Jackboot

by Will Van Allen

  The dog wanted to chase that beef but obeyed. He had some awareness they were in it up to their eyeballs. McConnell glanced over the trunk of the Maxima. The cops had missed the hole he had put in the fence and were cautiously coming up the drive, their spotlight shining on the pasture and getting closer and closer to his position.

  He bounded away from the farmhouse and police, the dog on his heels. He heard the car speed up then slide to a halt in the wet earth.

  “You! In the vehicle! Exit immediately with your hands in the air!” shouted a serious female.

  “He’s ran, Sue!”

  “Use your goddamn head, Roger! There might be three or four of the bastards in there!”

  There was a gunshot. “Get yer ass off my land!”

  “Christ! Put that shotgun down! Get back inside your house, sir! We’ll handle this!”

  Arms pumping, gun waving, trying hard to avoid cow pies, his speed recklessly desperate, the mud sucked at his boots as he ran, Geronimo jubilant beside him. Best fun in days.

  Sirens erupted from all directions but far away. Were they coming for him, the others or the downed armored truck? Behind, lights weaved among the cattle; they thought he was hiding in all that beef. He slipped, tried to stay on his feet, fell on his ass. He took a knee to catch his breath. The dog panted beside him. Covered in mud he wiped the rain from his face and assessed where he was.

  Which was lost.

  He glanced back the way he had come. The cops’ flashlights were all over the Maxima. Shouldn’t be long and they’d be on his trail. Not a high mark of difficulty finding his tracks in all that mud.

  He turned his handheld on low. “Anyone there?” he gasped.

  At first nothing. Then,

  “Second! You make it out?” Garrett’s voice crackled.

  “Not yet. Some farm. Can anyone come get me?”

  “The Filth are everywhere.” Whatever that meant. “Losin’ ya. Hittin’ the limit on the radios…”

  And Garrett was gone. So much for the comfort of accomplices. Cold comfort indeed.

  He was on his own, which was the way he had planned his getaway all along, abandoning the Nissan a short walk from Duvall. All that had changed was the short walk had evolved into a longer run. And cops were swarming the area looking for him. A minor detail.

  Duvall was north and east, but which way was that? Dense clouds reflected light pollution from all horizons. There were towns there, but which one was Duvall?

  Geronimo growled. Not a threatening growl, more an impatient one.

  “What?”

  The dog whined, pawed at his left arm. The one wearing his brother’s watch.

  He spared a moment to look into the shepherd’s eyes. The dog, unimpressed, looked away.

  Keeping the face close to his body, he pressed the compass and light buttons. The face displayed a sea-green glow, and a mark indicating north solidified, pointing off to his right. He’d been running west, back towards Redmond. “Good boy,” he said and started running again.

  The sirens drew closer, then stopped as two more patrol cars arrived behind him. He could now hear the telltale rotors of a helicopter. The cavalry had arrived.

  He ran faster, the ground flying by a mishmash of inky black and grayscale green. Gravity pulled at his heavy boots. Quads burning, glutes on fire, feet groaning he left a trail the blind could follow. They needed pavement. Pavement was their friend.

  The helicopter broke over the trees, spotlight shining through the rain, a white halo riding up and down the topography. He found another gear. The burning in his legs went Chernobyl, spread to his lungs, his throat. His heart thumped in his ears.

  The dog pulled up.

  “What?” McConnell asked, looking at the helicopter and the police lights behind them, which is why he didn’t see the barbed-wire fence. Where there was one there were bound to be accompanying sides, wasn’t much of a fence without them. He crashed into it; barbs pierced his chest, abdomen, ripped into his thighs as inertia flipped him head over heels over the top wire. A few holes the worse for wear, a tetanus shot in his foreseeable future, painful but tolerable had not a sharp, rocky decline been on the other side of his flop. Dropping several feet through the air he smacked the slope with a solid thud, the wind leaving him, his senses with it, his body sliding, shirt riding up, gravel grating skin and embedding flesh. He clenched his jaw to stifle a much-warranted scream as he came to a halt.

