Wayfaring Stranger

by James Lee Burke

  I began walking down the right-of-way alongside pipe that was propped on skids all the way to a saltwater bay. Up ahead, I could see two tack-welder rigs and one hot-pass rig moving up the line, the welder’s helpers yanking up the steel pipe clamp that acted as the ground, and running with it after the truck; then the welders crouched again, their shields down, the arc crackling alight when the stringer-bead rod touched the metal.

  The oil boom broke the back of the Southern plantation system and was a godsend for working people. There was a tradeoff, though. A mistake on a drilling or seismograph rig or a pipeline could cost a man a limb, an eye, or his life. It happened in a blink, and it happened with regularity. That’s why there were no second chances in the oil patch.

  I looked over my shoulder at Hershel. He was sitting in the passenger seat of my pickup, holding the plastic thermos cup to his mouth with both hands. He looked back at me, shamefaced. At noon I told him I would buy him lunch. We made it about three miles down the highway.

  “Stop the truck,” he said.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m about to puke my guts. I’ve never been so sick in my life.”

  He got out of the vehicle and walked through a field of buttercups into a grove of live oaks, clutching his stomach all the while, his face beaded with sweat. He sat down in the shade, his back against a tree.

  I squatted down next to him. “Some people have a violent reaction to alcohol,” I said. “It doesn’t mean they’re weak-willed or lacking in character. In my family, it’s like matches and gasoline.”

  I could see he wasn’t listening.

  “She called me paranoid,” he said.

  “Why would she do that?”

  “Because I don’t trust these film people. Because I saw that guy again.”

  “Which guy?”

  “The one we had trouble with at the dance hall in Opelousas. The one who’s been following us around.”

  He was wearing a straw cowboy hat. I took it off his head and placed it crown-down on his lap. He lifted his eyes to mine. His face was beet-red, his breath rank. “Don’t do this to yourself,” I said.

  “I won’t,” he said, his hands knotting.

  “Let Linda Gail have her way. If this Hollywood overture isn’t on the square, she’ll let it go. But it has to be her choice. In the meantime, we keep the cork in the bottle.” He didn’t reply. I fitted my hand on his shoulder and looked into his face. His shoulder bone felt as sharp as a knife. “Do we have a deal?”

  “Yes, sir. How far in the red are we?”

  “Seventy-six thousand dollars, plus what we owe my uncle.”

  “We’re still afloat, though?”

  “We lost the contract for the job in East Texas. I couldn’t pay the up-front money on the pipe. We’re in danger of having our welding machines confiscated.”

  He looked seasick. “All because of those dadburned wells outside New Roads. It eats my lunch thinking about it.”

  I picked up his hat and put it on his head. “They can kill us, but they can’t change us.”

  “I think it’s like Linda Gail said.”

  “What did she say?”

  “We chopped a hole in the bottom of our own boat.”

  I felt like telling him to kick Linda Gail Pine in the butt. Instead I waited until I had showered and put on fresh clothes and eaten dinner, then I called Lloyd Fincher in San Antonio, my throat so dry I could hardly speak when he picked up the phone.

  “There’s some static on the line. I can’t hear you,” Fincher said. “Who is this?”

  “Weldon Holland, Major.”

  “I declare. What can I do for you, son?”

  ROSITA AND I checked in to the Menger Hotel, close by the Alamo and the River Walk, the night before we were to meet with Lloyd Fincher and his attorney. The hotel was built in 1859 and had inlaid ivory-colored and royal blue marble floors and potted palms and slender white columns with gold trim in the lobby, and a balcony that wrapped around the atrium and allowed the visitor a wonderful overview of the hotel’s interior, which looked more like ancient Rome than modern-day Texas.

  I threw our bag on the bed. Through the window, I could see the facade of the Alamo’s chapel, the building that had served as an infirmary during the siege of the mission in 1836. I opened the French doors and stepped out on the balcony. “Jim Bowie died right there,” I said to Rosita, pointing at the chapel. “He was bayoneted to death on his cot. Davy Crockett probably died by the barracks wall.”

