Rovers

by RICHARD LANGE

  The water is warm as he walks out into the reservoir, towing the corpse behind him. The muddy bottom slopes quickly downward, and he lifts the body to keep it from sinking, carries it in his arms. When the water reaches his chin, he pushes off and keeps going, swimming now, kicking hard while bearing the dead man.

  In the middle of the reservoir, he lets the body drag him down. When his toes touch mud, he looks up toward the tarnished silver shimmer of the surface. The water is ten feet deep here, deep enough nobody will ever find the indio. He releases the corpse. It sinks to the bottom, and he rockets back to the surface and swims to shore.

  Back on the bank, Pedro dresses and turns for a last look at the reservoir. The water is calm again, faintly reflecting the moon, the stars, and the overarching trees. It’s not so bad. There are worse spots the indio could have ended up.

  The fireworks stand, a trailer parked in an empty lot, is locked up for the night. Yuma and Real Deal park across the road. Yuma fetches her screwdriver, and Real Deal doesn’t bother to tell her what a stupid idea this is. She’s drunk now, which only makes her more stubborn. He gets off his bike and follows her to the trailer.

  She walks around to the door in back. Unable to get a good angle on the padlock with the screwdriver, she pries the hasp off the wall instead. When she gets the door open, she steps inside.

  Real Deal pokes his head in as she thumbs her Zippo. Red Dawn, Devil’s Gold, Thunder King, Big Mama, Titan. The glow from the lighter reveals floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with boxes of rockets, crackers, and Roman candles. The air is spiced with the tang of black powder, and signs warn NO SMOKING.

  “Christ almighty, be careful,” Real Deal says.

  Yuma pokes around for a cash box but comes up empty-handed. Approaching headlights send Real Deal into the trailer too. He pulls the door shut and hisses at Yuma to douse the flame. They stand silently in the dark, so close together they feel the heat coming off each other.

  The one-two punch of tension and relief when the car passes does something to Yuma. She’s suddenly tingling in all the right spots and has an idea of what might calm the whirlwind that’s been spinning inside her all night. She grabs Real Deal’s hand and puts it on her pussy. Real Deal protests, something about too risky. “Shut up,” Yuma says and goes to undoing his belt while he works on hers. They do it standing up, her bent over the counter, him coming from behind. She gets off in only a couple minutes, and he pops right after.

  Real Deal makes himself presentable and steps outside. The road is empty in both directions, the body shops, retread-tire outlets, and used-car lots scattered along it snoozing away. Real Deal adjusts his pecker and smiles to himself. What a trip. He smells something acrid, and Yuma dashes out of the trailer. A fusillade of ear-splitting screeches, whistles, and bangs shatters the quiet, and a ball of fire shoots from the trailer’s door and blossoms into a spray of hissing sparks.

  Yuma, waiting at the edge of the lot, laughs at the terror on Real Deal’s face as he runs to join her.

  “Happy Bicentennial,” she says.

  The din increases in volume, boom upon boom, screech upon screech, and the geyser of sparks shooting out the door is so intense, it resembles the tail of a captured comet. A huge explosion makes the Fiends flinch, and part of the trailer rises on a mushroom cloud of green and silver glitter and spins end over end to crash to the ground twenty feet from them.

  They sprint across the road, hop on their bikes, and speed away. Yuma’s calmer now, thanks to either the fuck or the fireworks show. Real Deal would like to be angry with her, but he remembers a few years back when he went on a three-day binge and she stayed by his side the whole time, somehow getting him out of every bit of trouble he got himself into. Afterward, he asked why. “I’ve got all my chips on you,” she said, and that’s been their motto ever since.

  Antonia and Elijah are parked outside a bar that’s closing for the night. The drinkers turned out of the tavern stand stunned on the sidewalk like people whose houses have been whirled away by a tornado, but there’s not a rover among them.

  The Fiends’ next stop is a coffee shop called Helsing’s. They intended to step inside briefly to check out the customers but end up at the counter with menus in front of them.

  “It’s time to move on,” Antonia says.

  “New Orleans?” Elijah says.

