Empty Quiver

by Russ Linton

  Pointed ears and cheeks trotted into view through the haze of the screen door. A pink tongue lolled. Eldon opened the door and reached down to pet the dog's velvet fur.

  "Keep your ears open, Nip. This could get ugly." The dog nuzzled his hand with a damp, black nose.

  Eldon glanced over his shoulder toward the car and waved again. The dust-streaked sedan crunched to a stop. He stepped inside, leaving the door open and letting the screen door fall partly ajar as it was wont to do. He'd fix that. Someday.

  He crossed through the living room, light spilling in through the picture window. On good days, he'd sit on the porch. On bad, he'd sit on the couch. He could watch the world outside, a dusty road and a stand of trees, mountains painted in the distance. Birds and smaller critters foraged in the abandoned garden out front. Several times, he'd shot a deer or a squirrel right from the porch.

  He didn't need to go far from here to live. Never again. They couldn't make him.

  Nip whined.

  Eldon took a breath. "It's all right."

  He continued into the kitchen and pulled open the fridge. He grabbed a beer from the shelf and started to close the door, then stopped before reaching for another. He felt the wood under his feet vibrate with each step on the porch stairs. Felt the motion ride the coils in the fridge and through the handle.

  "Come in."

  The screen door creaked open.

  Eldon walked into the living room, his head low. He motioned with one of the beers toward the recliner closest to the door. The young man, dark suit, baby-face, closed the screen door with great care. The boy, why'd they send a boy, was still standing when Eldon settled into the couch.

  "Beer?"

  His visitor was trying to look anywhere but his direction. He wouldn't find much. Nothing on the walls. Grandma's plate collection, family photos, everything was packed away. That was how it had to be. Just the furniture, the old upright piano his mother used to play, and a television covered in dust and foil.

  Eldon motioned again. "Have a seat."

  The young man sat. Eldon waved the beer again and the man shook his head, his cheeks coloring. All men acted differently when they were scared. Flushed. Tongue tied. Fidgeting. Screaming to their false god. Eldon shrugged and opened his beer to take a long swig. Nip padded into the room and curled at his feet.

  "Don't worry about him. He don't bite."

  The young man licked his lips. "What kind of dog is he?"

  "Akita."

  "What's his name?"

  "Nip."

  He went quiet again but at least he made eye contact. "Sargent Griffin, I'm Special Agent Crawford. I'm here to talk to you about an … incident."

  "Not in the Army anymore." He took another swig. "Neither were you."

  "Okay, sir." Crawford cleared his throat and paused. Now that he was finally looking, Eldon saw doubt cross his face. "You are Eldon Griffin, correct?"

  "That I am," said Eldon. The doubt lingered in Crawford's eyes. "Expecting someone fatter?"

  Crawford's face flushed again. "No, sir."

  "Don't you G-men travel in twos? You know, for safety."

  Eye contact wavered. Crawford ran his fingers through his hair and reached into his jacket. Nip whined. The floorboards creaked and groaned. A resonance rode through the strings of the piano.

  Crawford froze and withdrew his hand from his coat inches at a time, his pale fingers vivid against the suit. He held a small notepad. The room settled and the dog flattened to the floor with its muzzle on its paws. With two fingers, Crawford carefully produced a pen from his front pocket.

  "My partner called in sick."

  Eldon huffed. "You sure you don't want that beer?"

  "No. Thank you. I won't be long, sir. I don't want to take up your time."

  "Suit yourself."

  "I was wondering if you'd heard what happened down near Kooskia."

  "Oh?" Eldon kept his eyes on the man and tilted the beer bottle to his lips. "Don't keep up much with people."

  "I was told given the proximity, you might've known." He hesitated. "Might've felt it."

  "That so." Eldon looked long and hard at the young man. Sweat dimpled his brow. Pupils dilated. Rookie with the short straw—he hadn't pissed himself yet. But he was asking questions. Engaging. The fear was more about what he didn't know, Eldon decided.

  "Sir, one quick question is all I need to ask. Where were you on the night of October 14th?"

  "Why do you need to know?"

  "There was an earthquake. Out near an internment camp. On the books the camp was closed, but there were families out there caught up in the transfer."