  Rosita didn’t reply. I stared at the plaza. I had been there many times and had always walked away with the same sensation. I felt that the spirits of the 188 men and boys who had died after thirteen days of siege were still among us, their ashes under the stones we walked on, their voices whispering to us in the wind, should we ever choose to listen.

  “Are you worried about tomorrow?” Rosita asked.

  “I’m gambling on Fincher, a man who got a lot of GIs killed at Kasserine Pass.”

  “That was then. This is now,” she said.

  “That’s what I tell myself.”

  “You’ve done all you could to raise money, Weldon. Everything you’ve done is for Hershel. I just wish he understood that.”

  “If it wasn’t for Hershel’s welding machines, we’d be living on the GI Bill. Let’s go to a restaurant on the river and get something to eat.”

  “Just wait a minute. The real question is whether this man Fincher is honest or not,” she said. “Do you believe he’s honest?”

  I could hear the music in the outdoor cafés along the River Walk. I didn’t want to think or talk about Lloyd Fincher. I didn’t want to believe I had deliberately put myself in a relationship with a man for whom I had no respect. I hadn’t slept in three nights. “Sometimes you have to do business with the devil,” I said.

  “He’s not that bad, is he?”

  “Probably not. But I wouldn’t count on it.”

  She put her arm in mine. “We’ll always be together, no matter what happens,” she said. “You’ve always done the right thing, Weldon. That’s all that counts.”

  When I needed someone to back my play, Rosita Lowenstein never let me down.

  We walked along the river’s edge under the cypress and willow trees, over the pedestrian bridges, past a gondola filled with mariachi musicians wearing white sombreros and brocaded jackets and trousers. Up ahead was a tree with the bark and long thin leaves of a willow, but it was blooming with clusters of purple flowers that trailed in the water. I did not know its name. “What a beautiful tree,” I said.

  Then I realized that a few feet away from the tree, Hershel and Linda Gail were sitting at a table with Lloyd Fincher and a heavyset peroxide-blond woman in an orange sundress. Her skin was like tallow, with the kind of tan you see on people who sunbathe in the nude. Fincher stood up, a bottle of Corona in his hand, his face flushed, as though he had run upstairs. He had on a tropical shirt printed with parrots and flowers that he wore outside a pair of pleated white slacks. A saucer of salted limes and a silver flask in a leather case sat in the middle of the table. “Hail, Sir Weldon, and hail your ladyship,” he said. “We’re rewriting the outcome of the Alamo. Help us clean Santa Ana’s clock.”

  There was a glass of iced tea in front of Hershel, and a plate with three tacos and a scoop of avocado salad, but no bottle of beer. Good for you, Hershel, I thought.

  “We’re taking a walk,” I said.

  “Definitely not. You have to sit down,” Fincher said. “Travis is mortally wounded and the little brown buggers are coming over the wall. Time to give them a face full of chain and grape and send them back across the Rio Grande. We used to have a cheer in high school: ‘Two bits, four bits, six bits a peso. All good pepper-bellies stand up and say so.’”

  “Don’t offend him,” Rosita whispered.

 
“What’s that?” Fincher said.

  “We’d love to join you,” I replied.

  “Damn straight,” he said. “How about two fingers of Mexican kickapoo juice with a Corona chaser? It’ll set you right. This is my friend Paula. She used to throw the shot put. Right, baby? She can still throw it, too, I’m here to tell you.”

  Linda Gail turned around in her chair and smiled at us. She had tinted her hair a darker shade; her curls covered the back of her neck, the way an antebellum girl may have worn them. “I’m going to be in a motion picture,” she said.

  “That’s grand,” Rosita said.

  “I counted my lines in the script. I have a hundred and two,” she said. “That’s what most actors do, count their lines. I’m just happy to be in the film.”

  Fincher remained standing until Rosita and I had sat down. “Linda Gail was starting to tell us about her experience in Hollywood,” he said. “What’s the name of that company?”

  “Castle Productions,” she said.

