“Don’t be scared,” Cohen said.
“Too late.”
And then the truck stopped, not yet in their sights. The engine was turned off. Then the sound of doors opening and closing and the voices of loud-talking men.
“What’d he say?” Evan asked.
Cohen shook his head. “Couldn’t tell.”
There was a banging on the side of the truck and the back door sliding up and more voices back and forth in a brief dialogue and then silence.
“Listen,” Cohen whispered. “If they come walking this way and we have to shoot, you start on the far left and I’ll start on the far right. Don’t matter how many it is. You start left and I start right. Got it?”
Evan nodded. He was breathing heavy but his eyes were steady.
“Show me your left hand,” Cohen said.
“What?”
“Your left hand. Show it to me.”
Evan took his left hand off the rifle barrel and waved it.
“Just making sure you knew which was which,” Cohen said.
In the back room the women and Brisco scurried around looking for a place to hide as Cohen and Evan waited on the men to show themselves.
29
THE MEN WALKED INTO SIGHT, moving cautiously into the parking lot, sticking close together. Four of them. They all wore thick black raincoats. Cohen recognized the automatic weapons that had belonged to Charlie’s muscle slung over the shoulders of two of them. The one who walked in front didn’t wear his hood but instead a cowboy hat and he had a long goatee that touched the middle of his chest. He raised his hand and they stopped. They looked around. Then the man made other hand motions and they split, two of them walking to the right toward the grocery store, two to the left toward the furniture store. Cohen and Evan knelt in the middle, in the shadows.
The man in the hat whistled and they stopped. Maybe thirty yards away from the storefront. Evan took his hand from the rifle and wiped his sweaty palm on his pants. And then the lead man called out.
“Pretty day out here,” he yelled out above the rain. “Don’t get no better. Might as well come on out and enjoy it.” He paused and waited for a response but the only reply was from the thunder. He waited until it died and then went on. “Come on out and get something to eat. I know y’all are hungry. Get you something to eat. Something to drink. Sandwich cart don’t come around often anymore.” He waited again. Lightning cracked and the men in the black coats jumped but then steadied. “I saw you and I know you’re back in there somewhere. Turns out it’s your lucky day. We always looking for a good man. If you are one. Good man can come on out and get something to eat. Maybe get himself a job and a title. Everybody out here’s got a title. But we can’t divulge until we get a look at you.”
A couple of them laughed. Cohen noticed that none of them held their rifles ready to fire but instead hanging at their waists. One man had his hands in his coat pockets. The man doing the talking had folded his arms and was enjoying listening to himself talk and it was then that Cohen realized their mistake. Their miscalculation in assuming that a single person was somewhere back in there and that he had no way to defend himself against a posse. These same men who had earlier ambushed and slaughtered men who were ready and prepared and armed were now making the most crucial mistake of all in this land and that is you can never be sure. But they seemed sure and unconcerned as they waited on what they thought was a defenseless straggler and Cohen knew that there would not be another opportunity like this one.
“Evan,” he whispered.
The boy looked at him.
“Don’t talk. Listen. You see the one on the left. Put your sight on him and when I count three shoot him. Don’t miss. You got it. Don’t goddamn miss.”
Evan nodded.
“Shoot him and as soon as you do, run to the back and get everybody in the trucks and get ready to drive like a son of a bitch. I got the rest here. You just shoot and hit and then run back and get everybody in the trucks and get cranked and then I’ll come running and hop in the back and we’ll get the hell out of here. You got it?”
“Yeah.”
“All right. On three. You got left and then go and I got the rest.”
“All right.”
“Be cool.”
“Just count.”
“Okay.” They each propped and resteadied themselves. From behind the counter they were undetected and each had a clear shot.
