by Kris Lackey
The cruisers were getting closer, and the biker tried to drive with his right arm and drag Maytubby loose. He couldn’t. He braked the bike, whipped off the T-shirt at shutter speed. Maytubby grabbed the tailpipe. It was not too hot, but it was slick. The Ninja shed him, roared into the bar ditch and around one of the cruisers, and screamed down Broadway. Both cruisers gave chase. He stood and watched them wind down to the bypass, slow, and turn off their strobes.
“This is tired,” he said, and spat on his bloody elbow.
Jill was still sleeping when he got back into bed. The window unit had masked all the commotion. He tried to think of ways to catch the Ninja. All were magical. Soon he was asleep.
“You lied to me, Sergeant,” Jill said as he walked into the kitchen. She handed him a Frankoma cup shaped like an oil drill head and poured coffee into it. “You waited till I was asleep and then you drove around all night until you found trouble. You also bled on my sheets.”
“I am a man of my word. Trouble came to me.” He told her what had happened.
“So you blew our cover. The biker guy knows where we are.”
“Sí.”
Chapter 29
Maytubby was emptying his mailbox of commercial flyers when his cell phone rang.
“Austin Love’s bond has been set,” Naomi Colbert said, “and his uncle is coming to pay it this morning.”
“Surprising. The uncle, I mean. Love was stealing from him, and he knew it.”
Colbert said nothing.
“Thanks, Naomi.”
“You’re welcome.”
Maytubby opened his refrigerator and took out a few rotten crooknecks and tomatoes while pondering what Love would do first. He and Trepanier were the only bird dogs in Maytubby’s kennel, and Trepanier was God knows where. He carried the vegetables out to the compost and then shot some scalding hose water on his pickup to wash off crisped pecan leaves and crow droppings. His old Ford, the nation’s only unmarked vehicle, had a police radio but no air conditioner, and it was well over ninety-five already, the sun already up in the pecan boughs. Time’s winged chariot.
He ran into the house and changed into his uniform. The large bandage he had slapped on his elbow peeled off into his armpit. He put on his duty belt, balled up his civvies, grabbed an old straw farmer’s hat, and sprinted for the truck. He inserted the absurdly tiny key and turned it, and the 352 V-8, big as a washing machine, its labyrinthine carburetor newly rebuilt, rumbled to life.
Hannah Bond answered her cell on the second ring. “Hannah, Love’s coming out of Pontotoc this morning. You on shift?”
“No. But wait. You know OHP issued an APB for the Looziana preacher man in another damn white Cobalt? Well, your buddy Katz just lost him in pursuit in the boonies west of Boggy Depot. I don’t know what Katz was doing down there.”
Tumblers spun and clicked. Maytubby played out scenarios and then abandoned his plan to follow Love in the Ford. “You remember Love’s pickup?”
“Yeah.”
“What can you drive off duty?”
“Oh, Lord, my old Skylark.”
“I’m going to get a plane and follow him in the air.”
“The Lighthorse has an air force?”
“No, Heartland Aviation has a 1959 Cessna One-Fifty for rent. Could be a while before Love is out. Could be soon. I’ll call you.”
“Roger that. What’s a Cessna One-Fifty?”
“Sort of like a photo booth with a wing across the top.”
“Oh, yeah. We had one of them crash at the Tish Airpark. Had to use the Jaws of Life, except at that site it was the Jaws of Death.”
“Thanks, Hannah.”
“Anytime.”
At a light on Mississippi, he speed-dialed the Heartland manager’s cell.
“Hey, Frank.”
“Hey. Is Two Niner Foxtrot free?”
“No. It’s fifty bucks an hour wet, same as last time.”
“Good one.”
“Yeah, it’s unoccupied. And topped off. Want me to pencil you in?”
“Starting now, for four hours.”
At the Pontotoc jail, Maytubby nodded to Judy and was ushered into the cells. Austin Love was still there, sitting on his bunk, his gray eyes fixed on the wall. Maytubby said, “Mr. Love, Dave Woodley has abandoned his apartment in Oklahoma City.” Love sat silent and did not move his eyes. As Maytubby was leaving the jail, he passed Carter Love, who nodded solemnly and bent to his familial duty.