  Eldon leaned forward, dangling the beer bottle between his fingers. "Mother Nature can be unpredictable."

  "USGS said there weren't any fault lines in that area. No previous activity."

  "What do they know?" He drank the last of his bottle and reached for the second. "You think their little boxes and spools of paper can tell you shit about what's under there? Do you?"

  He felt a wet muzzle on his hand. Nip was standing, his face pressed between Eldon's arm and knee. Coal black eyes looked up at him, pleading. He forced the swelling back down into the earth.

  "I don't know. I'm not a scientist. That's just what they told us."

  "Then what are you? What do you think you are?"

  "A guy trying to do his job. That's all." The young man set the pen down and reached for his breast pocket, raising his eyebrows in askance as his shaking hand revealed a pack of cigarettes. He shifted and drew a lighter from his pants. "You mind?"

  "Yeah. I mind."

  The man let the pack disappear into his pocket and raised his palms, clutching the lighter under a thumb. "One answer and I'm gone, sir."

  "I was a guy doing a job once." Eldon stared at the chrome lighter. Light from the picture window flared on the surface. "We both were." He tried not to imagine the flame clicking from the top. "You ever serve?"

  "No, sir. War ended too soon." Crawford swallowed. "Thanks to you and the rest of Augment Force Zero."

  "Thanks?" Eldon snorted and dug his hands into Nip's tawny fur. "I already had my parade. Streets burning. People running out of their paper fucking houses with the skin melting from their backs." He released the fur. His gaze drifted out the window to the car powdered in gravel dust. Whole city blocks had been like that. People. Ankle-deep in the slough of whatever had been sent up in the air, consumed by flame. "Little Boy, that's all he could say. Laughing the whole damn time. 'Them's houses made of paper!'"

  Nip started to nudge his leg but Eldon ignored him.

  His guest looked confused. "Little Boy?"

  "Your clearance not enough for that intel?" Eldon huffed, they had sent the greenest of greenhorns. "Don't go running your mouth, they'll find a special camp in the woods for you if they know I told you this." Eldon licked his lips. "I was codename Fat Man. Fat Boy was a name 'Cane made up after they removed Little Boy from active duty and the psyops at the OSS ran with it to explain the records discrepancies. Little Boy was one of the original Augment Force members and they wanted him erased from the history books, 'cause the OSS thought they could use him and he had no business being in the public eye." He focused on the young man. "Little Boy burned them, Hurricane stoked the fires, I buried what was left. That was my job. Why'd they hire you for your job?"

  "I guess I had the right education."

  "I bet you did." Eldon smirked. "So did we. Little Boy burned his way through his childhood too. Hell, he was wetter behind the ears than you when they took him into the program. They say the Augmentation process is random, you never know what kind of powers you'll get. That's what your scientists say, the ones who want to tell me what's in the earth."

  "Maybe I can come back another time."

  Eldon jerked forward, the room rocked, the dog whined. "You ain't coming back here." Crawford sunk into the chair. "You gonna do your job? Get your answers?"

  Crawford nodded.

  A dam
n kid, like Little Boy had been. But this one was scared shitless, unlike Little Boy. Joy had burned in that pint-sized monster's eyes as the city burned to ash around them. A terrible fire consuming something inside of him, fueling him, eating him alive. Eldon understood the hate and anger. The kid had been God's own righteous fire that night, whipped into a frenzy by Hurricane's winds, but Eldon had always felt that kid would've have scorched every inch of the planet if given the go-ahead.

  "Let me tell you why they hired me." He stared up at the ceiling and blew out a fermented breath. "I hated every last one of those slanty-eyed cocksuckers. Watched them feed a naked G.I. to dogs. Saw them cane a strung up Chinaman until his flesh was a foamy mess of blood and dangling skin. They were goddamn animals and they all needed to die. And I was ready to cleanse the motherfucking earth of their kind. That's what they wanted me to do when we dropped into those city streets. Men. Women. Children. Buried and gone until they knew their tiny god couldn't save them. Until they were ready to understand who the real rulers of this earth were, and which God they needed to answer to."