The man with the hat said, “Fine. Have it your way. Never heard of nobody who didn’t want food and a title. But if we have to come in there the offer is revoked. Won’t be nothing but—”
Cohen said three and the man on the left went down with the crack and Evan was up and gone. Cohen took down the man on the right and turned to the other one on the left who had raised his rifle and was firing wildly and Cohen hit him once and he went down and then Cohen hit him again. He turned next to the leader, who had taken off running and gotten behind the concrete base of a parking lot light. But he couldn’t get all the way behind and Cohen hit him in the leg and the man aimed the automatic rifle over his shoulder and sprayed the strip mall. Cohen ducked down on the floor as the bullets shattered through the walls and windows and concrete. He crawled around the side of the counter but couldn’t get a shot from down low. When the man turned to get to his knees Cohen raised and fired and hit the pole and the man fell back, thinking he was dead. But he wasn’t dead and he raised up and sprayed fire again and Cohen went down and from behind the building he heard Evan yelling for him to come on, come on. The firing stopped and Cohen raised and shot and hit the man in the chest and he dropped. Cohen fired once more into the concrete post and then he stopped and waited.
Nothing moved in the parking lot.
“Come on!” Evan yelled.
Cohen waited, counted to five, and still nothing moved. So he turned and ran out the back of the kids’ store and jumped from the loading bay into the back of the truck. Evan was in front of Nadine and the truck leaped and Nadine was close behind as they sped out from behind the stores and the trucks leaned at the left turn into the parking lot and at the right turn onto the highway. Then Cohen slapped on the back glass and yelled, “Stop it! Stop it!”
Evan hit the brakes and Nadine nearly rear-ended them but she swerved to the side. Cohen told her to wait and told Evan to turn around and go back to the big truck and hurry your ass up. Evan spun around in the four-lane and drove hard back to the truck and he slammed on the brakes and Cohen crashed into the back window. He dropped his rifle and grabbed a pistol out of his pocket and told Evan to get turned back around. Cohen ran around to the back of the men’s truck and dropped the tailgate and saw what he was after. He jumped in the truck bed and the first two gas containers he grabbed were empty and he tossed them aside, but the next two were full five-gallon containers.
He lifted the gas containers and set them on the tailgate and he jumped out. He waved Evan to back up and Cohen set the containers in the back of the pickup and as he was climbing in, Mariposa pointed and yelled, “Look back there!”
Coming for them were the headlights of an army utility truck and standing in the back was a handful of men pointing in their direction. The truck was coming fast and Cohen took out the pistol and fired it over and over to make the sound of men with guns instead of man with gun and Evan hit the gas pedal. When the pistol was empty Cohen tossed it over the side and took out the other but didn’t fire. They shot back and the side-view mirror shattered and then a rim shot off the back fender. Evan laid on the horn as he got to Nadine, the shots skipping around them and Cohen lying flat in the back and Mariposa screaming come on, come on. Evan and Nadine together drove off like hell, swerving and splashing through the big stuff and busting through the little stuff and when the army truck got to the U-Haul, they kept firing, but they stopped to see about the others, and within minutes, the two trucks were out of town and out of sight, and the rain came on as if it had something to prove.
When it felt safe, th
ey pulled the trucks off the highway underneath the cover of a half-standing auto shop and they all got out and walked around and the wind and rain relieved their anxiety-ridden faces. Some thanked God and some were still breathing heavy from the excitement and some did both. The baby had to be fed so Nadine climbed in the back and found the formula and a bottle of water and gave it to Kris, who sat in the truck cab with the baby. Brisco and Evan walked behind the building to pee. Cohen, after taking the gas cans and pouring gas into the trucks, walked away from them all and stood alone, looking back south from where they had come. It was charcoal gray and the rain fell in big drops and swirled with the twisting winds.
He managed to get a cigarette lit this time and he couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe he had panicked and left the Jeep. Made the decision to hop in the back of the truck without thinking about the Jeep. Son of a bitch son of a bitch son of a bitch, he kept saying to himself.
“What?” Nadine said.
“Nothing,” he snapped.
“Bullshit.”
“My Jeep. I left the Jeep and I got to have it.”