Turning off Broadway into Ada Municipal, Maytubby glanced at the orange wind sock, which hung limp. He could use any runway. Inside the Heartland office, where it was cool, he phoned Sheila and asked her to call him when Love retrieved his pickup from Impound. He picked up the plane key at the desk. Rushing through the preflight, he shed his uniform shirt, duty belt, boots, and socks and threw them in the copilot’s seat with a water bottle and field glasses. There was no AC in the 150, and he would be flying well below cooler air. “Clear!” he shouted out the side vent, though there wasn’t a soul within fifty yards of the propeller. The little Continental engine caught instantly, and the prop wash blew a gale in through the vent. Maytubby put his face to the vent and kept his door open as he taxied. The barometer hadn’t moved in days, so he didn’t have to reset the altimeter to 1,016, the airport’s elevation.
He scanned the taxiways and the sky. The airport serviced fewer than forty flights a day. He saw nothing. Still, he told the Unicom he was taxiing to runway 17. Before he entered the runway, he stood on his left brake and made the plane pivot in a circle so he could see every inch of sky. “Cessna One-Fifty Two Niner Foxtrot departing Ada on seventeen.”
The runway was over a mile long—several jets lived in Ada—so Maytubby didn’t have to use flaps. He shut his door, released the brakes, and pushed the throttle knob all the way in. The plane lifted off, and he gazed out the window to shift his brain into looking-down mode, seeing all the landmarks at once, unrolling like a map from horizon to horizon. It was much easier to misidentify roads and rivers when you flew above them.
He could see the four lanes of US 377 sprouting south. Jill had taken that road after he left her apartment. She was meeting with 4-H leaders in Milburn about after-school classes in Native American history and culture. After he leveled off at just three hundred feet, his cell played its jingle. Sheila told him that Austin Love had driven his pickup off the lot. Maytubby was already over West Main and saw the truck, its huge tires casting a big shadow, less than a football field’s length below him, slewing around the cloverleaf and on its way south on the State 3 bypass. He called Hannah Bond and told her Love’s direction.
Maytubby climbed to five hundred feet and stayed well behind the truck. Love was making over seventy—fast enough to be comfortable for the Cessna. The landscape was autumn brown, the ponds dry or just puddles crowded with livestock. At Ahloso, Love turned south on 377, shot around the little hilly curves at Fittstown, and made for Connerville. Maytubby called Hannah with an update. Then he called Scrooby’s cell.
“Scrooby.”
“It’s Maytubby.”
“Oh. OHP pissants lost Treepanty down there in Bumfuck.”
“I know. Austin Love just bonded out of Pontotoc. Before he posted, I told him the preacher had left his apartment in the city. Love is tearing up Three Seventy-Seven, going south of Connerville now. I’m pursuing.”
“What’s all that racket? You driving a corn picker?”
“I’m in a plane.”
The line went silent for a few seconds. “Wait. Whose plane? OHP’s?”
“No.”
“The Lighthorse has an airplane?”
“The nation has some planes, but not the kind that would help me. I rented it in Ada.”
“Who’s flying it?”
“I am.”
Scrooby blew louder than the prop
noise. “Wonders never cease. What the hell do you plan to do when Love gets to where he’s going?”
“Tell you, for starters. So you can deploy your superior resources. Are you questioning Stoddard?”
“You hear me, Maytubby. You can chase Love to your heart’s content. He’s one of yours. But this murder investigation now belongs to the state.”
Maytubby ended the call and watched Love’s pickup leave the highway for a county road just west of the Blue. The pickup then headed south on what Maytubby recognized as Deadman Spring Road.
When he called Hannah Bond, she asked if she should leave Tish and head east toward Milburn. The town name caught him off guard. “Yeah, Hannah. In fact, Love is just now turning south on Forty-Eight-A. Jill’s in Milburn today.”
“Small nation.”
A thermal jolted the Cessna and sent the cell into the copilot’s seat. Maytubby fumbled for it and found it under his duty belt.
“You okay, Bill?”
“Bumpy today.”
