by Deforest Day
The owner led him to a stack of large, shallow drawers. A two-by-three foot index map was under plate glass on top of the cabinet. “Northeastern Pennsylvania, Northern New Jersey.”
Justice studied the index for a moment, dropped his finger on a quadrant an hour north of Shaleville.
The man shrugged, opened a drawer, thumbed through maps, selected the one in question. He pulled it out, laid it backside up on the glass top, pointed to the mostly blank white paper. “As you can see, sir, there’s nothing there.”
Justice looked at the man, picked up on the crinkle at the corners of the eyes. “Maybe if we turned it on over?”
“Ah so. My mistakee. So solly.” He smoothed the edges, and said, “Actually, I know the area as well as the back of my hand,” which he held in front of Justice. Stubby fingers, neatly trimmed nails, sparse hairs across the knuckles. “Which is infinitely more interesting.” He tapped the map. “There really is nothing there. Second growth timber, a few small streams. No vistas, no views, nothing to draw the interest of the traveler.”
Precisely.” Justice smiled. “I’ll take it.”
Chapter 28
The bodega catered to the growing hispanic population working at the big box distribution center outside of town. Unloading trucks, loading trucks, twenty-four hours a day. Sometimes shipments came in on the trucks that never made it into the building. Those shipments went to a different distribution center.
Mexican, Colombian, Jamaican. Canadian sinsemilla, Thai sticks. Up to New York, down to Baltimore.
Howie turned into the small lot beside the Mexican store, its dirty windows filled with weird stuff that no normal person would eat. His tires crunched over broken brown and green glass. Guess them people ain’t into recycling. A bell tinkled when he opened the wooden door. Foreign smells greeted him. “Where’s my man Hor-hay at?” he called to the old woman behind the counter. Couldn’t hardly see her among the display racks of crap on the counter.
“Out the back, unloading truck.”
Howie peered down the narrow center aisle, past shelves filled with cans of beans and bags of rice and boxes of whatever. “Can I go out through there?”
“No.”
Well, fuck you very much, you shriveled up old hag. He headed out front and around the side, following the sprayed graffiti covering the brick wall. Turning the corner, he found his connection lifting crates of produce off a beat-up flatbed truck. “Hey hom bray, kay passa?”
Jorge fired off a dozen rounds of Spanish that completely missed Howie. But they apparently hit a nice-looking dark-haired girl, because she stopped unpacking a waxy cardboard box of plantains and laughed merrily.
“Whoa, slow down amigo! Talk American.” The man was a foot shorter than Howie, but had some arms and shoulders on him inside the worn-thin wife beater. Probably had a blade somewheres, too. His kind usually did.
“How can I help you, sir?” Jorge said with exaggerated politeness.
“I need some more of that excellent Colombian product.”
“No got, all gone. Come back next week.” He continued pulling crates from the bed of the truck, stacking them on the wooden dock at the rear of the store.
“Frikko!”
“Like you say. Frikko. I got some ver’ fine Jamaican. Can let you have for a C.”
“Better be fine, at that price.” Howie dug his roll from his jeans, and with a flourish peeled off a pair of hundreds. You got to let them know how it is. “Let’s go with two. We’ll see if it’s as good as you say.”
The girl watched Jorge pocked the bills, slip into the building. Howie watched the girl. Speaking of fine! Her tight T-shirt and tighter jeans said she had both the T and the A. Also long black hair and caramel skin smooth as a candy bar. He grabbed a plantain from the lug and peeled it. “What the fu-” He spit it out. “Something wrong with your bananas, honey!”
She laughed again. “You got to fry them, firs’. You never had tostones de platano?” She pointed to his truck. “Is that yours?”
“Sure is.”
“Oooh, tha’s a nice truck. Can I go look at it?”
“Knock yourself out, babe.”
Jorge emerged from the store and jumped off the dock. Looked around, handed Howie a paper bag. “You going to like this. Amigo.” Howie was watching the girl walk toward his truck. Looked like she’d put the jeans on with a paintbrush. “You like that, too, eh?”
“Sure do. Your people has got some fine lookin’ girls. Shame how they age so fast.”
