Deadroads

by Robin Riopelle

The sound that Aurie made then chilled Sol as nothing else would, ever: a keening note of despair. Aurie eased Baz to Sol’s arms, and Sol took his brother to the couch in the living room, stayed with him until he slept, came back to the kitchen to find his father with a bottle of rum on the table, the ring vanished as though it had never existed.

  Aurie drank mechanically, didn’t acknowledge his son’s presence, didn’t say a word, was lost to Sol in a way new and therefore frightening. Sol walked back into the main room of the house, looked around at the mess, at insensible Baz asleep under the tablecloth-blanket.

  He stepped outside into the night and watched the moonlight on the water. Today, he had sent his first ghost on its road, had fulfilled his early promise, and it didn’t matter. He was alone, and he knew it.

  The next morning, Aurie packed precious few belongings into the truck. Then, he burned the house to the pilings as his sons watched. They got in the truck, and only Sol looked back as they drove away.

  EIGHT

  THE FORTUNETELLER’S GHOST

  They passed midnight on the road, Lutie weary of the buzzing yellow line, but Baz didn’t seem to need sleep. Though she hadn’t mentioned it, she thought it was probably best if they stopped soon, crashed in some cheap motel. Forward motion was its own kind of intoxication.

  However, after grabbing a quick bite in Lincoln, Baz hopped into the driver’s seat, extended his hand for the keys and cocked his head at an angle when Lutie hesitated. “I have a license, you know.” Suspended, he’d already admitted. “It’s completely safe, Lutie. And I’ll get us to Denver in no time.”

  “We’ll never make it to Denver tonight,” she said.

  “C’mon,” Baz cajoled, eyes bright in the parking lot lights. “We can try, at least.”

  With pause, with caution, Lutie handed him the keys, slipped out of her down coat and wrapped it around her shoulders before sitting in the passenger seat. Baz experimented with the clutch and the stick, ground gears before throwing it into reverse, and emitted a high-pitched cackle of glee. Lutie knew this was a bad idea, but it was open highway, and all the city cops would be monitoring parties, and Baz hadn’t had a drop of liquor. He seemed inordinately pleased to be driving, and it wasn’t in her to deny him, which was probably part of his problem with life in general.

  Something about the blur of highway and the fleeting signs made Lutie think that maybe they could leave everything behind, maybe if they went fast enough, it would be possible to outrun the past. Baz turned the music up loud, declared that he liked her taste, and Lutie felt a jolt of pride. She had impressed him, and that felt strangely good.

  He didn’t slow for much of anything, but an hour later he turned down the music a little, enough, and Lutie thought that maybe this would be when she’d suggest that they stop for a bit, that rest would be a good thing. There wasn’t much along this stretch of highway, though, just train tracks running alongside them, and a frozen runnel of water to the north of the westward-leading highway. Every so often lights would flicker and flash along the track, and they’d be following or watching a long train of freight heading in one direction or another. Freed from the pressure of driving, Lutie wondered what the cars contained: grain, crates of electronics, powdered chemicals.

  A little percussive noise, Baz clearing his throat, and he asked if she was sure.

  In the lowered volume of the now-quiet car, Lutie nodded. She knew what he meant. “I’m sure. I’ve thought about this a lot. You don’t know what it’s like, Baz. How crazy it makes you feel, to have them around all the time.”

  Three signposts passed to the right, warning them about speeding and advising them of distances, before Baz spoke again. “I know it must be a burden, dealing with them. Dad, I think he made the best of it. He always seemed to think of it as… I don’t know.”

  “A calling?”

  Baz nodded, gaze out the windshield, attention all on her. “Yeah. That’s one way of looking at it, Lutie.”

  “Does,” she didn’t want to talk about it, not like this, but there wasn’t really any time that was good, and she wanted Baz to understand. “Does Beausoleil look at it like that?”

  She was still trying to figure out how close Baz and her other brother were, the one she hardly remembered at all. Sometimes, she thought that they must not get along all that well, and other times, she sensed that Baz was in awe of him. At no time had she felt that her two brothers had much in common.

