The Two-Bear Mambo

by Joe R. Lansdale

  I closed my eyes, but in time I was drawn to look again, and after an hour or so I felt so strange and disconnected with reality her corpse was no longer horrifying; it was like part of the decor.

  By midday I was hungry and freezing and feverish, beginning to feel as if I was going to fall because I couldn’t keep my grip anymore. My hands were like claws. My calves and thighs ached with cramps. When I stood up on the limb to shake my legs out, I could hardly keep my balance. Something was moving and rattling in my chest, and its name was pneumonia.

  The sun bled out its redness and turned yellow and rose in the sky like a bright balloon full of helium, but still it gave no heat.The air was as cold as an Arctic seal’s nose and there was a slight wind blowing, and that made matters worse, turned the air colder and carried the stench from Florida’s corpse and that of the bloated cow—which I named Flossy—to me as a reminder of how I would soon end up.

  A few mobile homes floated by, mostly in pieces. A couple of rooftops drifted into view later on. I thought I might drop down on one of the roofs as it floated by, ride it out. And I think I was weak enough and stupid enough right then that that’s exactly what I would have done, but the roof I had in mind hit a mass of trees, went apart, was washed away as splintered lumber.

  I had become a little delirious with fever. Sometimes I dreamed I was still holding Leonard’s wrist, and I was about to pull him into the tree with me, then I’d realize where I was and what had happened, and I’d go weak and wonder how it would be to drop from my limb and let the water have me.

  After a time, I heard the helicopter. At first I thought the chopping sound was in my head, but finally I looked, and high up like a dragonfly, was a National Guard helicopter.

  Then it was low, skimming over the trees, beating furiously, rattling the dry limbs of winter, making me colder. My coat was so soaked in water, so caked with ice, speedy movement was difficult, but I did my best to stand on my limb and wave an arm.

  The helicopter passed over, started climbing. As I watched the copter soar up and away, I felt as if the world were falling out from under me. I slowly sat down. Then the copter turned back, dropped low.

  It hovered over the tree where Florida’s corpse was wedged, and I realized they had spotted her, not me. I waved and screamed and jumped up and down on my limb like an excited monkey. The copter moved slowly in my direction, a few yards above my tree and beat the air. A rope with a life basket was lowered out of its door.

  They couldn’t get too close because of the limbs, and I couldn’t get far enough out to get hold of the basket. I tore off my coat and tossed it, inched my way out on the limb, heard it crack, but kept going. The basket was six feet away and the limb was starting to sag, and I knew this was it. Die dog or eat the hatchet. I bent my knees, got a little spring like a diver about to do a double somersault, and leaped into space.

  My legs didn’t carry me as far as I thought they might, but I got hold of the basket, barely, and it tilted and swung and I clung. They hauled up slowly, me swinging in the air, my fingers weakening by the second. And just when I thought I couldn’t hold anymore, they pulled me inside and threw a blanket around my shoulders and shoved a cup of hot soup into my bloodless hands.

  “Man,” said the young, uniformed Guardsman who gave me the soup, “you are one lucky sonofabitch. We been all over. We haven’t found but three or four people. That flood, it took the world. You Hap Collins?”

  “Yeah. How did you—”

  “Fella we found, said you were out there. Wouldn’t let us give up. Said he’d throw himself out of the copter, we didn’t keep looking. I don’t think he has the strength to roll over, but we kept looking. We saw that body in the tree, then you.”

  I wasn’t paying attention to the Guardsman anymore. I took a better look around the chopper. I had been so preoccupied with getting inside, then with the soup, I hadn’t noticed that there were three other rescued civilians inside, lying under blankets. One of them rolled over slowly and looked at me and smiled, if you could call lifting your upper lip slightly a smile. It was Leonard.

  “That’s the guy,” Guardsman said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I know that sonofabitch.”

  The Guardsman pulled me over by Leonard and draped a blanket around my shoulders and gave me more soup. The Guardsman said, “We haven’t got a doctor on board, but we’ll have you to one soon.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  I looked at Leonard. He was trying to sit up. I set the soup down and got him under the arms and pulled him up against the wall. “Throw yourself out, huh?” I said.

