2,000 Miles to Open Road (Barefield)

by Trey R. Barker

  "A friend of mine. We grew up together. She's a cop in Iowa or Indiana or somewhere."

  Hal gaped. "Then why'd you say Zachary County?"

  "It was the first thing that came to mind." Her eyes flashed. "What's the problem?"

  "He'll probably check, that's what." His feet crunched in the gravel as he paced. "That's why you're on hold so long. He's checking to see who Lucinda Stevens in Zachary County is. He fucking grew up there, Theresa, he knows most of those cops."

  "What the hell do you want from me? You shove the phone at me and tell me to lie for you. That was the best I could do."

  Hal immediately regretted his tone. "Sorry, sorry. Damn. I'm sorry, I'm being an ass."

  "Yeah, you really are. Calm down."

  With a nod, Hal rubbed the scar across his throat. He was close now, just a few miles down the road. He could damn near taste the shitty water in Mexico.

  Theresa motioned to him, brought him to the phone. "Yes, Warden? Hold on just a moment please."

  Shawn held the phone out to Hal. After a long moment, Hal took it.

  "Hanford? It's me. Hal. Yeah."

  His brother's voice blazed. "Hal? Goddamnit, I told you not to call me. This is a recorded line. How long do you think it'll be before every cop in town knows you're here?"

  "Figure they pretty much already know and besides, I ain't worried about every cop in town."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  Hal licked his lips. "I'm only worried about you. I could give a shit 'bout anybody else."

  There was a second of silence. "Yeah, well, everyone else can arrest you."

  "I ain't scared of being arrested."

  Hanford laughed, the same full-throated laugh he'd always had, the one that Hal couldn't quite decipher. Genuine or contemptuous, who the frig could tell? "You aren't scared? I guess you are the big man now, aren't you? Made your bones. Got some killer's blood in you now, boy."

  "I didn't kill her." Sweat covered Hal's head like the blood that was spattered out behind him all the way to Nevada.

  "The State of Texas has a District Attorney who says you did."

  "And I've got a DVD that shows I didn't."

  A long silence stretched out. Not any kind of comfortable silence, but one filled with jags and chasms.

  "I guess I'll need a wee bit of explanation there." Hanford spoke quietly.

  "Meet me, big brother. Lemme prove I didn't kill that little girl."

  Again, the silence. But somehow, it seemed smaller, less treacherous. "Meet you? I'm the warden of the Texas State Prison and you--"

  "…are wanted for murder." Hal spit the words.

  "Yeah, Hal, I'm sorry but that's the way it is."

  "Only asking for a chance. You take a look. You think I'm guilty, you can drive my ass right to the cops."

  "That's stupid, Hal, I'm not going to--"

  "What else can I do?"

  "Hal," Theresa said. "Don't scream. You want everybody to know you're here?"

  "Damnit, I don't care about everybody else," Hal said. "Can't you people understand that?" Anger boiled through him like the booze and the drugs had after the girl's death. "Hey," he shouted to the morning air. "Here I am. America's Most Wanted. Stone cold killer. Come get me. Don't believe it? Ask my dear brother."

  Hal slammed the handset against the side of the phone booth. "After all, he's the warden, in charge of everything and completely incapable of making any mistakes or giving me a fucking break."

  He dropped the handset and strode away from the booth. It had been the wrong thing to do, coming here. Hanford didn't care a fucking whit for what Hal was going through, or that Hal might be innocent. All he cared about, all he'd ever cared about, was his neatly ordered world.

  "Hey," he called to Theresa. "Tell him he don't have to give no shit about me, but the disk doesn't have Tyler on it, either. He gonna kill an innocent man?"

  The Escort was too small now. He sat in the driver's seat, waiting on Theresa, but the car was damned small. Coming here, it had seemed huge. His head had seemed huge, as did the space all around him. Everything had seemed like freedom.

  But now, everything was too small.

  "Damnit." He punched the dash hard and reveled in the exquisite pain.

  The car had a nearly full tank. That would get them most of the way to Mexico. And as no one had any clue yet what they were driving, they could take the interstate, get there quick.

