Straw Man

by Gerry Boyle

  The seed had been sown, the foundation laid. Abram hadn’t shut the door. I’d pushed the door open a crack—that is, if Victor didn’t rat him out.

  I got back in the truck, got out my notebook, and started writing in a rapid scrawl. My impressions. The conversation. Every comment I could remember. The subways. Ground Zero. I’d like to see Ellis Island. Did that come out of left field or what? Who were these kids, and what was their life like? How did they fend off everything around them?

  “This,” I said, “could be a damn good story.”

  If I worked it right, didn’t push too hard, too soon. If the Bishop didn’t slam the door shut. If Sarah didn’t stand up from her hard pew in church and ask for forgiveness for talking to the reporter. If Abram didn’t lose his nerve.

  If Billy and Baby Fat and the rest of them didn’t try to take me out.

  Tossing the notebook down on the passenger seat, I picked up my phone and went to mainesbestdeals.com, the bookmarked guns. The Glock with the laser sight. Thought I might buy it even without the story. What did Billy and Baby Fat do when they had time to plot? Pull up beside you on the road and fire away? Break your legs and arms with a bat? Tie you to a tree and leave you to die of thirst?

  I started the truck and, with a last glance at the distant horses and plow, headed for home. I took a circuitous route, lefts and rights. Just short of the Dump Road I pulled over and waited. After two minutes had passed with nothing in sight, I turned in.

  Roxanne’s Subaru was gone, probably gone to pick up Sophie. I kept going, pulled into the yard in front of Clair’s barn. His truck was there, Louis’s Jeep, too. The lights were on in the shop.

  Music was playing: Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3, one of Clair’s favorites, not mine. I preferred Vivaldi. Clair said I liked classical music lite, that he’d educate me if it was the last thing he did.

  He was bent over the workbench, cutting a length of hydraulic hose from a big coil with a clamp sort of thing. Louis was at the other end of the bench, the bar of his chain saw clamped in the vise. He was running a file over the chain. Louis’s big dog, Friend, was stretched out on the barn floor behind him. The dog didn’t get up or wag or bark, just tracked me with his big black eyes.

  Louis was saying, “That’s the thing about an army of martyrs. You can’t apply any principles of warfare that are based on self-preservation. There was a little of that in Ramadi, but nothing like—”

  Louis looked up and stopped. Clair snapped the cutter through the hose, glanced at me, and said, “Had enough of your tippy-typing? Ready to do some real work?”

  “If I find any, I’ll call you,” I said. “I can see you guys are resting up.”

  Clair smiled. Louis did, too, barely. He put the file down and moved the chain on the bar. Bent to the next tooth.

  “Speaking of martyrs,” I said, “does stupidity count? Or having nothing to lose?”

  I told them about my conversation with Billy and Baby Fat, how they said I was the doe and Louis was the big buck. I said I didn’t know where that put Clair. A six-pointer, maybe.

  Louis showed nothing, just kept filing. The dog took a deep breath and sighed. Clair said, “Huh.”

  “I told them they didn’t know who they were messing with,” I said.

  “Probably true,” Clair said. “Not sure whether that makes them less dangerous or more.”

  “All that matters is saving face,” Louis said, face to the saw.

  “Not patient enough to wait for his arm to heal,” I said. “I picture him sitting in the woods, leaning a rifle across his cast, peering into a scope.”

  “You think he’s that calculating?” Clair said, snapping off the hose.

  “Enough to pass on me this morning,” I said. “Then follow me onto the back roads. Track me by my tire marks in the gravel. Said they were looking for Louis. I was supposed to lead them there.”

  Clair lined the two pieces of hose up side by side, reached for the coil, and pulled another length out. Louis was filing, the rhythmic sound of metal on metal cutting the quiet between sections of Beethoven. And then he said, “Problem is, if you win, you lose. It’s like the war. Better to win, but even then you’re diminished. You’re not the same person you were. That’s why I think this idea of ‘self-defense’ is a little off. Yeah, you defend yourself, but you get hurt, too.”

  He paused. Pulled the chain a few inches, and said, “I shouldn’t have kept on with the guy. Disarm him, leave it. I lost it, and now you guys are paying for it.”