  The foundation shook again. Nip whined and pawed at Eldon's leg. He sank his teeth into Eldon's pants and tugged, his whine turning into desperate growls. A cacophony of notes rattled from the piano. Crawford stood, eyes wide, and the patches of red had drained completely from his cheeks. He backed toward the door and stumbled on the recliner.

  "You gonna ask me where I was?" Eldon stood, letting his bottle fall. It bounced and rolled, leaving a trail of beer to seep through the hardwood. He took a step and the house swayed. "Are you?"

  ***

  Special Agent Crawford arrived at the office late. He'd missed the briefing with his supervisor, which wasn't uncommon when doing field work in the boonies—an agent got back when he got back. What he didn't know was if his supervisor would smell the bourbon on his breath. He'd made a stop on the way from the Eldon Griffin lead and and had a drink, or two.

  He didn't have any doubts about Eldon—he'd made his role clear. All the stuff the Augment had spouted could've been the ramblings of a broken man returned from combat. He'd heard that happened sometimes, but all the facts pointed to him. Then there was that Little Boy stuff. He'd never heard of him. Why would the government cover up a member of the team that ended the worst war in world history? Crawford thought he knew. Maybe this was all too much for him. Or maybe it was the bourbon talking. He wasn't sure about his next move.

  Even this late, the offices were lit up. Supervisory Agent Jerry McDonald's door was open. Crawford leaned on the frame and knocked.

  "Crawford!" A cigarette dangled from McDonald's mouth as he spoke. He waved a folder at a chair next to the door. "Come on in, have a seat."

  Crawford pressed further into the frame. "No thanks. Been driving all day."

  His supervisor set down the paper and ground his cigarette in the ashtray on his desk. "What'd you find out?"

  "Nothing." Crawford watched the stem of ash smolder in the tray. He risked taking a step into the room and slid his report across the desk. "He wasn't home."

  "You wait for him?" McDonald flipped the report jacket open.

  "Awhile."

  "Let's see. Survivors talking about buildings falling, trees swaying. One mentioned a dog barking. Why the hell's that in there?"

  "They don't allow pets at the camp, and no guard dogs either."

  "Interesting. But look, kid, you gotta focus on relevant facts. You don't gotta write down every damn thing." McDonald smirked. "Don't burn yourself out."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Nobody saw Fat Boy there?" McDonald muttered the question as he flipped through the pages. When he reached the last page he peered at Crawford over the red folder. "Earthquake then? Legit?"

  "Yeah, I think so."

  "Sweet Jesus, that's a relief." McDonald tossed the report to his desk. He popped the mangled cigarette back into his mouth and leaned back. "Gotta wonder, with the way he left the service as soon as he landed on American soil. We owe them boys of Augment Force Zero a hell of a debt but by God, one of them goes off the reservation, I don't know what we'll do."

  Crawford nodded. He didn't know, either. "Gonna head home. Long day."

  "You do that." McDonald fished another cigarette out of his desk. Crawford reached into his pocket and tossed him his lighter. "Thanks." He flicked the lighter and Crawford watched the flame swell. Thought he could feel the earth beneath him shift. His supervisor started to return it.

  "Keep it. I'm trying to quit."

  CODENAME: DANGER

  Fear soaked Reggie's shirt. Well, humidity was mostly to blame, but the fear was there. He'd traveled the world on the government's dime. Of the places he'd been, the humid ones were his least favorite. Remote ones, his second least. This place was both. But the fear was a regular hazard of the job.

  Sweat. Jitters. A tug at his stomach which could be anything from a threaded knot to a clenching fist. Right now it was a steady pressure.

  "What are we at? Two brownstar? Five?" Winston asked Reggie.

  Winston, which wasn't his real name, knelt in front of a pile of canvas bags to the side of the runway. A pair of bug-eyed mirror sunglasses rested on his forehead and he squinted at Reggie scrunching a nose caked with sunscreen. An open guayabera and a t-shirt underneath, he looked exactly like a white dude in Central America who was trying too hard.

  "I don't know. Two. Maybe three." Reggie had worked with his CIA handler long enough to develop something of a code to describe his danger sense. When they were in deep shit, brownstar ten. An annoyance, something that might slow them down but was not likely to get them killed, a three or less.