  “Just bullshit.” His voice was like crackling cellophane.

  “Want some of my soup?”

  “Long as I don’t drink on the side where your mouth’s been.”

  The rain stopped the day after the flood and it hasn’t come a big rain since. The flood was the worst in East Texas history. Grovetown was almost wiped off the map and was designated a Disaster Area.

  Leonard and I felt like warmed-over dog shit for about three months after it all. We were both pretty much broke, having gone through our savings and owing doctor bills.

  Raul didn’t run off while Leonard was in Grovetown. He had a change of heart, stayed home and waited. Leonard is looking for work. I go over there most Sundays to have dinner. I still don’t like Raul much.

  Florida’s corpse was recovered and buried in the LaBorde cemetery. I was too sick to go to the funeral. Now that spring has come, there’s a hill across from my house where beautiful wildflowers grow. I pick them from time to time, drive out to the cemetery in the car Charlie loaned me, and put them on Florida’s grave.

  Last week I started back doing odd jobs, and at the end of the week I nailed work driving a tractor, getting the ground in shape for a sweet potato crop for Mr. Swinger. It’s not good work and it doesn’t pay much, and it won’t last long, but it has a hypnotic quality and keeps me from thinking too much. I get so I see only the field in front of me, hear the hum of the tractor, have to think just enough to do what needs to be done.

  Sometimes, though, I can’t help but consider it all. I heard through Charlie that Bacon was washed away with the flood, and his body has never been found. Mrs. Garner drowned too, but they found her body way down in the Thicket, the remains of that double-wide on top of her. Tim’s body was located wrapped tight in barbed wire, like a metal mummy. They didn’t find him all that far from his mother.

  Hanson’s the same. I went to Tyler to see him a couple of times, but he didn’t know me and the family hardly does. I didn’t go back. I couldn’t see it made a difference. Charlie, on the other hand, goes there often, holds Hanson’s hand and talks to him. He thinks Hanson’s doing better. But he’s the only one that does.

  Not so long ago, Leonard and I, like gluttons for punishment, drove over to Grovetown. I was looking for Cantuck, but couldn’t find him and couldn’t find anyone knew anything about him. Fact was, I could hardly find anyone at all. The place is like a soggy ghost town. Half the buildings are a wreck and stink of mud and fish. Tim’s filling station, except for the pumps, is just a patch of filthy concrete with dead bass on it.

  We stopped by the cafe to tell Mrs. Rainforth thanks for saving our lives and Leonard’s balls, for having Bacon look after us. The cafe had stood the flood pretty well, but it was closed. There was a realty sign on the door. I put my hands against the glass and looked inside. Water damage. Everything gone. I don’t know where she and her boys went.

  Week ago, I was sitting at home swigging a Diet Coke, trying to read an old paperback, when the telephone rang.

  It was Cantuck.

  “How are you, boy?” he said.

  “Good enough,” I said. “I’m breathing. I didn’t know for sure you were. I came looking for you.”

  “Me and the wife got out just ahead of the flood. Lost every goddamn thing we owned. Been livin’ with my sister over in Brownsboro. We got us a mobile home now. Moved it in next to where
our house used to be. We get the ’lectricity hooked up this week, and the shitter, then things can start gettin’ back to normal and I can try and get down to business. Runnin’ an office from Brownsboro hasn’t been worth a flying fuck in a tornado.”

  “I presume, by business, you mean you’re still Chief?”

  “Yeah. Kinda what I’m callin’ about. I thought you ought to know. Might involve you again in court, little later down the road. Kevin and Ray, they decided jail wasn’t all that fun. They’re trying to make some deal, shorter sentences. They named Reynolds. Said he let them in the jail, them and some others, and together they killed that nigger. Kevin said Reynolds swung on Soothe’s legs till he choked. Rangers picked his ass up yesterday.”

  “What about Brown?”

  “Nope. They may come through on him later, or Reynolds might. But I don’t know. One rat at a time, son. One rat at a time. How’s the colored boy … how’s Leonard?”

  “He’s all right. Getting along.”

  “Good. Glad to hear it. You know what?”

