Night Wind

by Mertz, Stephen

  His past.

  The dark past.

  And he thought about the recent past.

  He thought about his job interview with the owner of the town's weekly newspaper. He'd been leaving the town's little supermarket on his first day in Devil Creek, the afternoon of the day he'd rented his house from Mrs. Lufkin. On his way to his car in the parking lot, he happened to glance across the street and had noticed the sign, County Clarion, on the front lawn of a private residence, a brown brick single story structure with a two car garage. An ancient dogwood tree provided a wide swath of shade, a precious commodity in the southwest. A Ford Bronco was parked in the shade. He strolled across the street, went in and within a few minutes heard himself asking the editor, a good old boy named Charlie Flagg, for a job.

  The "office" of the County Clarion was actually the front half of the remodeled residence. A few file cabinets, a pair of computers, some tables for layouts, and a wide oak desk comprised the furnishings. Charlie introduced himself as "chief cook and bottle washer of this one horse operation." Naturally, he had some questions.

  Mike was general, bordering on vague.

  "Gave up teaching at the university in Albuquerque because I couldn't put off writing this book that's in my gut anymore," was what he told Charlie. "Hunted around for some place, some small town where I could find some peace and quiet and get the work done."

  "You'll find plenty of that in Devil Creek," Charlie had chuckled. Charlie smiled a lot from behind his obviously well-tended red beard. "Going to write the Great American Novel, eh?"

  "Maybe a couple of 'em," Mike said with a grin that was meant to be self-deprecating.

  "So what's the book about?"

  "Uh, actually, I've decided not to talk about it until I get the first draft finished." And there goes the job, Mike added mentally.

  Charlie surprised him. He didn't skip a beat. "Don't want to diffuse the energy before you get it down on paper, is that it?"

  So Charlie Flagg was sharp and his interest appeared real. But how did you break down into a few sentences a novel you'd been thinking about and planning for close to twenty years and not have it come out sounding trite and hackneyed? Another book about a guy coming of age in Vietnam and what happened after he came home and took a cross-country road trip . . . hell, maybe it was hackneyed. But it was his life and he was going to put it down on paper, and maybe he would create art.

  "You're right," he told Charlie. "I'd rather not talk about it. Thanks for asking, and thanks for not taking offense. A buddy from the old days asked to see an outline when he heard what I was working on. He liked it enough to send it on to an agent he knows in New York."

  "New York, huh?" Charlie's red eyebrows lifted. "Sounds like you are serious."

  "The agent likes what I've done. He landed me a contract and a small advance. A real small advance. Enough to make ends meet. But a supplemental income wouldn't hurt."

  "Never does," Charlie agreed amiably. "But I'd best warn you. I'll only be needing an article or two a week and it won't pay much."

  "Pay me what you can. It's something I want to do. It's occurred to me that for all the solitude I need, I'll need some interaction with people too, or I could go stir crazy."

  Charlie had crossed his ankles and placed his polished boots on the corner of his desk. He stroked his beard. "Tell you what, Mike. You caught me at a good time. Frankly, I don't have any positions here to have openings for, as such. This paper is only four pages and I write most of the copy myself. A few folks contribute columns. Matter of fact, Mrs. Lufkin has a recipe column and another fellow, a retired professor from the university down in Cruces, he contributes a column every other week about the history of the area. And of course there's a letter column and the obituaries. Reverend Kroeger does a weekly inspirational column. Most of the rest of it is club meetings, accident reports, and stuff like that. But as a matter of fact, I have been considering expanding coverage a little bit. I want to cover more local and regional goings-on besides highway accidents and high school sports. 'Course, there's not a whole lot that happens that's newsworthy around these parts. I'm thinking human-interest stuff. Feature articles, like the city papers run. That'd be something new for us. Might pick up sales some. That'll sell more advertising."

  Though on the surface it was an idle conversation, Charlie had continued to adroitly probe into Mike's background.

  Mike had seen no reason to avoid or alter the basic facts. Born and raised in Denver. Drafted following high school graduation and sent to Vietnam for the final days of that increasingly forgotten war. The war had already been mostly forgotten when he was there. At least that's the way it had seemed to most of the troops in country, taking heavy casualties while self-serving politicians in the "real world" talked peace, telling that world that an American withdrawal from Vietnam was imminent, only a matter of time before our boys would be coming home after a done deal that only had to be negotiated. The problem, if you were an American foot soldier in the world of Vietnam, was in maintaining your morale; to continue being a good soldier, to stay alive, to keep from coming home in a body bag until that "done deal" was actually negotiated.

  Mike had been a platoon sergeant. While politicians talked peace, he'd seen too many of his buddies sent home in those body bags. He had come close. He still carried a chunk of shrapnel near the base of his spine where the doctors had said it was too risky to tamper with; too close to too many nerve endings. It still throbbed to let him know it was there whenever the weather changed.

