Borderland

by S. K. Epperson

  "Same thing with your deodorants, perfumes, and hairsprays. We've got dozens of brands on the shelf now, and some coldhearted bastard is puttin' out rabbits' eyes to come up with one more. They all serve one purpose, right? You wipe your ass with toilet paper, you shave with razor blades—and I defy you to show me one silly sonofabitch who can tell the difference between a double blade shave and a triple. I mean seriously. And all the time they're comin’ out with new products that do the same goddamn thing.

  "My question is—and you boys look smart so maybe you can answer it—why don't they use some of those billion ungodly dollar labs to do some real research? We don't need another brand of paper towel, and we sure as hell don't need another brand of goddamned dog food since all they do is make every damned veterinarian in the country rich. Hell, we don't even need another fucking make of car!" He waved his heavily muscled arm to encompass the yard. "Until the sonofabitches come up with one that flies, why don't they repair the damn highways and give some billions to the guys that're working on giving us superconductors? You see what I'm saying here?"

  Nolan saw. But he was glad Al had stopped for breath—the man's face had been turning blue. He liked the big, surly bastard. Old Al had made some good points, but he needed to work on his delivery before running for office.

  "I know the answer to your question," Cal said in a quiet, serious voice.

  Al wiped some spit from the corner of his mouth and looked at the boy, waiting.

  "They sell us what we don't need because they know we'll buy it," Cal said. "It's greed. That's all."

  "Yeah," Al said his voice suddenly soft. "It damn sure is. I'm not an educated man, but even I can see that. Ain't no wondering why the whole rest of the civilized world calls Americans stupid, is there?" He cleared his throat then and hooked his hands through the straps of his overalls. "Must be obvious I ain't had anyone to blow to in a while. Let's see now. You boys were after a radiator for a sixty-eight Mustang. That right?"

  "Right," Nolan said.

  "All right. See if we can't come up with something for you." Al looked at Cal then. "If you don't mind, I'll ask you to stay in range of the office and listen for my phone. I'm expecting a call from Denver shortly and I don't want to miss it. Can you handle that?"

  "Sure," Cal said. "If anyone calls, I'll ask them to hold on."

  "Much obliged," Al said. He rearranged his genitals then struck off across the yard. Nolan followed him, and when he caught up with the mountainous man's long stride he found himself admitting that he'd never thought about the number of product brands available.

  "Most people don't," Al said with a grunt. "They're just happy to be suckered into the next new and improved parcel of shit. Buncha goddamn zombies. Makes me sick. Maybe they'll wake up when China finishes kicking our economic ass and—whoa, there's what we need."

  Nolan followed Al's sharp gaze to a rusted black Mustang without a back end: Half a car. Nothing left in the front interior but one seat and the dash. The steering wheel was gone.

  "Train," Al said. "Sold the engine a few months ago to a couple of kids. They didn't need the radiator. Couple of richies, too, and that gave me a little spark. It's good to see 'em work for something of their own rather than take Daddy's money and buy that Porsche. You know?"

  "Yeah," Nolan said. He approached the car and reached for the hood. Al stopped him.

  "Don't wanna see you hurt yourself. With those bandages I'm thinking you're either a boxer or a bar brawler."

  Nolan laughed, but he didn't set him straight. He was certain Al had another long-winded opinion on civil servants and drugs in America. He would've liked to hear it, but it was hot and he was ready to make a deal.

  "Real good shape," Al said as he peered under the hood. "I'll let you have it for ten bucks."

  Nolan stared at him. "Now I know why you're out of the used car business."

  The big man grinned. "Never was much good at it. Too damned honest for my own good. But like I said, I'm ready to unload this place and go back home."

  "Where's home?" Nolan asked.

  "Arkansas. Ain't been back in years. My boy's set up in Denver and doin' real good. He's what you call an intern. Dr. Dunwoodie, believe it? When he's not at the hospital he's dishin' out soup at a poor shelter. Real proud of him."

  Nolan didn't know what to say. The longer he talked to Al the guiltier he felt. He swallowed the thick, middle-class lump in his throat and looked under the hood. Maybe next year he'd become a better, more caring human being.