  He stared at the slate firmament. Breath returned. He should get up but not getting up at the moment felt as good as it was going to get. Willing himself to stand, he shook his legs and arms out. No major wounds, just his pride. Bruised, pierced, scraped, soaked, covered in mud, blood and sweat, but he was alright, more or less. His gloves had protected his hands as they deployed as brakes. He couldn’t find his gun. He turned this way then that in the dark and found Geronimo with it dangling in his mouth.

  Now where was the handheld? Not that it would do him any good. The rest of the “team” had ditched theirs by now, were slugging back beers, stuffing singles into strippers, laughing at that asshole Dave who had been dumb enough to lure the fuzz away while they made off with the loot.

  The thrum of rotors grew louder. He had no idea how close the cops on the ground were. He didn’t wait for them, instead staggering across an open field that ended at the foot of a steep hill, slipping among the trees just as the helicopter broke over the slope. Its light locked on a ragged swatch clinging to the fence and he felt at his shirt and found a slice of the hem missing. Nothing he could do it about it now. He scrambled and clawed upwards, hands yanking him up branch by branch, root by root, bush by bush. The helicopter’s light danced in the no-man’s land between hill and pasture, then it abruptly peeled off. Maybe the downed armored truck ranked higher than the idiot ramming a cop car and flipping over barbwire in the dark.

  At the top of the hill, gasping for air, calves afire, hamstrings quivering, the dog grinning and panting, they watched flashlights reach the fence line where he had made his inelegant descent. Their lights flicked up in their vicinity but the beams were too dispersed to find them. He checked his watch, fixed their direction and loped onward. Soon a narrow dirt path exposed itself and they followed that until it merged with a bigger horse trail and they broke back into a steady if aching stride.

  It rained harder. Of course. Not that it mattered much, soaked as he was, shirt plastered to skin, wet weight of muddied jeans clinging to fatigued legs. The trail ended at a paved country lane and they followed that until it widened onto a road. Cars could be heard on the other side of the woods, and when one came their way they waited it out in the dense woods.

  They avoided the suburbs and housing tracts, keeping to the paths that carved through the hills, checking his watch now and then for bearing. He disposed of the glasses, gloves and burner phone in different dumpsters. They encountered several barks and growls behind fences or in the distance but Geronimo only huffed, his hackles up. They saw two people, a woman smoking on her back porch and a man drunkenly riding a bicycle.

  “Howdo?” he mumbled and weaved on by.

  Cresting a bluff that looked down upon a highway he kept the high ground and followed it north. There was an occasional truck or car below and once a couple State Patrol cars heading further south though whether looking for him, the others or just in need of coffee he couldn’t say.

  When he came to a bridge across a slow river he slid as much as fell down the hillside, weary knees buckling. They huddled in the bushes and waited. He tilted his head back and let the rain fall on his swollen tongue while Geronimo lapped at a puddle. When there was no sound of traffic they sprinted across the Snoqualmie, then followed along it north until he saw a weathered, white sign: DUVALL, 1913.

  1913 must have been a hell of a year.

  The clouds to the northeast were a shade lighter as they trudged into the sleepy town. He had parked in a tavern lot but for the life of him couldn’t find it. The town wasn’t that big
.

  The dog woofed. Sitting on his haunches he gazed across the street.

  Sure enough there it was, its silver hood gleaming wetly in the faint light of the sign, Duvall Tavern. Not known for their imagination, the Duvallians.

  He shuffled over, looked around, dug out his key with shaky fingers and finally managed the lock, and with his last reserves pulled himself into the driver’s seat.

  The dog woofed again. McConnell leaned over and opened the passenger door and Geronimo jumped in, promptly got his seat all muddy. He finally looked spent.

  They panted and fogged up the windows. Water dripped off his nose, his chin, his hands but he was so damn thirsty. He fumbled up his CamelBak from behind the seat and sucked it dry.

  “Easy as pie. Yeah?” He ruffled the dog’s ears. His brother’s dog.

  From Duvall north to Monroe, he stole east up Highway 2 into the mountains, leaving the gray and rain behind for the rising light in the east; wheeling twists and turns of 97 to Ellensburg, onto monotonous I-90, down the gorge and back up its other side, across the desert of Moses and his dowdy lake, to the yellow bluffs and azure skies of Spokane. A child of the sun returned. Exhausted. Bloodied. Undefeated.