  "Only the one bag?" Winston stooped and dug for the bottom. "Only this one set you off?"

  Standing before the pile, he wasn't sure. Every last canvas lump tugged at his gut. A steady pull—nothing mortal, but palpable. Winston dragged a bag from the bottom and unzipped it slowly.

  Inside were stacks and stacks of white bricks.

  Reggie knew exactly what it was. He'd seen it before, outside the neatly taped and stamped rectangles. Powder. Stuff you could cook into little white stones like shattered sugar cubes and melt in a spoon. Wedge in a glass pipe.

  Winston dug through the bag, lifting each brick like he were delivering a newborn and placing it on the ground. He tested the weight of each in his hands and examined the lining of the bag. "You sure? There's nothing here."

  "What the fuck do you mean, 'nothing here'?"

  His handler squinted into the blazing sun behind Reggie. "Nothing that isn't supposed to be."

  "It's a pile of coke, motherfucker!" Reggie looked at the dirt road leading to the airstrip. The clearing was edged by rolling hills braided with crops. Further out, he could see the deeper green of a jungle canopy rising along smooth peaks. The dust had settled and the Soviet truck loaded with rebels was already out of sight. "We just gave a bunch of kids some machine guns for a pile of coke. You don't see a problem?"

  Winston sighed and started returning the bricks to the bag. "What are you, MacGruff the Crime Dog? We lost the last shipment and nobody can say what happened. I brought you to make sure the delivery wasn't dangerous. Like a bomb or tracking device."

  "Looks plenty dangerous."

  Winston stood. "Getting soft on me, Danger?"

  "Soft? You ain't seen what this shit does to people. Where's this going?"

  "On the plane." Winston lugged a bag off the ground with two hands and shuffled toward the DC-3 on the runway. Earlier, when Reggie's danger sense got a "hit", Winston had convinced the rebels to drop the bags away from the plane. They didn't seem to care—less work for them and more for the stupid Americans. "C'mon, give me a hand."

  "Fuck this," Reggie muttered as he hoisted a bag over his shoulder.

  The fear tingled under his skin and he pushed it into the background like a radio station between decent tracks. All things considered, this had been an easy mission. Not even the truck full of thugs with rifles a
nd rocket launchers had set him off. They didn't care. This was business as usual for them.

  He dumped the bag inside the plane and headed for another. What choice did he have? Refuse to load the damn covert plane with drugs? Then what? They'd sit here and argue and spend more time swimming in this weather. Winston had never pulled his piece on him, probably knew he'd sense before it happened, so he didn't think it would ever go that far. But the best thing now was to get home.

  Several trips later, Reggie was halfway to the plane with another bag when the sensation he'd so easily stuffed into the background leapt in his chest and hammered his diaphragm. He sucked in a breath and straightened against the weight of the overloaded rucksack.

  "Danger?" Winston was stepping out of the plane, the cargo door low to the ground on the tail-dragger. He reached behind him to the .45 holstered against the small of his back. "Everything okay?"

  "Six … maybe seven." Eyes wide, Reggie scanned the horizon. A plume of dust crested the hills opposite the road.

  Winston jogged out from the shadow of the wing to stand next to Reggie. He followed his gaze. "Keep loading. I'll get the plane fired up."

  Reggie didn't pull his eyes from the horizon until Winston disappeared into the plane. He checked the pile—they'd whittled it down from a waist-high mound to a single layer of half a dozen bags. Reggie dropped the one in his hands and ran for the open cargo door.

  The wing mounted engine on the far side sputtered and smoked before buzzing into a steady spin. Reggie leapt into the hold. An aging beast used for military cargo, the inside of the plane was a spartan, un-partitioned tube. The canvas bags lined the walls, leaving a single walkway open straight into the cockpit. Winston sat at the controls running through his preflight. Reggie settled into the copilot seat as the second engine spun up.

  "You get all the bags?" Winston shouted.

  Reggie figured it was best not to answer. He leaned forward to look out the window. In the distance, the trail of dust stretched closer. A beat-up pickup bounced over the open terrain. He couldn't say for sure, but there were men riding in the bed, rifle barrels sticking up beside them.