  He'd moved on psychologically from his combat experiences long ago. He appreciated that posttraumatic stress was a real thing. In previous wars they'd called it battle fatigue or shell shock. In fact, he didn't go a day without his thoughts at least once grazing on those distant, horrific images, of seeing friends die and of killing men and, yes, some women in combat. The Viet Cong had been an equal opportunity employer. A man never outlived the memories like that, no matter how many years intervened. But neither was his permanent self-image that of a "Vietnam vet." His philosophy was that life was to be lived, and bad crap was to be dealt with. Enough time had passed; nearly a quarter of a century. Enough had happened between then and now for him to be living in the present, having a life. Things he'd seen and done in Vietnam had compelled him to make the vow, over the graves of his parents, to never again take another human life.

  He did not reveal these things to Charlie Flagg. He stayed with autobiographical fact.

  After being wounded and shipped stateside, he'd received his medical discharge. Having healed physically, he had then proceeded to heal his psyche with travel around the States before enrollment in college on the GI bill, graduating with a journalism degree. Those were the facts. He mentioned that he'd worked at one of the Denver dailies for five years, but did not mention his reason for leaving. He did not mention the alcoholism. Did it matter which came first? The booze, or the burnout from having to record for the afternoon edition and posterity the sewer depths of human depravity that his newspaper job had daily brought him into contact with, year after endless year. When the gangs started gaining turf and guns started flooding the streets, Denver became too violent. He didn't elaborate and Charlie didn't push. He also glossed over the relocation to Albuquerque; taking the job as instructor in the Journalism Department. He did tell Charlie about Carol. But of course, he didn't tell everything. . . .

  He met her at a faculty dinner. She was in the English Department. There had been some sort of instant magic thing that happened between them right from the start, and she later told him that she'd felt it too. He'd read once somewhere that we know our friends as soon as we meet them and that had certainly been the case with Carol. She was intellectual. She was earthy. She was tender. She was strong. She was beautiful, and she was good for him. When he asked her to marry him after a year long courtship, she said yes. Yes . . . if he would dry out. He'd already cut way back on the booze ever since they'd started dating. Somehow, putting the booze
behind him was easy. He did it for her. He did it because of her. He did it. And the bottle still sat in the cupboard, unopened. Much as Carol loved teaching, they'd both wanted a family. She became pregnant soon after they were married. He found teaching a hell of a lot less compelling than soldiering or big city journalism, but a whole lot less stressful too, so he stayed with it. They enjoyed weekly trips out of town, into the desert or into the mountains, always enjoying each other's company, talking about their future. He had as many pictures of her as he had of the scenery. He had never been happier. . . .

  Another thing he hadn't told Charlie Flagg was the real reason why he left the University; why he left Albuquerque.

  And one other fact he omitted was that he had not altogether severed contact with his "former" military life. While he had not technically been in government service since his army discharge, he had—in a manner of speaking—been part of American covert operations on three separate occasions when an old friend from Vietnam had tempted him back into "temporary civilian duty." Some friends cannot be turned down, and the fact of the matter was that Mike hadn't even wanted to say no those times when Gil called. Gil Gilman was still in government service, as far as Mike could tell. The three separate calls had each come several years apart, but had been practically identical, word-for-word.

  "I need someone to cover me, buddy," Gil had said. "I need a civilian with military training, from outside this little corner of the world I'm boxed into."

  Each time Mike had caught the next flight out; once to Honduras, once to Peru and, the last time—a half dozen years earlier—Gil had sent for him from off the coast of Cuba and they had infiltrated that country to meet with an informant Gil needed to contact. On each time, Mike had refused his friend's recommendation to carry a sidearm, honoring that vow over his parents' gravesite. The covert operations had involved Mike following Gil, staying in radio contact with him to report if Mike spotted anyone following Gil in these hostile environments. Each time, Mike's presence had proven unnecessary. And each time he had flown back to the States with expenses paid and at least the satisfaction of knowing that he still had those old instincts even if they hadn't been called up; even if he had forsaken the ways of violence. But he still had the edge. Gil Gilman must have also felt that way, or he wouldn't have requested his services on those occasions.

  No, there was no reason to tell Charlie Flagg, or anyone else, about any of this.

  Mike and Charlie parted with a handshake, arranging for Mike to report for work at the office at one o'clock "or thereabouts," Monday afternoon.

  Tomorrow.

  Now, Sunday evening, Mike told himself, that's what I should be thinking about if I'm going to think about anything other than what's supposed to be going onto this blank sheet of paper in this typewriter. Instead, his thoughts turned to two people: a kid named Paul, and Paul's mom. He tore the paper from the typewriter, crumpled the paper into a ball and threw it into a corner.

  What he'd seen on that blank sheet, like an image on a movie screen, would also not leave his mind. That image would never go away, indelibly seared into his mind's eye. Into his psyche. Into his sleeping and waking nightmares.

  And like the pain of loss, or memories of a long ago war, it would forever be a part of him. The last time he looked into Carol's eyes. . . .

  They'd taken a furnished apartment close to campus. She was in the bedroom. The police officer had brusquely torn away the sheet from her face without giving him any warning and he'd looked down at her, into her eyes.

  He'd barely seen the ugly bruises around her throat. Barely saw the purple tongue protruding from her mouth. God. God. He only saw her eyes, then and now. Eyes, wide open.

  Staring.

  Dead.

