Deadroads

by Robin Riopelle

  “Coque-toi,” Sol said, and stood.

  As arguments went, it wasn’t exactly a coherent one, but at least Sol seemed to be heading out. Or not. Walking a straight line that would have done a roadblock cop proud, Sol sauntered over to the bar, leaving Baz and the big guy.

  “You a fag?” the big guy asked. Okay, maybe as much liquor as Sol.

  Baz decided that he wasn’t going to answer that and instead followed Sol to the bar, where he already had a tumbler full of what Baz guessed was bourbon. Either that or rum, but rum was usually drunk straight from the bottle. A glass seemed to be Sol’s sole concession to civility.

  “Laisse-moi tranquille,” Sol straight-armed him before Baz had a chance to say anything.

  “This one,” holding up a finger and gesturing to the glass, “and then we’re out of here.”

  “Pique-toi.”

  Baz didn’t say anything in return, but Sol drank the bourbon in one slow steady gulp like salvation might be found at the bottom. He spun the glass on the counter, dropped some bills beside it. “Encore,” gesturing with the same fingers that had sealed their father’s ghost to its road, and Baz snatched back the money.

  “Non, Beausoleil.”

  “Oh, man, you guys are Cajun, right?” one of the guys Baz had been talking to earlier asked, his girlfriend eyeing Baz with unconcealed interest, distracting him for the one second that mattered. “Our dog was a rescue pet that we adopted after Hurricane Ka—”

  And Sol’s left-handed undercut moved so quickly, Baz couldn’t have stopped it, eyes couldn’t even track it. Baz barely understood what had happened, even as the guy dropped to the ground, dazed, and Sol advanced a step. This, Baz could deal with, and he pushed between them, shoved Sol back a foot, kept his hand on his brother’s shoulder.

  “I’m not a fucking Cajun, you fucking tout-emmerdé.” Sol’s voice caught but Baz had a fistful of his sweater and pulled him out the door, Sol blank and unresisting.

  Baz understood this, knew what had to happen next. Without saying anything, Sol retrieved a half-bottle of dark rum from the back of the Wagoneer, uncapped it, took a long swig, wiped his mouth with his sleeve as Baz opened the motel door.

  He lasted another fifteen minutes before crashing. Baz watched, not really watching, eyes on the grainy television screen, as Sol downed the rest of the bottle, not stopping for anything now, goal in sight. After a couple of minutes, Baz cautioned a look, but Sol’s eyes were closed and the empty bottle was on the bedside table beside a truly objectionable lamp.

  Baz snapped off the television, tossed the bottle in the garbage can in the bathroom, rolled Sol to his side and draped him with a blanket. A touring musician knew how to put a passed-out person to bed safely. I know how to keep Sol safe. But he didn’t know how to do that, not really. Baz touched his brother’s head with tentative fingers, hair sticking out in all directions. Baz had been waiting for this, for Sol to apply the only anesthetic he knew, the same one Aurie had used to great effect. That’s what Sol had been working towards.

  Baz was working toward something a little different. This was his chance to get out, to follow the thread of a question he wasn’t going to ask. Sol didn’t move as Baz retrieved the truck keys from the front pocket of his jeans. Just as well, Baz thought, but didn’t mean it. Part of him wanted Sol to wake up, to stop him. This is crazy.

  The snow meant he didn’t drive fast. He told himself that was the reason—the police would show a lot of interest in his driving record if they caught up with him, and no insurance would cover the damage Sol would do to Baz if he dented the truck. Sol’s truck rumbled slowly along the white street alongside the tracks, to the place where they’d been earlier that night.

  He pulled his brother’s cap over his head, deliberate in everything now, killing minutes, extending the gap between decision made and decision enacted. Finally, he took a deep breath, shut off the engine, left the keys dangling in the ignition, ready for his return. Without further deliberation, he got out, ducked through the broken fence and kept to the shadows, breath steaming from him, its own kind of apparition.

  His mother had used ghosts for her own purposes, that much Baz understood. She had told fortunes, divined the future. Aurie had told him about it, anger in his eyes, explaining why she’d gone and why they weren’t going to talk about it. You don’t use them, gars. You let them go. Not that Aurie had been particularly good at letting anything go, but Baz understood the principle. The thing was, that meant ghosts were useful, useful for otherwise hidden information, and Baz didn’t think his mother was evil, not like Aurie had insinuated.