“It’s a Jeep. It ain’t a gold brick.”
“I know what it is and I got to get back to it.”
“Like hell,” she said.
30
COHEN GOT AWAY FROM HER and he smoked and cussed himself. By the end of the cigarette he had calmed some and he went to each of them to make sure no one was hurt or hit.
“That was like a movie,” Nadine said. “And I like watching a lot better than being in one.” She rubbed her wet head with her hands and her short hair stuck up in different directions. “I’m going to sit with Kris,” she said.
Brisco hopped around with his hands made into pistols and he shot imaginary bullets at imaginary bad guys. Evan told him to stop it but he kept on. Cohen asked Evan if he was all right and Evan nodded.
“That was a good job,” Cohen said and he patted the boy on the shoulder, but Evan still didn’t answer.
Mariposa told Cohen she’d like that cigarette now. He lit one from his and gave it to her.
“You’re not hit, are you?” she asked.
“No.”
“You think that was them that got all the others down in the parking lot?”
Cohen nodded.
“You think that’s all?”
“It’s never all, Mariposa.”
She smoked and squinted. Seemed to get used to it. She looked scared. They all looked scared but for Brisco. Evan walked away from them, his hands in his pockets. Cohen wanted to say something to him but he didn’t know what.
Mariposa’s hand shook as she moved the cigarette to and from her mouth. Her head was wet and she shivered from the cold or from what had just happened or from both or from something else altogether. She dropped the cigarette and looked at Cohen and she was about to cry and she said, “I didn’t mean nothing in her dress. I swear it.”
“I know.”
“I swear,” she said and she was in a full shiver and Cohen stepped to her and wrapped his arms around her. He couldn’t tell if she was crying or only shaking but it didn’t matter to him. His chin sat on top of her head and he felt her shivering against him and he saw Evan standing alone staring out into the storm and he looked out at the truck where the women sat with the baby. He held Mariposa and it crossed his mind that it had been years since he had held on to anyone like this. He thought to let go once, twice, but he didn’t. He let her cry or whatever it was she was doing. He held on to her until she stopped shaking. He let her move away from him.
And she finally did. She wiped her eyes. Wiped her face.
“We better go,” he said and she nodded and sniffed.
Brisco raced by and shot Cohen with each hand. Pow, pow, pow, he cried with each shot. Evan had turned to see what he was doing and he stomped over to Brisco and yanked him up and yelled, “Don’t you do that shit!”
Brisco yelled ouch and Cohen said, “Calm down. He don’t mean nothing.”
“You let me be. He ain’t yours.”
“I know he ain’t but he’s playing.”
“That ain’t no way to play,” Evan said and he shoved Brisco away. “I mean it, Brisco. Quit that shit.”
“Jesus,” Cohen said. “Settle your ass down. We got enough shit going on.”
“You settle down,” Evan said and he told Brisco to come on and get in the truck. He took the boy by the coat arm and dragged him out into the rain.
Mariposa called out to Evan but Cohen said let him go. Let him be for a while.
“What’s wrong with him?” Mariposa asked.
The storm roared now and it was damn near dark. They had to get somewhere. Cohen tugged at his beard, looked out at the weather and looked back at Mariposa. “What’s wrong with him?” he said. “Only the same thing that’s wrong with all of us down here. Come on.”
They got back into the truck cabs. Mariposa wiped her face again with her hands. She noticed Cohen’s anxious look and she asked him if he was all right.
“I got to go back,” he said.
“No you don’t.”
“Yeah. I damn sure do,” he said. Son of a bitch. He was sick for not thinking about the Jeep when it mattered.
Mariposa said, “You don’t need anything down there. We’re almost there.”
“We might be almost there.”
“We are.”
“If you were to look at a map, we are. But it doesn’t matter where we are or what’s between here and there, I got to go back.”
She moved closer to him on the seat and said, “You don’t. Really, you don’t.”
“Really,” he said. “I do.”
