by Blake Crouch
If I look behind me, five miles east beyond the cabin, I see what appears to be a road. I’ve seen three silver specks speeding across the thin gray strip, and I assume they’re cars. But that does me no good. It wouldn’t matter if a Highway Patrol station were situated beside the cabin. Orson owns me. He took pictures of me cutting that woman. Left them on my desk this morning.
Dreamed about Shirley again last night. Carried her through the desert, through the night, and delivered her into the arms of her family. Left her smiling with her husband and three children, in her red-and-gray bowling shirt.
I’ve seen a significant change in Orson’s mood over the last day. He’s no longer morose. Like he said, this is his normal time. But the burning will return, and that’s what I fear more than anything.
I’m considering just killing him. He’s beginning to trust me now. What I’d do is take one of those heavy bookends and brain him like he did that poor homeless man. But where would that leave me? I have complete faith that Orson has enough incriminating evidence to send me straight to death row, even if I killed him. Besides, something occurred to me last night that horrifies me: In one of his letters, Orson threatened that someone would deliver a package of evidence to the Charlotte Police Department, unless he stopped them in person — who’s helping Orson?
I tossed the clipboard onto the ground, hopped off the rock, and looked intently down the slope. At the foot of the bluff, on the hillside hidden from the cabin, a man on horseback stared up at me. Though nothing more than a brown speck on the desert floor, I could see him waving to me. Afraid he would shout, I waved back, put the clipboard into a small backpack, and scrambled down the bluff as quickly as I could.
It took me several minutes to negotiate the declivitous hillside, avoiding places where the slope descended too steeply. My ears popped on the way down, and I arrived spent at the foot of the bluff, out of breath, my legs burning. I leaned against a dusty boulder, panting heavily.
The horse stood ten feet away. It looked at me, whinnied, then dropped an enormous pile of shit. Dust stung my eyes, and I rubbed them until tears rinsed away the particles of windblown dirt. I looked up at the man on the horse.
He wore a cowboy hat the color of dark chocolate, an earth-tone plaid button-up jacket, and tan riding pants. His face, worn and wrinkled, held a vital quality, which suggested he wasn’t as old as he seemed, that years of hard labor and riding in the wind and sun had aged him prematurely.
I thought he was going to speak, but instead, he took a long drag from a joint. Holding the smoke in his lungs, he offered the marijuana cigarette to me, but I shook my head. A moment passed, and he expelled a cloud of sweet-smelling smoke, which the wind ripped away and diffused into the sweltering air. His brown eyes disappeared when he squinted at me.
"I thought you was Dave Parker," he said, his accent thick and remote. "I’ll be damned if you don’t look kinda like him."
"You mean the man who owns the cabin on the other side of that hill?"
"That’s him." He took another draw.
"I’m his brother," I said. "How do you know him?"
"How do I know him?" he asked in disbelief, still holding the smoke in his lungs and speaking directly from his raspy throat. "That used to be my cabin." He let the smoke out with his words. "You didn’t know that?"
"Dave didn’t tell me who he bought it from, and I’ve only been out here a few days. We haven’t seen each other in awhile."
"Well hell, all this, far as you can see, is mine. I own a ranch ten miles that a way." He pointed north toward the mountains. "Got four hundred head of cattle that graze this land."
"This desert?"
"It’s been dry lately, but it greens up with Indian rice grass after a good rain. Besides, we run ’em up into the Winds, too. Yeah, I’d never have sold that cabin, except your brother offered me a small fortune for it. Sits dead in the middle of my land. So I sold him the cabin and ten acres. Hell, I don’t know why anybody’d wanna own a cabin out here. Ain’t much to look at, and there’s no use coming here in the winter. But hell, his money."
"When did he buy it from you?"
"Oh shit. The years all run together now. I guess Dr. Parker bought it back in ’91."
"Dr. Parker?"
"He is a doctor of something, ain’t he? Oh hell, history maybe? Ain’t he a doctor of history? I haven’t spoken to the man in two years, so I may be wrong about —"
"He made you call him Dr.?" I interrupted, forcing myself to laugh and diverting the man’s attention from my barrage of questions. "That bastard thinks he’s something else."
"Don’t he though," the cowboy said, laughing, too. I smiled, relieved I’d put him at ease, though I’m sure it wasn’t all my doing.
"He still teaching at that college up north?" the man asked. "My memory ain’t worth two shits anymore. Vermont maybe. Said he taught fall and spring and liked to spend summers out here. Least he did two years ago."
"Oh. Yeah, he is. Sure is." I tried to temper the shock in my voice. Not in a thousand years had I expected to come into contact with another person in this desert. It was exhilarating, and I prayed Orson wouldn’t see this cowboy riding so close to his cabin.
"Well, I best be heading on," he said. "Got a lot more ground to cover before this day’s through. You tell Dr. Parker I said hello. And what was your name?"
"Mike. Mike Parker."
