First Blood

by David Morrell

  The flashlights blazed directly on him, one on his face, the other on his naked body. He still did not move, just stood there, head up, staring calmly ahead between the lights as if he belonged there and did this every night of his life. Insects were flying aglitter in and out of the flashlight beams. A bird took off fluttering out of a tree.

  'Yeah, best you drop that gun and razor,' an old man said on the right, his throat raspy.

  Rambo breathed easier: they weren't going to kill him, at least not right away, he had made them curious enough. Just the same, keeping the handgun and the razor had been a gamble. Once these people had seen them, they might have felt threatened and shot him. But he could not let himself walk these woods at night without something to fight with if he had to.

  'Yes sir,' Rambo said evenly and let the gun and razor plop onto the ground. 'No need to worry. The gun's not loaded.'

  'Course it isn't.'

  With an old man on the right, the one on the left would be young, Rambo thought. Father and son maybe. Or uncle and nephew. That was how these outfits were run, always in the family, an old man to give the orders and one or more juniors to do the work. Rambo could feel these two behind their flashlights sizing him up. The old man was keeping quiet now, and Rambo was not about to say anything more until he was asked to. An intruder, he had just better keep his mouth shut.

  'Yeah, all that filth and crud you been hollering,' the old man said. 'You been calling us, or who you been calling cocksuckers?'

  'Pa, ask him what he's walking around buck-naked with his doings dangling for,' the one on the left said. He sounded much younger than Rambo had expected.

  'You shut up,' the old man ordered the boy. 'I told you not a peep from you.'

  Rambo heard a gun being cocked where the old man was. 'Wait a minute,' he said fast. 'I'm alone. I need help. Don't shoot till you hear me out.'

  The old man did not answer.

  'I mean. I'm not here for trouble. It doesn't make any difference if I know that you're not two men, that one of you is just a boy. I won't be hurting anybody just because I know that.'

  It was a wild guess. Sure the old man might only have lost his curiosity and decided to shoot. But Rambo was guessing that naked and bloody, he looked dangerous to the old man, that the old man was not taking any chances now that Rambo knew they were just one man and a boy.

  'I'm on the run from the police. They took my clothes. I killed one of them. I've been calling to get someone to help me.'

  'Yeah, you need help,' the old man said. 'Question is, from who?'

  'They'll bring dogs after me. They'll find the still if we don't work to stop them.'

  Now was the touchy part. If they were going to kill him, now was the time.

  'Still?' the old man said. 'Who told you there's a still up here? You think I got a still up here?'

  'We're pitch dark in a hollow near a spring. What else would bring you here? You must have it damn well-covered. Even knowing it's here, I can't make out the flames from your furnace.'

  'You expect if I knew a still was around I'd he wasting time with you instead of hustling over to it? Hell, I'm a coon hunter.'

  'With no dogs? We don't have time for this. We have to fix things before those real dogs get here tomorrow.'

  The old man was swearing to himself.

  'You're in a mess all right,' Rambo said. 'I'm sorry about getting you into it, but I don't have any choice. I need food and clothes and a rifle, and I'm not letting you out of this until I get them.'

  'Let's just shoot him, Pa,' the boy said on the left. 'He's going to pull some trick.'

  The old man did not answer, and Rambo kept quiet too. He had to give the old man time to think. If he tried to rush this business the old man might feel cornered and shoot.

  On his left Rambo heard the boy cocking a gun.

  'You lower that shotgun, Matthew,' the old man said.

  'But he's pulling some trick. Don't you see it? Don't you see he's some government man likely?'

  'I'll see that shotgun wrapped around your ears if you don't lower it like I said.' The old man chuckled then.

  'Government man. Bushwah. Look at him, where the hell would he hide his badge?'

  'Better listen to your dad,' Rambo said. 'He understands the bind. If you kill me, those police who find me in the morning will want to know who did it. They'll set the dogs on your trail next. It won't matter where you bury me or how you try to hide the scent; they'll-'

  'Quicklime,' the boy said smartly.

  'Sure quicklime will help to cover my scent. But the smell of it will be all over you, and they'll set the dogs tracking that.'

  He paused, peering at each flashlight, giving them time to think.

  'The trouble is, if you don't give me food and clothes and a rifle, then I'm not leaving here until I find that still of yours and in the morning the police will follow my track through there. It won't matter if you take the thing apart tonight and hide it. I'll come after you to where the parts are hid.'

  'We'd wait for dawn to take it apart,' the old man said. 'You can't afford to stay here that long.'

  'With bare feet I can't go much farther anyway. No. Believe me. The way I am, they have a good chance of bringing me down, and I might just as well take the two of you down with me.'

  After a moment the old man was swearing again.

  'But if you help me, if you give me what I need, then I'll swing around away from here, and the police won't come anywhere close to your still.'