  “That’s right,” he said, his eyes unfocused. He sat down unsteadily. “Like moats and drawbridges and that sort of thing.” He looked into space, a bead of light in his eye, a faint smile on his mouth.

  “You know them?” she asked.

  “Not really. I’m not too up on the film world,” he said. “Truth is, I was never big on movies. How do you like staying at the Menger? Did you know Lillie Langtry and Robert E. Lee stayed there?”

  “Are you talking to me?” Linda Gail asked.

  “Who else, Hollywood lady?” Fincher said. “Theodore Roosevelt organized the Rough Riders here.”

  “Well, I hope they all flushed the toilet before they checked out,” she said.

  I had to hand it to her.

  Fincher continued to get drunker and louder. His arm was draped over the shoulder of his girlfriend, his armpit dark with perspiration. He had become bored with the conversation. He waved his free hand at the air. “I never told you two guys I was sorry you got left behind at the Ardennes,” he said. “Actually, I thought a bunch of y’all might have hightailed it.”

  “Excuse me?” I said.

  “The woods were swarming with deserters. Everybody made a big deal out of that Slovik kid going before a firing squad. I personally think he had it coming, although I wasn’t unsympathetic with his situation. Considering what those Tigers did, I might have bagged it, too. Our headquarters got the crap knocked out of it. When we retook the area and didn’t find y’all’s bodies, I figured maybe you’d surrendered or headed over the hill for parts unknown.”

  “That’s not what happened, though, is it?” I said.

  “No, you ended up with the goddamn Silver Star,” Fincher said. “Where’s that waiter?”

  “But you’re saying you thought Hershel and I were deserters?”

  “No, what I said was the woods were full of them. And I think Eddie Slovik deserved death by a firing squad.” Fincher’s girlfriend was trying to shush him, to no avail. “What did you think I was trying to say?” he said to me.

  “I guess I misunderstood you,” I replied.

  He hiccupped and let his eyes settle fondly on Linda Gail. “Castle Productions, you say?”

  “Yes, sir, that’s the name of the company. You have it absolutely right,” she answered.

  He squeezed his girlfriend against him, then looked back at Linda Gail. “Think you can get roles for the likes of us?” he said. “I bet it’s more fun out there than three monkeys trying to hump a football. You never know which way the dice are coming out of the cup, do you?”

  He laughed to himself. I had no idea at what.

  Chapter

  11

  HERSHEL AND I signed all the loan documents the following morning, and Fincher’s attorney presented us with a check for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. I tried to forget the events of the previous evening. I told myself that Fincher’s boorish behavior was indicative of his kind and didn’t necessarily mean he served a corrupt enterprise. But one detail would not go away: He seemed intrigued by the name of the production company Linda Gail had signed a contract with, at the same time disclaiming any knowledge about the movie industry or serious interest in it.

  He and his girlfriend had taken adjoining rooms down the veranda, and had not checked out yet. I tapped on his door. “I need to talk to you a minute about last night, Lloyd,” I said.

  “That business about deserters? I got tongue-tied, that’s all. Too much flak juice.”

  I stepped inside the room without being asked. The French doors to the balcony were open. Outside, on a table, were two half-empty Bloody Marys, celery stalks sticking out of the crushed ice. Earlier a bellhop had told me that a child had fallen into the river and was thought to have drowned. “Last night you seemed quite interested in Linda Gail’s contract with a film company called Castle Productions,” I said.

  “You lost me, son.”

  “You’ve heard of that company?”

  “I could have. I don’t remember. What’s the problem?”

  “You seemed to be enjoying a private joke about it.”

  He removed a pocket comb from his slacks and combed back the hair on the sides of his head. “We didn’t give you enough money?”

  “I’d just like a straight answer.”

  “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about, Weldon.”

  “Roy Wiseheart told me he makes movies.”

  “He and his father own half the planet. Why should you be surprised they’re in the movie business?”

  “Does Roy Wiseheart own Castle Productions?”

  “Ask him. I never met the gentleman.”

  “Maybe I think too much, huh?” I said.