  “Something that was thrust on you by circumstances,” Clair said. “They had their chance to walk away.”

  “So did I,” Louis said.

  “You deal with what’s presented to you,” Clair said. “And right now, it’s this guy obsessing about what was done to him. And he has to go around with his arm in a cast, everybody knowing somebody kicked his butt. And he’s a guy whose self-worth is built on being tough and nasty and violent.”

  “I picture a guy raised not to cry,” Louis said. “He cried, the old man hit him harder.”

  “And the worst thing in his eyes is to back down,” I said.

  “Shoot you in the back before he does that,” Clair said. He turned from the bench and said, “Jack, what do you have in that truck of yours, anyway?”

  I knew what he meant.

  “Nothing,” I said. “A lug wrench. I got that out today. I could put a rifle in the rack.”

  “Kinda hard to maneuver a thirty-thirty in that Toyota, ” he said. “You want something smaller?”

  At the very least, Clair had a couple of Glocks, a Smith & Wesson .38 revolver. He’d recently picked up a Kimber .40, said it was a fine weapon.

  “That thirty-eight, short-barrel,” he said. “Nothing more dependable than a good revolver.”

  I considered it, thought of Roxanne. Would I be protecting her or defying her?

  “Roxanne’s got this thing about guns right now,” I said.

  Clair looked at me. Louis glanced over, too, then turned back to the saw chain and started filing.

  “Don’t blame her,” he said. “And I don’t blame you. Ever shot anybody?”

  My mind went to a time with Clair, behind his barn. The guy, a survivalist nut job obsessed with Roxanne taking his kids, was shooting from the edge of the woods. Clair saying, “Take him,” me firing a round and then hearing the shot returned, the slug hitting the wall above our heads. Clair taking the gun from me, pressing his eye to the scope.

  A pause. A squeeze. The boom of the rifle, and then silence.

  “No,” I said. “I missed.”

  Louis looked at Clair, but Clair showed nothing. The dog watched and listened.

  “My experience, it takes a piece out of you, shooting a man,” Louis said. “Or maybe it adds one. I think of it in different ways. Are you missing something, or are you carrying something extra? No matter what, it stays with you. One second it’s a human being, some guy has a mother and father and maybe some kids, likes to smoke and drink and watch sports. And in an instant he’s just a pile of guts, like some animal you just ran over, splattered in the middle of the road.”

  He caught himself, leaned close to the saw.

  “We do what we have to do,” Louis said. “But just know it all comes with a price.”

  The file began to stroke the chain, the rasping sound, and then the piano, a brisk beginning to the passage, the notes flung high in the rafters.

  “So what is it, Jack?” Clair said.

  “Allegretto?” I said.

  7

  I didn’t take the handgun. Not yet. I did drive past my house, where there was still nobody home, and kept going for a half mile until I reached the crest of a rise that gave me a clear view back past my house and Clair’s. I pulled over and watched the road in the mirror. It was empty behind me, a gravel strip between the crimson bleeding trees. It was empty in front, the fifty-yard stretch before it turned and descended. I watched in the mirror another full minute, then pul
led out, drove between the big maples down to the end of the road.

  Nobody left. Nobody right. Nobody behind me.

  I turned and headed north toward the two-lane highway. I did the same check at that intersection, then took a right and headed east. The road climbed past occasional houses, mobile homes, gave way to pastures where cows were grazing, all turned in the same direction. The road flattened out, passed a fallen-down chicken barn, a trailer with kids’ toys strewn on the lawn like somebody had been abducted.

  Past the Prosperity post office, a shingled shack with cars parked out front, the road dipped and went left. Glancing at the mirror, I took the first right past the Prosperity Grange Hall, shut up since nearly all of the members had died of old age. The road followed along the banks of the Swift River, past a fallen-down sawmill, climbing into the hills where there were pastures lined with stone walls, big trees shading the hedgerows.

  I drove on, headed southeast now. And then I saw a sign hanging from a tree limb. Up close, I could see it was handpainted, two goats’ heads with curving horns, just below the words Heaven Sent, beside the word Farm.