  He had no idea how the calling of ghosts worked, but he had to try. Their father was gone; Sol had seen to that. But his brother had also said that there were many more ghosts down by the tracks, and the ghosts had come when he sang. They didn’t talk about that, neither brother nor father, why Baz was only allowed to sing in the car. Nobody talked about anything of importance. Baz didn’t want to remember, couldn’t remember much, and couldn’t rely on what he did remember. An August day, down south, long ago. Sing me a song, his sister had begged. An August day, housed in him like a bat high in a rafter, invisible until it lifted to flight. It’s too hot for singing, he had complained. But: Anything you want, Mademoiselle Je-sais-tout. And Baz knew what had happened next, that day and in the days that had followed.

  All my fault.

  The sound of metal moving on metal came to him from across the tracks, the smell of cold, of iron. He sang, self-conscious at first, tentative. It might not work, I might be doing this all wrong. So cold—was it colder than before? His heart tripped high in his chest. Only the one song, though, before he halted, hunkered down like he’d seen Sol do, one hand on the ground. Screw it, it was like trying to fix an engine blindfolded. “Okay,” Baz whispered, teeth clattering in the night. “Where the hell are you guys?”

  Only the wind, and the far call of engine and train whistle.

  Another song, and he was definitely unnerved, because they might be all around him, and he couldn’t see a damn thing. The moon was behind clouds now, and the yard was all line and smudge and blur. “Hey, c’mon. I need a favor.”

  He felt open, felt seen, felt cold fingers run across his hand. He startled, drew his hand back from the ground, shaking. Wind maybe. Or not. I don’t want to remember, he thought, briefly. I don’t want this.

  Then, beside him, behind him, beyond the chain link at his back, gravel shifted, skirled. Baz held still, wouldn’t see anything, even if he looked. Maybe all this was predicated on not-looking, who knew? Maybe this was his way with spirits, different from Sol’s.

  As long as it wasn’t one of the railroad bulls, coming to check out what Baz was doing in the yards. The gravel crunched again, sound of lifeless bleak density shifting in the night. Then, a jagged breath, a cancerous intake of air over scar tissue and through blood frothing in the lungs. Baz held very still, hand back out against the ground, fingers aching with cold.

  “A favor?” The question rattled from behind. Not a rattle. A chuckle.

  Baz licked his lips, quickly, half-hoping it was a cop, telling himself that it was a cop. “Yeah, no biggie. I just—”

  “You want to know where she is.”

  No cop.

  Despite himself, Baz looked. He couldn’t see anything at first. And then, behind the chain link, metal holding it back, somehow, like that might matter, a dark haze as insubstantial as smoke. Still on his haunches, Baz pivoted on the balls of his feet, faced it, though that was the wrong word. There was no face, there was nothing.

  There was something. Don’t look at it. Oh God, please don’t look at it.

  A memory boiled under the surface, this voice, this feeling of being watched, of being seen, and Baz’s breath came short and fast, heart hammering, hair on his arms raising, everything in him begging for flight.

  “Are you a ghost?” Because this didn’t feel like a ghost, and he’d never seen a ghost in his life. His voi
ce, warmed up by the singing, sounded pathetic, thin as though the music had leeched all life from him.

  The thing just chuckled again, shifted. “I don’t answer questions.” And it drifted down track, away from Baz.

  No time to second guess what this was, ghost or not, because he hadn’t come here just to drive opportunity away. “Wait!” and the black smudge stalled. Baz straightened, tried to steady his voice. “Yeah, that’s what I need.”

  The sound of amusement came again, covered by a rough cough, like the air didn’t suit it. “Fait attention. Needing is dangerous, Basile Sarrazin.”

  Baz’s heart banged like a pinball in his chest, and he put his hand to his mouth, blew on it, covering up his shaking. Fucking perceptive for a ghost, if that’s what this was. Something from the swamp, stirred up here on the dry prairie by his need, a childhood nightmare made real. “Still.”

  The thing came closer, but didn’t seep through the fence, seemed contained and Baz hoped it was. “Long time no see, bougre. You got real tall, didn’t you?” it asked. What the hell? Did it know him? Baz’s stomach curdled, turned in on itself, and he tried to concentrate on the here and now, even though memory tugged hard.