  Theresa came around to the driver's side and snatched the keys out of the ignition.

  "What are you doing?" he asked. "I'm driving."

  "Yeah? Where are you going to go?"

  "Mexico."

  "If you run now you'll be running for the rest of your life."

  "Why break a winning tradition?"

  "Self-pity is such an admirable trait."

  His head fell back to the headrest. "I don't care, Theresa. I'm just tired of it all."

  "Move the hell over."

  Neither her eyes nor her voice gave him any choice. He did and she climbed in. She started the car with a roar.

  "Where we going?"

  She said nothing.

  "Damnit, where are we going?"

  "Juan In A Million. It's a crappy little Mexican food place a couple miles from here. I want some chorizo, maybe some eggs."

  Hal shook his head. "Theresa, we don't have time for fucking food. We've got to get moving."

  "Don't you yell at me, Hal. Don't you ever yell at me. I'm scared and I'm tired and I'm hungry. I'm going to eat."

  He turned and grabbed her by the shoulders, unable to control the anger. "The hell you are. We are going to Mexico and that's that. We stay here and I can't protect you."

  "Protect me?" She laughed and shoved him off of her. "You don't know how to protect anybody, Hal."

  "I do, too."

  "You are so full of shit."

  "I've been protecting people my entire life."

  "Yeah? What about Missy?"

  There it was, a bloody corpse riding shotgun in that little Escort. Silently, he climbed out of the car.

  "Where are you going?"

  "Mexico."

  "Are you going to walk?"

  He kept walking, leaving the car, and the woman, behind.

  "Damnit, Hal, get over here. Hanford is going to meet us there."

  His back to her, his feet still moving, Hal gave her a middle finger. "Fuck him and fuck you, too."

  The rising sun was a harsh, blazing orange. It stabbed his eyes and didn't warm his skin as much as burn it. As it rose, shadows grew thinner until they were more like stiletto blades than shadows.

  Theresa should have taken off in a spray of gravel and dust. She should have fishtailed out of the parking lot, maybe banged the back end into a telephone pole, and then driven off with her fuck finger flying high and proud out the window. It would have been the perfect clichéd ending. Lonely hoodlum, left alone after pissing off his girlfriend and failing to accomplish the one thing he wanted.

  He would have expected her back, had it gone that way. He would have expected her to drive around the block once or twice, or maybe go to Juan In A Million, eat an egg or two, then come find him. He would have expected her to drive along beside him for a block or so before turning the car across his path and stopping him. Then they would have embraced, no words except those that didn't need to be spoken, and everything would have been fine. They would have gone back to the restaurant, talked with Hanford, shown him the disk, and life would have been fine.

  The shadows would have been shadows again, not blades. The sun would have been golden rather than hideous orange. And in the perfect ending, he and Theresa would not have to go to Mexico. The District Attorneys from Texas to Nevada would understand what had happened and why. They would pass on filing charges and Hal would be hailed as a pop culture sensation.

  'The man who saved his own life,' the papers would roar. A man who had nearly destroyed his life with booze, then searched for months for hi
s answer, then gone through five days of complete bullshit, of bullets and blood and murders and drugs, and had somehow come out smelling clean as a rose. And who had saved an innocent man from the death chamber.

  There'd be book deals and movie deals and fifteen, maybe twenty minutes of fame.

  Except it didn't play that way.

  Theresa didn't leave in a spray of gravel, she just left. She didn't come back around the block, she just left. She didn't drive along with him for a block, talking through an open window, she just left.

  And he was pretty sure that's how it was going to stay.

  Four blocks later, as he passed the Texas State Prison, he heard a car behind him. The engine rumbled more deeply than the Escort so he knew it wasn't Theresa.

  Fuckin' Roby Trenton.

  His heart didn't even stop this time. He wasn't scared anymore. Probably because he wasn't looking to accomplish anything. It was all over. All he could do now was--

  The car began to slow next to him and he knew then he was still scared, freakin' scared. He kept his eyes on the road but put his hand on the pistol. Sweat dripped down across his lips. The car fell in synch with his walk. His finger flicked off the safety.

  A car door opened, never shut.

