by Rawlin Cash
He drove another two hundred yards and pulled in to the shoulder at an angle. He kept low and opened the door.
Immediately, bullets showered the truck.
He ducked, using the truck for cover. The glass shattered and the bullets bit into the steel with loud clangs.
Hunter lay on the ground and located each man. He could see the left leg of the bearded guy on the driver’s side. He had his door open and was shooting through the open window like a cop. On the passenger side was the younger guy. The guy who’d been shot was in the back.
“Go around,” the bearded guy said.
Hunter took aim at his leg with the rifle. He pulled the trigger and the man was on the ground, writhing in agony, cussing like a sailor.
The other guy tried running across the highway to get a better shooting position and Hunter traced him a second and then got him in the leg also. The man fell in the middle of the highway clutching his leg, but handled the pain better than the bearded man.
Hunter stood and peered through the cab. The bearded man was in the driver’s seat, screaming in pain, but he managed to slam shut the door, turn the ignition of the car, and fire up the engine. He pulled into the highway like he was doing a u-turn and rolled right over the man lying in the road. The man screamed out and then stopped. The entire weight of the front wheel rolled over his chest. When the second wheel did the same thing, the ribcage crushed. Hunter saw the moment the bones snapped.
Hunter knew he couldn’t let the driver go back to Sherman’s. He pulled the trigger without thinking. The passenger window shattered and the driver’s head snapped against his own window. The car went off the road into the ditch and the man slumped dead over the wheel.
Hunter blinked.
The horn was sounding.
First man he’d killed.
He didn’t know who he was.
He didn’t know where he’d come from.
He didn’t know what his beef truly was with Sherman.
And he didn’t have time to find out.
He looked up and down the highway. No one was coming. He kept the rifle pointed at the car. The man he’d shot at the farm was still in the back seat. He got to the man who’d been crushed under the car and checked him.
Dead.
He went to the car, gun drawn. He could see the guy in the back seat as he approached. He wasn’t moving. He opened the passenger side door and looked in. The man he’d shot at the farm was slumped forward, unconscious. Hunter checked his pulse. He was alive but he was losing too much blood. He checked the bearded man in front too. He was dead.
He pulled him off the horn and cut the engine and lights. Then he took off the bearded man’s jacket and belt and tied them tightly around the other guy’s leg.
He went back up to the road and looked down at the car. The ditch was a few feet from the road and dipped down. The car would be seen in the morning, but with the lights out and if the living guy stayed put, it might not be seen before.
Hunter grabbed the guy in the road and dragged him into the ditch also. He pulled him by the ankles and thought of the wolf Sherman had made him move with the shovel.
Then he checked the truck. There weren’t any leaks he could see. He got in and tried it. The windows were shattered but the engine started.
He pulled onto the road and gunned it in the direction of town.
There was a twenty-four hour pharmacy at the Walmart and he went inside. In the light he saw that his hands and arms had blood on them and he went into the washroom to clean off. Then he went to the pharmacy and looked in the aisle for anything like antibiotics.
The pharmacist was wearing a turban.
“Can I help you?” he said.
Hunter knew he looked frantic. He took a deep breath.
“I need the most powerful antibiotics you’ve got.”
“Do you have a prescription?”
Hunter had washed his hands and arms and his face but there was still blood on his shirt. He ran his hand through his hair and a piece of windshield glass fell to the floor.
He shook his head. “No, sir.”
The pharmacist looked at him. He looked over to the counter where there was a telephone.
“Hey, what’s your name?” Hunter said.
“What?”
“What’s your name?”
The pharmacist was young. No older than thirty. The name tag on his shirt said George.
“My name’s George,” he said.
“George. I want you to listen up real careful.”
George looked at him.
“You’re going to get me antibiotics to help an old man who’s been shot in the gut. I didn’t shoot him but I can’t go to the police neither.”
“I can’t just give you prescription medicines.”
“George. Listen up. Eyes on me.”
George wasn’t handling the situation well. His eyes were darting around. His breathing was speeding up.
“When I’m gone, you can call the police, George. They’ll say you did the right thing, giving me what I asked for.”
George’s eyes went to where the store security guard was standing.
“George, god damn it. You ever seen someone desperate? What do you think’s going to happen if you do something stupid?”
George looked at him.
“Take a deep breath, George.”
“Shit, man.”
“Just get me the pills, count to twenty, then call the cops. I’ll be gone. You’ll be in the clear.”
George said, “I’ll have to go back there.”
“Well do it fast, George.”
George went behind the counter and got the medication. He put it in a paper bag and printed a label. “These are the instructions,” he said, sticking the label onto the bag.
“Thank you, George.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Do I need to pay for these?”
George looked up at him. “Do you want me to charge you?”
Hunter looked over to the security guard. “Not really.”
“Just go,” George said.