  “We’ll take it slow, search all the towns we pass through on the way.”

  “Think the others will go for that?”

  “They know it’s silly to keep riding around here night after night when the fuckers who dusted Bob are probably long gone. Bob will kick, but he’ll either accept it or be on his own.”

  “I take it you wouldn’t be sorry to see him go.”

  Antonia lets a shrug be her answer, sips her coffee. “They eat raw fish in Japan,” she says. “It’s supposed to be healthy for you.” She peruses the menu. “And we’ve got hotcakes. I’m so fucking sick of hotcakes.”

  “I met a man who swore by potatoes and vinegar,” Elijah says. “That’s all he ate, and he claimed never to have been sick a day in his life. Claimed, in fact, that he survived the plague in Istanbul.”

  “Remember that girl in Seattle?” Antonia says. “Dutch Charlie had turned her?”

  “Dutch Charlie,” Elijah says. “I haven’t thought of him in forever.”

  “He had that girl who took arsenic to stay skinny, a drop in her tea every evening.”

  “Your memory is a marvel,” Elijah says.

  Antonia appreciates the compliment but doesn’t acknowledge it, being shy that way. She goes back to griping about hotcakes instead.

  She and Elijah continue to ride the streets after their meal but with no more success than before. At 3:30 they return to the motel, the first ones back. A red light is blinking on the telephone when they get to their room. Antonia calls the office, and the night man answers.

  “A Mr. Beaumont called,” he says. “Wanted me to tell you it’s urgent.”

  21

  W​HAT DID BEAUMONT SAY IT WOULD TAKE TO MAKE PEACE WITH the Fiends?”

  The question from Johona comes out of nowhere. Jesse had thought she was asleep beside him, thought he was the only one lying awake, mind racing. She’s under the sheet, in a T-shirt and panties, and he’s on top of it fully clothed. For the first time he notices a splash of freckles on her nose, something Claudine didn’t have. He likes them.

  Would you bring them another baby to replace the one you stole? Beaumont asked him.

  I would, Jesse replied. I’d bring them two.

  Would you give up the girl to them?

  No.

  Your brother?

  “He thinks they might settle for money,” Jesse says to Johona.

  “How much money?”

  “He didn’t know. However much it is, though, I’ll get it.”

  “How? Not picking pockets.”

  “Didn’t you tell me you wanted to go out with a bank robber?”

  Edgar turns on the television. So he’s awake too. He flips through the channels until he finds a cartoon. It’s only 2 p.m., a long time until sundown. Johona’s stomach growls. Jesse puts his ear to it. “You got a bear in there?” he says.

  “A hungry one,” Johona replies.

  “There’s peanut butter, bread, some of that deviled ham. You want me to make you a sandwich?”

  “I only like peanut butter with milk.”

  “Me too,” Edgar says. “Only with milk.”

  “Since when?” Jesse says.

  “I’ll go out and get some,” Johona says. She picks up her jeans from the floor and pulls them on under the sheet.

  Jesse feels a pinch of worry as she slips out the door. It’s daytime, and only Beaumont knows they’re here, but he’d still rather she didn’t wander. He sits at the table and makes the sandwiches.

  “I’m feeling lucky,” Edgar says. “I bet I hit a super damn jackpot soon.”

  “Okay, Big Time,” Jesse says. “What’ll
you do with your winnings?”

  “Get me a sweetheart too.”

  “Johona’s not my sweetheart. She’s just traveling with us for a while. We’re looking out for her.”

  “You’re a liar. I saw you kissing her. You was probably feeling on her titties and her cunny too.”

  “What would Mama think if she heard you talking like that?”

  “Mama’s dead,” Edgar says. “She can’t hear nothing.”

  Jesse is surprised by this. Edgar normally backs right down when their mother is invoked. Jesse fears he’s given him too much rein lately. The best way to keep him safe has always been to keep him cowed.

  Johona returns, and the three of them watch Bugs Bunny while they eat. Edgar fills Johona in on the local kid shows. “This here’s channel 8,” he says. “They used to have Commander Lee and Bostwick’s Western Corral, then they had Miss Cinderella.”