  CHAPTER 36

  AUGUST

  Spokane, Washington

  Marissa jerked to a halt as the door chain caught.

  Great. He’s home.

  She hadn’t thought the asshole would be back so soon. She was just there to collect her sister’s cats, but when opportunity knocks, may as well tell him off while she was it.

  She called out his name. Rang the doorbell. Knocked. No answer.

  Pressing her face into the chained gap, she felt the cool breeze of AC as she spied her sister’s two cats ignoring her on the sofa. “Hel-loh?” She knocked harder, heard a dog bark and Geronimo appeared.

  “Hey G-man! Where’s your jerk of a human? Huh?” She reached her hand through the narrow gap and the dog licked it with a whine.

  “John? John McConnell!”

  Nothing.

  The sun beat against her back. It was too damn hot this side of the door, especially still sticky as she was with dried sweat after the workout that had done little to ameliorate her fury.

  She went through the gate to the back, found the slider open. Geronimo met her on the deck. “John?” A tentative step into the cool air. Maybe he was out running? With Lori Davis in her ass-revealing shorts. That had been a revelatory meet and greet.

  “Oh! Is Johnny here?”

  “No,” Marissa said, blinking away the sleep as she took in the petite pixie-cut blonde in her running bra and shorter than short shorts.

  “Oh.” The glossy mouth actually formed a perfect if very lascivious yet disappointed O. “I’m Lori. Lori Davis. I live just down the street. Who are you?”

  “Just a friend. I’m housesitting. John’s out of town.”

  “I see. Hey, Geronimo!” She crouched, reached out to the dog, her wedding ring glinting in the morning sun. “Can you come out and play?”

  G-Man sniffed in disdain, retreated and looked up at Marissa.

  It was when Lori, Lori Davis rose back up that she saw her sister’s French coin dangling just above the bimbo’s cleavage.

  Lori felt the heat of her look. Her brow wrinkled but she smiled sweetly. “Johnny and I usually run together in the morning. I haven’t seen him in a while, thought he might be under the weather, need some nursing.” She giggled. “That’s funny because I’m really a nurse.”

  “That’s sweet. I’ll let him know you were concerned,” Marissa said coldly.

  “Okay. Tell him I miss us sweating it out on our trail.”

  “Oh, I’m sure he misses that, too.”

  She said hello to the kitties, scratched at G-man’s scruff. He barked at her.

  “Didn’t care for her either, did ya’?”

  If John wanted to sweat it out on the trail with Mrs. O he was a grown man, but giving that bitch her family heirloom? The man went too far.

  She would miss this place, this house wanting to be a home. She had taken to it while its master was away. Napping between the felines on the comfy sofa had become a daily gratification. Truth was, being there, for some reason, the cats, maybe the man, maybe just the place for some reason—she felt closer to her sister. But that was over now. John McConnell’s house, where all dreams died.

  She shivered. The AC was running on overdrive.

  Geronimo barked from the hallway.

  “Well come here and say goodbye.”

  The dog barked again.

  “What is it?”

  He turned and padded down the hall. She followed after him to John’s bedroom, the door slightly ajar, the room dark. She grew nervous, her nose wrinkling as a pungent, earthy odor wafted from inside. Her hand fumbled for the light switch on the wall as the dog pushed past her into the room.

  Someone was asleep in the bed, someone filthy, with dark brown hair, in boxer-briefs and a dark T-shirt. Who the hell is that? Had some homeless person broken in?

  Geronimo pawed at the bed. Why wasn’t he barking up a storm? Click.

  “John?”

  She knelt next to the bed and shook his shoulder. He was silent, unmoving. Was he dead? “John!”

  His eyes slit, went wide and he jerked back, flew off the bed, landed with a thump, crab-walking backwards until he smacked his head against the wall next to the bathroom, a “hunnhh!” escaping his lips.

  “Jesus! Are you okay?”

  He squinted against the light. “Who are you?”

  “It’s Marissa.”

  He looked confused.

  “I-I expected someone else,” he rasped, his voice rough as sandpaper.