  "Need a--"

  Hal jerked the pistol and went to work. Bullets exploded in the morning air.

  "Goddamnit, Hal, are you crazy?"

  At least two shots thunked the trunk before Trenton managed to get moving. The car shot forward a block and a half and suddenly, the smell of cordite bitter in his nose, the voice sounded familiar. Not Trenton familiar, but--

  The driver fumbled with the door for a moment, until it spilled open and he tumbled out.

  "Are you trying to fucking kill me?"

  'Warden,' the car's license plate said.

  0 Miles (Still)

  "Learned that on the road, did you?" Hanford asked. His eyes were wild, blazing things. His voice was as harsh as a divorce.

  "Sorry." Hal stuffed the gun into his waistband behind him. "I thought you were someone else."

  "Well, that's okay, then, isn't it?" He slammed the door closed on his car, ran a thin finger into the two holes in the trunk. "As long as I was someone else you were trying to kill."

  Hal eyed him. "I'm trying to kill you, you'd be dead by now."

  Hanford eyed him back. "Really. You're that good a shot when it comes to killing?"

  Hal frowned. "No, it ain't--It ain't like that at all. It's--" The words dried up. He waved dismissively at Hanford as he turned away. "I don't know. I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to kill you. I was just--I don't know."

  When the echo of the shots died, the morning was as still as any decent sized city. Cars and trucks worked Huntsville's roads, heavy construction banged away at some nearby site. Dogs barked and car horns answered. From somewhere, a laugh slipped into the air. The brothers turned toward it.

  "Don't usually hear much laughing after a shooting," Hal said.

  "I haven't been to many shootings, but I certainly wouldn't think so."

  Silence for a moment, then Hal tried on an old memory. "You remember the first shooting?"

  Hanford nodded. "Zeburn Aaron, sure as hell do."

  "The kid we used to play with."

  "Street football," Hanford said.

  Hal chuckled. "Freakin' tackle street football. All Zeburn ever wanted to play. He liked it rough."

  Hanford nodded. "There was some strange shit going on in that house. With his parents, I mean."

  "Yeah, probably with him, too. Chances are Dad wasn't weird with just Mom."

  After a few seconds, Hanford nodded. "We had a shooting here a few days ago. A little bop gun. Con made it from…shit, I have no idea what he used. Doesn't matter, I guess. He made it lethal."

  "Kill somebody?"

  "Yeah. A child molester. Guy had slipped his finger into his ex-wife's daughter. Three year old kid with her new husband. Her panties were hardly any larger than the molester's fist. Blew him away."

  "It's a hard old world," Hal said.

  Hanford sighed heavily and eventually ran his hand over the holes in the car trunk. "Now I'll have to con some con into fixing those. They'll probably cost me extra rec time."

  "What?"

  "We've got a garage. The inmates keep various state cars running."

  "You gonna give a shot-up state car to a con?"

  Grinning from the corner of his mouth, Hanford nodded. "That's what I'm saying. He'll want something to keep it quiet. Extra recreation time, most likely, maybe a conjugal."

  "Wouldn't mind a conjugal myself."

  "He's not your type, Hal."

  "Yeah, that's funny."

  Hanford raised a single eyebrow at him. "D.A. Smansky finds out you're here and you won't see a conjugal for many years, my friend."

  "I don't suppose it would help to say I didn't kill her."

  His brother shrugged but it wasn't a pissy, dismissive shrug. In fact, it damn near felt like maybe, just maybe, some of the tension between them was gone, evaporating beneath the hot east Texas sun. "They're all innocent. Didn't you know that?" He pointed to the prison. "Everyone I've got incarcerated is innocent. You'd fit right in."

  Hal chuckled and ran a hand across his neck.

  "Hal, you look like shit."

  He supposed he did. Thinner than the last time they'd seen each other. A scar on his neck, a hole in his arm, pants dirty and bloody, boots scarred and missing a heel.

  "I mean, look at that haircut. What the hell happened?"

  For a moment, Hal was too surprised to even speak. "That's funny, Han," he said finally. "Not like side splitting funny, but not bad for an anal, law and order, by the book, jarhead."