  The telephone rings. Edgar jumps up and says, “I’ll answer,” but Jesse grabs the receiver before he can get to it.

  “I’m still trying to make contact with the Fiends,” Beaumont says. “They’re a difficult bunch to track down.”

  “Thanks again,” Jesse says. “Let me know as soon as you hear anything.”

  “Of course,” Beaumont says. “In the meantime, I’d like to invite you to dinner. You and Edgar and Johona.”

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “It’s been twenty years since we last got together. That’s too long for old friends like us. We have catching up to do.”

  Jesse is in no mood to socialize but wants to make sure he stays in Beaumont’s good graces.

  “As long as you don’t go to any trouble,” he says.

  “Splendid,” Beaumont says. “I’ll be looking forward to it. I haven’t entertained in ages. I’ll expect you tomorrow at midnight. Take down the address.”

  Edgar is thrilled by the invitation. “He still got that piano that plays itself?” he asks, recalling a visit they made to Beaumont when he was living in New Orleans. “He still got that parrot?”

  That night, at Johona’s insistence, they take in a magic show at the Desert Inn. It’s a big production. Showgirls high-kick across the stage, a tiger appears out of thin air, and Buddy Hackett stops by to help out on a card trick.

  Jesse’s having a fine time until the magician brings out a rope and ties his assistant to a post, telling a story about how they used to burn witches at the stake. Witch. That’s what the men in Hot Springs called Claudine. The magician douses his assistant with liquid from a gas can, strikes a match, and tosses it at the girl’s feet.

  Flames shoot up around her, and Jesse’s suddenly back in that Arkansas clearing, coming to in agony but healing quickly after being shot to pieces by the friends of the drunk Claudine fed on. The men are standing over the drunk.

  “Poor Jim.”

  “Gone, is he?”

  “Gone.”

  Jesse plays dead as the men approach him and Claudine.

  “Who are these two?”

  “The bitch was drinking Jim’s blood.”

  “Some kind of witch then, and him the devil that rides with her.”

  One of the men brings a lantern close to Claudine. “Would you look at that,” he says.

  Claudine’s bones are knitting, her flesh mending.

  “She’s putting herself back together,” the man with the lantern says.

  “We got to burn them,” another says. “We got to burn the both of them.” He runs down the trail to a shack.

  Jesse tries to roll over but is still too busted up. One of the men sees him struggling and slams the butt of his shotgun into his head, dazing him. The man who went to the cabin returns with a five-gallon can of kerosene. He soaks Claudine and Jesse with the fuel, and they howl as it seeps into their wounds. The man tries to strike a match but fumbles.

  “Stop,” Jesse shouts. “Stop!”

  Another of the men pulls a match and sparks it. He drops it on Claudine, and she’s immediately enveloped, screaming and writhing, in a cocoon of fire. The trees pulse red. Smoke bubbles into the sky. The men turn to Jesse, but before they can light him up, too, Claudine springs to her feet and lurches at them, a wailing human torch. One of them runs, but another lifts his shotgun and pulls the trigger. The blast knocks Claudine back to the ground, where she lies burning, silent and still again.

  Jesse realizes he can move his legs, and, marshaling every ounce of his strength, he staggers to his feet and sprints for the dark woods. A shotgun booms and buckshot burrows into his back, but desperation keeps him going. He plunges into a thicket. Nettles lash at him, thorns threaten to hang him up. The men pause at the edge of the tangle to argue about who’s going after him.

  He thrashes on until the ground disappears from beneath his feet and he plummets through darkness to land in a cold, black river. An electric shock shoots through him when he hits bottom. His legs are broken, both of them. The current takes hold of him and whisks him off.

  He managed to get to shore, managed to find a riverbank cave to shelter in for the day. As soon as the sun set he returned to the clearing. All that was left of Claudine was a mound of ashes and a patch of scorched grass. He heard a noise on the trail leading to the men’s shack and fled, an act of cowardice he’s regretted ever since. It would’ve been better to have been dusted while trying to get revenge that night than to plod on as he has all the years since under ten tons of guilt and grief.