Chapter 29
Justice stopped at the hotel and paid for a week, told Alice he would be away for a couple of days, but wanted to keep the room. He left his suitcase, grabbed his go-bag from under the bed.
Back in Pen’s driveway he packed the tarps and the shovel in one of the rucksacks, and transferred some of the contents of his go-bag to the other. He was sitting on his tailgate, studying the map, when Pen returned.
She had pulled her hair back and secured it with an elastic band. Her jeans were worn to gauze from too many trips through the washing machine, and the faded university logo on her sweatshirt was speckled with paint. She removed a large, cellophane-wrapped cigar from a small paper bag, and stuck it in her mouth. “I’m Miss Bonnie Parker,” she said. “We rob banks.”
He looked at her, puzzled, as she handed him the cigar and the sage. Must be another picture show thing. It brought Davy to mind; he was always doing actor’s voices, reciting lines. ‘Badges? We don’ need no stinkin’ badges’. He slipped the cigar in his pocket. Losing her brother had not diminished her sense of humor. If that was what it was. “I’m Sergeant Justice. I shoot people.”
An hour north of Shaleville he turned onto an unmarked gravel road. A mile in they passed a ramshackle farmhouse and a barn with a swayback roof. A few rangy steers grazed behind barbed wire, and a dog chased their tailgate.
At three miles they passed a sagging trailer with a satellite dish and a mud-splattered ATV in homemade camo paint. A deer carcass hung from a rusty swing set.
Justice slowed, to minimize the dust, a backwoods courtesy. In Tennessee deer season was six months off. He suspected the Pennsylvania game laws were not too different.
A rust-and-dirt colored Dodge 4X4 truck sat in the yard, its hood an open maw. Two men, tools spread on the fender, looked up from their work, heads turning to follow their passage. The younger one had some size. Dressed in dirty jeans, Red Wing hi tops, and a plaid flannel shirt with a torn pocket. And a vacant stare.
The smaller man looked to be in his forties. His tan Carhart coveralls were zipped down, the top peeled off, frayed cuffs level with his ankles. He wore a denim work shirt with the sleeves ripped off, revealing hairy shoulders and faded tattoos. Jail house ink. A tractor cap threw his eyes into shadow while he watched the outsiders slowly pass. A stream of tobacco juice punctuated the moment.
“Just like down home,” Justice said.
“I can almost hear the banjos,” Pen replied, and returned their stares through the rear window.
Overgrown fields gave way to woodland, and at the five mile mark they crossed a concrete bridge spanning a small stream. He pulled to the side, stopped the truck. “Now we walk.”
He locked his go-bag in the cab, and handed her the purple knapsack. She removed fresh clothing from a plastic shopping bag, added them to her pack. He helped her adjust the straps. She watched him lengthen the straps on the yellow one. “You have your gun in there?”
Satisfied it would ride without riding up, he slipped his arms through, centered the knapsack. “Why?”
“Why? In case we need one. To defend us, in the wild.”
“Violence is the first refuge of the incompetent.”
She gave him a look. “That’s an odd thing for a soldier to say.”
“Somebody named Asimov said it. I don’t think he was a soldier.”
”OK. But, what if we get attacked by a bear?”
He remembered she was city born and bred. Like her brother. It had taken
a bit to get Davy at ease off the sidewalks. “I’ll wave my arms and yell at it.”
“Well, I guess you know more than I do. No guns.”
“We ain’t goin’ on a huntin’ trip. We’re goin’ on a spiritual journey. You don’t bring guns to church. Less’n you live in Texas.”
Chapter 30
The girl was in his truck, sitting in the passenger seat. “Take me for a ride?”
Howie leaned past her legs, shoved the paper bag in the glove box. He looked through her window at Jorge watching. “What about your boss?”
“Boss? He not my boss! He don’ tell me what to do. I do what I like. What I like ri’ now, is go for a ride. Whachoo name?”
Howie dropped it in gear, and turned onto the street. Wondered where he could go, so that people would see him cruise by with this girl. “Howie.”