  Baz half-shrugged, one shoulder coming up, grin pulling one corner of his mouth. “Who knows what Sol thinks about it,” proving Lutie’s suspicions. “He don’t talk about stuff like that much, Lutie. He’s real private that way. But I think,” and his brows crooked together, carefully choosing his words, maybe worried about how they’d fall. “I think that he has a hard time with it. He’s been on medications like you have, people thinking he was crazy, seeing things that weren’t there. Dad tried to make sure no one messed with him when we were kids, but Dad, he wasn’t always around.”

  “So, you see what I mean.” Not a question. “I have to do something, Baz, because I don’t want to take all those drugs. They make me stupid and slow.” She lifted a hand to her head. “And the ghosts, the spirits, whatever the hell they are, they’re all around.”

  “Do,” and he paused, like this was a no-go zone. He’d just said that Sol wouldn’t talk about this stuff, so maybe it was. “Do they talk to you? ’Cause Dad always said you shouldn’t talk to them.”

  Lutie shrugged. “Maman always talked to them.” Sometimes yelled at her ghost, sometimes used words that Lutie still remembered as being foul and forbidden.

  It was like explaining the difference between blue and yellow to a blind person. Baz licked his lips quickly. Lutie knew she was spending a lot of time looking at him, same way he did her, seeing parallels in their similar noses, eyebrows. Maybe Baz was more like she’d have been if she hadn’t had this curse of seeing.

  When it came right down to it, Baz was happy.

  And that was the explanation to offer, perhaps. “Baz, I just want to be happy. I think that if I do this, just this one thing, and make sure I take care of the ghost, then I could be. Probably like having a pit bull, right? They get a bad rap, but it’s just that their owners don’t treat them well. It’s not the dog’s fault. Same with ghosts. They’re hanging around anyway, going nowhere. It scares them, it freaks them out. Sometimes, I think it makes them pissed off, and that’s the only time they’re dangerous. The rest of the time, they’re pretty pathetic, actually.”

  They drove in silence for a while longer. “So,” Baz said softly into the darkness, “you’re doing it a favor, by bringing one in?” Like they were talking about adopting an animal from a shelter.

  Lutie hoped that was the case; it was what she believed, anyway, so she nodded. “I think we’re all doing the same thing, just a different way, you know? I think our dad,” and that was the first time she’d said that, and she wondered if Baz noticed. Papa, she thought, Papa, what would you think of this? But she knew. And this was his son. This was her brother, more to the point. “I think he was looking after the ghosts, too. This is just what I know how to do.”

  “Okay, then,” Baz breathed. He tapped his long fingers against the wheel, musical in this as well. “I know where we can find some ghosts.”

  Lutie tried not to laugh. “Um, Baz? Finding ghosts isn’t my problem. You just open your mouth and sing. We’ve got ghosts.”

  For once, he didn’t smile back, he still had a disturbed frown on his face. “Lutie, I’ll help. I promise. But.” He pinched his nose with two fingers and Lutie wished he’d keep both hands on the wheel. “You know. Something killed Dad. I don’t know if it’s a ghost or what, but I know Sol’s after it, whatever it is. It’s important to him, getting this thing. And,” he hesitated and Lutie had the feeling he wasn’t really used to saying what he said next, “it’s important to me, Lutie. Dad didn’t die in a train accident, he was murdered. In North Platte, just
a few hours down this highway. No one deserves to die like he did. I’d like to help out, if I can. And maybe you can get something out of a ghost there that I can’t, maybe something that Sol couldn’t get out of it. So, we can all help each other with this, hé?”

  He sounded so tentative, like a bright kid with a good idea scared to death of speaking in front of the class. Lutie thought that it wasn’t that Baz wasn’t close to his brother, it’s that he wanted to be, and maybe didn’t even know it.

  So she nodded, understanding that. “All right, then,” she agreed. “Let’s go to North Platte.”

  As he laid lines of salt across every threshold to the townhouse, Sol realized that his logic was perhaps imperfect. It was possible that ghosts could go out windows, wasn’t it? But then he noticed that the windows on both the ground and the second floor had bars on them, and guessed that the bars might have some steel in them. A little bit of iron might make a difference, like blood, something living taken from the earth’s bones.

