kept vigilant watch while Pelvis had drowsed, awakened to prattle about Elvis’s pink Cadillac and love of his mother’s coconut cakes, and then drowsed again. Flint could have counted on one hand how many cars had passed, and none of them had even slowed at the turnoff to the cabin. This one, though, did slow down, if almost imperceptibly. But it didn’t turn, and now here it came on the southbound road. Still, Flint’s heartbeat had quickened, and Clint felt the change and responded with a questioning twitch under his brother’s sweat-soaked shirt. Flint turned the key in the ignition and switched on the single headlight as the car began to glide past their hiding place.

  The beam jabbed out and caught the rust-splotched station wagon. Flint saw a blond-haired woman sitting in the passenger seat; she glanced toward the light, her eyes squinted, and Flint made out that the entire right side of her face seemed to be covered with an ugly violet bruise. He couldn’t see the driver’s face, but he saw a head wearing a dark blue baseball cap. Then the station wagon had gone out of the light. Flint’s breath hissed between his teeth; it was the same car Lambert had driven out of Basile Park.
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br />   He started the engine. Pelvis sat up bleary-eyed and rasped, “Whazhappenin?”

  “He’s here. Just passed us, goin’ south.” Flint’s voice was calm and quiet, his heart pumping hot blood but his nerves icy. “He didn’t turn, but that’s him all right. Hold the mutt.” He put the engine into gear and eased the Eldorado onto the road, turning right to follow Lambert. The station wagon’s taillights were just going around a curve. “There’s a woman with him,” Flint said as they gained speed. “Could be a hostage. Looks like he might’ve beaten her up.”

  “A hostage?” Pelvis said, horrified. His arms were clamped tightly around Mama. “My Lord, what’re we gonna do?”

  “What we came for.” They rounded the curve, and there was the station wagon forty yards ahead. “Hang on,” Flint said. His foot pressed down on the accelerator, a cold smile of triumph twisting his mouth. “I’m gonna run the sonofabitch off the road.”

  The light suddenly hitting them had startled Arden as much as it had Dan. “You think that was a trooper?” she asked, her voice shaky as they started into the curve.

  “Could’ve been. We’ll find out in a minute.”

  “He’s pullin’ out!” She had her head outside the window. “Comin’ after us!”

  Dan watched the rearview mirror. No siren yet, no flashing light. He kept his speed steady, the needle hanging at fifty. There was no need to panic yet. Might’ve been just somebody parked on a side road getting stoned. No need to panic.

  “Here he comes!” Arden yelled. “Pickin’ up speed!”

  Dan saw the car coming around the curve, closing the distance between them. The car had only one headlight.

  One headlight.

  A knot the size of a lemon seemed to swell in Dan’s throat.

  The bounty hunters’ black Cadillac had one headlight.

  But no, it couldn’t be! How the hell would Flint Murtaugh and the Elvis clone have known where he was going? No, it wasn’t them. Of course it wasn’t.

  He heard the roar of their engine.

  Arden pulled her head in, her eyes wide. “I think he’s gonna —”

  Ram us, she was about to say. But then the headlight was glaring into the rearview mirror and the Cadillac was right on their bumper and Dan tried to jerk the station wagon to one side but he was a muscle-twitch too late. The Cadillac banged into their rear with threatening authority, then abruptly backed off again. The station wagon’s frame was shivering, but Dan had control of the wheel. Another curve was coming up, and he had to watch where he was going. The Cadillac leapt forward again with what sounded like an angry snort, and once more banged their rear bumper and then drew back. “He’s tellin’ me to pull over!” Dan said above the rush of the wind. He glanced at the speedometer and saw the needle trembling at sixty.

  “Who is it? The police?”

  “Uh-uh! Couple of bounty hunters are after me! Damned if I know how they found me, but —”

  “Comin’ fast again!” Arden shouted, gripping onto the seat back.

  This time the Cadillac’s driver meant business. The knock rattled their bones and almost unhinged Dan’s hands from the shuddering wheel. The Cadillac didn’t back away, but instead began shoving the station wagon off the road. Dan put his foot on the brake pedal and the tires shrieked in protest, but the Cadillac was too strong. The station wagon was being inexorably pushed to the roadside, and now something clattered and banged under the front axle and the smell of scorched metal came up through the floorboard. The brake pedal lost its tension and slid right to the floor, and Dan realized the brakes had just given up the ghost.

  Whoever was driving, Murtaugh or the imitation Elvis, they wanted to play rough. Dan was damned if he’d let those two have him without a fight. He lifted his foot from the dead pedal and jammed it down on the accelerator, at the same time twisting the wheel violently away from the roadside. A gout of oil smoke boomed from the exhaust pipe, and the station wagon jumped forward, putting six feet between its crumpled rear bumper and the Cadillac’s teeth. Dan swerved back and forth across the road, trying to cut their speed and also to keep the Cadillac from shoving them again. They passed what looked like a marina on the right and then the woods closed in once more on both sides of the pavement. A SPEED LIMIT 45 MPH sign pocked with bullet holes swept past. The Cadillac roared up on them, smacking their left rear fender before Dan could jerk the station wagon aside. Now the road began a series of tight twists and turns, and it was all Dan could do to keep them from flying off. He dared to look at the speedometer and saw that it too had gone haywire, the needle flipping wildly back and forth across the dial.