She moved closer. “I don’t understand.”
He fidgeted in the seat. “I just have to go back. It’s my Jeep.” He wrapped his hands tightly around the steering wheel and stared out at the weather. She touched his arm, pulled at him some. He let go of his grip on the steering wheel and she pulled his arm to her.
“You don’t have to, Cohen,” she said. “I know you want to but you don’t have to.” She leaned over and kissed his cheek delicately, almost undetected.
Cohen didn’t move. Didn’t look at her. He cranked the truck and started out and said, “Let me think.”
Despite the rain and wind, they had luck the first ten or so miles, moving up Highway 49 with nothing more to navigate than the occasional fallen tree or light pole. Kudzu had overlapped the highway here and there like a green rug meant to beautify the rough asphalt. They passed through the tiny communities of Saucier, McHenry, Perkinston. The road signs were bent and twisted and they saw random cars but little else.
The first trouble came somewhere between Maxie and Dixie. A bridge had been washed out by what was once a creek but was now more like a flowing marsh. They had to backtrack six miles to try and detour around it but found another washed-out bridge along the cut-through and they had to backtrack again. No one was familiar with the roads in this part of the country but they knew north from south and they kept trying to get themselves north on nameless back roads or strips of forgotten highway. It was all but dark and the storm was gaining strength and even with headlights it was almost impossible to see. Cohen was in front and when it was too much, he stopped and ran back to Evan and the others and said, “Let’s find shelter for now and try again in the morning. I know it’s hard but if you see something flash or honk or something.”
In another slow mile, the other truck honked and Cohen stopped. He looked around but didn’t see what there was to honk about. Evan ran up and hit on the door and Cohen cracked it open.
“Back across there, did you see it?” Evan yelled against the rain.
“Where?”
“Right back over. That gravel lot. Looked like an old store or something back some. Looked like it had a roof.”
“All right,” Cohen yelled back. “Get in and back up and we’ll see.”
He shut the door and Evan ran to the truck. Both vehicles moved in reverse for twenty
or so yards, then stopped. Like Evan described, to the right was a gravel parking lot and back from the road was a small brick building. Cohen turned and shined the headlights on the building. Crossbars covered the empty windows and there was no door. A rusted ice machine stood guard and a sign had been ripped from the front awning, but it looked like the roof was intact and it showed no sign of living things.
Mariposa leaned forward with her hands on the dash. Cohen flashed his lights on bright but it didn’t change anything. “Might as well go see,” he said.
He took a flashlight and made sure the pistol was in his coat pocket and he got out. The four headlights shined on Cohen and the old store and the rain fell sideways through the yellow beams. He stepped into the door and momentarily disappeared from sight, but then he waved for them to come on. Mariposa killed the ignition and Evan killed the other truck. Brisco hopped from the seat into Evan’s arms. Kris held the baby and Nadine held Kris by the arm and they stepped carefully to the doorway.
“Careful, it’s slick,” Cohen told them as they came in one by one. He shined the flashlight out across the linoleum floor that was wet and black with dirt and scattered with overturned stock shelves. Along the back wall of the room glass coolers once held beer and Cokes for the workingmen who had spent the day in the field or on the job site. The doors were open and the racks still there as if waiting optimistically for the day when the bottles and cans would once again sit inside and be greeted by thirsty eyes. It was a small store and the weather came through the windows but it seemed like it would do.
They congregated in the middle of the room, the fallen shelves around them. Evan kicked at one and it slid and banged into another. Nadine jumped and said, “What the hell.”
Brisco hugged Kris around her leg.
“It’s gonna be a long night,” Nadine said.
Cohen continued to move the light around and they watched, standing closely together, a tension binding them, as if only waiting for the moment they would be shocked by what the light revealed. In the back corner of the store was another door and it was closed and locked with a padlock. The cream-colored walls were spotted with mold and the ceiling sagged from water leaks and there were drips here and there but no holes.
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