  He held his life cheap afterward, came close to dying many times—tried to, in fact. It wasn’t until he started looking after Edgar in the wake of their mother’s death that he finally turned away from the grave.

  The flames die down, and the audience gasps. The girl has vanished. The magician feigns confusion. Knocking comes from inside a wooden crate on the stage. The magician prances over and opens it, and the girl steps out unscathed.

  They go for ice cream after the show, and Jesse lets Edgar play another slot machine. He feeds it a roll of quarters without getting anything back and insists the machine is broken, tries to reach inside it through the tray.

  Back at the motel Jesse gets him interested in a Frankenstein movie on TV so he and Johona can sit by themselves on the walkway in front of the room. A couple of kids are splashing in the pool. Johona lights a cigarette and picks up the ashtray.

  “Is it stealing to take this with you?” she asks.

  “They must mean for you to,” Jesse says. “With the name of the place and the telephone number and everything on it.”

  “The Holiday Motel,” Johona reads off the ashtray.

  “Will your folks be worried about you?” Jesse says.

  “They live in Santa Fe. They won’t even know I’m gone until you make me leave and I call them for the money to get to California.”

  “You should be glad to be moving on.”

  “Will you be glad to get rid of me?”

  No, he wants to say, but doesn’t. “You wouldn’t want to live the life me and Edgar have. Believe me.”

  “Maybe me being around would make things easier for you,” she says. “I could run errands during the day, keep you company at night, help with Edgar.”

  More and more it’s her Jesse sees when he looks at her, not Claudine. More and more it’s her that makes him smile, not memories. But it’s cruel to even flirt with the notion of keeping her with him.

  What are you going to do when you find out the truth? he thinks. The first time I bring a girl back and cut her throat so Edgar’ll stop moaning about his Little Devil? Or maybe you’re thinking you’d like me to turn you, make you into a monster too.

  “As soon as Beaumont sounds out the Fiends and sees where they stand, you’ll be on your way,” he says. “Even if this mess gets settled, you’re going. That’s the way it has to be.”

  Johona takes a puff off her cigarette and watches the kids in the pool. “You’re the boss,” she says.

  He heads out again to go dipping. Johona’s right, he’ll neve
r pull together enough money to pay off the Fiends by lifting wallets, but he’s got to start somewhere. And he wasn’t joking about robbing banks. He’s considered it before but always felt it was too risky. Now, if that’s what it takes to save Johona and Edgar, he’ll rob ten of them. It’s something else to talk to Beaumont about.

  He can only hope that any heists he plans go as well as dipping does. He hits two casinos, and people are practically handing him their wallets. He scores a thousand dollars in only three hours.

  He returns to the motel at dawn. Edgar’s out cold, but Johona sits up when he comes in. They eat Pop-Tarts, and he tells her about his luck. They fall asleep lying side by side, but he comes awake later to find her on top of him. She presses her body against his and kisses him deeply.

  They undress without a word, and before he can stop himself, he’s inside her. It’s been a long time. There were a few animalistic couplings in the years between Claudine’s death and him taking charge of Edgar, but they left him so soul-sick and regretful, he hasn’t been tempted since. This time, with Johona, it’s like a balm, a soothing salve that makes him think his sorrow might not be permanent after all.

  Afterward, they’re both on their backs, looking at the ceiling. Sunlight beams through a hole in the blackout curtain, and music’s playing somewhere.

  “Thank you for that,” Jesse says.

  “I shouldn’t have done it,” Johona says. “I wasn’t thinking.”

  “It was a gift,” Jesse says.

  Johona rolls away from him. “Stop,” she says. “Please.”

  Whatever it takes to save her. Whatever it takes.

  He rolls over in the other direction, toward Edgar’s bed, and his brother’s eyes are wide open, glaring at him.

  He lets Edgar mess around in the pool for half an hour after the sun goes down. He’s tried a hundred times to teach him to swim, but Edgar can’t move his arms and legs in unison and won’t put his face underwater. His idea of fun is walking out into the deep end until only his head’s showing, then bouncing back to the shallow end.