2,000 Miles to Open Road (Barefield)

by Trey R. Barker

  "Clever, never heard that before."

  Apple Valley waited until she had gone, then turned back to Hal. "I know you're going to see your brother. I know you're taking the disk. But that doesn't tell me anything."

  "Think you need to know?"

  "No," she said firmly. "I don't need to know, it's none of my business."

  "True enough."

  "I'd like to know."

  Hal sighed, finished off his entire glass of milk. "I've got an appointment."

  She frowned. "That was properly mysterious."

  For a moment, Hal left it at that. His eyes took in everything in the café, moving from hanging item to hanging item, person to person. Truly, there weren't that many items or people. On the far wall, someone had built a shrine to classic country. Album covers and posters were stapled damn near as far as the eye could see. Merle Haggard's face, and Hal had thought the man's last name fit perfectly, stared out. Not a sneer, not a grimace, but a weariness Hal knew well enough. His hair was perfect, as was his suit, but his face was filled with exhaustion. His clothes were perfect, too; a strange 1960's western suit made from material that vaguely flashed and with piping along the seams that defined everything.

  Next to Merle, Hank Williams was the same. A picture taken in his prime, with hair slicked down but still fluffy like a stack of freshly laundered towels. This one did have just the slightest touch of sneer and it was a sneer Hal had secretly practiced lots of times. He wasn't much of a Hank Williams fan, but that sneer, defined by equal parts annoyance, smugness, and arrogance, fit so well in so many of the situations where Hal found himself. Not that he could do it the way Hank did it, but he never gave up trying.

  Just for grins, he tried one on now. Apple Valley caught him and nodded toward the poster. "Not bad, jumbalaya."

  Hot blood rushed into Hal's face.

  Good men hanging on the wall. Tough, stood up for what they believed in, and were successful in spite of bad decisions. But somehow, those faces staring at him creeped him out a little. Something a little strange about all of them. Williams, Haggard, Jennings, Conway Twitty, Don Williams, Patsy Cline. A line of faces, all staring at him as though they could see right into his soul.

  See anything worth a shit, he wanted to ask.

  His phone rang, its tiny little chime somehow rock concert loud in this café. "Shit. What?" His voice was a bark.

  "Sir, you have been registered to win--"

  The same voice. "Oh, man, would you quit calling, you stupid son of a bitch. Take me off your call list." He banged the phone against the table twice, then put it back at his ear. "I don't want nothing and I ain't gonna want it when you call again in two hours. Now leave me the fuck alone."

  Hitting the 'end' button, Hal jammed the phone back in his pocket.

  "Hal?" She reached across the table and squeezed his hand once before letting go. "You okay?"

  He snorted. "Not even close."

  She sighed and he heard a mile of frustration in the sound. "What's the story with the warrant?"

  Instead of answering, he rubbed his temples. In the last few minutes, pain seemed to have built a brand new house and taken up permanent residence in his head. From the feel of it, it was a damned big house, too.

  "You don't need to know about that crap." He looked at her as the waitress left another two glasses of milk. "You already got in deeper than you know."

  "What I know is that I'm traveling around the country with a guy who is wanted on a warrant out of Texas."

  "Well, that much is true." God, why was this happening? It wasn't supposed to be like this. There wasn't supposed to be a dead man at the sewage plant and another from Vegas and a freak who wanted bodies. And he wasn't even back in Texas yet, where the road was going to get really hairy.

  None of it was supposed to be this way. It was supposed to be a disk, a toot across the country, a reconciliation. Then there was supposed to be the rest of his life, wrapped in the arms of his border jewel.

  "Warrant's out of Zachary County. Barefield, Texas. 'S got my name on it." He looked her dead in the eye. "Murder."

  What'd he expect? Gnashing of teeth? Tearing out of hair? Maybe a quick yell to the waitress to call the cops? Whatever it was, it wasn't this. Dead silence. Eyes on his but not judgmental eyes. Hard eyes, curious eyes, maybe a little disturbed at thought of killing, but not judgmental and that was something, wasn't it?