  “Do you know me?”

  “I don’t answer questions, like I said.”

  Baz sucked air. He’d been told. “I don’t need to know where she is. I’m just…curious.” Such a lie and he wondered if it could tell. “Just want to know if she’s okay.”

  The thing laughed again. “That so? What are you offering me?”

  “Hey,” Baz complained, eyebrows inching up. “I already gave you two songs.”

  Only the wind again, and Baz couldn’t see it, and he wondered if he’d said the wrong thing. Finally though, like the wind had shifted it, the black smudge appeared again on the periphery, down track a little way. As Baz watched, it solidified slightly, crabbed along. It didn’t move like smoke, it darted, backtracked, zigged unnaturally. Despite the keen freezing air, Baz broke out into a sweat.

  “Your songs?” Like he’d served up dog shit.

  “Fine. What do you want then?”

  “I’m doin’ you a favor, boy,” it said, but it kept its distance. “Being nice.”

  Baz knew that it wasn’t and he found he didn’t care. “Nice?” Baz repeated, buying time. “What do you want?” Made him ask twice, and Baz hated that.

  “Want, or need?” the thing said, playing, past chiding him about his questions. “No biggie,” it repeated without any trace of humor. “We can settle up later.” And it shambled away, and Baz let out an involuntary sound of protest like something was being taken from him, wrenched out, a hot dark hand on his chest.

  The creature stopped, and Baz heard the chuckle again. “In your pocket, child.” It dissipated between one moment and the next, maybe between blinks, and Baz shook where he stood, hot and frozen beyond measure.

  Dreading it, head so light he thought he might blow away or fall down, Baz reached into his coat pocket with a chilled hand, fingers bone white, bloodless, trembling. He withdrew what he found there: a scrap of paper, a ripped corner of unidentifiable newsprint. Letters and numbers scrawled with a malfunctioning ball point pen. An address. His own handwriting. An answer and a promise made in the night, and Baz wondered what he’d be made to pay for this gift.

  THREE

  THE VISITOR

  The construction worker lay on his back amid stacked lumber and reels of cable and he wasn’t moving at all, a piece of rebar protruding from his left side at an angle that would make anyone wince, pointing out the direction of God, perhaps. Sol checked himself from looking up, but just barely. Shoulda said a Hail Mary, buddy, he thought. The loose piece of scrap iron had likely punctured something significant, but there was no way Sol could tell what just yet.

  The worker’s airway was clear, his breathing shallow but steady. His eyes weren’t open, however, and Sol checked the packing already in place; less bleeding than you’d think. Hadn’t hit an artery. All good, for the moment.

  There was the matter of the drop, but Sol didn’t have time to worry about that. Emergency medicine meant assessing the situation and then focusing concentration to only what was at hand, and in this case it was a very narrow ledge indeed, a slab of cantilevered concrete about the width of mid-sized car, no railing, nothing but air and wind. Sol opened the ALS bag he’d brought up to what he estimated was around the twenty-third floor of the condominium under construction. He’d need more gauze and bandages—moving the patient in any direction was going to mean blood, maybe lots of it. He rooted around in the bag, found the extra gauze.

  At that point, he did glance down the giddy height, but that was only to ascertain how many vehicles were on-scene, nothing more. Two engines, three ladders, an X-car. A goddamn party. No news vans, thank God, always a relief as far as Sol was concerned. Probably most reporters had taken the day off, a Friday sandwiched between Christmas Day and the weekend. Only keeners like me and Mr. Rebar on the job today. Sol wondered if the construction worker was avoiding home, too.

  “We can bring him down with that,” he said to his partner Wayne as he gestured upwards to the white construction crane, cross-arm barely visible from their angle, strung with Christmas lights. From this close proximity Sol could see the wind whipping the cables around, lines tangled, held in place with plastic ties.

  “Man, you had your Wheaties this morning,” Wayne observed, eyebrows shooting up, gaze direct. It was a question: you, or me?