  "Let me get that thing out for you," Al said. He reached into his overalls and came out with a fistful of tools. "That is, if you want it."

  "Yeah, sure," Nolan said. "But you don't have to do it. I can get it out."

  Al winked at him. "Better save them hands. Ladies'll appreciate it."

  Nolan was glad he let Al handle it. The man had the radiator out in less than fifteen minutes, and in five more they were making their way back to the fiberboard shack that served as his office, Al carrying the radiator in one hand.

  When Nolan saw the long, shark gray car behind his convertible he couldn't believe his eyes. But yes, that was a big bad Buick, and yes, that was Cal struggling to peel the gloved hand of a strange man from his mouth. The man was trying to put Cal in the back seat of the gray car.

  "Hey!" Nolan shouted, and even the man behind the wheel of the car looked up.

  Looked up and pointed the barrel of a pistol out the window. Nolan heard the shot and a loud ding as the round struck the bumper of a rusted Plymouth Duster to his left.

  "Sonofabitch," Al said, and the big man strode forward, holding the radiator out in front of him. Nolan looked at him, thought he was just possibly crazy and then decided to follow. He picked up a hubcap and a blackened muffler pipe on the way.

  The guy wasn't shooting. It wasn't because Al was so scary, as Nolan at first thought, but because Cal had squirmed and tugged until he and the man he was struggling with were directly in the driver's line of fire.

  "Hit him in the balls!" Al shouted to Cal, and when the driver looked over to see if the boy was going to follow that suggestion, Nolan frisbeed the hubcap at the windshield of the car. It bounced off the glass and landed on the ground in front of the car.

  "Goddamn shatterproof shit!"

  The man holding Cal twisted toward the open rear door and the driver took another shot…at Al this time.

  He missed.

  Now Nolan reconsidered the scare Al Dunwoodie could put into a man. Al looked like a mildly pissed Kodiak bear getting ready to eat a BB-shooting camper. The driver fired again and bit the radiator. Nolan threw the muffler pipe at the same instant and watched in anger and amazement as it too bounced off the windshield.

  "I'll be goddamned," he complained, but no one was listening. Al, mad as hell about the radiator, picked up speed and charged the Buick. The man holding Cal saw him coming and screamed at the driver to shoot. The driver was too busy putting the car in gear. When the man holding Cal saw this he released the furiously thrashing boy and grabbed for the rear door. He missed and grabbed again as the Buick backed up, barely managing to get hold of the swinging door. The driver spun the wheel and threw the man off balance before he could clamber into the seat.

  Al dropped the radiator, caught one kicking foot in his monstrous hand and held on even as the Buick pulled away. A black shoe came off in his hand, and the owner of the shoe was dragged through the dirt all the way down Al's drive, still trying to scramble into the car.

  "Sonofabitch," Al repeated, spitting this time for emphasis. "Can't even see the damned license plate." He turned and held up the black shoe. "Now who in the hell do you suppose this was?"

  Nolan ignored him in favor of a quick visual examination of Cal. There were plenty of red welts that would become dandy bruises, but other than huffing and puffing from exertion he seemed all right. "You okay, kid? Anything broken?"

  "I'm okay," Cal managed. "Fine."

  "You're some scrapper
for such a skinny punk," Nolan said. Then he glanced at Al. "Thanks, big guy. I owe you one."

  Al shook his head. "No need for that, just tell me who I tangled with."

  "I have no idea," Nolan said. He looked at Cal, whose cheeks were still blazing with color. "Come on, kid. Who the hell was that?"

  Cal wiped his face with his T-shirt. When he lifted his head his bright blue eyes were hard, his mouth tight.

  "That was my grandmother."

  Al held up the shoe again. "She's got awful big feet." Then he smiled. "Come on into my office, boys. I think we could all use a cold barley pop. And while I'm fixin' the hole in that radiator you can tell me why I was gettin' shot at."

  Cal looked over and Nolan gestured for him to go ahead. He was ready to hear the rest of Cal's story.