  “I wouldn’t say that. You can’t be too careful in business.”

  I went out on the balcony. Down below, two divers in wet suits and air tanks were climbing out of the river. An ambulance was parked close by, its back doors yawning open. An overweight Mexican woman was crying inconsolably, reaching out for a gurney that a paramedic was pushing toward the ambulance. Behind me, Lloyd Fincher put on his aviator glasses to protect his eyes from the glare. He screwed a cigarette into a gold holder. He stepped next to me and lit the cigarette, then dropped the burnt match over the railing. In profile, I could see the tiny red veins in the whites of his eyes, the discoloration of his skin from the booze still in his system, his down-hooked snub of a nose that reminded me of a sheep’s. I wondered who Lloyd Fincher was.

  “A fine day,” he said. He took a puff off the cigarette holder and exhaled the smoke into the breeze.

  “It’s too bad what happened down there,” I said.

  “Pardon?”

  “The little boy,” I said.

  He looked at me, then at the ambulance. “What happened?” he said.

  “I thought you were watching.”

  He leaned over the rail to see better. “I was watching the skywriter. Look.” He pointed upward. A canary-yellow biplane was writing the word “Pepsi” in smoke against a sky as flawless as blue silk. “That pilot’s an artist, isn’t he?”

  He continued to enjoy his cigarette and watch the biplane climb straight up into the sky. I didn’t know what to say. I believe there are people among us who are not simply insentient but are also incapable of thought. Lloyd Fincher was one of these. I left him to his reverie and started toward the door.

  “Weldon?” he said behind me.

  I turned around.

  “Watch yourself,” he said.

  “Regarding what?”

  He drank the ice melt and remaining vodka and tomato juice out of his glass. He bit off a piece of celery and chewed it. “Whatever comes down the pike,” he replied. “It’s a nest of vipers out there. Maybe that’s why I have to get laid almost every day. It keeps my mind off things.”

  ROSIT
A AND I stayed over an extra night and ate in an outdoor Mexican restaurant on the River Walk, by an arched stone bridge and a cypress tree whose leaves resembled green lace. I paid the mariachi band twenty dollars to play “San Antonio Rose” so we could dance under a full moon to Bob Wills’s signature song in front of the Alamo. I didn’t think those who died within the mission walls would find us disrespectful; in fact, I believed their voices whispered to us and told us to celebrate the lives that had been given us and the love we shared. They also told us to treat the world as a grand cathedral and to give no sway to either death or evil men who sought to spread their net over the globe.

  I am almost sure I heard them say all those things.

  FIVE DAYS LATER, deep in a Louisiana swamp, Roy Wiseheart rode a cream-colored gelding, sixteen hands high, down our pipeline right-of-way. When he dismounted, he removed his Stetson hat and wiped a mosquito out of his hair. “I knew you and Pine would pull it out of the fire,” he said, shaking my hand. “By God, it’s good to see you, Holland. You’re the real deal.”

  “I didn’t quite catch all that,” I said.

  He told me he had heard by chance that we were laying a pipeline across the Atchafalaya Basin to a refinery in Texas, and that a friend in Morgan City had lent him the horse and a trailer and a pickup. I wanted to believe him. He was handsome and clear-eyed and apparently humane and, for a rich man, egalitarian in his attitudes. I had never spent much time thinking about the very rich, primarily because I hadn’t known many. Those I knew came from old money and had always struck me as bland and obtuse and dependent upon servants and usually given over to vices that were adolescent in nature, particularly in their sexual lives, about which they seemed to show terrible judgment. In the town where I grew up, my grandfather was considered well-to-do. In reality, we barely got by. Once, when I asked him about the importance of money, he replied, “It won’t buy happiness, but it’ll keep a mess of grief off your porch. Rich or poor, everybody gets to the barn. It can be a hard ride, too.”

  I always thought that statement summed up the human condition better than any line I ever heard. Death was the great leveler. Whenever I was tempted to compare my lot with others’, I tried to remember Grandfather’s words. I wondered if this wasn’t one of those moments.