  "Jarhead? That's a joke, right? Supposed to be funny because I was in the Air Force."

  The silence that fell after that, with Hanford obsessing over the bullet holes, was comfortable. Not perfectly comfortable, there was still an edge between them. But it was better. Just those few minutes had begun to work a magic Hal desperately needed.

  "So," Han said. "Theresa called me but I don't see her. It isn't particularly surprising that you managed to run her off in the half-hour since then."

  Hal shrugged. "You know how it is."

  "I know how it is with you. Girl after girl, like a revolving door."

  "And you? Third wife now?"

  A deep red flush slipped into his brother's face. "Finishing up the fifth, actually."

  Hal laughed and after an embarrassed pause, Hanford joined. They laughed forever, it seemed, like they had when they were kids at Hal's eleventh birthday party at the roller skating rink when only four people showed up and two of them brought the same Star Wars puzzle as a gif or at the Barefield Zoo when the drunk guy had climbed into the zebra pit and pissed his way into a pleasant slumber.

  A good laugh, a solid laugh. And it was something that nearly made Hal cry. Instead, he stood as tall as he could. "I'm in trouble."

  "Yeah."

  "Not Missy. I didn't kill her."

  "So you keep saying."

  Hal hauled out the disk. Held it up.

  "What is that?"

  For the next ten minutes, Hal explained the private network of murder voyeurs. Hanford's face twisted and tangled as he listened. When Hal was finished, Hanford was clenching his fists.

  "They watch for pleasure."

  "Just like you watch high school football," Hal said. "Both getting your jollies, just a little different."

  "It's all on the disk?"

  "Not all, but Missy is. And--" Hal licked his lips, blew scared breath into the morning air. "Two more. One led to the other."

  "Were you involved?"

  "Damnit, Hanford, listen to me. I am not a killer."

  Moving hardly a muscle, Hanford tapped the bullet holes in his car. "These notwithstanding."

  "A car murderer, then."

  "Do you know who was involved? Bringing something like that to the D.A. would go a long way
to getting you some love on the back-end."

  "Love on the back-end?" Hal tried to paste a shocked look on his face. "I ain't no rump ranger."

  "This isn't really the time for jokes, Hal."

  Hal nodded. "Right. Roby Trenton did the first, and you ain't got to worry about the second."

  "Why?"

  "The doer's dead."

  "You kill her?"

  Hal stared at his brother. "Why is it so hard for you to believe I ain't a killer?"

  "Because you're entire life has led you to it." Hanford headed to the driver's seat.

  "You kidding me with this? You were the Flyboy. You were the trained warmonger." Hal followed his brother to the car.

  "I never killed anyone."

  "You would have."

  Standing at the driver's door, Hanford stared at his brother. "I wouldn't want to, but yes, given the right circumstances, and an order from my commander, I would."

  With that bombshell nicely dropped, Hanford climbed into the car. The engine roared to life. Hal joined him and they headed for Juan in a Million.

  Han nodded at the prison as they passed it. "I've seen some killing in there, Hal, and Lord knows there are a shitload of people in there who should've never drawn a breath. Maybe, if I had to, I'd kill somebody, but I damned sure wouldn't sleep well at night, even if they needed killing."

  "'Cause bad people need killing sometimes?"

  "What?" Hanford frowned, caught his brother's gaze sideways.

  "Nothing. Just something a friend said to me once."

  "I don't think how I would react in a given situation is really your concern right now, is it?"

  "Pretty much not."

  "You've got a few other things on your mind."

  "Yeah. This disk has got some other trouble attached to it."

  "Color me surprised."

  "Gimme a break, ho-kay?"

  Hanford nodded. "I apologize. Tell me what's going on."

  While they covered the two and a half miles to Juan's, Hal laid it all out.

  "Holy fucking shit," Hanford said when they pulled into the lot.

  "I know, ugly as shit, but there it is."

  "Actually, I meant that." Hanford nodded toward the far end of the parking lot. "I assume that's Roby Trenton?"

  Trenton sat on the Escort's hood, his arm around Theresa.

  His free hand held a gun to her head.