  “Slow down!” Arden shouted. “You’ll wreck us!” He pulled up on the emergency brake, but there was no tension in that either. Whatever had fried underneath the car had burned out the brake system, which probably had been hanging together with spit and chicken wire anyway. “No brakes!” he answered, and then he fought the car around the next sharp curve with the Cadillac on his tail, his teeth clenched and his heart pounding. WELCOME TO CHANDELAC a sign announced, and they were through a one-block strip of darkened stores in a blast of engine noise and whirlwind of sandy grit. On the other side of Chandelac, the road straightened out and overhead huge oak trees locked branches. The Cadillac suddenly veered into the left lane and came up beside Dan, and Dan looked into the puffy face of an aged Elvis Presley, who was holding on to his bulldog with one arm and waving him to pull over with the other.

  Dan shook his head. The Elvis impersonator said something to Murtaugh, probably relaying Dan’s answer. Murtaugh then delivered his next response by slamming the Cadillac broadside against the station wagon. Arden had been holding back a scream, but the collision of metal knocked it loose. Dan felt the right-side tires slide off the pavement and into the weeds. He had no choice but to hit the accelerator and try to jump ahead of Murtaugh, but the bounty hunter stayed with him. Dan thought they must be going seventy miles an hour, the woods blurring past and the station wagon’s engine moaning with fatigue. The road curved to the right, and suddenly there were headlights coming in the left lane. Murtaugh instantly cut his speed and drifted back behind Dan, who took the curve on smoking tires. They rocketed past an old Ford crawling north, and as soon as they were out of the curve the Cadillac was banging on Dan’s back door again.

  He darted a glance at Arden, saw her hunched forward with the pink drawstring bag clenched between her hands. “I told you not to travel with me, didn’t I?” he yelled, and then he saw in the rearview mirror the Cadillac trying to pull alongside him. He veered to the left, cutting the bounty hunter off. Murtaugh swung the Cadillac to the right, and again Dan cut him off.

  “He’s not gonna let you get up there!” Pelvis shouted over the windstorm. His hair was a molded ebony still life. He saw the speedometer and blanched. “Lord God, Mr. Murtaugh! We’re goin’ seventy —”

  “I know how fast!” Flint yelled back. The station wagon’s beat-up rear fender was less than ten feet ahead. Lambert had stopped using his brakes. Either the man was crazy, or demonically desperate. Flint pressed his foot down on the accelerator and the Cadillac’s battered front fender again slammed into Lambert’s car. This time some serious damage was done: white sparks exploded from underneath the station wagon, a piece of metal coming loose and dragging the concrete. As Flint let the Eldorado drift back he saw Lambert’s left rear tire start shredding apart. “That got him!” Flint crowed. “He’ll have to pull over!”

  Within seconds the tire had disintegrated into flying fragments and now the wheel rim was dragging a line of sparks. But Lambert made no move to pull off, and the man’s stupid stubbornness infuriated Flint. He twisted the wheel, his knuckles white and Clint’s hand seizing at the air, and he veered into the left lane and powered the Eldorado up alongside Lambert to deliver the coup de grace.

  Dan saw Murtaugh coming. The big black car was going to knock them into the next parish. His heart had been gripped by a cold fist when he’d felt the rear tire go
ing, but actually the drag was slowing them down. Still, here came Murtaugh up alongside, and what the Cadillac was going to do to them wouldn’t be pretty.

  He swung the car to the left and bashed the Cadillac so hard he heard the frames of both cars groan in discordant harmony. Murtaugh returned the favor with a broadside blow, and suddenly Dan’s door tore off its rusted hinges and fell away. Both cars whammed together in the center of the road, what remained of the station wagon’s left side buckling inward like a stomped beer can.

  Dan’s speed was falling past sixty, the engine making a harsh lug-lug-lugging. He smelled burned rubber and hot metal, and ahead on the road a half-dozen ravens leapt up from the roadkill on which they were feasting and scattered with enraged cries. He looked at the dashboard and saw the needle on the water temperature gauge vibrating at the far limit of the red line. Murtaugh hit him again, his own car being reduced to rolling wreckage and steam swirling from the Cadillac’s hood, and the impact knocked the station wagon across the right lane onto the shoulder.

  Dan heard Arden’s breath hitch.

  They hit a sign, black against yellow, that he had only an instant to read before it was crushed down.

  DANGEROUS BRIDGE, IOMPH.

  With a boom and a burst of escaping steam from the volcanic radiator the hood flew up in front of the windshield. Dan twisted the wheel to get on the pavement again, but the rear end fish-tailed out of control. Three seconds later they hit something else that cracked like a pistol shot, and abruptly Dan felt his butt rise up off the seat and he knew with sickening certainty that the station wagon had left the road. Branches and vines whipped at the top of the car, he heard Arden scream again, and his own mouth was opening to cry out when they came down, the station wagon hitting water like a fatman doing a graceless bellyflop. Dan had the sensation of his body being squeezed and then stretched by the impact, his skull banging the roof and bright comets of red light streaking behind his eyes. He heard what sounded like a wall of water crashing against the hood and windshield, and the engine, sizzled and moaned before it began an iron-throated gurgling. Dazed at the quickness of what had happened, his head packed with pain and his consciousness flagging, Dan sat in the darkness still gripping the steering wheel.