  “Cakewalk. I’ll do it.” Even as he said it, Sol factored in the wind: it would be one hell of a bumpy ride. One hell of cold ride, too. He could barely feel his fingers in the thin blue gloves. At least the construction site was close to the trauma center at Denver Health, because this rescue wasn’t going to be pretty or neat. One of the firefighters radioed instructions while Sol stabilized the patient’s neck in a collar and put the extra packing around the wound.

  “Hey. Hey! What’s your name?” Sol asked the construction worker, even though he knew the man’s name was Marty—one of the guys down below had said it: Marty’s up there, and he’s bad, man. “Hey,” he rubbed the man’s sternum with his knuckle.

  Marty’s eyes opened, and he stared at Sol, tried to focus. “That’s good, Marty,” Sol continued, dropping his voice low. “I’m Sol, I’m a paramedic. We’re gonna get you down from here, don’t worry.” Wayne was still getting details from the firefighter; at least they didn’t need to cut the rebar, it was just a scrap piece, no longer than twelve inches, which was long enough, and the Fire Department’s EMT-first responders had done a good job stabilizing the wound before Sol and Wayne had rolled up. Sol listened to Marty’s chest, but the wind was high and that was all he could hear, no suck of a punctured lung. Just a matter of not jostling that bar and keeping the BP steady as possible.

  Sol looked up and saw where Marty must have fallen from—a gap in what was going to be the ceiling fifteen feet above on the next level. Marty was damn lucky he hadn’t fallen just a couple of feet to the west, because then he’d have gone down twenty-three stories and at that point, Sol wouldn’t have been worrying about stabilizing Marty for much of anything.

  The day was clear and cold and the mountains were so sharp they almost drew blood from the sky. But thinking about mountains was widening the scope of concentration, and wasn’t useful at all. With a groan of metal against metal, the crane lurched into motion, swinging round, startling Sol, like spotting a hunting bird circling overhead, a primitive reaction to danger. He started an IV for Marty, put in something for the pain, and met Marty’s eyes, which were following Sol’s every move—good. Alert was good. He retrieved a harness from another bag and belted up, adjusted the buckles and bindings, kept his eye on the crane. Satisfied, he knelt beside his patient again, checked his vitals one last time.

  “Am I going to die?” Marty asked, and Sol noticed red froth at the corner of his lips. Sol listened again to Marty’s lungs, this time heard that one was good,
and one was not. He checked the wound under the packing, knew he’d need to do something about it, because that piece of bar had hit lung, collapsing it. The wound looked too low though, the angle impossible.

  Broken rib piercing the lung? No time to wonder; Sol called out to Wayne for the bag. Seconds later, a 12 gauge needle was in Marty’s chest, the trapped pocket of air decompressing with a hiss, quick turn of the valve and Marty took a stuttering breath, color back. Sol repacked, asked Wayne for an occlusive bandage, and sealed up the wound, leaving a flutter valve.

  Marty’s question, though. “If you can ask me that, I’d say no.” Calm, with a smile. He laid one gloved hand on the man’s chest, fingers splayed wide. Wayne and a firefighter were behind, near the drop, getting the stokes basket ready. They all wore helmets and heavy gauge gloves, neither of which would matter if they fell off that edge. “Let’s move it, mesdemoiselles,” Sol called out.

  Without warning, Sol felt pressure against his hand, like something was rising from Marty’s chest, something pushing upwards. “Not on my watch,” he muttered, meeting Marty’s wandering stare. “You stay in there,” he said quietly. “Stay put. You don’t need to go no place.” Anyone listening would think he was crazy, but the wind was up and Wayne and two firefighters appeared to be in a life or death struggle with that basket, attaching it to the crane’s hook, steadying it with one hand. Sol concentrated for the moment it would take, keeping things together for just a little while longer, his hand acting as a latch to Marty’s soul, refusing to budge.

  Marty’s lips moved silently, but he kept his eyes on Sol the whole time. Sol nodded to him. “You hang in there, we’re going to go for a little ride.”

  On the count of three, they carefully lifted Marty into the basket, the rebar sticking up incongruously, horrifying. “Don’t look,” Sol advised, clipping his safety harness to the ring above the basket and double-checking all the fastenings. It was a long way down, but he’d spent a few summers working construction, so he didn’t think about it, just nodded to Wayne. “See you downstairs,” he said, keeping one hand on Marty’s chest as the crane started to take up slack.