  That was the simplest Rambo could make it. The idea sounded convincing to him. If they wanted to protect their outfit they would have to help. Of course they might get angry at how he was forcing them and take a chance on killing him. Or they might be an inbred family, not intelligent enough to see the logic he was using.

  It was colder, and Rambo couldn't stop himself from shivering. Now that everybody was silent, the crickets seemed extra loud.

  Finally the old man spoke. 'Matthew. I suppose you better run up to the house and bring back what he says.' His voice was not very happy.

  'And bring a can of kerosene,' Rambo said. 'Since you're helping, let's make sure you don't get hurt for it. I'll douse the clothes with the kerosene and let them dry before I put them on. The kerosene won't stop the dogs from trailing me, but it will keep them from picking up your scent on the clothes and following it to see who helped me.'

  The boy's flashlight beam glared steady on Rambo. 'I'll do what my pa says, not you.'

  'Go on do what he wants,' the old man said. 'I don't like him either, but he sure knows what the hell he's got us into.'

  The boy's flashlight beam remained steady on Rambo a moment longer, as though the boy were deciding if he would go, or maybe saving face. Then the beam swung off Rambo into the bushes and the light clicked off and Rambo heard him set out brushing through the undergrowth. He had probably come and gone from home to this spring and back again so many times that he could do it with his eyes shut, let alone without a light.

  'Thanks,' Rambo told the old man whose light remained shining on his face. Then the light went out. 'Thanks for that too,' Rambo said, the image of the light remaining on his eyes a few seconds, slowly fading.

  'Just helping the batteries.'

  Rambo heard him start to come forward through the underbrush. 'Better not come closer,' he said to the old man. 'We don't want to mix your scent with mine.'

  'I wasn't about to. There's a log here I wanted to sit on is all.'

  The old man lit a match and touched it to the bowl of a pipe. The match did not stay lit very long, but as the old man puffed on his pipe and the flame from the match got high and low, Rambo saw a tousled head of hair and a gristled face and the top half of a red-checkered shirt with suspenders over the shoulders.

  'Do you have any of your stuff with you?' Rambo asked.

  'Maybe.'

  'It's cold like this. I wouldn't mind a swallow.'

  The old man waited, then switched on his flashlight
and heaved over a jug so that Rambo could see in the light to catch it. The jug weighed like a bowling ball, and in his surprise Rambo almost dropped it. The old man chuckled. Rambo pried out the cork, wet and squeaking, and in spite of the jug's weight he drank with one hand the way he knew the old man would respect, shoving a forefinger through the hook at the top, balancing the jug on the crook of his elbow. It tasted like two hundred proof, golden-strong and burning his tongue and throat, flooding hot every inch down to his stomach. He almost choked. When he lowered the jug, his eyes were watering.

  'A little strong?' the old man asked.

  'A little,' Rambo said, having trouble getting his voice to work. 'What is it?'

  'Corn mash. But it's a little strong though, ain't it?'

  'Yeah, I'd say it's a little strong,' Rambo repeated, his voice giving him more trouble.

  The old man laughed. 'Yeah, it's a little strong all right.'

  Rambo lifted the jug and drank again, gagging on the hot thick liquor, and the old man laughed one more quick burst.

  3

  The first songs of the morning birds wakened Teasle in the dark, and he lay there on the ground by the fire, huddled in the blanket he had brought from the cruiser, peering up at the late stars beyond the treetops. It had been years since he slept out in the woods. Over twenty years he realized, counting back to 1950. Not the end of 1950: sleeping in frozen foxholes in Korea hardly qualified. Hell no, the last time he had really camped out was that spring when he got his draft notice and decided to enlist in the Marines, and he and Orval hiked into the hills for the first weekend it was warm enough. Now he was stiff from sleeping on the rough ground, his clothes were damp from where the dew had soaked through the blanket, and even near the fire, he was bone-cold. But he had not felt this alive in years, excited to be in action again, eager to chase after the kid. There was no point though in rousing everybody until Shingleton came back with the supplies and the rest of the men, and for now, the only one awake, he loved being alone this way, so different from the nights he had been spending alone since Anna had left. He wrapped himself tighter in the blanket.

  Then the smell reached him, and he looked, and Orval was sitting at the end of the fire, dragging on a thin self-rolled cigarette, the smoke drifting toward Teasle in the cool early breeze.

  'I didn't know you were awake,' Teasle whispered, not to disturb the others. 'How long?'

  'Before you.'

  'But I've been awake over an hour.'

  'I know it. I don't sleep much anymore. Not because I can't. I just begrudge the time spent.'

  Clutching his blanket, Teasle shifted close to Orval and lit a cigarette off the glow of a stick from the fire. The flames were flicking low, and when Teasle churned the stick back into them, they rose warm, crackling. He had been right when he told Orval this would be like old times, although he had not believed it then, needing Orval to come along and disliking himself for using that kind of emotional argument on the man. But the feel of gathering firewood, tossing away stones and twigs to make the ground less rough, spreading his blanket, he had forgotten how solid and good that all was.