  Instead, Apple Valley nodded slowly, as though mentally chewing over the information. He swallowed and looked toward the doors. To the right was the store and beyond it the parking lot. To the left was a set of stained glass doors that presumably led outside. There was no way he'd get to either place if she started yelling for some help.

  She had to have known, when she'd first seen him in the dirt lot, there might have been some baggage. She had to have known he might well have whacked somebody. Shit, he had robbed Dogwood and Templeton. Man who'd do those things didn't have a clean past.

  "Did the man need killing?"

  "That make a difference?"

  Eventually she nodded. "Dogwood needs killing, my Daddy doesn't."

  "Wasn't a man."

  "A woman?" The brow over her right eye arched until it looked like a housetop.

  "That make a difference? You a hardcore feminist?"

  The waitress came back, loaded down with three plates. She set Apple Valley's in front of her before tossing Hal's to him. Eggs and sausage slopped off one plate, gravy and one huge biscuit off the other.

  "Take long to perfect that technique?" Hal asked.

  "Kiss my grits."

  "Clever, never heard that one before."

  Without another word, she was gone. Greasy steam rose from the food and Hal realized his appetite was gone.

  Apple Valley raised her fork. It hesitated over the eggs. "No, I don't think it would make a difference. Sometimes, bad people need killing."

  They ate for a few minutes, Hal forcing the slop down though he would rather have gone without and kept moving. Theresa was where he wanted to be, not this crappy café. In between bites, he pulled out his phone and called her. She answered on the fifth ring.

  "Hola?"

  "Soon."

  "Hal." Her voice was as soft as summer grass, as soft as the perfect curves on her fleshy body. "You don't call for days and days and days, and then two calls in less than a day? And since when are you awake before noon?"

  He laughed to himself, amazed at the calm that descended over him. This was all worth it. The drugs, the fights, the stabbing in the throat, even the dead guy in Arizona. All of that was getting him closer to what was on the other end of the phone and that was everything. Melodramatic as it might be, what was on the other end of that phone was life itself.

  "Como esta?" she asked.

  "Good. Getting better hearing your voice."

  "Smooth talker, makes my skin hot." She giggled and even through the phone, the sound was full and beautiful. "Where are you?"

  "Edge of Arizona. Not too much longer. New Mexico, Texas, home."

  "They looking for you, mi amante."

  "They who?"

  "Texas Rangers were here last night. They said they heard you were headed back and wanted to know if I'd heard from you."

  Silence fell between them, punctured only by clinking glass and silverware in the café. But behind that silence was panic. The Rangers? The fucking Rangers? Mention those guys and the world shifted out of balance, call it tilt and shove in the next quarter 'cause this game is over.

  "You going to ask, Hal?" Her voice held an edge.

  "I don't need to."

  "No, you don't." The tension was gone. "But just know they'll probably be around here for a few days."

  "And they'll follow you if you leave."

  "Probably."

  "Shit," Hal whispered. "How they get on my trail?"

  "They scare me, Hal."

  "They oughta, they're scary. No talk no bullshit. Guns blazing and sort out the dead lat
er."

  "What about guns? What'd you say?" Her voice had ratcheted up, dripping with fear and anger.

  "I said they had the guns."

  "You stay away from guns, Hal. You told me. You promised me."

  "I don't, Theresa, I haven't had. I promised you and that's how it is."

  Agreeing to her demand was a harsh lie, but one he intended to give her as often as he needed to. Because if it came down to a promise to her or getting a gun and staying alive to get to her, he'd break the promise in a heartbeat. Shitty thing to do, but there it was.

  Bigger question right now was how the Rangers had sniffed him out. His gaze fell on Apple Valley and the answer was as clear as her Horse addiction was. Captain Brooks. Same guy who'd sent Officer Douglas for them. Once again, baggage from someone Hal hadn't even known was dragging him down.

  "Anything else?" the waitress asked. She stood next to their table. Some of the attitude seemed gone. On the far side of the café, Hal saw a manager with his arms crossed over his chest, a slight scowl on his face.

  To Theresa, he said, "I've got to go, honey. Don't worry about the Rangers, I'll figure it out."

  "I love you."