  “What?”

  “They dug a bullet out of Tim’s body.”

  I paused for an instant. “No shit?”

  “Looks like someone killed him. Could be, we ran some tests on that slug, we might could figure out whose gun fired it.”

  “That a fact?”

  “Yep. But dammit, way things been goin’, the flood and all, me not having a place to keep stuff good, damn thing got lost. Can you believe that?”

  “With you at the helm, it’s hard to accept.”

  “Just plain disappeared. Never happened to me before. Makes me look bad, since I was the one ended up with the bullet, but these things happen. It won’t happen again, but it happened this time.”

  I tried not to sigh. “Well, you can’t blame yourself too much.”

  “Nope, I can’t.”

  “Guess it can’t be proved who killed Florida either?”

  “No, but you know, I got this feeling, down deep. Just a feeling mind you, that justice has been served.”

  “Me too.”

  “Listen here, y’all come back this way, and it might be best if you don’t, but if you do, we get the ’lectricity and the shitter in, come see me. My wife cooks a mean meat loaf, provided there’s enough oatmeal to stretch it.”

  “Isn’t that violating your religious rules?”

  “Oatmeal in the meat loaf?”

  “Blacks and whites.”

  “Well, you can be too strict, I reckon. Take care, Hap.”

  “One thing. Anyone ever find any music, recordings, stuff like that Soothe could have had?”

  “Nothing. ’Course, if a fella found something valuable like that hidden in Florida’s car. Say she got her hands on them somehow and didn’t tell no one, and this stuff was still in good enough shape, a fella could hang on to it, and in time, he could come up with it like it was found another way, couldn’t he?”

  I let a few seconds pass. I thought about asking how Florida might have finally come by those recordings. I thought about lots of other questions no one could answer. When I finally spoke, what I said was, “But would a man that found something like that—knowing he ought to turn it over to the authorities—do something like that?”

  “I think he might. And what would those recordings have to do with the authorities? Think about it.”

  “Even so, would it be wise for a fella to tell other people?”

  “No. But he might do it anyway. If who he told was someone he thought wouldn’t mind if they popped up later and the money from them went to a pet charity.”

  “Like muscular dystrophy.”

  “Yep.”

  “I’ll be damned,” I said.

  We were quiet again. Maybe for a full half minute. Then Cantuck said, “Oh, we found your pickup. You don’t want it back.”

  “Cantuck?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks.”

  “You take care, boy.”

  I went to bed then, without my gun. I thought I was doing better. But for the first time in months, it began to rain. It was a gentle spring rain, and I didn’t like it. It woke me up. It used to help me sleep, now it makes me nervous. Twice as nervous if I should hear thunder or see lightning.

  It’s a week later and it’s still raining. Nothing serious. Just a steady, easy spring rain, but I still can’t sleep. I wake up every night and pad to the kitchen window for a look out back. There’s only the woods out there, but I can’t sleep. I sit up and drink coffee till morning, watch the late movies. Sometimes I play the L.C. Soothe boxed set I borrowed from Leonard. I play it and think about how this man, long dead, got this whole thing started.

  Might as well. I go back to bed, I lay there and wait for the floodwaters to come hurtling down with Florida at the crest, pinned to the top of a wave like a Christmas tree ornament for the devil.

  Just lay there and listen to the beating of my heart, counting the seconds gone from my life, anticipating less of the same.

  NEW FROM

  JOE R. LANSDALE

  Vanilla Ride

  The first Hap and Leonard novel

  in eight years.

  Hap Collins and Leonard Pine—best friends, freelance vigilantes, complete opposites — return in this Texas-sized thriller to take on the Dixie Mafia, and to keep themselves out of jail.

  Available in hardcover from Knopf

  $23.95 · 256 pages · 978-0-307-27097-9

  Also available in hardcover

  by Joe R. Lansdale:

  Leather Maiden · 978-0-375-41452-7

  Please visit www.aaknopf.com

  Available in Vintage paperback:

  Mucho Mojo · 978-0-307-45539-0

  Savage Season · 978-0-307-45538-3

  Bad Chili · 978-0-307-45550-5