  CHAPTER 12

  Myra heard the scream as she put Cal's plate in the refrigerator. She rushed into the living room and saw Vic dozing on the sofa in front of the television, a daughter curled under each arm. There was no one else in the room.

  "Not again," she breathed to herself. It was the same sound she had heard her first night in the house, the same agonized cry from an invisible source. She hadn't imagined the sound. She hadn't imagined anything. She went through the kitchen to stand at the screen door in the pantry, suddenly anxious for Cal and Nolan to return.

  At the door she felt her skin begin to crawl. The feeling of whatever it was came from outside now, almost as if she were being watched by someone beyond the door. What the hell was she doing? Twenty grand wasn't that much money. She should just go. Maybe she should call Clarice back and ask for bus fare. They could get off the bus just short of Houston and she could find a job somewhere until August. Then they—

  There. Someone was out there, someone big moving around by the garage. Myra stepped back to call for Vic, but the sound of a car engine prevented her from speaking. She shoved open the screen door and darted down the steps to run around the side of the house and meet her son. She gasped when she rounded the corner and saw Cal emerge from the car. Dusk couldn't hide the ugly bruises. "What's happened? Nolan, what did you do? Cal, what happened?"

  Cal held her away. "I'm okay. Just tired is all."

  Nolan pointed at her. "You and me, Myra. We're going to chat. Cal, go on in and get some supper."

  "Don't tell him what to do," Myra snapped, but Cal was already moving toward the house. She turned back to Nolan. "How dare you order him around like—"

  Nolan curled his finger. "Come with me. I'm going to yell at you and I don't want anyone to hear."

  "I'm not going anywhere with you," said Myra.

  "You will if you want to hear about your mother-in-law's latest kidnapping attempt," Nolan said.

  He turned and walked off in the direction of the garage. The blood left Myra's head, but she managed to make her legs follow him. When she entered the garage he was sitting on the trunk of Darwin's Lincoln. Myra looked, but she saw no one else in the building. She moved to stand before him, still conscious of what she had seen earlier. "What happened?"

  Nolan studied his dirty hands. "They must've been watching the place. I figure they followed us around from one yard to the next, just waiting for a chance to snatch the kid. They caught up with us across the border but needless to say they didn't get him. Thanks to a hell of a nice guy named Al. What I want to know—" here his voice lowered ominously "—is why the hell you didn't level with us in the first place. These fuckers had guns, Myra."

  Myra felt her knees weaken. She swayed back until she was holding herself up against the rough, wooden wall. Clarice. Clarice had ordered them to shoot this time.

  "Did…was anyone hurt?"

  "Oh, that's a neat question. Do you think we'd be here if anyone was hurt? We'd be answering questions at the nearest law enforcement office if anyone had been hurt. But we damn sure could've been, because they shot at us, Myra. Do you hear what I'm saying? They didn't mean to miss. Now just how long did you plan to go on risking the lives of everyone here? Did you think you'd wait until someone got shot before saying anything?"

  Myra put her hands to her forehead. He was shouting at her as promised and the edge in his voice was making her head throb. The heat of his anger came off him in a sweat-soaked wave that charged the stifling air between them. "I…they never shot at us before."

  "That's funny," he said with a snort. "Cal said they did. He said they had guns the time Vic's dad stopped them from snatching him at the school bus stop."

  Myra looked up, her eyes round. "He didn't tell me that. Why didn't he tell me that?"

  Nolan slid off the car. "Weren't you curious to know why Darwin suddenly decided to teach him how to use that shotgun? Cal said the old man was an ace with the thing, said he blew the shit out of the kidnappers' car that day at the bus stop."

  "Hunting," Myra murmured. "He told me he was learning how to hunt with Darwin."

  Nolan's lip curled in disgust. "At least Cal felt bad about keeping quiet. He thought it was only fair that I should know everything and I do now. I know how you went to one of your mother-in-law's high-class dress design schools and later got kicked out for sucking up to her playboy son. But she wasn't quick enough on the draw because you were already knocked up. Lover boy married you then forgot about you but old mom-in-law took one look at Cal's I.Q. and decided to take over. And that’s what this is all about. She wants him back…without you."