  "God, I love you, too." With a click, he ended the call and shoved the phone into his pocket. "Got any boots? I could use some new underwear, too."

  She frowned. "What?"

  "Boots. For your feet? And drawers…for your balls."

  She whirled to her manager. "I don't have to take this shit, not for the crap you pay me. What you're given me between the sheets don't make up for this kind of shit."

  The manager's face flushed.

  "Just the check, please," Apple Valley said.

  The woman pulled out a ticket, scribbled some numbers down and slammed it on the table. "You lucky you got her to protect you, otherwise I'd kick your ass."

  Then she was gone.

  "I don't need no protection," Hal said.

  Apple Valley smiled and nodded. "Sure. Whatever you say. So who's Theresa? You're going to see your brother but she's the one you talk about. Is this all for her?"

  He nodded.

  "So maybe the disk proves who killed someone close to her. Or maybe it proves who didn't kill someone close to her."

  "What's your name?" he asked suddenly.

  She startled, leaned back in her chair, cleared her throat. "Shawn." She took a deep breath. "I haven't used it in a while." Licking her lips, she repeated, "Shawn."

  With a nod, he pulled out a few of the bills they'd gotten in Bagdad and set them on the table. "I ain't got no blood on my hands."

  "Then why is there a warrant for you?"

  "'Cause justice is an illusion?"

  "Nice answer. Like so much of what you say, it doesn't really mean anything, does it?"

  Hal swallowed. "It means something this time. There's a guy been convicted of the killing. He's behind the Walls and he didn't do it."

  "And you know this because you did?"

  "Guess you don't listen worth a shit."

  "Yeah, yeah, you didn't do it. Were you there when it happened?"

  "No," he said quickly. "I wasn't there. I wasn't anywhere around there. But--" He swallowed, fiddled with the wadded up napkin in front of him. "The guy done it is a porn king…or so I hear. Man-woman, woman-woman, multiples, S and M, B and D, animals, blondes, brunettes, bald men…hell, bald women, for that matter. Whatever you're looking for. All live on the Internet. Twenty-four hours a day, live cams looking at everything you can imagine and a ton of shit you can't."

  "He killed this woman live? On the 'net?"

  Hal shrugged. "I don't know about that. All I know is they think me and the guy in the Walls were there. They think we killed her."

  "So you snatch the disk--and how did that come into being, I wonder?--to prove you and this guy are innocent."

  "I don't give a shit about him," Hal said. "This ain't got nothing to do with him." He regarded her for a moment. "There's a computer program. Vid-Ripper. Records streaming video. Leastwise, that's how it was explained to me." He pushed his plate away from him and pulled the DVD from his pocket.

  "The deed?"

  "And the doer. And it ain't the guy in prison and it ain't me." He put it back in his pocket.

  "Good for you, Hal. You're going to get this guy out of prison. I guess your brother wasn't completely right about you, was he? You're doing the right thing. Wait, the Walls. Why does that ring a bell?"

  "'Cause it's getting so much use? 'Cause you see it on the news about every third day?"

  "That's the death house, isn't it? Texas' death row."

  Hal said nothing.

  "This guy is going to be executed for a murder he didn't commit."

  "They fry you in Texas for getting a parking ticket."

  The shock on her face was obvious, worn like a badly tailored suit, ill-fitting and of the wrong style. "Holy Christ. This is bad, Hal. Why didn't you tell me this?"

  "Not really your business, is it?"

  The disk held her eyes. "You track this thing down, steal the dough to buy it, then take it to your brother." Her eyes narrowed. "Hanford. He's the one, isn't he? That's why you're pushing so hard to get back. He's going to be executed."

  "Hanford ain't never been convicted of anything."

  "A man who knows how to cover his tracks."

  A grand joke that was. Covering his tracks, hiding his skeletons and peccadilloes. Hal laughed. "Ain't even close. Crime ain't the family business, Shawn, I'm the only black sheep."

  "So who is the guy in the Walls?"