"Percy Madding."
"It’s a pleasure to meet you, Percy," I said, stepping forward and shaking his gloved hand.
"Good to know you, Mike. And maybe I’ll drop in on you boys sometime with a bottle of tequila and a few of these." He wiggled the joint in his hand; it had burned out for the moment.
"Actually, we’re leaving in several days. Heading back east."
"Oh. That’s a shame. Well, you boys have a safe trip."
"Thank you," I said, "and oh, one more thing. What’s that mountain range in the north and east?"
"The Wind Rivers," he said. "Loveliest mountains in the state. They don’t get all the goddamned tourists like the Tetons and Yellowstone."
Percy pulled a silver lighter from his pocket, relit the joint, and spurred his horse softly in the side. "Hit the road, Zachary," he said, then clicked his tongue, and trotted away.
11
MID-AFTERNOON, I walked in the front door of the cabin, dripping with sweat. Orson lay on the living room floor, his bare back against the cold stone, a book in his hands. I stepped carefully over him and collapsed onto the sofa.
"What are you reading?" I asked, staring at the perfect definition of his abdominal and pectoral muscles. They shuddered when he breathed.
"A poem, which you just ruined." He threw the book across the floor, and his eyes met mine. "I have to read a poem from beginning to end, without interruption. That’s how poetry blossoms. You consume it as a whole, not in fractured pieces."
"Which poem?"
" ‘The Hollow Men,’ " he said impatiently, gazing up into the open ceiling, where supportive beams upheld the roof. He sprang up suddenly from the floor, using the sheer power of his legs. Sitting down beside me on the sofa, he tapped his fingers on his knees, watching me with skittish eyes. I wondered if he’d seen the cowboy.
"Go get cleaned up," he said abruptly.
"Why?" His eyes narrowed. He didn’t have to ask me a second time.
Looking in the side mirror, I watched the shrinking cabin. The sun, just moments below the horizon, still bled mauve light upon the western edge of sky. The desert floor held a Martian red hue in the wake of the passing sun, and I watched the land turn black and lifeless again. Heading east, I looked straight ahead. Night engulfed the Wind River Range.
We sped along a primitive dirt road, a ribbon of dust trailing behind us like the contrail of a jet. Orson hadn’t spoken since we’d left the cabin. I rolled my window down, and the evening air cooled my sun-scorched face.
Orson jammed his foot into the brake pedal, and the car slid to a stop. T
here was an empty highway several hundred feet ahead, the same I’d seen from the bluffs. He reached down to the floorboard at his feet, grabbed a pair of handcuffs, and dropped them in my lap.
"Put one cuff on your right wrist and attach the other cuff to the door."
I put the handcuffs on as instructed. "What are we doing here?" I asked.
He leaned over and tested the security of the handcuffs, and turned off the engine. It became instantly silent, for the wind had died at dusk. I watched Orson as he stared ahead. He wore another blue mechanic’s suit and those snakeskin boots. I wore a brown one, identical to his. One of the four closets in the hallway that connected the bedrooms and the living room was filled with them.
Orson’s beard had begun to fill in, painting a shadow across his face in the same pattern it spread across mine. Such subtleties create the strongest bond between twins, and as I watched Orson, I felt a glimmer of intimacy in a vessel that had long since died to that sort of love. But this was not the man I had known. You are a monster. Losing my brother had been like losing an appendage, but as I looked at him now, I felt like an amputee having a nightmare that the limb had grown back — demonic, independent of my will.
"You see Mom much?" Orson asked, his eyes fixed on the highway.
"I drive up to Winston twice a month. We go to lunch and visit Dad’s grave."
"What does she wear?" he asked, still watching the road, his eyes never diverting to mine.
"I don’t under —"
"Her clothes. What clothes does she wear?"
"Dresses, mostly. Like she used to."
"She ever wear that blue one with the sunflowers on it?"
"I don’t know."
"When I dream about her, that’s what she wears. I went to see her once," he said. "Drove up and down Race Street, watching the house, seeing if I could catch a glimpse of her in the front yard or through the windows. Never saw her, though."
"Why didn’t you go through with it?"
"What would I say to her?" He paused, swallowing. "She ever ask about me?"
I considered lying but could find no reason to spare his feelings. "No."
"You ever talk to her about me?"
"If I do, it’s just about when we were kids. But I don’t think she even likes those stories anymore." Down the highway, northbound headlights appeared, so far off, I couldn’t distinguish the separate bulbs.
"That car won’t pass this spot for ten minutes," he said. "It’s still miles away. These roads are so long and straight, the distance is deceiving."
My right hand throbbed in the grip of the metal cuff. Blood wasn’t reaching my fingers, but I didn’t complain. I massaged them until the tingling went away.
"What do you really want with me?" I asked, but Orson just eyed those approaching headlights like I hadn’t said a word. "Orson," I said. "What do you —"
"I told you the first day. I’m giving you an education."