  There was a driveway with stone walls on both sides, a farmhouse set back, a porch wrapping two sides. Beyond the house there were barns and sheds, tractors and wagons. Just beyond the tractors was Welt’s Toyota pickup—and Roxanne’s Subaru.

  I slowed and rolled past the end of the driveway, looking at the car.

  She’d gone to pick up Sophie, I knew, but where were they? The girls playing somewhere and Roxanne and Welt having a nice strategy session about conflict resolution?

  I drove a hundred yards, turned around, then backtracked until the farm came into sight. It was a very pretty place, the white house with green shutters, rope swing in a big maple.

  And people coming out of one of the barns. Sophie and Salandra, Salandra pulling a goat on a lead. I reached to the glove box and took out a pair of binoculars. The goat was wearing a straw hat, holes cut for his horns. Sophie was adjusting the hat, giggling. Behind her was a young woman, college age, one of Welt’s interns. She was slim and blonde, hair tied back under a baseball cap. After her another young woman, this one dark haired, wearing jeans and a plaid flannel shirt.

  Sophie turned to her and the blonde woman took off her hat and put it on Sophie’s head. They laughed and disappeared behind the house, and Welt and Roxanne appeared from the barn and they were smiling and joking, too. He was a happy farmer, Welt was, with his bevy of beauties. He said something to Roxanne and reached over and took her by the shoulder and drew her to him, then she looked at the ground and he said something and guided her along.

  Don’t step in the goat poop? Are you sure we can’t end up in the sack?

  I watched as they made their way to the car, Sophie and Salandra walking the goat to the center of the barnyard. There were chickens here and there, a couple of white geese. The chickens fluttered and one of the geese raised up and flapped its wings.

  I lowered the binoculars. Looked out to see the copper-colored Dodge parked beyond the driveway on the far side of the road. I raised the binoculars. It was Baby Fat and Billy, and their eyes were on the farm, the drive, the cars, Roxanne.

  I glanced back. She was at the car, leaning in, bending over to fasten Sophie’s seat belt. I put the binoculars on Billy and Baby Fat, saw Billy mouth something to Baby Fat.

  Baby Fat smiled and replied. Billy, watching Roxanne with a lewd smile, said something that I couldn’t make out. He licked his lips. Baby Fat smiled.

  I didn’t have to hear the words. Baby Fat nodded and reached for the ignition and started the motor. As Roxanne’s car came down the drive, they started to ease out of the grass.

  I slammed the truck out of the brush and floored it, ramming through the gears, speeding past the farm entrance as Roxanne and Sophie approached. Billy and Baby Fat were wide-eyed as my truck skidded in the gravel, nearly hit them head-on. I was out of the truck as the dust still billowed, yanked the passenger door open, grabbed Billy by his broken arm.

  “What the—,” he began, but then he was sliding off the seat, grabbing for the door frame. He hit the ground and I shouldered him up against the cab, Baby Fat saying, “What the fuck?” and Billy howling as I jammed his broken arm against his belly.

  “You son of a bitch, what the hell you think—”

  I punched him hard in the cast and he said, “Owww—Jesus,” and I grabbed him by the throat and stood him up against the truck. Baby Fat was heaving himself down out of the cab, saying, “You crazy son of a bitch,” but I had Billy pinned and I got close to his face and said, “If you ever go near my family again, I’ll blow your head off. You got that, you piece of shit?”

  Billy writhed, kicked at my shins, and I jammed the cast upward and he gasped. Baby Fat was coming around the front of the truck, a sawed-off baseball bat in his hand. I turned Billy so he was between me and Baby Fat. He stopped six feet away, the club held low.

  “You, too, you piece of crap. If you ever come near my family again, or my house, or anywhere close, you’re dead.”

  “We’re just looking for somebody to lead us to your friend,” Baby Fat said. “Somebody pointed out your old lady, so we—”

  “No talk. No argument. Come near my family, I kill you.”

  “You’re the one who’s dead, asshole,” Billy said, and he started to laugh, a maniacal cackle that gave me a chill. I fought the feeling off by ramming the cast upward but he kept laughing through the pain, even as I shoved his broken arm.