“Any guess where Love is headed?”
“No. Maybe he’s jonesing and knows a stash. None of the gang I knew lived down here. He might have made friends in Mac. I’m hoping we can find out where he thinks the killer is—or whoever framed him, who may be someone else. It’ll at least give us … Wait, I’m getting a call. Call you back.”
“Bill Maytubby.”
“This is Lorenza Mercante, in …”
“Coalgate, I know.”
“What is that noise?”
“I’m flying.”
“You mean like Superman?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Listen, I read about Wiley. Spooky.”
“Yeah.”
“Anyway, this morning, when I was driving to the Brandin’ Iron for breakfast, I saw a motorcycle in the driveway of Wiley’s house.”
“Could you describe it?”
“Kind of like a racing bike where the driver lays flat. It was green. No license plate. A guy wearing a helmet came out of Wiley’s house with a little sack in his hand and drove away real fast south on Three. He was also packing. Legal now, if he has the paper. I went back to Wiley’s house and saw the front door had been busted in. I called the cops.”
“Thanks so much, Lorenza. Could you do me a favor and tell the Coalgate police to report this to Agent Scrooby at the OSBI?” He spelled the name. “You know OSBI?”
“Oh, yeah. What happened to Wolf Eyes?”
“He was innocent—of that charge. He just got out of the Pontotoc jail, and he’s the guy I’m tailing.”
“If you get tired of that, Coalgate’s got an airport, too.”
“I’ve heard that. Thanks again.”
He called Hannah.
“Love is south of Milburn. Wait, turning east on …”
“Well, whichever one, it’ll turn into Egypt Road. I’m catching up. I see your Spam can up there.” The Cessna’s vents, at three hundred feet, hosed him with hot air.
“This morning, someone spotted the Ninja shooter in Coalgate. Left south on Three.”
“Maybe we should call in the National Guard.”
“Who needs them? You know what they say: ‘One riot, one Lighthorse.’”
“Nobody ever said that.”
Maytubby throttled down to Love’s ground speed. As Egypt Road stair-stepped along the margins of the Blue, he had to add flaps to fly slower still.
“I can see that goofy truck now. Shit-weasel just threw out a lit cigarette. We could do without another wildfire.”
Between the Blue and Twelvemile Prairie were some square miles of wooded rocky land. From the air, one could see where driveways went, but on the ground they disappeared a hundred yards off the road. Love slowed and turned left, to the north. Hannah continued east toward the Blue. Maytubby saw a corrugated metal roof at the end of a long drive. A few hail dimples, a little rust, a stovepipe casting a crazy shadow. He could see no vehicles, but the area around the house was shaded. He banked away from the house and flew east. If Love hadn’t picked him up already, he didn’t want to push his luck by circling the house like a buzzard with a chain saw.
Hannah said, “That drive didn’t have a mailbox, didn’t have a cattle guard or a gate—or even much of a fence. Nobody’s been running cattle in there for a long time, if ever. And it’s three-point-seven miles east of State Seventy-Eight. After Egypt crosses the Blue, there’s a farm trail goes back west and crosses the river at a low-water ford. I know the folks that own it. I’m going in, wade in the water.”
“Be careful,” Maytubby said into a dead phone. Seconds later, it came to life again.
“Maytubby.”
“It’s Jake. What’s that racket?” Renaldo’s phone was on speaker.
“I’m in a plane.”
“Well, good for you. Sheila said it was your day off.”
“I’m flying it. Love just bailed out of Pontotoc, and I followed him to a place east of Milburn.”
“Wait. Shit.” The phone clattered and snapped. Renaldo’s siren whooped. There was a long pause. “I’m pursuing your Ninja with a cracked lens. Katz is behind me. He told me that bike was fast.”
“Where?”
“Sixty-nine south out of Caney. Caddo cops are on the highway, but this guy will jump into the boonies before then.”
“Your choppers are in Norman?”
“No, but they’re both deployed far away. There he goes!”
Maytubby removed the flaps and throttled up. “I’m coming your way. What crossroad? Which direction?”
“Uh … Mount Carmel. West. It’s dirt.”