  Myra straightened and came away from the wall. "She does want Cal. But you'll have to believe me when I say I didn't know about the guns or just how far she'd go to steal him. I've had my suspicions lately, but no proof."

  "You came out here to get away from her," Nolan said.

  "Yes," Myra admitted. "And when Patrick was killed she made sure we received nothing. If I go back to Texas I can try to get what's coming to us by law. But I can't go back to Texas. She'll beat me to court and try to have me proved an unfit mother."

  "I'll testify to that," Nolan said.

  Myra's fist shot out, but he caught it easily and twisted it away from him.

  "You haven't shown me much to the contrary," he said. "But now I know why you were both toting guns the day we arrived—a real healthy atmosphere for your child, by the way—and why it looked like someone was trying to terrorize you. Our showing up must've put a kink in their plans, temporarily anyway. If today was any indication, I'd say they're ready to play ball."

  Myra wrenched her arm away from him and backed up to the wall again. "I appreciate your helping him," she said in a cold voice. "But I don't like the way you've twisted what he told you. Cal wouldn't have said those things."

  "Which part?" Nolan said. "The sucking up or the knocking up?"

  "Both," Myra said between her teeth. "Patrick married me to get out of marrying a certain debutante handpicked by his mother. He had an excuse: I was pregnant. And I didn't suck up to him. He came on to me when I was a student. When Clarice found out about it she threw me out of the school. I went to work as a commercial artist and was as surprised as anyone when Patrick came and offered to marry me. He knew I was pregnant for a month and never... Anyway, later I heard about the debutante and realized why he did it."

  "But you went on living in the lap of luxury in spite of everything."

  "I thought I was doing what was best for Cal," Myra said. "You've never had any children, Nolan. You don't know what it's like to want for them. You want them to have everything you didn't. You want to protect them and make life sweet as long as you possibly can. You know it's impossible; they'll grow up to hurt and ache and struggle just like everyone else, but just for a time you want them to know happiness and fullness and..." She turned away from him. "I don't know why I'm trying to explain this to you. I don't have to defend myself. I stayed as long as I could, until Clarice began pressuring me to send Cal away to a school in Europe. He didn't want to go, so we left. Much as I hated the thought, we had no choice but to join Patrick."

  "Cal knew," Nolan said. "He knew all
about his dad and how you felt about him. You can't pull too much wool over that kid's eyes."

  Myra looked up and saw derision in his face. "I've never tried to hide anything from Cal. As you say, he's too intelligent for that. Sometimes I wish he wasn't."

  "So does he," Nolan said. "He thinks all this is his fault, for being smarter than the average bear. Tell me something, Myra. Does he really hate his grandmother, or did he learn that from you?"

  Myra turned abruptly away. "What would you do in my place, Nolan? Hand Cal over to her? You have no right to make judgments. Regardless of any known facts your finger will always come out pointing at me. I'm sure it can be attributed to a poisoned relationship with your own mother, the college professor, but don't assume your hostility is universal."

  There was movement to her left; she felt one bandaged hand close over her arm. When she looked at him, he was forcing a tight smile. "You know, Myra, I've been alternating between wanting to fuck you and wanting to strangle you. Guess which one I want to do now?"

  Myra drew a long breath. She was suddenly tired, too tired to deal with this. "Nolan, please. I'm sorry if I've insulted you. I'm hot and I'm tired. I want to go in."

  His grip remained firm. "My relationship with my mother has nothing to do with how I regard you. Cal's a brain all right, but he's also a sensitive kid. He's sensitive to you. If he picks up on your attitude toward someone then he's probably going to copy it."

  "Maybe," Myra said. "I'd say his attachment to you goes a long way in disproving that theory."

  Nolan laughed. "Damn, you're good." Then his smile faded. "Look, I know I've been rough on you. I'm only suggesting that you find out what Cal really wants."

  Myra tried to wriggle her arm free. "I only know what he doesn't want, Nolan. And I have to trust what he tells me. He says he doesn't want to go back to his grandmother. Now, please let go of my arm. I'm not going to react to your juvenile tactics tonight. I only want to go in the house and get ready for bed."