“Please to meet choo, Hooey. Show me how fas’ this truck can go.”
“Not such a good idea, in town. Cops, and all. What’s your name?”
“Margarita.”
“Margarita? like that Mexican drink?”
She laughed. “Yes, Hooey. Like tha’ Mexican drink.” She dropped her hand on his leg and sang. “Tequila makes my clothes fall off!”
Frikko. “Hey, Margarita, how’d you like one? Margarita, I mean?”
“Yes, Hooey, that would be nice. You and me, go drink some Margaritas.”
He parked on Pine this time, wanted to make an entrance with this girl. Mar-gar-eee-ta. He held the door for her, wanting everyone to first check out the hot chick, then see she was with him.
Wouldn’t you know it; Chick wasn’t here. Nobody was here. Except Pudge and her grandpa, and he looked like he was asleep in his chair.
Howie put his hand in the small of her back, resisted letting it slip lower as he guided her to the bar. “Margaritas, barkeep. For me and my friend.”
Pudge gave Howie and the girl a smirk and a smile. “Yessir! Your friend have some ID?”
“ID? Come on, Pudge! She’s old enough. You’re twenty one, ain’t you, Margarita?”
“Yes, Hooey. I twenny one.” She wrapped her arm around his biceps and snuggled against him, gave him a hip bump and Pudge a big white smile.
Pudge studied the girl. A member of the tribe that was turning Hunky Town into Little Mexico. Twenty-one going on seventeen. What the hell; LCB agents never came in during the week, and if she took pity on Hooey maybe he would show off for the girl, leave a big tip.
She’d learned all the umbrella drinks in bartender school, and had the makings on hand. The weekend crowd usually included a few aficionados, bragging about their trip to Acapulco.
Not that Howie would know a margarita from a mai tai. And the girl probably hadn’t gotten closer to one than jello shooters.
She grabbed a couple of limes, rolled them between her palms to release the juice, then cut them in half. Squeezed the juice into a shaker, added Triple Sec and four ounces of Reposado. Blanco had a stronger agave flavor, but, after the martini fiasco, she didn’t want to risk having Howie barf on her bar. She poured salt on a saucer, wiped the rim of a pair of martini glasses with the lime, pressed the glasses in the salt. A little showmanship; something else she'd learned at school. Presentation, the teacher said, was what earned the tips.
What the hell was she doing? Was this more of Pudge’s bullshit, like that martini? Margarita didn’t say nothing, so he guessed that was how you made one. Salt?
But they turned out to be way smoother than a martini. And Margarita seemed to like her Margarita, because it was gone and she was asking for another.
“After dees one, le’s go to you’ crib, Hooey.”
“Crib?”
“You place, where you sleep. We go nappy nap? Maybe fool aroun’ a little, firs’?”
“Ahhh, no, my crib ain’t such a good idea, Margarita.” Like Ma’s gonna say, ‘ain’t that sweet, my baby’s gonna go upstairs and screw this chiquita’s brains out’.
“Well then, Hooey, get us a room. This a hotel, ri’?”
Before he could answer she finished her glass, told Pudge to make some more, and twitched to the Ladies.
“Where’d you find your little chili pepper, Howie?”
“Chili pepper’s right, Pudge. She wants me to get us a room.” He peeled a bill from his roll and put it on the bar.
Pudge glanced at the money. “This is a hotel, not a brothel.”
“Aw, have a heart! She told me that tequila makes her clothes fall off!”
“Howie, that’s a country song. Joe Nichols. From the same album has Size Matters on it. Something for you to think about.”
But Pudge couldn’t let a half-looped Howie drive, so she more or less had to say yes to a room. Instead of change for the hundred, she slipped him a three pack of condoms. Hers was a full-service saloon.
Chapter 31
They followed the water, twenty-feet wide, and two-feet deep, hiked through second growth birch, poplar, and red maple, with the occasional beech and ash tree providing diversity. Justice read the stream, low now, sparkling in the sunshine, laughing as it broke over the rocks. I had flooded earlier in the season.
In several places there was a thin coating of clay and sand on the layer of leaves from the previous Fall. Fresh paper to record the passage of resident wildlife.