“You’ll count to twenty?”
“I will.”
Hunter walked out of the store past the guard and got in his truck. He turned the key and the truck didn’t start. He looked at the door of the store. No one was coming. He tried the truck again and it didn’t start again. The rifle was on the seat next to him. He looked at the store again and still no sign of the guard. More than twenty seconds had passed. Maybe George had given him a little extra time.
He tried the truck a third time and this time it fired up.
He drove back toward the farm and slowed down when he approached the place of the shootout. Up ahead he could see the blue and red lights of a police cruiser.
His heart sank.
Someone had seen the car.
He needed to get back to the farm. He needed to make sure Sherman was all right. He wasn’t going to skip out without knowing.
He drove past the cruiser and saw the officer at the car, shining his light into the back seat.
He sped up after he passed and ran from the truck to the house.
“Sherman,” he called. “It’s me.”
He got to the bedroom and one look at the old man and he knew he was dead. He checked him anyway. He was still bandaged properly, he hadn’t messed up the bed, his eyes were closed, and there was no pulse. It looked like he’d died peacefully.
Hunter felt a pang of loss. He’d grown close to Sherman and it hurt to lose him. He was glad he’d killed the man with the beard.
He pulled the sheet up over Sherman’s head.
Then he left the room, went down the stairs, and crossed the yard to the bunkhouse. He grabbed his stash of money, the coat that had belonged to his father, and was headed back for the pickup when he heard the sound of approaching sirens.
He ran for the truck and got to it just before the police cars came into view. He lay low and waited for the cars. They passed r
ight by the truck and pulled up in front of the house about a hundred yards away. Hunter watched through the broken windshield.
Two cops got out of the cars and shone flashlights around. They found the dead dog. They shone lights on the shattered windows. They shone lights on the truck but didn’t see anything.
They faced the house and one of them said, “This is the police.”
The house was still. There was no sound other than crickets. One police went to the door and knocked. The door was unlocked and he pushed it. He went inside.
The other shone his light over the house and back toward the truck.
Hunter stayed low. The cop took a few steps in the direction of the truck and Hunter went over his options. If the cop saw him he wouldn’t do anything stupid. He wouldn’t shoot.
He could run for it on foot. The fields offered some sort of cover although he doubted he’d get very far. He could also try driving.
Either way he risked getting shot, and there was a high chance he’d be caught anyway.
He could also turn himself in.
What he’d done was in defense of himself and Sherman. But who knew how the law would see it? He was no lawyer. He didn’t know if the bearded man had connections. He certainly didn’t think it was outside the realm of possibility he’d find himself on the wrong side of a judge’s gavel. Three men were dead. He was the only one without a wound on him. He could end up in jail for the rest of his life.
The cop took a few more steps in the direction of the truck and Hunter got ready to make a run for it. Then the one inside the house called out. He’d found Sherman.
The other cop took a last look at the truck and then hurried toward the house. As soon as he went inside, Hunter took his chance.
He turned the key and the truck started on the first try. It revved to life and the high beams lit up the house and police cruisers like flood lights. He pulled up the rifle and fired a bullet into the back tire of each cruiser.
The cops returned fire from inside the house but their aim was off. Hunter burned a u-turn and sped down the driveway. He went west on the highway, took the first side road he came to, turned west again, zigzagged like that for a while, then went straight west for four hours until the gas gauge got real close to empty.
He didn’t want to leave the truck on the side of a highway where it would be found by police so he drove it into an old barn that had no roof and no doors. He threw some hay on it to make it look like it had been there a while and then walked back out to the highway.
Six
Hunter wrapped the rifle in his father’s coat and hitchhiked west for two days until he was in the town of Alliance, Nebraska. The man who dropped him off told him it was the home of Carhenge, a full-scale replica of Stonehenge that was made of old cars. To Hunter it seemed like a quiet farming town in the plains where no one would ever come looking for him. It had a couple of churches, a post office, and an old furniture store on Main Street called Royal’s.
There was a restaurant and he walked up to it. It was three days since he’d left Sherman’s farm and he’d barely eaten or slept. He took a seat at the counter and picked up the newspaper. It was the first chance he’d had to look at one but there was nothing in it about the shootings. He supposed a Nebraskan newspaper wasn’t overly concerned about a shooting in Oklahoma.
The waitress was a lady in her forties with a kind smile and curly hair.
She came up to him and said, “What can I get you, honey?”
“I’ll take the meatloaf and a cup of coffee.”
“You want fries or mashed potatoes with that?”
“Fries. And gravy.”
She nodded and Hunter almost fell asleep before the food arrived. His coffee had gone cold but he drank it anyway. He ate every bite of his food and when the waitress asked if he wanted dessert he had to force himself to say no.