  Guessing, you’re guessing, gars. Bad time to be unsure.

  His father’s imagined voice, right in his head. He shrugged it off. So what if he was guessing? If the worst that happened was the ghost escaped, that would be okay. Better than a dead fortuneteller, old man.

  It was still dark, now about five-thirty in the morning, and no one was around. Still, Sol didn’t take his time. He came around to the back door, mostly because it was sheltered from other townhouse windows, and jimmied the lock with two illegal tools that everyone in the Denver Health EMS knew he had. His reputation, he supposed, was pretty suspect: a hard-drinking and possibly unstable Cajun who’d grown up in the Colorado foster-care system while his father was incarcerated for manslaughter. A legendary freak-out in New Orleans after Katrina where he’d ranted about ghosts before falling into a fever-induced coma. He also had one of the highest patient survival rates for any paramedic on the job, was extraordinarily good at what he did.

  There were reasons for all of it, of course, good ones, if not all that believable. If he got busted breaking into the fortuneteller’s house, he knew there would be some in the department, hell many, who wouldn’t bat an eyelash.

  Lock quietly open and he slipped in, stepping carefully over his salt-line, listening. Ghosts didn’t sleep, but their hosts did, and if this fortuneteller had kept up her sealing ward, Sol might have found his first piece of luck, because that ghost would be good and tied. He entered into the kitchen, a sink full of dirty dishes, smell of grease and refried beans. He moved on silent feet, despite the heavy boots, clicking off his small maglight, pocketing it. He didn’t know if she lived alone or not, but he didn’t want to surprise anyone who might be armed. He opened the door from the kitchen into a hallway, allowing his eyes to become accustomed to the dark. The room hung with paper, the seance room, still littered with syringe casings and other detritus of a ALS visit. Maybe Madama Lopez had left; maybe this wasn’t her residence, just her place of business.

  Sol didn’t think so. The fortuneteller was probably just exhausted, had left the dishes and the mess for the morning. Across the room, he spotted a staircase that he hadn’t noticed before, hidden behind a fall of velvet curtain. He walked carefully over, peered up. There was a light on in the upstairs corridor, perhaps bedrooms beyond. Sol wished that he’d run this address through the system, found out who else might live here.

  Half-cocked, gars. You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into, do you?

  Under his breath, Sol told his father to shut up.

  Crouching to the floor, he ran one hand across his head. Still time to duck out, nothing lost but some road salt. He knew he wouldn’t. Experimentally, he stretched his hand out, could see it by the wan upstairs light spilling into the seance room, which smelled of beeswax and sulfur. And sweat. Maybe me, he thought, placing his hand on the hardwood.

  He opened the proceedings, declared his intentions to the room: I am here for you, spirit.

  Sol stood, waiting, hands open at his side, because ghosts didn’t sleep, not ever. The room chilled. A drop of twenty degrees inside seconds. Despite himself, Sol smiled. I know what I’m doing, Papa.

  The cold coalesced, formed, drew light against the gloom of the seance room, caught the edge of morning. A tall man, this one had been, and Sol was ready, or thought he was. In the instant that the ghost recognized Sol—saw what he was, which was one of those that could see, one of those that opened ways and paths and means—Sol dropped to the ground, hand against the floor, praying to God or his father, one of the two, that he could do this.

  Binding first, deadroad later. Sol stretched his fingers again, but it was his mind that went out into the chill, chill air, seeking the knot that tied the ghost to the fortuneteller. Cut it, snap it, erode it, chew it, whatever it took. Imagine it and you could do it.

  Binding first, but don’t ignore the anger, Beausoleil.

  Fine time to tell me, Sol thought, and was lifted, air in his throat so cold it froze, was lifted off his feet and thrown against the wall, breath knocked from him. Something shattered beside him, mirror or glass, he didn’t know. His head hit the paneling with a blast of heat and fire, and he slid to the ground, his tenuous grasp of the knot fading even as he blinked away spots. He’d bitten his tongue, maybe, tasted blood in his mouth.