  Hal shrugged. "Just a guy got caught in the same net I did. Let's get one thing straight, Shawn. I don't really give a shit about the guy they're gonna strap down, ho-kay? I mean, yeah, it'd be shitty if he got whacked for something he didn't do, but he's a thug. Johnny Tyler ain't nothing but a thug. If he didn't do this, he did something else, guaranteed. He's just some mope got caught in the system. Pretty much we all are, ain't we?"

  "Nice self pity."

  Easy to shove those casual words outta his mouth and maybe there was part of him that didn't care about Tyler, but there was a part of him that did care about the guy. Hal had been on the receiving end of too much bullshit in his life--too much created by somebody else--to be able to completely write the guy off. But Tyler wasn't Hal's priority. Neither was Missy. Hal's priority was Hanford and Theresa.

  "Let's go," he said.

  All the people in this place are just like you, he thought, popping three extra singles down for the unibrow waitress. Place was filled with a few truckers and a whole lotta the lost, just as it had been when they came in. People the same as the people all the way back up the line. He didn't even want to think about how much they were just like him.

  At the register, a broad-shouldered man stood in front of him. The guy was outfitted in a metallic western suit, pants and jacket sparkling blue as though he were an Opryland star under the stage lights. His white boots gleamed in the low-slung early morning sunlight crashing through the glass doors. His left hand played idly with the umbrellas standing in a stand right in front of the counter.

  Behind the counter, her bitten-nail fingers tripping around the register keypad, was an older woman. Goo-goo eyes oozed toward the broad-shouldered man. When she spoke to him, her words slurred in what Hal thought the woman believed was seductive.

  Back your ass up, Hal, it don't pay to crowd nobody and damn sure not these two who need to get a friggin' room. But something tickled the back of his neck and that made him nervous as hell because he didn't know what it was.

  "Can I make a call just real quick?" the man asked her, pulling out a cell phone.

  She nodded and probably didn't even realize her tongue was licking her lips.

  Christ, just slob his knob right here, give us all a thrill to see it.

  A second later, Hal's phone chimed. Holy crap, barely half an hour since the last call. This time he was going to rip this guy more than a new asshole. This time he was goi
ng to rip the guy an entirely new digestive tract. He was going to leave him in--

  "You listen to me, you asswad, I--"

  "Sir, you have--"

  The sound was odd this time. It didn't have any of that strange wind tunnel reverb all the other calls had had.

  It was then Hal recognized that blue western suit.

  "--been selected--"

  Sounded close because the guy was here. In front of him, actually. Turning toward him, his gun already out.

  The last time Hal had seen that suit, it was hiding behind a burning Mercedes-Benz

  "Hal?" Shawn said. "Oh, shit."

  "Selected to die," Templeton said.

  Without closing the phone, Templeton fired four times.

  1,107 Miles (Still)

  Hal felt the first one before he heard it.

  It was as hard as a punch from a pissed off heavyweight boxer. Shit, maybe two or three heavyweights punching in unison. His arm exploded in pain. Big ass red hot pain and Hal realized it wasn't the pain of a heavyweight fight, but the pain of someone heating the shit out of baling wire and jamming it beneath his skin.

  He yelped, a honking girly yelp, as he fell backward. Yelped right along with those people screaming in the café. The woman behind the counter screamed and he wanted her to shut up and just call the cops. No, don't call the cops, bad idea. Fine, then, just shut up. But she kept on screaming; howling and yipping until Templeton turned and blasted her through the window.

  Glass exploded, along with packs of beef jerky and corn nuts and sunflower seeds hanging just below the window, and blood. Then she was gone, out of the window and into the parking lot, maybe dead maybe not.

  "You shouldn't answer your phone," Templeton said to him. "Not the smartest thing you've ever done."

  He fired again but either he missed because he was a shitty shot or the excruciating pain made Hal writhe so badly Templeton couldn't hit him.

  On the floor, the stained tiles much closer to his eyes than he ever thought they'd be, Hal scrambled for something to strike back with. There were no random guns down here. No knives, either, but there was the stand of umbrellas. It had fallen when he had.

  As people in the café dove for cover, as someone yelled into a phone--probably to the cops--Hal grabbed and swung a neon green umbrella, $2.99 on sale. It connected against Templeton's shiny boots.