Voles, rabbits, a fox; each had left their signature footprint. As well as their scat and spoor. Shiny new rabbit pellets, still holding their moisture; deer droppings, dull and crumbling into the leaf litter, a tuft of hair caught on the thorns of a bramble, were an almanac of local wildlife for one who knew the language.
As they left the remnants of humanity behind, his senses took a subtle shift, and he felt more at home, at ease, than he had for some months. Once again his hearing picked up sounds that had been overwhelmed by the constant background din of civilization. To someone attuned to the forest, its silence was anything but.
During his year at Virginia Commonwealth he caught the eye of the staff neurosurgeon, and she taught him about the brain’s cannabinoid network. About the receptors in the nervous system that are activated by a neurotransmitter called anandamide.
Brewed up in the brain itself, it intensifies sensory experience, and stimulates the appetite. Like the THC created in a plant of the cannabis family, in the stoner it results in the giggles and the munchies. In the hunter it sharpens the senses, narrows the focus, suppresses physical discomfort, and ignores the passage of time.
Useful skills when stalking game. Even more useful when the game has the ability to stalk back.
Two hours later the ground began to rise, as the topographical map had promised. Pen had kept pace, kept silent. He liked that; idle chatter was often a mark of insecurity. Inward reflection—some called it meditation—was as much a part of the ritual as the sweat itself.
Justice stopped at a flat area beside the stream. Rhododendron and scrub cedar grew in the loamy soil, and willows lined the bank. They shrugged off their backpacks.
“Middle of nowhere,” he said, and removed the entrenching tool from her pack, unfolded it, twisted the locking ring, and turned it into a short but serviceable shovel. He used it to scrape a circle on the ground, then handed it to Pen. “Dig.”
He opened his pack, removed a small hatchet and a wire saw. He used the hatchet to cut a four-foot length of willow, then notched the ends, and bent it to receive the rings of the wire saw. He used the saw to fell another twenty saplings, then trimmed them to length with the hatchet.
He had chosen the site shown on the map intuitively; based both on what he had learned as a boy in Tennessee, and as a man, in survival school. Take the high ground. See, before you are seen. Have a back door. Not that they would be needing any such insurance here. He checked on her progress. “That’s deep enough. Come help me find firewood.”
An hour later, in the gathering dusk, they had a large pile of dry branches and several deadfalls it had taken all their strength to drag to the site. He removed a
flint and steel from his pack, and a lock-back knife.
He used the knife to shave tinder, and the flint and steel to ignite it. There were matches in a waterproof container and a butane lighter back in his go-bag, but the flint and steel were more fitting for the ritual.
He handed the knife to Pen. “Cut strips of bark from the lodge poles. About an inch wide, and as long as you can make them.” He used the entrenching tool to dig holes for the saplings. An eight foot circle surrounded her pit. He bent the poles into arcs and began securing them with the strips as she cut them.
“This is some sharp knife,” she said, the first gratuitous remark since they had left Shaleville.
“Oughta be; that’s a hundred-dollar Corsica. Go fetch the tarps.”
It took both of them to cover the sweat lodge with the tarpaulins, lash them tight with bark strips. A small entrance, flaps folded back, faced East.
Justice stoked the fire. The light and heat were welcome. “We’d better fetch the stones, before it gets too dark. I’ll show you what kind.”
“Right. Certain rocks have juju, spirit, good medicine.”
“Naw. Certain rocks explode in a fire.” They waded into the stream, and he taught her how to select the speckled granite stones, tumbled smooth over untold millennia.
Pen asked a nagging question. “The flat area beside the stream, abundant dead wood, the right kind of stones. How did you know about this site?”
“The topo map. Know how to read one, there’s a pack of knowledge not wrote in ink.”
“But you didn’t bring the map with you! It’s back in the truck.”
He touched his temple. “Map’s up here, now. You plan the Op, and then execute it. Later, there may not be time to be pullin’ out maps, when the bullets fly.” He arranged the rocks in the fire, added fuel. “Me and Davy spent more time studyin’ than we did shootin’.”