  “Dead man, McMorrow,” he said, still laughing. “It’s gonna be sweet to watch you die. ’Cause then we’re gonna bang your old lady.”

  I slammed his arm up, practically broke it again, heard him gasp, then Baby Fat moved closer. I watched him, my hand still clenched around Billy’s throat, saw the car come out of the driveway and turn toward us. Roxanne braked in the road and leaned on the horn. It blared and she kept it on, then started pounding the steering wheel with one hand, punching her phone with the other.

  Baby Fat turned, said, “Calling the cops, the fucking bitch.” Billy flinched and I yanked his broken arm again, took a step back, and shoved him against the truck. Baby Fat trotted for the cab, dropping the bat as he hauled himself in. Billy had squirmed back up on the seat, pulling with his good arm. Baby Fat revved the motor and reached for the shifter. To ram her?

  I picked the bat up, smashed the windshield, then the passenger window, then the windshield again.

  “Back up,” I shouted at Roxanne, waved my arm.

  Baby Fat fishtailed in the weeds in reverse, the back end of the truck hopping out onto the road and away from me. He whipped it around, flooring it, and the rear tires screeched and the truck roared off, trailing tire smoke.

  The horn stopped.

  Roxanne looked at me from behind the wheel, then turned to Sophie. I looked over, saw Welt standing a hundred yards up the driveway, fiddling with his phone.

  I looked down, saw my hand was bleeding, and dropped the bat on the road. Ran to the car, saw Sophie in the backseat. She had her fingers in her ears and her eyes scrunched shut. Roxanne was out of the car, opening the door on the far side. I opened my side and reached in and started to undo Sophie’s seat belt. Roxanne said, “I’ve got this,” and slapped my hand aside. She undid the belt, pulled Sophie out, away from me.

  “Honey,” I said to her. “It’s okay.”

  “I’m sorry, honey,” Roxanne was saying. “I know it was loud and scary.”

  Sophie started to cry, said, “Are the bad men gone?”

  “They’re gone,” I said. “There’s nothing to worry about.”

  Roxanne glared at me over Sophie’s shoulder, patted her back. “It’s okay, honey.”

  “They were just some people Daddy knows from his work,” I said.

  I was looking at them through the backseat of the Subaru, and I backed out and came around, wiping my right hand on my jeans, putting my left arm around Sophie. She was still being held by
Roxanne, who was rubbing her back, and Sophie’s feet were hanging, her sneaker laces dangling.

  “It was two of them from the woods,” I said, and Roxanne said, “I saw that truck on the highway. They must have seen me driving over—” She looked down and saw that Sophie was listening. Roxanne shook her head. Later.

  As I straightened up, Welt came around the truck. He had his phone in his hand and a look of concern.

  “Is everyone all right?” he said. “I called the police.”

  “All over but the shouting, Weltie,” I said. “But thanks for being there when we needed you.”

  “Who were those guys? Did they follow you here?”

  “They followed Roxanne.”

  “Why? What did they want?”

  “Payback,” I said. “What else?”

  The cop was a sheriff’s deputy, a woman with dark wavy hair pulled back. She came out of the cruiser, a brown Charger, slipped the baton in its holder, came toward us and said, “Who called?”

  Welt held up his hand, like the annoying kid in the front row of class.

  “There was the horn blowing and shouting and yelling,” Welt said. “Jack was arguing with the other guys, and then there was glass breaking and then the other fellows left.”

  The deputy looked at me, my hand, the bat, my truck, Roxanne’s car.

  “What glass breaking?” she said.

  “Their windshield,” I said. “And the passenger window.”

  “These other guys were the assailants?” she said.

  “Sort of,” I said. “They were following my wife.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s a long story,” I said.

  She said, “You come with me. Everybody else, just stay put.”

  Her nameplate said she was D. M. Staples. She was wiry under the flak vest and had a broad, open face with sun spots and crow’s-feet. Maybe thirty-five—old for a patrol deputy; second career? I told her my name and the story, from the woods to the restaurant to the back road near the Mennonite farm. I described the four of them, then the two of them. I said I knew one as Billy and the other I called Baby Fat, but I didn’t know Baby Fat’s real name. I described the big Dodge pickup.