  Chapter Seven

  Paul rode with his mom on the first day of school, and during the drive they discussed how things would be.

  "Just because I'll be teaching at your school," Robin said, "don't think that anything is going to be different for you than for any of the other kids. You're a student and I'm a teacher."

  "I know, Mom."

  "If you have any problems, we'll discuss them after school. Okay with you?"

  "Okay with me. I don't want to be treated different from the other kids."

  The Devil Creek school accommodated all twelve grades; a sprawling, modern two-story structure of glass and tan brick situated on the outskirts of town, adjacent to the highway, abutting a steep, piney slope of the foothills.

  By halfway through his first school day, Paul had pretty much determined that, even though he wasn't treated differently, his classmates sure were different from those at his school in Chicago. These were country kids. He hadn't realized that there would be such a difference between them and a suburban kid like himself.

  The homeroom class was smaller than he was used to. Everyone seemed to know each other. He was the only new kid. His homeroom teacher, Mrs. Cass, made him stand at his desk and introduce himself, but none of the other kids bothered to introduce themselves to him as the morning progressed. That was okay. Paul liked having friends, but he enjoyed his own company, too. Conversations he overheard between classes were about things he knew nothing about like crops and cattle, or schoolyard gossip about kids he didn't know. Most of the kids appeared intelligent enough when they spoke in class but when many of them spoke among themselves, their grammar was awful. The boys liked roughhousing in the hallways and in the bathroom. The girls mostly stayed off to themselves, separate from the boys, and Paul couldn't blame them for that. It was also okay with him. Younger girls who were impressed by boys his age seemed silly to him. Girls his own age always seemed more mature than he was, and could act snooty and stuck up. When lunch hour recess came, he ate alone in the cafeteria, then he searched for and found a spot where he could sit on the blacktop playground, against a wall of the building. He resumed reading a science fiction book he was halfway through.

  After reading only a couple of sentences, he realized that someone was standing directly in front of him, towering over him. He looked up. A small group of boys his own age were clustered around him. He couldn't see their faces because the sun shone in his eyes.

  "Hey, new kid," one of them said. "What's so interesting about that book anyway?" Then, over his shoulder to the others, "The new kid would rather read a book than talk to us."

  "I'll talk with you," Paul said.

  He rose to his feet and slipped the paperback into his back pocket. With the sun out of his eyes, he recognized some of the boys from his homeroom class. He recognized others from seeing them in the hallways. He'd seen this bunch sitting together in the cafeteria. He noticed them because they were loud and pushy in the lunch line and while they ate.

  "You look like a faggot sitting there reading your book," sneered the boy who acted like he was their leader. He was several inches taller than Paul; a hefty kid who outweighed Paul by about thirty pounds. He had bad breath and pimples and a bad attitude to spare. Long, unwashed hair fell across his face, concealing one eye.

  Paul felt his stomach muscles tighten. "You guys leave me alone. I don't want trouble."

  "Only queers read books," the boy pressed. He stepped in, started to reach around toward Paul's back pocket. "What're you reading, queer?"

  Paul put the palms of both hands against the boy's chest and gave a strong shove. "Stay away from me, I said."

  The kid tottered backwards. Then he regained his balance. He laughed. Not a nice laugh. "Yo, the queer likes to fight. Okay, queer, take this."

  The boy sailed in, bringing his right fist around in a wide arc. Paul was ready. He raised his left arm, blocking the swing, then he balled his right fist and struck, delivering a punch to the boy's jaw. The boy stumbled back again, his eyes rolling back in his head. His knees buckled. He would have fallen if some of his friends hadn't caught and steadied him. The bully shook his head to clear it and when he looked at Paul now, his eyes were bleary, a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth.
He wiped the blood away with the back of his hand.

  "Hey! You didn't have to do that."

  "I told you to stay away."

  Then one of the teachers on playground duty came over. "You boys. Stop that fighting. What's going on here?"

  Paul spoke before the others could. "We were just fooling around."

  The teacher's eyes alternated between them, skeptical. "It looked like a fight to me. I'm going to keep my eyes on you two. Watch your step."

  He wandered away, soon busy elsewhere on the busy playground.

  The one who had started the fight studied Paul for a moment, obviously trying to make up his mind about how to react. He hadn't expected Paul to fight back. Paul hoped that standing up to him would prove something, that they could now be friends. But it didn't happen that way.

  "That was real smart, new kid. From now on, let's you and me stay away from each other."

  Paul said nothing.

  The boy turned and strutted away. His friends trailed after him.

  Paul watched them go, the knuckles of his right hand bruised and stinging. He was breathing hard. He became aware of someone else standing beside him. He whirled in that direction and brought up his fists again.

  A boy stood there, not one who'd been with the bully's bunch. Paul had noticed this boy earlier, seated on the other side of the class in homeroom. He'd noticed the boy because this kid hadn't interacted with the others. He was on the chubby side with incredibly bright red hair, freckles, and thick glasses.

  He lurched back a step. "Hey, don't hit me. I'm not one of them. I just want to talk!" He held a book, a paperback with a garish cover portraying a hooded figure holding a bloody axe over a partially decomposed skull.