  'So she left,' Orval said.

  Teasle did not want to talk about it. She was the one who had left, not the other way around, and that made it look as though he was in the wrong. Maybe he was. But she was too. Still he could not bring himself to put blame on her just so Orval might not think poorly of him. He tried to explain it neutrally. 'She might come back. She's thinking about that. I haven't let on much, but for a while there, we were arguing quite a bit.'

  'You're not an easy man to get along with.'

  'Well, Christ, neither are you.'

  'But I've lived with the same woman forty years, and as far as I can guess, Bea hasn't thought much about leaving. I know people must be asking you this a lot now, but considering what you and I are, I believe I have a right. What were the arguments about?'

  He almost did not answer. Talking about very personal things always embarrassed him, especially this which he had not yet reasoned out - who was right, whether he was justified. 'Kids,' he said, and then since he had begun, he went on. 'I asked her for at least one. I don't care, boy or girl. It's just that I'd like someone to be to me like I was to you. I - I don't know how to explain it. I even feel stupid talking about it.'

  'Don't you tell me that's stupid, buddy. Not when I tried so long to have a kid of my own.'

  Teasle looked at him.

  'Oh, you're like my own,' Orval said. 'Like my own. But I can't help wondering what sort of kid Bea and I would have made. If we had been able.'

  It hurt - as if all these years he had been no more to Orval than the once needy child of a dead best friend. He could not accept that; it was more self-doubt from Anna leaving, and now that he was talking about her, he had to get it in the open, finished.

  'Last Christmas,' he said, 'before we came to dinner at your place, we went over to Shingleton's for a drink, and watching his two kids, the look on their faces with their presents, I thought, maybe it would be good to have one. It certainly surprised me that at my age I wanted one, and it sure as hell surprised her. We talked about it, and she kept saying no, and after a while I suppose I made too big a thing of it. What happened, it's like she weighed me against the trouble she thought a baby would be. And left. The crazy thing is, as much as I can't sleep for wishing her to come back, in a way I'm glad she went, I'm on my own again, no more arguments, free to do what I want when I want, come home late without calling to explain I'm sorry to miss dinner, go out if I feel like it, screw around. Sometimes I even think the worst part about her leaving is how much the divorce will cost me. And at the same time I can't tell you how much I need her back with me.'

  His breath came out in frost. The birds were gathered loudly. He watched Orval drag on the last of his cigarette close to his fingers, their joints gnarled and yellow from nicotine.

  'And what about who we're after?' Orval said. 'Are you taking it all out on him?'

  'No.'

  'You sure?'

  'You know I am. I don't act tougher than I have to. You know as well as I do that a town stays safe because of the little things kept in control. You can't do anything to prevent something big like a holdup or a murder. If some-body wants to do them bad enough, he will. But it's the little things that make a town what it is, that you can watch to make it safe. If I had just grinned and took what the kid was handing me, fairly soon I might have got used to the idea and let other kids hand it to me, and in a little while I would have been letting other things go by. It's me I was concerned about as much as the kid. I can't allow myself to loosen up. I can't keep order one time and not another.'

  'You're still awfully eager to chase after him, even though your part of the job is ended. This is state police business now.'

  'But it's my man he killed and it's my responsibility to bring him in. I want all my force to know I'll stop at nothing to get at anybody who hurts them.'

  Orval looked at the pinched butt of the cigarette he was holding and nodded, flicking it into the fire.

  The shadows were lifting, trees and bushes distinct. It was the false dawn, and before long the light would appear to dim again, and then the sun would show and everything would be clear. They could have been up and starting now, Teasle thought. Where was Shingleton with the men and supplies? He should have been back a half hour ago. Maybe something had gone wrong in town. Maybe the state police were stopping him from coming in. Teasle churned a stick in the low fire, raising flames. Where _was he?

  Then he heard the first bark from the dog far off in the woods, and it stirred the dogs that were leashed to the tree nearest Orval. There were five of them here, and they had been awake, stomachs flat out on the ground, eyes intent on Orval. Now they were up, excited, barking in answer. 'Shush,' Orval said, and they looked at him and went quiet. Their withers were trembling.

  Ward, Lester and the young deputy fidgeted in their sleep. They were down close to the other s
ide of the fire, hugging their blankets. 'Uh,' Ward said.

  'In a minute,' Lester said asleep.

  The dog barked far off again, though sounding a little closer, and the dogs by Orval cocked their ears, barking excitedly in return.

  'Shush,' Orval said stronger. 'Get down.'

  Instead they jerked their heads toward another bark far off, their nostrils quivering.

  'Get down,' Orval demanded, and slowly one by one they obeyed.

  Ward squirmed on his side in the blanket, knees up near his chest. 'What's wrong? What's happening?'