“Good. Slow him down, make him visible. Pillar of cloud by day. Matter of fact, I can see it from here.”
With no headwind, Maytubby covered the distance in four minutes. The Ninja had turned south on Cat City Road, which passed Maytubby Springs on its way south. Maytubby told Renaldo what turns to make, and the cruisers were gaining ground as long as they stayed on dirt roads. But on State 22, where the Ninja veered west, the playing field was no longer even. The Cessna couldn’t keep pace with the bike, either, but the Cessna was way up in the middle of the air.
At State 78, the bike turned north toward Milburn. The trooper and the deputy were two miles behind. Maytubby speed-dialed the Johnston sheriff’s office and told the dispatcher to get a deputy to the First Baptist Church, where Jill was conducting her meeting. Not until he had ended the call did Maytubby summon to mind the biker’s digital reserves. He already knew Jill’s address and the date of her engagement to Maytubby, published in the Ada News along with her photo. He had seen her Accord on King’s Road. The Chickasaw Nation’s website had advertised the time and place of her meeting in Milburn.
He scrolled to Jill’s name and called her. In a few seconds, he got her voice mail. She had good meeting manners. He called her again, knowing that it would do no good. A call from Hannah appeared on his phone screen. He ignored it. The green Ninja was minutes away. Renaldo and Katz had turned onto 78. He phoned Renaldo and told him the biker was going after Jill at the First Baptist Church. When he hung up, he mentally cataloged Jill’s colleagues in the nation until he came to one who might know someone else at the meeting. The Ninja passed through Emet. Two short calls later, he was ringing the vice principal of Milburn High School. Not his first choice, but he was begging. How the vice principals of America must have cursed the invention of voice mail. Three rings, five, ten. Nothing.
Maytubby had an angle on the Ninja, but not enough of one to beat it to Milburn. He cut the throttle and dropped the plane’s nose. He had to get down fast. The Ninja slowed to take a left turn into the little town. That bought Maytubby a few seconds to scout the streets leading into town. His flight instructor cut the power once during each lesson and said, “Land the plane.” When they were fifty feet above the ground, the instructor t
hrottled up and said only “You’re alive” or “You’re dead.” More often than not, he was dead.
The Cessna’s altimeter spun lefty. The highway through town was wide, its parallel parking deserted. Two power lines, near the central intersection, crossed the highway. The Ninja slewed into the church’s lot, raising a gray cloud from the chat. Maytubby aimed for the very end of the highway curve so he could limbo under the lines. He set full flaps and slowed the plane, switched on the landing light. Out his left window, he saw the strobes of the cruisers. And ahead, coming toward him on 78, an ambulance.
He flashed the landing light just before his wheels yelped on the asphalt. The ambulance careened into a superette parking lot. His airspeed fell quickly into the forties, and he taxied on the quick march onto a lawn across from the church, behind a stand of bois d’arc trees, stomped the brakes, and cut the prop. The ambulance continued east. As the Continental sputtered to a stop, Maytubby grabbed his pistol and set off at a dead barefoot run toward the sheet-metal church.
He was not ten yards from the door when the cyclist, in a sand camo jumpsuit and matching helmet, visor up, burst into the lot, holding Jill by the hair. He pushed a long pistol against her ear. “You stand down, Injun. I’ll shoot your nigger whore. Drop that fucking pistol.”
Maytubby let the gun fall on the chat. Jill stared at the ground and frowned diabolically, eyes wide open. Matted yellow hair fell across the biker’s forehead. His eyes were large and feline chartreuse, his features small. The Ninja, idling, was pointed east, the way he had come.
The cruisers squealed into the lot. Renaldo and Katz drew their firearms and crouched behind their cruiser doors. “No!” Maytubby shouted. They saw the biker, holstered their guns, and stood with their hands atop the doors. The biker grabbed Jill’s belt with his free hand, lifted her from the ground, and shoved her facedown onto the bike. He held the gun to her nape and mounted behind her. “If you follow me or set up a block, I will spill her brains all over your nice state highway.” In a brisk turn, he holstered the pistol and sent a spray of gravel over the officers. The bike keened away.