  “Imagine that.” He looked a mess but that wasn’t her problem. “Look, you’re obviously…well, you’re obviously. That’s your issue. I want our coin back.”

  He looked more confused.

  “The French coin? What’d you do, steal it from my sister? Then you have the nerve to give it to your blonde hussy? Nice hair, by the way. The both of you.”

  He blinked. His face was haggard, needing a shave. There was dried mud everywhere—on his face, on the sheets, the floor, in his stupid brown hair. What was with him dying his hair? Midlife crisis come early?

  “What day is it?”

  Had he been on a bender? Anj had told her stories about him being a drinker.

  “You should go,” he said.

  “I want my coin.”

  “Jesus. I didn’t steal it; she gave it to me. It’s right there.” He pointed at the top drawer of his dresser.

  She yanked it open, ransacked T-shirts. Just T-shirts. She glared at him.

  “It’s in there,” he assured her.

  “Don’t play games with me, John, I’m not in the mood. We both know where it is.”

  He looked confused again.

  “Lori?”

  “Who the fuck is Lori?”

  “Green shorts, blonde, fellatio-ready mouth?”

  It took him a moment. “You mean Mrs. Davis?”

  “You call her Mrs. Davis. That’s not creepy. Call her up.”

  He really looked confused now. She was starting to buy it.

  He slid up the wall, stepped over to the nightstand and picked up his cellphone.

  Her hand went to her mouth. She couldn’t stop staring at the blood smeared on the wall.

  “What?”

  “There’s blood all over your wall.” He looked and when he did she saw what was left of the back of his shirt. “And your back. It’s covered in it.” They both glanced at the bed. The blue sheets were dark with more of his blood.

  He turned to face her. “It’s nothing. I fell while fishing.”

  “You what? Take off your shirt.”

  “I thought you wanted your coin.”

  Such an asshole. “Want me to slap you again? I’m not leaving until you let me take a look at your back.”

  He let out a long sigh but took off his shirt, s
lowing as it peeled away from his skin.

  Her jaw dropped.

  “Mon Dieu…Fell while fishing? You need to go to the ER.”

  “Looks worse than it is.”

  “John—”

  “I’m not going to the ER.”

  He stared down at her. She stared back up at him.

  “Fine. Mule. Then sit.” She left him to ransack the bathroom, returned with gauze, tweezers and hydrogen peroxide.

  John was still standing.

  She glanced at G-man sitting by the door. “How come your dog knows sit and you don’t?” She pushed him in the chest, not unkindly, just enough to get him to drop his butt onto the bed with a grunt. Getting behind him on her knees she took a deep breath and began tweezing. “This is going to hurt a little.”

  She felt a complex satisfaction as he sucked in air through his teeth.

  He showered in the dark, the water cool, anything to mitigate, drown and/or snuff out the forest fire raging across his back. He had put up a solid front, or so he thought, but Marissa was no fool. He was in some pain. Complaints from legs stiff and sore, ankles swollen and wobbly, feet achy, he stood in the shower’s spray until he no longer saw red in the water at his feet. It took some time.

  Out of the shower, dripping cleanly upon the floor, standing before that portentous mirror, he turned on the light and assessed the damage.

  Chest, arms, legs punctured in some perplexed stigmata. His body blotched in various hues of bruising; brown, black, blue and yellow. The gravel and debris embedded in puckered scrapes in his back, in a field of blood and caked-on dirt had been meticulously picked and plucked but maroon lesions would leave telling scars. His hands appeared to be the only undamaged, non-painful part of him. He looked them over, front to back. Hands of a thief of life, and now of treasure. They still seemed to work fine.

  He drew on baggy khakis and T-shirt with minimal expletives, noting the soiled sheets had disappeared and been replaced with fresh linen. The icky residue had been wiped off the wall, leaving a garish stain that would require some paint. He vaguely remembered stumbling into the house, the pain raging up his back, through every sinew and bone, falling onto the bed, just a brief respite to catch his breath, get a second wind. A fifth. A tenth. He had only been out a few hours before Marissa had found him, his mind still as weary as his body was damaged. Had he said anything he shouldn’t have? If he had, he’d always been suspect in her eyes, just fuel to the fire. Maybe the flames would finally scare her off.