  The ghost advanced, distressingly real and solid, no room to see behind its gray shape, and Sol was lifted again, this time by bony fingers around his throat and he knew he was in trouble, because his hand was not on the ground, and he couldn’t feel anything: self, or earth, or knot.

  The sun came up over the tracks in North Platte and that was a lucky thing, because it meant that Baz could find the same place he’d parked before, the same place where Sol had cut a hole in the fence. The stretch of gravel and iron rail was different by soft dawn, somehow, more commonplace. Baz knew you could see ghosts during the day but that it was more difficult, harder. Harder for Lutie, anyway, who was the one who could see them, period.

  Easier for the railroad cops to see them, of course, so Baz advised Lutie to be quick. He had no idea what was involved with catching a ghost and moreover, didn’t think that Lutie had either. In fact, he was beginning to suspect that this whole thing would result in one big fat zero. He’d then have to take Lutie into Denver, another few hours down the interstate, and explain everything to Sol.

  Shit, it really didn’t bear thinking about. But if they had new information, something about this place that Sol hadn’t been able to figure out, screwed up as he’d been by putting their father’s ghost on its road? Sol would pay attention to that, Baz was sure, and would probably not be quite as sore and angry about the fact that Baz had gone out of his way to find Lutie.

  Never mind how he’d done it, which Baz really couldn’t think about.

  Like Sol had before him, Baz warned Lutie that the trains moved fast, to keep her wits about her. In her white coat, she actually blended in fairly well against the snow and the parched gravel. Trains chugged this way and that, followed by the metallic grind and scream of hard work and friction. Baz found the dip in the gravel between track and fence that he thought was the same as before.

  “This is where they found his body,” he said quietly, and Lutie, who had been staring westward along the line of iron heading to the horizon, turned slightly, rising sun catching her across the face, lighting her eyes green, long hair blown by the wind, lifting.

  He wondered what she saw, but years had taught him not to ask. Dad had never answered, and Sol had sometimes mocked, other times berated. Baz kept quiet, waited for her to tell him what she wanted. She walked down the tracks a little, back to him, hands held away from her side, gloved fingers like the flat head of a Geiger counter.

  After a moment, she stopped, tilted her head to the side.

  “They’re here all right.”

  He wanted to ask about their father, but trusted that Sol had been good at what he’d done, so he held his tongue.

  Lutie
answered for him. “Not Papa, though. Not him,” and Baz couldn’t name what was in her voice, but it chilled him. She swiveled all the way around, maybe twenty feet from him, the sun painting her pink and orange, irridescent as an exotic bird. Beautiful. “Can you sing for a bit, Baz? They’re so angry. They see you, but they’re…wanting.”

  He was able to identify what was in her voice then: regret.

  “Is it just ghosts?” he asked, because he didn’t see anything like what he’d seen that night after Sol had put his father’s ghost away, that thing that had given him Lutie’s address, that had allowed the rest of this to happen. That had wanted all this to happen, Baz realized now, with a jolt.

  “What else would there be?” she asked.

  He wasn’t going to answer that, so he started to sing. Whatever came: a commercial jingle to start, then that seemed too trite, too facile. He found an old Hank Williams song, and it was full of being in the doghouse and somehow that fit the mood. He concentrated on that, but watched his sister.

  She seemed too slight for the job, had none of their father’s dark gravitas, was made of light, and he sang another Williams song, knowing all the words, learned in moving tour vans from other musicians. The sun came up behind her and Baz couldn’t really see her expression, because he was dazzled by the light. Everything was all right, all of a piece. This was good.

  He smiled, continued the song during the dawn, and he saw Lutie go to her knees like she was going to pick a flower, hand open wide against the ground and he wondered if she was talking to them, wondered if that was so wrong after all. They were to be pitied, weren’t they? Lost souls; they must be so lonely. Pitied, or sent on their way to whatever awaited all of them when they crossed over.

  The light was almost too bright to see, and he couldn’t hear the trains anymore, could only hear his own voice, took pride in that, and it was like when they were in the church, where the light had come down and refracted and that was where Baz dedicated his voice, not to the ghosts. They could listen, sure, but he was not singing for them.