She brought him the bill and he left enough to cover it and then went outside and walked the length of Main Street out of town. He got as far as the wheat fields and found a tree to lie under. It was an enormous tree, one of the largest he’d ever seen in his life. If someone told him it was five hundred years old he’d have believed them.
He’d intended to keep traveling west but when he woke at dawn the next morning, damp and cold, all he could think about was the meatloaf at that diner.
He saw the sign at the edge of town saying where he was but he didn’t have any idea where that was on a map. He was 830 miles almost directly north of his grandfather’s farm in El Paso. He’d drifted more north than west while he hitchhiked but it didn’t really matter.
He got back to the diner and the same waitress as the night before was there.
“You again?” she said.
Hunter wanted to smile at her but his face wouldn’t do it. He sat at the counter and ordered pancakes with bacon. The place was bustling, everyone knew each other, the waitress was nice to him, but Hunter kept to himself.
He was thinking about Sherman, but mostly he thought about the man he’d killed. Maybe the man wasn’t as bad as he’d seemed. Maybe Sherman owed him a legitimate debt. Maybe he was just trying to collect what was his.
But then he remembered the three of them getting out of the car, all armed, shooting Sherman’s dog. That wasn’t right.
“You got the look of a boy who’s passing through,” the waitress said.
“Yes ma’am.”
“Where you headed, if you don’t mind me asking?”
Hunter said California without really meaning it. The woman nodded and when she came back she had a piece of paper with a name and phone number on it. The name was Sonny.
“What’s this?” Hunter said.
“In case you’re looking for work.”
He nodded. He put the note in his pocket and after he left the restaurant he found himself calling the number from a payphone on the street.
A man’s voice answered. “Hello?”
“Hello.”
“Who’s this?”
“I got your number from the lady at the diner.”
“Oh yeah?”
“She said you might have work.”
“We might.”
“What kind of work?”
“You afraid of physical work?”
“No, sir.”
“You sure?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You ever rode a horse?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You know how to mend a fence?”
“Yes, sir.”
The man gave Hunter an address outside town and Hunter spent thirty minutes walking there. It was a ranch.
“I have thirty miles of fencing that needs to be checked and repaired. Most of it is only accessible on a horse.”
“All right,” Hunter said.
“I offer room and board and a hundred dollars a week.”
“All right.”
“You want the job?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Is that a rifle?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You know how to use it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. We’ve had coyote trouble. I’ll give you ten dollars extra for every tail you bring me.”
“I can do that.”
“Good. Now get yourself set up. Jim there will show you the bunkhouse. There’s a few other guys in there but they work with the cattle. You work solo.”
Hunter nodded and got shown to his bed by Jimmy.
“No drinking in the bunkhouse. No drugs. And no women. You got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You want to do any of the three of those, you need to do it in town.”
“I don’t.”
“You might change your mind.”
Hunter nodded.
“There’s a horse in the barn called Ruth. You can take her.”
Hunter nodded.
“You see that fence over there?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That stretches a few miles wes
t and you’ll see stretches that are down. Start with that tomorrow. I’ll ride out in a few days and inspect your work. Shouldn’t take you more than a week to get it done. Then I’ll show you what to do next.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You got any questions?”
“Where’s the wire and tools?”
“Take what you need from that shed over there.”
“The boss said something about room and board?”
“I showed you the bunkhouse.”
“Do we get meals?”
“Oh, meals.” Jim laughed. “Yeah, you get meals. You show up at that house at six in the morning and five in the evening and you’ll get fed. Regular as clockwork.”
Hunter went to the bunkhouse. There was a guy sleeping in one of the beds. He unpacked his things and went to the stable and took the horse out. She was a good horse. He called her Ruthy. Then he waited around until dinner and ate in the kitchen. The woman who did the cooking was Mexican. She spoke perfect english. She asked Hunter if he was new. He told her he was and she gave him a double serving. Beans, tortillas, bits of bacon in the beans. The other workers arrived with Jimmy as Hunter was finishing his food.
“New kid,” Jimmy said, taking a seat at the table.
Hunter looked up at him.
Jimmy did the introductions. The other guys seemed friendly enough. There were three of them. A handsome guy called Joel, a Mexican guy they called Mercy, and a fat guy called Chet.
All three lived in the bunkhouse. Hunter shook their hands and thanked the cook and then went back to the bunkhouse and sat on his bed.
He looked around.
The place was basic but tidy. Everyone kept his things in order. It would be cold in winter and hot right now but the sheets on the beds were clean and the blankets looked decent.
Someone had a guitar on his bed and Hunter hoped he didn’t play it too often. Someone else was reading a Steinbeck novel and had left it open on his pillow.
Hunter picked it up.
Of Mice and Men.
It was open on page eleven, which was the first page of text after all the introductory pages.
He put it back on the bed and went out to the porch and lit a cigarette. The other guys were on their way back from dinner and stopped on the porch.