"You think reading boring fucking books all day constitutes an education?"
He looked me dead in the eyes. "The books have nothing to do with it. Surely you realized that by now."
He cranked the engine and we rolled toward the highway. Dark now, the sky completely drained of light, we crossed the pavement and pulled onto the shoulder. I watched the headlights through the windshield, and for the first time, they seemed closer. Confused, I looked at Orson.
"Sit tight," he said. Turning off the car, he opened his door and stepped out. He withdrew a white handkerchief from his pocket and tied it to the antenna. Then he shut the door and stuck his head through the open window. "Andy," he warned, "not a word."
He sat with his arms crossed on the edge of the hood. Rolling my window up, I tried to assuage my apprehension, but I just stared ahead, praying the car would pass. After awhile, I heard its engine. Then the headlights closed in, seconds away.
A minivan rushed by. I watched its brake lights flush in the rearview mirror. The van turned around, glided slowly back toward us, and stopped on the opposite shoulder. The driver’s door opened and the interior lights came on. Children in the backseat. A man our age climbed out, said something to his wife, and walked confidently toward Orson. His kids watched through the tinted glass.
The man wore khaki shorts, loafers, and a red short-sleeved polo shirt. He looked like a lawyer taking his family on a cross-country vacation.
"Car trouble?" he asked, crossing the dotted yellow line and stopping at the shoulder’s edge.
My brother smiled. "Yeah, she’s thirsty for oil."
Through the windshield, I noticed another set of northbound headlights.
"Can I give you a lift or let you use my cell phone?" the man offered.
"Actually, we’ve got someone on the way," Orson said. "Wouldn’t want to trouble you."
Thank you, God.
"Well, just wanted to make the offer. Bad spot to break down."
"Sure is." Orson extended his hand. "But thank you anyway."
The man smiled and took my brother’s hand. "I guess we’ll be heading on, then. Hoping to make Yellowstone before midnight. The kids are just wild about that damn geyser."
"Have a safe trip," Orson said. The man crossed the road and climbed back into his van. My brother waved to the kids in the backseat, and they giggled and waved back, delighted. As the van drove away, I watched its taillights begin to fade in the rearview mirror.
The next car was close now. It slowed down before it passed us, then pulled over onto the shoulder on our side of the road, stopping just ten feet from the front bumper of Orson’s Buick. From a black Ford pickup truck, one of the enormous new models with a rack of blinding KC lights mounted above the cab, a large man with a substantial beer gut hopped down from behind the wheel. He left the truck running, and the headlights fried my eyes. A country ballad blared from the speakers, and as the driver walked unsteadily toward Orson, I could tell he was drunk. Two other men climbed down out of the passenger side and approached my brother, too.
"Hello, gentlemen," Orson said as they surrounded him. Each man nursed a pinch of dip crammed between his teeth and bottom lip. The two passengers wore cowboy hats, and the driver held a ragged Redskins cap, his long hair, tangled and greasy, hanging in his face.
"Something wrong with your car?" the driver asked. He spat into the road, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and wiped his hand across his black tank top, which had a blue-and-silver Ford emblem across the front. He hadn’t shaved recently.
"Don’t know," Orson said. "I was hoping someone would stop who had a little mechanical expertise." The two passengers dissolved into a drunken giggle, and the driver glanced over at them and smiled. Their teeth were gray and orange from excessive dipping, but regardless of the men’s deficient hygiene, not a one looked older than thirty.
"Where you from, boy?" one of the passengers asked.
Orson assessed the tall, skinny man on the far left and smiled. "Missouri."
"You a long way from home, ain’t ye?" he said, then took a sip from his beer can.
"Yes, I am," Orson said, "and I’d appreciate your help."
"It might cost you something," the driver said. "It might cost you a whole lot." He looked at his buddies again, and they all laughed.
"I don’t want any trouble, now."
"How much money you got?" asked the heavyset man standing in the middle. With dark, bushy sideburns and a hairy belly poking out between his black jeans and white grease-stained T-shirt, he looked so hideously disheveled, I imagined I could smell him through the windshield.
"I don’t know," Orson said. "I’ll have to go get my wallet and see."
Orson stepped cautiously by the driver and headed for the trunk, smiling and winking at me as he passed my window. I heard the trunk open, followed by the sound of rustling plastic.
The driver caught me looking at him through the windshield.
"What in the goddamn hell you looking at, boy?" he said. Orson walked by my door again and stopped on the r
ight side of the hood. The three men stared at him suspiciously, though too drunk to notice that he now wore black gloves.
"Your friend’s gonna get his ass whupped if he keeps staring at me."
"He’s harmless," Orson said. "Look, I could give you twenty dollars. Would that be sufficient?"
The driver glared at him, dumbfounded. "Let me see your wallet," he said finally.
"Why?"
"Motherfucker, I said give me your wallet." Orson hesitated. "You stupid, boy? Wanna get your ass kicked?"